TheRPGSite

I know it is likely to vary, but if you were to say, average up your gaming sessions, and then figure out the percentage of time that your average gaming session is dedicated to combat vs. non-combat, what would it be?

RPGPundit

Hmm.  It's going to vary by campaign/genre, of course.

My last campaign (a fantasy/supers/conspiracy thing): maybe 20% combat, tops.

Game I'm currently playing in (steampunk): 15% or so?

My wife's alt-history Star Wars game: 35%

Savage Worlds running Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun and it's 75%+ combat. The last session was 100% combat.

One player is plotting mutiny and either spends his time messing about on a pc or getting pissed. I grin through it because the GM is a good friend. The mutinous player and myself are both plotting our own games. Me a Traveller 3rd Imperium game involving smuggling, sub-aquatic cities and Psionic drugs, him a 1920's film noir, gangster thing.

On average probably 50% combat.  Most sessions are more like 33%, the majority of time taken on exploration, parley and such.  But then we have had more than a few major battles that take 80-90% of our 4 hour sessions.  By major I mean something like 48 goblins + 24 hobgoblins + 3 bugbears + 1 giant crocodile + 12 lizardmen + 6 PCs; or 72 orcs + 6 bugbears + 3 cave trolls + 12 skeletons + 6 "super skeletons" + 6 PCs + 1 NPC.

For D&D (I play older editions):
Dungeon session: Perhaps 50-60% of session time is combat.
Non-Dungeon session: 10-15% of session time is combat.

Others vary greatly by genre from 0-5% for Call of Cthulthu to 60-70% for a superhero game.

I was thnking about this the other day, after I played AD&D for the first time in over 20 years. It was basically combat for the whole 3 hours. It idn't seem to be as much back in the day, but back then we would play for like 12 hours straight in high schol or college.  With our 3.0 game, with sessions of 3-4 hours, sometimes it is mostly combat, sometimes mostly roleplay.  I think that's due to the game duration these days more than anything else.  If you averaged the total time over a few months, I would say 2/3 combat, 1/3 non combat.

Maybe 10-25%, varying with the game.

-clash

If combat is limited to drawn weapons and potential for physical injury...
Our Deadlands games are very low on average... 10% or less. (I tried to start a fight last game but the varmints got away).
Earthdawn seems a bit more violent... but it's still pretty low... maybe 20%.

My Beatrix Potter game as had all of 3 fights in the six months we've been playing. Lot of other sorts of competition/conflict though.

About 20-30% on the average. A lot higher for rules-light pulp games, a lot lower for horror roleplaying like Call of Cthulhu.

Really a good question, as it cuts to the chase.

WE play a somewhat complex system that makes combat not short, but the game is focussed on non-combat gaming with combat used as a means to an end.
So we've had a few sessions that have been pure combat.  and many that have none.

I would say, between the live groups, 30% of the time is spent on combat.  One of them is more, and one of them is less, but that would be my aggregate.

Depending on the session, anywhere from 0% to 60%. We have had in a Pathfinder session, a combat with a big boss that had some inspired roleplaying during it which makes me wonder how that would fit in with the percentages.

Averaging over multiple games and systems, i expect it comes out to around 40%

Depends on whether by combat you mean "tactical play" or play that involves physical violence, but I'd say in the average session of Diaspora we get down to physical violence about one session in two and it might take up a couple hours max in a five hour session. Usually more like one hour, but violence tends to chain -- a spacecraft combat turns into a chase turns into a boarding action, say.

So, 15-20%.

Combat is a big portion of my group's play style, so it ranges anywhere from 50%-75% depending on the session.  The rest is filled with social issues and/or interactions.  Traps/puzzles is traditionally the least favorite aspect of my group's game session; probably a vestige distaste from early AD&D modules.

Science Fiction or Modern, about 20% or less. Fantasy, about 50-75%.

Combats are very rare in my games - maybe only one session in 5(?) will have a (single) fight. So I guess overall they would be only a few percent at best.

I go with a rule of thumb of putting a potential combat in the game once every three sessions. The PCs tend to then avoid most of those. So it is probably no more than 10% if that.

In the games I GM, probably about 1 in 5 sessions have combat, and that takes around an hour.

As GM, I largely leave it open to the players how much combat they have. They know who their foes are, and know what their foes want to achieve, and want to stop them - how they stop their foes is up to them. Their foes rarely want to kill them for the sake of it.

So it depends on the particular players in the session. Some talk and plot and plan, others just whip out a weapon and go for it.

And of course, each has their preferences in combat. One player was always keen if there were ranged weapons, but shied away from melee. Another player is happy to have their character wrestle or conk people on the head, but doesn't want to lop off limbs or kill people. Others are more bloodthirsty, others avoid fighting, and so on.

Depends on the game. Some sessions of games like Traveller and CoC it's 0%, and is rarely more than about 10%. For D&D and other fantasy games it's more often about 25-33%, with an occasional super-combat-heavy session with a big epic battle that takes up 66-75% (or more) of the session, but those aren't too common because I don't like that much combat -- it's one of my least favorite parts of the game.

I'm running two different DnD4.0 campaigns.

One is about 95% combat.

The other is around 50%.

I love combat so I do 50% overall.    I doubt I have ever run a game session where there wasn't some bloodshed.  

In games like CoC / Warhammer / Traveller where combat is so deadly and the focus is usually on mystery and exploration, then I like 25%.  AKA, at least one scrum per session.

In games like 4e, Savage Worlds or most Supers games I prefer 75%.   AKA, if the whole night is slammage, I'm good.

In OD&D, I like 50%.   More than that and people are rolling up new characters.

About 60-70%.

We play mostly older edition D&D, and mostly dungeon adventures.

Quote from: T. Foster;341691Depends on the game. Some sessions of games like Traveller and CoC it's 0%, and is rarely more than about 10%. For D&D and other fantasy games it's more often about 25-33%, with an occasional super-combat-heavy session with a big epic battle that takes up 66-75% (or more) of the session, but those aren't too common because I don't like that much combat -- it's one of my least favorite parts of the game.

What other parts are there?

Quote from: Cranewings;341608Science Fiction or Modern, about 20% or less. Fantasy, about 50-75%.

Now, that's interesting.

RPGPundit

I suspect its because modern and Sci-fi games are much more lethal. I have never played a modern or sci-fi game where damage is handled with a hit point system where your hits increase with the character level.

