D&D General Self-Defeating Rules in D&D

[Jacob Lewis]

I don't agree that 'kick down the doors and fight the monsters, lather rinse level up repeat' is what D&D has always been about. I don't think OD&D and AD&D 1 were about that - consider how GP far outweighed kills in terms of XP.

I think the “GP outweighed kills in XP” point gets repeated as if it’s a silver bullet, but I don’t think it proves what people often think it does. Gold was never the goal in itself—it was the token that converted into XP, and XP was always what players actually cared about. What does XP buy you? Levels. And what do levels give you? More hit points, better attacks, more spells—all of which are overwhelmingly focused on combat.

So while the fictional wrapper of early editions was “you’re delving dungeons to haul out treasure,” the mechanical loop was “treasure → XP → levels → combat power → deeper dungeons and nastier monsters.” If the real goal was simply “get enough gold to be comfortable, fed, housed, and worry-free,” most campaigns could have wrapped up by level 3 or 4. But that wasn’t the loop anyone was playing. The loop was escalation: get stronger so you can fight bigger things.

That’s why the majority of rules in every edition—OD&D, AD&D, and onward—are devoted to combat: weapon tables, attack matrices, morale, initiative systems, spells (most of them combat-oriented), etc. If gold was truly the “point” of the game, you’d expect equally robust mechanics for managing wealth, building trade networks, or influencing the economy. Instead, treasure existed mainly as a scoring mechanism to fuel advancement toward the thing the rules actually cared about: fighting.

So I’d frame it this way: early D&D carried a survivalist skin—resource management, light, wandering monsters, encumbrance—but those were pressure valves designed to make combat decisions riskier and to give treasure a context. Over time, that skin peeled away, but what was left exposed was the skeleton that had always been there: kick down doors, fight monsters, get loot, repeat.

That’s why the survival rules feel vestigial today. They were never equal pillars alongside combat—they were scaffolding to support the combat-and-advancement loop. Once the design shed XP-for-gold and heroic fantasy took over, the scaffolding wasn’t needed anymore. But D&D still carries it, so it lingers as a kind of half-alive tradition.

 

[soviet]

I think the “GP outweighed kills in XP” point gets repeated as if it’s a silver bullet, but I don’t think it proves what people often think it does. Gold was never the goal in itself—it was the token that converted into XP, and XP was always what players actually cared about. What does XP buy you? Levels. And what do levels give you? More hit points, better attacks, more spells—all of which are overwhelmingly focused on combat.

So while the fictional wrapper of early editions was “you’re delving dungeons to haul out treasure,” the mechanical loop was “treasure → XP → levels → combat power → deeper dungeons and nastier monsters.” If the real goal was simply “get enough gold to be comfortable, fed, housed, and worry-free,” most campaigns could have wrapped up by level 3 or 4. But that wasn’t the loop anyone was playing. The loop was escalation: get stronger so you can fight bigger things.

That’s why the majority of rules in every edition—OD&D, AD&D, and onward—are devoted to combat: weapon tables, attack matrices, morale, initiative systems, spells (most of them combat-oriented), etc. If gold was truly the “point” of the game, you’d expect equally robust mechanics for managing wealth, building trade networks, or influencing the economy. Instead, treasure existed mainly as a scoring mechanism to fuel advancement toward the thing the rules actually cared about: fighting.

So I’d frame it this way: early D&D carried a survivalist skin—resource management, light, wandering monsters, encumbrance—but those were pressure valves designed to make combat decisions riskier and to give treasure a context. Over time, that skin peeled away, but what was left exposed was the skeleton that had always been there: kick down doors, fight monsters, get loot, repeat.

That’s why the survival rules feel vestigial today. They were never equal pillars alongside combat—they were scaffolding to support the combat-and-advancement loop. Once the design shed XP-for-gold and heroic fantasy took over, the scaffolding wasn’t needed anymore. But D&D still carries it, so it lingers as a kind of half-alive tradition.

You're disagreeing with something I didn't say. GP = XP doesn't make the game about getting gold. It (without a corresponding weight of kills = XP) makes the game about solving the dungeon without necessarily fighting the dungeon.

I agree that the rules (and the benefits from levelling up) are still largely about combat. Arguably this is still a failure state in play, and 'good play' is presumed to involve avoiding combat where possible, so this is intended as additional protection when things go wrong rather than necessarily an incentive or expectation that players will seek out combat as a first choice.

 

[Clint_L]

I think a lot of these simulationist rules are vestigial, but they are easy enough to ignore, and it’s okay to have them around for players who like a more hardcore game. More of them could be made optional so as not to confuse newer players.

 

[GobHag]

I agree that the rules (and the benefits from levelling up) are still largely about combat. Arguably this is still a failure state in play, and 'good play' is presumed to involve avoiding combat where possible

Well that's a ludicrous opinion in my eyes. Imagine if a stealth game's progression makes your skin more bulletproof and your guns bigger and explodier but treats anytime you get into a gunfight as a failure in play.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

I suppose I don't actually know what constitutes modern heroic fantasy if even Tolkien (including the films) is outside of it!

