Zero Combat RPGs

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

Well, if you can't bring yourself to call something RPG if it doesn't involve combat, fine by me. I like adventure games, too, perhaps more than late RPG:s anyway.

 

[BigWeather]

The issue of a zero combat RPG and whether it is an Adventure game or retains its RPG state points to a key failing of most RPGs.

RPGs have stats and advancement, but they by-and-large (and in many, solely) influence combat resolution. Strip away combat resolution and the stats and advancement is no longer needed and it becomes basically an Adventure game.

Rather than surrender to this (and I say this despite my love of Adventure games), it should inspire us to create RPGs that have as-meaningful non-combat oriented stats and advancement, such that a zero-combat RPG isn't an Adventure game, but rather a zero-combat RPG.

And I'm not talking about some tacked-on "good/evil" variable that determines dialog options. =)

Gosh, that made more sense in my head than when it came out.

 

[Red Russian]

I disagree. Combat can't be the only difference between the Adventure and RPG genres. Adventure games tend to be linear, have little to no stats/skills and have a heavy focus on puzzles. I can imagine an RPG with little to no combat, choices and consequences and character progression and advancement.

Ofcourse combat isn't the only difference, but it's just that when I think about it, it feels alot like an adventure game. I guess when I think about it differently, it might look more like a pacifist's RPG. I just need a good example, thas all.

 

[Joe Krow]

I want an rpg where I can play a secretary and sue my boss for sexual harassment. Of course it would have to be verbal harassment so as to avoid combat. What fun. Choice and consequence faggotry at its finest.

Rpgs evolved out of combat simulations. What you're looking for is interactive fiction... story time.

 

[sheek]

Zero combat RPGs would definitely be the same as a bonafide adventure game. Which is cool as well.

I disagree. Combat can't be the only difference between the Adventure and RPG genres. Adventure games tend to be linear, have little to no stats/skills and have a heavy focus on puzzles. I can imagine an RPG with little to no combat, choices and consequences and character progression and advancement.

Adventure games don't have stats and don't have character development. There's also no random element.

There are the key differences.

You can also have an adventure game with combat, Monkey Island did (though mainly it's about finding out what works, it's linear).

 

[sheek]

I want an rpg where I can play a secretary and sue my boss for sexual harassment. Of course it would have to be verbal harassment so as to avoid combat. What fun. Choice and consequence faggotry at its finest.

Rpgs evolved out of combat simulations. What you're looking for is interactive fiction... story time.

RPGs evolved out of D&D and CRPGs historically typified by Dungeon Hack clones which both suck.

Combat is the major problem with most of the best RPGs, nobody can seem to get it right. I love Jagged Alliance, X-Com and I play Mount&Blade, that's where I get my violence kick from, it's not what I'm looking for or look forward to when I play RPGs.

And it would be a nice experiment. A true test of game design.

 

[sheek]

Hmm, okay. I once had a nice idea for an RPG with only minimal combat. You're playing as some peasant woman, and the story is mostly like a fearytale as you get chosen by some prince to be his wife. But once you reach that position, you also have to deal with political treachery, other women who envy you and want to take your position, and, of course, some decisions in political stuff and so on. Basically, it would become more of a "medieval politics simulator" than RPG, but there would still be stats that determine the outcome of your decisions. You can also do other shit like romancing some of the other men, charming your prince, or having some lesbian adventures. Stuff like that, whatever a princess does that doesn't involve combat.

I would play both. Interesting ideas.

Make it like Quest for Glory. The meat of that series isn't combat, it's the Sierra style puzzles and whatnot.

So - cut out combat stats like parry, dodge, etc and leave in everything else. Basically you'd choose a profession like Thief, Wizard (who somehow now cant cast harmful spells) and maybe throw in some other professions now that the "Fighter" is not available.

Instead of killing you'd sneak into places as the thief, or get by using magic spells like invisibilty or whatnot. Leave in the adventure game styled puzzles or else you'll lose a great deal of players.

