D&D 5E Social/Combat/Exploration Ratio

[aramis erak]

Since I don't randomly generate my games:

3/8 is exploration, which includes simple exploration (we travel through the forest!) to challenging exploration (skill checks through dangerous terrain) to mixed exploration (exploration that could result in combat, but may not).
2/8 is strict combat. These are always going to be fights, you may choose not to fight them, but there is no option here to 'talk them down'. Avoidance is possible though outmaneuvering the enemy, but it's designed to be a fight.
2/8 is soft social. Soft social is any situation which is intended to be resolved through words rather than the sword, but the option to use a sword remains. I don't build "hard social" encounters where my players have no choice but to talk their way out.
1/8 is "empty". These are open plains, empty deserts, pre-looted dungeons. They serve some purpose, but they are not a challenge and they provide no reward. They are generally for giving players leads towards the other parts of the game.

I don't see how people are responding so much with "it depends". Don't you pre-plan what a certain area is going to be or do you just write "King" on your notes and make it all up when the party gets there? Because that's the only way I can see it as "it depends". Yes, every campaign is going to be different but I'd imagine you have some forethought as to if this campaign will include favor certain types of play over others and what parts of the game it will do so in.

The OP isn't asking how your game turns out. They're asking how you intend it to be.

I can't preplan whether it's going to be combat or non-violent interaction if the NPC has a motivation at cross purposes to the characters and is open to non-violent interaction. Because NVI requires both sides agree not to fight. I can only plan whether the NPC's are WILLING to parley.

 

[Sunseeker]

I can't preplan whether it's going to be combat or non-violent interaction if the NPC has a motivation at cross purposes to the characters and is open to non-violent interaction. Because NVI requires both sides agree not to fight. I can only plan whether the NPC's are WILLING to parley.

You can't plan the interaction. You can plan the intention.

The King may be prepared for everything, but he still intends to do one thing first. That's what you plan.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You can't plan the interaction. You can plan the intention.

The King may be prepared for everything, but he still intends to do one thing first. That's what you plan.

Exactly. Perhaps, then, the question is what is malformed rather than the answer. Perhaps it is wrong of us to split "Social" and "Combat" encounters, when (as many have said) the barrier between them is fluid even at the best of times, and downright nonexistent in many cases.

In which case, I'd say I hope for a handful of relatively "empty" places (since those, quite frequently, become the canvas for awesome player ideas, and also give some room to breathe/rest/etc.); a majority of to be "interactions," which can lie anywhere on the spectrum between purely 'talky' and purely 'stabby'; and a medium-sized chunk (much more common than empty, not as common as "interactions") to be explorations.

There's also the issues of what precise things you consider to be "explorations"--I find myself bored to tears by most "logistics"-related challenges in all but the most abstracted examples, such as Dungeon World's Perilous Journey rolls. If the Quartermaster screws up, it's gonna cost us--and it can become a story all its own along the way--but there's no need for lengthy and involved planning, preparation, and (often highly meta) discussion beforehand.