What is your campaign balance? Combat vs Social?

[Satyrn]

If your campaign is just a massive dungeon crawl then being 100% combat is the way to go, but a role play game should have balance.

This is terrible advice for anyone looking to run a dungeon crawl.

My megadungeon campaign is about 50% exploration, 40% combat and 10% social interaction and it has been an exceptionally fun roleplay game.

I hope nobody adopts your 100% combat suggestion.

 

[CleverNickName]

It varies from adventure to adventure, but the target I try to hit for my group is:

50% exploration
30% combat
20% social

 

[Blue]

Do you feel that the 65/35 balance is enough to keep everyone from designing pure combat monsters that can barely speak full sentences?

Just to help my understanding, is the problem that they are a combat monster or that they are not invested/interested in other pillars of play?

Last AL game I played I build a combat monster archer (everyone did). But I had plenty of skills the rounded me out during exploration/discovery/tracking, and I love to RP - made a character personality that was fun for the players and DM with enough flaws to justify his average Charisma and lack of investment in social skills.

One current character I am playing is a high charisma half-elven noble who's almost the only one with a focus on the social aspects -- the fact that he's also a extremely effective defender* (oath of ancients paladin, inspiring leader, etc.) in a party with a lot of glass cannons also happens to be true.

(* Funny, I almost never see DMs or other players complaining when a healer, buffer, or defender type character is min-maxed, because most of what they do is give other characters a chance to shine. That makes them among my favorite character types to play.)

Are these bad because they are as well optimized mechanically to do their job as I can design them? Or are these fine because they are well rounded and add to every aspect of play?

 

[5ekyu]

I start by fully admitting I hate characters that are uber optimized. Yes everyone is allowed to play any way they want, but I dislike when players do pure character optimization for combat. I find it very one dimensional and it turns DnD for a ROLE Playing Game to a combat board game. If that is how you want to play then just go buy a bunch of WH40K minis and play a pure math and combat game.

This brings me to my question. How do you balance your campaign? If your campaign is just a massive dungeon crawl then being 100% combat is the way to go, but a role play game should have balance. So how should a standard game be balanced? 50% combat 50% social interaction? Do you favor one over the other?

How much social do you think a campaign needs so that players who make balanced characters are happy and pure combat monsters are gimped enough to feel like they shoehorned their character by their choices?

I reject your premise... "but a role play game should have balance."

If you are choosing to run a mega-fungeon crawl (sterrotype) you are running a style of game that does **not** need to balance and may be ideal at 70% combat, 25% explore and 5% social.

The balance between these three pillars (and others) is a style of game defining element and should very accordingly.

In a large numbers gsme, say 6+ players, I find it's got a LOT of table side pressure that leads to focus on group scenes over solo scenes (pushing back even duo scenes) so those tend to get more combat focus than social since those types skew the numbers gsme.)

At 3 players, I tend to go more social but at 5 players I tend more action.

Then you bring in players likes and dislikes, etc.

I expect my 5 player game starting next week to be more along the lines of 50% combat, 30% explore and 20% social after all those factors are involved... however... it's really comes down to the characters choices.

I tend to plan for two different pillars to have "solution" possible paths for the challenges. Often a third exists too but I dont make an effort to put three. Often the third pillar helps the other two.

So, it's up to the PCs to look for, find and choose the options they want.

That leaves the final "balance in their hands.

 

[Hjorimir]

We're probably 60%/40% Social/Combat at our table. We run plenty of sessions were it's all (or mostly) talky-talk, but rarely run a session that's pure smacky-smack. Granted, most of our campaigns tend to have fairly complex elements, which necessitate the PCs talking to figure out just what the heck they want to do (we play with high levels of player agency).

 

[Quickleaf]

Over our past 17 sessions of me running Tomb of Annihilation, it's pretty close to an even split between a third combat, a third exploration, and a third social interaction.

[SBLOCK=Session breakdowns]

• 75% social, 25% combat
• 50% social, 25% exploration, 25% combat
• 50% exploration, 50% combat
• 100% exploration
• 25% combat, 25% exploration, 50% social
• 75% exploration, 25% combat
• 25% social, 75% exploration
• 25% social, 50% exploration, 25% combat
• 50% combat, 25% exploration, 25% social
• 25% exploration, 75% combat
• 25% combat, 25% social, 50% exploration
• 50% exploration, 25% combat, 25% social
• 50% social, 25% exploration, 25% combat
• 50% social, 25% exploration, 25% combat
• 25% exploration, 75% social
• 100% combat
• 50% exploration, 50% social

Combat = (1+1+2+0+1+1+0+1+2+3+1+1+1+1+0+4+0) / 17 = 1.18 = 29.5%
Exploration = (0+1+2+4+1+3+3+2+1+1+2+2+1+1+1+0+2) / 17 = 1.59 = 39.75%
Social = (3+2+0+0+2+1+1+1+0+1+1+2+2+3+0+2) / 17 = 1.23 = 30.75%
[/SBLOCK]

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Probably about 28% Combat, and that is determined a lot by player/character choices. I actually like more combat than everyone else, but I like just as much of all the other stuff (my ideal D&D sessions would add up to 150% of activities or so), so as DM I completely understand why they enjoy the other elements, but I sometimes want more combat. I figure my best bet is to try harder to make every combat as interesting as it can be so they are excited about them.

 

[cmad1977]

100% awesome.

 

[S'mon]

My Stonehell Dungeon game is about 30% exploration 10% social 60% combat I'd say, but can often be 50% exploration 50% combat or even 70% exploration 30% combat.

 

[CapnZapp]

I start by fully admitting I hate characters that are uber optimized. Yes everyone is allowed to play any way they want, but I dislike when players do pure character optimization for combat. I find it very one dimensional and it turns DnD for a ROLE Playing Game to a combat board game. If that is how you want to play then just go buy a bunch of WH40K minis and play a pure math and combat game.

This brings me to my question. How do you balance your campaign? If your campaign is just a massive dungeon crawl then being 100% combat is the way to go, but a role play game should have balance. So how should a standard game be balanced? 50% combat 50% social interaction? Do you favor one over the other?

How much social do you think a campaign needs so that players who make balanced characters are happy and pure combat monsters are gimped enough to feel like they shoehorned their character by their choices?

I think you will get higher quality results when you stop already in your introduction dumping on one subset of possible replies.