It ain't entirely dependent on edition. But as you yourself even mention we have seen more and more focus on balance and seen it prioritized in the development of the rules.
I don't think this is really true, I know this is something the developers say all the time, but the game is balanced using these odd ideologies that are in a constant upswing. For example they will make Wizards more powerful, so in turn they have to make fighters more powerful and then they have to make Monks more powerful which in turn means Druids need to be upgrade dand by then they are back to making Wizards even more powerful and so on and so forth, always in response to player complaints about how OP X class is compared to Y...
No one ever thinks, ok, lets trim this the other way. The reason they don't do that is D&D culture which has become so player centric with so little regard to the people running the games behind the screen that at this point, the idea of an AI DM and just cutting the job out entirely is starting to look pretty good. It's really not that fun to be a DM when running the game these days, its more like this burden of trying to keep the game from falling off the rails and all people are doing is just following the rules as written, so you can't exactly complain to the players even though, strictly speaking they are collectively the root cause.
This is why, I don't even consult players at my table about the very stiff changes I make to the game. Like every campaign I run, I gut the crap out of the power levels of the game. I take a lot of crap for it, but people always come back to my table and the reason is that my games run well, they run long and I produce a good experience. I don't think its possible to do it with the rules as written.
The reality is that the game is CRAZY OP at this point as written, it isn't even power fantasy anymore, we've had to invent an entirely new scale to describe your average D&D character. It's so far removed from the D&D medieval fantasy on which the game is based, its not even recognizable. Which is not to say I want to go back to Magic-Users with 1 spell, but the amount of design space between 1st edition AD&D Magic Users and Revised 5th edition Wizards is MASSIVE. I think there is a lot of middle ground we could find to bring the game back into a believable abstraction and a game that has sensible power levels.
It ain't entirely dependent on edition. But as you yourself even mention we have seen more and more focus on balance and seen it prioritized in the development of the rules.
I don't think this is really true, I know this is something the developers say all the time, but the game is balanced using these odd ideologies that are in a constant upswing. For example they will make Wizards more powerful, so in turn they have to make fighters more powerful and then they have to make Monks more powerful which in turn means Druids need to be upgrade dand by then they are back to making Wizards even more powerful and so on and so forth, always in response to player complaints about how OP X class is compared to Y...
No one ever thinks, ok, lets trim this the other way. The reason they don't do that is D&D culture which has become so player centric with so little regard to the people running the games behind the screen that at this point, the idea of an AI DM and just cutting the job out entirely is starting to look pretty good. It's really not that fun to be a DM when running the game these days, its more like this burden of trying to keep the game from falling off the rails and all people are doing is just following the rules as written, so you can't exactly complain to the players even though, strictly speaking they are collectively the root cause.
This is why, I don't even consult players at my table about the very stiff changes I make to the game. Like every campaign I run, I gut the crap out of the power levels of the game. I take a lot of crap for it, but people always come back to my table and the reason is that my games run well, they run long and I produce a good experience. I don't think its possible to do it with the rules as written.
The reality is that the game is CRAZY OP at this point as written, it isn't even power fantasy anymore, we've had to invent an entirely new scale to describe your average D&D character. It's so far removed from the D&D medieval fantasy on which the game is based, its not even recognizable. Which is not to say I want to go back to Magic-Users with 1 spell, but the amount of design space between 1st edition AD&D Magic Users and Revised 5th edition Wizards is MASSIVE. I think there is a lot of middle ground we could find to bring the game back into a believable abstraction and a game that has sensible power levels.
You are right about that power creep. It is an endless stream of giving more to one class after another to achieve what is at least seen as balance.
The way people talk about older editions of D&D and how not "CRAZY OP" characters were back then you'd think no one had fun playing them. Even though they provided us with some of the most memorable gaming experiences of our lives. The 1981 Moldvay/Cook ruleset remains one of the most popular iterations of the game. Many a retro clone is based on it. And some people still play AD&D. But these "weren't fun" because one's character wasn't a superhero?
ShadowDark has received nothing but praise and promotion even from some of 5th. Edition's most visible advocates on YouTube. Because it has taken 5th. Edition and removed from it that power creep is just one of the many reasons for this.
There was a time when wizards could not just spam damage every round.
Yes, and it was bad. At low levels, you had a useless bozo you had to keep alive, and he could help once or twice, and then you've still got a useless bozo, except he no longer has his "break glass in case of emergency" ability ready. That's annoying for everyone, and not fun for the player, because they basically don't get to play most of the time.
The idea that everyone should be able to be at least moderately effective in combat at all times was just a straight-up improvement to the game.
And the Healer feat now very much allows any class to be an affective healer.
(goes to look at healer feat)
Ok....
I think the origin feats are more generally useful than some, but healer is not particularly good, and it never gets better. (The 2014 version is outright better, and there's no way anybody took it unless they were in a party that was completely lacking in healing abilities.)
I mean, dude isn't necessarily wrong when they said any class can be a dps. I played in a campaign for Journey to Ragnarok. Out of the "dps" classes (barbarian, ranger/warlock, fighter) that we had in the group, you want to know who was the bad-ass wrecking shop? My tiefling Hexblade/Pact of the Blade Warlock. Roleplay wise and mechanics wise, my character was the one on the frontline destroying the opposition. And this was before I added 2 levels of Paladin once he made level 5 in Warlock, which made him even more ridiculous. And to be fair, I have no problem with that and I'm not complaining. I do like that 5e allows players be more versatile and not lock characters into specific roles. But at the same time, my "caster class" was more of a Barbarian/Fighter than the actual Barbarian and Fighter? I mean...lol. It's kind of crazy.
The thing is, Warlock is a DPS class. More often ranged, but the melee build doesn't suck. Fighter and barb are less DPS and more tank, particularly barb. (These roles often overlap, of course, and are more complicated than 'Tank', 'DPS', etc.) If they hadn't been there on the front lines, it would've rapidly illustrated the difference, because Warlock can dish it out, but they can't take it.
It also depends on how they're being played. You were warlock, multiclassing into paladin. You were optimizing for what you did. Were your fellow players?
The classes all have things they're good at, and they can excel at those, but they can't cover the full spectrum. There's not infrequently a subclass that lets them play against type to a degree, but they're still not as good at it as the specialists. (You can make a bladesinger wizard, and fight on the front lines, but you're not as good at it as the fighter is, and will often be better off as you level by staying behind the front and wizarding.)
But part of the game's design goals is that everyone should have combat effectiveness, so everybody's capabilities includes "and can more-or-less handle themselves in fight in a mixed party".
(And the optimizing subculture really loves DPS as a measurement because it's quantifiable, so there are "if you try hard enough, you can do absurd damage" builds for all the classes.)
wotc could have learned some valuable game design lessons if their designers did not have "D&D 5e is the greatest ever" blinders on, and actually played other systems.
I guarantee, WotC's designers have a deeper knowledge of 5e's flaws and design compromises than you do, and each and every one of them has a long, long, list of "Things I would change if I had absolute power over D&D."
But that is not their job. Their job is to deliver more 5e. And 5e had specific design constraints and goals, and 5e24 is largely locked to the constraints of 5e.
Do they play other systems? I can't say, but it's likely; trying out a new RPG is a lot easier than a new CCG is. But that doesn't mean the things they learn from them can work their way back into 5e.
It also doesn't mean they're playing your games. Games that are designed to look backward bring them fewer new ideas. When the day comes for 6e, it's more likely to be informed by Blades in the Dark than ShadowDark.
Imagine a D&D game that adopted the Shadowdark casting mechanic where spell failure is possible every time a spell is cast, and the penalties are not trivial.
Why? I mean, sure, it's clearly a thing some people can enjoy, but do you really think arbitrary failure on your basic powers is a thing general audiences would find fun?
Also "the penalties are not trivial" reminds me of RoleMaster, where, if you fought long enough, you would eventually crit fumble badly enough to cut off your own limb. Or head. Maybe it's not that bad, but people don't like it when they get screwed purely by random chance.
Of course, introducing failure into a game system is not what Mr. crawford likes. One only has to watch his informercials about the newest system to understand that.
You have no idea what he likes. He's doing PR. It's part of his job. Of course he's talking up 5e like it's the best thing since sliced ochre jelly. For all you know, he's got a regular home shadowdark game with a 75% kill rate. But even if he does, it doesn't mean D&D will ever be that.
Last time I checked the "basic powers" of any martial class was its prowess when it came to melee or ranged combat and the dice determine whether or not you are going to succeed or fail in that regard.
On a more serious note I would argue that the possibility of spell failure brings magic much more in line with how it works in fantasy fiction where we see users of magic often fail to cast.
I would also argue that there being consequences when spell failure is critical in nature makes magic look and feel more like magic instead of just superpowers at a character's disposal.
The DM's house rules in a campaign I played in that lasted three years saw Roll to Cast introduced into what was for all intents and purposes a 5E campaign. Not only did a fail mean the spell failed to cast but one's degree of success on a successful roll could mean the effects of the spell were more powerful. This made magic less predictable—and in turn less dull. One of the reasons a lot of players became burned out on 5E is because of how predictable it can be. Short of having a DM who is going to tinker with the rules as written everyone knows not only what this or that spell will do but what this or that class will get at any given level et cetera et cetera et cetera.
Do you not think "general audiences" would warm to the idea of making a roll to cast if a very good result meant the spell delivered more damage or grew in range or area or lasted longer or even indefinitely?
That's half the fun of DCC. And I bet if Wizards introduced that into official D&D tomorrow people would be singing from the rooftops about how brilliant it is.
Last time I checked the "basic powers" of any martial class was its prowess when it came to melee or ranged combat and the dice determine whether or not you are going to succeed or fail in that regard.
On a more serious note I would argue that the possibility of spell failure brings magic much more in line with how it works in fantasy fiction where we see users of magic often fail to cast.
