What proportion of your D&D game is combat?

[Gothmog]

I'm at about 20%. There's more roleplaying, politics and mystery solving than there is combat. I'd say we have a decent fight about every other game.

Yep, this is exactly the kind of game I run too. My group especially loves the mystery and investigation types of adventures, and I mix in a liberal dose of horror as well (both psychological and Lovecraftian). So for us, I'd say 20% on average- we have about one combat every 2-3 sessions. Random encounters can up that % slightly, but I try to not focus too much on combat. The planned combats I do run tend to be pretty brutal and require the PCs to pull out all their big guns.

 

[The Levitator]

I think a good followup would also be to share how many encounters you get in per session. I've been told that we fly through encounters. First, we play diceless, using the autoroll option in DM Genie, and that speeds up combat for us exponentially. And, we use a 12 second real-time rule for declaring actions in combat. I thought I should mention that to give a clearer picture of our gaming style. We also use Maptools, a virtual tabletop, that we'e found to be more efficient for us then when we used minis. That said, our average combat round (4 characters @ 4th level, v.s. 4 even creatures) takes 2-3 minutes. Battles average between 6-10 rounds, as we have a lot of outdoor encounters on very large maps. So out of a 6 hour session, about 2 hours is combat (we average 4-6 encounters/session), 2 1/2 hours of roleplaying, and at least a mandatory minimum of 30 minutes of OOC conversations and goofing around. I have a friend who runs a Core only campaign and he's told me they've had a single round take 10-15 minutes, even at lower levels. I think there are a lot of variables that come into play when it comes to how a group manages their time.

I would consider our group to be fairly dedicated gamers that are pretty balanced between combat roleplay/storyline roleplay. In my current main group of 5 members we have:

Me, DM, , 37, playing RPG's since around 1981
Scott, , 40, started with Chainmail '78ish
Mark, 41, Started with D&D '80ish
Aaron, 33, started as a newb with our group about 4 years ago
Michael, 38, started as a newb in our group, about 2 years ago

So a very long-winded answer to the original poll for us would be around 40%, having 4-6 encounters per session.

I'm really enjoying reading how other tables play their games!

 

[replicant2]

100%. An NPC tried to talk to my character once.


Once.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I answered 25-35%. Lately it hasn't been as much as I would have liked. The campaign has been based in a city so far so it's not surprising that the combat percentage is a little lower than normal. The party is about to go into the wilderness for a few days so the next few sessions should be a little more combat intensive.

Olaf the Stout

 

[was]

about 1/2

 

[The Human Target]

About 30 to 40% all told when I run a game, about 40-70% when the other people I game with DM.

I'd probably prefer 20-30% to play in or run really. I likes the talking. And fights can gets old fast in DnD to me.

 

[William drake]

Well, D&D can be used in various ways, even as a tactical combat simulator and individual sessions or different campaigns vary widely. For example, when I run campaigns of my own design, they generally contain much less than 50% combat. However, I also ran the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and that was almost pure combat, dragging the average, when combined with other campaigns, right up to 50% overall.

As a player, I experienced a similar situation. Some campaigns were very combat heavy (perhaps up to 90% of the time was combat), while others were combat light. Both were fun in their own way.

TO be sure, but I was speaking of gaming that wasn't stated as 'Hack`n Slash' those games I agree should be alot of kicking ass and taking names, your in a dungeon...not alot of room for indepth roleplaying. However, when using a story based game, with lots of plot and character oriented situations: spying, travel, hunting, inns, bars..and son, I then think it is foolish to throw loads of combat, but thats just me.

 

[Aramax]

most of my games runs about 70% combat times but I would say once every 6-10 games will be an all roleplaying/info gathering game

 

[VorpalBunny]

Depends on the game session. When I start of an adventure or campaign it tends to be combat light, but towards the end as my players reach the BBEG combat tends to pick up.

 

[McDungeon]

I'd say 30% of what I plan is combat, but depending on slow responses (playing online) or rules questions, it takes up half the session.