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

 

[Rune]

I can attest to this, given that I have been running a 5E game for over 2 years now and no one's bond/flaw/ideal has been mentioned even once - heck, I am not even sure the players chose any when they made their characters!

I blame myself (if blame is even necessary) because while we are all new to 5E, most of the players are new to D&D in general to some degree and when we started up this game, I didn't read through that part just assuming it was as optional and tangential as "secondary skills" were in the earlier editions or whatever. Honestly, I don't think it has mattered at all - because to varying degrees the characters' backgrounds, pasts, and personalities have all come into play because of my default DMing style.

I might also add that many (if not most) of the example bonds provided to us are terrible.

Usually, they could be better expressed as a personality trait, ideal, or a flaw and they are almost always so far removed from things that matter to the game that integrating them into a campaign in any long-term, meaningful way is a pretty large burden (on the DM, mind you – the player can safely ignore it).

And that’s even more true for the DM running a pre-published adventure/campaign.

Contrast that with the excellent bonds from Dungeon World (for example), all of which are interest-provoking, tied in with another PC (and thus define relationships within the party), and relevant to the ongoing adventure (the players are incentivised to pursue their resolution, since that is a significant source of their XP gain).

I almost think WotC intended for traits, ideals, bonds and flaws to all be easily ignored, but especially the bonds.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

When someone on the internet said that D&D is 90% combat is there any chance that was intentional hyperbole rather than a conclusion based on careful study and data?

86.37% of statistics are made up on the spot.

It was 88.7% combat, anyway. They just rounded up.

 

[tetrasodium]

I might also add that many (if not most) of the example bonds provided to us are terrible.

Usually, they could be better expressed as a personality trait, ideal, or a flaw and they are almost always so far removed from things that matter to the game that integrating them into a campaign in any long-term, meaningful way is a pretty large burden (on the DM, mind you – the player can safely ignore it).

And that’s even more true for the DM running a pre-published adventure/campaign.

Contrast that with the excellent bonds from Dungeon World (for example), all of which are interest-provoking, tied in with another PC (and thus define relationships within the party), and relevant to the ongoing adventure (the players are incentivised to pursue their resolution, since that is a significant source of their XP gain).

I almost think WotC intended for traits, ideals, bonds and flaws to all be easily ignored, but especially the bonds.

It's too bad that they themselves did not. Every time they add new backgrounds the bonds/ideals/flaws/traits that go with them tends to use up even more page space than the background itself while races too tend to have a not insignificant ant amount of pagespace filled with them. All of that page space could have been devoted to actual mechanics gm guidance & so on.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I might also add that many (if not most) of the example bonds provided to us are terrible.

Usually, they could be better expressed as a personality trait, ideal, or a flaw and they are almost always so far removed from things that matter to the game that integrating them into a campaign in any long-term, meaningful way is a pretty large burden (on the DM, mind you – the player can safely ignore it).

And that’s even more true for the DM running a pre-published adventure/campaign.

Contrast that with the excellent bonds from Dungeon World (for example), all of which are interest-provoking, tied in with another PC (and thus define relationships within the party), and relevant to the ongoing adventure (the players are incentivised to pursue their resolution, since that is a significant source of their XP gain).

I almost think WotC intended for traits, ideals, bonds and flaws to all be easily ignored, but especially the bonds.

You do realize the the backgrounds - and hence the accompanying traits/ideals/bonds/flaws - in the PHB (pg 125) and elsewhere are just samples, yes?
Players, working with their DM, are free to create whatever makes sense for them and their campaign - that includes the bonds. If the ones in the official published material don't work for you and your campaign, make up your own or grab some ideas from the Pay What You Want backgrounds off of DMsGuild.

 

[Malmuria]

In my experience with 5e, social and exploration usually feature heavy use of the basic resolution mechanic (d20+PB+Mod, roll high). The exception-based advantages that characters might have are usually passive (things like expertise or jack of all trades) or take the form of cantrips (guidance, minor illusion). Most of the "exception-based" design is in combat, in the form of per-rest abilities, and this is what makes it feel "gamey" (neither a good nor bad thing). Despite the rulings-not-rules ethos, these abilities (spells included) are very specifically written to avoid variance in interpretation, unlike the basic resolution mechanic, which is more flexible. You can imagine exception-based features for social and exploration; the bard class, for example, has various special ways to affect social situations. I'm not sure this would be very satisfying, however.

 

[Ovinomancer]

This isn't wrong, but it isn't where I think the main issue with social systems lies: most social scenes aren't challenges, so even a great, well-understood and flexible skill challenge system would be inappropriate.

Social scenes without stakes or risk can easily just be handled as flavor or free play. Having mechanics doesn't prevent free play -- see pretty much most of table time in 5e outside of combat.

 

[Rune]

You do realize the the backgrounds - and hence the accompanying traits/ideals/bonds/flaws - in the PHB (pg 125) and elsewhere are just samples, yes?

Of course. But, more importantly, they are examples. The examples are what teach the game and the portion of the game that these examples teach is mostly terrible.

Those who learn this part of the game through these examples are thus incentivized to ignore it.

 

[teitan]

This is why I don’t engage in the “character build” discussions, because it is almost entirely how to optimize characters for combat. It does give the perception that 90% of D&D is combat and it’s a perception that’s been around for decades as evidenced by any search for D&D related threads in the 2e era on rpg dot net for example. Most encounters in published modules can be resolved without combat, not all, but I would say a good 60+% involve beings able to be negotiated with.

The argument of “but the rules” is shallow because by that same argument Mork Borg is 90% combat and I wouldn’t want to indulge in combat in Mork Borg on the regular. Early editions weren’t handing out the XP for slaying monsters but overcoming encounters and getting the treasure.

 

[Hussar]

Just to chime in here since I spent all that time reading the thread.

Saying D&D is 90% combat is pretty much like saying rain is wet. It's true on its face. Sure, we can quibble about the actual percentage, but, it's just two smurfs arguing over who is more blue. The point is, smurfs are blue and D&D is focused on combat.

I'm really not sure how anyone could look at D&D and think, "Hey, here is a game where combat isn't going to happen a lot." A game where the weapons table is two full pages long and the equipment for EVERYTHING ELSE in the game is less than a page. A game where we actually spend time to differentiate between the damage dealt by a longsword compared to a spear, but, everyone speaks a single language.

When your most popular class in the game is called a FIGHTER, it's not really a shock that combat is a big part of the game. D&D is an action movie game. That's a big part of play. You are heroes in a fantasy action movie.

Can you go in different directions? Sure. No problem. But, for every Strixhaven or Witchlight, you have five modules that are pretty much nothing but strings of combat encounters.

I have no dog in the race about the Doctor Who game. I'm not a consumer. But, on this specific point about D&D? Yeah, that's pretty accurate. And frankly, AFAIC, it's a feature.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The thing I've not seen mentioned is that this is the same Cubicle 7 that utterly nailed the Dr. Who initiative system. The initiative order in the old C7 Dr Who goes Talkers Runners Doers Fighters. In other words if you want to talk as your productive action you always go before someone else - and people trying to run away get to go before the people trying to shoot them - and before the people e.g. trying to close the blast doors (who also go before the fighters).