Is D&D "about" combat?

[Bedrockgames]

A lot of interesting observations. I think this really boils down to play style. In most of my groups combat is a very small part of the adventure. Most of our games revolve around investigation, exploration and intrigue. A d&d session that is half combat wouldn't appeal to me. I played in combat heavy groups where half tge eveninf was spent in convat and i always found it dull.

And i think this touches on one of tge key things some of the designers have missed: d&d is a lot of different things to a lot of different people. To some it is about combat but to many combat is a very small part of the game.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Now, granted, there's a LOT of variations of an "adventure" in D&D. Totally understand that. But, if I pick up fifteen random adventures, either published or from people's home games, am I most likely to find that "adventure" means interacting with a number of fictional people in order to discover their underlying motivations, or am I likely to find that "adventure" generally means going to some new location in order to fight lots of things?

Depends kind of on your adventure. The Tomb of Horrors was not basically involved with fighting things. You might get in fights, but there were so many impossible traps and tricks that mostly it was about avoiding your enemies, rather than engaging them. The 2e Planescape module Faction War was not basically involved with fighting things. There are combats, but the central issue of the adventure is defining what your character believes in a changing landscape, as true villains and heroes emerge that may cast a new light on your old convictions. The 3e Indomitable Forest of Innenotdar had plenty of fights, but the adventure ultimately revolved around a question of whether you would kill to end suffering in the world, or change the world first. An adventure I'm currently writing for 4e is mostly about investigation, unveiling a mystery slowly.

Combat is an important part of all of those, but it is not the dominant defining feature of any of them. Survival, NPC interaction, moral choice, investigation....these are all much more dominant elements.

What the designers can do, if they have good market research, is form hypotheses as to what groups might like and give it to them.

I'm sure they try to do that as often as possible. What I think they've found, though, is that when groups conflict, you can't just serve one and expect to do well. You can't just serve the detailed minis combat crowd and expect the more casual crowd to come along for the ride. The casual crowd will do something else, and then not buy your books. Even if the minis crowd is slightly bigger (or just slightly more profitable), you might be loosing more than you're gaining by sticking to the One Design To Rule Them All philosophy. Better to serve a broad base, in that case, even if it means making modular rules.

 

[chaochou]

I understand the argument that combat can be a means to an end rather than the end itself. I agreee, but I think this is a choice rather than a description of the mechanical elements of D&D.

For example, character creation: I can build a mechanically playable D&D character with no idea of their beliefs or goals or drives and no connections to the world they inhabit. IIRC beliefs and motivations are about a 2 para afterthought in the PHB (with no mechanical support).

I can't do that in Burning Wheel - beliefs, instincts and traits are a vital part of character creation and play. I can't create a FATE character without aspects, or without a story of how I came to be where I am. Writing situation and beliefs and relationships and past interactions with other characters is character creation. It's not extra.

Say I want to play the story of a man trying to protect his mum from his brutal, drunken stepfather. In Burning Wheel I write the belief 'Protect mum from brutal, drunken stepfather'. I've created that as a theme and its now flagged to the GM as something central to play. I get xp for pursuing that belief (but I'd get no xp for killing an army of dragons).

In Heroquest I write Relationship: Mum 25. Hatred: Drunken Stepfather 17. It's flagged as themetically important to the GM. Mechanically I can use those relationship to augment actions which aid my mum or hinder my stepfather.

It's not that this can't be added to D&D, but it's not right there baked in. IMO The only stakes D&D supports mechanically are life / death (HP) and that makes 'the game as written' about combat.

 

[havard]

I guess I would have to say that D&D is a combat game first, and by design, and that it can be more based on additional design and dependent upon gameplay. I'm not familiar with any groups that completely ignore the combat elements but I have seen gamers play completely without any RPing, and I have seen this done with each of the editions at times over the years. I think the various editions promote and/or support RPing to varying degrees but all editions heavily support and encourage combat. There are other RPGs that focus primarily on RPing, some with little, if any, combat encouraged and/or supported, by design. I think I would like to see a D&D RPG that supports and encourages RPing primarily or at least equally as much as combat. However, I would not enjoy a D&D RPG that eliminated or discouraged combat.

