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

 

[Malmuria]

I think an interesting follow up question would be how much of time where players are not actively engaged in combat are they essentially focused on questions of violence - how do we murder thing or what things should we murder ?

I was having a discussion with a friend about Classic D&D last week where he talked about how much less time they spent fighting things. I pointed out that all the other activities he was talking about were basically still about fighting/violence. It was just about gaining advantages to improve your odds in the fights.

That's true, but I would say the main focus of those games (depending on table) is exploration. It's all about going further and deeper and spending more time to find all the hidden things, at the risk of "game over" in the form of combat, traps, or running out of resources.

Whereas I think 5e works well around the premise of the encounter (usually but not necessarily combat) as a way of pacing one's way through an adventure narrative. This blog post talks about the five room dungeon as an example of the latter:

Classic Vs. Five Rooms

FIVE ROOMS DON'T MAKE A DUNGEON This blog is largely devoted to repeating a single message about game design, hammering away at the same sub...

alldeadgenerations.blogspot.com

There is nothing wrong with playing scene based/narrative adventures, or designing encounter by encounter. It’s a play style that allows for complex tactical combat within a filmic or novelistic story structure, both things that the Classic play style struggles with. However, I would suggest that in turn it struggles to deliver an exploration experience -- the sense that the adventurers are navigating a dangerous, unknown space, revealing its secrets and intriguing with its inhabitants. It should quickly be clear that the design structure of the Five Room Dungeon, and its locus of play are focused on entirely different concerns than the procedural exploration of a fantastic space described above.

 

[Ovinomancer]

That's true, but I would say the main focus of those games (depending on table) is exploration. It's all about going further and deeper and spending more time to find all the hidden things, at the risk of "game over" in the form of combat, traps, or running out of resources.

Whereas I think 5e works well around the premise of the encounter (usually but not necessarily combat) as a way of pacing one's way through an adventure narrative. This blog post talks about the five room dungeon as an example of the latter:

Classic Vs. Five Rooms

FIVE ROOMS DON'T MAKE A DUNGEON This blog is largely devoted to repeating a single message about game design, hammering away at the same sub...

alldeadgenerations.blogspot.com

I think this is hiding the pea, though. If we call it "exploration" but mean many of the things that are done to improve position for combat or to mitigate combat, that's not really making it not about combat even with the different label. Is it?

 

[Malmuria]

I think this is hiding the pea, though. If we call it "exploration" but mean many of the things that are done to improve position for combat or to mitigate combat, that's not really making it not about combat even with the different label. Is it?

At the same time, many things are also done to avoid or mitigate traps, which target the same resource (HP) as monsters. The goal, really, is to get treasure, as through treasure you will gain xp and levels and also in-world power (magic items etc). Combat certainly plays a major role as a source of threat and danger, and is a significant vector shaping how players interact with the environment. But I would say those games are "about" exploration and discovery in a dangerous environment.

 

[Ovinomancer]

At the same time, many things are also done to avoid or mitigate traps, which target the same resource (HP) as monsters. The goal, really, is to get treasure, as through treasure you will gain xp and levels and also in-world power (magic items etc). Combat certainly plays a major role as a source of threat and danger, and is a significant vector shaping how players interact with the environment. But I would say those games are "about" exploration and discovery in a dangerous environment.

For clarity, which games?

 

[Malmuria]

For clarity, which games?

I was responding to @Campbell's reference to "Classic dnd," so I suppose any of the early editions that had xp-for-gold

 

[tetrasodium]

At the same time, many things are also done to avoid or mitigate traps, which target the same resource (HP) as monsters. The goal, really, is to get treasure, as through treasure you will gain xp and levels and also in-world power (magic items etc). Combat certainly plays a major role as a source of threat and danger, and is a significant vector shaping how players interact with the environment. But I would say those games are "about" exploration and discovery in a dangerous environment.

Hp is not a resource like in past edition's where the party needed to heal it back. In 5e, hp is just the size of the buffer before someone starts nullifying damage with death saves & the smallest possible heal. Between short rest hit dice and long rest recover everything plus half hit dice hp loss from traps in 5e is only slightly more scary than in 3.5 with a brand new wand of cure light wounds being awarded free of charge every day.

A trap would need to reach tomb of horrors save or die levels of risk to be a threat.

 

[Malmuria]

Hp is not a resource like in past edition's where the party needed to heal it back. In 5e, hp is just the size of the buffer before someone starts nullifying damage with death saves & the smallest possible heal. Between short rest hit dice and long rest recover everything plus half hit dice hp loss from traps in 5e is only slightly more scary than in 3.5 with a brand new wand of cure light wounds being awarded free of charge every day.

A trap would need to reach tomb of horrors save or die levels of risk to be a threat.

I agree--in early editions I would describe the locus of play as being about exploration, with combat and traps providing risk to the reward of treasure (and thus xp). Whereas, 5e seems to lend itself to a narrative paced by discrete encounters that are navigated one after another.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I was responding to @Campbell's reference to "Classic dnd," so I suppose any of the early editions that had xp-for-gold

And you're disagreeing with @Campbell's post? Or not? Or making a point only tangentially related? I'm actually at a loss for what point you're trying to make and if you're arguing against what @Campbell said or what.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I agree--in early editions I would describe the locus of play as being about exploration, with combat and traps providing risk to the reward of treasure (and thus xp). Whereas, 5e seems to lend itself to a narrative paced by discrete encounters that are navigated one after another.

Exploration including all those things @Campbell mentioned as dealing with combat, or not? I mean, are we still using a word to obscure things, or is this word meaning "absolutely nothing to do with combat" exploration? I'm trying to track the pea, here.

 

[Malmuria]

Exploration including all those things @Campbell mentioned as dealing with combat, or not? I mean, are we still using a word to obscure things, or is this word meaning "absolutely nothing to do with combat" exploration? I'm trying to track the pea, here.

I agree that avoiding combat or strategizing out of initiative are activities that are still "about" combat and that take up a significant portion of time in classic play. But I think the real focus of play is exploration, rather than combat for combat sake. This is one reason "wandering monster" checks don't really work in 5e, because you want to encounter the monsters. Whereas if those monsters are potentially overwhelming and don't do anything other than tax your resources (at best), the drive in classic play is balance exploration (e.g. searching for secret doors) with the possibility of combat. Thus why osr people describe combat as a fail-state.