I've been thinking. Why is it that every roleplaying game I've ever player has involved combat at one point or another? Is combat necessary to create a compelling story? There are many people in the world that have lived complelling interesting lives that have never gotten into a fight, shot someone or otherwise resrted to violence.

Have any of you ever played an entire campaign that never involved combat of any kind?
How did it go?

,Matt G.

Matt,

Conflict is essential to a roleplaying game. Whether it is physical, mental, emotional, spiritual or etc. When most roleplayers are getting into combat they are looking to resolve conflict to their advantage. Because of its visceral and instinctive nature physical conflict is the most easily enjoyed. It is also the easiest to be non-personally involved with and thus to distance yourself from. Our media systems don't help.

However, I think with the right group in the right setting you can definitely create a game that is all conflict of a non-physical nature.

I almost succeed once for many months but then a player of mine got itchy.

I've been lucky enough to have been in several successful (AD&D) thiefly campaigns. As far as I can remember there were no fights in it. Maybe a guard got garroted by that was it. In retrospect, the game probably would have been even better if we had planned entirely *not* to have any fights. I mean, we still picked weapon proficiencies and stuff like that which were not necessary.
I don't really remember the specifics, but I guess it was like Thief: The Dark Project (computer game) and the Fighting Fantasy gamebook Midnight Rogue (#29?).
If you're looking for inspiration, you can try checking out some more PC graphical adventure games, or even better, those all-text games.

To quote from Tom Stoppard, "We're more of the blood, love and rhetoric school. You can have them all, consecutively or sequentialy, you can have blood and love without the rhetoric, blood and rhetoric without the love, but you can't have love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory."

In short, no blood, no story. More to the point, no blood, no good story. You'll get some pale washed-out facsimilie of a story. This doesn't mean that your characters have to be pulling poinards all the time; their involvement with violence might be more on the fleeing side of things. But without some blood people will be yawning.

Even if the story is about political intrigue, there's got to be some violence somehwere. Our little brains understand blood, sex and food the best. Everything else is somehow an abstraction of those two. This is true of every mammal that I've met, and I don't think it's a good idea to upset a winning formula.

Clay,

That's a bit much, don't you think? Plenty of stories don't include violence directly - although I admit, a number of those get eliminated if I consider violence in the past, or potential violence in the future, as important story elements.

Still ... the standard romantic comedy? A parenting drama like Losing Isaiah? A courtroom drama?

Damn it - wasn't there a whole thread on designing/playing an RPG based on exactly this concept? Social and interactive concerns, conflict all over the place, but no combat? I went hunting and couldn't find it.

Best,
Ron

I must disagree with Clay. Violence as a tool in art of whatever medium is definitely effective, because of its universal intense reaction, but I have read many enjoyable books, seen many enjoyable movies, a few enjoyable plays (I just don't get to the playhouse that often), and played in a few games with no violence at all.

I second the recommendation of looking for "text games". Nowadays they tend to call it "interactive fiction", and while there's lots of stinkers out there, there are many quite good ones, and best of all, they're mostly free nowadays.

Check out The Best of Interactive Fiction for a great starting point.

--JB

My last game of Octane, Blood & Steel was set in Warring States of China, although there was a couple of scuffles, no one was killed, and in fact, greater repercussions came from seriously injuring someone and trying to hide the fact. Most of the conflict in the game came from differences in ideals and trying everything to PREVENT an escalation of hostilities. When its a conflict of beliefs and ideals, more options than physical violence open, and oftentimes violence can cause more problems than not.

Chris

Ron Edwards wrote:
Still ... the standard romantic comedy? A parenting drama like Losing Isaiah? A courtroom drama?

Actually, Matt I have a very difficult time interjecting action sequences into my game. I agree with Ron that often violence in the past or the threat of violence in the future is a key element but getting actual 'on screen' action into my games without it being a random encounter I find very difficult. Given that I have to WORK to put action sequences into my games, I would have to say yes, it is entirely possible to run a combat-less game, although I'm not entirely sure you can get around the violence in the past/future problem.

Jesse

Ron Edwards wrote: That's a bit much, don't you think? Plenty of stories don't include violence directly - although I admit, a number of those get eliminated if I consider violence in the past, or potential violence in the future, as important story elements.

Still ... the standard romantic comedy? A parenting drama like Losing Isaiah? A courtroom drama?

I think that in supporting my position, Fang pointed out the very important ways in which my position falls down. In fact, he reminded me of what I originally wanted to do with Once Upon a Story with his Calbin and Hobbes reference.

Hey, there's supposed to be blood in Blood & Steel. BLOOD. It's right there in the title, man!

As for non-violent games, well...I have written some ideas. Clown Cops is non-violent (well, it has "violence" but only in a cartoony, pie in the face kinda way). idoru is non-violent (violence is rude). eight is non-violent (no death). The Harry Potter game is non-violent as far as "players causing violence" is concerned. That's just me...there are many other non-violent games out there. Definitely some where killing is not the focus (or even part) of the game. Pumpkin Town is a great setting for this...violence isn't a good way to solve problems because most people are already dead.

That said, I hate combat in games. Boring, dull, lifeless, monotonous.

Fight scenes? Love 'em.

Eugene has it right. It's about conflict. You can turn anything into a game provided there is conflict involved.

Hey there,

I have a screenwriting textbook - a fairly repuatable one I was led to believe - and the first rule it talks about is The Rule of Sex and Violence. That is, a good screenplay - a good story for the screen - needs both.

Of course, it's not advocating the use of hard or soft-core porn or of graphic bloodletting - it's simply saying that there has to be something in the story to grab people's attention, and that sex and violence are emotionally loaded issues that we all understand. Want to push people's buttons? Incorporate some sex and/or violence.

And I believe the threat of violence, or the implication of past violence, would be a perfectly acceptable application of that rule.

- Scott

hardcoremoose wrote: I have a screenwriting textbook - a fairly repuatable one I was lead to believe - and the first rule it talks about is The Rule of Sex and Violence. That is, a good screenplay - a good story for the screen - needs both.

Of course, it's not advocating the use of hard or soft-core porn or of graphic bloodletting - it's simply saying that there has to be something in the story to grab people's attention, and that sex and violence are emotionally loaded issues that we all understand. Want to push people's buttons? Incorporate some sex and/or violence.

And I believe the threat of violence, or the implication of past violence, would be a perfectly acceptable application of that rule.

Found it! Found it found it found it ...

Jesse began the thread called An experiment in the ordinary which I think has a lot to add to this discussion.

Another connection might be found in Laurel's thread Romance, Happiness, and Expectation.

Best,
Ron

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.

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.

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

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.

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.