D&D 5E What aspects of play do you most enjoy?

[Celtavian]

I enjoy combat and social as a DM and player.

Combat because I enjoy figuring out how to win a battle against tough foes. Combat can become monotonous if continuous and against weak foes. That's why I prefer a smaller number of large, difficult combats rather than a continuous stream of weak combats. I start to tune out when it feels like we're playing a "whack-a-mole" when combat occurs. I like combat to feel dangerous and the monster to feel like the type of monster it is. If someone is pulling owlbears out of the MM and tossing them in for an easy kill for some xp, that is boring. If I fight a powerful owlbear, I want it to feel like a powerful, brutish, dangerous creature capable of hurting the party. I spend a bit of time designing combats that will give such a feel to my players. I hope DMs do the same for me when I play.

Social because developing character requires social interaction. Even a taciturn individual can't show he is taciturn if he isn't interacting in an environment where it would be noticed. If the players don't develop relationships with each other and the world they live, then it feels like I'm playing a piece of paper. You don't develop a character's personality without social interaction. If I wanted to play a piece of paper with some stats and such written on it, I'd play a video game. Without the social pillar, D&D would be like a board or video game. I love developing odd personalities whether as a player or a DM. Nothing is more fun than getting a player to show some emotion during interaction whether hate, lust, or rage. Nothing gets a player to invest more in their character and makes it feel more real than when relationships form in the game. I find players respond best to villains or romance. Responses from friends outside of the core group or family don't usually evoke much of a response. But give a gamer a beautiful damsel in distress or a ruthless villain trying to kill or humiliate them, you'll get a response. Sometimes a child works as well when I have some random wench they've bedded or a married character have a child that is threatened. Though you have to be careful not to overdo it or act too ruthlessly or the player tunes out not wanting to walk down the path of despair and sorrow. There's nothing more fun for me than really getting players to invest in a romance, nuclear family, or a rivalry. That's when the game really starts to feel like it's no longer a game, but a fantasy life.

At the moment I'm playing an insane (at least by surface world societal standards) female drow cleric with a slave husband monk that she berates every time he fails in battle, which has been far too often. She ran up to an assassin that nearly killed the monk and started slapping the assassin to show how weak he was screaming at the monk, "How can you let an orc-blooded thug challenge you? Get up and kill it." She tends to view the other party members as fighting in her service considering only the female high elf wizard as an equal. She keeps wondering why the high elf eldritch knight doesn't serve her. I find it amusing developing a strange personality from a different culture.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I find that I enjoy playing combat, but I enjoy running exploration: creating things to do and see in a fantastic world.

I suspect that difference is pretty common. Too bad the poll wasn't split into DM vs player?

I like coming up with stuff for all three pillars, but D&D has always handled combat more readily, and social rather poorly. Some groups respond better to one pillar than another. I guess it's more fun run a game focused on a pillar the group's most engaged with, regardless.

As a player, I probably prefer the combat pillar, again, because D&D gives PCs a fair amount of agency within it that they often lack in the other two.

 

[Rhenny]

I voted for all three. I love balance. With 5e, I'm able to run a 1 hour, 2 hour, 3 hour or 4 hour game session and still have a balance of the three pillars no matter how long the session. I love it.

 

[Greg Benage]

I thought 'social interaction' meant PCs & NPCs interacting socially in-game?

Okay, but even with that more narrow definition, the LARP medium offers a better experience than a tabletop RPG, if for no other reason than every character is (typically) played by a different person instead of one guy doing a variety of fake accents.

With a broader definition, the most intense (and fun!) social interaction I've had in a game was Diplomacy.

 

[EvanNave55]

In dungeon environments, I most get into the game/competition sort of aspect. Even against other players! Not in the sense of conflict, just in the sense of trying to show how "well" I can defeat the dungeon by playing smart, knowing which risks to take and which not to, and generally being resourceful. I tend to be the guy who throw handfuls of pebbles as a "find traps" device when walking into suspicious rooms, pokes things with my weapon before touching them, and checks the walls before playing with the statue. Dungeon exploration/survival is probably the only part of the game where I actually enjoy the game-like feel of overcoming the challenge. I love one-shots where the goal is to see how long your character can survive the killer dungeon.

In D&D this is basically what i enjoy most as well, I love the logic/puzzle parts, though I rarely get to actually do them in the campaigns I'm in.

If the world had any sort of flavor I think exploration would be my next favorite because in any sort of game that allows the slightest bit of room to wander I spend the vast majority of my time doing that- way more than you would expect from the game. However this isn't generally included much in my campaigns either.

Next I would say combat as that can give you a thrill as your trying to escape nigh certain demise (and don't always do). Or the heady rush when you finally beat that boss/hard encounter. Plus you can to some extent apply the logic/puzzle portion that I love to thinking new ideas/strategies to win.

Social would definitely be last, I'm not good with that sort of stuff in real life and I frequently feel clunky/awkward attempting in the the game- despite the fact that I'm generally the "face" of the party. Though since starting 5th edition (We've had 2-3 sessions now) I've had a lot more role-playing/interaction with the other PCs and that was quite fun. Our group is highly mismatched with quite a few secrets and tension. Last session we had a warlock join the party who was the ex-leader of the cult we just wiped out (he was overthrown). He then started going around terrorizing merchants and civilians in town, the first one I let go but when he did it again I stepped in and reported it to the guards but he was able to get out of by him and another player pretending he was just some crazy person being escorted to an insane asylum. He later got back at me by throwing me down into a spiked pit (which just so happened to occur seconds before a Medusa was let out of a prison cell so I just cast an illusion over the pit and let him deal with it by himself).

I've never actually DM'd but when I was designing a campaign I got way to focused on the actual world building. I think it's because when done in depth it's like writing a book, when you really get into it and can immerse yourself in the story being created it's incredible.