Is D&D "about" combat?

[pemerton]

D&D has elements of combat, exploration, problemsolving and so on, but combat is a major part of it. Dungeons have rooms full of orcs, zombies, beholders or unspeakable gribblies and they are all there for combat purposes.

Individual groups can play the game as they desire but the underlying focus of D&D is characters fighting monsters.

Like I said upthread, I think that fighting monsters is a primary activity in the game - D&D involves combat. But that, on its own, doesn't show what the game is about.

The means/end disintction is pretty important here.

I mean, writing a typical song involves lots of attention to rhyme and meter. But it doesn't follow that the typical song is about its rhymes and meter. They are a vehicle.

Well my line of thinking was more like: Would D&D without combat still be D&D for me?

But D&D without elves, or demons, or what-have-you may not be D&D to a person, either. But it doesn't follow that D&D is about elves, or demons, or what-have-you.

D&D without polyhedral dice mightn't be D&D to a person, either. But D&D is almost certainly not about rolling polyhedral dice. They're a tool. They're not the subject-matter.

If a lay person asked me to describe what D&D was, I'd tell them something along the lines of "It's a fantasy game of pretend but you have rules that help shape what you can and can't do, and how well you can do it."

And even though I'm a "no"-voter, this is where I come in on the side of the "yes" crowd.

I think that the description you offer is somewhat misleading - it's leaves open, for example, possibilities that the game might involve much wooing of princes or princesses, political struggle (of the Minas Tirith or wizardly politics variety) as a major focus of play, and physically arduous (but combat-free) questing. But trying to run those games in D&D is, in my view pushing against the system rather than with it - for example, a good chunk of a character sheet is irrelevant to wooing a princess or trekking to Mount Doom, and I'm not sure that the sorts of skill challenges you might use to resolve that wooing, or the trek, are enough on their own to carry the game (there are other, better systems than D&D if you want to focus primarily on non-combat activities as the site of conflict's expression and resolution).

I think your description is importantly incomplete in another respect - it doesn't mention the GM as having a very dominant role in the "let's pretend" aspect of the game - at a minimum, being in charge of scene framing, and in many approaches to the game (eg Adventure Paths) also having the dominant influence over scene resolution and its consequences. This is somewhat, but not entirely orthogonal, to the OP - not entirely, because in an Adventure Path the main contribution that the players make is to decide exactly how their PCs fight the pre-scheduled battles. Whether or not this sort of play is about combat - and maybe it doesn't have to be, if the players are very invested in adding colour to those combat scenes - combat certainly looms pretty large in it.

 

[Dannager]

Yes. I am talking about having rules covering these activities. Perhaps they dont have to be too detailed, and not everything needs to be in the core rulebook. But I think that by giving the game too narrow a focus, the designers are ignoring many of the possibilities the hobby offers.

Perhaps, but this sort of thing strikes me as something better suited to a 3pp developer - a set of rules only thinly attached to the existing system (you don't need much rules interaction between the rules for running a barony and the rules for D&D 4e, for example) that would appeal to a small but willing segment of the player base.

Now, I am not one of the people comparing 4E to a video game. However, I think that the wide scope approach that I am talking about would showcase the things that RPGs can do which video games cannot. This is IMO where the future of RPG design should be headed.

I agree that the tabletop game industry needs to successfully adapt to a world where video games are fast becoming the go-to entertainment medium. What that adaptation means, however, is unclear. For a while, I've pushed the idea that tabletop gaming needs to embrace the wave of digital play before it becomes marginalized for ignoring it.

 

[Vegepygmy]

My point is, things haven't significantly changed. The game has always focused very strongly on combat. Combat is the primary method for proceeding through the game. Or at least it has been for a couple of editions now. Even back in the day, we never did the "sneak past the monster" thing because that would be giving up xp. The term "Greyhawking a dungeon" isn't a new thing. You clear the entire dungeon and then you are finished.

"Greyhawking" isn't a reference to combat or clearing a dungeon of monsters, and it didn't originate with old school D&D. It came about because treasure was so scarce in the RPGA's Living Greyhawk campaign that players would strip every weapon, piece of armor, or other item in every room of a dungeon in order to squeeze every last copper piece out of it.

So, actually, it is a pretty new term (at least by grognardian standards of time). It's also fairly obscure.

EDIT: Also, "back in the day," you gained more XP for treasure than you did for defeating monsters. In the groups I played in, we preferred to sneak past monsters rather than fight them whenever possible.

All that having been said, D&D has always featured a lot of combat. I don't think it's about combat at all, though. It's about adventure, and conflict, and lots of other things that are frequently expressed through combat. I think some people are mistaking the method for the reason.

 

[Ahnehnois]

My point is, if the game provides far more depth for attacking your fellow jockeys than racing your fellow jockeys, isn't it fair to say that the game is about attacking your fellow jockeys rather than racing them?

The rules of tennis provide far information on how to treat the behavior of the ball than how to treat the behavior of the players. Is tennis (or your other sport of choice) devoid of strategy and psychology simply because they aren't represented in the rules?