I would go as far as to say that a group that played combat only do not play D&D. They only play an aspect of the game. An important aspect, to be sure, but not the whole game. The OP's quote from Slaviczek was a bold statement, probably suggesting where he wanted to take D&D, but I am not sure it is something that would be accepted by the fans, who in the end are all that matters.

-Havard

 

[pemerton]

I understand the argument that combat can be a means to an end rather than the end itself. I agreee, but I think this is a choice rather than a description of the mechanical elements of D&D.

<snip>

It's not that this can't be added to D&D, but it's not right there baked in. IMO The only stakes D&D supports mechanically are life / death (HP) and that makes 'the game as written' about combat.

Great post.

I agree it's not baked in. When I started my 4e campaign, I told the players that their PCs each had to have (i) some sort of loyalty, and (ii) a reason to be ready to fight goblins. And the rules don't tell me to do this.

But I think your criterion for "aboutness" are very strict (not irrationally strict or unreasonably strict, but very strict). A lot of other RPGs, stuck with needless combat rules and a lack of relationship mechanics, will come out as "about combat" only too - eg Runequest and Stormbringer and maybe C&S - and others will have no stakes built in at all - maybe Traveller.

I think that D&D, because of it's mainstream design tendencies - even in 4e - should be allowed to get away with being a bit vanilla.

And my backup argument is this: nothing in HeroQuest forces me to give my PC a relationship; it's just that the rules support this. Likewise 4e - nothing forces my PC to have a relationship, but the rules support it after a while - Questing Knight, Demonskin Adept, Warpriest of Moradin, Divine Philosopher. The only paragon path in my group that doesn't have a relatioship built in is the Battlefield Archer - but that character is also a hybrid cleric of the Raven Queen.

I'll admit my backup argument is a bit weak, because WotC is a bit weak when it comes to doing stuff with the relationships and PC-embedded-into-gameworld that comes with paragon paths. But when you're playing vanilla you have to make a little bit of topping go a long way!

 

[Mark CMG]

Monopoly isn't about producing a narrative or artistic object that expresses a conflict and it's resolution.

But it can be and the rules don't discourage it.

 

[Mark CMG]

I would go as far as to say that a group that played combat only do not play D&D. They only play an aspect of the game.

Don't tell them that. Though, honestly, whether or not they are roleplaying, they often see themselves as roleplaying ("I yelled, 'Look out!' when that guy was behind Jim's character.") because it says on the box that it is a roleplaying game.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I guess I would have to say that D&D is a combat game first, and by design, and that it can be more based on additional design and dependent upon gameplay. I'm not familiar with any groups that completely ignore the combat elements but I have seen gamers play completely without any RPing, and I have seen this done with each of the editions at times over the years. I think the various editions promote and/or support RPing to varying degrees but all editions heavily support and encourage combat. There are other RPGs that focus primarily on RPing, some with little, if any, combat encouraged and/or supported, by design. I think I would like to see a D&D RPG that supports and encourages RPing primarily or at least equally as much as combat. However, I would not enjoy a D&D RPG that eliminated or discouraged combat.

Combat is the symptom, not the disease.

My understanding of the origins of D&D (and I could be wrong here since the earliest days of D&D are shrouded in mystery created by arguments and even lawsuits) is that it is actually traced to David A. Wesley's Braunstein games. His initial idea was to run a normal tabletop wargame, but instead of just setting up on opposite sides of the eponymous town of Braunstein the players would be given individual characters including the commanding officers of the two armies. There would then be opportunity for those individual characters to affect the setup by their actions in town. Wesley initially thought it a disaster because the armies NEVER MADE IT INTO THE GAME. The players all loved it and wanted more, essentially because it was NOT about the combat but the freedom of control of the individual characters. They spent the game stepping into different rooms and planning, plotting, scheming with and against each other. More a game of Diplomacy than Napoleanics.

