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

 

[doctorbadwolf]

what you've got left is a pretty so-so skill system and--what?

An excellent skill system, that expands very well.

 

[Thomas Shey]

An excellent skill system, that expands very well.

Decent skill systems are a dime a dozen, depending on how broad or narrow you want them. There's nothing particularly special about the one in 5e.

 

[Eric V]

Decent skill systems are a dime a dozen, depending on how broad or narrow you want them. There's nothing particularly special about the one in 5e.

True enough. I have no idea what the bar is if 5e's skill system is considered "excellent." As well, I'd ask "expands into what?"

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Decent skill systems are a dime a dozen, depending on how broad or narrow you want them. There's nothing particularly special about the one in 5e.

Okay.

 

[Mordhau]

True enough. I have no idea what the bar is if 5e's skill system is considered "excellent." As well, I'd ask "expands into what?"

I don't really get how it could ever be considered "good".

 

[hawkeyefan]

It's a basic system. In my opinion, for the most part it's all that's really needed for D&D. But it's hard to imagine a skill system that does less than add a bonus to a die roll to hit a target number. There are some feats and class abilities that connect to the skill system, but they don't do a whole lot. Most, like expertise and jack of all trades, just add to the bonus used for certain rolls.

It lacks any abilities that do something other than increasing the bonus rolled or granting advantage on ability checks. Though not skills as we're discussing at the moment, the background abilities are probably the most relevant social mechanics in the game. They're mostly very situational, but they're interesting and potent in the right situation. An example of what could have been, in a way.

Some games lack any skill system at all and just use attributes for everything. I suppose it's a step above those... though I think their simplicity could be a mark in their favor. And I don't think it needs to do a whole lot more than what it does. I think if I wanted to shift the game away from the combat pillar and toward one of the others... which I expect the Cubicle 7 team will want to do for Dr. Who... then I'd want more class abilities and feats geared toward those pillars, and ones that do more than just add a higher bonus to a roll. I'd like to see the kind of variety that you see across all the combat related class abilities and feats.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's a basic system. In my opinion, for the most part it's all that's really needed for D&D. But it's hard to imagine a skill system that does less than add a bonus to a die roll to hit a target number. There are some feats and class abilities that connect to the skill system, but they don't do a whole lot. Most, like expertise and jack of all trades, just add to the bonus used for certain rolls.

That was why I made my comment. Its not the only skill system that's "Add some attribute value to a skill value, and make a roll" with some special case bonus abilities. There's nothing much about it that stands out, and it wasn't even the first one to do that (Interlock comes to mind).

Some games lack any skill system at all and just use attributes for everything. I suppose it's a step above those... though I think their simplicity could be a mark in their favor.

That tends to be a case of taking the "lumping" end of skill lumping and splitting to the extreme. And of course you have games that represent skills in a round about way by using broad professional or background traits.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

One small problem with this assertion: you can't back up that this is how those "some people" play the game.

Err, I know how I play the game. I know how the people I play with play. I know that other people play differently because of comments on these forums (I have no reason to think they are lying). I know how people who livestream their games play. There is plenty - I would say overwhelming - evidence for "some people play differently".

A lot of discussion from said "some people" centers around the rules design rather than what things are at their respective table.

Rules design isn't hugely relevant when people take a freeform approach to the game. I would say the way I play a tabletop RPG is basically the same no matter what set of rules we are using to resolve combat.

Recognizing that removes the need for rude insinuations about other people.

You seem determined to take offense whatever I say, even though I keep insisting that I have no problem with people playing differently to myself.

 

[Aldarc]

I get what you're saying, I simply don't believe that the game should operate on the assumption that the DM might be a jerk and incorporate rules to limit them. It's bad faith design.

When Monte Cook designed the Numenera/Cypher System, he wanted (as someone who loves playing the GM role) a way to focus more on the story and cool things that were happening in the game rather than some of the micromanaging of other various duties that GMs sometimes have to do. He designed a fairly GM-empowered tradtional system but with some caveats.

The GM sets the difficulty of tasks, which is often either public knowledge or fairly intuitive to guess. The difference is that the GM doesn't roll. The GM often announces the Target Number difficulty (0 to 30), then the players muster up their options for lowering that TN (PC abilities, Effort, Edge, Training, etc.), and then the player tries rolling a value equal to or higher than the TN with the d20. So the resolution is typically resolved on the roll itself.

Not rolling does constrain the GM as they can't fudge their own rolls. The GM can only inject their own "fudge" or "complication" into the narrative via GM Intrusion. (As of Cypher 2.0, players also have Player Intrusions.) This is all to say that Monte Cook was not assuming "bad faith design" by constraining the GM in this way, particularly as he was likely the GM in question. He wanted as a GM to focus on other cool GM things, particularly presenting a cool story.

Just because a game system constrains the GM does not mean that it necessarily assumes "bad faith" on the part of the GM. Sometimes it's about offloading some GM duties onto the system and letting the GM focus on other duties, such as rules arbitration and fictional framing.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

When Monte Cook designed the Numenera/Cypher System, he wanted (as someone who loves playing the GM role) a way to focus more on the story and cool things that were happening in the game rather than some of the micromanaging of other various duties that GMs sometimes have to do. He designed a fairly GM-empowered tradtional system but with some caveats.

The GM sets the difficulty of tasks, which is often either public knowledge or fairly intuitive to guess. The difference is that the GM doesn't roll. The GM often announces the Target Number difficulty (0 to 30), then the players muster up their options for lowering that TN (PC abilities, Effort, Edge, Training, etc.), and then the player tries rolling a value equal to or higher than the TN with the d20. So the resolution is typically resolved on the roll itself.

Not rolling does constrain the GM as they can't fudge their own rolls. The GM can only inject their own "fudge" or "complication" into the narrative via GM Intrusion. (As of Cypher 2.0, players also have Player Intrusions.) This is all to say that Monte Cook was not assuming "bad faith design" by constraining the GM in this way, particularly as he was likely the GM in question. He wanted as a GM to focus on other cool GM things, particularly presenting a cool story.

Just because a game system constrains the GM does not mean that it necessarily assumes "bad faith" on the part of the GM. Sometimes it's about offloading some GM duties onto the system and letting the GM focus on other duties, such as rules arbitration and fictional framing.

Which is all fine (although I don't personally like that ruleset). However, there are some (such as @Manbearcat) who do seem to be arguing that social rules are needed because "the DM is a jerk".

The problem with this argument is there are no rules which can fix a personality flaw. A jerk is a jerk no matter what the rules. The only solution to jerk DMs is not to play with such people.