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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DM_Blake" data-source="post: 3950413" data-attributes="member: 57267">No matter how we slice it, combat is always going to require more rules than non-combat. Well, at least in D&D, since it is a combat-heavy game.A rules system that covers how to bluff a city guard, or how to earn a free meal by dancing in a tavern, or how to negotiate with a merchant, or any other roleplaying encounter, even if there are charts and tables and many opposed die rolls, all laden with multiple layers of modifiers, is still a much smaller chunk of the Players Handbook than the combat system.Given that weapons, armor, many feats, and most spells are designed to defeat opponents in combat, that’s a whole lot of pages in the PHB. No skill system, even enhanced by some feats and some spells, is going to take up that many pages.So for all those saying “de-emphasize combat”, the simple answer is that D&D combat is complex. The sheer volume of tactical considerations of location, monsters and their special abilities, PCs and their special abilities, spells, and magic items, guarantees complex combat. It cannot be de-emphasized and still be D&D. Sure, other systems have simplified combat. Heck, Amber was entirely diceless. The DM told you what you were encountering, you told the DM how you wanted to deal with it, and he told you the resolution. But that’s not D&D.D&D grew out of a tactical tabletop miniature combat system, and it has always been about finding strategic and tactical solutions to slay strange enemies in strange locations.The real solution is to increase the emphasis on role-playing.Having a great rules system in place to handle RP encounters is a start. But motivating DMs and players to engage in RP situations is where the solution lies. And the heart of the solution is to modify the reward system (XP, treasure, character advancement) so that players are rewarded for all their actions, rather than just the combat actions.Just that simple step will go a long way toward encouraging roleplaying.The next step is to provide examples in the WotC released adventures. Notice how the recent stuff has gone toward combat, combat, combat. They’ve even added sections in the recent stuff that lay out exact maps of the tactical encounters, with descriptive texts of what the bad guys do round by round.That’s all fine and good, but what D&D needs is for those published adventures to also have as much detail on the roleplaying encounters, with rewards for success clearly provided. This would encourage DMs to use roleplaying encounters, and show them how to do it.This would bring the RP back to the D&D RPG.</blockquote>

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