So I finished the first arc of my campaign last week and today we are going to play again...

So I finished the first arc of my campaign last week and today we are going to play again. I fear that this session is going to be RP/travel/planning heavy knowing my players as we set to a new arc in the campaign.

One of my players told me the first session "please at least one combat each game or the game is gay and boring", he is your average power gamer who is all session waiting to swing his axe and the rest of the time is either in his phone or wanting stuff to happen.

How do I please that player? If you are one of those players what else do you like besides combat?

Additional info: I consider my campaign combat heavy with 90%+ of sessions having at least one battle(only one out of 14 games haven't had combat), we have 3 hours games btw.

They get jumped by bandits.

Combat player has a flashback to a fight.

They get jumped by ogres

>please at least one combat each game or the game is gay and boring
wise words to live by

Tell him to be an adult for a session? Alternatively if he isn't a friend of yours outside of the game, just kick him for being a lame child. Or just try and make noncombat stuff his abilities are useful in, 9 times out of 10 this type of dude doesn't actually care about combat, he just wants to feel like he's good at the game.

> he just wants to feel like he's good at the game

This. Players often just want to take action and do stuff. Then again, there are fags who literally just want one thing. No matter how much fun they have in a session, if the one thing didn't come up they get pissy.

Fucking teenagers

>One of my players told me the first session "please at least one combat each game or the game is gay and boring"
Treat him to combat IRL by fistfighting him the next time he gets on his phone during an RP section.

It is weird because the one session that didn't have combat after the game told me "I had fun even though this session was so different", he is a veteran who has been playing for 12 years d&d.

He's 28 years old by the way. But yeah he is starting to piss me off, he is constantly cancelling the day of the game. Bad part is that my best player is his best friend, so they come as a duo.

I mean, your options are basically to include a combat or tell him to get his dick out of his ass and contribute in a non-rollplay fashion.

It's pretty binary, so far as I can tell.

How often should combat be expected? I know there is no set rule but for example less than 1 every two sessions sounds bad to me, and sessions being 90% combat all the time too. What you guys would consider unacceptable? I play sessions that are 2:30 hours to 4 hours.

OMFG, he just cancelled "sorry I won't be able to make it, I am looking for a new apartment to rent".

Fucking useless players.

Like everything, its gonna depend on your group, and even within that its gonna depend on where you are in the game.

Going through a big dungeon? 100% combat/ exploration is fine, probably even for more than a session or two.

Just got out of said dungeon and spend a whole session rping downtime, fallout and loot handling? Also fine.

I do think that at least one combat every session is not a bad idea, as a rule of thumb.

If its DnD and its spin-offs combat is where the game shines, its the system's strength, so playing into that only makes sense. I've seldom played with people who say that combat isn't fun in general.

Talk to the friend about it.

Depends on system.

Shadowrun constant fights is really dangerous for characters.

LITERALLY less than 2 hours before the game starts.

I'm so fucking mad, and the rest of the cucks in the group chat are telling him "oh don't worry" and shit like that.

>your average power gamer
>"please at least one combat each game or the game is gay and boring"
>all session waiting to swing his axe and the rest of the time is either in his phone

I have played with guys like that and they're the worst, almost like Those Guys.
He wants combat? Get the party captured by whatever enemies they've been fighting lately, as revenge, and toss him in an arena to fight something he definitely can't kill. Hand him a new character sheet, too.

Come on Veeky Forums im mad.

Please some sympathy.

No, you're a shitty GM.

:(

Just kick him, no one's offering you sympathy because we all know the solution.

Grow some balls and fix the problem.

b-b-but kicking people would be wroooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong i dont want to be like one of those dirty jocks from high school

Seriously I'm sure you're a perfectly good GM and that's why you need to kick this asshole.

Have you ever heard of the Five Geek Social Fallacies? From reading this thread it sounds like you're hitting #1 and arguably #4 pretty hard. Possibly also #5.

Seriously, unless there's more to the story that we're missing, I can see literally no reason to do anything other than kick his bitch ass.

Hey so fun fact:
You don't need to write combat into a game session. Players can easily create those situations themselves.

(And if they create them for no reason, there are always consequences)

My sessions run 4-6 hours and I'll have usually have 1-2 combats per session.

>How often should combat be expected?
A good D&D game involves some minor RP to set up the dungeon, then the dungeon played out, many fights within the dungeon, a big fight at the end of the dungeon, and then some RP to wrap up the dungeon and get a clue to the next dungeon.

But this requires some deliberate pacing, otherwise the game lingers too long at the very first step and then it's already been 3 hours of chitchat and everyone is sick and tired and not up to another 45 minutes of berely getting the real actual dungeon up and running.

Entirely setting dependant, but I've always just had combat come up when combat would come up. Sometimes we go for 3-4 sessions without any violence taking place, other times we have running battles that are 2-3 sessions long. As a dm I've always held that the most important thing is that what happens is what feels like should happen.

That's a good tip!
Sometimes I just keep encounters (especially random encounters) clean and simple to keep the flow going.
Other times a roll comes up zombies at JUST the right moment next to some environmental obstacle or when the players would really rather not being interrupted.

I run old OSR shit though, so combat is fairly quick as is.

This. I laughed hard as well.

Just fuck his girlfriend in revenge.

We ended up playing with 3 players. Session went okay but loads of lollygagging and them not taking decisions. So they got random encounter'd

>

>I fear that this session is going to be RP/travel/planning heavy
This is not a bad thing, your player is a faggot.

so either ur players are lazer focused ,
or my players all suffer from adhd

how the fuck do you get anything done in 3 hours?