What do you expect from your typical D&D game?

[Endarire]

D&D is famous as a tactical combat game, but less so as a tabletop version of Minecraft from stone shape et al and a turn-based army game from summons/animate dead.

I find these creative solutions and non-standard abilities a compelling reason to play D&D, yet many find them unsporting.

Ideally, I'd be a Wizard living in a world and able to act logically within it. Shaping the world is just an assumed part of my power.

Now, what about you?

[Tvtyrant]

Well, considering I usually always a Cleric I usually expect Undead and Evil Outsiders to play at least some role in the game. Otherwise I end up sounding like either a racist or the parties green-peace member. "Why don't we convert the Goblins" isn't nearly as interesting as "kill the traitorous Devils! Lets see their contracts save them now!"

[TOZ]

Usually a Monty Python movie. Preposterous characters making cornball jokes interspersed with violence all justified by some kind of thin frame of a plot.

[Bang!]

A silly wargame with caricatured heroes, zany traps, implausible monsters and untrustworthy treasure with a heavy emphasis on combat tactics. Brief moments of roleplay to keep the game moving between the flypaper floor trap and the maneating turtle-otters.

RE: Creativity - Unsporting solutions are the most interesting solutions.
RE: In-Game Logic - It's a world with octopus parrots and carnivorous gunnysacks. Worrying about realism is a lot of energy to spend on something that probably won't make the game more fun.

3e specific: About 2 hours chewing the fat as one of the players rebuilds a forgotten character sheet.

[Nohwl]

when i think of typical d&d game, i think of a dungeon crawl. players go into a cave or whatever, kill things, and then loot the corpses. i guess i'd expect a large amount of combat and dealing with traps.

[Malimar]

I expect it to last for 1d6 sessions and then peter out as people stop bothering to come and the DM gives up. On the rare occasion that it goes longer, I definitely don't expect anything like a satisfactory in-character conclusion; the only difference is how many sessions it takes for the DM to give up.

Oh, that's not what you meant?

The actual experience is usually 95% characters solving all their problems through liberal application of swords, or sometimes fists.