Quote from: Seanchai;444027Hmmmmn. Amber?

Seanchai

I can only agree.

The ranking system and the well known high power level of certain Elders goes a long way toward discouraging certain fights. Nobody really wants to start a fight they know they can't win so PCs will often choose another tactic or look for additional resources, edges, and allies.

The blood curse mechanic also discourages fights to the death, because it adds an extra cost to killing any Amberite.

Quote from: One Horse Town;444090Any game where combat is truly deadly qualifies, surely?

I don't think it's sufficient.

Simulated combat is probably the most entertaining thing most RPGs offer. For many RPGs it's the only entertaining thing they offer. Making it uber-deadly doesn't mean you've made anything else fun to do; it just means you've made your game suck.

Make combat deadly enough and you might encourage people to try to do interesting things largely OUTSIDE the content your game system. But this is heavily dependent upon the quality of your GM and gaming group, and has little or nothing to do with anything intrinsic to the game itself.

Quote from: Cole;444096I could easily see a Dying Earth type game where any danger was addressed by either pure bullshit, or failing that, headlong flight.

The Getting Started section of the Dying Earth RPG from Pelgrane Press says in big bold letters: If you’re in a fight, something has probably gone horribly wrong.

I love that.

I could imagine a Shadowrun campaign that concentrated on infiltration missions, where being discovered and having to resort to violence equals failure of the mission.
Sadly, the way the game is written the default adventure structure is meticulously planning a mission - only to be screwed and resorting to Plan B (which usually involves a lot of explosives and weaponry).


Another game that doesn't seem to suck:

Koyake Yuuyake is a Japanese "Feelgood"-RPG that is the antithesis to the World of Darkness.
The characters are child-like nature (animal) spirits who secretly live among humans (without any clan intrigue or what have you).
A typical adventure is similar to an episode of "Highway to Heaven" (Michael Landon): a human has a "problem of the week" and the spirits want to help.
AFAIK the game doesn't even have a combat system.

The only "problem" the game has is that it uses storygame-like scene framing. But that could be repaired, I guess.

Robin Laws' new Skullduggery can be pretty violence-free. I don't know if it's good or not; I haven't played it yet. (Speaking of Dying Earth.)

Dead Inside rewards non-violence in a pretty big way. I playtested it and enjoyed it, although I've never come back to it since.

I think Amber is full of violence, it's just not oriented towards the PCs and Elders. But most Amber games I've played have been pretty hard on the Shadows. I guess I should say you can play a non-violent Amber campaign, and it can be good, but it's not built into the game?

Bunnies and Burrows also comes to mind, but that's more of a game where you want to avoid violence than a non-violent game, if you see the line I'm trying to draw.

My impression of the Dying Earth RPG is that it was more based on the sequels (The Eyes of the Overworld, ect) to The Dying Earth than on The Dying Earth itself. There is no shortage of fighting in the the stories from the original book.

Quote from: Aos;444214My impression of the Dying Earth RPG is that it was more based on the sequels (The Eyes of the Overworld, ect) to The Dying Earth than on The Dying Earth itself. There is no shortage of fighting in the the stories from the original book.

I would agree but it addresses more than one approach

Quote from: Justin AlexanderMake combat deadly enough and you might encourage people to try to do interesting things largely OUTSIDE the content your game system.

Are you one of those blokes in whose theory "Apples to Apples" does not have a game system?

Combat as 'the' central concern is an effect of RPGs having come from wargames and largely getting sold to adolescent males. The prevalence in video games reflects a similar target audience.

What deadliness directly relates to is role identification. The role-playing game in its archetypal (D&D campaign) form involved development of continuing characters.

Most characters had but brief 'lives' when a single hit could easily kill a first-level combatant. With each level, though, sudden death became less common. The longer a character was played, generally the more choices a player had to make before the character died. In D&D, even death might be but temporary as characters often could be resurrected.

A campaign with very high player-character mortality in combat thus seems to me likely either to

(A) involve less combat, with careful planning to minimize PC casualties
or
(B) basically to evolve back into a wargame.

I think that role-playing soldiers, as opposed to treating them as mere 'units', should pretty naturally involve self-preservation measures that real soldiers take.

Quote from: Dirk RemmeckeKoyake Yuuyake is a Japanese "Feelgood"-RPG that is the antithesis to the World of Darkness....

A typical adventure is similar to an episode of "Highway to Heaven" (Michael Landon): a human has a "problem of the week" and the spirits want to help.

That was also the "Route 66" aspect of my American Gothic game.

Quote from: Cole;444216I would agree but it addresses more than one approach

While I like the sequels, I enjoy the first book far more, but, imo, D&D and some house rules cover that territory fairly well, which is why although I am a huge Vance fan I've never bothered with the RPG.

I think it's funny that many of the recommended systems in this thread have an entire chapter of combat rules.

Quote from: danbuter;444282I think it's funny that many of the recommended systems in this thread have an entire chapter of combat rules.

Pundit said "Game or campaign." Many of us are talking campaign. Others are talking potential to run a good campaign without violence. Personally, I think any game can be run well without violence if the situation is right for it and the group is cool with the concept.

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;444286Pundit said "Game or campaign." Many of us are talking campaign. Others are talking potential to run a good campaign without violence. Personally, I think any game can be run well without violence if the situation is right for it and the group is cool with the concept.

-clash

Also, missing the obvious, but I'm guessing you can run Tools of Ignorance without combat. :-)

Pete

Quote from: pspahn;444298Also, missing the obvious, but I'm guessing you can run Tools of Ignorance without combat. :-)

Pete

Well, there's an occasional bench-clearing brawl... A bunch of millionaires shoving each other...

-clash

Game-wise, I was thinking of stuff where there is something in the mechanic that either actively discourages straightforward fighting as an option, or encourages other actions.  Dr.Who is an example of that.
I think "combat is really deadly" is not that, really.  "there's no combat mechanic in this game" would be, but that is also kind of a cop-out, and the game will almost certainly be ass.

Campaign wise, I would say any campaign where for whatever reason combat was reduced to an absolute minimum.

In that sense, I would disagree with Amber being included, because there's nothing in the rules per se to discourage fighting, and every campaign I've ever run was full of bloodshed. Mainly of uncountable numbers of shadow-people, but also really vicious fights between amberites or chaosians.

Traveller, on the other hand, while having nothing game-wise that actively discourages combat, certainly seems to have something that lends to very low-combat campaigns.  The campaign I ran that had the least combat of any campaign of mine ever was my D20 Traveller campaign, where in something like a year and a half of regular weekly play, we had only TWO actual firefights.

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