Also thrown in some dialogue puzzles that work off your character's intelligence.

Seems completely possible to me, although it would work easier if comabt was the only thing disallowed, versus player violence. In other words allow stealth murder, allow you to cast spells like "Freeze" to turn them to ice.

Yeah, magic really does suffer from the D&D mentality.

There have been rpg's released with no violence and some have been wildly successful:

Harvest Moon (all its iterations) You basically play a farmer, and everything that comes with it.

Princess Maker.

And some others.

Glad to say I never played either... is this a subtle way of you saying zero combat RPGs are necessarily gay?

an opening?

1) no combat at all, or only non-player *INSTIGATED* combat?
- meaning if somebody whoops on our your player, they can fight.

I was thinking of no combat at all. Combat isn't a way to achieve your goals, if it is possible for you to instigate combat it will mean you failed as a player, there are no benefits even if you win. Combat is something you absolutely don't want.

2. no combat at all...basically becomes an adventure game and not an rpg. rpgs are about choices and eliminating combat is reducing choice by 50%.

Why would it reduce choice? I think you're not trying to imagine, of course there would be choice. You would side with factions, you'd choose quests which might cut off other quest progression, you'd increase skills that would affect how the game plays out and give you differing chances of succeeding at different types of tasks.

It'd definitely have to do with either politics or business - we like the combat in RPGs because our characters get more and more powerful, etc. In politics or business you can achive the same effect only instead of fighting ability it'll be power/money.

Yeah, business and politics type stories are the two concepts that I thought of first.

There has to be some kind of gameplay element, I think. Most RPGs use combat for the gameplay, but it's true that there are other basic types of game than fighting: sports, city builders, puzzle games, mystery/adventures, economic trading games (like the Patrician series), space sims (well, they mostly do have combat, but you could strip them down to exploration and trading), etc. I think any one of those genres of game could take the place of combat in an RPG. Of them, I would say the economic trading games and space simulators are probably the best suited, but sports could work quite well (wouldn't have to be modern sports, either; could be ancient Aztec ball games with the losers sacrificed to the gods, or futuristic zero-gravity handball in space, or anything really). I'd probably most like to see an RPG/city builder -- I think that could be a really fun combination.

Good points. Sports is definitely interesting, even just a deepened Championship soccer manager type of game. Or a game where you're a feudal lord, a story where the realm is in crisis, you have to make your fief prosper, use diplomacy, travel to court, organize secret plots, tactical marriage, form alliances to work your way up, organize assassinations even - but your character's personal combat prowess is never used.

one genre that is completely unexplored is investigative horror / x-files.

Set in modern times, you could construct a city--a real city (say, San Antonio TX). Pick a game system (Delta Green)...professions could be actual professions. education actual high schools / colleges. degrees actual degrees. items actual items

Yeah that too.

I once wrote a post here about my ideas of a Police Chief/Lead Detective kind of game, part procedurally generated sandboxy everyday situations, part investigation-based branching plots, finding out who the puzzling and cunning serial killer is, discovering a Mob connection to the Mayor, etc. Game challenge would be maintaining a balance between efficiency, solving cases, serving actual justice,, maintaining the loyalty/respect of your men (pay rises, covering up police brutality etc) and political acceptability (eg if you started investigating the Mayor in the sub-plot and he finds out, funding cuts, threatened sacking), popularity with citizens, business leaders etc.

My other idea is a game where you're some kind of special advisor to the President of the USA during a major international crisis. There is a risk of civil war triggering all out war, there is a faction in the administration undermining the President, you are sent into 'hotspots' and resolve the situations, talk behind closed doors at UN conferences, uncover double agents, go around Washington talking to Senators trying to get their points of view, even use bribery and dirty tactics. Skills would be persuasion, diplomacy (not offending people), research skills, foreign language knowledge, expertise in specific areas (international law, internal politics of Iran, whatever), things like that.

