D&D 5E Social/Combat/Exploration Ratio

[EzekielRaiden]

So, what do you think the ratio of encounters should be in a site-based adventure?

Assume, for the sake of simplicity, that every keyed area belongs to one of four categories:

1. Social - interact with NPCs, etc.
2. Combat - Kill stuff.
3. Exploration - find clues, solve puzzles, search for secret doors, disarm traps.
4. Empty (might have stuff in the room, but interacting with it will provide little information).

So, what should these ratios be?

Myself, I'm leaning on using something like this - 1 in 8 locations should be social, 3 in 8 combat (with only 1 or 2 of them being anything harder than an easy combat), 2 in 8 exploration, and 2 in 8 empty. That's sort of the ratio I've been using in rooms right now, but I'm curious to see how other GMs handle it.

(if it really matters for all you "it depends" types, the assume the dungeon has 24-32 keyed areas, or less than 50 at any rate. And I know many encounters can be solved multiple ways, but for ease of conversation, let's just assume a railroady "one solution only" situation).

Although I wouldn't necessarily want every area to be so "planned," a degree of planning is almost always welcome, so...

~10% are left "empty," because even "empty" spaces serve a variety of purposes (downtime, letting the players interact with each other, giving the characters space to breathe and plan, etc.)
The remaining 90% are roughly-equally split between the three pillars; if any bias exists, combat would slightly edge out the other two, but only in the long run. I enjoy social stuff a lot (partially because I play Paladins frequently), but there are other games with more interesting social stuff (even Dungeon World) so it seems better to slightly play to D&D's strengths.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I don't see how people are responding so much with "it depends". Don't you pre-plan what a certain area is going to be or do you just write "King" on your notes and make it all up when the party gets there?

Only if the king literally never leaves the room. Otherwise, "King" will be kind of a fuzzy electron cloud of king-ness which overlaps with other clouds like "Queen", "Lord Morrolan," and the very occasional "Intellect Devourer Assassin" generated by DM whimsy on the fly in the middle of a Royal Council "social encounter."

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

In general, I follow more of a real-table-time ratio if at all. That is, its not how many encounters but how long in real time. I figure about an hour each per session (little less for 2 hour sessions, little more for 4 hour, etc). It's all about pacing, the ebb and flow of tension/narrative/interest level.

If the players are REALLY INTO the diplomatic discussions (social pillar), I'll let it ride, eating into exploration or combat time (drop an encounter or do an Indiana Jones travel montage for exploration), but usually I just cut the scene short (you win, you lose, whatever) and move on. After an hour, people get a little rote about whatever pillar they're on.

+100. Counting real-time ratios is an excellent approach. I don't do it as well as I wish I did, but to the extent that I do balance pillars it is on a time ratios, not a site-keyed ratio.

My game is probably 10% social, 50% exploration/empty, and 40% combat. (Combat is infrequent but often goes long when it does occur. Short fights are easy fights; long fights are some multiple of Deadly.)

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

As for the reason I'm asking... I'm writing a few modules for other people to use, and was wondering if there was a sort of general theme in how I should be stocking this module.

Since one of my major complaints about modules is how often they are keyed to static locations, let me just say that if you write a more dynamic, table-driven module (like "Of Ants and Men" in Quests of Doom II) I will totally buy it and cannibalize it.

 

[JWO]

Also, many I know detest empty areas, seeing them as wasted space.

I like the idea of people worrying about wasted space in an imaginary setting. Can't they just imagine some more space or is imaginary space a limited resource?

 

[jrowland]

+ sqrt(-1)

 

[Tony Vargas]

So, what do you think the ratio of encounters should be in a site-based adventure?

Assume, for the sake of simplicity, that every keyed area belongs to one of four categories:

1. Social - interact with NPCs, etc.
2. Combat - Kill stuff.
3. Exploration - find clues, solve puzzles, search for secret doors, disarm traps.
4. Empty (might have stuff in the room, but interacting with it will provide little information).

So, what should these ratios be?

In one sense, a site-based adventure is all exploration, any combat or social interaction is secondary or is in support of exploring the site and extracting it's secrets, treasures, and general entertainment value.

That aside, you'd want to keep the 'Empty' ratio high, it strains credulity to have every square foot of a site too significant, and it combats the player impulse to search every little thing and proceed at an uninteresting snail's pace out of 'caution.' Combat is potentially fun, and the game devotes a fair percentage of it's rules to resolving it, including a lot of class abilities and a few classes that can contribute little else. Thus combat will tend to involve all the PCs (thus all the players). The resource economy is also balanced around a 6-8 'encounter' day, with encounters being combats or resource-drains comparable to a combat. So combat should be (potentially) more than half of the non-empty half of the site. Social and exploration encounters (as opposed to exploring all those empty areas), tend to involve few of, or even only one of, the players, so should be a minority of the site's encounters, and be resolvable fairly quickly (unfortunately, puzzles, in particular, can really drag on).

