D&D 5E Would you play D&D if you knew there would be no combat?

[Nebulous]

Prompted by another thread; if you were involved in a new D&D game and were aware up front it would NOT be a combat heavy game, or hardly any combat at all, but rather exploration and mystery and horror, would you still play? Assume you do not know the DM and he is not a friend, this is all 100% new.

 

[BluejayJunior]

I would still be interested if it had a concept that I found intriguing and I knew that there would be no combat before character creation. Although I would still probably suggest that another system might better suit the game.

 

[RogueJK]

I'd give it a shot. But honestly, a lot of D&D DMs and players tend to gloss over the other aspects in favor of heavy combat, and either as a reason or result (chicken/egg) don't really have a firm grasp on how to do the other pillars. So it would take the right DM and group to make it work.

But there are other RPGs, like old Chaosium Call of Cthulhu and some World of Darkness, that were geared towards minimal combat, with the primary focus being roleplaying, investigation, intrigue, horror, etc. So it can certainly be done. But D&D may not be the best chassis for it.

 

[Istbor]

Hmmm. I have to go with maybe. Only due to the amount of qualifiers thrown in there.

That I don't know the DM at all, so have no gauge as to the quality of his campaigns or ability is a big deal.

Many an interesting idea has been crushed by a DM that is either not up to the task, runs out of motivation for actually running the game.

That and what if I just dislike the guy? You know. like a we just don't click? That wouldn't be fun.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

No. I play D&D to replicate classic action Swords and Sorcery. I like a good bit of RP but at heart I'm in it for the action.

 

[BrokenTwin]

D&D is mostly geared towards combat. If we're playing a game with zero/little combat, I'm much prefer playing a system that actually reinforces and supports that.

 

[toucanbuzz]

Now if the question is "if you knew there was NO combat" and there's an option for "maybe, if there's combat," doesn't that muddy our poll?

 

[MNblockhead]

Maybe. Probably not an entire campaign. I've certainly run long sessions with no combat, but they are rare. I like D&D for classic swords & sorcery gaming and mixing in light war gaming with role-play.

For no-combat gaming, I prefer other systems like Dialect or InSPECTREs. Even for those types of games I prefer them for one-off sessions.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Sacrosanct]

I'm in a campaign right now that has almost no combat at all. Maybe 5% or less time is towards combat. So I suppose the answer is yes. But I wouldn't play it as frequently as I do now, because I do enjoy some combat in my games, so I'd probably play other games along with D&D if D&D had not combat.