The majority of D&D's rules are for combat because that is the part of the game that needs rules, not because that is the only part of the game. Combat has simple, objective, and important outcomes that need to be determined with care. That's why the rules are the way they are. The way D&D is played, however, goes far beyond what's in the books.

 

[havard]

Perhaps, but this sort of thing strikes me as something better suited to a 3pp developer - a set of rules only thinly attached to the existing system (you don't need much rules interaction between the rules for running a barony and the rules for D&D 4e, for example) that would appeal to a small but willing segment of the player base.

I disagree. While detailed rules for everything cannot be included in the core rules, the foundation for a more broad approach to gaming needs to be set in the core rules, explicitly stating that "this game can be about much more than adventuring if you want it to be".

I am no so sure that the player base segment interested in doing other things besides adventuring is that small.

I agree that the tabletop game industry needs to successfully adapt to a world where video games are fast becoming the go-to entertainment medium. What that adaptation means, however, is unclear. For a while, I've pushed the idea that tabletop gaming needs to embrace the wave of digital play before it becomes marginalized for ignoring it.

I disagree. As long as one tries to make tabletop games into something resembling video games, tabletop games will loose. Tabletop games need to focus on the things that digital games cannot do as well as tabletop ones. Game designers need to find out why we sit down and play D&D instead of playing WoW and need to come up with new editions that play up these factors.

-Havard

 

[pemerton]

Then again, it's also bizarre to me that two-thirds of respondents don't think D&D is about combat.

Yeah, I really don't get the controversy here.

Well, I've explained it in some detail - using the notions of means versus ends, and the related comparison of substance to form in artistic composition. And I'm not the only poster who's put it in these terms (eg [MENTION=6679265]Yesway Jose[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6668292]JamesonCourage[/MENTION], at least, have said similar things - EDIT: also Vegepygmy just above this post).


I'd be interested in your comments on this way of putting thins. What strikes me as distinctive about this position, compared to some other "no"-voters, is that it reconciles a "no"-vote with the mechanical focus on combat in the game rules. It doesn't simply put those rules to one side and pretend that the absence of a sophisticated action resolution system amounts to a RP-supporting rules-light game (which is how some of the "in defence of 2nd ed" posts come across to me).

So where's the rules support for story structure? For plot? For determining narration rights? For characterization? For any element of a story?

I'll only speak to 4e in addressing these questions.

The rules support for story structure comes in the form of:

(i) quests and quest XP;

(ii) the XP rules more generally, which ensure that, simply by turning up and playing the game, players will see their PCs advance from beginning heroes to demigods, who start fighting kobolds and end up fighting Orcus;

(iii) the encounter build rules, which aren't as elegant as the pass/fail DC-setting mechanics of HeroQuest, but can still be used very easily to help regulate pacing (and the milestone rules are a part of this);

(iv) the combat rules are very clearly designed to produce pacing and story within each combat, as the PCs start out on the backfoot against the stronger at-wills and superior hit points of their opponents, but then rebound and get the upper hand as their deeper resources (encounters, dailies, healing surges) kick in;

(v) narration rights are distributed in a variety of ways, but encounters and dailies are part of this, and so are skill challenges when run according to the DMG and PHB guidelines;

(vi) story elements are dealt with only weakly in the DMG and MM, but are taken up more seriously in Worlds and Monsters, and in some of the sourcebooks like The Plane Above, Underdark and Demonomicon;

(vii) characterisation is left mostly as an exercise for the players, but there is plenty of material to work with even just in the core of the PHB and MM - a lot of thematically-laden conflict is built into the default setting (Raven Queen vs Orcus, Erathis vs Asmodeus or vs demonkind, etc - of course, if all the players want to play halfling rangers who worship Avandra than I agree that the game isn't doing such a good job of supporting character and story - some parts of the setting provide better gaming material than others!);

(viii) and, of course, some characterisation follows from mechanical build (eg build a drow sorcerer with chaos bolt and the Demonskin Adept paragon path, and you've got plenty of characterisation built right in - this is one of the PCs in the game I GM).​

Now obviously this isn't HeroQuest, or even Burning Wheel. But (to go to the other end of the spectrum) it's not Traveller, either.

How can one person have the rights to the plot but other participants get to control the actions of the main characters and not have some person's input invalidated?

The easy solution to this is - no one person has rights to the plot. I think that the advice on running skill challenges in the DMG wants to say this - that in framing and adjudicating a skill challenge the GM has situational authority, a high degree of backstory authority, a reasonable degree of narrational authority, but not plot authority - but it doesn't quite get there.

I think 4e combats clearly don't give the GM plot authority - unless the GM starts fudging or otherwise "cheating" - the core rulebooks don't suggest this option very seriously, but in (what I regard as) a retrograde step the Rules Compendium does canvass that the GM might suspend the action resolution mechanics in order to exercise plot authority. This is one reason why, even though I like Essentials' contribution to some of the lists in the game (lists of classes, powers, feats, monsters) I don't really like its contribution to the overall tone of the game's rules.