Imagine a modern game where a 9mm pistol did 1d8 damage. This works well when the run of the mill person has 1-6hp but it means that the 10th level guy with 60hp isn't really afraid (in fact you could put him in front of a firing squad of 10 and even if they were all guarenteed a hit he would proably still be confident he could run away :) )

Quote from: Shazbot79;341724What other parts are there?

In my games there's exploration and investigation, problem and puzzle solving, verbal negotiation and bargaining with NPCs, trying to avoid combat (through stealth, trickery, negotiation/bribery, and just plain running away), resource management, and even a bit of pointless in-character banter between players (not to be confused with pointless out-of-character banter between players, though of course there's plenty of that too). All of these are as much or more fun to me than combat.

My current campaign (D&D 4e) spends about 15% of the time in combat. Some games have closer to 30%, some have none, but 15% is about right for an average.

In one of the two active 4e games I'm in, it's way too much (like 80%).  In the other, it's about 40%.

I don't mind combat, but I would prefer 30-60% combat.

Quote from: jibbajibba;341780I suspect its because modern and Sci-fi games are much more lethal.

I think it's less because of the lethality, and more because of a sort-of sense of reality. A game in a modern setting just seems more real to players, so they bring in their human reluctance to kill; a fantasy setting is less real.

For example, begin a realistic-themed postapocalyptic game, lots of people running around trying to survive after a great disaster, a la Jericho, and set it in wherever the group lives - I think they'd be largely reluctant to kill.

Now bring in the Gamma World mutation tables, and watch the guns start blazing!

Quote from: flyingmice;341584Maybe 10-25%, varying with the game.

-clash

Probably something like this, maybe a tad higher at the moment.

Thing is, I get bored when I engage with system a lot, and in combat you engage with system a lot (whatever the system pretty much).  More than 25% of the session and I'm likely getting bored.

Whether I'm GM or player doesn't make much odds to that.

Quote from: T. Foster;341826In my games there's exploration and investigation, problem and puzzle solving, verbal negotiation and bargaining with NPCs, trying to avoid combat (through stealth, trickery, negotiation/bribery, and just plain running away), resource management, and even a bit of pointless in-character banter between players (not to be confused with pointless out-of-character banter between players, though of course there's plenty of that too). All of these are as much or more fun to me than combat.

Okay...granted...you're a talky gamer. More power to you.

What I mean is that D&D (all editions) have been heavily geared toward combat. The classes are defined by what they do in combat, the vast preponderance of XP is gained through killing things, and until 3rd Edition, the only thing that improved over level was combat efficacy.

So why use D&D when there are systems much more geared toward this playstyle?

Quote from: Shazbot79;341936So why use D&D when there are systems much more geared toward this playstyle?

Because even if the system has been geared towards combat, D&D games have never been solely about combat. I'd say the lack of non-combat rules has been an advantage for gamers who do more with their games than kill things and take their stuff.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;341948Because even if the system has been geared towards combat, D&D games have never been solely about combat. I'd say the lack of non-combat rules has been an advantage for gamers who do more with their games than kill things and take their stuff.

Axis and Allies doesn't have any non-combat rules. I suppose that makes Axis and Allies an excellent framework for a games about international diplomacy and economics in the early 20th century.

Quote from: Haffrung;341951Axis and Allies doesn't have any non-combat rules. I suppose that makes Axis and Allies an excellent framework for a games about international diplomacy and economics in the early 20th century.

There are plenty of tactical minis games that are even more tailored to this style of play than 4e (okay I say plenty.... :) ) so why play D&D?

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;341859I think it's less because of the lethality, and more because of a sort-of sense of reality. A game in a modern setting just seems more real to players, so they bring in their human reluctance to kill; a fantasy setting is less real.

For example, begin a realistic-themed postapocalyptic game, lots of people running around trying to survive after a great disaster, a la Jericho, and set it in wherever the group lives - I think they'd be largely reluctant to kill.

Now bring in the Gamma World mutation tables, and watch the guns start blazing!

Perhaps but I was trying to say that not only are you scared of fightign becuase you might die but when you do figth you die or kill pretty fast so individual combats are faster. Point taken though.

I still can't think of a modern or Sci-fi game where protagnists can take as much damage as they can in D&D. And not just be lucky and not die a few times but be able to say with conviction I know I can take 3 full hits from that guys weapon before I even need to worry about the chance of be gettign badly hurt here.

Quote from: Haffrung;341951Axis and Allies doesn't have any non-combat rules. I suppose that makes Axis and Allies an excellent framework for a games about international diplomacy and economics in the early 20th century.

Axis and Allies isn't an role playing game. Now, if you want to talk about how you prefer non-combat rules in your roleplaying game and how you think it works better for you, by all means talk about them but let's not make these rather silly comparisons between different games. T.Foster isn't the only person whose playstyle D&D manages to satisfy even though it doesn't reflect said style mechanically.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;341966T.Foster isn't the only person whose playstyle D&D manages to satisfy even though it doesn't reflect said style mechanically.

No doubt.

It's one thing to say you enjoy a lot of non-combat content in your D&D sessions in spite of the rules supporting combat almost exclusively.

It's another thing entirely to assert that the absence of rules for play outside of combat makes D&D especially well-suited to a non-combat game.

Quote from: Haffrung;341971No doubt.

It's one thing to say you enjoy a lot of non-combat content in your D&D sessions in spite of the rules supporting combat almost exclusively.

It's another thing entirely to assert that the absence of rules for play outside of combat makes D&D especially well-suited to a non-combat game.

Then you didn't read my post before you replied. I never said "especially well suited". I said "has been an advantage".

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Shazbot79;341936What I mean is that D&D (all editions) have been heavily geared toward combat. The classes are defined by what they do in combat, the vast preponderance of XP is gained through killing things, and until 3rd Edition, the only thing that improved over level was combat efficacy.