I would also argue that there being consequences when spell failure is critical in nature makes magic look and feel more like magic instead of just superpowers at a character's disposal.
The DM's house rules in a campaign I played in that lasted three years saw Roll to Cast introduced into what was for all intents and purposes a 5E campaign. Not only did a fail mean the spell failed to cast but one's degree of success on a successful roll could mean the effects of the spell were more powerful. This made magic less predictable—and in turn less dull. One of the reasons a lot of players became burned out on 5E is because of how predictable it can be. Short of having a DM who is going to tinker with the rules as written everyone knows not only what this or that spell will do but what this or that class will get at any given level et cetera et cetera et cetera.
Do you not think "general audiences" would warm to the idea of making a roll to cast if a very good result meant the spell delivered more damage or grew in range or area or lasted longer or even indefinitely?
That's half the fun of DCC. And I bet if Wizards introduced that into official D&D tomorrow people would be singing from the rooftops about how brilliant it is.
Roll to cast is definitely a rule I have been considering for my next chronicle, but I'm still a bit on the fence about it. I agree with you from the stand point of fiction and fantasy, I agree that magic being dangerous and potentially failing is a cool theme, and sets a fun tone but I'm just not 100% sure its a good mechanic specifically in 5e, a game about high fantasy adventures.
Shadowdark has this mechanic but its a very different tone as one of the features of Shadowdark is that failure and higher-risk die rolls are a constant. It's a very dangerous game for every class and in a sense, magic without a chance of failure would actually be the most reliable weapon in the game. This is probably why designer added chance of failure to sort of bring the risk to the magic-user as well.
Just not 100% convinced that making magic in a high fantasy systems like 5e would bring it in line in terms of reliability equity. Like fighters in melee are very unlikely to miss their attacks, the success rates are very high and there are a lot of dice manipulation mechanics like advantage that are fairly easy to get for most classes that are mixing it up in melee's. I think if you brought chance of failure to magic, that would likely mean that the failure rate of casters would increase dramatically as many of their spells actually already have chances of failure between saving throws and ToHit rolls many spells come with. There aren't that many spells that guarantee their effects will go off in 5e, most have some sort of chance of failure already built in.
Roll to cast is definitely a rule I have been considering for my next chronicle, but I'm still a bit on the fence about it. I agree with you from the stand point of fiction and fantasy, I agree that magic being dangerous and potentially failing is a cool theme, and sets a fun tone but I'm just not 100% sure its a good mechanic specifically in 5e, a game about high fantasy adventures.
Shadowdark has this mechanic but its a very different tone as one of the features of Shadowdark is that failure and higher-risk die rolls are a constant. It's a very dangerous game for every class and in a sense, magic without a chance of failure would actually be the most reliable weapon in the game. This is probably why designer added chance of failure to sort of bring the risk to the magic-user as well.
Just not 100% convinced that making magic in a high fantasy systems like 5e would bring it in line in terms of reliability equity. Like fighters in melee are very unlikely to miss their attacks, the success rates are very high and there are a lot of dice manipulation mechanics like advantage that are fairly easy to get for most classes that are mixing it up in melee's. I think if you brought chance of failure to magic, that would likely mean that the failure rate of casters would increase dramatically as many of their spells actually already have chances of failure between saving throws and ToHit rolls many spells come with. There aren't that many spells that guarantee their effects will go off in 5e, most have some sort of chance of failure already built in.
ShadowDark handles magic really well. I much prefer having to roll to cast even if this means the possibility of the spell not even manifesting than having success or failure dependent on an attack roll or a save made by the spell's target like it is in 5E. And given the number of spells the average caster in 5E has at its disposal it can be a real pain having to remember how each one even works.
You do though make a good point about how this might not match the more high fantasy angle with which they have gone with 5E.
It really does come down to what people want at their tables. And we are spoiled for choice today with so many great games out there.
Last time I checked the "basic powers" of any martial class was its prowess when it came to melee or ranged combat and the dice determine whether or not you are going to succeed or fail in that regard.
On a more serious note I would argue that the possibility of spell failure brings magic much more in line with how it works in fantasy fiction where we see users of magic often fail to cast.
I would also argue that there being consequences when spell failure is critical in nature makes magic look and feel more like magic instead of just superpowers at a character's disposal.
The DM's house rules in a campaign I played in that lasted three years saw Roll to Cast introduced into what was for all intents and purposes a 5E campaign. Not only did a fail mean the spell failed to cast but one's degree of success on a successful roll could mean the effects of the spell were more powerful. This made magic less predictable—and in turn less dull. One of the reasons a lot of players became burned out on 5E is because of how predictable it can be. Short of having a DM who is going to tinker with the rules as written everyone knows not only what this or that spell will do but what this or that class will get at any given level et cetera et cetera et cetera.
Do you not think "general audiences" would warm to the idea of making a roll to cast if a very good result meant the spell delivered more damage or grew in range or area or lasted longer or even indefinitely?
That's half the fun of DCC. And I bet if Wizards introduced that into official D&D tomorrow people would be singing from the rooftops about how brilliant it is.
Roll to cast is definitely a rule I have been considering for my next chronicle, but I'm still a bit on the fence about it. I agree with you from the stand point of fiction and fantasy, I agree that magic being dangerous and potentially failing is a cool theme, and sets a fun tone but I'm just not 100% sure its a good mechanic specifically in 5e, a game about high fantasy adventures.
Shadowdark has this mechanic but its a very different tone as one of the features of Shadowdark is that failure and higher-risk die rolls are a constant. It's a very dangerous game for every class and in a sense, magic without a chance of failure would actually be the most reliable weapon in the game. This is probably why designer added chance of failure to sort of bring the risk to the magic-user as well.
Just not 100% convinced that making magic in a high fantasy systems like 5e would bring it in line in terms of reliability equity. Like fighters in melee are very unlikely to miss their attacks, the success rates are very high and there are a lot of dice manipulation mechanics like advantage that are fairly easy to get for most classes that are mixing it up in melee's. I think if you brought chance of failure to magic, that would likely mean that the failure rate of casters would increase dramatically as many of their spells actually already have chances of failure between saving throws and ToHit rolls many spells come with. There aren't that many spells that guarantee their effects will go off in 5e, most have some sort of chance of failure already built in.
WRT to failure rates in magic, it is not the concept that is flawed, but a question of implementation. Let;s work with the Shadowdark version. You cast a spell. Say it is a 1st level spell. If I remember correctly, the "DC" was 10 plus the spell level, so in this case, 11. A d20 is rolled against that number, and the PC's Int bonus was tacked on. Assuming a +3 to Int, that would mean a 65% chance of a 1st level spell working properly. I can't remember if the caster level was also added to that d20 roll, but it would make sense to. So, going with 5e stats, we could have a 4th level caster, with an 18 Int (+4), and now that DC 11 is going to succeed 90% of the time. Now, that almost trivializes the risk. But some modification to that mechanic would create a situation where casters could, and should, fail occasionally.
WRT to failure rates in magic, it is not the concept that is flawed, but a question of implementation. Let;s work with the Shadowdark version. You cast a spell. Say it is a 1st level spell. If I remember correctly, the "DC" was 10 plus the spell level, so in this case, 11. A d20 is rolled against that number, and the PC's Int bonus was tacked on. Assuming a +3 to Int, that would mean a 65% chance of a 1st level spell working properly. I can't remember if the caster level was also added to that d20 roll, but it would make sense to. So, going with 5e stats, we could have a 4th level caster, with an 18 Int (+4), and now that DC 11 is going to succeed 90% of the time. Now, that almost trivializes the risk. But some modification to that mechanic would create a situation where casters could, and should, fail occasionally.
Yeah I get that, but that is on top of the already built-in failure rates (saving throws, missing to hit rolls). Its a bit like adding a % miss chance to attacks on top the already existing to hit roll. Its sort of like a double penalty in many cases when it comes to magic in 5e.
WRT to failure rates in magic, it is not the concept that is flawed, but a question of implementation. Let;s work with the Shadowdark version. You cast a spell. Say it is a 1st level spell. If I remember correctly, the "DC" was 10 plus the spell level, so in this case, 11. A d20 is rolled against that number, and the PC's Int bonus was tacked on. Assuming a +3 to Int, that would mean a 65% chance of a 1st level spell working properly. I can't remember if the caster level was also added to that d20 roll, but it would make sense to. So, going with 5e stats, we could have a 4th level caster, with an 18 Int (+4), and now that DC 11 is going to succeed 90% of the time. Now, that almost trivializes the risk. But some modification to that mechanic would create a situation where casters could, and should, fail occasionally.
Yeah I get that, but that is on top of the already built-in failure rates (saving throws, missing to hit rolls). Its a bit like adding a % miss chance to attacks on top the already existing to hit roll. Its sort of like a double penalty in many cases when it comes to magic i
True. Any spell that has a "to-hit" mechanism already built in would be an issue. But oh so many spells are save or suck, or AoE. Frankly, many spells should not exist at all. M-U's in 1e, right through to 5e, still grow in power at an exponential rate, while other classes grow in power linearly. That has been discussed many times before. Bringing M-U's down a notch would improve 5e, and many other games.
As I already asked: Why does every single member of a party have to fight when combat breaks out? Is there absolutely nothing else a wizard could possibly do? Is there no utility spell that might be utilized to continue doing whatever the party were doing before they were attacked? Is there some compelling reason the wizard simply cannot avoid the fray to instead move beyond the location in which the fight is taking place and make itself useful there? Making every class combat-ready is an awfully myopic approach to a game with which there are really no limits to the stories we can tell at our tables. If every time combat breaks out every single member of the party enters combat mode that is about as two-dimensional as storytelling can get.
This is not a story. This is a game. This is a game that considers combat to be the most mechanically important part of the game. It deals with it far more granularly than it does anything else, so it consumes an enormous percentage of play time.
