Combat-Free Campaigns

[Bailey]

You see, Casablaca was great because it worked within the framework of the Hollywood studio system.  Gershwin's stuff is great because of how it works with the conventions of pop music.  And rpgs have a combat chapter as part of their restrictions to work within.  All work that is truly worthy embraces its restrictions.

Can't we have a medium without externally imposed conventions?

Sure, it's called life.

Uh... life sucks.

[contracycle]

Ha ha!

I think that violence has lots of "reach", its highly significant to people not directly involved.  I certainly don't think it has to be on screen, implied is all that is necessary for motivation.   Games being games probably do need to explicity consider inter-player conflict, but this need not necessarily be represented in game by violence.  However, "I hit him" can emerge from all sorts of social situations, so again most games with, well, people, probably need to accomodate it somewhere.  My main beef is that all too often combat mechanics are far too extensive, more so than necessary, and I'd rather see similar detail expended on other arenas of conflict, to coin Bailywolfs phrase.

[Buddha Nature]

Maybe it has something to do with our fear of violence and of losing control.  I think (to a certain extent) we play RPG's in order to do things that we cannot do in our real lives.  I think oftentimes we play the personas we would like to be like, or those we hate.  I also think that RPG's allow us to control life, something that we definitely cannot do in reality.

Along these lines is the fact that one of our greatest fears (if you are an animal) is of being hurt - of violence, especially random violence.  Hence in RPG's, where we are able to control more than in real life we control violence - sometimes in a way in which we are extra-violent, and in other ways mildly violent.  We fear many things in life, loss of control is a big one, and loss of control and the allowance of violence is probably the biggest.  As such we control violence in RPG's.

For the most part violence in the real world - in our everyday lives - does not occur, except for random acts of violence.  In RPG's we can control this "random" aspect of our new world and our new persona, so we do.

Wow.  Think I have a psych background?

-Shane

[Fabrice G.]

Matt,

First, I think that the distinction you made between combat/violence is a good thing.

Second, how would you define combat ? Is one punch equal to an entire fight sequence (in your definition to your question)?

Usually, I try to run low-to-no combat session.
I mostly play in nowdays settings, using (almost) normal people and sending them in dark or weird story.

To limite combat, I use a very simple tactic : trying to run "realistic fights", or explain to the players how I envision a fight and its consequences in the setting. I usually use Takeshi Kitano movies as a reference (not Aniki my brother, it's a week one). Understanding that fights can be very armfull, and can have drastic consequencies is what makes my players reluctant to resort to this kind of "easy" solution.

But the threat of violence is allways there. The fear to fight even enlightens the unease created by violence.

Finally, sometimes, even when I don't want to, a fight explode in the story, but it's allways (hum...often) appropriate to the story, and not some easy, quick solution.

Hope this helps.

Fabrice.

[hyphz]

I once had a session that turned out combat-free.  The interesting thing was, nobody had intended it that way - the game was Conspiracy X and at least one character had been defined by combat prowess.  Yet as it turned out the players were so careful and sneaky in their investigation that they avoided anyone who might have gotten into combat with them.

Everyone still enjoyed it, though.  Why?  Well, a number of reasons, I think.  Firstly, they had an overarching goal that they could actively progress and actively affect, and which offered them real choices.  Secondly, their progress towards it was played out in detail (simulationist level).  And lastly, the characters they were playing were radically different from anything the players would have done IRL.  

Although it is true that the threat of violence played a part in affecting their actions, so did a number of other factors, most notably the time limit on the scenario.  

One other possible cause is that so many games use violence for their gamist element.  Are there any games in which the gamist element isn't violence (or narrative metapower)?  I can think of some that try, but I don't have enough experience to say if they work or not.