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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zerakon" data-source="post: 1096717" data-attributes="member: 12921">I don't like to view this as a combat vs roleplaying paradigm. Rather, I aim for a session to contain about 75% high-tension vs 25% low-tension situations.High-tension situations can manifest in the form of straightforward combat, perhaps a serious diplomatic discussion, sneaking into a thieves' guild, etc. High tension generally means that combat might be just around the corner. In the above examples, that diplomatic discussion might fail and turn into a bloodfest and those sneaking into the thieves' guild might get spotted and repelled.  So, player decisions and dice rolls may determine whether the non-combat high-tension situations turn into combat, but I don't think it's less fun either way. In fact, part of the fun is not knowing what to expect... if the DM plans on having you be caught and ambushed no matter what decisions you make or how well you roll, to me that is less fun.Low-tension situations are basically "down time" where there is virtually no chance of combat (unless a player calls it out) and the focus is certainly on roleplaying. But the high-tension situations are usually quite roleplaying-intensive, too.Example from last night: The session was about 3.5 hours. There was only one combat, but the rogue broke into a merchant's mansion, stole some jewelry, and then framed his "friend" Simon the Slaver. No combat, but a couple bad decisions or rolls and combat could have easily happened. Later, the party did discover that some corrupt guards were up to no good out at the old abandoned mill and they went in to investigate and ended up getting into a fight (and rescued abducted villagers). So, a 3.5 hour session contained about 30 minutes of low-tension situations, and the rest was high-tension but the combat only lasted about 20 minutes of real-time. So, is that 10% combat vs 90% roleplaying?-- Zerakon the Game Mage</blockquote>

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