Was Old School D&D All About Combat?

[AMFV]

I keep hearing a lot of people claim that early D&D evolved as a "combat simulator" or claim that this is the main focus of D&D. I've recently been reading through a lot of the early issues of Dungeon Magazine, what has surprised me is how few of their adventures have combat as the main focus. Investigation, exploration, and diplomacy seem to be quite a bit more common. From what I've read of 3.5 Adventures this is often the case in about a quarter of published adventures. As such I'm wondering what people's actual play experiences in early D&D were like, was it really a combat simulator where the DM pitted himself against the players or was it really something very different?

[Pluto!]

OD&D was all about looting. Which usually involved killing things in combat. But it was all about the fat stacks of cash.

[Vitruviansquid]

My theory is old school DnD had a lot of combat, but *for its time* it was the least combat-focused wargame out there. You would thus play Dungeons and Dragons for its exploration, investigation, and diplomacy. If old school DnD has a lot of combat, it certainly wasn't the case when RPG was just in its infancy, therefore, when people played old school DnD it was for the non-combat portions.

[Tiktakkat]

The rules were all about combat.
The gameplay varied by table, but had a tendency toward bragging rights.

Well, "technically" the rules weren't ALL about combat.
There were some for looting (aka, bragging rights), and some for screwing up looting (aka, griefing bragging rights), and later some for making background (aka, even more bragging rights and griefing bragging rights), but for the most they focused on combat.
And the gameplay wasn't always just about bragging rights. Sometimes there was gratuitous male bonding rituals (aka, other bragging rights), nerd wars (aka, yet other bragging rights), egregious looting (aka, still other bragging rights), and now and again some actual role-playing (aka, alternative bragging rights), but for the most part it was just about who could do whatever better than everyone else, at least for that night at the table.

Yes, the game evolved from a "combat simulator", specifically medieval miniature rules. The idea was to introduce fantasy concepts into the game, expanded to include unit advancement of leader figures. One element of this shows in older editions that use inches for range, as miniature games back then were typically played without grids, with range checked by tape measures.

As for what published adventures included, your survey is correct - there was just as much problem solving, exploration, and even outright interaction in those days as there is in typical published adventures today. The only real difference is that without a hardwired skill system, a lot less text is required to depict such things. Further, DM improvisation was much more expected, so boxed text speeches were nearly non-existent. I would also add that treasure was just as prevalent, another common complaint leveled in both directions. The primary difference is that treasure is hardwired into character power in later versions of the game, where only one form was directly hardwired into the earlier versions. (That being weapons of particular power to hit certain monsters.)

In regards to play experience, mine was mostly the various forms of bragging rights described above. We didn't really care what we got to brag about, we just wanted something to do that we could brag about. Awesome kills, cool tactics, killer treasure, or just scoring digs on each other, it was about having fun.

[Arbane]

It wasn't ALL combat.
A lot of it was also playing Twenty Questions with the GM in hopes of weaseling out of the instant-death traps the dungeon was littered with.

[AMFV]

It wasn't ALL combat.
A lot of it was also playing Twenty Questions with the GM in hopes of weaseling out of the instant-death traps the dungeon was littered with.

But there weren't any of those in the adventures I was reading... It was mostly exploration and investigation. More mysteries than anything else. That seems to hold true for the published ones as well. There are a few that are like that "Tomb of Horrors" but those have a reputation, even in that era. And don't seem to be reflected in what was actually presented so much as what people talk about later. Which has shaped perception.

[JoeJ]

I started playing OD&D (the one that came with the module In Search of the Unknown) in 1978 or 79, but quickly transitioned to AD&D.

My experience was that it was mostly an exploration game, although with large chunks of combat, mystery solving, and diplomacy. And a couple of the most enjoyable sessions I've ever played were just about the party relaxing at an inn after a dungeon crawl.

My theory is old school DnD had a lot of combat, but *for its time* it was the least combat-focused wargame out there. You would thus play Dungeons and Dragons for its exploration, investigation, and diplomacy. If old school DnD has a lot of combat, it certainly wasn't the case when RPG was just in its infancy, therefore, when people played old school DnD it was for the non-combat portions.

In the games I played, Traveler had significantly less combat that D&D.

[Darth Ultron]

Well, it does depend on what D&D game your talking about.

A lot of classic D&D game play was the dungeon crawl. There was no world, the game started and ended at the dungeon entrance.

