DMs: How long are combats running, and are you ok with it?

[MaxWilson]

I would posit that your experience is an outlier. I have certainly had sessions where there wasn't more than one combat but it certainly isn't under 3%.

I've certainly run combat-lite campaigns where less than 1/4 of gameplay was combat, which probably translates to approximately 1 incident of violence per session. However, I think I agree with Mephisto that 5E is not a good system for those campaigns--I had to invent almost everything about those campaigns because 5E has no real rules for anything but combat. After last night's 5E game I am seeing more and more advantages to AD&D/OD&D--none of the new-to-5E players wanted to care about bonus actions and concentration economy and lists of powers. They wanted to figure out what the statue was and where the tufts of hair were coming from and if there was any way around the githyanki guards. They got zero value out of 5E's various mechanical bells and whistles. 5E is probably the wrong system for them.