If a player regularly does not get to participate in the most significant part of the game, that is a problem of the design. The low-mid-level AD&D wizard had very few utility spells to even use, because they had to spend all their memorized spells for combat-related ones, because that was where the game was, and they had nothing else to do.
EDIT: I'm curious to know if you reckon it is "bad" and that everyone else in an adventuring party is "a useless bozo" when it's the party's most charismatic getting the party out of trouble say? Is it "bad" and is everyone else "a useless bozo" when a member of a party does something during "downtime" that does not concern others? Does everyone else in the party have to hold the rogue's hand as he or she navigates through some business with a guild with which he or she has become affiliated? Why is it just combat in which everyone must play an active role? Must fight? You don't think this overemphasizes the role of combat in a game that is about so much more?
If you're playing out your social interactions at even ten percent the level of mechanical granularity as combat, D&D is the wrong game for you.
Also, combat is regularly a whole-party endeavor. The wizards should be able to participate because they are there. When somebody wanders off to do a thing, nobody else is there. It's also typically short. If there's a lengthy solo thing going on, one tends to arrange for a side session for that player, so you don't have a lengthy period where not everyone is playing. (IIRC that's was a common complaint about older cyberpunk games, where the decker would be doing a separate thing from the rest of the team, and it led to lots of downtime for other players.)
Roleplaying social situations usually involves the other players, even if they're not the ones making the roll. They're there, doing their thing in-character. Maybe they're helping. Maybe they're hurting, but they're active.
WRT to failure rates in magic, it is not the concept that is flawed, but a question of implementation. Let;s work with the Shadowdark version. You cast a spell. Say it is a 1st level spell. If I remember correctly, the "DC" was 10 plus the spell level, so in this case, 11. A d20 is rolled against that number, and the PC's Int bonus was tacked on. Assuming a +3 to Int, that would mean a 65% chance of a 1st level spell working properly. I can't remember if the caster level was also added to that d20 roll, but it would make sense to. So, going with 5e stats, we could have a 4th level caster, with an 18 Int (+4), and now that DC 11 is going to succeed 90% of the time. Now, that almost trivializes the risk. But some modification to that mechanic would create a situation where casters could, and should, fail occasionally.
Yeah I get that, but that is on top of the already built-in failure rates (saving throws, missing to hit rolls). Its a bit like adding a % miss chance to attacks on top the already existing to hit roll. Its sort of like a double penalty in many cases when it comes to magic in 5e.
Easy fix: get rid of having casters having to make attack rolls or their targets having to make saves. You roll to cast and it works or it doesn't.
That is how ShadowDark handles spellcasting. The caster does not additionally have to make an attack roll and targets do not additionally have to make saves.
This streamlines spellcasting.
One of the beautiful things about 5E is the simplicity of its core mechanic. You want to do something. You are given a target number. You roll a d20. Add or subtract any modifiers. Meet or beat that target number. Done.
Were all spells handled as simply as requesting the caster make a roll it would be simpler. Expecting particularly new players to remember which spells require an attack roll and which ones require saves be made when wizards these days have more spells than necessary unnecessarily complicates things. I have been playing and running D&D for 41 years. And I laugh when people talk about all the unnecessary rules in AD&D. Because I had no trouble then remembering everything to be remembered about one of my players' characters without consulting the rules. Fewer spells that would be in a character's arsenal. Now there is constant page-turning to be reminded how any one spell might work in that regard. Even other DMs I know and with whom I have played have found this to be the case. Constant page-turning at their tables. Or constantly having to look up this or that spell online.
You yourself admit a spell already has a chance of failure. If an attack roll or save is needed. Why not eliminate that and just replace it with something simpler?
Easy fix: get rid of having casters having to make attack rolls or their targets having to make saves. You roll to cast and it works or it doesn't.
Static target numbers that don't depend on the traits of the target are bad, and if you are making the TN depend on target traits... it's an attack roll.
As I already asked: Why does every single member of a party have to fight when combat breaks out? Is there absolutely nothing else a wizard could possibly do? Is there no utility spell that might be utilized to continue doing whatever the party were doing before they were attacked? Is there some compelling reason the wizard simply cannot avoid the fray to instead move beyond the location in which the fight is taking place and make itself useful there? Making every class combat-ready is an awfully myopic approach to a game with which there are really no limits to the stories we can tell at our tables. If every time combat breaks out every single member of the party enters combat mode that is about as two-dimensional as storytelling can get.
This is not a story. This is a game. This is a game that considers combat to be the most mechanically important part of the game. It deals with it far more granularly than it does anything else, so it consumes an enormous percentage of play time.
If a player regularly does not get to participate in the most significant part of the game, that is a problem of the design. The low-mid-level AD&D wizard had very few utility spells to even use, because they had to spend all their memorized spells for combat-related ones, because that was where the game was, and they had nothing else to do.
EDIT: I'm curious to know if you reckon it is "bad" and that everyone else in an adventuring party is "a useless bozo" when it's the party's most charismatic getting the party out of trouble say? Is it "bad" and is everyone else "a useless bozo" when a member of a party does something during "downtime" that does not concern others? Does everyone else in the party have to hold the rogue's hand as he or she navigates through some business with a guild with which he or she has become affiliated? Why is it just combat in which everyone must play an active role? Must fight? You don't think this overemphasizes the role of combat in a game that is about so much more?
If you're playing out your social interactions at even ten percent the level of mechanical granularity as combat, D&D is the wrong game for you.
Also, combat is regularly a whole-party endeavor. The wizards should be able to participate because they are there. When somebody wanders off to do a thing, nobody else is there. It's also typically short. If there's a lengthy solo thing going on, one tends to arrange for a side session for that player, so you don't have a lengthy period where not everyone is playing. (IIRC that's was a common complaint about older cyberpunk games, where the decker would be doing a separate thing from the rest of the team, and it led to lots of downtime for other players.)
Roleplaying social situations usually involves the other players, even if they're not the ones making the roll. They're there, doing their thing in-character. Maybe they're helping. Maybe they're hurting, but they're active.
I cannot know how new to D&D you are—for all I know you have been playing for decades—but this idea that the game is mostly about fighting is a new phenomenon as that was simply not the case prior to 3rd. Edition. But even today not all games played are saturated with combat. It's funny that one of the criticisms leveled against so many rules-light games is that they just don't have the rules to allow for much more than fighting monsters and obtaining treasure. When that is pretty much what you are saying 5E is really about.
Are you forgetting my having mentioned domain-level play and how this used to be given greater attention? What do you think most gaming groups playing AD&D did back in the day with their high-level campaigns? Do you think they just went on fighting things for gold and glory?
I have played in campaigns that stretched into aeons in which little to no all-out combat took place. Because they were more about intrigue et cetera. There were published adventure modules back in the day geared towards this type of game. You need to stop acting as if you speak for the game itself and know what it considers most important when what you really mean is you are one of those players who tires easily if there is no combat in any given session.
The more and more the game has become a combat game—which we first saw with the advent of the 3rd. Edition—with barely a story stringing together combat sequences like in the worst of MCU movies the less and less it has been about story. But you suggesting it is not as if it has never been about telling a story is laughable:
Those who pioneered table-top role-playing games did so by taking what were just combat games—wargames—and asking themselves what are the stories of each and every one of these miniatures? Why can't they have lives? Histories? Personalities? Why cant they do things outside of their just fighting?
If you love combat so much and don't care for story why not just roll up characters and stage tournaments between them and monsters?
EDIT: I remember when 3rd. Edition first dropped. It was the first of the editions to assume combat would be resolved using miniatures and this not just being something that might be done but that was entirely unnecessary given theatre of the mind would suffice. The language used to describe combat was more wargame-y. Instead of more abstract. I remember well at the time how many said Wizards were turning D&D into a wargame. A combat simulation game. How this broke with the spirit of the game as an exercise in theater of the mind and one that could be of emergent storytelling when things like sandboxes were used and not just linear and scripted adventures. The idea that combat is oh-so-important to the game and that a game of D&D is not or never has been more about weaving a story is preposterous.
Easy fix: get rid of having casters having to make attack rolls or their targets having to make saves. You roll to cast and it works or it doesn't.
Static target numbers that don't depend on the traits of the target are bad, and if you are making the TN depend on target traits... it's an attack roll.
You have a tendency to use the word "bad" as if you are the grand arbiter of what is good in good design. Like you expect us to just lose memories of having played D&D at a time when casters had fewer spells and would run out of them—You know? Like they did in the Vance novels that once inspired how magic worked in the game?—and insist those experiences must have been "bad." For everyone.
ShadowDark took home four ENNIEs including the one for best rules. The praise and promotion the game has received is practically unprecedented among games not called D&D. But we are supposed to believe how it handles magic is "bad" ... because you say so?
Easy fix: get rid of having casters having to make attack rolls or their targets having to make saves. You roll to cast and it works or it doesn't.
Static target numbers that don't depend on the traits of the target are bad, and if you are making the TN depend on target traits... it's an attack roll.
I just flipped open my 1e PHB, for Magic User spells. There are 30 first level, 24 second level , and 24 third level spells. NONE of them have an attack roll associated with them. Some of them require the target to make a spell save. In fact, pretty sure all caster spells in 1e and 2e did not have an attack roll component. It would have been easy for the game designers to simplify casting back to this methodology, while incorporating a dead simple roll for success mechanic. But that would require admitting they are creating a new edition, as it would rewrite everything spell-like. A simpler game, with far less caster options, and far less spells, is a better option to gather in new players.
