Combat???

[Aussiehams]

G'day playgrounders.

Do many tables play with little/no combat? Listening to some podcasts it amazes me when a session goes for 3-4 hours with no combat.
I've never played a game like that, and am wondering if it's a common thing?

[Zhorn]

Have done both, sessions for a few weeks end to end without a single attack roll or damage die.

Then sometimes it's nothing but back to back initiatives.

I don't think it's odd. Just comes down the the narrative of the campaign. Some problems can't be punched their way out of, and others it's just aggressive negotiations with sun blades for days on end.

[Kane0]

In my experience not really, tables ive been on tend to have at least one combat every session (3 hours or so), often two.

It might be something to do with the entertainment business these streams partake in? Pure combat is probably less engaging for the general audience than acting and shenanigans

[Unoriginal]

G'day playgrounders.

Do many tables play with little/no combat? Listening to some podcasts it amazes me when a session goes for 3-4 hours with no combat.
I've never played a game like that, and am wondering if it's a common thing?

I've seen it happen and I've DMed it. Not all 4h sessions give the chances for a combat. And sometime a 4h session has several combats. Depends on a lot of things.

Often happens when a session ends on a climactic fight and the next session is the aftermath.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

I DM one game which is mostly combat (ToA).
I DM a game with little combat (homebrew world based on my favourite metal songs).

I play in a game that is full of combat (DoTMM).

I also play a game with rare combat(Homebrew low magic world). We had like three 4hr session with no combat, just a lot of RP and challenges.

I play game with almost no combat in the same world.
4 months, we are level 5 right now, we had 4 combats:
Two that ended with a single attack.
Another one because a murderer hobo joined with her character that was a small girl barbarian and started to kill enemies for no reason.
Thw time we had a fight was more like a torture vs a character that tried to do some bad stuff to our bard(one of the 5 only female characters on the ship).
This game have adult content I will not shere that every player agreed to.

[nickl_2000]

We don't usually, my table tends to get bored if there is no combat at all. Although it has happened with one of the two DMs.

[KorvinStarmast]

G'day playgrounders.

Do many tables play with little/no combat? Listening to some podcasts it amazes me when a session goes for 3-4 hours with no combat.
I've never played a game like that, and am wondering if it's a common thing?

Probably more common than you'd expect. It depends on where in the world and where in the story the characters are.
Example:
My brother's campaign started a couple of years ago. Our first encounter was to track down a missing prize bull (that had been stolen, it turns out) as a side job during our 'caravan guard' assignment. Our boss/employer allowed us the time to try and help the local villager out, but "be ready to go first thing in the morning!"
We were in unknown territory, for the three of us. As it worked out, w tracked down the bull, and some humans, and the situation was like this: We three got into a parley/negotiation with the three, and during the parley my cleric, with a 09 charisma, tried to make a persuasion check yet while she was doing so the heavily armed dwarf (our fighter) and the ranger had their weapons in their hands and were looking somewhat grim. The reaction to the persuasion check was contested, but I rolled high and the DM ruled that what had actually happened was that they were more or less intimidated. They dropped the rope and backed away. I then fed the bull some goodberries and we took it back. We had a few more social encounters along the way and then the session ended.

No combat.

We've had other sessions similar to that, including three in a row where the only two players who would show up (myself and the dwarf player) were ahead of the party/caravan and trying to solve the problem of why beer was in short supply and why it was of drastically lower quality. We got to town first, arranged for lodgings and such for the caravan/party to stay in, and the next session was somewhat different and included a confrontation with thugs.

So it may be that the best answer to your question is: it depends on the players and the DM.

We have had other sessions that were very combat heavy.

[DeTess]

It has happened for me both as player and DM in 5e, but I do try to throw in a fight in a mostly rp session because I know some of my players just really like combat.

[Kurt Kurageous]

In my experience not really, tables ive been on tend to have at least one combat every session (3 hours or so), often two.

