D&D 5E Behind the design of 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons: Well my impression as least.

[Hussar]

You didn't need modules for those. All you needed was an imagination.

Also, that is why you were given XP for completing the challenges not just killing them.

It's not a question of need. No one is saying that you can't play D&D the way you are talking about. What's being stated is that D&D as presented in the rules and supplements is primarily focused on combat. There is a very strong emphasis on the combat pillar which overshadows the rest of the game.
[MENTION=545]Ridley's Cohort[/MENTION] - there is a short adventure in DL 16 (one of the last dragon lance modules) in which you had to rescue a lost child. Granted, you still wound up in a pretty stiff fight with a bunch of draconians, but, at least part of the adventure wasn't totally combat focused.

 

[Sailor Moon]

For some people, the only proof that would satisfy them would be Dave and Gary beating them upside the head with a DMG. I suggest we not waste our time on them anymore, because they don't want to be shown.

They can't see the forest because all the trees are in the way.

Combat was the largest portion of the mechanics, the largest portion of the gaming material, and the easiest and most engaging mechanism for interaction within the rules. But there were rules on exploration. It was there, it was a part of the game, just not the bulk of the game.

And while it's true that in AD&D it's envisaged that you can sometimes evade and sometimes parlay to get XP for the encounter, not every edition spells out that evading or parlaying is worth full XP. And then, some DM's chose to interpret the 1gp=1xp as "you add the difference between starting GP and ending GP to your XP gained, and if it's a loss, it's a loss"; these also, in my experience, tended to be "Let's make it expensive but easy to parlay" - disincentivising parlay by making it cost as many XP in gold as bypassing them gains in defeat XP. Others, including myself, would only allow a parlay if the initial reaction roll wasn't an attack. Certain bad-guy and PC race interactions also resulted in instant hostilities, and thus only evasion. And Evasion was not an option if they surprised you.

Many forget that the game as it was played was diverse, but the materials put out for it were far less so, and tended to function, at least through about '83, as a character scale wargame.

Dungeoneer's Survival Guide was the first point where the rules really started to support the exploration and risk-taking mode as being as vital mechanically as combat.

Great speech, but it still doesn't change the fact that D&D didn't have combat as a primary objective no matter how much you think it did.

The main objective was always decided by each individual group, not the game itself.

 

[Hussar]

Great speech, but it still doesn't change the fact that D&D didn't have combat as a primary objective no matter how much you think it did.

The main objective was always decided by each individual group, not the game itself.

What do you mean by objective? Do you think we're arguing that combat was a goal in and of itself? That we see the game being played solely (or in large part) to engage in combat? That's not what I mean. What I mean is that during play, the most time that will be taken at most tables will be spent in combat. Combat is the biggest of the three pillars, because to achieve goals (whatever those in game goals are), solving problems with the application of violence is generally seen as the baseline solution in most presentations of D&D.

If you want to get that treasure, you might avoid this or that encounter, particularly random encounters, but, you are still going to have to stick pointy bits into the guardian of that treasure more likely than not.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Holy Hell....

I can't believe I'm even spending the time to point out what a lot of people who actually played D&D in the 70s and 80s already know and have been trying to say, but here goes.

Official tagline of D&D: "Products of Your Imagination."
Very first sentence in KotBL (been reference at least twice now as supporting evidence that D&D is all about combat): "Introduction: Welcome to the land of imagination"

Other keyed points on the very first page of KotBL:

"You, however, are above even the greatest of
these, for as DM you are to become the Shaper of the
Cosmos. It is you who will give form and content to all the
universe. You will breathe life into the stillness, giving meaning
and purpose to all the actions which are to follow. The
others in your group will assume the roles of individuals and
play their parts, but each can only perform within the
bounds you will set. It is now up to you to create a magical
realm filled with danger, mystery, and excitement.

Read the module thoroughly; you will notice that
the details are left in your hands. This allows you to personalize
the scenario, and suit it to what you and your players
will find most enjoyable.

