Your Game: Roleplay Heavy, or Combat Heavy

[Magic Slim]

I'd say i'm with the 70% combat / 30% role-play crowd, and the role-play we're talking about is rarely done in voices (especially when we're playing female characters, unless they're half-orc females), but we do speak at the first person.

Slim

 

[ichabod]

I think it's a false dichtomy. For instance, there is very little roleplaying that goes on in my campaign. However, there are frequently sessions with little if any combat. When they're not in combat they're trying to figure out the story: finding clues and trying to fit them in with the ones they've already got. It's taken them a year to figure out the main story element, and they still have lots of other stuff they don't understand. If I had to peg it, I'd say 5% roleplaying, 50% combat, and 45% story. But that isn't really useful, since there is overlap.

 

[Norfleet]

I don't see the two as mutually exclusive. Whether the game becomes heavy in either, for me, depends on how the players take it. If they insist on approaching everything in a brute-force "attack everything" manner, that's fine by me. It's not a very healthy way of approaching problems, and somebody usually dies, which tends to quickly discourage this, but that's hardly my problem.

 

[hunter1828]

Role-play heavy.

Probably about 70-30 or 60-40 RP vs. Combat. We can sometimes go two or three game sessions with not combat, but when combats happen, man, do they happen!

hunter1828

 

[VorpalBunny]

We're in the 70% Combat/30% roleplay category too. Every once in a while we get a game session where no combat occurs - but those are few and far between.

Personally, I'd like to swing things to a 60/40 combat/roleplay or a 50/50 but my guys are hack and slashers at heart.

 

[ASH]

I understand what you mean about the story. Our DM has a way of making the whole thing the story and plot worthy. He is in favor of not wasting time on things that are not important to the story. But as far as the rest goes we have about 4-5 combats in a 6-8hr session, roughly. Yes there is roleplaying going on but its not us all acting out what our characters say. Infact we have a lot of out of character talk about our characters. Now if we need to convince the local law to look the other way, or to let us go after a murder then there is need roleplaying but not unless it is pertaining to the plot!
I have to say I like it that way.
The original discussion got started because my friend was telling me that he was interested in Live Action DnD. Which I have no interst in at all.
Does anyone know what live action DnD would be like?

 

[fusangite]

My games used to be about 10% combat, 40% roleplay and 50% puzzle solving. I got tired of this balance and switched back to D&D so as to arrive at my current arrangement of 50% combat, 30% roleplay and 20% puzzle solving. What's the point of using the D&D system unless you want combat to be the main way things get resolved? It's not like it's particularly good for the other things.

Now, nearly all the RP that does happen in my games is politics. It would be cool if people RPed theological stuff a little more but you need to assemble a pretty special group of characters to do that. People generally don't dare use my magic items that cast Commune becuase they really need to know their theology in order to not offend the god with whom they're communicating.

I have no patience for people who roleplay home economics, purchasing minor items, hitting on people in bars, giving to the poor or putting on musical performances nor do I respond well to people who want to know whether the stained glass box they have crafted is pretty.

 

[Majere]

Having played for a mere 6/7 years Ive found that the pure "roleplay" of silly voices and exaggerated actions to be "IC" have subsided with age. When I was younger we were all very RP heavy with voices and characters, acting and shouting and crazy stuff.
I think that as a group matures TOGETHER people tend to drop the theatrics, after 7 years we have all done all the silly voices we can, we have been through ccampeigns where the paladin decided to try to kill my Quasit familiar becaus ehe was a paladin and the thing detected as evil, or played mages with 12 hp because low con was ic and then died every session. I think the nature of such games is there really are only a few character types and once you have played them all out people become much more.. mercenary.

The campeign we ended just tonight is a good example, the whole campeign was a city of thieves setting where we were hired out by a guild to do various jobs.
We often had 0 combat sessions, 3/4 of them, but I wouldnt call them roleplaying, we all played our characters as professional fighters. REAL mercenaries dont have silly voices and flamboyances. Anything that makes you stand out tends to make you a target, we would spend 3-10 hours caging houses, doing research on people and information gathering before each job. Forming plans and aiming for military precision. Our intereactions with other pcs would be role played, but tey would be very simple, affairs, challenging and enjoyable, but with an aim and purpose.
Oter sessions could be just one long extended combat. several sessions of nothing but a long complex crawl were not unusual. We never really tire because of the jokes, comments banter, and other comments throw about the room in more relaxed moments, other times the room was silent but for the roll of dice. I think this campeigns light point was "The scarlet paladin", a house of ill repute that one character liked to frequent, from that point on the fighters sexual orientation was up for all sorts of snipes which kepts us laughing

I think I would agree with the idea of 70% tension, 30% relaxation over trying to measure out roleplay and combat as if there is a magical "perfect" mix.

 

[Majere]

One more thing,
Havent we all suffered enough when one member of the group decides to roleplay seucing the barmaid ? I hope to see this activity be outlawed, because its only fun for the one charatcer and after the 15th time its just irritating

 

[Centaur]

Varies based on the number of players. Essentialy, the amount of Role-Play is inversley proportional to the the number of players. (ie. More players, less roleplay)

It becomes harder to spend the individual time needed on some plots for each player, so those smaller plots get left off the chart. Instead, one or three larger plots get introduced and as a result, with no single player being the central figure for that plot, some of the people just come along for the ride.

It's not nessecaily a bad thing, just different. That said, even with a large group, I have been known to have two or even three session runs with no combat. Then have a session or two that are nothing but combat.

In the end, it's all a wash of about 50/50.

Course, in some of the games I have had with smaller groups, the roleplay can be as high as 80% as I have the capability to spend a bit of time on NPC intereactions with individual PCs...