In the Spycraft thread Mr Analytical said:

"A Smiley game would fucking ROCK though. Set it in the UK in the early 80's when civil unrest was brewing all over the place. No Gadgets. No Combat. Just intrigue and trying to turn a soviet operative."

The context was the series Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

Now, I'm not saying combat is wrong, I'm running a Vikings game at the moment after all, but let's say I wanted to run a game with suspense and intrigue but no combat.  What tips would you all have and how would you keep it interesting?

Quote from: Balbinuslet's say I wanted to run a game with suspense and intrigue but no combat.  What tips would you all have and how would you keep it interesting?

Add combat

No combat does not mean no conflict. Keeping stakes and keeping interest are key.

Most of the successful games I have run that have been investigation driven. The need for excitement and tension over fear of loss is replaced by curiousity and the pressing need to unveil more of the mystery. Conflicts exist too... in the course of such an investigation, players may come accross NPCs who impede their efforts, and they have to find their way around.

For me, investigation driven is the only real substitute for more active forms of conflict as a centerpeice of the game. I have played and enjoyed games that were more about personal exploration than investigation (I was once in a DC Heroes game based largely on A Chorus Line. I shit you not.) But I don't think I'd be interested in doing something like that again.

Edit: Okay, that's not entirely true. My old traveller games often features combat or investigation, but sometimes the interaction and conflicts were about survival (against odds... e.g, star trek style save-the-ship) and capital gains, though I sort of see those as 3rd and 4th in order of preference of centerpeices of conflict in a game.

I actually think it would have to be less like TTSS and more like Smiley's People.

In TTSS he really does spend most of his time going through files and then carefully laying a trap once he understands the lay of the land.  In Smiley's People though he spends far more time out and about and at the end comes the bit I was thinking of when the idea of a George Smiley game hit me.

He finds out that a Soviet agent is behaving bizarrely so he has him observed discretely before they snatch him and then put the screws to him, trying to convince him to turn and spill his guts lest he get reported and sent back to Russia to live the decidedly less comfy life of a low-level intelligence professional.

Essentially the game would have to be about investigation and then using social skills and raw cunning to turn enemy agents or uncover enemy networks.  It would function much as a normal game would except that rather than hitting people and forcing them to do what you want you have to know how to apply the right kind of pressure to get them to do what you want.

You'd still have loads of conflict and intrigue and clues and problems to solve, it's just that you'd have to find new ways to solve them as you couldn't really use combat (as a system you'd probably use RQ with iht locations plus fire-arms to make sure that shooting someone's really the last choice).

Quote from: gleichmanAdd combat

If you had to have combat, you could treat the social situations as combat.  An over-the-top example of that is how West and Loveless banter in Wild, Wild West.  Loveless is always slapping back with racial epithets while West slams back statements about being "half a man" or "without a leg to stand on."  They both "battle", though it's on the social plane.

Again, that's an over-the-top example.  

Using social interactions as a form of combat would be most interesting.

Risk vs. reward's gotta be in there somewhere, I reckon.  Without some way for the PCs to lose their asses, my players would riot and demand open elections for a new GM.

Maybe some sort of social-fu mechanic, where you could browbeat, debate or torture someone into a state of compliance.  Naturally, the same could happen to the PCs.

EDIT:  Arg, scooped.

Quote from: Balbinuslet's say I wanted to run a game with suspense and intrigue but no combat.  What tips would you all have and how would you keep it interesting?

More seriously, off the top of my head...

1. Select the right players. They have to be mystery bluffs and/or heavy role-players.

2. Provide each player with slightly (or even completely) different objectives known only to themselves.

3. Spend a significant amount of time fleshing out the characters to be played. Perhaps steal them from other games for a one-shot 'cross-over'.
This stuff works best with detailed characterization.

4. Spend a lot of time working up the reality of the mystery/conflict. Put lots of clues in (more than needed) as players will miss clues. Aim some of them at specific characters.

Quote from: gleichman2. Provide each player with slightly (or even completely) different objectives known only to themselves.

  That could actually work really well.  British Intelligence is frequently portrayed as being incredibly bureacratic and hide-bound.  You could run something where all the players came from slightly different parts of the same organisation and they all had clues unknown to the other characters but when brought together make for quite a big clue.  But of course, the characters have to overcome their natural aversion for laying their cards on the table and/or cooperating with the guys from the office on the other side of the hall with which they're embroiled in a bureaucratic turf war.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalI actually think it would have to be less like TTSS and more like Smiley's People.

