Combatless sessions

[Stoat]

I've had a fairly high rate of non-combat sessions in my current 4E campaign, maybe as much as 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 sessions have no combat in them. My PC's are the rulers of a small tropical village, and they spend a lot of time dealing with local political issues.

CAVEAT: A "session" for my group runs for two to three hours.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

For my group it happens fairly frequently, though we have had a few campaigns where fights are more common and/or expected. There is also one player who gets bored if we don't fight, though he also gets bored if a fight lasts longer than his attention span (I often wonder why he bothers to show up).

I also find that the more in-character we get, the greater the chances of spending an entire session on RP. Mostly because we get really into it, and not that we RP our way past encounters (though this happens sometimes, too).

It's been like this in every edition I've played, and even most of the game systems I've played for campaigns (Shadowrun, Starwars, Call of Cthulhu, etc).

 

[Pheonix0114]

My group must be very odd. Across all games we've run, they've shied from combat. This went as far as trying to get an audience with what was supposed to be the BBEG to discern whether or not he was truly evil, and then discovering he "just wanted to gain immortality to continue studying magic" went and did another long series of quests to gain him access to a library that exists outside of time, and were then upset at how many times I "forced" combat on them.....

The only time I haven't seen them shy away from combat was when we were playing d20 future and it was starship combat.....and even then when the ship's medic pointed out the hundreds they killed by destroying those ships the players responded by simply jumping away from the next combat....

My ratio is something like some combat in 1 out of 4-5 sessions.

 

[Argyle King]

I'm not sure if I've ever played in a D&D 4E session which didn't have at least one combat encounter.

It's happened in some of the other games I play, but I can't remember it happening during my time with 4E.

 

[Barastrondo]

It's reasonably common for me. I almost went three sessions in a row without a fight in one game, until finally the assassination attempts started. My players enjoy combat, but they also enjoy schemes, intrigue, investigation and interaction. On the nights when combat results from those other things, great, but when it doesn't, it's not a disappointment.

 

[Dannager]

Not often, but it happens. I think that a lot of players (myself included) feel that sessions without combat are not as fulfilling as they could be.

 

[SabreCat]

Not often, but it happens. I think that a lot of players (myself included) feel that sessions without combat are not as fulfilling as they could be.

I'll echo this statement. I played in one tonight, and while the roleplay opportunities were a nice change of pace overall (usually this is a two-battles-a-night game), it got to be a trifle on the dull side after three hours of talking in character. With combat representing most of the cool things your character can do, going a full session without really being able to engage with the system felt like a letdown.

I'd say the 1 in 10 number is about right in my experience, and that's also about as much as I'd be comfortable with in 4e.

 

[KidSnide]

I think there are two keys to a good non-combat session.

1) The PCs have to be working towards or accomplishing goals.
Those goals can be player-generated or they can be part of a larger plot, but the players should feel as if they are accomplishing something with the time they spend gaming. Speaking for myself, I can be happy going many sessions in a row without combat so long as we're accomplishing something as a group. A non-combat session isn't there to waste time with nothing more than improv characterization. It's there to learn vital clues, advance important relationships and persuade NPCs (by means fair or foul) to do what you want.

2) Everyone needs to be involved.
Combat has the virtue of giving everyone a regular turn to participate. If you give up that structure, you need to make sure that every player has a chance to have fun. That's not to say that some goals can't be personal to a single character. But, if you're going to spend a session on one player, the GM either needs to design the focus player's session to involve the other players or that story needs to be so interesting that the other players will enjoy it as theater. (Either one is difficult to accomplish, which is probably one of the reasons so many players prefer a combat oriented game.)

-KS

 

[Mengu]

I've had a lot of sessions without combat, both playing and running. Setting up the beginning of an arc is usually pretty roleplaying heavy. Have to talk to a lot of NPC's, maybe the party splits up to gather information, to see what they are getting into, they witness things, they interact with people and events, it can sometimes take a session or two before a "combat" arc starts.

Single combat sessions aren't too unusual either. I will sometimes prepare for two combat encounters, but the players take their sweet time roleplaying here and there, or on occasion take hours planning what they will do, how they will do, or discuss hypothetical outcomes and conditional moves. If they're enjoying it, I won't interrupt their fun. I'm perfectly happy pacing the game with what the players want.

I don't find that 4e is necessarily any different than previous editions in this respect. We've had some RP heavy sessions, and some combat heavy sessions in just about every edition (or rather, just about every system).

 

[pemerton]

Is this discussion really limited to 4e or should it be widened to running non-combat sessions in any edition?

I posted it in the 4e forum because I'm a 4e GM, and Chris Perkins was posting about 4e games, and 4e is, at least in my view, an RPG that makes combat as a means of conflict resolution fairly central to the game. (I've italicised the whole of that phrase deliberately - I think 4e is best for running meaningful combats, where the stakes are something other than just win/lose.)

I'm happy for it to be about other editions/games, but for some of them the question is less salient. Gygax's AD&D, for example, focuses less on combat than on treasure-recovery, as the main site of conflict and achievement; and Classic Traveller could easily be a game full of combatless sessions.

I played in one tonight, and while the roleplay opportunities were a nice change of pace overall (usually this is a two-battles-a-night game), it got to be a trifle on the dull side after three hours of talking in character.

A non-combat session isn't there to waste time with nothing more than improv characterization. It's there to learn vital clues, advance important relationships and persuade NPCs (by means fair or foul) to do what you want.

I'm with KidSnide on this one. Non-combat doesn't just mean "talking in character". Most of my players don't do very much of that, and the non-combat session I described didn't differ in that respect. There was planning, discussions of who was doing what in the various skill challenges, the back-and-forth of the exploration, etc. Even in social interactions, like the social skill chalenge, meeting the dwarven smith, and meeting the patriarch in the parade, the players use indirect as much as direct speech - describing what they do and say, as well as (sometimes) actually doing or saying it.

As GM, I think I use more direct speech than anyone else at the table, even when that requires hamming it up or raising my voice a bit, because I take part of my job being to create some atmosphere - especially in a social scene.