I dispute the truth of this. Only one of the three (four when you add the thief in Supplement I) classes in Original D&D is defined by what it does in combat (reading the rules it seems if anything that the classes are defined by what kind of castles they build -- fighters build castles, become barons, and collect taxes; clerics build cathedrals, collect tithes, and attract fanatical followers; magic-users build towers and devote their attention to spell research and creating magic items), and only one class (not coincidentally the one called "fighting man") only improves in combat efficacy with levels. All classes improve their saving throws (which are used in combat but are just as often used in other situations, like avoiding traps and curses). The magic-user and cleric gain additional spells, many/most of which aren't primarily combat oriented (detect magic, read languages, read magic, hold portal, knock, find traps, locate object, purify food & drink, speak with animals, etc. -- and even some of the "attack" spells (e.g. charm person and sleep) are really oriented at avoiding or circumventing the regular combat procedure, not enhancing it -- you use a sleep spell on a group of orcs so that you don't have to spend a half-hour playing out a combat against them). Likewise the cleric's Turn Undead ability, at least until high levels (when the "D" shows up on the table) is a means of avoiding combat. When the thief comes along 7 of his 8 abilities are non-combat-oriented (picking pockets, opening locks, disarming traps, moving silently, hiding in shadows, hearing noise, and climbing sheer surfaces) all of which improve with increased levels and are eventually supplemented by 2 more non-combat abilities (read languages, use scrolls).

Furthermore, the game is not (or at least not necessarily) heavily geared towards combat. The "vast preponderance of XP" is actually gained through collecting treasure (both monetary and magical), and seeking to kill things for XP (especially with the revised table from Supp I in place) is a sucker bet -- recovering a single piece of jewelry worth 1000 GP is worth the same XP as killing 100 orcs. Let's look at what's actually in the rules -- except for one page of tables in Vol. I and a few pages each on aerial and naval combat in Vol. III, there are no rules for combat -- you're expected to either adapt the rules from another game (Chainmail) or just make something up on your own -- the D&D rules don't really care what you do for combat, they trust you to figure it out on your own, they're much more concerned with everything else: hiring henchmen and acquiring and managing a retinue of followers, lists of equipment to buy including things like iron spikes, mirrors, rope, 10' poles, and various sized treasure receptacles, descriptions of spells and magic items many of which have nothing to do with combat, building castles and managing baronies, gathering information and rumors, exploring dungeons looking for traps and secret doors, listening for noise, opening stuck doors, how fast you can move  and how often you have to stop to rest, exploring the wilderness and getting lost, extensive rules for running away from encounters both underground and outdoors, advice for creating underground labyrinths that focuses primarily on tricks, puzzles, and navigational hazards (rotating rooms, teleporters, one-way doors, sliding walls, sloping passages, etc.), and an example of play that includes exploration and mapping, listening at a door for noise, an extensive search for treasure (including searching a treasure chest for a false bottom and testing potential magic items), dealing with a trap, searching for a secret door, and fleeing from a wandering monster, but glosses over the combat aspect in a single line: "at this point surprise is checked, melee resolved, and so forth."

Combat in Original D&D is what happens when you fail at avoiding it -- when you're unable to sneak, trick, or talk your way past the monsters, or you get taken by surprise by a wandering monster and aren't able to flee from it. Combat is the risk element -- what ends your character's career and prevents him from being able to build that castle and acquire that retinue of followers. The goal of the game is exploring the unknown, solving puzzles, and gathering up ever-richer treasures of gems, jewels, and magical goodies (many of which increase the characters' abilities to find and recover more treasure -- bags of holding, wands of metal detection, crystal balls and ESP amulets, etc.) so that you can build your castle, and combat is what stands in the way of achieving those goals.

Last but no least, look at this narrative (http://doomsdaygames.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=generalgreyhawk&action=display&thread=174) of a session from one of Gygax's Geryhawk Castle games, submitted to a fanzine in 1974 as an example of what D&D is like -- sure there is some combat, but only when the characters aren't able to avoid it, and they spend a lot more time running from monsters than they do fighting them. Original D&D, at least as envisioned by its creators, wasn't a game of "killing things and taking their stuff" as it became in later iterations, but rather was a game of "taking things' stuff and trying to avoid getting killed by them." And that's the way I prefer it.

QuoteSo why use D&D when there are systems much more geared toward this playstyle?

What systems in particular? Most of the things I enjoy in the game occur independent of the system -- they're resolved almost entirely through verbal interaction and negotiation between the players and GM with the latter perhaps relying on occasional dice-rolls to inform his judgments. I feel no need for formally defined rules to cover that stuff, and to the extent that they do -- when such activities are reduced from a verbal negotiation to a series of die rolls and mathematical formulae -- it hinders my enjoyment, making it feel like "combat by other means."

On average, about 30% of the time, tops. It's more or less the same across genres and games, as I like combats to be significant. My players fear them.

Quote from: T. Foster;341997I dispute the truth of this... [rationalization of how the game was supposed to be played that is now bandied about as orthodoxy but which most of its proponents didn't know about until they read it on Dragonsfoot about 5 years ago]

Regardless, the overwhelming majority of people who played B/X and AD&D played it as primarily a dungeon-exploration-and-looting game. How many millions played Keep on the Borderlands? And of those, how many didn't slaughter at least 75 per cent of the monsters in the caves and wilderness?

Only a tiny fraction of the people who have ever played D&D know or care about how Chainmail was all about building castles, etc. etc. All they know is what they read in the B/X and AD&D core books, the modules, and Dragon magazine.

Fact is, virtually all of the material published by TSR during the heyday of the game (79-85) was all about going into dungeons, killing the inhabitants, and taking their stuff. The A series. The G series. The Temple of Elemental Evil. Those books sold in the hundreds of thousands, or even millions. If Gygax did have a largely non-combat game in mind when he designed D&D, he utterly failed in supporting that format with the material that his company published.

Quote from: Haffrung;342009Regardless, the overwhelming majority of people who played B/X and AD&D played it as primarily a dungeon-exploration-and-looting game. How many millions played Keep on the Borderlands? And of those, how many didn't slaughter at least 75 per cent of the monsters in the caves and wilderness?

Only a tiny fraction of the people who have ever played D&D know or care about how Chainmail was all about building castles, etc. etc. All they know is what they read in the B/X and AD&D core books, the modules, and Dragon magazine.

Fact is, virtually all of the material published by TSR during the heyday of the game (79-85) was all about going into dungeons, killing the inhabitants, and taking their stuff. The A series. The G series. The Temple of Elemental Evil. Those books sold in the hundreds of thousands, or even millions. If Gygax did have a largely non-combat game in mind when he designed D&D, he utterly failed in supporting that format with the material that his company published.

So what? The question was why I play D&D if I'm not primarily interested in combat. My answer was that the version of D&D I play, and the way I prefer to play it, isn't primarily about combat (and that I'm not just pulling that interpretation out of my ass, it's actually supported by both the text of the rules and anecdotal accounts of early play by the creators). Whether other people choose to approach the game the way I do or not doesn't render my approach illegitimate.