So:

4. Empty: 50-60%
3. Combat: 20-40%
2. Exploration: ~10%
1. Social: 0-20%*

* the thing about social encounters is they can turn into combat, and vice-versa.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

@Wik You forgot #5: The players kibitz in-character, crack terrible jokes, play pranks on sleeping/unconscious/dead party members, antagonize every possible NPC, interrupt your attempts at introducing anything resembling story, and turn down fair deals on that one magic item they really want in favor of stealing it!

What pillar is that called?

The beer and pretzels pillar, and it can be a lot of fun. Sometimes the story can be "a bunch of jerks got together to act like jerks, and high jinks ensued".

Every so often we run what we call "monster squad", a 1-2 session short adventure where everyone just rolls randomly for a monster and class. We get a brief mission, and then usually toss it in favor of rampaging and blowing off steam.

One of the last ones we actually "won" used 3.5 rules, and had an ogre arcane archer, an efreeti lasher, a mind flayer samurai and an ogre magi master of chains teaming up to steal the prize of the Jade Monkey fighting tournament. There was infighting, backstabbing, pillaging and a monkey we exposed to all the wonders of the world in order to make it a Jaded Monkey to trick people into signing up for a fake tournament (my lawful to the point of OCD ogre magi insisted on the last part). It was a lot of fun being terrible, because eff it, it's a one shot! At most I have to live with the consequences of my character's actions for a few hours.

The game ended up with the us stealing the treasure, killing the efreeti after a Sierra Madre standoff, and the mind flayer and ogre mage planeshifting to leave the ogre holding the bag when the Harpers burst in, as the whole thing was a sting operation.

Goofing off in the game world can be just as good a story as anything else.

 

[Quickleaf]

Goofing off in the game world can be just as good a story as anything else.

Haha, well it's not going to win any prizes for literature, but it's good to let players just screw around and get it out of their system. Agree 100%.

So, what do you think the ratio of encounters should be in a site-based adventure?

In one sense, a site-based adventure is all exploration, any combat or social interaction is secondary or is in support of exploring the site and extracting it's secrets, treasures, and general entertainment value.

I agree with Tony in principle that if we're talking site-based adventures, then exploration should be favored.

Caveat: I think there can be a pitfall adventure designers can fall into when they think of an encounter as being strictly combat, exploration, or interaction (speaking more about published adventures). For example, describing a room of goblins as strictly a combat challenge put the burden on the DM's shoulders for what happens if the PCs take another tactic to deal with the goblins.

Rather than trying to find a magic % ratio, I'd say for a site-based adventure you want to think about how exploration meets combat AND how exploration meets interaction AND even how exploration meets empty rooms.

Let me explain.

Exploration meets combat: When you get knocked down the shaft/pit, what new area do you discover? When you kill the bandit leader, what does the map he was carrying show you? What are the random encounter risks to the party taking their sweet old time exploring every nook and cranny for traps and treasure at a snail's pace?

Exploration meets interaction: What rumors are there about the adventure site? Can the PCs trust their guide? What do they do with the gnomes they've rescued from the slavers, or do the gnomes have their own agenda now they're free? How will the local temple feel about the PCs desecrating the tombs of their ancestors?

Exploration meets empty: Even seemingly empty rooms can contribute to evoking the environment/situation or aiding the PCs' exploration. What does a section of dungeon full of shattered doors and dead bodies slain hastily by spells imply about mages recently assaulting the dungeon? What if that rusted gate leading from the room becomes a glowing dungeon map when backlit by lighting the old hooded lanterns behind it and orienting them at the right angle?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Exploration meets combat: When you get knocked down the shaft/pit, what new area do you discover? When you kill the bandit leader, what does the map he was carrying show you? What are the random encounter risks to the party taking their sweet old time exploring every nook and cranny for traps and treasure at a snail's pace?

Exploration meets interaction: What rumors are there about the adventure site? Can the PCs trust their guide? What do they do with the gnomes they've rescued from the slavers, or do the gnomes have their own agenda now they're free? How will the local temple feel about the PCs desecrating the tombs of their ancestors?

Exploration meets interaction meets combat: what does the bandit leader want out of life? If it's gold and an easy life, what happens if the PCs offer him gold in order to join their team? Will he betray them or play it straight in the hopes of more gold later? At what point does he say, "Naw, I'm rich now. I'm done."? How trustworthy is his team?

Hirelings are such a powerful force multiplier in 5E that negotiating with intelligent monsters to hire them is a prime strategy for tackling oversized threats, if you can manage it. Ergo the motivations and moral characteristics of intelligent monsters are always useful information for a DM to have.