Or a specific example, even set it historically, you are the Chief of Staff during the Nixon years, can you successfully cover up Watergate and even take it further? Total control of all branches of government, unleash scandals etc. Nixon gives you assignments, sometimes several at a time and successfully finishing them or the type of success determines your rewards ('stat points', faction relationship improvements, greater responsibilities/influence) which will affect your future chances. If you fail too many times or bring embarrassment you are fired (= death). Or, at some point abandon Nixon and work for the other side, keep from being found out.

Last example, you are an intelligence officer, dropped off in some imaginary Latin American banana republic, told to organize regime change or protect some interest. You travel around the country, find out the local contacts are, steal information, send reports back to HQ, avoid being double crossed, at some point you start being hunted down, use your language skills to persuade some local peasants to let you hide in their barn, use disguises, check into hotel under a false name, etc. Lots of sub-plots involving helping some faction achieve part of their own agenda which is not necessarily ethical in exchange for cooperation.

But if a gunman ever finds you and you're in the same room, you have a very limited or non-existent chance of survival.

 

[Zomg]

One false image that people get caught up with when they think of a ZCRPG is imagining a dialogue-heavy RPG like PS:T or Fallout and then just mentally subtracting the combat and seeing what's left, then considering that the archetypal ZCRPG. Instead imagine any other sort of basic, modular gameplay and substitute it for combat gameplay. For example, imagine something like a Tycoon game or Sim City game and just add an RPG framework. You have a PC in the gameworld that has parameters that are incident on that core gameplay - for example, in a Tycoon game RPG, an educated technocratic businessman (high doctrine, high knowledge) might get more detailed quantitative information, while a gregarious self made man (high charisma, high focus, low knowledge) might have advantages in face-to-face bullshitting. Imagine the game with expressive dialog of the same nature and with about as much importance as in familiar RPGs. There's nothing strange or exotic about all that - that kind of game would obviously work.

 

[Hory]

Strip away combat resolution and the stats and advancement is no longer needed and it becomes basically an Adventure game.

Wrong. Stats are needed for resolving conflicting tasks. As for the importance of conflicts in drama, I assume that everyone can recognize it.

I want an rpg where I can play a secretary and sue my boss for sexual harassment. Of course it would have to be verbal harassment so as to avoid combat. What fun. Choice and consequence faggotry at its finest.

You're incapable of thinking of an enjoyable combat-free challenge. Fine. That's why there are professional writers and designers.

And it would be a nice experiment. A true test of game design.

Exactly.

Rpgs evolved out of combat simulations. What you're looking for is interactive fiction... story time.

The assumption of roles was a central theme in some early 20th century activities such as the game Jury Box, mock trials, model legislatures, and "Theatre Games".

 

[Serious_Business]

One false image that people get caught up with when they think of a ZCRPG is imagining a dialogue-heavy RPG like PS:T or Fallout and then just mentally subtracting the combat and seeing what's left, then considering that the archetypal ZCRPG. Instead imagine any other sort of basic, modular gameplay and substitute it for combat gameplay. For example, imagine something like a Tycoon game or Sim City game and just add an RPG framework. You have a PC in the gameworld that has parameters that are incident on that core gameplay - for example, in a Tycoon game RPG, an educated technocratic businessman (high doctrine, high knowledge) might get more detailed quantitative information, while a gregarious self made man (high charisma, high focus, low knowledge) might have advantages in face-to-face bullshitting. Imagine the game with expressive dialog of the same nature and with about as much importance as in familiar RPGs. There's nothing strange or exotic about all that - that kind of game would obviously work.

Yeah. Combat shouldn't have anything to do with CRPGs by definition. But admitting this in a way means "RPG" doesn't mean anything in terms of gameplay other than character-building, stats, choices, etc. The rest is fluff - but the rest is the goddamn game. Good enough reason why nobody can accept a single definition of are-pee-gee and why everybody manages to think up incredible are-pee-gee (I know this is annoying) ideals that don't actually exist in reality. If any kind of gameplay can be tagged along a RPG then you just fucked someone in the ass, preferably a Codexer, which is great, I agree with this.