As I already asked: Why does every single member of a party have to fight when combat breaks out? Is there absolutely nothing else a wizard could possibly do? Is there no utility spell that might be utilized to continue doing whatever the party were doing before they were attacked? Is there some compelling reason the wizard simply cannot avoid the fray to instead move beyond the location in which the fight is taking place and make itself useful there? Making every class combat-ready is an awfully myopic approach to a game with which there are really no limits to the stories we can tell at our tables. If every time combat breaks out every single member of the party enters combat mode that is about as two-dimensional as storytelling can get.
This is not a story. This is a game. This is a game that considers combat to be the most mechanically important part of the game. It deals with it far more granularly than it does anything else, so it consumes an enormous percentage of play time.
If a player regularly does not get to participate in the most significant part of the game, that is a problem of the design. The low-mid-level AD&D wizard had very few utility spells to even use, because they had to spend all their memorized spells for combat-related ones, because that was where the game was, and they had nothing else to do.
EDIT: I'm curious to know if you reckon it is "bad" and that everyone else in an adventuring party is "a useless bozo" when it's the party's most charismatic getting the party out of trouble say? Is it "bad" and is everyone else "a useless bozo" when a member of a party does something during "downtime" that does not concern others? Does everyone else in the party have to hold the rogue's hand as he or she navigates through some business with a guild with which he or she has become affiliated? Why is it just combat in which everyone must play an active role? Must fight? You don't think this overemphasizes the role of combat in a game that is about so much more?
If you're playing out your social interactions at even ten percent the level of mechanical granularity as combat, D&D is the wrong game for you.
Also, combat is regularly a whole-party endeavor. The wizards should be able to participate because they are there. When somebody wanders off to do a thing, nobody else is there. It's also typically short. If there's a lengthy solo thing going on, one tends to arrange for a side session for that player, so you don't have a lengthy period where not everyone is playing. (IIRC that's was a common complaint about older cyberpunk games, where the decker would be doing a separate thing from the rest of the team, and it led to lots of downtime for other players.)
Roleplaying social situations usually involves the other players, even if they're not the ones making the roll. They're there, doing their thing in-character. Maybe they're helping. Maybe they're hurting, but they're active.
I cannot know how new to D&D you are—for all I know you have been playing for decades—but this idea that the game is mostly about fighting is a new phenomenon as that was simply not the case prior to 3rd. Edition. But even today not all games played are saturated with combat. It's funny that one of the criticisms leveled against so many rules-light games is that they just don't have the rules to allow for much more than fighting monsters and obtaining treasure. When that is pretty much what you are saying 5E is really about.
Are you forgetting my having mentioned domain-level play and how this used to be given greater attention? What do you think most gaming groups playing AD&D did back in the day with their high-level campaigns? Do you think they just went on fighting things for gold and glory?
I have played in campaigns that stretched into aeons in which little to no all-out combat took place. Because they were more about intrigue et cetera. There were published adventure modules back in the day geared towards this type of game. You need to stop acting as if you speak for the game itself and know what it considers most important when what you really mean is you are one of those players who tires easily if there is no combat in any given session.
The more and more the game has become a combat game—which we first saw with the advent of the 3rd. Edition—with barely a story stringing together combat sequences like in the worst of MCU movies the less and less it has been about story. But you suggesting it is not as if it has never been about telling a story is laughable:
Those who pioneered table-top role-playing games did so by taking what were just combat games—wargames—and asking themselves what are the stories of each and every one of these miniatures? Why can't they have lives? Histories? Personalities? Why cant they do things outside of their just fighting?
If you love combat so much and don't care for story why not just roll up characters and stage tournaments between them and monsters?
I'm going to have to disagree here with the combat in ADnD part. Back in the day, there was just as much combat as there is here. At least with the people I played with. We ran literal dungeon crawls where we would be in combat for multiple sessions. This didn't take away from the story or roleplaying either. The DMs I played with were able to weave fascinating stories along with having a plethora of combat mixed into the campaign. And when we got into the high levels (15+), we still were out looking for gold, treasure and glory.
It doesn't have to be one or the other. It's all about what the players and the DM want from their campaigns. I ran a campaign for three years that had plenty of combat, complex stories with puzzles, romance, intrigue with solo sessions and everything in between. My players never complained because I ensured that I tailored my campaigns to what I know my players wanted from it. And the thing is, if a combat heavy campaign is what the players and the DM agree with and they are happy and having fun? I see nothing wrong with it.
*edit* The reason why I love DnD so much is the flexibility and the plethora of options that are available to play the game. DnD lets you play the game however you want and create stories and campaigns how you want it to be. For me, there isn't a right or wrong way to play. If a group wants to just hack and slash their way to glory? They can do that. If they just want to roleplay with no combat interactions? You can. If you want to play it like Splinter Cell with stealth missions and stories? You can :-)! And that's why I have loved this game since I started playing back in 86 and stuck with it till this day.
As I already asked: Why does every single member of a party have to fight when combat breaks out? Is there absolutely nothing else a wizard could possibly do? Is there no utility spell that might be utilized to continue doing whatever the party were doing before they were attacked? Is there some compelling reason the wizard simply cannot avoid the fray to instead move beyond the location in which the fight is taking place and make itself useful there? Making every class combat-ready is an awfully myopic approach to a game with which there are really no limits to the stories we can tell at our tables. If every time combat breaks out every single member of the party enters combat mode that is about as two-dimensional as storytelling can get.
This is not a story. This is a game. This is a game that considers combat to be the most mechanically important part of the game. It deals with it far more granularly than it does anything else, so it consumes an enormous percentage of play time.
If a player regularly does not get to participate in the most significant part of the game, that is a problem of the design. The low-mid-level AD&D wizard had very few utility spells to even use, because they had to spend all their memorized spells for combat-related ones, because that was where the game was, and they had nothing else to do.
EDIT: I'm curious to know if you reckon it is "bad" and that everyone else in an adventuring party is "a useless bozo" when it's the party's most charismatic getting the party out of trouble say? Is it "bad" and is everyone else "a useless bozo" when a member of a party does something during "downtime" that does not concern others? Does everyone else in the party have to hold the rogue's hand as he or she navigates through some business with a guild with which he or she has become affiliated? Why is it just combat in which everyone must play an active role? Must fight? You don't think this overemphasizes the role of combat in a game that is about so much more?
If you're playing out your social interactions at even ten percent the level of mechanical granularity as combat, D&D is the wrong game for you.
Also, combat is regularly a whole-party endeavor. The wizards should be able to participate because they are there. When somebody wanders off to do a thing, nobody else is there. It's also typically short. If there's a lengthy solo thing going on, one tends to arrange for a side session for that player, so you don't have a lengthy period where not everyone is playing. (IIRC that's was a common complaint about older cyberpunk games, where the decker would be doing a separate thing from the rest of the team, and it led to lots of downtime for other players.)
Roleplaying social situations usually involves the other players, even if they're not the ones making the roll. They're there, doing their thing in-character. Maybe they're helping. Maybe they're hurting, but they're active.
I cannot know how new to D&D you are—for all I know you have been playing for decades—but this idea that the game is mostly about fighting is a new phenomenon as that was simply not the case prior to 3rd. Edition. But even today not all games played are saturated with combat. It's funny that one of the criticisms leveled against so many rules-light games is that they just don't have the rules to allow for much more than fighting monsters and obtaining treasure. When that is pretty much what you are saying 5E is really about.
Are you forgetting my having mentioned domain-level play and how this used to be given greater attention? What do you think most gaming groups playing AD&D did back in the day with their high-level campaigns? Do you think they just went on fighting things for gold and glory?
I have played in campaigns that stretched into aeons in which little to no all-out combat took place. Because they were more about intrigue et cetera. There were published adventure modules back in the day geared towards this type of game. You need to stop acting as if you speak for the game itself and know what it considers most important when what you really mean is you are one of those players who tires easily if there is no combat in any given session.
The more and more the game has become a combat game—which we first saw with the advent of the 3rd. Edition—with barely a story stringing together combat sequences like in the worst of MCU movies the less and less it has been about story. But you suggesting it is not as if it has never been about telling a story is laughable:
Those who pioneered table-top role-playing games did so by taking what were just combat games—wargames—and asking themselves what are the stories of each and every one of these miniatures? Why can't they have lives? Histories? Personalities? Why cant they do things outside of their just fighting?
If you love combat so much and don't care for story why not just roll up characters and stage tournaments between them and monsters?
I'm going to have to disagree here with the combat in ADnD part. Back in the day, there was just as much combat as there is here. At least with the people I played with. We ran literal dungeon crawls where we would be in combat for multiple sessions. This didn't take away from the story or roleplaying either. The DMs I played with were able to weave fascinating stories along with having a plethora of combat mixed into the campaign. And when we got into the high levels (15+), we still were out looking for gold, treasure and glory.
It doesn't have to be one or the other. It's all about what the players and the DM want from their campaigns. I ran a campaign for three years that had plenty of combat, complex stories with puzzles, romance, intrigue with solo sessions and everything in between. My players never complained because I ensured that I tailored my campaigns to what I know my players wanted from it. And the thing is, if a combat heavy campaign is what the players and the DM agree with and they are happy and having fun? I see nothing wrong with it.
I would agree that the right approach is to steer the game towards what the players and the DM want out of a game.
Frankly I could not care less if a table strictly ran combat. I remember one Friday night in what would have been the early to mid '80s when friends of mine and I gambled real coin and just pitted different monsters against one another for fun.
But what you are saying goes both ways.
Someone here insisting that D&D is a combat-oriented game and that those of us who play or run games with combat but where it isn't the main feature of the game because story and characterization take precedence or even play or run games without combat are playing "the wrong game"? This is the poster whose position is the antithesis of what you are saying. But it is me to whom you respond.