Arneson and Gygax began participating in and running similar sorts of games and D&D only actually reached something more like the form it's in now when Gygax decided to use his Chainmail rules for governing combat and finally gave it a name. That is, the rules for combat came LAST - it was the roleplaying that came first, and it was (and still is) the foundation of D&D. Combat is just along for the ride - even if people can and do ignore roleplaying entirely and focus only upon combat. D&D still isn't "about" combat even if you can treat it as such.

 

[Mark CMG]

Combat is the symptom, not the disease.

I'll get back to this.

My understanding of the origins of D&D (and I could be wrong here since the earliest days of D&D are shrouded in mystery created by arguments and even lawsuits) is that it is actually traced to David A. Wesley's Braunstein games. His initial idea was to run a normal tabletop wargame, but instead of just setting up on opposite sides of the eponymous town of Braunstein the players would be given individual characters including the commanding officers of the two armies. There would then be opportunity for those individual characters to affect the setup by their actions in town. Wesley initially thought it a disaster because the armies NEVER MADE IT INTO THE GAME. The players all loved it and wanted more, essentially because it was NOT about the combat but the freedom of control of the individual characters. They spent the game stepping into different rooms and planning, plotting, scheming with and against each other. More a game of Diplomacy than Napoleanics.

Arneson and Gygax began participating in and running similar sorts of games and D&D only actually reached something more like the form it's in now when Gygax decided to use his Chainmail rules for governing combat and finally gave it a name. That is, the rules for combat came LAST - it was the roleplaying that came first, and it was (and still is) the foundation of D&D. Combat is just along for the ride - even if people can and do ignore roleplaying entirely and focus only upon combat. D&D still isn't "about" combat even if you can treat it as such.

Wesley's Braunstein experiment, shall we say, was a separate tack that never really got off the ground. By all accounts that I have heard it came first (I've spoken with Wesley and seen the game in action, being played as it was back in its days of origin), but to say it was the progenitor of D&D would be a mischaracterization. The CONCEPT of playing a unit consisting of a single individual came FIRST (and from wargaming), and the idea of combat resolution akin to wargaming was in the heads of the wargamers who began putting together roleplaying rules for this new variant of gaming which became D&D. Whether or not one says that the Chainmail miniatures rules were filtered in/compiled LAST into what became the variant of gaming called roleplaying, miniatures wargaming combat rules were in the heads of the designers from the start and all along. Combat is the core concept of this form of gaming.

Combat is the symptom, not the disease.

I think one might say that combat is the bricks that make up a brick house. Of course, you also need windows and gutters and a roof and much more to make up a house. Those are the rules of roleplaying in a roleplaying game. (Let's leave off the garage in deference to later "house-bloat!") However, until someone moves in and brings all of their furniture and lives in the place, it isn't a home. I think that is what people have in their minds when they say that THEIR game isn't about combat. But the game doesn't actually come prefurnished, and there's no one living there when you arrive, and there's rarely enough guidance for how to set up a home except from your parents or some friend who has already been through that struggle. This is why I think a new rule set could use more focus on RPing in a D&D RPG. I get the feeling that some designers either don't understand this at all or are afraid to put this into the rules because it might not be well received universally. It sort of parallels why some people are shy when it comes to roleplaying around the table. What if someone laughs at us?

 

[rogueattorney]

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

This is a pretty basic question for running any sort of landholding, yet, AFAIK, (and I never did play the Companion rules, so maybe its in there) D&D hasn't answered that question.

It's in the AD&D 1e PHB. Fighters get 7sp per person per month. M-U's get 5 sp per person per month.

In the Companion rules the question is answered in even more detailed form with the taxes depending on what resources are present in the holding. (Gold mines bring in more taxes than cow pastures.)