Rules volume and play focus.

[MichaelSomething]

"Tis better to kept your mouth shut and be thought of as a fool then to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

WOTC's attempts to develop non combat stuff has either been ignored or derided.

Remember skill challenges? Craft and profession skills? Downtime activities? BIFTs? Domain rules? Commoner/NPC classes?

 

[Darth Solo]

Exactly. You cannot make a character who’s bad at combat in D&D. It’s not possible. Yes, you can make a character who’s not optimized for combat, but that’s not the same thing. You can make intentionally bad choices, like attacking with weapons you’re not proficient in or not using any of your combat abilities, but your character is still festooned with combat-focused abilities from 1st level.

Incorrect. "Optimized" means "make the best or most effective use of (a situation, opportunity, or resource)." How can a character that isn't optimized for combat also be good at combat? You're running with the goalpost, dashing from character builds to player agency - because you have the space between the concepts.

If you believe it is impossible to make a character that is bad at combat, you're point is fallacious.

 

[overgeeked]

Incorrect. "Optimized" means "make the best or most effective use of (a situation, opportunity, or resource)." How can a character that isn't optimized for combat also be good at combat? You're running with the goalpost, dashing from character builds to player agency - because you have the space between the concepts.

If you believe it is impossible to make a character that is bad at combat, you're point is fallacious.

Wonderful example of the toxic attitude of “you’re either perfect or you suck.” There is a vast spectrum from perfect, best, and most effective at one end and utter trash at the other. It’s also a textbook example of the excluded middle fallacy.

 

[Malmuria]

Incorrect. "Optimized" means "make the best or most effective use of (a situation, opportunity, or resource)." How can a character that isn't optimized for combat also be good at combat? You're running with the goalpost, dashing from character builds to player agency - because you have the space between the concepts.

If you believe it is impossible to make a character that is bad at combat, you're point is fallacious.

A memorable example was from a game several years ago. A player was playing a great old one warlock and got to sixth level:

Entropic Ward
At 6th level, you learn to magically ward yourself against attack and to turn an enemy's failed strike into good luck for yourself. When a creature makes an attack roll against you, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on that roll. If the attack misses you, your next attack roll against the creature has advantage if you make it before the end of your next turn.

I don't think optimizers would think that that is particularly powerful, especially for a 1/SR ability. But there is really only one use case for this ability: combat. I think it is memorable because both the player and I were annoyed at how unrelated this ability was to the archetype of the great old one warlock. It's just an extra thing you can do once in a while in combat.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think that the amount of page space devoted to an aspect of play is a clear indicator of what’s important to the game. I mean, when you look at a rulebook, it gives you a good impression of what the game is about. It spends time on what’s important. And while I don’t think that’s necessarily universal or that there cannot be some exceptions, I think it’s generally true.

It’s not just the volume of rules, but their nature as well. Every creature or character in D&D 5e has hit points and armor class and attacks, along with special abilities they can use… most of which are focused on combat. No one who was previously unfamiliar with the game would look at the PHB and come away with the conclusion that it’s a game about exploration or social interaction. There are such elements, of course, but they’re clearly not primary.

I think another indicator in RPGs… probably a clearer one… is to look at what player actions the rules reward. What is the game telling players they should be trying to do? What’s incentivized? That’s what most players are going to try and do in the game. For many games, that comes in the form of an experience or advancement system. I think a game that rewards killing monsters is going to play a bit different than one that rewards exploration or social interaction. Even a change to XP for gold instead of for defeating monsters is going to make a difference.

I think that’s one of the first things to look at when you’re first looking at a game. Look at what it rewards… that’s what play is going to be about.

 

[MGibster]

Incorrect. "Optimized" means "make the best or most effective use of (a situation, opportunity, or resource)." How can a character that isn't optimized for combat also be good at combat? You're running with the goalpost, dashing from character builds to player agency - because you have the space between the concepts.

You can be good at something without being the best or most effective at it. Even when a D&D character isn't optimized, they are an asset in combat because they have plenty of abilities that are useful.

 

[Malmuria]

I think another indicator in RPGs… probably a clearer one… is to look at what player actions the rules reward.

Yes...though, this can be overstated. I think certain gaming types really figure out what the system rewards and play accordingly. In a sense this is "optimization" mentality (even for games that aren't crunchy/trad). Other types of gamers just set their own agenda. For example, when I ran OSE for some players used to 5e, I think they never got used to the idea that they were just supposed to be looting everything possible.

No one who was previously unfamiliar with the game would look at the PHB and come away with the conclusion that it’s a game about exploration or social interaction.

What's interesting for me is the gap between designer intent and what people actually do with the game, whether on purpose or by accident. Combat in 5e might be 80% of the character abilities, and might be slow, but even then...does it occupy 80% of playtime for most groups? As you say, the intent of the game is also in how it is structured. In BitD, you go through very specific game phases that makes about 100% of playtime about the rules that are in the book. If you are playing, say, Call of Cthulhu, you have a character with skills who just kinda hangs out in a fictional world.

 

[Lanefan]

Im not exactly sure there is any expectation that the pillars of D&D are supposed to be equal. In fact, folks often voice disagreement with any social sub-system that approaches any granularity of the combat system. I dont recall any specific passages in the rules material that enforces it either. So, im not sold the design intent is towards equity of pillar play at the table. Having this discussion here at ENworld, it seems folks have a certain recipe that works for them. Its usually a detailed combat system, a loosely designed exploration system, and a largely ambiguous social system.

The degree and amount of design doesn't necessarily reflect the degree and amount of importance to play at the table.

What the degree and amount of design reflects is simply the amount of abstraction required. Combat has to be completely abstracted, as does magic (hence the many pages devoted to magic and spells) as neither can be done in reality and most of us have very-limited-to-no real-world experience with either one. Exploration only needs a certain amount of abstraction as we mostly already know how it works via experience in reality. Social needs very little abstraction as not only do we know how it works but it can be played out in person at the table. Downtime - the fourth and all-too-often-ignored pillar - is a mixed bag; it's the pillar that usually gets far less design attention than it deserves.

After that, it simply comes down to the amount of granularity the designers want to put into their rules and guidelines for combat, magic, and to a lesser degree exploration and downtime.

In terms of play focus, each pillar can be emphasized or not at any table based on how they want to play.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm in full agreement here. And the way the D&D rules work, combat is the only pillar where every character class is competent. A Fighter would be out of place in a campaign built around intrigue or exploring the wilderness.

Agreed (IMO this is a root-level design - flaw is too strong a word but I can't think of a better one - in D&D but that's a whole other issue); but while I think you're onto something in noting that classes have been specifically combat-balanced points to combat's higher focus, I also think that's tangential at best to page and word count.

Put another way, if the classes weren't all nicely combat-balanced it would make no difference to the combat-exploration-social word-count ratios.

 

[Lanefan]

Then you went to "the obvious example" (D&D), which ran you into a False Entomology (the AD&D 1e Players Handbook has 67 pages on Magic ... and TWO on combat).

I haven't counted lately, but I suspect the 1e PH has considerably more than two pages on combat; albeit scattered all over through other sections (e.g. weapon and armour notes, fighting style notes in class write-ups, etc.).

You're right about the heavy magic content, though. Contrast this with the 1e DMG, whose section on magic is quite short in comparison to the sections on both combat and exploration.