Just about everybody is harping on the players being problematic in some way. I'll just play devil's advocate here and say it could be the other way around. Not to say anything negative about you OP, but I've seen some draconian (pun intended) DM's who insist a game is played a particular way, to the detriment of the players. 

Maybe your combats are boring. Maybe the stakes are too high.  Maybe players are afraid of their characters dying. 

The point is, it could be any number of reasons beside "the players don't even realize that the game they want to play isn't DND". Most threads on here can be solved with the simple suggestion of "talk to your players", which is exactly what I'd suggest you do. 

And just to follow up; there are three pillars of gameplay in DND - combat, roleplay, exploration. The game can stand without one of the three pillars. I'm sure a ton of games barely touch the Exploration pillar of play, but people really cry out that it's removing the sanctity of DND. 

An open hearted discussion would be good, without any judgement :) Besides this I like to reduce the distinction between combat and non-combat scenes. When combat starts, it doesn't mean roleplaying should stop. It's up to the players as well to keep roleplaying. Of course you have respect the turns a little bit but mostly players can talk to each other during any turn. It keeps the atmosphere alive. And the players should make an effort to describe their turn in an exciting way, so that even when the others are waiting they are still enjoying each turn because of the 'cinema'.

There are many RPG systems out there where the players do a lot of the DM's work.  Kids on Bikes/ Brooms is one where the players are actively encouraged to describe the scene, set their own difficulty numbers and narrate their own results.  If that sounds like the DM's job, it often is what DM's do especially in DND.  But that doesn't make it "wrong" to want to play that way.  It's just not what everyone wants out of a game.

I know for me, running that kind of game is tricky because I really like crafting an interactive narrative and that level of "player writing the world" can be a little hard to manage.  It's also hard to play when the players themselves might be used to "okay DM, tell us what the hook is" or "okay DM tell me what happens" rather than the DM sitting back and sayign "okay, well, tell us what happens based on your roll".  

Another game to consider is the new edition of 7th Sea.  It works on the same idea where the players literally get to decide if they succeed or fail on their own.  The dice rolls only effect how much they get to write the scene themselves but for the most part they ALWAYS succeed unless they think it would be better to fail.  The exceptions are for flaws and quirks where the Storyteller can sya "okay, you Have to do this bad thing becuase, well, it's a flaw you have".  But even THEN the players are encouraged to narrate that on their own, for the fun of the story.

Very much not DND but still potentially very fun for those people.

Assuming there's nothing more to this story than the OP says, then the group do not want to play D&D but instead probably want to play some kind of slice of life game. This is actually what we call "Playing make believe" and it's what kids do in the playground. There are no rules, there are no stories, everyone just does what they want.

Remove combat rules and there is no means to resolve in-game conflicts. There is then no game.

Play make believe with them if you want to, why not, I mean that IS an element of DnD to some extent, but personally I suspect that what these players want is somehow sexually charged. They're more interested in their characters than they are a story (since without combat, there can be no conflicts to resolve) and they want to explore them. I'd bet money that this group want to "explore themselves" through roleplay. If this is the case, NEVER play with a group that do this - you are no a therapist, and these people are always very damaged.

Quote from Sanvael >>

Assuming there's nothing more to this story than the OP says, then the group do not want to play D&D but instead probably want to play some kind of slice of life game. This is actually what we call "Playing make believe" and it's what kids do in the playground. There are no rules, there are no stories, everyone just does what they want.

Remove combat rules and there is no means to resolve in-game conflicts. There is then no game.

Play make believe with them if you want to, why not, I mean that IS an element of DnD to some extent, but personally I suspect that what these players want is somehow sexually charged. They're more interested in their characters than they are a story (since without combat, there can be no conflicts to resolve) and they want to explore them. I'd bet money that this group want to "explore themselves" through roleplay. If this is the case, NEVER play with a group that do this - you are no a therapist, and these people are always very damaged.

Uh.....

Sexually charged?

Damaged?

Like there's a whole industry of games out there that do specifically what the OP asked about, and actually have rules to them (so they're not 'kids on the playground playing make believe").

But... wow?