How much of your typical play time is combat?

[Reynard]

For my own part, I try and aim for about 25%, with exploration and NPC interaction taking up the bulk of the play time, but usually hit closer to 1/3 combat and 2/3 other stuff. Sometimes combats run longer than expected, and sometimes dealing with the trap or the informant do too, so I think it mostly washes out.

One thing to note is that I don't reduce many things to a simple die roll -- searching for and disarming a trap, for example, isn't just a Search and a Disable Device roll in my games. Where are you looking? How are you trying to manipulate it? That kind of thing. The same can be said for interactions as well -- if a players wants to use Diplomacy or Bluff or some other active interaction skill, it can only happen after the player role-plays the situation. I tend to be more rewarding than punishing though -- really clever or good roleplaying nets a bonus, rather than their being a penalty for not being up to snuff. This kind of thing, I have found, is a sure fire way to reduce the time spent moving minis around on the battleboard if you feel too much play-time is being wasted on fights, and has the added benefit of engaging the players in every aspect of the game, not just the fights.

Also, mook rules help -- giving "mooks" 2 or 3 hp per hit die is a great way to have bad guys that still threaten the PCs but aren't expected to be around long. (Of course, doing the opposite with the big guys is a good way to make sure those "end boss" fights don't fall flat -- barring save or die effects or really awesome and/or lucky players -- and in the latter case, good for them!)

 

[FATDRAGONGAMES]

Excluding the games I run for my son's group which is very hack-n-slash, my other two groups are probably 40-50%.

 

[Creamsteak]

It varies. In a recent session, we had one encounter (well almost 2, in the sense that the party was split up into two groups) that played for maybe 15 minutes, of 3.5 hours.

Another session, we had something like 11 combat encounters, and they were most of the session, sans an interrogation.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I'd tenativley answer 40-50 percent, though it can vary greatly session to session.

 

[Lanefan]

Varies widely- sometimes none of it, sometimes all of it and sometimes anywhere in between.

Same here; thus, can't really vote.

Lanefan

 

[jmucchiello]

Varies widely- sometimes none of it, sometimes all of it and sometimes anywhere in between.

Same here; thus, can't really vote.

Lanefan

It doesn't say "how much of your typical session time is combat?" It says "how much of your typical play time is combat?" He specified play time to eliminate the OOG chit-chat. So if some sessions are all combat, some sessions are no combat and some are in between, there must be some average amount of time spent in combat.

Try this rephasing: If you examined a years' worth of play, counting only the time spent actually playing, not out of game chit-chat and pizza runs, what percentage of that play time is spent playing out combat?

 

[Switchblade]

I put down 20 - 30 %, it varries wildly depending on the group and the system but this pretty much sums up my DnD experiences. Problem with DnD is you pretty much have to get into fights to improve.

For other games I'm currently playing in Ghoul (soon to be Vampire) works out at 2% combat (I'm bored and have a calculator, sue me) and Ars Magica no more than 10% (and our current campaign is quite combat heavy by our usual Ars standards)

On the other hand in the 3e Shadowrun campaigns I've played/run combat is incredably time consuming and it can take several hours to play 9 seconds of in game time (I blame wired refexes) so even if our characters got into fights rarely combat would still be about half of our game. While Shadowrun 3e is pretty much my favourite system I don't think I could stick longer fights, any more from that and you aren't sitting round roleplaying so much as roll playing. When I want to do that I'll go war game.

 

[Jhaelen]

I voted 60-70%, but I can't really tell, exactly. It certainly feels that way. The party's average level is 12 now and combats already seem to take significantly longer than, say, 3 levels ago.

Since it's 8 players combat typically involves large numbers of enemies. In the last two sessions we had one combat in each one that took about 4-5 hours (both boss fights, though, but still...). It's mainly the spellcasters that require lots of time to finish their actions.

If this trend continues I may abort the campaign or at least fast-foward it to its conclusion.

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

Less than 10%

I use HârnMaster and my players don’t want to die.

 

[Garet44]

I put down 50-60%, but it really depends on what we are doing. Small fights take an hour or so. Large scale combat takes a while. Our last 3 games were 3 sections of a large battle. I was ready to be done. Our game master said he wouldn't do that again for a while . I'd say in a 8 hour session its typically around 50% which is ok. Unless some one is dragging their feet. :\