 

[sabishii]

Strip away combat resolution and the stats and advancement is no longer needed and it becomes basically an Adventure game.

Wrong. Stats are needed for resolving conflicting tasks. As for the importance of conflicts in drama, I assume that everyone can recognize it.

Right, dialogue can be just as much of a conflict as "combat." It wouldn't be wrong to call debating "verbal sparring" or "mental combat." Just as there are tactics and strategy to combat, there are tactics and strategy in argument. Word choice, tone, logic, sentence structure, etc. all determine "verbal combat" as much as aspects such as stance, positioning, initiative, and swordsmanship apply to physical combat. And if you compare a master rhetorician or a learned philosopher to a typical high school student, you will definitely see differences in stats and skills.

One false image that people get caught up with when they think of a ZCRPG is imagining a dialogue-heavy RPG like PS:T or Fallout and then just mentally subtracting the combat and seeing what's left, then considering that the archetypal ZCRPG

Actually, when I looked at PST or Fallout then I do see the elements of RPG in dialogue. There are many instances in these games where being able to do something relies greatly on what stats you have. Imagine if these "dialogue" options didn't have stat requirements, and you will have a wholly different game. Not that I disagree at all with the rest of your post. In fact, recognizing the above shows that dialogue can be more complex and more "modular." I remember Joe Krow proposing an idea for a complex dialogue system a while back.

 

[sheek]

Actually Fallout just has the occasional stat check, if you have INT > 6 you get X more dialog choices during the game, if you have INT = 1 you have one or two choices and none of the others, if you have anything else you get default. It's not all that deep and it's just the beginning or what should be implemented. Everyone who's played the game and wants the occasional non-combat solution knows to take INT of exactly 7, it's almost a bug.

NWN has more dialog (skill) checks and they actually have a random element.

 

[Hory]

Right, dialogue can be just as much of a conflict as "combat." It wouldn't be wrong to call debating "verbal sparring" or "mental combat." Just as there are tactics and strategy to combat, there are tactics and strategy in argument. Word choice, tone, logic, sentence structure, etc. all determine "verbal combat" as much as aspects such as stance, positioning, initiative, and swordsmanship apply to physical combat. And if you compare a master rhetorician or a learned philosopher to a typical high school student, you will definitely see differences in stats and skills.

Yes, and the player would choose how and when to use the skills, in the same way he does it in combat.

Here's an example of a P&P RPG with more realistic conflicts and escalation: Dogs in the Vineyard. Read the "Conflict Resolution" part. The explanation is a bit long-winded, but I think that this system could work quicker if adapted to a CRPG.

 

[sabishii]

Actually Fallout just has the occasional stat check, if you have INT > 7 you get X more dialog choices during the game, if you have INT = 1 you have one or two choices and none of the others, if you have anything else you get default. It's not all that deep and it's just the beginning or what should be implemented. Everyone who's played the game and wants the occasional non-combat solution knows to take INT 7.

NWN has more dialog (skill) checks and they actually have a random element.

I didn't mean at all that Fallout's dialogue was deep. But rather that there is a significant difference in the game due to that simply stat-check, which illustrates the "roleplayable" gameplay in dialogue.

 

[BigWeather]

Strip away combat resolution and the stats and advancement is no longer needed and it becomes basically an Adventure game.

Wrong. Stats are needed for resolving conflicting tasks. As for the importance of conflicts in drama, I assume that everyone can recognize it.

Right, dialogue can be just as much of a conflict as "combat." It wouldn't be wrong to call debating "verbal sparring" or "mental combat." Just as there are tactics and strategy to combat, there are tactics and strategy in argument. Word choice, tone, logic, sentence structure, etc. all determine "verbal combat" as much as aspects such as stance, positioning, initiative, and swordsmanship apply to physical combat. And if you compare a master rhetorician or a learned philosopher to a typical high school student, you will definitely see differences in stats and skills.