Investigation, exploring, mysteries, diplomacy and puzzles have always been a part of the game.

And there are not all that many published adventures, ahem, modules. And if you have read 'a lot' of adventure modules about exploration and other things, you might have been reading the basic/expert/companion/master D&D ones, not the 1E ones.

Old school D&D gets the all combat thing from the fact that there were very few non combat rules. There were no skills or feats like later editions, for example.....and even the slight rules that did sort of cover this were vague.

[Comet]

Old school D&D was all about challenge. It wasn't about writing backstories, seeking out plot hooks and meeting in a tavern. It wasn't about sportsmanlike combat where you know you'll be challenged just enough to feel satisfied, but never enough to be in actual danger. It wasn't about chasing a dramatic BBEG around the world and finally vanquishing him in a climactic showdown that taxes you to 75% of your resources and then having a nice epilogue where your half-elf warlock princess air genasi dragonblood gets to find out what happened to her wizard parents.

It was about horse**** traps, unfair wandering monsters and confusing labyrinths that were too big for your sheet of graph paper. It was about making a character in five minutes and losing them in three. It was about finally getting through that dungeon and screaming in triumph at your DM's face that you finally understand his world and how it works and nothing he can do will even touch your level 2 fighter. And then running into a black dragon just around the corner and realizing that you don't understand anything about this world, because it's too crazy and too weird for understanding.

[JoeJ]

A good portion of Old School D&D was about leading/managing your minions. We almost always had NPC henchmen, hirelings, pets, pack animals, etc. as part of the party.

[ImNotTrevor]

This depends on how far back we go to say where the start of D&D is.

Chainmail is the literal parent system of D&D. In a lot of ways, OD&D is just Chainmail 2e. Chainmail's DNA is firmly grounded in old historical wargames. (Roman miniatures vs. Syrian miniatures)

OD&D expanded upon Chainmail with additional opportunities for non-combat, but its entire reward structure was based on "kill things, get money."

[nedz]

It started out as just playing through a dungeon, but it soon branched out.

For example: City State of the Invincible Overlord was published in 1976 as a first attempt at an urban setting.

World of Greyhawk was published in 1980, which is still quite early.

[neonchameleon]

The rules were all about combat.
The gameplay varied by table, but had a tendency toward bragging rights.

Not even close. The rules had more about leadership and organising a team of NPCs than they did about combat. This however fell by the wayside by the mid-80s (not at all needed in Dragonlance for example)

oD&D was really about a series of badly planned armed heists in the dungeon. You gained 1XP for every GP you managed to recover, and every monster had about four times in GP their XP value, with most of that in their lairs. Which meant that smart players tried not to fight other than from ambush or with overwhelming force.

The exception to the above was wandering monsters. Wandering monsters did not carry treasure. Which meant that they were simply a problem - risky to fight (all monsters were) and without giving much in the way of loot or XP. You wanted to avoid fighting them (and the best way was to keep up the pace - you made a wandering monster trap every ten minutes).

The "what idiot created this stupid trap filled mess" dungeons (as opposed to exploration dungeons) were based on Tomb of Horrors - which was set as a deliberate challenge by Rob Kuntz and Ernie Gygax (they got all the treasure without dying - and just teleported away from Acecerak on the grounds that fighting was a mug's game; ToH is easy if you know one simple trick) and then spread as a tournament module. And then misapplied into home games.

[Khedrac]

I've recently been reading through a lot of the early issues of Dungeon Magazine, what has surprised me is how few of their adventures have combat as the main focus.

I think where the confusion is coming from is that for most of us Dungeon is not "early" D&D - its first issue was in 1986.
To put this into perspective, Imagine - the TSR UK magazine had already folded (83 to 85).
Basic and Expert D&D have been re-written into BECM D&D and the Immortals box had come out (85).
Most of the 1st Ed AD&D modules (and the BECMI modules) had already been published. For example DL 14 - the last of the original Dragonlance series was published in 1986.
8 was when they started re-issuing old modules as compilations - A1-4, GDQ1-7 (yes T1-4 was 85, but T2-4 were never published separately).

So, Dungeon was after the original series of modules when the emphasis was combat, and people had started greatly to expand what else one could do.
Also as a magazine format - which made for short adventures, the fact that there was more than one adventure in each issue freed the publishers to experiment - they didn't have to stick with formulae they know would work, they could try very different ideas and see how the feedback ran.