I think the earlier editions focus is best summed by in Everaux's signature on the Dragonsfoot forums.

"We don't explore characters. We explore dungeons."

This may well be true. Like I said, I'm confining my observations to 4e.

Combat is the primary method for proceeding through the game.

I agree that it is a primary method. But this doesn't entail, in my view, that it's what the game is about. Riding a bike is my primary means of travelling. But it doesn't follow that my travelling is about riding a bike. It's about getting from A to B, and the reasons why I have to get from A to B. (At least ideally. Sometime something goes wrong, and the means starts to overshadow the end. As I said, I think there are easy ways to try to avoid this, in D&D - or at least 4e - for those who want to.)

How much money do I get from taxes on a town of 1200 people for example?

In Gygax's PHB, it depends on your class: 5, 7 or 9 sp per person per year for a magic-user, fighter or cleric.

 

[pemerton]

you don't need much rules interaction between the rules for running a barony and the rules for D&D 4e, for example

I'm not sure I agree with this. Running a barony, in 4e, should be pretty tightly intergrated (i) with your Paragon Path and (ii) with the options open to you in a signficant range of social skill challenges.

For example, a Kinght Commander who tries to run a barony should have a pretty different experience of it from a Questing Knight, let alone a Battlefield Archer, let alone a Demonskin Adept.

And the ruler of a barony should be approaching a skill challenge that involves influencing a Duke (to fall back on an old standard!) pretty differently from how the head of a thieves' guild would.

The majority of D&D's rules are for combat because that is the part of the game that needs rules, not because that is the only part of the game. Combat has simple, objective, and important outcomes that need to be determined with care. That's why the rules are the way they are.

As I posted upthread, I regard this as not true at all. And the assumption that it is true leads to bad RPG design. (As Christopher Kubasik noted, what contribution does it make to Vampire play to distinguish the damage of a shotgun from a machine gune? D20 Call of Cthulhu suffers from a similar problem.)

If combat is going to be an important site of action resolution, than it needs rules. If it is not, then it doesn't. Call of Cthulhu, for example, has no real need for combat rules at all, other than the simplest of conflict resolution mechanics (something like a coin toss plus a resource which can permit the players to re-toss if they want to - heads you lose, tails the cultists or whatever lose). Traveller, at least on the Free Trader approach to play, doesn't need combat rules - it needs rules that will determine with care the "objective and important outcomes" of buying, selling, negotiating, financing, refuelling, etc.

 

[Dannager]

The rules of tennis provide far information on how to treat the behavior of the ball than how to treat the behavior of the players. Is tennis (or your other sport of choice) devoid of strategy and psychology simply because they aren't represented in the rules?

No one is talking about anything being devoid of anything. We're talking about one thing being emphasized to a greater degree than another thing.

It's like someone coming up to you and saying "Tennis isn't about hitting a ball across a net into another player's side of the court." Such a statement would be ridiculous on its face.

The majority of D&D's rules are for combat because that is the part of the game that needs rules,

That's not true.

Combat doesn't require lots of rules. You can run combat with no rules.

Combat has lots of rules because the game's designers understood that people like for there to be lots of rules for combat.

We've been over this.

 

[Dannager]

I am no so sure that the player base segment interested in doing other things besides adventuring is that small.

That's fine. I certainly don't have any way of proving you wrong, other than to say that WotC commissions marketing research in order to find out what players are looking for, and then tailor their products to those desires.

I disagree. As long as one tries to make tabletop games into something resembling video games, tabletop games will loose. Tabletop games need to focus on the things that digital games cannot do as well as tabletop ones. Game designers need to find out why we sit down and play D&D instead of playing WoW and need to come up with new editions that play up these factors.

And I think that we play tabletop games because they let us enjoy a story about our own characters along with our friends. And I firmly believe that this story experience can be enhanced by embracing the prospect of digital integration to the fullest extent possible.

A lot of people seem to believe that either something is computers, or something is not-computers. We passed that line about five years ago. Everything going forward is part computers, part not-computers.

 

[Dannager]

I'm not sure I agree with this. Running a barony, in 4e, should be pretty tightly intergrated (i) with your Paragon Path and (ii) with the options open to you in a signficant range of social skill challenges.

I agree with you on the skill challenges bit, but that requires a minimal amount of rules integration - simply reference the skill challenges section of the core books and you're all set.

For example, a Kinght Commander who tries to run a barony should have a pretty different experience of it from a Questing Knight, let alone a Battlefield Archer, let alone a Demonskin Adept.

And the ruler of a barony should be approaching a skill challenge that involves influencing a Duke (to fall back on an old standard!) pretty differently from how the head of a thieves' guild would.

I agree, but I don't think this requires rules integration so much as a call on the DM's part on how to develop the scenarios affecting the PC's rulership.

Something like this is, I believe, well within the reach of a 3pp.