In TTSS he really does spend most of his time going through files and then carefully laying a trap once he understands the lay of the land.  In Smiley's People though he spends far more time out and about and at the end comes the bit I was thinking of when the idea of a George Smiley game hit me.

He finds out that a Soviet agent is behaving bizarrely so he has him observed discretely before they snatch him and then put the screws to him, trying to convince him to turn and spill his guts lest he get reported and sent back to Russia to live the decidedly less comfy life of a low-level intelligence professional.

Essentially the game would have to be about investigation and then using social skills and raw cunning to turn enemy agents or uncover enemy networks.  It would function much as a normal game would except that rather than hitting people and forcing them to do what you want you have to know how to apply the right kind of pressure to get them to do what you want.

You'd still have loads of conflict and intrigue and clues and problems to solve, it's just that you'd have to find new ways to solve them as you couldn't really use combat (as a system you'd probably use RQ with iht locations plus fire-arms to make sure that shooting someone's really the last choice).

Interesting ideas.  Are you familiar with the background to the computer game Floor 13?  That is less realistic, hopefully, but the techniques are as you describe here.

http://www.abandonia.com/games/en/140/Floor13.htm

Ooh, I'm not actually and being a mac user I'm unlikely to become familiar any time soon.

Sounds like a good game though.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalOoh, I'm not actually and being a mac user I'm unlikely to become familiar any time soon.

Sounds like a good game though.

It's great, but buggy as hell unfortunately.

Your interface is your desk, you read reports and issue orders, then read in the press and in private reports how it went.  It's tense without any action at all.

And the game starts with Richard Branson being thrown to his death IIRC.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalI actually think it would have to be less like TTSS and more like Smiley's People.

In TTSS he really does spend most of his time going through files and then carefully laying a trap once he understands the lay of the land.  In Smiley's People though he spends far more time out and about and at the end comes the bit I was thinking of when the idea of a George Smiley game hit me.

He finds out that a Soviet agent is behaving bizarrely so he has him observed discretely before they snatch him and then put the screws to him, trying to convince him to turn and spill his guts lest he get reported and sent back to Russia to live the decidedly less comfy life of a low-level intelligence professional.

This sounds like it would be geared more towards a single character, based just on what you're saying here. How would such a game allow for a number of characters without having one of them overshadow the rest?

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalEssentially the game would have to be about investigation and then using social skills and raw cunning to turn enemy agents or uncover enemy networks.  It would function much as a normal game would except that rather than hitting people and forcing them to do what you want you have to know how to apply the right kind of pressure to get them to do what you want.

Hmm. Based on what the Slaad was saying about Spycraft 2.0, it seems that game, at least, has elements that take this kind of thing into account.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalYou'd still have loads of conflict and intrigue and clues and problems to solve, it's just that you'd have to find new ways to solve them as you couldn't really use combat (as a system you'd probably use RQ with iht locations plus fire-arms to make sure that shooting someone's really the last choice).

I personally dislike hit locations, finding them to be slow and tedious to use, but in principle I agree with you about them in this context.

Quote from: ColonelHardissonI personally dislike hit locations, finding them to be slow and tedious to use, but in principle I agree with you about them in this context.

For my 1770s game, which was intended to be low combat, I used CoC.  A PC died in the first session when they got shot and after that I don't think there was a single other straight fight, though there was an armed robbery and a poisoning.

No combats though, not after that first one and a PC instakill.

By the way, you might want to check out the computer game "Missing." You essentially play a game of "cat & mouse" with the bad guy. You assemble clues, some of them gathered from internet websites set up for the game or from emails that get sent to you by the bad guy. It also involves a lot of puzzle-solving. No combat, no real interaction with other characters except in really tangential ways. It's not exactly the same thing as you're talking about, but it may interest you.

This also reminds me Jere Genest's campaign, Tantaene animis Celestibus Irae, which used the Heroquest rules to represent investigation and other activities. Unfortunately the game failed at some point, partly because according to Jere, HQ sucks.

Another thought: The benefit of combat in games is that it gives everybody something to do, no matter how good they are, simply by virtue of being present. I think that to be successful most games need to have this feature even if it doesn't correlate in a representational fashion with the attributes, motivations, and actions of their character.