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

 

[Umbran]

I wouldn't say no reason. Cubicle Seven's commercial reasons for making a 5e version of their game are perfectly valid.

Not only that, but it is likely safe to say that aren't "using D&D", except in the same sense that Mutants and Masterminds was "using D&D".

Replace the classes and subclasses. Replace the feats. Replace the races. Replace the skills. You still have a basic framework of a character with abilities, a class and subclass, a race, skills, hit dice and hit points (maybe - or you can change how damage works), proficiency modifier and stat modifier, and eventually feats. You have a basic idea how task resolution functions.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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

There are very nearly no specific rules for a single individual skill. This is a good thing, that most skill systems fail at. Having to reference the book to make a skill check is a bad thing.

Some folks really seem to have a “more\bigger=better” mentality regarding skill systems, but IMO the skill system is part of why 5e works so well that it is even more dominant and even more pervasive than any other D&D has ever been. All you need to use the skills is to understand their intended general purpose, and a modifier.

Then, the game has various optional additions, like the downtime mechanics, and also features that bypass variable outcomes, etc.

A more detailed skill system would be less good.

 

[AnotherGuy]

What is interesting is, this same D&D player-base will champion the same sort of discrete and interlocking bits and bobs and massively expansive cognitive workspace (huge setting canon to assimilate and download onto play + all sorts of interlocking and fiat-based rulings governed by storytelling imperatives and skilled play imperatives and spotlight-passing imperative that must be mediated in real time + discrete subsystems and monster design that is relatively complex + an Adventuring Day-based Encounter Budget system that is intensive to manage at all let alone functionally resolve so that it produces a desired attrition model) for GMs!

Manbearcat I generally agree with your posts but I found your latest post's comparison not hitting the mark.

Can we just unpack this paragraph please.

huge setting canon to assimilate and download onto play

Can you give me an example of huge setting canon that is prevalent in 5e that wasn't in 4e that would require the increased cognitive workspace?

all sorts of interlocking and fiat-based rulings governed by storytelling imperatives and skilled play imperatives and spotlight-passing imperative that must be mediated in real time

So a DM deciding a DC for a skill check for an action declared which is strictly not listed plainly in the book. This never happened in 4e? Are you saying players never thought beyond their power cards?

discrete subsystems and monster design that is relatively complex

Monsters of 5e are complex as opposed to 4e? Maybe I dunno, but I doubt any sane DM would be designing 5e monsters during play. People generally wing it.

an Adventuring Day-based Encounter Budget system that is intensive to manage at all let alone functionally resolve so that it produces a desired attrition model

For those that actually use it, and not wing it in similar fashion to how many of us did with rules from earlier editions - those kind of DMs would usually pre-plan the session and the necessary encounter budgets.
Remember your opposition in this thread are people who like to wing/roleplay out the social challenges. I'd hazard they likely throw monsters that make sense and not sit down and work out encounter budgets with a calculator during play.

I just do not see the head-space that you think is necessary for all this or even to compare it to issues that particular set of the player-base experienced with 4e player option bloat.

Have I misunderstood your point?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

What's a "cognitive workspace"? A special room for thinking in?

 

[Umbran]

A more detailed skill system would be less good.

Indeed. We are talking about a setting in which the most central element to the setting - time travel - is hand-waved as "wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff". Technical or pedantic detail is not required, or desired.

 

[hawkeyefan]

And the idea that there might be problems caused by "the DM wearing multiple hats" is entirely outside my experience, either as a DM or as a player. I really see being a DM as only one hat called "make sure the players are having fun".

Okay, let's call this role of making sure the players are having fun the role of "Host".

Let's call the role of applying the rules and making rulings the role of "Referee".

Let's say there's a combat and things have been going poorly for the players. The dice aren't going their way, the GM has rolled a crit or two and done some real damage, and things are now looking grim. We're veering quickly toward TPK territory.

Do you start to steer things toward some kind of outcome you think may be considered more fun than a TPK? Does your role as Host start to kick in more than that of Referee? Do you not worry about that and instead let the dice fall where they may, and trust that although they may not find it fun, the players will accept a TPK as a result of play?

That's really all that's being talked about; the decision making process of the GM and all the different factors that come into it. The idea that there are no competing priorities is kind of bonkers. If not, then what is the GM even deciding?

Let me know if this is now clearer.

I just do not see the head-space that you think is necessary for all this or even to compare it to issues that particular set of the player-base experienced with 4e player option bloat.

