Role-playing combat

Personally I have a very simple model of role-playing games, be they pen & paper, single-player on a computer, or massively multiplayer online: In general these games consist of a "basic repeatable unit", usually combat, which happens in minor variations over and over. And between those repeatable units of combat, there is something that chains them all together into some sort of story or world. By definition the combat part is more repetitive than the non-combat part, because even if you a

World of Warkraft...