D&D 5E Is D&D 90% Combat?

In response to Cubicle 7’s announcement that their next Doctor Who role playing game would be powered by D&D 5E, there was a vehement (and in some places toxic) backlash on social media. While that backlash has several dimensions, one element of it is a claim that D&D is mainly about combat.

Head of D&D Ray Winninger disagreed (with snark!), tweeting "Woke up this morning to Twitter assuring me that [D&D] is "ninety percent combat." I must be playing (and designing) it wrong." WotC's Dan Dillon also said "So guess we're gonna recall all those Wild Beyond the Witchlight books and rework them into combat slogs, yeah? Since we did it wrong."

So, is D&D 90% combat?



And in other news, attacking C7 designers for making games is not OK.

D&D 5E - Doctors & Daleks - Cubicle 7 Brings Doctor Who to D&D 5E

Cubicle 7 -- makers of the official Doctor Who roleplaying game -- has announced that the Doctor will officially be coming to 5E soon under the name Doctors and Daleks. There are no dates or details yet, over than that the Doctors and Daleks Player's Guide will launch 'soon'. A NEW COMPANION...

www.enworld.org

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I think this was the remains of classes being very specialised, and the game requiring a diverse party to function, compared to the fact that a healer was needed. 5e cut back a lot on this, you certainly can have parties with no healers and actually roles are way less strong.

So, I agree with the above, but there is also an interesting 5e section called the role of dice, in which success can be granted when characters do something logical in the game world rather than relying on pure technical elements.

I agree with you and I am aware of the section that you and others pointed out. The issue, I see it, partly one of training an culture. We have been trained to DM in certain ways by older editions and can have trouble remembering the new suggestions.

I do think that D&D would benefit from a conflict resolution system that would be generically applied to non combat situations (like the one referred to by @Aldarc.
I think that good mechanics that use the D20 to create tension but provide the players ways to plan for success are more effective than simple advice and hope the DMs and player muddle through.
Also I find that one can often forget such advice at the table. One mechanic, I keep forgetting about is Inspiration. I completely approve of inspiration, but almost never remember to give it because it is not formally incorporated into the games decision loop.

 

[Ixal]

Then why does combat oppupy on 10 pages out of the whole PH ? There's actually more pages dedicated to exploration, magic and skill use, especially if you count the DMG in. You should try some TTRPG with much more tactical combat to know what you are speaking about.



And maybe you should actually read the books before saying that 90% of the system is ignored when playing with much fewer combat.

Thats simply completely false.
Every class is nearly completely combat abilities, most spells are about combat, most equipment is about combat and a large part of the DM advice is about combat and XP.

 

[BrokenTwin]

It's not exactly what you said, you said: "The conceit that combat requires more rules than non-combat activities is an incredibly D&D-centric take"

And the only thing I've shown is that lots of games, including games whose traditional focus is not combat (e.g. CoC) have actually more rules for combat than other activities. And that's simply because combat is inherently more complex unless in very abstract games.



You certainly can, and despite this, there are lots of rules from combat, they are more detailed and take more space...

It's more complicated because more focus is being paid to it, is my point. Food is incredibly complex, yet D&D doesn't have rules for how different ingredients compliments each other, or what happens when someone with lactose intolerance drinks milk. It doesn't model the dozens of ways to acquire food in the wild, or how long different food lasts before spoiling.
D&D has zero mechanics for how complicated social interactions can get, where wearing the wrong styles, colors or patterns of clothing can get you ostracized, or how being seen talking to the wrong person can affect your standing with others.
Ryuutama is an excellent example of a complex game where combat is essentially just a mini-game. The bulk of the rules are around commerce and travel, where the quality of food you have matters, and every piece of gear has a descriptive modifier like "cute" or "cool" that can affect how people perceive you, or how much it can be bought or sold for.

Most ttrpgs having a combat focus doesn't mean that D&D doesn't.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

But also no skills (which are mostly non-combat), also the general tone of the rules was way more about combat (Not even mentioning the incentives for experience). For me, 5e is about the same as BECMI / AD&D in terms of combat, which is why we fell back into 5e with glee.

With you on skills, though I also think that's an area that doesn't necessarily require heavy mechanics.

