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

 

[Ovinomancer]

It could, but it would probably suck. One good reason for relatively detailed combat (not just in D&D but Traveller, CoC, and tons of other adventure games) is detailed, action movie style, combat gives players multiple levels of feedback and options for changing the situation. This is valuable because dying in combat, TPKing in particular, is a good way to completely derail or disrupt a campaign. Boiling that down to a single check is putting a lot of eggs in a single basket.
This isn't as serious a problem with social interaction because it's a lot less likely to TPK or completely blow a campaign's goal with a single interaction (unless the players are being KotDT-level foolish).
With respect to exploration, we've seen progressive movement away from single checks killing PCs in D&D. First, there were saving throws to miraculously survive a deadly gotcha situation, then insta-death effects were de-emphasized in favor of things like stat damage and conditions, and then we added things like fail forward adjudications.

I agree putting things down to a single D20 roll in a system like 5e would not be at all ideal. The players have little they can bring to bear on the situation to change the check much, and the stakes are so variable and potentially stupid that it makes for a terrible gamble. However, this doesn't mean that you have to have complex systems for combat, it just means that if your central resolution mechanic looks like this, you probably want complex systems for combat to avoid the bad luck lose of major stakes on a pretty swingy system. You can do quite a lot with a different core mechanic -- Blades in the Dark combat can be ragged edge tooth and nail but is usually resolved in less than a handful of checks (sometimes only one, depending). The difference comes from the mechanic not being as punishingly random and the stakes being clearly set and almost never "you just die."

 

[Ovinomancer]

Good roleplaying doesn't require rules, and I've felt with 5e from the beginning has had a much stronger focus on encouraging players to roleplay. I love all those little charts you can pick from/roll on for character back story or motivations (also handy for quickly generating NPCs), even if it sometimes feels like they sacrifice room that in previous editions to be used for world building.

Good roleplaying isn't necessarily hampered by rules, either. Depending on your definition of roleplaying (and mine is honest advocation in play for the characters needs, wants, and goals), some rules can encourage it.

 

[Mark Craddock]

Depends on the session at our table. Some sessions are 0% combat and some are 90%, but we try to make sure that we laugh 100% of the time.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Depends on the session at our table. Some sessions are 0% combat and some are 90%, but we try to make sure that we laugh 100% of the time.

This is a good answer.

 

[Parmandur]

It's not easy Inspiration, though. It's only easy if the GM says it is. You only get it if the GM says you do. It may be easy at your, and other tables, but this is NOT a feature of BIFTs inherently. In fact, where it's discussed in the DMG, the GM is provided a number of options for how it works (including however you want) and told they can use it or not. There's no easy Inspiration in BIFTs unless enabled by the GM to be so.

Yeah, and? So what? Everything is DM dependent.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Yeah, and? So what? Everything is DM dependent.

Well, you just said you didn't understand why people weren't going for the easy Inspiration, but it seems you do know why.

 

[Parmandur]

Is it? There's little to no bar to trying things in PbtA. And the "well, you can certainly try" doesn't mean anything much -- the GM is gonna say, and if they've already said no in their head, nothing you do with the try will work. That seems pretty restrictive. Or not any less restrictive.

Again, so what? A D&D table has the freedom to make anything they want out of the rules, without being limited by a playbook. Some might find the restrictions of the playbook inspiring, and I get that, but it is restrictive.

 

[Parmandur]

Well, you just said you didn't understand why people weren't going for the easy Inspiration, but it seems you do know why.

I said that I donunderstand why nobody across 8 years would go for it...but good point, if tables are choosing to specifically not use part of the game, it makes sense. And that's part of the freedom of the system.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

The only way to be fair and impartial is to roll the DC. I’ve done 10 + 1d10 and base 15 with a Fate die, “–” DC10, blank DC15, “+” DC20. Then justified the DC after the roll. Describing the obstacle or task as surprisingly difficult based on appearances or surprisingly easy despite appearances to the contrary.

This is an interesting mechanic for ability checks - one I'll probably explore further in our games for certain tasks. Thanks for posting it.

Another way to be fair and impartial, IMO, is to use the 5e DMG guidelines on setting DCs (10 = easy, 15 = med, 20 = hard...) and then let the player know the DC you, as DM, are setting before they go through with the roll for the ability check. And, what the heck, tell them the failure and success states for the approach they are proposing. That gives the PC the benefit of the doubt that they are a capable adventurer who has some sense of the difficulty of the task they are about to attempt without having to rely on a more-often-than-not less-than-exact DM description of the obstacle. The player then gets to decide if the PC would have second thoughts about their approach to this challenge and back off. A bit more player agency involved here - and a little more DM responsibility.

I find this much more pleasing in game play than what I've often seen from some DMs, which appears to be the equivalent of gauging the DC after the fact: 15+ = success, <10 = failure, 10-14 = pause... as I consider... am I feeling generous... or not?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

No worries. I know. Just reiterating my point here as this particular conversation goes back to that issue.

Fair. Sorry if I was overly short in my response.