I was referring to most RPGs becoming Adventure games once combat is stripped away, since they lean so heavily on combat resolution. I agree that if we were to have meaningful non-combat stats we could have a zero-combat RPG that doesn't devolve into Adventure-game-hood. But it's just so rare to find those, other than most games having a "good/evil" meter / skills / what-have-you to drive the most simplistic of conversation branching.

 

[Lemunde]

I keep picturing the scene from Full Metal Alchemist where these two really buff guys do nothing but flex their muscles at each other for five minutes until one of them gives up.

 

[shihonage]

Actually Fallout just has the occasional stat check, if you have INT > 6 you get X more dialog choices during the game, if you have INT = 1 you have one or two choices and none of the others, if you have anything else you get default. It's not all that deep and it's just the beginning or what should be implemented. Everyone who's played the game and wants the occasional non-combat solution knows to take INT of exactly 7, it's almost a bug.

I believe Fallout dialogue checks not just INT. If memory serves, they check your PE, as well as your active weapon at times.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

NWN has more dialog (skill) checks and they actually have a random element.

In Fallout, you are occasionally presented with Speech checks, although those don't show up, and those are random. I'm also pretty sure FO3 will only use Speech checks to prevent the "just take INT=7" exploit.

 

[Joe Krow]

I guess a non-combat rpg would be all right so long as it centered on some other form(s) of tactical mini-games (which is all combat is in the end). The problem comes when, as some suggest, the dialogue itself becomes the focus.

Offering additional dialogue choices based on the character's stats still gives the player the ability to play without any real limitation. The player is responsible for restricting the character's actions. He is basically larping. If, on the other hand, actual limitations were imposed by offering only stat/skill suitable choices, then the player is not doing enough to justify playing the game. He chooses stats and then goes along for the ride. Sure they could offer a little bit of each but I don't think many people would find larping with an occasional railroaded choice to be very compelling. It would need more.

The "game" in rpgs comes from the choices made in combat and dialogue. Taking them away might make for a nice simulation but it would be an awful game. Without a non-dialogue focus the game would be incredibly dull.

 

[sabishii]

I guess a non-combat rpg would be all right so long as it centered on some other form(s) of tactical mini-games (which is all combat is in the end). The problem comes when, as some suggest, the dialogue itself becomes the focus.

Offering additional dialogue choices based on the character's stats still gives the player the ability to play without any real limitation. The player is responsible for restricting the character's actions. He is basically larping. If, on the other hand, actual limitations were imposed by offering only stat/skill suitable choices, then the player is not doing enough to justify playing the game. He chooses stats and then goes along for the ride. Sure they could offer a little bit of each but I don't think many people would find larping with an occasional railroaded choice to be very compelling. It would need more.

The "game" in rpgs comes from the choices made in combat and dialogue. Taking them away might make for a nice simulation but it would be an awful game. Without a non-dialogue focus the game would be incredibly dull.

But why can't you turn the "tactical mini-game" focus to dialogue itself? Flesh out the dialogue system, make it a game in itself.

 

[Section8]

I keep picturing the scene from Full Metal Alchemist where these two really buff guys do nothing but flex their muscles at each other for five minutes until one of them gives up.

Full Metal Alchemist = Yaoi? That explains so much...

 

[DraQ]

No combat RPG would require pretty specific conditions to avoid artificially constrained gameplay. Now, minimum combat RPG (where combat would be purely optional and always/most of the time a bad idea) - that would be something interesting.

 

[Joe Krow]

I guess a non-combat rpg would be all right so long as it centered on some other form(s) of tactical mini-games (which is all combat is in the end). The problem comes when, as some suggest, the dialogue itself becomes the focus.

Offering additional dialogue choices based on the character's stats still gives the player the ability to play without any real limitation. The player is responsible for restricting the character's actions. He is basically larping. If, on the other hand, actual limitations were imposed by offering only stat/skill suitable choices, then the player is not doing enough to justify playing the game. He chooses stats and then goes along for the ride. Sure they could offer a little bit of each but I don't think many people would find larping with an occasional railroaded choice to be very compelling. It would need more.