EDIT: A three-year 5E campaign in which I played that started around the beginning of the pandemic saw the DM house rule things here and there for a more old-school feel. Also to achieve this it would not be uncommon for a whole four- or five-hour session to see no combat. Combat would make an appearance every second session or so. His sandbox world and how we interacted with it and the emergent storytelling this brought about is what mattered. He additionally ran a Western Marches-style game in the same world and what happened in those sessions impacted our ongoing campaign and vice-versa. This was how the people I played with back in the day would typically play. it is how the pioneers of the hobby would play. Epic story. That involved combat. And some of that combat even the most epic moments of the story. But it was never seen among us as being at all necessary to keep the game fun and interesting. Is it the one right way to play the game? No. There is no one right way to play the game. But don't pretend because there are more rules about how to resolve combat than there are how to oversee a dukedom or school others in magic or run a guild that these things are "secondary" to fight scenes and "always" have been.
As I already asked: Why does every single member of a party have to fight when combat breaks out? Is there absolutely nothing else a wizard could possibly do? Is there no utility spell that might be utilized to continue doing whatever the party were doing before they were attacked? Is there some compelling reason the wizard simply cannot avoid the fray to instead move beyond the location in which the fight is taking place and make itself useful there? Making every class combat-ready is an awfully myopic approach to a game with which there are really no limits to the stories we can tell at our tables. If every time combat breaks out every single member of the party enters combat mode that is about as two-dimensional as storytelling can get.
This is not a story. This is a game. This is a game that considers combat to be the most mechanically important part of the game. It deals with it far more granularly than it does anything else, so it consumes an enormous percentage of play time.
If a player regularly does not get to participate in the most significant part of the game, that is a problem of the design. The low-mid-level AD&D wizard had very few utility spells to even use, because they had to spend all their memorized spells for combat-related ones, because that was where the game was, and they had nothing else to do.
EDIT: I'm curious to know if you reckon it is "bad" and that everyone else in an adventuring party is "a useless bozo" when it's the party's most charismatic getting the party out of trouble say? Is it "bad" and is everyone else "a useless bozo" when a member of a party does something during "downtime" that does not concern others? Does everyone else in the party have to hold the rogue's hand as he or she navigates through some business with a guild with which he or she has become affiliated? Why is it just combat in which everyone must play an active role? Must fight? You don't think this overemphasizes the role of combat in a game that is about so much more?
If you're playing out your social interactions at even ten percent the level of mechanical granularity as combat, D&D is the wrong game for you.
Also, combat is regularly a whole-party endeavor. The wizards should be able to participate because they are there. When somebody wanders off to do a thing, nobody else is there. It's also typically short. If there's a lengthy solo thing going on, one tends to arrange for a side session for that player, so you don't have a lengthy period where not everyone is playing. (IIRC that's was a common complaint about older cyberpunk games, where the decker would be doing a separate thing from the rest of the team, and it led to lots of downtime for other players.)
Roleplaying social situations usually involves the other players, even if they're not the ones making the roll. They're there, doing their thing in-character. Maybe they're helping. Maybe they're hurting, but they're active.
I cannot know how new to D&D you are—for all I know you have been playing for decades—but this idea that the game is mostly about fighting is a new phenomenon as that was simply not the case prior to 3rd. Edition. But even today not all games played are saturated with combat. It's funny that one of the criticisms leveled against so many rules-light games is that they just don't have the rules to allow for much more than fighting monsters and obtaining treasure. When that is pretty much what you are saying 5E is really about.
Are you forgetting my having mentioned domain-level play and how this used to be given greater attention? What do you think most gaming groups playing AD&D did back in the day with their high-level campaigns? Do you think they just went on fighting things for gold and glory?
I have played in campaigns that stretched into aeons in which little to no all-out combat took place. Because they were more about intrigue et cetera. There were published adventure modules back in the day geared towards this type of game. You need to stop acting as if you speak for the game itself and know what it considers most important when what you really mean is you are one of those players who tires easily if there is no combat in any given session.
The more and more the game has become a combat game—which we first saw with the advent of the 3rd. Edition—with barely a story stringing together combat sequences like in the worst of MCU movies the less and less it has been about story. But you suggesting it is not as if it has never been about telling a story is laughable:
Those who pioneered table-top role-playing games did so by taking what were just combat games—wargames—and asking themselves what are the stories of each and every one of these miniatures? Why can't they have lives? Histories? Personalities? Why cant they do things outside of their just fighting?
If you love combat so much and don't care for story why not just roll up characters and stage tournaments between them and monsters?
I'm going to have to disagree here with the combat in ADnD part. Back in the day, there was just as much combat as there is here. At least with the people I played with. We ran literal dungeon crawls where we would be in combat for multiple sessions. This didn't take away from the story or roleplaying either. The DMs I played with were able to weave fascinating stories along with having a plethora of combat mixed into the campaign. And when we got into the high levels (15+), we still were out looking for gold, treasure and glory.
It doesn't have to be one or the other. It's all about what the players and the DM want from their campaigns. I ran a campaign for three years that had plenty of combat, complex stories with puzzles, romance, intrigue with solo sessions and everything in between. My players never complained because I ensured that I tailored my campaigns to what I know my players wanted from it. And the thing is, if a combat heavy campaign is what the players and the DM agree with and they are happy and having fun? I see nothing wrong with it.
I would agree that the right approach is to steer the game towards what the players and the DM want out of a game.
Frankly I could not care less if a table strictly ran combat. I remember one Friday night in what would have been the early to mid '80s when friends of mine and I gambled real coin and just pitted different monsters against one another for fun.
But what you are saying goes both ways.
Someone here insisting that D&D is a combat-oriented game and that those of us who play or run games with combat but where it isn't the main feature of the game because story and characterization take precedence or even play or run games without combat are playing "the wrong game"? This is the poster whose position is the antithesis of what you are saying. But it is me to whom you respond.
EDIT: A three-year 5E campaign in which I played that started around the beginning of the pandemic saw the DM house rule things here and there for a more old-school feel. Also to achieve this it would not be uncommon for a whole four- or five-hour session to see no combat. Combat would make an appearance every second session or so. His sandbox world and how we interacted with it and the emergent storytelling this brought about is what mattered. He additionally ran a Western Marches-style game in the same world and what happened in those sessions impacted our ongoing campaign and vice-versa. This was how the people I played with back in the day would typically play. Epic story. That involved combat. And some of that combat even the most epic moments of the story. But it was never seen among us as being at all necessary to keep the game fun and interesting.
I responded to you because I didn't agree with your premise that AD&D wasn't combat heavy back in the day. I just responded with my experince of what I saw and how we played back in the day that we did play combat heavy games, jsut like you say these young Thundercats do today lol. If I offended you with that, it wasn't intentional nor was I trying to call you out. But I do admit that I did miss this part of your reply: "But even today not all games played are saturated with combat." My bad.
And I don't believe that D&D is a primarily combat-oriented game. It can be if that's what the DM makes it. But it isn't the main point of the game.
As I already asked: Why does every single member of a party have to fight when combat breaks out? Is there absolutely nothing else a wizard could possibly do? Is there no utility spell that might be utilized to continue doing whatever the party were doing before they were attacked? Is there some compelling reason the wizard simply cannot avoid the fray to instead move beyond the location in which the fight is taking place and make itself useful there? Making every class combat-ready is an awfully myopic approach to a game with which there are really no limits to the stories we can tell at our tables. If every time combat breaks out every single member of the party enters combat mode that is about as two-dimensional as storytelling can get.
This is not a story. This is a game. This is a game that considers combat to be the most mechanically important part of the game. It deals with it far more granularly than it does anything else, so it consumes an enormous percentage of play time.
If a player regularly does not get to participate in the most significant part of the game, that is a problem of the design. The low-mid-level AD&D wizard had very few utility spells to even use, because they had to spend all their memorized spells for combat-related ones, because that was where the game was, and they had nothing else to do.
EDIT: I'm curious to know if you reckon it is "bad" and that everyone else in an adventuring party is "a useless bozo" when it's the party's most charismatic getting the party out of trouble say? Is it "bad" and is everyone else "a useless bozo" when a member of a party does something during "downtime" that does not concern others? Does everyone else in the party have to hold the rogue's hand as he or she navigates through some business with a guild with which he or she has become affiliated? Why is it just combat in which everyone must play an active role? Must fight? You don't think this overemphasizes the role of combat in a game that is about so much more?
If you're playing out your social interactions at even ten percent the level of mechanical granularity as combat, D&D is the wrong game for you.
Also, combat is regularly a whole-party endeavor. The wizards should be able to participate because they are there. When somebody wanders off to do a thing, nobody else is there. It's also typically short. If there's a lengthy solo thing going on, one tends to arrange for a side session for that player, so you don't have a lengthy period where not everyone is playing. (IIRC that's was a common complaint about older cyberpunk games, where the decker would be doing a separate thing from the rest of the team, and it led to lots of downtime for other players.)
Roleplaying social situations usually involves the other players, even if they're not the ones making the roll. They're there, doing their thing in-character. Maybe they're helping. Maybe they're hurting, but they're active.
I cannot know how new to D&D you are—for all I know you have been playing for decades—but this idea that the game is mostly about fighting is a new phenomenon as that was simply not the case prior to 3rd. Edition. But even today not all games played are saturated with combat. It's funny that one of the criticisms leveled against so many rules-light games is that they just don't have the rules to allow for much more than fighting monsters and obtaining treasure. When that is pretty much what you are saying 5E is really about.
Are you forgetting my having mentioned domain-level play and how this used to be given greater attention? What do you think most gaming groups playing AD&D did back in the day with their high-level campaigns? Do you think they just went on fighting things for gold and glory?
I have played in campaigns that stretched into aeons in which little to no all-out combat took place. Because they were more about intrigue et cetera. There were published adventure modules back in the day geared towards this type of game. You need to stop acting as if you speak for the game itself and know what it considers most important when what you really mean is you are one of those players who tires easily if there is no combat in any given session.
