D&D 5E Dungeons & Dragons is X Percent Combat

[loverdrive]

I'd honestly prefer to run an investigation-oriented or even social-oriented game in 5e over something like WW's Storyteller system, which is supposedly built for those kinds of games but is clunky in comparison at the table IME.

Storyteller being built for social-oriented games is, to be frank, is either a bald-faced lie or a really screwed-up attempt. I'd suspect the latter, since the last "real" edition came out before TTRPG design really was a thing.

That's such a weird thing to say. It's possible to play D&D without combat. I know - I've done it. Therefore by this logic D&D doesn't support combat either.

D&D does a pretty mediocre job at supporting combat, but still.

You'd have to deliberately avoid kicking backsides to have D&D without combat, and then... Was it you and your players who made such campaign cool, or was it D&D?

D&D without combat is barely any different from just playing freeform. It's on you to keep the game in check, push towards social interactions, investigating mysteries and all that. The false Crawford and his buddies deserve exactly zero credit for your labour.

But 5e? 5e is a bog-standard roll a die and add an attribute+skill to it vs. a difficulty number system. The skill list is broad enough to resolve any kind of investigatory or social interaction a player might decide to do and do it pretty easily.

It allows for anything, sure. Does it enhance the process in question? "Can the character successfully perform this task?" is a very simple and boring question that can be answered without any rules. Skillcheck rules and all that jazz somewhat helps, but that contribution doesn't really justify lugging around pretty heavy rulebooks.

 

[CleverNickName]

So we have at least two types of voting responses here:

1) What percentage of Dungeons & Dragons the RPG is combat?
2) What percentage of your Dungeons & Dragons session is combat?

As you point out, #2 is subjective. #1 is actually worth discussing. Somewhat.

#2 in your list was what I had in mind when I created the poll.
(It's a matter of preference, that's all. I'd rather discuss actual play experience, instead of individual interpretations of the rules.)

 

[Jack Daniel]

Welp, that's kinda of a big design problem.

Or it's D&D's best design feature.

"RPGs should have one right way to play them" is ideological pablum.

Does system support [X] is a very easy question to answer. Is [X] the only possible outcome that will unavoidably happen as a natural result of engaging with the rules in a good faith? If the answer is no, then, no, the system in question doesn't support [X].

Is it possible to play D&D without investigation? Yeah. Ergo, D&D doesn't support investigations.

That is… highly illogical. In fact, it borders on insane troll logic.