While your players will have
advanced in their understanding and ability, you will likewise
have increased your skills as DM. In fact, before they
have finished all the adventure areas of this module, it is
likely that you will have begun to add your own separate
maps to the setting. The KEEP is only a small section of the
world. You must build the towns and terrain which surround
it. You must shape the societies, create the kingdoms, and
populate the countryside with men and monsters.
The KEEP is a microcosm, a world in miniature. Within its
walls your players will find what is basically a small village
with a social order, and will meet opponents of a sort"


So there you go. On the very first page it certainly stresses the other pillars other than combat. And that's not even counting the rule of XP for treasure and the explicit guidelines to DMs that players are encouraged to overcome challenges by other than combat. Or that the combat section of the 1e DMG is only 20 pages long, while the other two pillars take up more. Or the fact that just because there are lots of rules mechanically for combat, you really don't need rules for imagination.

Heck, half of the rules in Monopoly are about getting in and out of jail, mortgages, and bankruptcy. Does that mean you're spending the vast majority of time in the game in Jail or mortgaging your property?


So you can go on thinking that D&D has always been all about combat and little else. You may play like that, and it's OK. But if you try to say that it's true with any objectivity? You'd be flat out wrong.

 

[the Jester]

Really?

When you have thirty years, and tens of thousands of pages of modules all pretty much saying the same thing, written by dozens, if not hundreds of game designers for the same system, that doesn't actually count as evidence?

Let's examine a few of these modules you're talking about. I'm going to cherry-pick a few here, just to make my point- which is that they didn't all assume that combat would be the be-all and end-all of the adventures.

So- the A series.

One of them very strongly encourages the pcs to be sneaky, deceptive and diplomatic, because you're entering a friggin' enemy city. You go berserk with the combat? TPK. Was there combat in there? Sure. Of course there was. But IMHO and IME, the assumption was "You better avoid straight hack and slash, or you're dead."

Then you have A4, where you start with almost nothing other than a loincloth, trapped in a monster-ridden dungeon. I don't know about you, but my group found, when we played it, that we couldn't out-fight everything under those circumstances. We had to be sneaky and tricky to get through it.

Dwellers in the Forbidden City has lots of combat opportunities- but those same opportunities are also roleplaying/interaction opportunities. Heck, there's a whole subsystem introduced so that a pc can have a nonlethal wrestling match with a tribal leader. And the whole module is a shining example of exploration as the major focus- just look at the map of the city! Too, there are so many new monsters and things to encounter, this is probably one of the best examples of a "sense of wonder included" module, and all those new things? Exploration. Discovery. Combat, maybe, sure- but that's absolutely not the emphasis. Exploration is.

What about Against the Cult of the Reptile God? It's all about investigation. You don't have a clue what the problem is initially, and need to figure it out. You can't do that by cutting down all the villagers.

Steading of the Hill Giant Chief is perhaps the quintessential example of "hack and slash will get you killed". You had to be sneaky or die. A frontal assault ruins any chance of success that you might have, unless you are VERY lucky and the DM is extremely soft and generous.

The Secret of Bone Hill is a small sandbox, including a few dungeons, but it also includes significant details on an entire town, not to mention a temple of gambling. In fact, I'd bet that many groups (several of mine included) spent as much time at that temple as they did under Bone Hill itself.

The Assassin's Knot is a straight up murder mystery. Sure, there's combat, but it's absolutely NOT the focus. Investigation, once again, is what it's all about.

Tomb of Horrors is all about exploration, too. There are only about 3 combat encounters to be had in it. It's deadly, yes, but it's not deadly because of combat.

The Village of Hommlet spends nearly as much on detailing the titular village as it does on the local dungeon, and so much of it is focused on figuring out who you can trust and turn to for aid that I gotta give that one another high level of "not combat focused".