Depends what you think of when you envision the world of Tolkien. Modern DnD heroic fantasy has every character being Legolas, Gandalf, Galadriel, etc. Ridiculously powerful characters are certainly part of Tolkien's world, although the story mostly focuses on the less powerful characters, so when I think of a "Tolkien simulation" I would envision something much more nitty gritty survivalist than heroic fantasy

 

[Horwath]

We expanded darkvision penalties to everything that can be tied to clear vision,
Perception, Survival, Investigation, Insight, all craft checks, Thief tools,

Darkvision is basically, here, you can fight without penalties.

 

[Remathilis]

You're disagreeing with something I didn't say. GP = XP doesn't make the game about getting gold. It (without a corresponding weight of kills = XP) makes the game about solving the dungeon without necessarily fighting the dungeon.

I agree that the rules (and the benefits from levelling up) are still largely about combat. Arguably this is still a failure state in play, and 'good play' is presumed to involve avoiding combat where possible, so this is intended as additional protection when things go wrong rather than necessarily an incentive or expectation that players will seek out combat as a first choice.

And yet, if D&D is about "solving the dungeon", it rarely happens any other way but combat. You got any stories about the Oceans Eleven style adventure where a group breaks in to the Steadying of the Hill Giants and sneaks past every guard to get their treasure. Or tell me about the group that successfully negotiated with all the monstrous denizens of the Caves of Chaos to hand over their treasure peacefully.

D&D has at best three classes that are built to handle the exploration and social elements of the game and a flat load of them to handle the combat side. The game actively discourages sneaking as a way to solve encounters (with heavy limitations on stealth, invisibility and surprise to avoid killing foes before acting, which should be encouraged if combat is a fail state) and most social encounters barely go deeper than a charisma check or a charm spell.

Yes, you can create nonviolent scenarios (When a Star Falls and Wild Beyond the Witchlight are both designed where combat is unnecessary) but most D&D adventures from Keep on the Borderlands onwards may pay lip service to the idea that combat should be undertaken lightly, but then provides no real alternative to it.

 

[TiQuinn]

And yet, if D&D is about "solving the dungeon", it rarely happens any other way but combat. You got any stories about the Oceans Eleven style adventure where a group breaks in to the Steadying of the Hill Giants and sneaks past every guard to get their treasure. Or tell me about the group that successfully negotiated with all the monstrous denizens of the Caves of Chaos to hand over their treasure peacefully.

D&D has at best three classes that are built to handle the exploration and social elements of the game and a flat load of them to handle the combat side. The game actively discourages sneaking as a way to solve encounters (with heavy limitations on stealth, invisibility and surprise to avoid killing foes before acting, which should be encouraged if combat is a fail state) and most social encounters barely go deeper than a charisma check or a charm spell.

Yes, you can create nonviolent scenarios (When a Star Falls and Wild Beyond the Witchlight are both designed where combat is unnecessary) but most D&D adventures from Keep on the Borderlands onwards may pay lip service to the idea that combat should be undertaken lightly, but then provides no real alternative to it.

Yeah, I think there were more rules in the early edition to support the idea that the game wasn’t supposed to be about combat per se - 1e and 2e have stronger exploration “pillars” than 5e, IMO.

But if the published modules are an indication - people liked combat even from the early days of the hobby. I think one example of a published module that discourages combat that hasn’t been mentioned is Tomb of Horror. There’s only about 2 or 3 encounters in the module, and the final encounter with the demilich can be avoided entirely, but if it’s triggered, it’s almost certain to go bad for the party.

 

[Remathilis]

Yeah, I think there were more rules in the early edition to support the idea that the game wasn’t supposed to be about combat per se - 1e and 2e have stronger exploration “pillars” than 5e, IMO..

I think even then the exploration pillar was mostly afterthought. Classic D&D had exactly one class that could sneak around: the Thief, and for the majority of his campaign live, he wasn't really good at it. (Those percentages were too low). The fighter wasn't sneaking around. Neither was the cleric. The magic-user might if he blows a spell on invisibility, but the first time he does anything but walk he's out of stealth juice. If anything, the fact they decided Rogues should be good at their skills (via things like expertise and skill mastery) and the fact other classes can get stealth skills and access to illusion magic in 5e finally means you CAN run Oceans Eleven in D&D without everyone being a single class.

 

[TiQuinn]

I think even then the exploration pillar was mostly afterthought. Classic D&D had exactly one class that could sneak around: the Thief, and for the majority of his campaign live, he wasn't really good at it. (Those percentages were too low). The fighter wasn't sneaking around. Neither was the cleric. The magic-user might if he blows a spell on invisibility, but the first time he does anything but walk he's out of stealth juice. If anything, the fact they decided Rogues should be good at their skills (via things like expertise and skill mastery) and the fact other classes can get stealth skills and access to illusion magic in 5e finally means you CAN run Oceans Eleven in D&D without everyone being a single class.

But you also had more spells that had little to do with combat or were useful outside of it: Push, Read Magic, Audible Glamer, ESP, Forget, and the myriad Detection spells. You had racial abilities like Detect Slope, Detect Traps, Detect Concealed Doors, Determine Direction, etc.

High stats in Strength and Dexterity didn’t really impact your ability to fight unless they were at least 16 - Strength was more about carrying capacity primarily.

It’s not to say that combat wasn’t still a feature, but there was more exploration in the early days than later editions where I think it became more of a fig leaf.