The more and more the game has become a combat game—which we first saw with the advent of the 3rd. Edition—with barely a story stringing together combat sequences like in the worst of MCU movies the less and less it has been about story. But you suggesting it is not as if it has never been about telling a story is laughable:
Those who pioneered table-top role-playing games did so by taking what were just combat games—wargames—and asking themselves what are the stories of each and every one of these miniatures? Why can't they have lives? Histories? Personalities? Why cant they do things outside of their just fighting?
If you love combat so much and don't care for story why not just roll up characters and stage tournaments between them and monsters?
I'm going to have to disagree here with the combat in ADnD part. Back in the day, there was just as much combat as there is here. At least with the people I played with. We ran literal dungeon crawls where we would be in combat for multiple sessions. This didn't take away from the story or roleplaying either. The DMs I played with were able to weave fascinating stories along with having a plethora of combat mixed into the campaign. And when we got into the high levels (15+), we still were out looking for gold, treasure and glory.
It doesn't have to be one or the other. It's all about what the players and the DM want from their campaigns. I ran a campaign for three years that had plenty of combat, complex stories with puzzles, romance, intrigue with solo sessions and everything in between. My players never complained because I ensured that I tailored my campaigns to what I know my players wanted from it. And the thing is, if a combat heavy campaign is what the players and the DM agree with and they are happy and having fun? I see nothing wrong with it.
I would agree that the right approach is to steer the game towards what the players and the DM want out of a game.
Frankly I could not care less if a table strictly ran combat. I remember one Friday night in what would have been the early to mid '80s when friends of mine and I gambled real coin and just pitted different monsters against one another for fun.
But what you are saying goes both ways.
Someone here insisting that D&D is a combat-oriented game and that those of us who play or run games with combat but where it isn't the main feature of the game because story and characterization take precedence or even play or run games without combat are playing "the wrong game"? This is the poster whose position is the antithesis of what you are saying. But it is me to whom you respond.
EDIT: A three-year 5E campaign in which I played that started around the beginning of the pandemic saw the DM house rule things here and there for a more old-school feel. Also to achieve this it would not be uncommon for a whole four- or five-hour session to see no combat. Combat would make an appearance every second session or so. His sandbox world and how we interacted with it and the emergent storytelling this brought about is what mattered. He additionally ran a Western Marches-style game in the same world and what happened in those sessions impacted our ongoing campaign and vice-versa. This was how the people I played with back in the day would typically play. Epic story. That involved combat. And some of that combat even the most epic moments of the story. But it was never seen among us as being at all necessary to keep the game fun and interesting.
I responded to you because I didn't agree with your premise that AD&D wasn't combat heavy back in the day. I just responded with my experince of what I saw and how we played back in the day that we did play combat heavy games, jsut like you say these young Thundercats do today lol. If I offended you with that, it wasn't intentional nor was I trying to call you out. But I do admit that I did miss this part of your reply: "But even today not all games played are saturated with combat." My bad.
And I don't believe that D&D is a primarily combat-oriented game. It can be if that's what the DM makes it. But it isn't the main point of the game.
Got it. And no offense taken.
Combat is—or rather can be—fun. I ain't going to judge tables who crave combat in their games and run more combat-heavy games. They're having fun. And that's really what it's all about. I would imagine however many players craving it while many DMs are trying to make their games about so much more given the time and effort many put into their settings and into the NPCs who populate them is one of a number of reasons the hobby is facing a DM shortage. Who hasn't seen in a game a situation in which a player just wants to start a fight during some encounter in which combat could be avoided because the player has grown bored because the player isn't at all interested in much of anything but combat? Sits staring at his or her phone and not paying all that much attention to what is going on until a fight has broken out? Short of that player being in one of those combat-heavy games and this being accommodated that is what we call a perfect example of a problem player. I guess the solution there is making sure we find tables conducive to our preferred style of play.
I cannot know how new to D&D you are—for all I know you have been playing for decades—but this idea that the game is mostly about fighting is a new phenomenon as that was simply not the case prior to 3rd. Edition.
It's not new, nor is it something that has gotten more pronounced over the years. The whole concept of original D&D was that the PCs were assaulting a dungeon (hence the name, and the title of 'dungeon master'). They had discretion about how they went about it, but the vast majority of options involved combat. Sure, actual campaigns could have plenty of roleplaying, but it wasn't particularly mechanically supported by the game system, nor was it a focus of published adventures (Keep on the Borderlands doesn't even bother to give NPCs names).
Now, later editions do have a greater focus on set-piece fights and splitting the monsters into distinct encounters (the Caves of Chaos had extensive notes on monsters running for reinforcements) but it's historical revisionism to think that original D&D wasn't focused on combat.
As I already asked: Why does every single member of a party have to fight when combat breaks out? Is there absolutely nothing else a wizard could possibly do? Is there no utility spell that might be utilized to continue doing whatever the party were doing before they were attacked? Is there some compelling reason the wizard simply cannot avoid the fray to instead move beyond the location in which the fight is taking place and make itself useful there? Making every class combat-ready is an awfully myopic approach to a game with which there are really no limits to the stories we can tell at our tables. If every time combat breaks out every single member of the party enters combat mode that is about as two-dimensional as storytelling can get.
This is not a story. This is a game. This is a game that considers combat to be the most mechanically important part of the game. It deals with it far more granularly than it does anything else, so it consumes an enormous percentage of play time.
If a player regularly does not get to participate in the most significant part of the game, that is a problem of the design. The low-mid-level AD&D wizard had very few utility spells to even use, because they had to spend all their memorized spells for combat-related ones, because that was where the game was, and they had nothing else to do.
EDIT: I'm curious to know if you reckon it is "bad" and that everyone else in an adventuring party is "a useless bozo" when it's the party's most charismatic getting the party out of trouble say? Is it "bad" and is everyone else "a useless bozo" when a member of a party does something during "downtime" that does not concern others? Does everyone else in the party have to hold the rogue's hand as he or she navigates through some business with a guild with which he or she has become affiliated? Why is it just combat in which everyone must play an active role? Must fight? You don't think this overemphasizes the role of combat in a game that is about so much more?
If you're playing out your social interactions at even ten percent the level of mechanical granularity as combat, D&D is the wrong game for you.
Also, combat is regularly a whole-party endeavor. The wizards should be able to participate because they are there. When somebody wanders off to do a thing, nobody else is there. It's also typically short. If there's a lengthy solo thing going on, one tends to arrange for a side session for that player, so you don't have a lengthy period where not everyone is playing. (IIRC that's was a common complaint about older cyberpunk games, where the decker would be doing a separate thing from the rest of the team, and it led to lots of downtime for other players.)
Roleplaying social situations usually involves the other players, even if they're not the ones making the roll. They're there, doing their thing in-character. Maybe they're helping. Maybe they're hurting, but they're active.
I cannot know how new to D&D you are—for all I know you have been playing for decades—but this idea that the game is mostly about fighting is a new phenomenon as that was simply not the case prior to 3rd. Edition. But even today not all games played are saturated with combat. It's funny that one of the criticisms leveled against so many rules-light games is that they just don't have the rules to allow for much more than fighting monsters and obtaining treasure. When that is pretty much what you are saying 5E is really about.
Are you forgetting my having mentioned domain-level play and how this used to be given greater attention? What do you think most gaming groups playing AD&D did back in the day with their high-level campaigns? Do you think they just went on fighting things for gold and glory?
I have played in campaigns that stretched into aeons in which little to no all-out combat took place. Because they were more about intrigue et cetera. There were published adventure modules back in the day geared towards this type of game. You need to stop acting as if you speak for the game itself and know what it considers most important when what you really mean is you are one of those players who tires easily if there is no combat in any given session.
The more and more the game has become a combat game—which we first saw with the advent of the 3rd. Edition—with barely a story stringing together combat sequences like in the worst of MCU movies the less and less it has been about story. But you suggesting it is not as if it has never been about telling a story is laughable:
Those who pioneered table-top role-playing games did so by taking what were just combat games—wargames—and asking themselves what are the stories of each and every one of these miniatures? Why can't they have lives? Histories? Personalities? Why cant they do things outside of their just fighting?
If you love combat so much and don't care for story why not just roll up characters and stage tournaments between them and monsters?
I'm going to have to disagree here with the combat in ADnD part. Back in the day, there was just as much combat as there is here. At least with the people I played with. We ran literal dungeon crawls where we would be in combat for multiple sessions. This didn't take away from the story or roleplaying either. The DMs I played with were able to weave fascinating stories along with having a plethora of combat mixed into the campaign. And when we got into the high levels (15+), we still were out looking for gold, treasure and glory.
It doesn't have to be one or the other. It's all about what the players and the DM want from their campaigns. I ran a campaign for three years that had plenty of combat, complex stories with puzzles, romance, intrigue with solo sessions and everything in between. My players never complained because I ensured that I tailored my campaigns to what I know my players wanted from it. And the thing is, if a combat heavy campaign is what the players and the DM agree with and they are happy and having fun? I see nothing wrong with it.
I would agree that the right approach is to steer the game towards what the players and the DM want out of a game.
Frankly I could not care less if a table strictly ran combat. I remember one Friday night in what would have been the early to mid '80s when friends of mine and I gambled real coin and just pitted different monsters against one another for fun.
But what you are saying goes both ways.
Someone here insisting that D&D is a combat-oriented game and that those of us who play or run games with combat but where it isn't the main feature of the game because story and characterization take precedence or even play or run games without combat are playing "the wrong game"? This is the poster whose position is the antithesis of what you are saying. But it is me to whom you respond.