EDIT: Also, fuck you for claiming that I'm parroting some "party line" I picked up at Dragonsfoot. In large part I wrote those posts in order to help bring to light some neglected aspects of early play that (IMO) make for a more interesting and satisfying play experience than the combat-oriented slugfest that the game became.

Quote from: Haffrung;342009If Gygax did have a largely non-combat game in mind when he designed D&D, he utterly failed in supporting that format with the material that his company published.

That's like saying that Gygax failed to support the game group having snacks and cracking stupid jokes during the session.

Every game group I've ever played with or heard of having more than one session had snacks and cracked stupid jokes, it's fair to say that's part of D&D... even though, OMG, Gygax didn't write rules for it!

So, "he didn't support so-and-so" is true, but it's also bollocks: he obviously thought there was some shit you could handle yourself.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;342027So, "he didn't support so-and-so" is true, but it's also bollocks: he obviously thought there was some shit you could handle yourself.

I'm not disputing that. Nor am I disputing that you can do a lot of fun and cool things outside of combat that aren't covered in the D&D rules.

What I'm disputing is the claims that D&D was always intended to be mainly about non-combat activities. If that's so, Gygax fucked it up completely with this core books and product line. Because the game material published by TSR during the game's meteoric rise was all about dungeon-delving, monsters, and treasure.

And those of us who didn't play in Gygax's group in 1977 can be forgiven for thinking that the rules, the examples of play, the sample dungeons, and the published adventures presented an accurate model of what D&D was all about.

But hey, maybe Call of Cthulhu isn't really about investigating mind-melting horrors and going insane. Maybe the rules, setting books, and published adventures are off-base. Maybe it was intended to be a Cthulhu-themed miniatures game, and the guys who knew how it was really meant to be played had hundreds of miniatures set up on ping-pong tables for large-scale battles between police and Shuggoth.

Play how you like. But don't go around spreading the revisionist bullshit that D&D was never mainly about combat and monsters and loot. Unless you're an ultra-grognard who thinks the game went south as soon as the Holmes Basic set was released.

Quote from: Haffrung;342037What I'm disputing is the claims that D&D was always intended to be mainly about non-combat activities.

Gygax intended it to be fun. He even says so in lots of places in AD&D1e.

Exactly how you have that fun, well he left that up to you.

I realise that in today's age of railroady preachy microgames the idea of a game's authour saying, "hey, whatever you like is good, buddy" is a bit difficult to wrap your mind around. But there it is.

Choice, autonomy, freedom, all that good shit.

Quote from: Haffrung;342037What I'm disputing is the claims that D&D was always intended to be mainly about non-combat activities. If that's so, Gygax fucked it up completely with this core books and product line. Because the game material published by TSR during the game's meteoric rise was all about dungeon-delving, monsters, and treasure.

Play how you like. But don't go around spreading the revisionist bullshit that D&D was never mainly about combat and monsters and loot. Unless you're an ultra-grognard who thinks the game went south as soon as the Holmes Basic set was released.

Exploration, puzzle-solving, and wilderness/dungeon survival are all non-combat activites.  The AD&D books also talk about running role-play focused murder-mystery games in urban settings as an adventure suggestion.  Undoubtedly, combat played a role, but I think people got annoyed when combat became the primary focus rather than just a portion of gameplay, and the minutiae involved caused it to take up even more time and delayed the progress of the adventure. Run an OD&D or AD&D combat with 30 participants and run a 3e combat with the same number and tell me who finishes first.

That said, Gary wrote a pretty extensive Dragon article which basically suggested that you try for a fair balance of role-play, puzzle-solving/non-combat, and combat encounters.  He also added that, as was stated elsewhere in other publications as well as the DMG, that the ultimate focus of the game (whether it be role-play, combat, or other activities) was up to the DM and their troupe.  It was published, in, oh, 1985.

Of course, you know, I'm only 22, and 1980's English may have certain nuances that differ from the modern tongue, and I may not be able to pick up on the exact meanings of these writings.  However as a "first-time reader" of these ancient manuscripts, that is what they seem to say to me.  ;)

Quote from: Peregrin;342077Exploration, puzzle-solving, and wilderness/dungeon survival are all non-combat activites.  The AD&D books also talk about running role-play focused murder-mystery games in urban settings as an adventure suggestion.  Undoubtedly, combat played a role, but I think people got annoyed when combat became the primary focus rather than just a portion of gameplay, and the minutiae involved caused it to take up even more time and delayed the progress of the adventure. Run an OD&D or AD&D combat with 30 participants and run a 3e combat with the same number and tell me who finishes first.

That said, Gary wrote a pretty extensive Dragon article which basically suggested that you try for a fair balance of role-play, puzzle-solving/non-combat, and combat encounters.  He also added that, as was stated elsewhere in other publications as well as the DMG, that the ultimate focus of the game (whether it be role-play, combat, or other activities) was up to the DM and their troupe.  It was published, in, oh, 1985.

Of course, you know, I'm only 22, and 1980's English may have certain nuances that differ from the modern tongue, and I may not be able to pick up on the exact meanings of these writings.  However as a "first-time reader" of these ancient manuscripts, that is what they seem to say to me.  ;)

Spot on. And welcome to therpgsite :)

I gave up delving dungeons and looting treasure in the early 80s cos it gets pretty dull pretty fast.
Give me a city full of adventure any day.
The strength of D&D was it could be run anyway round. I like 2e cos it expanded on the non comabt stuff. I dislike 4e because I think combat has been made too important.

We have these bizaare conversations where the same people who say D&D is primarily a combat focused game were the same people who were defending 4e saying its not all about combat. I am confused.

Quote from: Peregrin;342077Exploration, puzzle-solving, and wilderness/dungeon survival are all non-combat activites.  

Of course. And they're some of the funnest parts of the game.

QuoteThe AD&D books also talk about running role-play focused murder-mystery games in urban settings as an adventure suggestion.  

IIRC, that suggestion is given as a way to change up the pace once in a while.

QuoteUndoubtedly, combat played a role, but I think people got annoyed when combat became the primary focus rather than just a portion of gameplay,

When did that happen? You don't think combat was the primary focus in Keep on the Borderlands, White Plume Mountain, and the Giant series (all published before 1980)?

Quote...and the minutiae involved caused it to take up even more time and delayed the progress of the adventure. Run an OD&D or AD&D combat with 30 participants and run a 3e combat with the same number and tell me who finishes first.

