Is D&D "about" combat?

[Pilgrim]

My take on the combat aspect of D&D:

In the earliest days, considering that Chainmail was spawned from miniatures gaming, Dungeons and Dragons was most certainly about dungeon siege, killing monsters, looting treasure and leveling up. I think this follows through into the Basic game and a fair amount into AD&D (1E), judging from the earlier modules which centered around exploring dungeons and the like.

Upon the arrival of 2nd Edition, there was a shift from mostly combat to adventure/story driven play. Campaigns centering on the PCs doing more than just dungeon crawls and killing monsters, combat while still important, takes something of a back seat to narration.

2nd Edition Player's Options; this is where things begin swinging back around to adding more combat centered play back into the game. Being the precursor to 3rd Edition, 3rd Edition (and 3.5) leans pretty far into the combat camp, while at the same time trying to make options outside combat equally important, through the use of feats and more importantly, skills.

The current edition, takes the game back to it's original war gaming roots, it pushes combat, dungeon encounters, killing monsters and looting treasure to the forefront while leaving the narrative side of things as a follow-up.

Personally, I grew up playing in the 2E age, I prefer that play style to any others. So, for me while I enjoy combat when playing D&D, I prefer if it is not "about" combat.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

And what's wrong with doing it cinematically if that's the way you choose to do it

There's nothing wrong with it.

You are also, however, not using the game system as designed. Which I think is Hussar's point.

 

[billd91]

There's nothing wrong with it.

You are also, however, not using the game system as designed. Which I think is Hussar's point.

I don't believe that's using the game system in a way it isn't designed at all. The game system is designed to give the DM a lot of leeway in how to handle things for which there are no specific rules. That's why there's a referee in the first place - because the rules cannot cover everything that PCs could conceivably want to do.

 

[Hussar]

And what's wrong with doing it cinematically if that's the way you choose to do it? How is that not doing a naval campaign justice? There are innumerable ways to do that, some of which, but not all, may require the addition of more and more rule subsystems. But like I said, you seem to be viewing the game as an issue of playing tactically on a gameboard and that's going to color your perceptions of the possible.

"Doing it cinematically" is just a nice way of saying "Hand wave it". Heroes of Battle is a perfect example of this. We hand wave the larger battle, scale down to the individual PC's and run 3e D&D as a regular set of encounters, putting the resolution of the battle in the background.

Granted, it works. But, you're not actually resolving the battle this way. You're simply handwaving the whole thing.

But, yeah, this is just going to go around in circles. I believe that a game is defined by the game itself. Bill91, you seem to believe that a game is defined by what you can do with it, even if what you do with it is in no way directly supported by the game.

We're not going to come to an understanding here because we're not speaking the same language. I define D&D by the books. You define D&D by the way you play and will not separate out your D&D from D&D. The problem is, I don't play bill91D&D (although, I suspect HussarD&D is probably very, very close to it) so I cannot actually comment on your game.

Of course, it would be really nice if the reverse was true as well, but, unfortunately, people cannot separate out the two and so take what I'm saying about D&D to mean that's the way I PLAY D&D, regardless of how many times I show them differently. :/

As the wise saying goes, "Play what you like."

 

[JamesonCourage]

As the wise saying goes, "Play what you like."

So, honestly JC, no, I don't think "play what you like" is all that helpful. Play what you like leads to stagnant games and disaffected players and frustrated DM's.

Times have changed; I think he's starting to soften up

 

[billd91]

But, yeah, this is just going to go around in circles. I believe that a game is defined by the game itself. Bill91, you seem to believe that a game is defined by what you can do with it, even if what you do with it is in no way directly supported by the game.

We're not going to come to an understanding here because we're not speaking the same language. I define D&D by the books. You define D&D by the way you play and will not separate out your D&D from D&D. The problem is, I don't play bill91D&D (although, I suspect HussarD&D is probably very, very close to it) so I cannot actually comment on your game.

One spin might be that you limit the game to the books. And RPGs, as I see them, have unlimited boundaries. As someone who got a lot out of my 1e DMG and was interested in it's ideas about mixing Gamma World or Boot Hill, and who read the article "Sturmgeschutz and Sorcery", I feel confident that D&D was never intended to be limited to the books.

Of course, it would be really nice if the reverse was true as well, but, unfortunately, people cannot separate out the two and so take what I'm saying about D&D to mean that's the way I PLAY D&D, regardless of how many times I show them differently. :/

So, in other words, it sounds like you're talking about HussarD&D. It goes both ways.