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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 4785786" data-attributes="member: 40961">For my primary game: -What level are you?Four. I have played combat scenarios with my wife from levels 1 to 11 with a different party (essentially dungeon bashing our way through the H modules, now on the P modules, with roleplaying occuring as joking around between sessions). -How long do you play for?Everyone is at my place for four hours, but the actual game takes up however much time it takes. I believe very strongly in not forcing people to stay on topic if they're having fun talking about something unrelated to the game. The game should not be the enemy of fun. -How many combats do you play?Usually one, but if not, three or so. -How long do they take?Varies. Sometimes they're just punctuation that takes less than half an hour (bear in mind our incredible percentage of off topic time) and which occur for reasons other than the tension of whether the PCs will win. If they're serious combats, the usual combat takes a little under an hour, but they usually occur with 2 or 3 combats in rapid succession. This means that the whole evening will be about 2/3rds combat. -How many players do you play with?Five players plus the DM. -How long do you roleplay for outside of combat?Often entire sessions, minus a short "punctuation" combat. Except when we hit dramatic high points that involve a lot of violence, those days there won't be much roleplaying. Last session, for example, saw no combat at all except for a quick gladiatorial match between a PC and an NPC that took less than 5 minutes. Other days vary. -Does it sometimes feel like playing a boardgame?Maybe, but I have worse aspersions to cast on the combat systems of other games. Better the feel of a good boardgame than the feel of a lotto ticket.  I like boardgames, and given that roleplay tends to take place by just talking and in comparison combat tends to essentially involve a minigame in every rpg system I can think of, I'd rather it be a minigame that I like. -Do you change any of the rules?I regularly ad lib extra abilities on to monsters if I feel like it will make sense and be fun. For example, in a gladiatorial match our party was intentionally throwing (it wasn't to the death), our warlock (masquerading as a noncombatant merchant at the time, its a long story) tackled the enemy wizard and grabbed her around the waist. She didn't fall, he's kind of a wuss in physical combat. This was largely an ad libbed attack- I let him make an attack as if it were a grab, and figured she'd fall if he rolled high. He didn't. In response, she had the spell Thunderwave. Normally this pushes people, but since she was firing it downwards at a guy essentially hanging on to her legs, it slammed his head into the dirt and broke the grab. Not in the rules, sure, but it made sense and it was cool. Remember, they were trying to lose as extravagantly as possible, so eating dirt absolutely made his day.</blockquote>

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