Ratio of Combat to Story

[WereRabbitz]

Just curious how much of different types of content do you use in your campaign.

I think most players prefer a high amount of combat, but I enjoy more of the story.

I'm thinking a balanced campaign is about:

70% Story
30% Combat

Players I think make you feel they would enjoy the other way around most of the time.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Just curious how much of different types of content do you use in your campaign.

I think most players prefer a high amount of combat, but I enjoy more of the story.

I'm thinking a balanced campaign is about:

70% Story
30% Combat

Players I think make you feel they would enjoy the other way around most of the time.

It strongly depends on the group (and even the individual players).

Two examples:

Player A had the distinction of running the only PC I've actually successfully killed (my dice are too nice). He ran in and awakened a Dire Yeti (CR 9) at level 2 after repeated warnings and got eaten. His replacement character (a sorcerer) had a habit of kicking down obviously trapped doors because he wanted to fight. For him, 90+% combat would be the best. Player B would have been happy with only narrated combat. Player C is fine with "talky time," but gets the hankering to kill stuff at least once per session.

Point is, I don't think this can be generalized. It also varies strongly by the circumstances. For me, interesting story >~ interesting combat > boring combat >>>>>>>>>>> boring stupid story.

[Armored Walrus]

Point is, I don't think this can be generalized.

That.

Your table will let you know if you've got too much noncombat going on. If they murder the next shopkeeper they meet, you probably want to add a little more combat. If they start trying to talk to giant spiders, you probably have too much. Also, it probably helps to make sure that the encounters you design provide combat as an option, but it's up to the party how they handle it. They will then create their own ratio that they are comfortable with.

Edit: Just want to highlight something. Be wary of differentiating between "combat" and "story." The encounters you design that are likely to turn into combat should still serve your story. There should not be any delineation between combat and story. If your party is fighting things that have nothing to do with your story,then you might as well just flip open the monster manual at the start of each session and go "ok, what do you guys feel like fighting today?"

[Gtdead]

Combat is story. Sometimes the session requires only combat. Other times not at all. You can't really use a percentage for something like this.

Your party may want to split, so your assassin will see combat while your cleric will just wait for the door to open.

[Specter]

It depends on the group. In my oldschool group, I know they like the challenge and the narrative equally, so it's usually 40/60 on the combat/story ratio. But groups with newbs or groups of more 'chill' people may not even enjoy combat at all.

But regardless of that, exciting combat needs to be part of the fabric of the story: any group will prefer a fight with the king's guard to stop them from murdering an important innocent than a random wolves encounter.

[Tanarii]

My current players usually go about:
30% exploration
30% negotiating with the enemy so they can get away, or to turn them into allies (ie 'social')
40% combat
0% story

D&D isn't a very good storytelling game. It's a decent roleplaying game though. The players are there to roleplay: explore the fictional environment, make challenging decisions, and face consequences of their decisions. Not write a story about their characters.

[Hrugner]

My players get bored if any situation is unavoidable. In the end, that means that most encounters end up needing several methods of defeating them and combat ends up meaning a failure of several methods used to avoid combat. So in the end my combat to story ratio tends to be around 20% combat and 40% avoiding combat and 40% investigation.

[WereRabbitz]

I think my problem is the group i work with usually picks fighting as the appropriate response for most things. They literally got tired of a hostage telling them secrets trying to save his life and stabbed him.

Makes me want to start breaking out the puzzle dungeons...

[Elminster298]

I have always prepared every session for an equal 50/50 mix and let the characters determine which side gets more love. As both a player and a DM I over prepare to a ridiculous extent.

[Coffee_Dragon]

20% discussing what to do/dithering
20% large-scale walking around/resting
20% small-scale skulking/investigating/looting
20% interacting with people
20% combat
20% metagame discussion/bookkeeping

How many % are we allowed again

[CaptainSarathai]

This is something that I fight DMs about, all the time.
If you have an amazing idea for a story, do us all a favor and write a novel. I mean that. Too often, GMs think of RPGs like you would a videogame. They hustle you from set to set and in the end it all comes together to tell a story.
But here's the problem; I made my character. I gave them hopes and dreams and ways that they will act in certain situations, and that might not line up with your story. So we come into friction; you are robbing my agency, I am standing in the way of your premeditated story.

I love a good story in any campaign, but it has to come naturally. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't. A good GM will integrate plot hooks related to players' background and story, or try to gauge their motivations and appeal to that. A good GM will take whatever direction the party chooses to go, and weave a story from that.

My best campaigns usually have the most skeletal of story lines "mapped out" - and they are always things which will happen in the background of the world, and PCs will come into contact with as needed. I plot out by tier of play, or by Proficiency Bonus tiers. So something like,
Level 4, 10, 16, 20
Or
Level 5, 9, 13, 17
At each tier, they discover something new about the events of the main story.
They have a choice to either pursue that lead, or they can do other things. Either way, the story will update itself at the next tier. These updates are fluid, and can change as the PCs intervene in events.

This kind of storytelling is really what pushed me towards the classic "Adventurer's Guild" style of play, with players returning to a society of some kind, to learn of new events
in the world and plot their course.
It lets them "orbit" the main story. They can go out on far-flung adventures which may or may not put them in the path of the main story, but they always return to the Guild at regular intervals. This allows me to fill them in on what's going on, and as the campaign progresses I tighten their orbit around the main plot, until they confront it in the end.

With all of that going on, my role as a DM is just to plan the adventures and build the setting. My adventured tend to be at least 75% combat and skill driven. Talking and negotiating is there, but it's much less scripted. Players will talk to NPCs if they want to, there's no need to force it.

[GlenSmash!]

20% discussing what to do/dithering
20% large-scale walking around/resting
20% small-scale skulking/investigating/looting
20% interacting with people
20% combat
20% metagame discussion/bookkeeping

How many % are we allowed again

That sounds about right.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Even in combat I roleplay.

My mini elf just isn't a front line fighter like I am used to so I roleplay that