I agree wholeheartedly with you here. I hate micromanaged combat. I never used a grid for combat.  And I hated when the game made all classes balanced for the combat encounter.

But that doesn't mean old-school D&D didn't have lots of combat. It did. It had lots and lots of brisk, abstract combat. How else could you finish a dungeon like the Dark Tower in less than six months?


Looking at classic Gygax adventures such as the G series and Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, I'm at a loss to understand how they could played as mainly non-combat adventures.

And as I've said all along, regardless of how Gygax said the game should be played, or how some groups chose to play, the adventure material published by TSR during the peak of the game's popularity is overwhelmingly geared towards combat-heavy dungeon delving. Surely those adventures, which sold in massive numbers, are sound evidence of how people actually played the game.

Quote from: Haffrung;342113Of course. And they're some of the funnest parts of the game.



IIRC, that suggestion is given as a way to change up the pace once in a while.



When did that happen? You don't think combat was the primary focus in Keep on the Borderlands, White Plume Mountain, and the Giant series (all published before 1980)?



I agree wholeheartedly with you here. I hate micromanaged combat. I never used a grid for combat.  And I hated when the game made all classes balanced for the combat encounter.

But that doesn't mean old-school D&D didn't have lots of combat. It did. It had lots and lots of brisk, abstract combat. How else could you finish a dungeon like the Dark Tower in less than six months?


Looking at classic Gygax adventures such as the G series and Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, I'm at a loss to understand how they could played as mainly non-combat adventures.

And as I've said all along, regardless of how Gygax said the game should be played, or how some groups chose to play, the adventure material published by TSR during the peak of the game's popularity is overwhelmingly geared towards combat-heavy dungeon delving. Surely those adventures, which sold in massive numbers, are sound evidence of how people actually played the game.

Most of those published advenutes (espeically the G-series ) are shit. Surely you realised that even when you were 12 or whatever. Stuff like . the torch is actually a +2 magical longsword that has had an permanent illusion cast on it to disguise it. blah blah blah. No on every asks why Hill giants keep human sized magic armour and wepons hanging round instead of just trading it for useful stuff or how they cast the illusion spell.
It's like saying TV was invented so you could watch Arthur Askey singing busy-busy-bee and so The Wire isn't real TV as there isn't any singing and Arthur Askey isn't it in.

Hmm looking at my last few games:

Wednesday game (D&D 4E): over the last three sessions, we had a 50/50 mix in the oldest session (one small and one major combat), no combat in the second (pure role playing/plot/problem solving), about 50% combat in the most recent session (two combats, resolved surprisingly quick for my usually slow group, they used uncharacteristically good tactics).

Saturday Pathfinder game: This one just kicked off, but I'd say the first session was about 25% combat and 75% pure role playing madness. That said, they plowed through 4 combat encounters, but did so very quickly. The module proper has barely begun, as the players had a huge amount of fun in the town they started off in causing trouble.

Other Saturday 4E game: This one is waning (rotates with PF) and over the last three sessions we had one game that was 100% combat, an enormous encounter that is best described as, "group aggroed everything in a mile radius and decided to take it all on at once." Second sessions was about 50/50 with half role play and the other half one larger encounter drawn out due to the lack of tactical savvy of this group, and the third session was about 40 combat/60 role playing as they had killed almost everything off in the dungeon in the previous two sessions.

I recently had by C&C game put on hold so everyone could try Pathfinder. In the C&C game is was about 60% combat and 40% role playing on average, largely because everyone could plow through so many combats rather quickly. But they had a couple sessions "in the city" and while visiting a patron's manor house that were 95% role playing with one brief skirmish in each case.

Quote from: jibbajibba;342096Spot on. And welcome to therpgsite :)

I gave up delving dungeons and looting treasure in the early 80s cos it gets pretty dull pretty fast.
Give me a city full of adventure any day.
The strength of D&D was it could be run anyway round. I like 2e cos it expanded on the non comabt stuff. I dislike 4e because I think combat has been made too important.

We have these bizaare conversations where the same people who say D&D is primarily a combat focused game were the same people who were defending 4e saying its not all about combat. I am confused.

It is weird; as an old vet, who started play with AD&D in 1980 (therefore not quite a true grognard, since I didn't start with the OD&D brown box) I think the fact that, no matter what the physical evidence of the era seems to suggest (i.e. lots of dungeon modules full of monsters) people just didn't play it as one string of combat encounters after another...in fact, 90% of the time I remember my early years of gaming being something like this:

Players: We pick the lock/break down the door/walk in to the room.

DM: Okay, five trolls are sitting around a card table playing cards. "Wot's this?!?!" One of them says, "Who do you think you are barging in to our flat?"

Players: Cool! We play cards with them/apologize and back out/parlay for the right to move to the next room/attack!

Basically, fighting was usually only one option; monsters didn't usually seem to attack unless provoked, or unless the module said so....which when you read many of those old modules, they often leave behavior and personality of NPCs and monsters up to the DM, something later years tended to erase.

But hey, YMMV and I have figured out from the current old-school movement that my game experiences from the 1980's may have been an exception to the rule, and that most of the grognards are all about methodical dungeon delving and Moria-like simulating.

EDIT: crap, forgot my point about 4E! Anyway, the point is, 4E "plays" to me like 1E did....you can do whatever you like. The big difference being combat in 4E is enormously more tactical, and usually we can only get 2-3 encounters in a 4E game done with one session, whereas in the old 1E days you could plow through up to a dozen combats if you were so inclined without missing a beat.

Quote from: camazotz;342119It is weird; as an old vet, who started play with AD&D in 1980 (therefore not quite a true grognard, since I didn't start with the OD&D brown box) I think the fact that, no matter what the physical evidence of the era seems to suggest (i.e. lots of dungeon modules full of monsters) people just didn't play it as one string of combat encounters after another...in fact, 90% of the time I remember my early years of gaming being something like this:

Players: We pick the lock/break down the door/walk in to the room.

DM: Okay, five trolls are sitting around a card table playing cards. "Wot's this?!?!" One of them says, "Who do you think you are barging in to our flat?"

Players: Cool! We play cards with them/apologize and back out/parlay for the right to move to the next room/attack!

Basically, fighting was usually only one option; monsters didn't usually seem to attack unless provoked, or unless the module said so....which when you read many of those old modules, they often leave behavior and personality of NPCs and monsters up to the DM, something later years tended to erase.

But hey, YMMV and I have figured out from the current old-school movement that my game experiences from the 1980's may have been an exception to the rule, and that most of the grognards are all about methodical dungeon delving and Moria-like simulating.