I disagree with you on the tone of the rules, though. I referenced BX so I'm talking specifically Moldvay here -- I think that tone was much heavier on exploration. Default assumption was not necessarily combat. People overlook reaction rolls today -- every encounter started as an RP encounter!

I don't quite follow you on the incentives for experience. The "treasure for XP" system does not equal "kill thing and take their stuff" it's "overcome challenge by whatever means". Defeating monsters was a paltry sum of XP, and given the squishier characters and more lethal combat that should encourage more creative ways to solve encounters. Not that "treasure for XP" is a perfect system and I think more modern XP systems are generally improvements, with the downside that much published work seems to pre-determine how an encounter will run rather than leaving it organically to players.

AD&D I think it contrast had much more granular combat rules, which is easier to see as favoring combat.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

There's so much to unpack in this thread.

I like Dr. Who, but I'm not a big enough fan to want an RPG for it. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be, and I am pretty sure at least one exists. But knowing what I know about the show and what I know about D&D, it doesn't feel like a good fit.

Dr. Who has traditionally downplayed violence and lethally physical combat. By default, D&D has been designed around the combat encounter and promoting character growth primarily by increasing their power and effectiveness with combat-related abilities. Quibble all you want about the actual percentages, but I think we can all agree that the combat pillar is the cornerstone of the system.

But so what if it is? This isn't a failure of design. It's a feature. When I want to play something with a good tactical combat system, this is usually my first choice. If I want something different, or maybe less tactics and more cinematic, there are a number of other systems that do things different (and often better).

As I said, I don't have a strong enough opinion to get bent out of shape over (yet) another 5e-compatible game from another IP. It's an easy market to appeal to and to make some money.

What concerns me, however, is it becomes the cheap and easy option for publishers and designers who no longer feel the need to innovate. And I'm not blaming them for making good business decisions. I blame the consumers for not encouraging more innovation and ideas by supporting different kinds of games. Support by buying and playing different games instead of forcing this. All. The. Time.

D&D does D&D well. But it is not supposed to be a one-size-fits-all system. There needs to be other kinds of games, too. It is very frustrating for fans of other systems who want to see something else and are willing to support them. But they have a hard time finding anyone else to get onboard when they never see a need to leave their wheelhouse.

 

[Von Ether]

I think many tables would be better off by ignoring the dice. I have seen way too many instances where the DM asks for a roll - it ends poorly because of d20 - and something that should have been simply logical to know or interpret is ruined. I think part of this is due to that skills are listed on the sheet, and people want to use their assets, but the applying that same random chance to skills as you do to swinging a sword has detrimental effects sometimes.

Like Gumshoe?

 

[Aldarc]

Can we also talk about how the head of D&D came out swinging his weight against faceless Twitter nobodies who slighted the 800 lb. gorilla in the room that doesn't need defending?

Edit: I get that the Twitterspace around 5e is hostile in the wake of this Doctor Who announcement, but I'm not sure why WotC senior staff feels the need to defend D&D from the claim that it is 90 percent combat. It seems like they could have done more for their cause by saying "D&D 5e has robust mechanics that provide ample support for combat and for other game modes too."

 

[tetrasodium]

In 5e, this is easily cured by a DM granting auto-success when a PC tries to persuade an NPC with a good tale that hits upon points that are important to the motivations and bond/ideal/flaw of said NPC.

That is not a 5e thing. The gm narrator or whatever could do that in literally any ttrpg. You could even include games like risk if you expand it to include group consensus. Some ttrpgs have mechanics for that kind of expansion in ways d&d does not though and a few have been mentioned already

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And people who claim that other people playing these systems are roll-playing and not role-playing are called "Gatekeepers," and they are likely trying to sell you on their toxic ideas on the "One True Way" to roleplay. I think our hobby would be much better off without people trying to police what does or doesn't count as roleplaying.

You can play they game any way you like, but it's better to be honest about what you are actually doing when you play, so you can find a group you enjoy.

 

[Aldarc]

You can play they game any way you like, but it's better to be honest about what you are actually doing when you play, so you can find a group you enjoy.

You're digging a deeper hole for yoruself by insinuating that people are lying about roleplaying with these other games.