Ideally, How Many Battles?

[steenan]

I'm quite surprised by all the answers in tune of "It depends on the story".
To me, it seems that that is exactly what the OP is asking about: given no mechanical/timing limitations, how combat-intensive stories would you like to play? And that is what I answered. While there are many types of stories I like in a game, on average two combats in a 6-7h session is fine for me.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm quite surprised by all the answers in tune of "It depends on the story".

To me, it seems that that is exactly what the OP is asking about: given no mechanical/timing limitations, how combat-intensive stories would you like to play? And that is what I answered. While there are many types of stories I like in a game, on average two combats in a 6-7h session is fine for me.

There are two problems with the question, "How combat-intensive stories would you like to play?"

The first is related directly to the question. The answer to such a question can only be, "It depends. I like all kinds. Tell me a good story." And also, the amount of combat in a session isn't entirely up to the DM. If I'm playing a character who tends to try to solve problems by hitting them with something sharp, we'll tend to have more combat heavy sessions than if the PC's all tend to look for alternative solutions.

The second problem is related to the way the player asked the question. The player stated his question in terms of a 'session' which is an arbitrary portion of the story. I don't and don't think I can structure events around a session. Unless I'm specifically writing a tournament type scenario with limited choices and no expectation of roleplaying, I never know how much material a session is going to consume. A session is not a 'chapter', 'scene', or 'story'. It's just a period of time that we happen to be telling the story together. In such a period of time, how many combats you have depends on what sort of story you are telling and on whether you are in a combat heavy portion of the story. If that session occurs within a part of the story heavy on roleplay, investigation, or intrigue then '0-1' is probably the answer I'll give for how many combats should occur in the session. If that session occurs within a battle, the exploration of some monster rich area, or something of that sort, then 'as many as we can fit in' might be a better expectation. In which case, practically the answer is 'about 8', but if we could do them in 2 minutes consistantly it might be 20 or more. And I can't answer this by taking an average either. There isn't a rule that says, "You need 1 combat heavy session every other session.", or anything of that nature.

As I said, I've gone several sessions without combat and been happy about it. And I've been in sessions where the combat essentially didn't stop the whole session long.

 

[Rykion]

There are too many variables depending on the game type and players to state an ideal number of combats per session. In a dungeon crawl, I would say 6 or 7. An investigation heavy game would probably only have 1 or 2. So I'll go with 1-7 combats a session being ideal.

 

[Jhaelen]

I forgot to mention in my previous post that I voted for 2-3 battles per session. I think there are even two ideal points during a session for a battle:
- right at the start of a session
- right after the lunch break

Nothing works better than a nice little battle to get the players' attention.

We've recently spent five session playing Earthdawn without a single combat encounter followed by a session dedicated entirely to one large battle.

After about four sessions spent on nothing but exploring a basically empty dungeon, I was about ready to simply leave the place, return to the nearby town and start to hack away at the next person having the bad luck to encounter me. So that was clearly an example of having too few battles

 

[The Shaman]

As many as the adventurers (1) choose to fight or (2) cannot avoid.

 

[steenan]

The second problem is related to the way the player asked the question. The player stated his question in terms of a 'session' which is an arbitrary portion of the story. I don't and don't think I can structure events around a session. Unless I'm specifically writing a tournament type scenario with limited choices and no expectation of roleplaying, I never know how much material a session is going to consume. A session is not a 'chapter', 'scene', or 'story'. It's just a period of time that we happen to be telling the story together.

That may be the difference in how we see that. While I take part in no tournament or convention games, I play mostly one-shots. Thus, "a session" is quite often equivalent to "a story" for me. It needs to contain a complete narrative structure.

Also, even in campaign play, I perceive counting combats per session as more meaningful than you do. There is a big difference between the same story, with the same number of combats (or other high-action scenes) played in a single session and played in several. It feels much different. The perceived timing, the rhythm of play, depends on what happens during a single meeting. It's very hard (and, most probably, psychologically unhealthy) to keep the intense emotional state created by in-game action for two or three weeks until the next session. It's much easier to keep it for a few hours of play. Thus, by appropriate timing with respect to the real world time, I may keep my players engaged in action, feeling the tempo all the time, even during the slower, social scenes. And that is what I aim for in all games that treat combat as a normal part of play (as opposed to combat as "we did something very wrong" in CoC or UA).

 

[Celebrim]

That may be the difference in how we see that. While I take part in no tournament or convention games, I play mostly one-shots. Thus, "a session" is quite often equivalent to "a story" for me. It needs to contain a complete narrative structure.

I don't often run one shots except on behalf of a gaming store, but yes, a 'one shot' would be the more general case of a tournament or convention game.

It sounds like you have a wildly different gaming experience than I do. Outside of 'open dungeon crawl nights', when gaming with friends I don't even mean the term 'one shot' to mean 'one session'. I mean rather 'a single story with disposable characters', and they are more likely to last 2-3 sessions than one. Over the years, I've often played 'one shots' as introductions to different gaming systems, but rarely have those literally been 'one session'.

For my part, I'd be more interested in hearing your theories of stagecraft and creating timing in stories that last 4 hours than answering polls about how many combats that a game should have. I inadvertantly created a self contained episode with the first session of a new campaign a few weeks ago. I had anticipated that I had 6-7 hours of material ready, but do to a few unexpected turns, the players missed about a third of my material. I threw me for a bit of a loop and I had some momentary panic over how I'd get things back on track, but it ended up working out because - without a lot of forethought - I'd structured the material into 3 'acts' which each had a natural climax. So rather than having the climax of the 2nd act end the session, we ended on the climax of the 3rd act.

My toolset and yours are going to be inherently different. Things like 'cliffhangers' which are natural parts of how I pace my stories, are of little use to you. And conversely, there are probably things you are doing that I don't much consider.

 

[Guest 85555]

I generally prefer one good size combat, or 2-3 really short combats.

 

[karlindel]

I went with no opinion, as my preference varies depending on the game system, story, and session length. It also depends on the players. As such, there is no single answer to the question for me.

I have been in and run campaigns which had 1 or fewer combats per session. I have also been in and run games that had 6+ combats per session.

And, of course, sometimes I and/or the players are in the mood for a lot of fights, and other times we're not.

 

[Mallus]

I voted "1 or fewer".

If one, then I prefer it to be a smashing big set piece, tough, ideally with something meaningful at stake. But I'm perfectly happy with no combat in a session. I like the game when it's just talking and exploring.