It might be something to do with the entertainment business these streams partake in? Pure combat is probably less engaging for the general audience than acting and shenanigans

Yes, this. Running combat is hard on the DM, doubly so trying to do it in real time on a virtual tabletop AND be entertaining. As a DM, your head is down looking at stuff, and even if you have a camera set up for it, the shot is not flattering for the DM.

So it's not surprising that DnD as entertainment productions avoid combat more that IRL. Actors want to be actors trying to audition for Critical Role and streams are trying to become the next Critical Role.

[nickl_2000]

Yes, this. Running combat is hard on the DM, doubly so trying to do it in real time on a virtual tabletop AND be entertaining. As a DM, your head is down looking at stuff, and even if you have a camera set up for it, the shot is not flattering for the DM.

So it's not surprising that DnD as entertainment productions avoid combat more that IRL. Actors want to be actors trying to audition for Critical Role and streams are trying to become the next Critical Role.

I also feel like combat would be less entertaining to a viewer than Roleplaying. Combat doesn't progress the story that you are trying to tell as much as roelplaying does.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Sessions without combat definitely happen. I try to always have at least one combat prepared, but sometimes it doesn't come up. I'd estimate probably 10 to 20% of my real time sessions don't feature combat.

It obviously depends on the tone of the game, too. I haven't called for an initiative roll in my PbP game since post 1266 in thread 3 (13/05/2019), and we're now at post 341 of thread 4. So that's 575 IC posts (over 19 pages worth) over the course of 16 months without starting a combat. Political intrigue, ho!

[firelistener]

G'day playgrounders.

Do many tables play with little/no combat? Listening to some podcasts it amazes me when a session goes for 3-4 hours with no combat.
I've never played a game like that, and am wondering if it's a common thing?

Man, I was just thinking this same thing the other day! Good answers in the thread so far.

On that note, does anyone know of a D&D podcast that is actually more combat-heavy? Or maybe a podcast that's just actual radio drama with a fantasy setting instead of a railroaded D&D game?

[Ninja_Prawn]

On that note, does anyone know of a D&D podcast that is actually more combat-heavy? Or maybe a podcast that's just actual radio drama with a fantasy setting instead of a railroaded D&D game?

I may be biased here, since they use my homebrew content, but Hero Club is very like a radio drama, in my opinion.

[heavyfuel]

Combat is actually very little of what one of my groups and I do when we play, mostly because combat comes with risks and consequences. A lot of what we do is planning and setting up.

It's not uncommon for us to go 3 or 4 sessions - each 4 to 6 hours long - without initiative being rolled. Of course, when it is rolled, then it's usually time for sme nail-biting combat that we just barely manage to scrape by the skin of our teeth.

This is a game we don't get to play too often, so wasting time with irrelevant combat is not something any of us are into.

In another table, combat is much more commonplace, and the DM is likely to throw a random encounter if only for the sake of it. However, we do play far more consistently, so I don't mind wasting a couple hours every other session for some mindless combat.

[micahaphone]

My group really likes roleplaying and planning, engaging with the story. It's not uncommon for us to spend a session or two without rolling initiative. This is especially true after we've accomplished some tough goal and have returned to town after the quest. A great time to discuss the impacts of the quest and what we want to do next, talk with npcs.

But when I'm DMing I will occasionally put combat into places where it might not be expected. Keep the players on their toes!

[x3n0n]

Most of the time, we end up with 1 or 2 combats per session. We actually did have an entire one-shot recently with no combat (although we did have a chase while "in initiative"), and it was still fun, but it did mean that the newly-leveled characters didn't get to test any of their new combat features, so we decided to not milestone level-up even though there were a lot of meaningful encounters and skill tests.

[Composer99]

I also feel like combat would be less entertaining to a viewer than Roleplaying. Combat doesn't progress the story that you are trying to tell as much as roelplaying does.

I dunno how important progressing the story is for others; I'm not as concerned about it when watching D&D streams.