EDIT: A three-year 5E campaign in which I played that started around the beginning of the pandemic saw the DM house rule things here and there for a more old-school feel. Also to achieve this it would not be uncommon for a whole four- or five-hour session to see no combat. Combat would make an appearance every second session or so. His sandbox world and how we interacted with it and the emergent storytelling this brought about is what mattered. He additionally ran a Western Marches-style game in the same world and what happened in those sessions impacted our ongoing campaign and vice-versa. This was how the people I played with back in the day would typically play. Epic story. That involved combat. And some of that combat even the most epic moments of the story. But it was never seen among us as being at all necessary to keep the game fun and interesting.
I responded to you because I didn't agree with your premise that AD&D wasn't combat heavy back in the day. I just responded with my experince of what I saw and how we played back in the day that we did play combat heavy games, jsut like you say these young Thundercats do today lol. If I offended you with that, it wasn't intentional nor was I trying to call you out. But I do admit that I did miss this part of your reply: "But even today not all games played are saturated with combat." My bad.
And I don't believe that D&D is a primarily combat-oriented game. It can be if that's what the DM makes it. But it isn't the main point of the game.
Got it. And no offense taken.
Combat is—or rather can be—fun. I ain't going to judge tables who crave combat in their games and run more combat-heavy games. They're having fun. And that's really what it's all about. I would imagine however many players craving it while many DMs are trying to make their games about so much more given the time and effort many put into their settings and into the NPCs who populate them is one of a number of reasons the hobby is facing a DM shortage. Who hasn't seen in a game a situation in which a player just wants to start a fight during some encounter in which combat could be avoided because the player has grown bored because the player isn't at all interested in much of anything but combat? Sits staring at his or her phone and not paying all that much attention to what is going on until a fight has broken out? Short of that player being in one of those combat-heavy games and this being accommodated that is what we call a perfect example of a problem player. I guess the solution there is making sure we find tables conducive to our preferred style of play.
I understand what you are saying. I have seen it for myself plenty of times. Even as recently as the Journey to Ragnarok campaign I mentioned earlier in the post. The person was new to D&D, but was anxious about the roleplaying aspect of it because they are an introvert and was afraid of making a mistake. We tried to be as accomodating as we could and she did try to make the effort. But she wasn't really interested until the combat came. When she went through her first combat scenario, she loved it and that's all she was interested in afterwards. Some people are jsut like that sometimes. She actually ended up dropping from the campaign cause she was bored from all the roleplaying we were doing. But I can understand how she feels. Some days that's all I want to do is just go through and wreck shop for the session lol. But I also agree with what you said about the DM putting in all that effort just for someone not to appreciate it. It's frustrating and disheartening.
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I don't think this is really true, I know this is something the developers say all the time, but the game is balanced using these odd ideologies that are in a constant upswing. For example they will make Wizards more powerful, so in turn they have to make fighters more powerful and then they have to make Monks more powerful which in turn means Druids need to be upgrade dand by then they are back to making Wizards even more powerful and so on and so forth, always in response to player complaints about how OP X class is compared to Y...
No one ever thinks, ok, lets trim this the other way. The reason they don't do that is D&D culture which has become so player centric with so little regard to the people running the games behind the screen that at this point, the idea of an AI DM and just cutting the job out entirely is starting to look pretty good. It's really not that fun to be a DM when running the game these days, its more like this burden of trying to keep the game from falling off the rails and all people are doing is just following the rules as written, so you can't exactly complain to the players even though, strictly speaking they are collectively the root cause.
This is why, I don't even consult players at my table about the very stiff changes I make to the game. Like every campaign I run, I gut the crap out of the power levels of the game. I take a lot of crap for it, but people always come back to my table and the reason is that my games run well, they run long and I produce a good experience. I don't think its possible to do it with the rules as written.
The reality is that the game is CRAZY OP at this point as written, it isn't even power fantasy anymore, we've had to invent an entirely new scale to describe your average D&D character. It's so far removed from the D&D medieval fantasy on which the game is based, its not even recognizable. Which is not to say I want to go back to Magic-Users with 1 spell, but the amount of design space between 1st edition AD&D Magic Users and Revised 5th edition Wizards is MASSIVE. I think there is a lot of middle ground we could find to bring the game back into a believable abstraction and a game that has sensible power levels.
You are right about that power creep. It is an endless stream of giving more to one class after another to achieve what is at least seen as balance.
The way people talk about older editions of D&D and how not "CRAZY OP" characters were back then you'd think no one had fun playing them. Even though they provided us with some of the most memorable gaming experiences of our lives. The 1981 Moldvay/Cook ruleset remains one of the most popular iterations of the game. Many a retro clone is based on it. And some people still play AD&D. But these "weren't fun" because one's character wasn't a superhero?
ShadowDark has received nothing but praise and promotion even from some of 5th. Edition's most visible advocates on YouTube. Because it has taken 5th. Edition and removed from it that power creep is just one of the many reasons for this.
Last time I checked the "basic powers" of any martial class was its prowess when it came to melee or ranged combat and the dice determine whether or not you are going to succeed or fail in that regard.
On a more serious note I would argue that the possibility of spell failure brings magic much more in line with how it works in fantasy fiction where we see users of magic often fail to cast.
I would also argue that there being consequences when spell failure is critical in nature makes magic look and feel more like magic instead of just superpowers at a character's disposal.
The DM's house rules in a campaign I played in that lasted three years saw Roll to Cast introduced into what was for all intents and purposes a 5E campaign. Not only did a fail mean the spell failed to cast but one's degree of success on a successful roll could mean the effects of the spell were more powerful. This made magic less predictable—and in turn less dull. One of the reasons a lot of players became burned out on 5E is because of how predictable it can be. Short of having a DM who is going to tinker with the rules as written everyone knows not only what this or that spell will do but what this or that class will get at any given level et cetera et cetera et cetera.
Do you not think "general audiences" would warm to the idea of making a roll to cast if a very good result meant the spell delivered more damage or grew in range or area or lasted longer or even indefinitely?
That's half the fun of DCC. And I bet if Wizards introduced that into official D&D tomorrow people would be singing from the rooftops about how brilliant it is.
Roll to cast is definitely a rule I have been considering for my next chronicle, but I'm still a bit on the fence about it. I agree with you from the stand point of fiction and fantasy, I agree that magic being dangerous and potentially failing is a cool theme, and sets a fun tone but I'm just not 100% sure its a good mechanic specifically in 5e, a game about high fantasy adventures.
Shadowdark has this mechanic but its a very different tone as one of the features of Shadowdark is that failure and higher-risk die rolls are a constant. It's a very dangerous game for every class and in a sense, magic without a chance of failure would actually be the most reliable weapon in the game. This is probably why designer added chance of failure to sort of bring the risk to the magic-user as well.
Just not 100% convinced that making magic in a high fantasy systems like 5e would bring it in line in terms of reliability equity. Like fighters in melee are very unlikely to miss their attacks, the success rates are very high and there are a lot of dice manipulation mechanics like advantage that are fairly easy to get for most classes that are mixing it up in melee's. I think if you brought chance of failure to magic, that would likely mean that the failure rate of casters would increase dramatically as many of their spells actually already have chances of failure between saving throws and ToHit rolls many spells come with. There aren't that many spells that guarantee their effects will go off in 5e, most have some sort of chance of failure already built in.
ShadowDark handles magic really well. I much prefer having to roll to cast even if this means the possibility of the spell not even manifesting than having success or failure dependent on an attack roll or a save made by the spell's target like it is in 5E. And given the number of spells the average caster in 5E has at its disposal it can be a real pain having to remember how each one even works.
You do though make a good point about how this might not match the more high fantasy angle with which they have gone with 5E.
It really does come down to what people want at their tables. And we are spoiled for choice today with so many great games out there.
WRT to failure rates in magic, it is not the concept that is flawed, but a question of implementation. Let;s work with the Shadowdark version. You cast a spell. Say it is a 1st level spell. If I remember correctly, the "DC" was 10 plus the spell level, so in this case, 11. A d20 is rolled against that number, and the PC's Int bonus was tacked on. Assuming a +3 to Int, that would mean a 65% chance of a 1st level spell working properly. I can't remember if the caster level was also added to that d20 roll, but it would make sense to. So, going with 5e stats, we could have a 4th level caster, with an 18 Int (+4), and now that DC 11 is going to succeed 90% of the time. Now, that almost trivializes the risk. But some modification to that mechanic would create a situation where casters could, and should, fail occasionally.
Yeah I get that, but that is on top of the already built-in failure rates (saving throws, missing to hit rolls). Its a bit like adding a % miss chance to attacks on top the already existing to hit roll. Its sort of like a double penalty in many cases when it comes to magic in 5e.
True. Any spell that has a "to-hit" mechanism already built in would be an issue. But oh so many spells are save or suck, or AoE. Frankly, many spells should not exist at all. M-U's in 1e, right through to 5e, still grow in power at an exponential rate, while other classes grow in power linearly. That has been discussed many times before. Bringing M-U's down a notch would improve 5e, and many other games.
This is not a story. This is a game. This is a game that considers combat to be the most mechanically important part of the game. It deals with it far more granularly than it does anything else, so it consumes an enormous percentage of play time.
If a player regularly does not get to participate in the most significant part of the game, that is a problem of the design. The low-mid-level AD&D wizard had very few utility spells to even use, because they had to spend all their memorized spells for combat-related ones, because that was where the game was, and they had nothing else to do.
If you're playing out your social interactions at even ten percent the level of mechanical granularity as combat, D&D is the wrong game for you.
Also, combat is regularly a whole-party endeavor. The wizards should be able to participate because they are there. When somebody wanders off to do a thing, nobody else is there. It's also typically short. If there's a lengthy solo thing going on, one tends to arrange for a side session for that player, so you don't have a lengthy period where not everyone is playing. (IIRC that's was a common complaint about older cyberpunk games, where the decker would be doing a separate thing from the rest of the team, and it led to lots of downtime for other players.)
Roleplaying social situations usually involves the other players, even if they're not the ones making the roll. They're there, doing their thing in-character. Maybe they're helping. Maybe they're hurting, but they're active.
