D&D General Do You Play Out Every Combat?

[Reynard]

NOTE: This is a D&D question because a lot of games make the question moot: they have built in systems for treating a combat as another sort of gameplay element (like Dramatic Tasks or Quick Combats in Savage Worlds).

So, the 7th level party is traveling through the Goblin Forest and encounters Goblin Warband. The appropriate establishing and reaction rolls are made, and the goblins attack. The gobs have no chance outside of really, really bad rolling on the part of the players. The fight is not part of the main storyline or anything. Do you run the whole fight down to the last goblin HP? Do you run the first round or two and (assuming things are what you expect here) have the goblins run, surrender or just tell the players "you finish them off." Do you skip it entirely or fudge the dice so it was a more level appropriate encounter?

What if it isn't a random encounter? What if the Penultimate Battle (the one before the boss fight) has turned into a slog due to bad luck, bad tactics or some combination. Do you keep at it because it is important what resources the PCs use up before the boss fight? Do you cut it in the middle and "charge" the PCs some spell slots, hit dice, and/or other resources?

In D&D, have you implemented something like Quick Combats or Dramatic Tasks to deal with these sorts of things? If so, what and how do they work?

 

[aco175]

I generally play out each fight, but on occasion I have just told the players that you travel to X and encounters goblins along the way and killed them with little trouble. Depends on the time of play and if it is somehow important to the plot.

Sometimes a fight where the PCs just kick butt is ok, similar to where the PCs are over their head and need to run away.

I might also start a fight only to have the goblins realize they are in over their head and they all run away. Add some dialogue about fleeing in terror.

 

[Scott Christian]

Most groups I have played with play it out. If there is an inevitability of winning, and it is just a normal encounter, then the DM narrates the last 10%. If it is a boss battle, it is almost always played out, that way the DM can ask: "How do you do it?"

 

[AlViking]

Most of the time I play it out but I also don't bother with truly random or easy encounters. I may narrate that there were some easy fights along the way but that's as close as I'd get.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don’t roll initiative for the assassin taking out a guard, it’s just a quick skill challenge. I also don’t make combat be always to the death. Sometimes the enemy runs or surrenders.
In the penultimate fight example, I’d use a mechanic from my own system, and let them call in a contact to turn the tide or allow them to escape. The price would be that the bbeg is still doing things, and now they’re on the back foot and either running or trying to figure out how to outsmart the bbeg and strike again.

 

[el-remmen]

Yes.

 

[bedir than]

In situations where there would be an obvious victory by the players, but it still might take significant time at the table I ask the players if they want to go through the many, many dice rolls or if they'd prefer to move along

Usually they opt for the dice

 

[dave2008]

I am not 100% sure what you mean by "Play Out," but if that includes the monsters or PCs either running or negotiating to end the combat, then mostly yes. On a rare occasion or two I have simply narrated a non-consequential skirmish. Taking the 5e advice to only roll when their is a chance of failure. But that has been very few and only at higher levels when a minor random encounter might be so far beneath the PCs that it wasn't worth the time.

 

[payn]

My GM style has changed over the years. I no longer use random encounter tables and design encounters that are going to be interesting to play out. Sometimes, I might have some of those weak gobo encounters as part of a complete dungeon/lair/castle/etc.. where the adventure day is in play so there might be a few of those for the players to manage. Otherwise, I skip the grind type encounters.

 

[James Gasik]

It's funny that I'm more than willing to just end a combat where I see no point in the NPC's continuing- usually when combats go south, most NPC's will attempt to flee, which seems to annoy players more than simply fighting to the death, so it's probably better this way.

On the other hand, if things go south for the players, I continue to play it out. To my continued surprise, the players tend to succeed even if things go horribly bad for them, so even if it's become a sloggy mess that's going to take hours to resolve, I want to give them every chance.

This goes back to an early game I tried to run- the players had attempted to rob a merchant, it went south, the guards showed up, and I looked at the odds and said "you were captured." Then I narrated them being marched out of town and executed. The players were very upset, saying I'd robbed them of the ability to play out their deaths- deep down, they felt that they had a chance, no matter how slim, of eluding capture and death.

To date, I can't recall ever having a full TPK, but characters have died, and I once had someone walk out of the game and my apartment because their character had died in a combat, and they didn't see it resolving any time soon. So there's problems with playing things out, but I know if I gave my players a choice about a fight they are losing, they'd want to play it out every time. And that I've never heard anyone gripe about a combat I cut short because they were winning.