Remember also that prior to Dungeon being published, Dragon contained an adventure in most issues, likewise Imagine (though fewer of them iirc).

[Eldan]

And Games Workshop's White Dwarf, which first came out in '77, when it was still RPG magazine and mostly covered AD&D and Traveller.

[Ashtagon]

I keep hearing a lot of people claim that early D&D evolved as a "combat simulator" or claim that this is the main focus of D&D. I've recently been reading through a lot of the early issues of Dungeon Magazine, what has surprised me is how few of their adventures have combat as the main focus. Investigation, exploration, and diplomacy seem to be quite a bit more common. From what I've read of 3.5 Adventures this is often the case in about a quarter of published adventures. As such I'm wondering what people's actual play experiences in early D&D were like, was it really a combat simulator where the DM pitted himself against the players or was it really something very different?

As with many tales, it's only half-true. Before AD&D, before even "original" D&D (the so-called white box set of 1974), there was Chainmail. This was unashamedly a set of rules for wargaming (somewhat similar to Warhammer Fantasy Battle in genre). Given that Chainmail included rules for heroes and wizards, it wasn't long before players placed themselves in the shoes of these generals, war-priests, and battle-sorcerers.

OD&D, the 1974 white box rules, was unashamedly a role-playing game, but an RPG in the context of its day. That meant deep-seated emotional attachment to a given character was out, since characters were intended to be quick to generate on the fly, not complex "builds" that you plan out days or weeks in advance. It also meant the typical adventure involved maximising the amount of loot recovered from the dungeon. GURPS Dungeon Fantasy plays up to pretty much every trope from that era, except OD&D had simpler rules.

That said, note that the emphasis was on getting treasure. Treasure, not combat or 'encounters', was what gained you XP. Quite often, adventures were designed to incorporate puzzles or diplomacy issues, and solving those would get you to the treasure (or reward).

[Mutazoia]

As most people have already said, D&D, AD&D, and AD&D 2nd ed, were not all about combat. Sure, there were a lot of rules for combat, but that's only because the one thing you really need a solid rule set for. If your still unsure, just look at the spell list for AD&D. There are more non-combat spells than 3.X +, giving players a ton of other options to bypass an encounter besides "I hit it with my sword".

[StorytellerHero]

I thought it was an evolution of the original creators' desires to get something more out of miniatures wargaming?

[Mutazoia]

I thought it was an evolution of the original creators' desires to get something more out of miniatures wargaming?

They started by creating rules for controlling individual pieces (instead of the mass units of war-games up to that point), basically hero/general types, and then later added rules for "leveling them up" as they gained battle experience. And then they were sending those generals on missions, and the rest is history.

[Eldan]

And then people working with the RPG magazine White Dwarf ported the rules back for using heroes and wizards in tabletop games and that's how we got Warhammer.

[Khedrac]

I thought it was an evolution of the original creators' desires to get something more out of miniatures wargaming?

Whilst true, that does not make it simple.

For example Dave Arneson, one of the three co-creators, had as his personal setting Blackmoor.
Castle Blackmoor, as published by Zeitgest Games, claims that the original version was run as a large group (30?) of first level fighters going in and seeing how far they could get before they ran out of bodies. So in this case, very much something more out of miniatures wargaming.
But was that all they wanted?

I can't speak for the rest of the designers of D&D, but considering that Gary Gygax tried his hand writing novels set in Greyhawk (admittedly the first being published in 1985), it is worth considering Glorantha which was originally created as a setting for fantasy fiction by Greg Stafford, the wargames and RuneQuest rpg system came later.
My point here being that they probably had lots of motives for what they did, but the source (miniatures wargaming) will have affected how they went about it.

[Jay R]

Chainmail was a set of miniatures rules: a simulation of medieval battle. Put a bunch of miniatures on the board, have a big battle, put everything away. It had a short appendix for playing with elves, dwarves, dragons, wizards, etc.

If all people wanted was combat, the next game out would have been Chainmail II.

But it wasn't. D&D used that game as the combat system, but it was a very different kind of game, about exploration, treasure-seeking, and playing the role of a fantasy character. It also assumed a copy of Avalon Hill's game Outdoor Survival, for the wilderness exploration.

The ten-foot pole for poking at a potential trap was as ubiquitous as a sword or spellbook.

In short, while it used the combat system in Chainmail, it wasn't simply a bigger version of it, but an entirely new type of game.

