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Violence and D&D: Is "Murderhobo" Essential to D&D?
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<blockquote data-quote="GreenTengu" data-source="post: 8021292" data-attributes="member: 6777454"><p>The whole D&D mechanics system is primarily about combat. That was incredibly true in the earliest editions where there was hardly a single space on the entire character sheet that did not relate entirely to combat, and the "thief skills" section that involved most of the non-combat actions one could take and still roll a die, were primarily only used by a single class.</p><p></p><p>Even once skill points became part of the game-- that was simply one roll to resolve things, pass or fail, just a single roll. There were complaints that if one boosted their Diplomacy as much as possible that, with a single roll, they could get people whose fundamental role in the story to become extraordinarily helpful in ways that just didn't make a whole lot of narrative sense and undermined a ton of the story.</p><p></p><p>You compare that to combat where round after round, a character has to choose from their array of skills or weapons or spells, roll die and the outcome will generally only result in some portion of a single one of the enemies' hitpoints being reduced. And all players in the game have some sort of combat skills, some die that they can roll to affect the outcome of the combat and combats generally last 5-6 rounds, which in a group of 5 players means that the players each got to take 5-6 actions, at least, in order to determine the outcome of the combat. And most of those actions would come with clearly spelled out narratives about exactly what was happening.</p><p></p><p>4E tried to introduce skill challenges, but they never felt nearly as organic as combat. You needed a certain amount of "passes" to succeed in the skill challenge, and arguably the same is true with combat, but the whole narrative aspect of just how much or how little you have made progress with that success could never really exist in skill challenges the way they do in combat.</p><p></p><p>So even if enemies dropped no XP, even if there were generally no rewards that directly improved the stats of your character as a result, then players would almost certainly still seek out combat because combat is the one part of the entire game where virtually all the cool skills and abilities that their class grants them can actually be used.</p><p></p><p>And, yes, 5E has a number of class features, and certainly spells, that are virtually entirely non-combat focused-- but then those tend to be limited to only a few classes and often only to very specific circumstances. So although you might have a class that can be super cool in circumstance X-- if none of the other classes can even contribute in that circumstance, then none of the other players are going to be able to contribute in that circumstance and so the DM isn't going to be encouraged to make that circumstance occur during the course of the game.</p><p></p><p>But, combat? Combat is where everyone, simply by being of one of the classes that exists within Dungeons and Dragons, has uniquely designed abilities that they can use and contribute to the groups' success.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="GreenTengu, post: 8021292, member: 6777454"] The whole D&D mechanics system is primarily about combat. That was incredibly true in the earliest editions where there was hardly a single space on the entire character sheet that did not relate entirely to combat, and the "thief skills" section that involved most of the non-combat actions one could take and still roll a die, were primarily only used by a single class. Even once skill points became part of the game-- that was simply one roll to resolve things, pass or fail, just a single roll. There were complaints that if one boosted their Diplomacy as much as possible that, with a single roll, they could get people whose fundamental role in the story to become extraordinarily helpful in ways that just didn't make a whole lot of narrative sense and undermined a ton of the story. You compare that to combat where round after round, a character has to choose from their array of skills or weapons or spells, roll die and the outcome will generally only result in some portion of a single one of the enemies' hitpoints being reduced. And all players in the game have some sort of combat skills, some die that they can roll to affect the outcome of the combat and combats generally last 5-6 rounds, which in a group of 5 players means that the players each got to take 5-6 actions, at least, in order to determine the outcome of the combat. And most of those actions would come with clearly spelled out narratives about exactly what was happening. 4E tried to introduce skill challenges, but they never felt nearly as organic as combat. You needed a certain amount of "passes" to succeed in the skill challenge, and arguably the same is true with combat, but the whole narrative aspect of just how much or how little you have made progress with that success could never really exist in skill challenges the way they do in combat. So even if enemies dropped no XP, even if there were generally no rewards that directly improved the stats of your character as a result, then players would almost certainly still seek out combat because combat is the one part of the entire game where virtually all the cool skills and abilities that their class grants them can actually be used. And, yes, 5E has a number of class features, and certainly spells, that are virtually entirely non-combat focused-- but then those tend to be limited to only a few classes and often only to very specific circumstances. So although you might have a class that can be super cool in circumstance X-- if none of the other classes can even contribute in that circumstance, then none of the other players are going to be able to contribute in that circumstance and so the DM isn't going to be encouraged to make that circumstance occur during the course of the game. But, combat? Combat is where everyone, simply by being of one of the classes that exists within Dungeons and Dragons, has uniquely designed abilities that they can use and contribute to the groups' success. [/QUOTE]
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