However, most combats aren't interesting to watch, in and of themselves, compared to well-executed character portrayal, exposition (which can include depicting fighting that doesn't use the combat mechanics), and in-game problem-solving during exploration. Despite being action scenes in game (and, hopefully, feeling that way from the players' perspectives), they don't come across as such, not to this spectator at any rate.

For instance, in Critical Role (as of 30-odd sessions into campaign 2 for me), most fights have an interesting setup but quickly become disengaging to spectate, because most of them are two-hour slogs whose outcome is largely predictable (the PCs win). The combat I enjoyed the most was the one they lost but which could have been an uphill but winnable struggle (as far as I could tell) but for their own decisions.

[Hr]
To answer the original question, I mostly run 2 to 3 hour sessions for Hoard of the Dragon Queen (combat-heavy early on, becoming combat-light in the middle part of the module), and 1 to 1.5 hour sessions for younger players in a homebrew game. The latter can have a session or two go without fighting just because of the session length, but also have a fight take two sessions to resolve.

I would guess in a typical game, half the game time is spent on combat, and the trick is just about how that time is distributed from session to session.

[Waterdeep Merch]

The frequency of combat's all over the place, I can't even say it's particular to DM's, groups, or campaigns. Except maybe for pre-written one-shot adventures, since they're pretty much all built with 3-8 per session (which is itself a fairly wide discrepancy).

Just depends on what's going on in a game that day, or what the players feel like doing, or if they find an alternative approach to handling things. Maybe I fully built a dungeon crawl but my players found a way to skip right to the end via stealth, magic, or impersonation. I know there's DM's out there that would force it not to work just because they don't want to have spent hours building encounters just to watch the players skip right past it like that, but most just let it go since the players have communicated via actions that they would prefer to handle things differently.

[Kurt Kurageous]

I neglected to mention in my post the concept of pacing.

Yes, like pacing in a movie.

You want to alternate between terror/excitement else you risk player mental exhaustion or (even worse) boredom. Monitor your players nonverbals IRL, and try to get a feel of their engagement in virtual games from their speech, volume, and questions they ask.

Whatever you do, don't make combats boring. They are supposed to be one of the more exciting aspects of the game. Beat your players within an inch of their death saves (or beyond) and they will thank you for it. Put them in peril and let them wriggle out of it. The walls are closing in...3PO?!!? Where are you?!!?...and you've got a game worthy of a sequel (or eight).

[Zevox]

My group can definitely go light on combat. Our current campaign opened with a story arc that saw us fight all of twice in total over the course of a few months of play (mostly weekly, 6-8 hours per session) - one of which was basically a random encounter, the other of which was barely a fight because we'd lead our opponents into a trap and thoroughly sabotaged them in advance, so it only took a few rolls going our way for us to steamroll them. Oh, and there was another fight we could have had, but we talked our way out of it. Our focus is just often more on RPing with each other/NPCs, investigating mysteries, or exploration.

Which doesn't mean we don't go through combat-heavy periods. Currently we're in one, fighting a group of Orcs and some various allies of theirs, making an attack on their stronghold, so we've had several sessions of mostly combat now. That seems like it'll wrap up soon-ish though, and none of us but the DM could guess how quickly or slowly the next period of combat may come after that.

[Dienekes]

I've definitely had sessions go by with no combat. As a GM I feel it is my role to fill the game with conflict. Whether that conflict will then escalate to combat is partially in the hands of my players. Now admittedly, some times they stumble upon situations where swords out it's going down. But there have been a fair few that ended into stealth missions to avoid the conflict, or talking missions to de-escalate the conflict, and some sessions I give them a puzzle and/or a mystery and they figure it out without swords drawn.

Of course there are other sessions where the dice don't stop until an entire area is cleared of a murderous cult of gnolls.

[Laserlight]

One campaign--probably the best one I've ever run--there were numerous sessions without combat, and some in which almost all the conflict was between the PCs.

In other campaigns, those same players would get into two or three combats, or one really deadly one, every session.

What was the difference? I dunno. If I knew what the players were going to do, I wouldn't need players. :-)