Yay! We are gaming tonight. The last couple of weekends were too busy.
I know that feeling! I've gamed once in the past three months, out here. I'm just so damned busy that when I get time to myself, I want it to be time to myself.
We don't care about realism so much either, but we do care about consistent world building. Without that, the world is unpredictable. Since the DM has for years been interested in transportation economics, trade between cities or planets or piracy or whatever has to be reasonable. We expect any culture we encounter to at least be superficially viable. For example, my eladrin party leader has a reason not to hate drow on sight. Many of them, yes, but it meant a recent foray into a drow city wasn't just a slaughterfest. So we talked to them, and traded with them, and they had to be people, not just wandering monsters. If you read the drow source material, there's no way that culture could work. Sadistic evil for the sake of sadistic evil? That's okay for individuals but not interesting as a basis for an entire culture. So the DM decided to base drow motivations on the HBO series Rome, which it turns out we all saw. This let them be competent, organized, and able to form alliances.
Well, yeah. A world that could actually function (ie, is internally consistent) is very important. If the world itself doesn't make sense, the game seems pointless. That's why I usually make notes of what a city's major imports and exports are, what sort of produce the nearby villages produce, what kind of trade routes would be viable given the rivers and landscape, etc. However, they're usually just notes, as the greater economy is hardly ever important to a campaign until the adventurers become so rich that they could buy their own kingdoms, or deflate the value of gold by giving thousands of gold pieces to the homeless, or whatever.
When it comes to societies, especially the evil ones, I tend to go with the rule of survivability. If a society can survive, even if it's effed in the eh, then it could exist. However, there are some societies which, as described, would wipe itself out, such as the drow society you mention. Like piranhas, most species tend not to eat each-other, no matter how vicious they are. In my campaigns, goblins tend to be the example race. They're evil, they're vicious, and they hate everything and everyone... except fellow goblins. To each-other, they're as kind and civil as you'd find most human societies, frequently sacrificing themselves to save their fellows. But if there's a non-goblin around and the odds are in their favor, they generally attempt to kill whatever it is and take it's resources, whatever those might be. They tend to be an extreme of that case.
In other cases, I tend to go with a brutish might makes right attitude, such as with Ogres and other brutish creatures. Like biker gangs, the biggest/toughest guy is in charge, whether because he beat up/killed/ defamed the former boss, or because everyone else simply recognizes they're the biggest, or perhaps they're even born into the position, one family simply tending to be the biggest and toughest of the whole tribe. These groups tend to be hunters or scavangers. Further, just because someone's the biggest and toughest or because they're society thinks someone is fit to lead simply for being most powerful, it doesn't mean that biggest, most powerful leader isn't thoughtful or cunning. A tribe that's getting run into the ground, starving or otherwise having needs un-met wouldn't last very long, after all.
I've heard that before, but with 5 PCs and maybe a dozen enemies all taking a turn each round, at least a couple of rolls per person for hit and damage, plus role-playing (obligatory trash talk, threats, improvised weapons, bluffing, and skill checks), that means an absolute minimum of 10 minutes per round, and we usually go 5-6 rounds in a large combat.
To simplify things, I don't give each monster/enemy/whatever their own, unique initiative. I tend to clump together enemies of a similar role or type, and have them go at the same time. I have a number of groups equal to or less than the number of PCs, so that the focus of combat is more what the PCs do/how they react than what the enemy does. Further, I, as a DM, keep in mind what each enemy would do on their turn, so that when it's that enemy's turn, they do it, and it's done, time for who's next to go. They might talk trash, sure, but in about six seconds not too much trash can be talked. And if you improvise a weapon for some reason, the rules are very simple in 4th edition. Two hands? No proficiency bonus, and 1d8 damage. One handed or thrown? No proficiency bonus and 1d4. Otherwise, it's just like any other weapon. If you use a skill check, it generally is either free, or an action equivalent, so just do it before your turn in the case it's free, or do it when you perform that particular action type on your turn. By "before your turn", I mean right before you take actions. You either know something or you don't, so roll the knowledge check and get it out of the way. If you acrobatics, just move your figure with one hand and roll with the other. Whatever the case is, the only reason combat should take long is if people BS and waste time. Not that there's anything wrong with BS. Half the fun of D&D is bullshitting with friends, just that's the only thing that can slow down combat if everyone's aware of what they can and cannot do.
We do prepare. I have made "quicksheets" for everyone which has precalculated stuff on one page for each person. The enemies are ready to go. Every character has a default action if we don't have something else planned, so it goes pretty fast. Even so, it can take well over an hour per combat.
It
can take several hours for my combats. I find the real clincher, though, is people being aware of their options and planning ahead. I really couldn't say why your combats
typically take so long if everyone's aware of the rules and what they can do.
So I deeply admire your ability to bring them in at 30 minutes!
I'm sorry that yours take so long. It baffles me.
Like I said, I also have my favorite. D&D 4E isn't turning out to be anyone's favorite, though we are having fun with it. Changing systems adds for us, since we can switch to science fiction, time travel, horror, or other fantasy. It keeps it fresh.
Well, my preferred genre is fantasy. Me and my friends switch it up sometimes, but D&D is just our favorite, and perhaps the most familiar. Further, any of those aspects
could be added to D&D. Part of the reason I like 4th edition so much is that they leave the role-playing aspects mostly
out of the rules. The role-playing and flavor is whatever the hell you want it to be. Sci-Fi? Add a technology skill, perhaps several, switch around weapon descriptions and names (monomolecular edged blades, phasers, blasters, plasteel armors, whatever you want), and toss the PCs on a starship. Time travel? History checks and the item or machine or artifact that makes time travel possible. No biggy, there. Horror? Make the castle dark and introduce fear rules. I mean, sure, these things would have to be house-ruled in, and some other systems might be better suited to them, but my point is that it's not like D&D is limited from having those elements.
Also, combat is never our main interest, and most of the fun of 4E is the combat. It is much more balanced than 3.5. But most of our games end up political or economic, or a war rather than a series of combats. In SF games we rarely have any combat in person at all, and either have ship-to-ship or ship-to-planet fights, which end up being brinksmanship and result in concessions rather than bodies everywhere. We also go for the old "ancient artifact" kind of game, which has some kind of mystery combined with major social changes.
This is certainly a valid complaint. Combat is certainly the focus of D&D. That's where most of the drama and action comes from. That's how the game's designed. However, that doesn't mean it somehow limits you from interacting socially, or from diplomasizing (hell, diplomacy is a skill!), or any of the other stuff you said. They even have things called skill challenges. Sure, just tossing a few rolls and comparing win to loss ratios isn't fun, that's why you don't tell PCs about the skill challenges at all, just tell them what to roll and how things are turning out because of it.