Well in the below bit, @Paul Farquhar indicates that anything more than a die roll will bring everyone at the table to a halt. Yet the GM of any RPG has a lot more to handle than just a die roll. How is it that the GM can perform under these conditions, but the players just shut down at anything more complex than being told to roll a die?

I think this kind of sums up the point rather well.

Conversation has a natural rhythm or flow. If you interrupt that flow it's very difficult to pick it up again. And, especially if you are not an expert actor, once you drop out of character it can be very difficult to get back into character again. A typical D&D social situation might involve six in-character players and the DM trying to juggle multiple characters. It's just about possible to sustain the flow of conversation with the occasional "make a [skill] check". The player rolls the dice and the conversation continues. But this works because the player isn't given a decision point. The DM evaluates what they have been saying in character and selects an appropriate skill check based on that. Now, in Cypher, the player has several options to choose from when they make such a check. This requires the player has thinking time. The conversation comes to a screeching halt. The roleplay is dead.

 

[Aldarc]

But don't those other game systems fundamentally work differently? How can you fix he perceived problem without total transparency on, well, everything?

Part of the fun for me is not knowing some things when I play. I see a door. I know I could try to kick it down, but kicking down a door is noisy. So I have to consider if it's worth the risk without knowing my exact odds, just like real life.

Yes, many of these games do work differently. However, I don't think that the argument here is fundamentally about fixing anything or making D&D like these other games. I think that the argument is simply about how it is.

It's not about how D&D should be or should operate. It's not necessarily about trying to fix D&D or make it unpalatable for you, me, or others. Not every discussion is about what people want D&D to be or trying to change D&D into something it is not. Sometimes it's just about understanding how the system works and why it was designed the way it was. The point of this discussion is largely about recognizing how D&D 5e is or does operate, especially in comparison with other systems and frameworks of reference.

I also think that it's important to recognize that other games can constrain the various participants in different ways in good faith without necessarily assuming "bad GMing" or "bad player," simply out of a desire to foster a different type or emphasis of play. Sometimes its about offloading things that can make GMing challenging. Sometimes it's about providing players with tools to be more proactive in the world.

So when people in this thread talk about differences between 5e D&D and other tabletop game systems, the nature of those points of difference is the point. It's about how different systems adjudicate the various responsibilities of player/GM roles in different ways.

If you like how 5e D&D does things, then obviously that is good. It means that its design works as intended for you. If you prefer a fog of war approach for your play, then 5e lets you do that. It also lets @Ovinomancer be more transparent. But it is important, IMHO, to understand the costs and benefits of such approaches and how that is baked into the system itself or even if it's left unbaked by the system.

 

[Guest 7034872]

One thing I will say on (2) which isn't related to this thread at all but is an interesting tidbit is this:

[...]

What is interesting is, this same D&D player-base will champion the same sort of discrete and interlocking bits and bobs and massively expansive cognitive workspace (huge setting canon to assimilate and download onto play + all sorts of interlocking and fiat-based rulings governed by storytelling imperatives and skilled play imperatives and spotlight-passing imperative that must be mediated in real time + discrete subsystems and monster design that is relatively complex + an Adventuring Day-based Encounter Budget system that is intensive to manage at all let alone functionally resolve so that it produces a desired attrition model) for GMs!

These two co-existing positions have always struck me as very very strange.

Maybe it's my cynicism, but I'm not at all surprised by this. It's pleasant to have someone else do all the hard thinking and study so you don't have to.

 

[loverdrive]

None of this requires that the "GM is a jerk" or even a "bad GM." Good GMs can in good faith and with good intentions also be victims to this conflict of interests that result from the different hats that they wear as part of their GMing duties.

However, not every TTRPG shares the same conflict of interests (or to the same extent) due to how their respective game are designed in regards to GM/player responsibilities.

Moreover, falling back to the "jerk GM" or "bad GM" criticism grossly ignores the point that is being made here in favor of accusations of bad faith GMing, which is not the case at all. Nowhere, for example, has Manbearcat accused these GMs of being jerks. And @hawkeyefan even explicitly states at several points in his post here:

More than that, good GMs with good intentions are more likely to fall victims of this conflict.

For every self-centered jerk who is fancying themselves a writer, there's a dozen of good-intentioned people who want to give their players a fun time, but can't do so without building a railway.

 

[Thomas Shey]

No one disputes that.

Then as I noted, for all the hyperbole that triggered this, they aren't arguing the fundamental point, which is that its an odd choice for a setting that has fairly little combat.