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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sunseeker" data-source="post: 5880923">The importance of combat or non-combat things should depend on the campaign.  I DO NOT want to see rules that say "combat should take 5 minutes, exploration should take 20 and social 30."  That is the rules telling me how to run my game, and that's not what I'm looking for in well, any game.There are 20 possible numbers to roll on a d20, if you are only given the chance to roll it once, performance becomes highly tied to probability.  The law of averages(which D&D relies on significantly) does not apply when there is too little to make an average. I believe this is half true, a showdown with Dr Doom is going to be important no matter what happens, however, as anyone who's ever watched an action movie(which includes most fantasy movies) will tell you, if the showdown with the villain takes all of 5 seconds, it really takes a lot of climax out of the fight.  The Villain doesn't get a chance to display his true evil, his brilliant genius, his master plan, he just gets punched in the face and you win.  Likewise the hero doesn't get to fight on in spite of serious injuries, he doesn't have to choose between saving the hot heroine or his loyal sidekick, he doesn't get a chance to really do anything, he just runs in, punches the guy in the face and wins.This is why the idea of "shorter combats" are problematic to me, combats should take exactly as long as they're supposed to.  Some should take a long time and be complex tactical battles between skilled opponents.  Others should go quickly, the group of lowly bandits who thought your shiny +3 Mithril Plate of Shinyness would make them a quick buck.  Sometimes exploration is quick, the players look in the right places at just the right time, sometimes social encounters are quick; do the players have to woo the whole Court or just the King?  Is the Court perhaps very particular that the only thing that can be done to gain their favor is killing the King?  Maybe the only way to get the King's help is to save his son?This all plays into the idea of "shorter games" as well, the idea that there should be an hourglass slowly ticking away the amount of time you have to do something in.  Time spent doing something should be a campaign decision.I'm all for making combat more fluid so that it naturally plays faster.  I don't want to see this come at the cost of player options mind you.  EX: the design of the Slayer makes combat both better and faster IMO, that's great design right there.  If something like this could be accomplished with all/most classes in 5e, I do believe that combats would go faster.But my key point is still that the time involved in combat is a result, not the problem.  2+2=4, always has, always will.  Making 2+2=Fish is only going to make things weird, and that's my concern, that Wizards will try to change the outcome without changing the equation.</blockquote>

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