EDIT: crap, forgot my point about 4E! Anyway, the point is, 4E "plays" to me like 1E did....you can do whatever you like. The big difference being combat in 4E is enormously more tactical, and usually we can only get 2-3 encounters in a 4E game done with one session, whereas in the old 1E days you could plow through up to a dozen combats if you were so inclined without missing a beat.

Yeah my games were a bit like that and as I said I got out of the dungeon (occassional visits as part of bigger campaigns) and into the city.

<4e gripe>My problem with 4e, and I have read of it but not played it, is that it actually limits the game by making all PCs good at combat. A strange complaint but ... For me there was a point in 2e with Skills and Powers were D&D nearly got to be 'perfect' D&D. The idea that you get a number of points to build a custom class and you advance in that class. A thief which some maigc at higher levels a dex based fighter etc etc With it you could have built balanced classes for everything , want to build a pirate that is specific to your setting. A gladiator class etc etc. Now Skills and Powers was fatally flawed and poorly executed but with it there was the germ of a great idea.
Now when 3e came out this was dropped and the game , in my mind changed too much. I couldn't just pick up an 2e character and move to 3e, which I could do from 1e to 2e (with minor tweaks) and the combat grid became more important. So we didn't move to 3e. 4e is just this and more to my mind.  

Quote from: Peregrin;342077That said, Gary wrote a pretty extensive Dragon article...

Thing about Gygax is that he said a lot of different things over the years, many of them at odds with one another.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;342128Thing about Gygax is that he said a lot of different things over the years, many of them at odds with one another.

Seanchai

He might have helped get the ball rolling but I don't accept that anyone is a true expert on roleplaying games.

Quote from: Machinegun Blue;342133He might have helped get the ball rolling but I don't accept that anyone is a true expert on roleplaying games.

Exactly. I don't think that EGG's opinion are more authoritative than anyone else's.

Quote from: Machinegun Blue;342133He might have helped get the ball rolling but I don't accept that anyone is a true expert on roleplaying games.

Nah.. we all are :)

Quote from: Haffrung;342113When did that happen? You don't think combat was the primary focus in Keep on the Borderlands, White Plume Mountain, and the Giant series (all published before 1980)?

It was a focus, but it was balanced out by other factors--survival was paramount, and running away/avoiding combat was often the smartest decision, whereas in 3rd and 4th the heroic focus does away with reaction/morale rules, and players often seek combat.  Also, the amount of time investment for both DM prep time and play at the table for a single combat encounter increased quite a bit from AD&D 1e/2e to 3rd edition.

Quote from: jibbajibba;342127<4e gripe>My problem with 4e, and I have read of it but not played it, is that it actually limits the game by making all PCs good at combat.

This is mostly true.  

Every build will be good at combat.  However, where things diverge is the Utility Powers and the Feats.   A player can easily choose utilities and feats that are just combat focussed.   But most classes have non-combat utilities that are usually skill focussed and there are skill focussed feats.

This was a purposeful design choice whereas point-buy systems give you total freedom.  The problem with total freedom is that SOME players get frustrated when they find their skill monkey can't fight.   In 4e, your skill-monkey who can fight 9/10ths as well as the all-combat dude.

I don't blame the 4e designers.  I have run plenty of games where some players felt sidelined during combat because of their character choices.  It was their own choice, but during actual play, they wanted to be "having fun" throughout the session.  And for them "having fun" was defined as "always being useful".

In 4e, every character is "always useful".  

As an Old Schooler, I appreciate that classes each had their moment to shine and certainly that's how we built our characters when we played point-buy games.  But as a 4e GM and player, I can't deny that having all the characters always engaged, regardless of the situation is very fun.

My last campaign was around 50-60 percent combat, but it was a Star Wars game so that was probably about right.

Quote from: Imperator;342137Exactly. I don't think that EGG's opinion are more authoritative than anyone else's.

It's relevant in terms of game design, and because Haffrung brought it up (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=342009&postcount=41).

Quote from: HaffrungIf Gygax did have a largely non-combat game in mind when he designed D&D, he utterly failed in supporting that format with the material that his company published.

To which I replied that Gygax also didn't support snacks and players cracking stupid jokes in the rules, but nonetheless they are certainly an intrinsic part of traditional gaming; there is some shit gamers ought to be able to handle by themselves without the rules holding their hand.

Having rules for something encourages it. Having detailed rules for something encourages it yet more. For example, my friend runs a GURPS campaign, and whenever a player says "I want to do X", he thinks, "ah, there's a rule for that, or something similar, perhaps they would enjoy that option..." and goes and looks it up. Thus the game is slow.

When I was in the game group, things moved along more quickly as I'd say, "just decide the bonus or malus, let's move on," and he'd put the book down and we'd move on. They don't have that in the group now, so things move slowly.

I call it the Video Store Effect. If I'm at a video store with 6,300 movies to choose from, I can wander for 45 minutes and not choose even one. If I'm at a friend's house and they have 12 movies, it takes me thirty seconds to choose, and we happily watch one and enjoy it. Or if I have a certain friend with me, we choose in thirty seconds no matter what - my friend pushes me along.

Likewise, if there is a great amount of detail and choice in a rules system, people spend a lot of time thinking or arguing about what to do next. Where there's less detail, less argument and thinking. But a strong-willed person can keep things moving no matter what.

Nonetheless, nobody holds a gun to my head in the video store while I dither. In the end it's up to me. And I can choose not to watch a video at all, but instead go home and play a board game, or watch tv, or garden, or whatever. In the end, the choice is up to me.

Thus, the design of each edition of D&D, in adding detail to combat each time, has encouraged more time to be spent on combat. But it's always been up to the players involved.

A game's design encourages or discourages certain playstyles, but does not determine playstyle.

Quote from: camazotz;342119It is weird; as an old vet, who started play with AD&D in 1980 (therefore not quite a true grognard, since I didn't start with the OD&D brown box) I think the fact that, no matter what the physical evidence of the era seems to suggest (i.e. lots of dungeon modules full of monsters) people just didn't play it as one string of combat encounters after another...in fact, 90% of the time I remember my early years of gaming being something like this:

Players: We pick the lock/break down the door/walk in to the room.

DM: Okay, five trolls are sitting around a card table playing cards. "Wot's this?!?!" One of them says, "Who do you think you are barging in to our flat?"

