D&D General Poll: Combat or Roleplay?

[Charlaquin]

I reject the premise of this question. Several false dichotomies are being set up here.

Roleplaying is the act of imagining yourself as another person and/or in a hypothetical or fictional scenario and making decisions as you imagine you or that other person would in that scenario. Combat in D&D is a fictional scenario which involves quite a lot of decision-making, and the abilities and traits of the character are major factors in that decision making. Combat is very much roleplaying.

Setting aside the frequent misuse of the term roleplaying and assuming what you meant was social interaction, I reject to the notion that this is dichotomous with game mechanics, or that game mechanics and combat are synonymous. It is true that the mechanics of D&D have a heavy emphasis on combat resolution and a much lighter touch with other aspects of play - an artifact of its war gaming roots. However, social interaction does indeed have game mechanics associated with it, and while DMs have the power to ignore those rules, that is not a power I care to exercise. Game mechanics are an important element of social interaction scenes in my games.

Finally, I find the dichotomy between leveling up and character development is very strange. Leveling up is simply a thing that happens as part of playing the game, while character development is something that can happen, depending on how the player chooses to portray their characters. Ideally, both things should happen in any game, though I have observed a tendency in players to develop characters in great detail prior to the start of play and very little during the course of play. Regardless, leveling up will happen no matter how much or how little the characters develop narratively throughout the course of play.

If I were to abstract the question to the point where it sets up a meaningful dichotomy, it might be something like “do your games tend to feature more combat scenes or more social interaction scenes?” My answer to that question would be that I try to include a significant number of each in every session I run. I think both are very important to creating a satisfying D&D experience. However, I have observed that many DMs tend to run games which focus far more heavily on social interaction than my own do. When I hear DMs brag about sessions where “no one touched a die,” I shake my head and wonder why they think of that as a positive thing. From the way I hear other DMs complain about the 6-encounter adventuring day, I get the sense that my preferences must skew more towards combat than the average DM.

Personally, I consider exploration to be the primary emphasis in my games, and combat and social interaction to be two methods of resolving conflicts that occur during the course of that exploration. Both involve a mix of roleplaying and game mechanics.

 

[zarionofarabel]

Considering how many threads on this board are dedicated solely to discussing combat mechanics, I'm guessing even 5th edition is still a combat engine. That being said, back in the way back when days before I discovered systems better suited to non-combat stuff, I did manage to use D&D for something other than combat. Of course, it was just the players and I talking to each other and nary a roll was made, but we were technically still playing D&D.

I voted RP cause I prefer that to combat!

 

[Oofta]

Considering how many threads on this board are dedicated solely to discussing combat mechanics, I'm guessing even 5th edition is still a combat engine. That being said, back in the way back when days before I discovered systems better suited to non-combat stuff, I did manage to use D&D for something other than combat. Of course, it was just the players and I talking to each other and nary a roll was made, but we were technically still playing D&D.

I voted RP cause I prefer that to combat!

Considering what percentages people are voting, I disagree. Just because D&D doesn't have (or IMHO need) a lot of rules for things outside of combat does not mean that out of combat activity is not important to the game.

 

[R_J_K75]

Doesn't matter to me. As a DM I set up scenes and let the players dictate whether the situation turns to combat or roleplaying, or both. That's not to say that I don't prep, monsters, NPCs and traps etc., I do, I just never expect or force them to go one way or the other.

 

[J-H]

I am more on the combat side, but it's very important to have periods of RP and exploration (RP by another name?) as breaks. Pacing matters, a lot.

Combat is where the players really get a chance to exert their will over the environment and foes... there's only so much intrigue and lead-hunting I can take before I really want to just explode someone's brain with my magic.

 

[cmad1977]

Com play

 

[Tonguez]

Por que no los dos?

 

[Lanefan]

I agree with most of what you said in the bits I snipped; and take only slight issue with the following.

However, social interaction does indeed have game mechanics associated with it, and while DMs have the power to ignore those rules, that is not a power I care to exercise. Game mechanics are an important element of social interaction scenes in my games.

Here I can only say you do you. I much prefer social interaction to be as unconstrained by mechanics as possible, and for roleplay at the table to be the determining factor in how things come out.

Finally, I find the dichotomy between leveling up and character development is very strange.

I don't, in that I've known players to whom the only thing that matters in the game is the next level-up (to a small corollary group, the only thing that matters is the next treasure haul; I count these groups the same here). I've also known players who wouldn't mind if the game had no levelling at all. The dichotomy is most visible when comparing these two player types.

Put another way: there's those who see character development as being purely mechanical (i.e. if something doesn't improve the mechanics then it doesn't develop the character); and others who see character development as being largely if not completely divorced from mechanics where development is instead as the growth and changes to the character's personality, outlook, etc. within the fiction.

Leveling up is simply a thing that happens as part of playing the game, while character development is something that can happen, depending on how the player chooses to portray their characters. Ideally, both things should happen in any game, though I have observed a tendency in players to develop characters in great detail prior to the start of play and very little during the course of play. Regardless, leveling up will happen no matter how much or how little the characters develop narratively throughout the course of play.

I see this tendency as a very predictable outgrowth of 3e-4e-5e's unfortunate focus on what I call the 'build game', where one is encouraged to plan out one's advancement from level 1 right through to level 20 (30 in 4e) and then more or less just watch it happen. Worse, this focus leads players towards expecting it to happen as planned rather than just playing the game and seeing what comes next.

 

[Lanefan]

Did not vote, as the options don't line up for me.

Combat: important.
Game mechanics: not important.
Level-up: not important.
Roleplay: important.
Character development: variably important, situationally dependent.

 

[Sacrosanct]

It started out as a wargame with magic. Adding in RP was kind of incidental. The balance between RP and combat has always been up to the group in my experience.

While obviously the game has it's origins in wargaming and miniatures, I don't think I'd call the role playing part incidental. After all, the whole point was to take the wargaming aspect and bring it down to an individual character level. Which is the root of role playing. So I think that part was very much part of the initial goal.