D&D 5E [+] How can 5e best handle role playing outside of combat?

[Fenris-77]

How would people structure a session without combat as the focus?

This assumes that I structure sessions to begin with. I don't. Lots of people do though.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Session-as-skill-challenge.

The party has a goal that somehow does non involve making someone an obituary, so now they must come up with (using knowledge and social checks for intel gathering) and then implement the plan.

The most basic is the 'crash this noble party without the guards moving you to god's area code' plot, but maybe it's a genuine treasure hunt or gathering reagents in a certain area, or winning someone's favor or even making a magic item. Sky's the limit.

I've run sessions entirely out of poker games and grocery shopping (which added in recruiting a bartender because... my players collect NPCs).

 

[TheAlkaizer]

No, it's not. It's also a fairly vast array of combat powers, of spells being used for utility, and all the rest of the activities described in the DMG.

The biggest part of the spells are either entirely combat focused, or can be used outside of combat with little incentive for roleplay. There's absolutely some (notably a lot of the cantrips) that are flavorful and absolutely lend themselves to being used to solve problems outside of combat. Also, we're talking of spells, but these are something that only a portion of the classes in the game can use. Statiscially speaking, in most groups, one or more players will not be able to use these tools.

With your general perspective about the game being combat orientated, it's obvious why all these things are ignored. But it's an initial choice, at our tables we can play entire sessions without one combat in which much more things happen than during any single combat

I don't know where you took that I'm a combat oriented DM. You just quoted me saying that I frequently have sessions with no combat at all.

Actually it does, since these activities do not need to be technical. But there is some material in the DMG, plus all the non combat abilities and spells at the very least.

There is some material for sure. Is it good material? We can disagree on that.

As for the MM, yes, there are statblocks, but the descriptions and "fluff" take more space than the stat blocks. Check for yourself.

There's fluff, yes. But the majority of the monsters in the book are meant to be slain. They're evil, they're unintelligent, they're beasts. Of course, there's the good aligned monsters that can be allies instead of enemies and the usual humanoids that you could parley with.

 

[Lyxen]

5e reactions as is simply aren't comprehensive enough.

They are guidelines anyway, you have the whole palette of any reaction that you might want through roleplaying.

A more detailed chart encompasses far greater reach of reactions than any one DM is capable of thinking of on their own, I don't care how worldly they think they are. It takes the decision out of the DM's hands and puts it where it belongs - in the province of the dice.

No, sorry, it does not belong there by right, but only because you choose the "Rolling with it" option of the DMG, but the "Ignoring the Dice" is just as valid.

As DM I like to be surprised by the direction of things. By putting the results with the dice, then anything can happen. As well, Charisma becomes an extremely important attribute not just for the combat mechanics 5e has attached to it, but how it influences the direction of the narrative just by being... My players in my home games learned years ago the major downside of dumping Charisma. NPCS tend to not like them, and it's not because the DM arbitrarily said 'oh, your charisma is a little on the low side so they kinda don't like you...' or 'Ah, you're a paladin with a 17 Charisma, everyone automatically likes you!' - it's because the dice combined with a comprehensive chart of reactions determined the path of the social encounters.

If you like rolling for it, good for you, I prefer a different game where the choices made and the roleplaying have a greater influence than a very swingy d20, especially with bounded accuracy.

The abundance of charts in 1e and 2e worked for a reason.

It did not work for us, it made for a much too swingy rollplaying game, but then YCMV, to each his own.

 

[TheSword]

This assumes that I structure sessions to begin with. I don't. Lots of people do though.

Rephrase. What would be the typical structure of one of you sessions. Organically

 

[Lyxen]

The biggest part of the spells are either entirely combat focused, or can be used outside of combat with little incentive for roleplay. There's absolutely some (notably a lot of the cantrips) that are flavorful and absolutely lend themselves to being used to solve problems outside of combat. Also, we're talking of spells, but these are something that only a portion of the classes in the game can use. Statiscially speaking, in most groups, one or more players will not be able to use these tools.

And it's the same with the powers, I agree that some classes are very much combat focussed, but most of them have a different balance.

I don't know where you took that I'm a combat oriented DM. You just quoted me saying that I frequently have sessions with no combat at all.

Well maybe from you using the sentence "D&D is very combat oriented.".

There is some material for sure. Is it good material? We can disagree on that.

And then it's the same for the combat rules, lots of people have varying opinions on that.