And once the first supplement (Greyhawk) came out, the D&D combat system was changed and Chainmail was not part of it at all.

[Florian]

I keep hearing a lot of people claim that early D&D evolved as a "combat simulator" or claim that this is the main focus of D&D. I've recently been reading through a lot of the early issues of Dungeon Magazine, what has surprised me is how few of their adventures have combat as the main focus. Investigation, exploration, and diplomacy seem to be quite a bit more common. From what I've read of 3.5 Adventures this is often the case in about a quarter of published adventures. As such I'm wondering what people's actual play experiences in early D&D were like, was it really a combat simulator where the DM pitted himself against the players or was it really something very different?

Back then, it was a totally different nuance what the difference between "winning" and "beating" an encounter meant. In addition, the GM had very heavy authority about the rules and how they should be implemented. Stuff like "balance"? Sorry, had you tried to explain that notion me back then, a kid playing oD&D, I´d have laughed in your face and called you names.

Combat Simulation? My ass, really. Combat (and spells) was something bloody fools engage in, wise and intelligent people scout, gather information, talk and circumvent to get to their goal (Loot!).

Gosh, sometime I miss he crowd from the McGraw base that used to be in Munich....

[neonchameleon]

As most people have already said, D&D, AD&D, and AD&D 2nd ed, were not all about combat. Sure, there were a lot of rules for combat, but that's only because the one thing you really need a solid rule set for. If your still unsure, just look at the spell list for AD&D. There are more non-combat spells than 3.X +, giving players a ton of other options to bypass an encounter besides "I hit it with my sword".

I'm fairly sure that this isn't true. That the AD&D spells are a almost subset of the 3.X ones.

On the other hand what really changed was, as I mentioned, the XP system. In oD&D and 1E it was 1XP for 1GP meaning your main source of XP was armed robbery of monsters with killing monsters as a sideline. In 2e it was XP for class-specific things like casting spells as a wizard or killing monsters as a fighter (no, really) as well as killing monsters. In 3.X it was overcoming challenges with the only challenges really awarding XP being monsters you killed.

[JoeJ]

On the other hand what really changed was, as I mentioned, the XP system. In oD&D and 1E it was 1XP for 1GP meaning your main source of XP was armed robbery of monsters with killing monsters as a sideline. In 2e it was XP for class-specific things like casting spells as a wizard or killing monsters as a fighter (no, really) as well as killing monsters. In 3.X it was overcoming challenges with the only challenges really awarding XP being monsters you killed.

In 1e you got xp both for treasure and for monsters. In 2e they officially took out the xp for gold bit except for rogues, but I didn't know anybody that played it that way. We all continued doing what we were used to, and there were even some published 2e adventures that listed the xp value of the treasure.

[Tiktakkat]

Not even close. The rules had more about leadership and organising a team of NPCs than they did about combat. This however fell by the wayside by the mid-80s (not at all needed in Dragonlance for example)

Where?
There was a section of a chapter on followers gained at name level in the DMG, another portion devoted to loyalty tacked onto the encounter reaction portion, and some random notes on hirelings. None of that actually discussed organizing them into a warband.
This compared to the extended chapter with charts and tables on regular combat, unarmed combat, and psionic combat, plus the saving throw chart with commentary.
And of course leadership was barely even mentioned in the PHB, as bare explanation of entries on the Charisma table and mentions of followers at name level for classes, while combat had its own chapter, with only modest comments about short-changing NPCs on xp and treasure division.

[wumpus]

I'm fairly sure that this isn't true. That the AD&D spells are a almost subset of the 3.X ones.

On the other hand what really changed was, as I mentioned, the XP system. In oD&D and 1E it was 1XP for 1GP meaning your main source of XP was armed robbery of monsters with killing monsters as a sideline. In 2e it was XP for class-specific things like casting spells as a wizard or killing monsters as a fighter (no, really) as well as killing monsters. In 3.X it was overcoming challenges with the only challenges really awarding XP being monsters you killed.

The *rules* were almost all about combat. Scratch that, the *rules people could figure out and were willing to play with* were about combat. There were a ton of rules in the DMG about transportation, including rules for getting lost (rangers didn't get any special saves, which I felt was a big oversight). There were rules about traveling trough swamps (and presumably sewers, for all you urban dungoneers) and rolling for various diseases. I suspect there were more rules in the 1e DMG (mine isn't accessible right now) for transportation (mostly wilderness, but sailing, astral plane and more extreme as well) probably took up more room than combat.

