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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 3842959" data-attributes="member: 42582">"Combat focus" is not really a synonym for "a game", even in the sometimes obscure jargon of RPGing. And I'll say again that, if your claim was correct, then games like The Dying Earth, HeroWars/Quest, Burning Wheel - and even classic Traveller or RM2, both of which have social skills and simple mechanics for using them - would draw players' attention to their character sheets rather than the game. And I still think that such a claim is too absurd for words.Alternatively, the players are looking to have their PCs do things, and the PCs (especially the spell-users) don't have enough things to do.It should also be noted that this problem can happen in a context where none of the encounters are combat challenges - in RM, for example, a sequence of social encounters can lead to the PC enchanter running out of spell points, as s/he uses buffing, influencing and mind-reading magic. The problem arises from a mismatch between the timing of encounters and ability usage - it is not particularly linked to combat.Not much dungeon crawl, save-or-die flavour, that is true. There will still be resource management within individual encounters, and there may be long-term management of non-supernatural resources (like food, water, equipment etc) depending on what happens to spells like Create Food & Water, Fabricate etc.I don't see what any of the above has to do with sword-and-sorcery which, as a literary genre, doesn't read very much like dungeon crawls play. If I had to think of a literary equivalent to dungeon crawling I'd think of a certain type of espionage or military writing, not Conan.Personally, I think your pessimism is entirely warranted. But I don't understand at all why you want to link it to a combat focus. And I also don't understand why you apparently deny that non-dungeon crawling play can still be roleplaying.</blockquote>

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