Players: Cool! We play cards with them/apologize and back out/parlay for the right to move to the next room/attack!

Basically, fighting was usually only one option; monsters didn't usually seem to attack unless provoked, or unless the module said so....which when you read many of those old modules, they often leave behavior and personality of NPCs and monsters up to the DM, something later years tended to erase.

But hey, YMMV and I have figured out from the current old-school movement that my game experiences from the 1980's may have been an exception to the rule, and that most of the grognards are all about methodical dungeon delving and Moria-like simulating.

halfrung

Look, I started running D&D in 1977. I was there. My group transferred to AD&D one book at at time as they were released, Monster Manual first! We were somewhat less dungeon focused than other groups, but not astonishingly so - players coming into my group had no problem adjusting. In 20 years of that campaign, running from D&D to AD&D to AD&D 2e and ending when 3E came out, we had about 5 "big" dungeons - i.e. more than a day to plow through - and maybe 10-20 mini-dungeons. The *vast* majority of our gaming was on the surface, in towns and cities and wilderness. Here's a secret which jibbajabba and camazotz let out of the bag: Encounter does not equal combat. What happened in an encounter could involve many things, only one of which was combat.

So, a word of advice. Don't try to tell people who were there what really happened! It's bad manners, and makes you look stupid. I don't think you are stupid, so you might actually care that you look that way. It's not like you are disputing things that happened in the Hundred Years War. There are actually a lot of us still around.

-clash

Added - and I never ran modules. GMs that ran modules were pretty much scorned by the GMs I knew. Maybe that's an important difference.

I started in 81. Dungeon smashing was what the game appeared to be about, how it was taught to my GM, and how I leaned D&D and AD&D... and what the modules showed. Not to mention being pretty much what the other groups I was aware of at the time were doing, too.

Our D&D games back then were over 95% combat. It was encouraged even in the rules and Gygax's spectacularly bad advice in Dragon. Puzzles and traps were the rest. If it wasn't a dungeon, it was a trek to/from a dungeon.

Real in character play didn't start for me until a couple years later.

But We did have a bit of off-the-rules wierdness. Like my COM 23 Elf. He seduced Lolth, made the save vs her COM 25, and stabbed her in the back mid coitus.

Quote from: flyingmice;342385The *vast* majority of our gaming was on the surface, in towns and cities and wilderness. Here's a secret which jibbajabba and camazotz let out of the bag: Encounter does not equal combat. What happened in an encounter could involve many things, only one of which was combat.

Sure. I get that. I've played whacks of D&D and spent hundreds of hours playing non-combat encounters. Though I do wonder how how your PCs earned the 1.2 million or so experience points it would take a party of 6 PCs from 7th level to 8th level without killing lots of things and taking lots of stuff. I get that you can earn experience from looting treasure without killing monsters, but I'm at a loss to imagine stealing millions of GP of goods with hardly any fighting.

Quote from: flyingmice;342385So, a word of advice. Don't try to tell people who were there what really happened!

You may want to direct that advice to the guys upthread who claimed that D&D didn't used to be mainly about fighting.

QuoteIt's not like you are disputing things that happened in the Hundred Years War. There are actually a lot of us still around.

And I'm one of them. Started with the Holmes basic set when I was nine.

QuoteAdded - and I never ran modules. GMs that ran modules were pretty much scorned by the GMs I knew. Maybe that's an important difference.

Probably is. But millions on millions of D&D players did run modules. In fact, for millions of millions of D&D players, modules is how they learned to play the game. While personal anecdotes will vary, that massive output of dungeon-based modules provides rather convincing evidence that yes, D&D was mostly about combat and dungeon-delving for a huge number of players.

Apparently I was not playing games like I thought I was. You know exactly what went on. Whatever you say. I must have imagined the whole thing. I'm out of here!

-clash

Quote from: Haffrung;342405Sure. I get that. I've played whacks of D&D and spent hundreds of hours playing non-combat encounters. Though I do wonder how how your PCs earned the 1.2 million or so experience points it would take a party of 6 PCs from 7th level to 8th level without killing lots of things and taking lots of stuff. I get that you can earn experience from looting treasure without killing monsters, but I'm at a loss to imagine stealing millions of GP of goods with hardly any fighting.



You may want to direct that advice to the guys upthread who claimed that D&D didn't used to be mainly about fighting.



And I'm one of them. Started with the Holmes basic set when I was nine.



Probably is. But millions on millions of D&D players did run modules. In fact, for millions of millions of D&D players, modules is how they learned to play the game. While personal anecdotes will vary, that massive output of dungeon-based modules provides rather convincing evidence that yes, D&D was mostly about combat and dungeon-delving for a huge number of players.

This is quite interesting there really does seem to be a split between the Module players and the non-module players. I wonder how that equates to toehr stuff... hmmm.
For me I had borrowed some AD&D stuff when I was 10 from a student my mum taught. This included Steading of the Hill Giant Chief and one of the Slave LOrds adventures A3 I think.. I had been playing Blue book basic for about 3 months at the time. We used the pregenned characters to try the adventures but generally found that they were illogical and only had one way of doing things. I think there was maybe a seminal moment when we played a module from White Dwarf which was all roleplay and puzzles with never little combat and what was there could be avoided (must have been in 81 sometime) and I though this is much more like the games I like. .
We did go back to dungeons briefly when Grimtooth's traps came out (82?) but only for a quick visit.
After that there would be dungeon bits in games but they were incidental to the plot.

I also wonder if there is any link to the guys that played moduels and the guys that houseruled and made up their own systems. We houserueld from day 2 or 3, which I assumed was the norm and I wrote my first game when I was 12, based on Ace Trucking from 2000AD. I wonder if the guys that played more expansive games and didn't use modules tend to have similar experiences.  

Well I don't think Clash will comment as he has indicated he is done with the thread but as for XP we used to run it two ways. Either at the end of the session the DM gave you Xp on a bit of paper or at the end of the quest you all got XP. This was generally more focused on achieving your objectives and roleplaying. I seem to recall a moment when a Good Magic User slept a bunch of kolbolds and then refused to kill them but rescued the farmer's daughter they had captured but gave her all the loot. The rules didn't allow for any experience from this but it was obviously much more of a heroic worthy act and so surely deserved some. There was also a time a 1st or maybe 2nd level party stumbled across a random monster that was a black dragon the DM ruled that we had stumbled into its lair, but he also determined it was young (2hp/dice) so the thief sneaked in and the fighter took up a position. The thief hit with a backstab... backstabbing a dragon go figure and the fighter landed a 20 so the thing was dead. Then the DM randomly generated its horde of treasure and the party just got more xp for that encounter than for the previous 3 or 4 sessions. Those two things meant we binned the xp rules as written by the time we were 11 or 12.