All three of the D modules- Descent into the Depths of the Earth, Shrine of the Kuo-Toa and Vault of the Drow- are also heavily focused on exploration and roleplaying. Often, the encounters involved are tpks waiting to happen if you take the frontal assault path. The level of cultural detail given to all those places along the way is exquisite.

Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth typically took multiple sessions for the party to even find the dungeon. Yes, there was a lot of combat after you got there, but exploration was a huge element of it.

The Lost Temple of Tharizdun pretty well assumes you're starting with a bunch of roleplaying and interaction with the gnomes before moving on to a massive combat, but then is full of exploration again. Heck, the entire climactic section of the module doesn't have any combat in it at all!

Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan centers around an environmental danger- toxic gas- and attempts to escape it via exploring until the pcs find their way out. Yes, again, there is combat, but the focus is on escape, not killing things and taking their stuff.

The Lost City is full of different factions all hallucinating all over the place, and most groups are likely to engage in a ton of interaction, as well as exploration, as they discover an entire city in there. Combat? Sure. The focus? I think not.

And so on.

So, yeah, the modules don't exactly support "It's all about combat!". Some certainly do, but not all. And, in fact, almost all old modules have situations practically begging for non-combat approaches.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

You didn't need modules for those. All you needed was an imagination.

Also, that is why you were given XP for completing the challenges not just killing them.

Your imaginary evidence may be compelling to you, but I am predisposed to believe actual evidence is more informative.

I can imagine all kinds of stuff when playing checkers, too; such does not change the fundamental nature of the game.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Where are the modules where my PC could gain a significant amount of XP by political intrigue, seducing ladies, and finding the farm boy's lost puppy, etc.? Can someone name even one?

It depends. How much did those missions pay?

 

[Hussar]

Let's examine a few of these modules you're talking about. I'm going to cherry-pick a few here, just to make my point- which is that they didn't all assume that combat would be the be-all and end-all of the adventures.

So- the A series.

One of them very strongly encourages the pcs to be sneaky, deceptive and diplomatic, because you're entering a friggin' enemy city. You go berserk with the combat? TPK. Was there combat in there? Sure. Of course there was. But IMHO and IME, the assumption was "You better avoid straight hack and slash, or you're dead."

Then you have A4, where you start with almost nothing other than a loincloth, trapped in a monster-ridden dungeon. I don't know about you, but my group found, when we played it, that we couldn't out-fight everything under those circumstances. We had to be sneaky and tricky to get through it.

Dwellers in the Forbidden City has lots of combat opportunities- but those same opportunities are also roleplaying/interaction opportunities. Heck, there's a whole subsystem introduced so that a pc can have a nonlethal wrestling match with a tribal leader. And the whole module is a shining example of exploration as the major focus- just look at the map of the city! Too, there are so many new monsters and things to encounter, this is probably one of the best examples of a "sense of wonder included" module, and all those new things? Exploration. Discovery. Combat, maybe, sure- but that's absolutely not the emphasis. Exploration is.

What about Against the Cult of the Reptile God? It's all about investigation. You don't have a clue what the problem is initially, and need to figure it out. You can't do that by cutting down all the villagers.

Steading of the Hill Giant Chief is perhaps the quintessential example of "hack and slash will get you killed". You had to be sneaky or die. A frontal assault ruins any chance of success that you might have, unless you are VERY lucky and the DM is extremely soft and generous.

The Secret of Bone Hill is a small sandbox, including a few dungeons, but it also includes significant details on an entire town, not to mention a temple of gambling. In fact, I'd bet that many groups (several of mine included) spent as much time at that temple as they did under Bone Hill itself.

The Assassin's Knot is a straight up murder mystery. Sure, there's combat, but it's absolutely NOT the focus. Investigation, once again, is what it's all about.

Tomb of Horrors is all about exploration, too. There are only about 3 combat encounters to be had in it. It's deadly, yes, but it's not deadly because of combat.

The Village of Hommlet spends nearly as much on detailing the titular village as it does on the local dungeon, and so much of it is focused on figuring out who you can trust and turn to for aid that I gotta give that one another high level of "not combat focused".

