Heroism, Traffic In Violence, Inherent Assumptions, And Getting Players On Board

[icefractal]

Well it's not all combat, but the general assumption is that there will be at least a moderate amount of combat. While not impossible to run a non-combat campaign in D&D, it wouldn't be the system I'd choose*, and players would have to build their characters with that in mind, because many options and even entire classes will be near useless in such a scenario.

So the question of who the PCs are fighting and why (and whether the "why" is a good reason) is going to be applicable in 99% of campaigns.

* Exception: A campaign that's about fully utilizing magic on a large scale - building the Tippyverse or something like it - could be interesting, not involve any combat, and yet be particularly suited to D&D. You'd need to figure out how you're handling unbounded loops and such though.