All the "social skills rolls" of later games were missing. Presumably, these were done in character however you felt like just to lead to either the dungeon or the expedition to the dungeon. Note that this doesn't include hirelings and henchmen: as noted above there were plenty of rules about henchmen loyalty and rolls for morale (during combat) and betrayal. Generally, these were lumped under combat as these were often assumed to be cannon fodder.

Note that for any non-combat situations, the players were assumed to have to figure it out (often through meta-gaming, which was often considered acceptable). Traps were often discovered by clues given by the search results (not: you found a trap but hints of a mechanism). Remember, AD&D was pretty rules light (for rules as played and the general applicability for rules in arbitrary situations) and the DM had to rule on the spot (yes, this was often abused nearly as bad as Pun Pun in later games), lack of a specific rule hardly meant you couldn't do it, just that players had to think of it and get the DM to agree.

[Joe the Rat]

On the other hand what really changed was, as I mentioned, the XP system. In oD&D and 1E it was 1XP for 1GP meaning your main source of XP was armed robbery of monsters with killing monsters as a sideline. In 2e it was XP for class-specific things like casting spells as a wizard or killing monsters as a fighter (no, really) as well as killing monsters. In 3.X it was overcoming challenges with the only challenges really awarding XP being monsters you killed.

That's an important thing to remember: Treasure was the goal. Not killing stuff, taking stuff. If you could reach the vault, and get the goods back to town (it's not the having, it's the taking with you), you were rewarded. In essence, it was quest/objective based xp, that came in small denominations. Talking and bribing and threatening your way past intelligent monsters (and running away) were as important of tools as fighting, if not moreso. If you get the artifact (and some pocket change) home without a single fight, you're doing good.

Early adventures weren't stories you played through, they were locations and situations with a set of goals (even if said goal was simply "find treasure"). It was up to you to figure out how to reach them.

[hymer]

The old Rules Cyclopedia has a lot of combat-related stuff, but there's a lot of other stuff, too. Plenty of Skills deal with other stuff, and a fair few spells. The 'Encounters and Evasion' chapter can be seen as pre-combat phase, but it also includes stuff on exploration. There's a chapter on mass combat (which may or may not count). And the chapter on Strongholds and Dominions is nearly a whole game in itself. And when discussing how to create a campaign as a DM, there are plenty of things besides things you can fight mentioned.
So I'd say the rules are fairly combat heavy, but there's plenty of other stuff, and suggestions for noncombat experiences beyond the scope of the rules themselves.

[Thrudd]

The *rules* were almost all about combat. Scratch that, the *rules people could figure out and were willing to play with* were about combat. There were a ton of rules in the DMG about transportation, including rules for getting lost (rangers didn't get any special saves, which I felt was a big oversight). There were rules about traveling trough swamps (and presumably sewers, for all you urban dungoneers) and rolling for various diseases. I suspect there were more rules in the 1e DMG (mine isn't accessible right now) for transportation (mostly wilderness, but sailing, astral plane and more extreme as well) probably took up more room than combat.

All the "social skills rolls" of later games were missing. Presumably, these were done in character however you felt like just to lead to either the dungeon or the expedition to the dungeon. Note that this doesn't include hirelings and henchmen: as noted above there were plenty of rules about henchmen loyalty and rolls for morale (during combat) and betrayal. Generally, these were lumped under combat as these were often assumed to be cannon fodder.

Note that for any non-combat situations, the players were assumed to have to figure it out (often through meta-gaming, which was often considered acceptable). Traps were often discovered by clues given by the search results (not: you found a trap but hints of a mechanism). Remember, AD&D was pretty rules light (for rules as played and the general applicability for rules in arbitrary situations) and the DM had to rule on the spot (yes, this was often abused nearly as bad as Pun Pun in later games), lack of a specific rule hardly meant you couldn't do it, just that players had to think of it and get the DM to agree.

There are rules for social reaction of intelligent monsters and npcs. A character's charisma modifies the reaction, OD&D, B/X, and AD&D 1e and 2e each had slightly different ways of doing this. This is how the DM determines what the result of a parley is, it isn't just free-form. You didn't need a whole chapter about it, just one table.

Also, the early TSR books were not known to have the best editing or organization. Just because a rule or a table was found in an awkward place in the book doesn't mean it wasn't important or integral to the game.