Wew, finally got a half hour free to read that post. Nice one Rince.

Swine.

Interpreting the comment to mean that 95% of encounters will result in a fight I find that high-balling it, but not by much.  I'm not sure if this is a feature or a bug though.

One of the DMs I played a good deal under in 2e was bag into age of sail a lot of his adventures and campaigns had that theme and resulted in a lot more parley than a more traditional dungeon-centric campaign.

I feel like Iron Heroes does result in a lot more non-combat interaction as well despite being a d20 3e variant, because it's more heavily focused on clashing swords with other warriors who hail from the similar cultures, which isn't really the default style of conflict in more traditional D&D play.

A huge portion of potential encounters in D&D are with "monsters" which often either aren't interested in conversation with PCs, the PCs have no reason to converse with the monster peacefully especially if they were good aligned, or in many scenarios you are fighting literally bloodthirsty beasts or mindless antagonists that can't be negotiated with.

D&D didn't get the murderhobos reputation from nowhere.  Again though, perhaps a feature rather than a bug.  The group that I usually DM for would probably be intolerant of a campaign that wasn't centered around combating enemies and I don't feel that they are generally unrepresentative of TRPG players.  I'd say that people here reporting that they almost never engage in combat and just sneak around monsters to steal treasure and always try diplomacy first when dealing with man-eating giants is abnormal.  

It also belies a certain bias towards that particular mode of play on both the part of the players and the DM.  I'd say the recidivism rate of giants is about 100%, so there's basically no chance that the PCs putting an oversized tabard on a giant interested in interloping in human lands would not result in a missed opportunity to have saved lives when their now tabard-clad giant friend starts acting like a giant again in the near future.

The DM would basically have to hand the PCs a win by making this giant "special" instead of being a sadistic Hills Have Eyes cannibalistic freak.  The monster as written, given an alignment and portrayed in say Against the Giants is definitely meant to be slain, or run off by good heroes in any scenario where it isn't necessary to avoid them.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;660082In Mongoose Traveller, fighting to the death means, "Ref, print me up another character sheet!  I'm going to need one!"

I can do you one better, don't play Star Trek with this group, one phaser shot on Disintegrate means new character! :jaw-dropping:

Quote from: jhkim;660664Drohem - there's what looks like an inconsistency here.  In the first quoted post above, you implied that the player was failing to role-play his character (i.e. "his inability to put himself aside").  However, in the latter quoted post, you say that the character was smug, pompous, and full of himself - which implies that the player was correctly playing his character.  Which is it - i.e. was the player playing his character well?

There's no inconsistency here.  The Player was playing himself instead of the character.  No, he was not playing his character well as it relates to someone (i.e., the character) who actually lives in that place, time, and setting.  He was playing himself as a 20th Century dude, with a Punk attitude, in the skin of an Irish King meeting a powerful creature of legend and the Other World.

Quote from: Wolf, Richard;660789I'd say the recidivism rate of giants is about 100%, so there's basically no chance that the PCs putting an oversized tabard on a giant interested in interloping in human lands would not result in a missed opportunity to have saved lives when their now tabard-clad giant friend starts acting like a giant again in the near future.

The DM would basically have to hand the PCs a win by making this giant "special" instead of being a sadistic Hills Have Eyes cannibalistic freak.

"Fi, fi, fo, fum! Grod paid 10 gold per an-num! Got benefits and two weeks vacation, too, plus microwave and fridge in lunch room.  You still eat that sheep?"

Quote from: daniel_ream;660952"Fi, fi, fo, fum! Grod paid 10 gold per an-num! Got benefits and two weeks vacation, too, plus microwave and fridge in lunch room.  You still eat that sheep?"

Not every setting is a Shadowrun.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;660031So, how 'bout it, gamers? Is 95% of your time spent playing D&D devoted to killing things?

I find pretty well exactly 95%* of game sessions involve combat, in which almost always the PCs kill something/somebody. Of course not all or 95% of game time is spent in combat - actually game time spent in combat varies by game system but varies from about 15-20% in Moldvay/Mentzer Basic (& clones) to about 50-60% in 4e D&D.

*My Loudwater campaign I blog the sessions - 43 sessions so far of which I believe 2 have had no real combat. That's pretty normal IME.

Only game session I ever played that approached 95% combat was the one time I tried 4e; that the combats were pretty dull didn't help.

Quote from: Wolf, Richard;660789It also belies a certain bias towards that particular mode of play on both the part of the players and the DM.  I'd say the recidivism rate of giants is about 100%, so there's basically no chance that the PCs putting an oversized tabard on a giant interested in interloping in human lands would not result in a missed opportunity to have saved lives when their now tabard-clad giant friend starts acting like a giant again in the near future.

