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

 

[not-so-newguy]

In my experience so far, no d&d has not been 90% combat... I think.

I have played in the beginning of a few campaigns where it seemed like one combat encounter after another. Those campaigns were very boring and ended quickly because of that.

For the record, I prefer combat heavy play.

 

[Lyxen]

I really, really, really hate the Roll playing Role playing thing. It is very insulting to the inarticulate. I have played at tables where the reliance on "roleplaying" as defined here has excluded the players that are not good at coming up with glib gab on the spot and the table and action is dominated by the charismatic players not the charismatic characters.

If I may, glib glab on the spot is not really role-playing either. If I roleplay someone of the strong silent persuasion, my correct roleplaying will not involve a lot of talking anyway, but it will be much more roleplaying than chatting all over the place.

That being said, where 5e is correct, is on the fact that both taking dices into account or ignoring them has actually little impact on actual roleplaying. It's just about who makes the decisions on success, the DM or the dices, and that's all.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

Now, if you're looking for an aspect of the rules that is commonly ignored, it's bond/flaw/ideal. Even with the relatively small amount of rule material associated with noncombat activities, much of it isn't often used.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

If I may, glib glab on the spot is not really role-playing either. If I roleplay someone of the strong silent persuasion, my correct roleplaying will not involve a lot of talking anyway, but it will be much more roleplaying than chatting all over the place.

That being said, where 5e is correct, is on the fact that both taking dices into account or ignoring them has actually little impact on actual roleplaying. It's just about who makes the decisions on success, the DM or the dices, and that's all.

yeah! ok you are but the dismissive use of Roll play as a put down get on my goat occasionally.

 

[FrogReaver]

But what is "related to combat"? Are long rests "related to combat" because you get back hit points, for example?

Using vague boundaries like that doesn't clarify, without that follow-on discussion.

IMO, Long resting is combat related. Why? Because meaningful decisions about whether to long rest or not nearly always come from a combat perspective (ie: do we believe we have enough resources to get through the next potential combat?).

 

[Micah Sweet]

I also like systems that encourage you to fail rolls occasionally in the name of making a better story in the moment. I think of second edition of 7th Sea, where you can choose to fail rolls and there's some benefit to it

And to me, that was far too metagamey (along with other issues i had with 7th Sea 2e...).

 

[Shardstone]

But does combat need comparatively more rules? It seems like an incredibly D&D-influenced idea that combat needs more rules for it. Other TTRPGs get along swimmingly with far less rules for combat, occasionally using the same rules for martial and social combat.

For example, in D&D there is often page after page of rules for various combat situations (e.g., grappling, disarming, tripping, etc.), particularly in 3e D&D and Pathfinder. In contrast, in Fate nearly all of this falls under the Create an Advantage action, which can be used equally for combat, exploration, or social scenes. It's all the same.

While 5th Edition's base mechanics are robust enough to actually run a more stripped down and fluid rules simulator, the design behind the things that interface with the rules is not. Because of this, there is a wide perception that combat requires a ton of rules, and this was strengthened back in the earlier part of the last decade when a bunch of OSR celebs got onto the D&D Next team and stressed to them all they needed was rules for this, not for anything else.

But no, combat does not need all the rules that it currently has. It doesn't need initiative, it doesn't need bonus actions, and it doesn't need a 5x5 grid in order to function. Even with games that have aids or battle maps or whatever do you not always need these things. Overall, what I would say is, the legacy of D&D is to have overdesigned rules for combat to give the illusion that combat is this great, tactical, in-depth, semi-epic, challenging game. In reality, however, the rules create a somewhat clunky, very stimulating, and very rudimentary abstraction of the hitherto mentioned intent.

 

[BrokenTwin]

I also like systems that encourage you to fail rolls occasionally in the name of making a better story in the moment. I think of second edition of 7th Sea, where you can choose to fail rolls and there's some benefit to it

There's been a few systems I've seen where failure is the primary method of advancement, and I quite like the concept. Little harder to make work in a class/level-based system though.

 

[FrogReaver]

That rant aside, you are correct. At least that skill challenges were an attempt at this. In hindsight, the biggest issue with skill challenges was that it was introduced in to a D&D where the culture had built up, where the idea that if one was untrained in the skill one could not attempt the thing (jump, use rope, I am looking at you again).
This would not be as bad in 5e where there are no skill checks, only ability checks and skills are areas where one can apply a proficiency bonus to an ability check.
5e could do with more explicit support to allow no standard abilities to skills. For example, a Barbarian using Con or Str for Intimidation.
The other issue, that a skill challenge needs some element that you can hang a narrative on the progression to of the challenge.
(like hit points do for combat)

I think there's some rather notable issues with skill challenges.

• You are too incentivized for finding a way to work your best skills into them.
• They weren't dynamic enough. 3 successes out of 7 attempts or whatever didn't give the players actions the actual consideration they deserved. Some actions should have outright won the challenge and others outright failed it.
• Probability of success was nearly impossible to determine.

Not that 5e single skill check resolution doesn't also have it's issues. But at least a DM that carefully chooses when and where to ask for checks can often mitigate most of it's issues.

 

[This Effin’ GM]

I think my favorite response by the designer to those who were angry that Doctors and Daleks weren’t using a different system was his assertion that they designed a game that DOES use a different system and no one seems to care.

I am 100% on board with creatives wanting to make money by providing something neat so they can continue to create neat things.