All three of the D modules- Descent into the Depths of the Earth, Shrine of the Kuo-Toa and Vault of the Drow- are also heavily focused on exploration and roleplaying. Often, the encounters involved are tpks waiting to happen if you take the frontal assault path. The level of cultural detail given to all those places along the way is exquisite.

Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth typically took multiple sessions for the party to even find the dungeon. Yes, there was a lot of combat after you got there, but exploration was a huge element of it.

The Lost Temple of Tharizdun pretty well assumes you're starting with a bunch of roleplaying and interaction with the gnomes before moving on to a massive combat, but then is full of exploration again. Heck, the entire climactic section of the module doesn't have any combat in it at all!

Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan centers around an environmental danger- toxic gas- and attempts to escape it via exploring until the pcs find their way out. Yes, again, there is combat, but the focus is on escape, not killing things and taking their stuff.

The Lost City is full of different factions all hallucinating all over the place, and most groups are likely to engage in a ton of interaction, as well as exploration, as they discover an entire city in there. Combat? Sure. The focus? I think not.

And so on.

So, yeah, the modules don't exactly support "It's all about combat!". Some certainly do, but not all. And, in fact, almost all old modules have situations practically begging for non-combat approaches.

I'll give you Lost City becuase that one is definitely an outlier in the list. If you actually go through most of your list though, at least, and this is conservative, at least 50% of the encounters are combat. And most are considerably more than that. The lost temple of Tharizudun, for example, packs almost the entire dungeon's encounters into one gigantic fight right near the beginning. It's hardly combat light. Village of Hommlet? Read the module - the adventure isn't in the village, it's in the Moathouse. You aren't supposed to spend that much time in the village, although you can. Cult of the Reptile God? Your party is attacked in the inn while you are sleeping, then you go to a nearby dungeon and kill everything you meet there.

Look, I'm not saying that the other two pillars don't exist. Of course they do. What I'm saying is that the presentation of D&D has always focused rather heavily on combat. I cannot believe that this is even considered a controvercial thing to say. Above is mentioned Keep on the Borderlands. READ the module. Virtually all the inhabitants attack on sight. Almost nothing will talk to you. And there are very few empty rooms. Sure, you might talk to stuff in the Keep, but, once the adventure starts? It's combat all the way.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I'll give you Lost City becuase that one is definitely an outlier in the list. If you actually go through most of your list though, at least, and this is conservative, at least 50% of the encounters are combat. And most are considerably more than that. The lost temple of Tharizudun, for example, packs almost the entire dungeon's encounters into one gigantic fight right near the beginning. It's hardly combat light. Village of Hommlet? Read the module - the adventure isn't in the village, it's in the Moathouse. You aren't supposed to spend that much time in the village, although you can. Cult of the Reptile God? Your party is attacked in the inn while you are sleeping, then you go to a nearby dungeon and kill everything you meet there.

Look, I'm not saying that the other two pillars don't exist. Of course they do. What I'm saying is that the presentation of D&D has always focused rather heavily on combat. I cannot believe that this is even considered a controvercial thing to say. Above is mentioned Keep on the Borderlands. READ the module. Virtually all the inhabitants attack on sight. Almost nothing will talk to you. And there are very few empty rooms. Sure, you might talk to stuff in the Keep, but, once the adventure starts? It's combat all the way.

How exactly are you judging what is and isn't a combat encounter? The mere presence of statistics?

In that case Burne, Rufus and Ostler Gundigoot are just there to kill I suppose.

As far as anyone talking to you is concerned, there are rules for that stuff. It's called a reaction roll. A poor reaction CAN start a fight, but a good one can be the beginning of a parley.

 

[Hussar]

If you want examples of noncombat modules then how about The Silver Key? You are transformed into an Orc to infiltrate an Orc city. Virtually no combat and some very neat mechanics as, if you act too much like an Orc you lose your mind.

But this kind of thing is pretty rare in d&d.