D&D General Poll: Combat or Roleplay?

[Oofta]

While obviously the game has it's origins in wargaming and miniatures, I don't think I'd call the role playing part incidental. After all, the whole point was to take the wargaming aspect and bring it down to an individual character level. Which is the root of role playing. So I think that part was very much part of the initial goal.

In the very, very beginnings PCs were just kind of special forces. The very first "PCs" were just unique battlefield commanders and spellcasters. There was no intent other for them to be a unit of 1 individual originally.

But that wasn't really D&D yet, it was a wargame with unique battlefield commanders. I'll see if I can find the interview later.

 

[R_J_K75]

In the very, very beginnings PCs were just kind of special forces. The very first "PCs" were just unique battlefield commanders and spellcasters. There was no intent other for them to be a unit of 1 individual originally.

But that wasn't really D&D yet, it was a wargame with unique battlefield commanders. I'll see if I can find the interview later.

Think that was in the Blackmoor documentary.

 

[Blue]

Preferable there's a good mix of options over time.

But I can say as both player and as DM that if my choices were combat for the full session or RP for the full session, I'd go the later in a heartbeat. (And while this is in a D&D forum, that's even more true when you get away from D&D.)

I've regularly run combat-less sessions, sometimes several in a row. Though that's not quite fair, since those sessions will be full of challenges, tension, drama, investigation, intrigue, stealth, planning and discovery - only of which some is RP. But I've had full RP sessions.

One I've brought up before when DMing I had a regular session planned and we left off right after something and it was about to be going to sleep. But the two characters on first watch wanted to have a private conversation, and then we ended up with three separate two-character conversations happening simultaneously in RL, but sequentially in game as it was the watches. The players ended up happy working out in-character stuff for the entire length of the session, and at the end we had some old hatchets buried, a new bond formed, and a relationship changed. I just sat back and enjoyed. Players knew I had stuff if they wanted to get to it, but a beat of just inter-party RP was what they ended up wanting.

 

[Charlaquin]

Here I can only say you do you. I much prefer social interaction to be as unconstrained by mechanics as possible, and for roleplay at the table to be the determining factor in how things come out.

It’s a matter of preference, for sure. I definitely wouldn’t enjoy a game where social interactions were resolved purely mechanically and roleplaying choices had no impact. But nor would I care for a game where there was no mechanical way to gain an advantage in social interaction. Player skill and avatar strength are both important factors to me.

I don't, in that I've known players to whom the only thing that matters in the game is the next level-up (to a small corollary group, the only thing that matters is the next treasure haul; I count these groups the same here). I've also known players who wouldn't mind if the game had no levelling at all. The dichotomy is most visible when comparing these two player types.

Put another way: there's those who see character development as being purely mechanical (i.e. if something doesn't improve the mechanics then it doesn't develop the character); and others who see character development as being largely if not completely divorced from mechanics where development is instead as the growth and changes to the character's personality, outlook, etc. within the fiction.

But the fact that players who favor one to the exclusion of the other exist doesn’t make it a dichotomy. Both can and do exist simultaneously, regardless of how much importance players place on one or the other. And there are certainly players who find both important (like me).

I see this tendency as a very predictable outgrowth of 3e-4e-5e's unfortunate focus on what I call the 'build game', where one is encouraged to plan out one's advancement from level 1 right through to level 20 (30 in 4e) and then more or less just watch it happen. Worse, this focus leads players towards expecting it to happen as planned rather than just playing the game and seeing what comes next.

I’m not surprised you think that. Personally I don’t think builds are the cause. Since the game’s inception there have been players whose characters never really develop narratively, and players whose characters do.

 

[Minigiant]

EXPLORATION!!!

runs away

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Even when we are fighting we are usually thinking and feeling in character, and we fight less than we interact and explore, so definitely roleplaying.

 

[Don Durito]

Rolepplay in combat!

 

[aco175]

I'd say 2/3 combat. It is nice to gain levels and power. You see advancement. A night with no combat is rare in my game.