There's fluff, yes. But the majority of the monsters in the book are meant to be slain. They're evil, they're unintelligent, they're beasts. Of course, there's the good aligned monsters that can be allies instead of enemies and the usual humanoids that you could parley with.

It all depends how you are using them, and which ones you choose. Some of them I agree can only be used for combat, but even them, you can still use them for flavour, or as pets for evil characters, etc.

 

[Lyxen]

How would people structure a session without combat as the focus?

Set up a situation with multiple factions and NPCs in conflict, and let the PCs find their way through the knot of intrigue, deciding who to talk to, in which order, how to approach them. City scenarios are great for this. Then set up a few "bumpers" along the NPCs that will send players in another direction by providing new/conflicting information, etc.

 

[Fenris-77]

Rephrase. What would be the typical structure of one of you sessions. Organically

I run D&D sessions much like a PbtA or FitD game. The players decide to do stuff, I adjudicate outcomes, and then frame results and consequences - rinse and repeat. As far as 'prep' goes I have some threats written, and a ton of random tables to help generate content, but nothing like a plan about what the players should be doing. So it's perfectly possible for the players to spend a whole session doing stuff that doesn't involve killing things and taking their goodies. I wouldn't say that's common exactly, but it depends on the players and campaign.

That said, I do use clocks and ladders to help flesh out more nuanced non-combat activities and that helps.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That's not really what is meant by that statement.

"The rules define the fun," means that the rules contain all the assumptions about what the designers expect the players to do in order to achieve the objectives of the game. That's as true for a board game or a TCG as it is for and RPG. The question, "How do I play?" really does mean, "How do I have fun?"

If, for example, an RPG contained rules for scoring the structure, rhythm, and rhyme of a stanza of iambic pentameter, you should expect that writing poetry would be a way to have fun and rewarding experience playing the game. If you don't writing writing poetry, you wouldn't say that you play the game without the poetry. You'd just say you don't like that game because it involves too much poetry.

In general, D&D contains rules for: Creating a fantasy adventurer and fighting combat with weapons and spells. That's not just because the overwhelming proportion of every rule in the game is dedicated (often exclusively) to the combat subgame. It's also because combat very clearly represents the overwhelming proportion of development effort as well. It's very clear that the designer expectation and intention for 5e D&D is that you will use combat a lot. You will use combat to overcome challenges, and you will spend a lot of time during the game using combat. "The rules define the fun," means that if the game is one that is to your liking you should expect that combat is one of the most fun and rewarding aspects of the game as a whole.

If, on the other hand, you don't have a fun or rewarding experience using the rules of the game, then perhaps either you don't enjoy that game or the game is simply badly designed.

This simply is not true. It has never been true about RPGs. Some stuff simply has less rule focus, because it doesn't need extensive rules, in fact such could be detrimental. Do you really think the heartfelt conversations or funny interactions in Critical Role would be improved if the players constantly paused to check their character sheets, bid some meta tokens and such? Or are the CR people playing D&D wrong because their game is not nonstop combat?

Granted, D&D has a lot of stuff for combat, so if you don't want to do combat at all, it is wasted, so in that sense it would be wiser to choose another game for such a campaign. But that's not what anyone is talking about. We're talking about normal adventure game where there is a decent balance of different things.

 

[Fanaelialae]

How can you best enjoy non-combat activities though?

That'll vary from group to group (really, person to person).

For example, I enjoy deep and tantalizing mysteries. Not in the whodunnit sense, but rather making a discovery about the game world that has intriguing implications, and then digging around to discover every clue about that detail, in order to make fully-formed sense of it.

In one campaign, we discovered a Stonehenge-like structure in a desolate corner of the setting. We worked out that it had been built by a titan, and that the stone columns could be raised and lowered, creating different harmonics in the ever present wind. After a lot of experimentation, we figured out the basics of its operation, which opened a hidden chamber that contained a friendly, immortal being created by the titan (he was created to be the template for beings meant to replace humanity), and discovered that the structure was essentially a titan supercomputer. We learned a lot from this being and were even given the choice to become like him. The discovery was profound, and significantly altered the course of the campaign. This occupied most of a long session (around 7 hours), during which there was no combat but we all had a fantastic time!

So, at least for me, one of the things that works best is for the DM to bury some deeply rooted mysteries in their game world for me to discover and dig up. But I've played with people who'd be bored in a session focused on that, so the real answer is that it varies, person to person and group to group.