No combat in a whole session

[Wombat]

When playing D&D, I find it a very rare occurance.

When playing Paranoia or Champions, non-existent.

When playing Over the Edge or Ars Magica, not at all rare.

Depends on the system, depends on the group, depends on the circumstances.

 

[Ibram]

While not common it does happen from time to time. I usualy find that no combat sessions are usualy found durring the middle of an story arch.... The PC's are hooked by then and are usualy trying to figure out whats going on, at the same time this is when the BBEG is trying to figure out what to do about the PC's.

 

[Testament]

I'd like it to happen, but I fear that two of my players would lynch me if I did it more than once every couple of months or so.

 

[pogre]

I cannot recall one time I have ever run D&D and not had a combat. Maybe one of my players will pipe in here and correct me, but I do not think so. Our combats seem to go fairly quickly in comparison to most campaigns, and my players really enjoy that aspect of the game.

Years ago when my wife used to play with us every week she would rate one of my adventures on how many dice she got to roll She hated my Ars Magica game and quit after we had a couple of games in a row with no combat.

 

[Arc]

The campaign I'm currently in is being run in an episodic nature (as an IRC game that meets very sporadically), so while we expect combat every session, it rarely is the centerpiece of the session. Most of the sessions go something like this:
30 minutes to an hour of scenerio introduction
1 to 2 hours of investigation
30 minutes to 2 hours (depending on the combat) of climactic battle
15 to 30 minutes of falling action and conclusion

If the session runs longer than we expect, or has to be cut short, it's more than likely that we won't have any combat, but per adventure, or at least per episode, we expect a combat or two. Think of any serial television show. You naturally expect the climactic battle or drama at the end of each episode, but it's not necessarily the important part.

 

[Fenes]

We pretty often have no combat in our sessions. Last session we ahd a battle, but only one player was involved.

 

[Zappo]

It isn't rare at all. Many of our sessions have no combat.

 

[the Jester]

We usually have at least some combat, but not always. I can recall three games in the last couple of years with no combat, and several others with very little.

 

[Dthamilaye]

Quite rare to go through a DD session without a single fight.

However, I remember one time quite well still. I have been DMming a campaign for 2,5 years now for the same group. They are now around 22nd level, but at that time, they were somewhere around 15 or so.

The adventure was the section of Rod of Seven Parts -box, where they must go to Cloud giant fortress during a cloud and fire giant wedding and search for one of the pieces of the rod. That means there was like 40 giants in the castle at least.
Well, the group consists of not one, but TWO dwarves. For all the time before that adventure, they were asking if they can kill giants. In fact, I had not put a single giant against them before that.
Well, the adventure took 3 play sessions and they did not hurt a single one of the cloud or fire giants in the castle. In fact, in the end the Bard got the part by bluffing himself to be a paid hairdresser/barber for the fiancee .

The whole group wondered about how they got through that without violence. The giants just did not find enough reason from the players to become aggressive, and the players were not the I-kill-everything-type and did not just go rampaging through everything. The bard and diplomacy/perform/bluff/gather information was well used in that adventure, though.

 

[Gez]

It's kinda frequent. I don't especially like to run combat, so I prefer to have travels, negociations, etc. There's still a good dose of combat in the campaign, but only about half the sessions features fights.