The "game" in rpgs comes from the choices made in combat and dialogue. Taking them away might make for a nice simulation but it would be an awful game. Without a non-dialogue focus the game would be incredibly dull.

But why can't you turn the "tactical mini-game" focus to dialogue itself? Flesh out the dialogue system, make it a game in itself.

Because dialogue can only offer one of two things to the player: 1. An open choice, in which case the character is irrelevant 2. A restricted choice, in which case the player is irrelevant.

For example- Say the king asks "What should we do with this prisoner?" The player will get one of the two possibilities: 1. He gets a generic list (which may include "bonus" choices based on his stats) and will then larp his response based on imagined constraints (mood, compassion, morality, ambition, etc.); 2: He gets a tailored list (based on actual attributes for mood, compassion, morality, ambition, etc.) and has his options severely hampered. The character plays itself. There is no middle ground. You either put the options in front of the player and let him take them at a whim (no character) or you limit the options presented and thereby limit the gameplay (no player). Skill checks and some degree of randomization could add variety but they would not change the overall gameplay mechanics.

Getting beyond this would require doing away with scripted dialogue trees all together and into something more organic. It's possible I suppose but it would be more akin to AI then an rpg. Maybe someday.

 

[crakkie]

One solution for constructing a sort-of combat-free world is to just make combat realistically lethal and consequential. If you get into a knifefight with someone pointing a shotgun at you, you'll be dead within one "round". Fighting two or more people at once is practically impossible. Acting violently in public will get you arrested quickly. That puts a bit of an edge on combat-like dialog, too. Leave highly lethal combat in and it will be the pit you don't want to fall into if the dialog fails. This is preferable to having the player feel cheated with instant death from a bad dialog choice/stat check.

However, this kind of game wouldn't be served well by a combat-heavy RPG's story where you talk your way out of every encounter. I like sheek's examples, but they don't really lend well to character creation/development and sound a lot more like adventure games.

Here's one (I think I've read something like this here, sorry if I'm stealing someone's idea): you are in an oppressive orwellian society as some manner of working drone (student, factory worker, librarian, doctor, bureaucrat) and you unwittingly become entwined with an underground organization. You could support them to affect the government, help the government suppress them, exploit them to get the hell out of here, what have you. Combat would be very dangerous with or against these groups, and you have no combat training. Your skills would involve lying, impersonation, forgery, bribery, hacking, engineering, gambling and such.

One more: You are a sentient marine creature whose species lives in large pelagic communities. Intercommunity conflict is competition-based and murder and assault are punishable by feeding you to the larvae. Combat with other marine creatures involve you getting eaten in one gulp. Magic exists, but is primarily for display, influence, protection, and status. The gameplay would be exploration, character development, trading, building alliances with seafloor fishthings; a 4x/RPG/adventure hybrid, heavy on the RPG? The mindblowingly clever main plot involves your fishthing finding the source of the strange "metal" disk that broke through the surface ice and says "NASA" on it, all "The Gods Must Be Crazy" style. Shenanigans ensue.

 

[Murk]

No combat RPG would require pretty specific conditions to avoid artificially constrained gameplay. Now, minimum combat RPG (where combat would be purely optional and always/most of the time a bad idea) - that would be something interesting.

Make that almost always optional and I agree.

RPGs lean heavily on combat simply because that's where the genre started, not counting MUDs or text only adventures. Yes, pen and paper heavily predated that with as much or as little combat as you wanted but computer role playing games, and their console cousins, all focused basically entirely on combat and occasionally had a plot sequence worth caring about - though usually the plot was no different than remembering where you had to go and who you had to kill.

Yet, at the same time that 8-bit fat heads were stabbing Garland in the face with long swords (two hands, for your pleasure), they were making actual adventure games which focused on the polar opposite - almost like playing a character in a novel, and just as linear.