Easy fix: get rid of having casters having to make attack rolls or their targets having to make saves. You roll to cast and it works or it doesn't.
That is how ShadowDark handles spellcasting. The caster does not additionally have to make an attack roll and targets do not additionally have to make saves.
This streamlines spellcasting.
One of the beautiful things about 5E is the simplicity of its core mechanic. You want to do something. You are given a target number. You roll a d20. Add or subtract any modifiers. Meet or beat that target number. Done.
Were all spells handled as simply as requesting the caster make a roll it would be simpler. Expecting particularly new players to remember which spells require an attack roll and which ones require saves be made when wizards these days have more spells than necessary unnecessarily complicates things. I have been playing and running D&D for 41 years. And I laugh when people talk about all the unnecessary rules in AD&D. Because I had no trouble then remembering everything to be remembered about one of my players' characters without consulting the rules. Fewer spells that would be in a character's arsenal. Now there is constant page-turning to be reminded how any one spell might work in that regard. Even other DMs I know and with whom I have played have found this to be the case. Constant page-turning at their tables. Or constantly having to look up this or that spell online.
You yourself admit a spell already has a chance of failure. If an attack roll or save is needed. Why not eliminate that and just replace it with something simpler?
Static target numbers that don't depend on the traits of the target are bad, and if you are making the TN depend on target traits... it's an attack roll.
I cannot know how new to D&D you are—for all I know you have been playing for decades—but this idea that the game is mostly about fighting is a new phenomenon as that was simply not the case prior to 3rd. Edition. But even today not all games played are saturated with combat. It's funny that one of the criticisms leveled against so many rules-light games is that they just don't have the rules to allow for much more than fighting monsters and obtaining treasure. When that is pretty much what you are saying 5E is really about.
Are you forgetting my having mentioned domain-level play and how this used to be given greater attention? What do you think most gaming groups playing AD&D did back in the day with their high-level campaigns? Do you think they just went on fighting things for gold and glory?
I have played in campaigns that stretched into aeons in which little to no all-out combat took place. Because they were more about intrigue et cetera. There were published adventure modules back in the day geared towards this type of game. You need to stop acting as if you speak for the game itself and know what it considers most important when what you really mean is you are one of those players who tires easily if there is no combat in any given session.
The more and more the game has become a combat game—which we first saw with the advent of the 3rd. Edition—with barely a story stringing together combat sequences like in the worst of MCU movies the less and less it has been about story. But you suggesting it is not as if it has never been about telling a story is laughable:
Those who pioneered table-top role-playing games did so by taking what were just combat games—wargames—and asking themselves what are the stories of each and every one of these miniatures? Why can't they have lives? Histories? Personalities? Why cant they do things outside of their just fighting?
If you love combat so much and don't care for story why not just roll up characters and stage tournaments between them and monsters?
EDIT: I remember when 3rd. Edition first dropped. It was the first of the editions to assume combat would be resolved using miniatures and this not just being something that might be done but that was entirely unnecessary given theatre of the mind would suffice. The language used to describe combat was more wargame-y. Instead of more abstract. I remember well at the time how many said Wizards were turning D&D into a wargame. A combat simulation game. How this broke with the spirit of the game as an exercise in theater of the mind and one that could be of emergent storytelling when things like sandboxes were used and not just linear and scripted adventures. The idea that combat is oh-so-important to the game and that a game of D&D is not or never has been more about weaving a story is preposterous.
You have a tendency to use the word "bad" as if you are the grand arbiter of what is good in good design. Like you expect us to just lose memories of having played D&D at a time when casters had fewer spells and would run out of them—You know? Like they did in the Vance novels that once inspired how magic worked in the game?—and insist those experiences must have been "bad." For everyone.
ShadowDark took home four ENNIEs including the one for best rules. The praise and promotion the game has received is practically unprecedented among games not called D&D. But we are supposed to believe how it handles magic is "bad" ... because you say so?
I just flipped open my 1e PHB, for Magic User spells. There are 30 first level, 24 second level , and 24 third level spells. NONE of them have an attack roll associated with them. Some of them require the target to make a spell save. In fact, pretty sure all caster spells in 1e and 2e did not have an attack roll component. It would have been easy for the game designers to simplify casting back to this methodology, while incorporating a dead simple roll for success mechanic. But that would require admitting they are creating a new edition, as it would rewrite everything spell-like. A simpler game, with far less caster options, and far less spells, is a better option to gather in new players.
I'm going to have to disagree here with the combat in ADnD part. Back in the day, there was just as much combat as there is here. At least with the people I played with. We ran literal dungeon crawls where we would be in combat for multiple sessions. This didn't take away from the story or roleplaying either. The DMs I played with were able to weave fascinating stories along with having a plethora of combat mixed into the campaign. And when we got into the high levels (15+), we still were out looking for gold, treasure and glory.
It doesn't have to be one or the other. It's all about what the players and the DM want from their campaigns. I ran a campaign for three years that had plenty of combat, complex stories with puzzles, romance, intrigue with solo sessions and everything in between. My players never complained because I ensured that I tailored my campaigns to what I know my players wanted from it. And the thing is, if a combat heavy campaign is what the players and the DM agree with and they are happy and having fun? I see nothing wrong with it.
*edit* The reason why I love DnD so much is the flexibility and the plethora of options that are available to play the game. DnD lets you play the game however you want and create stories and campaigns how you want it to be. For me, there isn't a right or wrong way to play. If a group wants to just hack and slash their way to glory? They can do that. If they just want to roleplay with no combat interactions? You can. If you want to play it like Splinter Cell with stealth missions and stories? You can :-)! And that's why I have loved this game since I started playing back in 86 and stuck with it till this day.
I would agree that the right approach is to steer the game towards what the players and the DM want out of a game.
Frankly I could not care less if a table strictly ran combat. I remember one Friday night in what would have been the early to mid '80s when friends of mine and I gambled real coin and just pitted different monsters against one another for fun.
But what you are saying goes both ways.
Someone here insisting that D&D is a combat-oriented game and that those of us who play or run games with combat but where it isn't the main feature of the game because story and characterization take precedence or even play or run games without combat are playing "the wrong game"? This is the poster whose position is the antithesis of what you are saying. But it is me to whom you respond.
EDIT: A three-year 5E campaign in which I played that started around the beginning of the pandemic saw the DM house rule things here and there for a more old-school feel. Also to achieve this it would not be uncommon for a whole four- or five-hour session to see no combat. Combat would make an appearance every second session or so. His sandbox world and how we interacted with it and the emergent storytelling this brought about is what mattered. He additionally ran a Western Marches-style game in the same world and what happened in those sessions impacted our ongoing campaign and vice-versa. This was how the people I played with back in the day would typically play. it is how the pioneers of the hobby would play. Epic story. That involved combat. And some of that combat even the most epic moments of the story. But it was never seen among us as being at all necessary to keep the game fun and interesting. Is it the one right way to play the game? No. There is no one right way to play the game. But don't pretend because there are more rules about how to resolve combat than there are how to oversee a dukedom or school others in magic or run a guild that these things are "secondary" to fight scenes and "always" have been.
I responded to you because I didn't agree with your premise that AD&D wasn't combat heavy back in the day. I just responded with my experince of what I saw and how we played back in the day that we did play combat heavy games, jsut like you say these young Thundercats do today lol. If I offended you with that, it wasn't intentional nor was I trying to call you out. But I do admit that I did miss this part of your reply: "But even today not all games played are saturated with combat." My bad.
And I don't believe that D&D is a primarily combat-oriented game. It can be if that's what the DM makes it. But it isn't the main point of the game.
Got it. And no offense taken.
Combat is—or rather can be—fun. I ain't going to judge tables who crave combat in their games and run more combat-heavy games. They're having fun. And that's really what it's all about. I would imagine however many players craving it while many DMs are trying to make their games about so much more given the time and effort many put into their settings and into the NPCs who populate them is one of a number of reasons the hobby is facing a DM shortage. Who hasn't seen in a game a situation in which a player just wants to start a fight during some encounter in which combat could be avoided because the player has grown bored because the player isn't at all interested in much of anything but combat? Sits staring at his or her phone and not paying all that much attention to what is going on until a fight has broken out? Short of that player being in one of those combat-heavy games and this being accommodated that is what we call a perfect example of a problem player. I guess the solution there is making sure we find tables conducive to our preferred style of play.
It's not new, nor is it something that has gotten more pronounced over the years. The whole concept of original D&D was that the PCs were assaulting a dungeon (hence the name, and the title of 'dungeon master'). They had discretion about how they went about it, but the vast majority of options involved combat. Sure, actual campaigns could have plenty of roleplaying, but it wasn't particularly mechanically supported by the game system, nor was it a focus of published adventures (Keep on the Borderlands doesn't even bother to give NPCs names).
Now, later editions do have a greater focus on set-piece fights and splitting the monsters into distinct encounters (the Caves of Chaos had extensive notes on monsters running for reinforcements) but it's historical revisionism to think that original D&D wasn't focused on combat.
I understand what you are saying. I have seen it for myself plenty of times. Even as recently as the Journey to Ragnarok campaign I mentioned earlier in the post. The person was new to D&D, but was anxious about the roleplaying aspect of it because they are an introvert and was afraid of making a mistake. We tried to be as accomodating as we could and she did try to make the effort. But she wasn't really interested until the combat came. When she went through her first combat scenario, she loved it and that's all she was interested in afterwards. Some people are jsut like that sometimes. She actually ended up dropping from the campaign cause she was bored from all the roleplaying we were doing. But I can understand how she feels. Some days that's all I want to do is just go through and wreck shop for the session lol. But I also agree with what you said about the DM putting in all that effort just for someone not to appreciate it. It's frustrating and disheartening.