Ideally, How Many Battles?

[CleverNickName]

Take whatever tabletop roleplaying game you play...any edition of it...with as many players as you desire. Now, imagine that all of the rules and options for combat have been condensed and smoothed out perfectly, such that a typical combat scene only takes a few minutes to complete from start to finish...maybe a little longer for "grand finales" and such.

If this impossible, magical feat of game design should ever be accomplished, how many battles would you want to have per gaming session?

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There are a lot of threads in this forum about combat, specifically about how "grindy" it has become. I don't even want to look at the Edition War boilerplate, let alone touch it...so this is intended to be game- and edition-neutral. Lets leave our torches and pitchforks at the door, gentlemen.

 

[Crothian]

As many as needs to be. Sometimes in a dungeon crawl to accomplish the task there might need to be 30 or 40 encounters to complete and if each only take a few minutes I guess one could get all those done in a normal session. But some sessions we have zero combat so it doesn't matter how long combat takes when there isn't any.

 

[CleverNickName]

As many as needs to be. Sometimes in a dungeon crawl to accomplish the task there might need to be 30 or 40 encounters to complete and if each only take a few minutes I guess one could get all those done in a normal session. But some sessions we have zero combat so it doesn't matter how long combat takes when there isn't any.

Indeed...the story should always drive combat in a roleplaying game (this isn't an arcade shooter, after all.) But that's not what I was trying to sample with this poll.

I wanted this to be a different poll from the other "How many battles per gaming session" thread, asking people to vote for their ideal number of combat scenes per gaming session (instead of what they usually have to settle for, due to game mechanics and time restraints.)

 

[Steel_Wind]

I don't think this is a meaningful hypothetical question; worse, it's too divorced from reality given the length of time that combat takes to play out in most "current" D20 based rpgs.

I would suggest a more meaningful example would be:

Assume your running for a group of 4-6 players during a weejly game of D&D 3.5, Pathfinder or 4E and that your game session is about 4-5 hours long.

How long does your average combat take and about how many of those battles do you want per gaming session?

That is a meaningful question. Suggesting instead that a combat takes 2-5 minutes to run is far too divorced from reality to have any meaning. In fact, if this magical game system took only a few minutes to resolve a significant battle - I'd be playing some other RPG that took longer. My group LIKES tabletop combat with minis everywhere and lots of tactical options and relatively deep strategy.

FWIW, I'm currently running Star Wars: Saga Edition where the length of a typical combat encounter is on par with 3.5 or Pathfinder.

I look to runm during a game session of about 6 hours or so in length, 3 to 4 combats and at least 2 skill challenges. That assumes that one or two of those combats is a relatively major encounter (about an hour to resolve +/-), while one to two of them of them is not (20 to 30 minutes +/-). Assume the skill challenges are about 15-20 minutes each to resolve.

That's at least half the session taken up by encounters, with the balance for non-encounter roleplaying. Some major combat encounters may take longer than an hour to resolve of course. I have had some go for two hours without much difficulty when running about 20 foes and a BBEG against seven players.

 

[bagger245]

All depends on the story. I prefer meaningful fights. I don't mind casual fights with lackeys as long as they are short. Having a 2 hour combat with street thugs doesn't feel like I achieved anything at the end of the session. For boss fights, I don't mind lenghty ones, even the whole session if it needs to be.

But important thing is getting more things done in a session whether is combat or roleplaying. Not all of us have much time to gather together like the old days, so that gaming time is really important. Nowadays after I come home from a session, I would judge it as how much I managed to accomplish.

For videogames and MMOs, grinding doesn't matter. You can stop and save whenever you want and sitting down in front of a PC with long combats is the same as spending hours surfing youtube or chat forums. Sure rich tactical combats that span hours or entire sessions is fun to some but I rather play a wargame.

 

[CleverNickName]

Suggesting instead that a combat takes 2-5 minutes to run is far too divorced from reality to have any meaning.

Oh, I don't think so. Obviously, combat is very important to a roleplaying game...I am merely trying to measure that importance. Do you prefer a deep-immersion, story-based game where entire gaming sessions can pass without rolling a single dice? Or do you like button-mashing video-game simulators where monsters pour out at you from spawn points all over the map? If time were no object, where would you fall on that spectrum?

Because really: why all the hubbub about "grind," if it is something that you only want to happen once or twice per gaming session?

 

[fba827]

"per gaming session" ? how long (hours) is a session for the purposes of this poll?

 

[Shemeska]

Where's my option for 'As Many or as Few as Appropriate'?

That's completely subjective to wherever the campaign is at at the time. Sometimes a lot of combats simply makes sense and it's what the PCs expect, while at other times it's not appropriate to the circumstances.

For instance my last session didn't have a single combat in around 5 hours of gametime. Next session we'll be starting off with a combat we paused at last game, and we'll be gaming till we're done with the campaign (final session). Lots of bladelings, possibly psurlon servitors of Mak'Thum'Ngatha, brood gibberlings, Keepers, Gith (the original individual of that name, Gith the Unshackler), Tiamat, and others. Lots of fireworks that may involve combat or macguffins or both.

Might just be my group, but we really have some amazing variability in how many combats we have in a given session of the game (and not just in games that I'm running for the group, also in games I'm playing in and another of my group is DMing).

 

[CleverNickName]

"per gaming session" ? how long (hours) is a session for the purposes of this poll?

As many hours as you would like...it really depends on the game you are playing, the number of people you are playing with, and so forth. Pick whatever length of time that would be ideal.

 

[CleverNickName]

That's completely subjective to wherever the campaign is at at the time.

Yes. Yes it is.

For instance my last session didn't have a single combat in around 5 hours of gametime. Next session we'll be starting off with a combat we paused at last game, and we'll be gaming till we're done with the campaign (final session). Lots of bladelings, possibly psurlon servitors of Mak'Thum'Ngatha, brood gibberlings, Keepers, Gith (the original individual of that name, Gith the Unshackler), Tiamat, and others. Lots of fireworks that may involve combat or macguffins or both.

Holy crap, your game sounds awesome.

This isn't a vote for reality. You are voting for a theoretical ideal.