The DM would basically have to hand the PCs a win by making this giant "special" instead of being a sadistic Hills Have Eyes cannibalistic freak.  The monster as written, given an alignment and portrayed in say Against the Giants is definitely meant to be slain, or run off by good heroes in any scenario where it isn't necessary to avoid them.

By no means is the giant a "special", misunderstood, gentle soul that just wants to be loved. Their encounter with the giant didn't end in kum bah yah round the campfire.  Initially, they killed the giant's dogs and provoked him, negotiations took place with hands on hilts. The giant is compensated with a monthly shipment of food and provisions in return for protecting the lands. The tabard was a gesture. The giant was proud.

Maybe the giant will revert to his old ways. Maybe the PCs should have killed him while they had the chance. (Now, there's an idea for a future adventure.) Maybe the giant is just smart enough to realise that being delivered a monthly shipment of food is easier than having to find it himself; if he avoids biting the hand that feeds he can satiate his hunger for violence against the many other threats to the land. Maybe the PCs should kill everything that they meet, you know, just in case. Maybe sometimes avoiding combat is in everyone's interests, then nobody dies, monster nor PC.

My players are no more biased towards parley 95% of the time than they are towards combat 95% of the time. They deal with situations as they feel the situation requires.

I've DMed for groups of players that did charge into combat at every opportunity, they eventually get TPKed. That was playing editions of D&D where every "encounter" must be "balanced". Playing AD&D with my current group, the first time any of us have played AD&D in many years, the players have recognised that adventuring is a dangerous business and that "encounters" are never "balanced".

I'd say that in games where the players expect to resolve with combat all of the time that the DM would basically have to hand the PCs a win by carefully balancing each encounter so that the players know that by the nth encounter it's time to take a long rest, regenerate their dailies and spend their curing splurges so they don't die in encounter n+1. Especially if the DM is running the monsters by the RAW. If not, he'd be cheating, right?

Quote from: Orpheo;661143snip

You are setting up a false dichotomy between "always heedlessly charging into combat" and playing it smart or something.  The alternative to fighting the giant in your scenario is simply not fighting the giant.  Regardless, a party that always curbstomps monsters with no worry in the world is probably being pitched softballs in some way by the DM, and that most often includes playing monsters less lethally than they should reasonably be.  

Which is basically the exact same kind of thing as the goofy, lovable giant, and an aristocracy that is for some reason fine publicly cowering and paying tribute to it lest it continue to terrorize their subjects.

Quote from: Wolf, Richard;661160You are setting up a false dichotomy between "always heedlessly charging into combat" and playing it smart or something.  The alternative to fighting the giant in your scenario is simply not fighting the giant.

No. It is you that has simplified it so.

QuoteWhich is basically the exact same kind of thing as the goofy, lovable giant, and an aristocracy that is for some reason fine publicly cowering and paying tribute to it lest it continue to terrorize their subjects.

Come now, now you're just imagining how the encounter with the giant went, and how the giant was played based on your real-world preconceptions, the disney movies you've been watching, what you call the "monster as written" (take out your 2e Monstrous Manual and look up Verbeeg) and what you have prejudged to be the play style of my group. Yes, the giant receives compensation but "for service" and the campaign world will have its own doubters that will call this arrangement appeasement or tribute and put pressure on the lord. Otherwise, the peace that it brings may be worth the compromise to the people. "We don't negotiate with terrorists" isn't a doctrine that the PCs were made to start with, besides, it is much easier not to negotiate with terrorists when you are the giant.

I've had lots of D&D games where we've killed things 0% of the time.

When playing D&D over the years, our percentage was closer to 85%. It was only when we played D&D in other settings (like Elizabethan England), that the number dropped to much lower.

In Nippon!, Fantasy Chambara Movie Japan, (or when we were playing Bushido) we did a good bit of killing.  It took up about 20% of our game time (4-5 hour session, 1 hour of combat for most nights).

For most games, Combat or Tactical moments seem to take up, much of the time.  There is a 90 to 1 expansion of time once the tactical stuff comes out,  so one minute of combat usually takes about 90 minutes of time. (This number can be multiplied by 2 for every 6 players.)  This was usually not focused on killing.  In most games, it is subduing, capturing, or running away/chasing things.  (Super Heroic and Psionic/Horror games)

Now, most of the time, when we encountered people or things, there was usually conversation/diplomacy. Mostly, we are just kicking about in civilized places following conventional social rules.  It is only when things go south or we knew things were not right that we opted for anything else.  Weapons (or powers) were pulled only when we had to OR when we knew they were "Black Hats" and just needed stopping.

Quote from: MoonHunter;661442There is a 90 to 1 expansion of time once the tactical stuff comes out,  so one minute of combat usually takes about 90 minutes of time.

That's insane.