Oh and I think the Millions and millions of module players is a slight exageration :) the cost if nothing else.. I was 11 got 2 quid a week pocket money a module would cost 7 or 8 pounds if I could find them in a shop or I coudl just make it up which was free... but of the 20 or so kids I knew at the time all devout players.. I don;t know anyone that bought more than 1 module

Quote from: flyingmice;342424Apparently I was not playing games like I thought I was. You know exactly what went on. Whatever you say. I must have imagined the whole thing. I'm out of here!

Dude, where did I say that? When millions of people play a game, you're going to get all kinds of play styles. All I'm saying is for a huge number of them - yes, I'll go out on a limb and say a majority - combat made up most of the gameplay.

The sample adventure in every edition of D&D I've seen is a dungeon. The most extensive examples of play in every book are examples of combat. Most of the adventures in the Dragon (before Dungeon came out) were dungeon complexes, not political dramas or murder-mysteries. Book after book after book published in the early days of the game were dungeon chock full of monsters. There are no rules for level advancement other than killing and looting.

I don't see how anyone honestly looking to find the norm in play styles could reach another conclusion. Again, the norm - not everybody. Not you obviously. And probably not hundreds of thousands of other players. But most.

Quote from: jibbajibba;342127Yeah my games were a bit like that and as I said I got out of the dungeon (occassional visits as part of bigger campaigns) and into the city.

<4e gripe>My problem with 4e, and I have read of it but not played it, is that it actually limits the game by making all PCs good at combat. A strange complaint but ... For me there was a point in 2e with Skills and Powers were D&D nearly got to be 'perfect' D&D. The idea that you get a number of points to build a custom class and you advance in that class. A thief which some maigc at higher levels a dex based fighter etc etc With it you could have built balanced classes for everything , want to build a pirate that is specific to your setting. A gladiator class etc etc. Now Skills and Powers was fatally flawed and poorly executed but with it there was the germ of a great idea.
Now when 3e came out this was dropped and the game , in my mind changed too much. I couldn't just pick up an 2e character and move to 3e, which I could do from 1e to 2e (with minor tweaks) and the combat grid became more important. So we didn't move to 3e. 4e is just this and more to my mind.  

I've thought about that, too. The main problem 4E presents to a story-focused game is that if you do want to play a less combat-focused character, you really can't, unless you simply choose to act that way in contradiction to your abilities.

Techincally, one could build some power sets for a given class that de-emphasize direct combat, but then you'd be messing up the system's balance, which would be okay only if the DM is savvy enough to account for that. As a result, this is one of the reasons that even though I run and enjoy 4E (and my players love it) I have embraced Pathfinder for my "more serious" stories that might require characters who are not all aimed at beating stuff up.

My 4E games can get quite convoluted and often have no combat at all; but this is a trait brought to the table by the players and the scenario as I design it; the game itself definitely provides the bulk of the rule support for beat-em-ups, no doubt about that. It sounds like they are working on changing that, or at least throwing out a bone over at WotC, though, such as with their exploits for skills and such. We'll see if it really works out that way.

Quote from: flyingmice;342424Apparently I was not playing games like I thought I was. You know exactly what went on. Whatever you say. I must have imagined the whole thing. I'm out of here!

-clash

Clash, you're getting pissy because we point out your perception wasn't universal. You're the one claiming D&D wasn't about the combat; that's an extraordinary claim, demanding extraordinary proof.

The bulk of the evidence is that the majority view was it was about the carnage, with some groups delving into something beyond character scale  combat & traps.

Even now, a great many, if not most, D&D games are about the slayage.

"Bulk of the evidence"...?

You mean, "everybody says"?

Yeah, okay.

We didn't do all combats when we first played... and we were 12, so our games weren't exactly thespy sophistication, if you know what I mean.

Even most early published dungeon bashes were more about the puzzle solving and exploration than the combat IMHO.

Quote from: jadrax;343054Even most early published dungeon bashes were more about the puzzle solving and exploration than the combat IMHO.

Let's look at all of the monochrome TSR dungeons. I'll give my impression of combat/non-combat.

White Plume Mountain. Lots of puzzle solving and lots of combat. Around 15 combat encounters (allowing for a few wandering monsters) in a dungeon that should take 2 sessions to play.
50/50

In Search of the Unknown. Great dungeon. Lots of atmosphere, exploration, and puzzle-solving. Kind of hard to rate for combat encounters, given the way the DM customizes the monsters. Still, going by the guidelines you'll probably have 20-30 combat encounters in the 2 level dungeon.
50/50

Tomb of Horrors. A special case. Definitely more traps than monsters.
20/80

Steading of the Hill Giant Chief. Other than a bit of negotiation with some orcs, combat all the way.
80/20

Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl. Pure hackfest.
90/10

Hall of the Fire Giant King. Probably 50 combat encounters in that sucker.
80/20

Descent into the Depths. Nothing but combat, and some overland (underground) travel.
90/10

Shrine of the Kua-Toa. Depends how it's played. You're probably going to have several combat encounters leading up to the city, and then one or two big fights.
60/40

Vault of the Drow. More of a campaign setting than an adventure. The amount of combat will vary by group. The Fane of Lolth is going to see some heavy combat, though.
50/50

Keep on the Borderlands. Take out the monsters and there isn't much of an adventure to speak of, just a bunch of empty caves. And this is the most played RPG adventure of all time.
80/20

Village of Hommlet. The village of itself will be mostly non-combat (though in playing that game with three different groups, most of them ended up killing a lot of NPCs in the Inn, robbing from villagers, taking a run at the tower, etc.) And the moathouse itself is all combat.
60/40

Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan. Another great dungeon that is more about the setting than the monsters. You're still looking at 15 or so combat encounters in 2-4 sessions, and most of those encounters are very tough.
30/70

So not all combat. And yeah, probably more exploration and puzzle-solving than in modern D&D adventures. But I stand by my original assertion: If a group went through all of the those dungeons, it's hard to imagine most of the sessions being mainly non-combat.

And if we throw in popular modules like the A series and the Temple of Elemental Evil, and Judges Guilds classics such as Caverns of Thracia and Dark Tower, the ratio shifts even more to the combat side.