# Combat-free RPG?



## Buddy Bradley (Feb 22, 2014)

Is there any such thing as a modern RPG - first/third-person open world questing Skyrim style game - that doesn't mainly revolve around killing other people/creatures/things?

The only one I can come up with is maybe LA Noire.


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## Buddy Bradley (Feb 22, 2014)

EVE Online might qualify too, I suppose, although you usually have to shoot rats at some point.


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## tommers (Feb 22, 2014)

I can't really think of one.   Questing usually means killing something or someone at some point. 

Minecraft in creative mode is about the closest I can get.


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## Epona (Feb 22, 2014)

LA Noire isn't an RPG.  I have a fondness for the game, but it's not an RPG - driving mayhem with shit controls combined with point and click adventure.  Loveable, flawed, Not RPG.

Although not 1st person (more isometric) a while back I tried the beta of Age of Decadence which has the difficulty turned up to 11, but there are some completely non-combat routes that depend on diplomatic skills rather than fighting.  I imagine though that it would take some metagaming to determine the right build and decisions to successfully navigate through a non-combat playthrough.


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## FridgeMagnet (Feb 23, 2014)

I did a bit of work on this sort of thing recently - rather than eliminating the entire mechanic, I tried to abstract it  into "conflicts". So what would otherwise be a fight could be an argument, or a gambling game, or a sporting competition. Instead of killing someone, you terminally humiliate them so that they withdraw to consider their own internal principles, or you bankrupt them and they're thrown out of CasinoDungeonWorld. Instead of using weapons and armour, you equip _Das Kapital_ and a level of self-hatred that lets you dismiss personal attacks. Mostly works as meta-satire though, addressing the ridiculously abstracted violence in games.

One of the projects I did try writing seriously was an RPG where you were a revolutionary in a state where physical violence was basically harmless, but verbal assaults could leave you crippled. Instead of beating you up with weapons, the police would use positions of social authority to humiliate you to the point where you needed in-depth therapy.


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## Silva (Feb 23, 2014)

Deus Ex, maybe. There actually one achievement for a pacifist run.


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## Buddy Bradley (Feb 23, 2014)

Silva said:


> Deus Ex, maybe. There actually one achievement for a pacifist run.


Is that truly pacifism, though? I thought it was just using tranquilizers instead of bullets - but it's still combat.


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## Silva (Feb 23, 2014)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Is that truly pacifism, though? I thought it was just using tranquilizers instead of bullets - but it's still combat.


total avoidance of combat? that would put the game more in the adventure genre than rpg. Mirrors' Edge could have come close (and would have been much better that way), but is an action game, not rpg.


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## Fez909 (Feb 23, 2014)

I read about a recent game which I think was on PS3. You play as a many who goes out on dates but you're already married. Depending on the choices you make, you have nightmares each night and you have to run away from your guilt-induced demons. I don't think there was any actual combat in it, but I'm also not sure if it was RPG or not.

Anyone know the game? Can't remember what it was called/


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## tommers (Feb 23, 2014)

Was it Catherine?


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## Fez909 (Feb 23, 2014)

tommers said:


> Was it Catherine?


That's the one. Seems I got the concept slightly wrong; and I was way off implying it was an RPG. 

I could imagine an RPG in that 'genre', though, which didn't involve combat.


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## Yata (Feb 27, 2014)

you could be a dancer in star wars galaxies which is about as non-combat as it gets, crafting was something some did full time in the game too but it shut down a few years back.
 i think the closest to that at the minute is Eve as has been said, really cant think of anything else


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## Epona (Feb 28, 2014)

Thing is that RPG stands for Role-Playing Game - which does not in of itself imply combat.  It implies playing a role.  A game could theoretically involve playing a role that doesn't depend at all on combat.

In computer gaming we have come to accept a paradigm that a role-playing game is made up of various components including a combat element (whether it is swords and magic, or guns, depending on setting), but that doesn't have to be the case and combat is not a defining factor of role-playing.

I am struggling to think of many games that break the mould in this respect.  I think you have to go back to text RPGs where there is no active combat, you find yourself with a situation described to you and then have a choice and there's an element of RNG (dice roll) as to the outcome - something that has more in common with PnP games of old than with modern computer RPGs.

I used to play an online text RPG in the '90s (can't remember what it was called) but there was no active combat in that at all, where there were encounters it was 'you meet a skeleton' and then roll the dice, modified by your skills, to determine the outcome - you didn't actually have to do anything.

A modern example of this sort of text based system (although it is "lite" role-playing) is something like Long Live The Queen which is a very sweet (and quite compelling!) text-based game where you play a story (the aim being to survive, against all odds, to see your coronation) and manage a plethora of skills, manage your character's mood by way of leisure activities, mood feeds back into learning skills, and although you can die in a variety of blood-splattered ways, it's mostly about navigating your way through social and diplomatic situations and decision-making, with a multitude of endings and outcomes based upon your skills and decisions.


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## Fez909 (Feb 28, 2014)

Epona said:


> Thing is that RPG stands for Role-Playing Game - which does not in of itself imply combat.  It implies playing a role.  A game could theoretically involve playing a role that doesn't depend at all on combat.
> 
> In computer gaming we have come to accept a paradigm that a role-playing game is made up of various components including a combat element (whether it is swords and magic, or guns, depending on setting), but that doesn't have to be the case and combat is not a defining factor of role-playing.
> 
> ...


I think the problem is that RPGs have now been associated with that gameplay and if they different then they aren't RPGs, even though they might contain many of the same attributes. Take for instance a football game. You start off as a 15 year old footballer and you have to train him up and work your way through the leagues and end up at a top club and win the Champions League. On the way you do training, make transfers, concentrate in certain positions, etc. You could say that is an RPG. But no one would. It's a sports sim.

Why is the fact the role you're playing is one of a sports star enough to change the genre? Dunno, but it is.

But then where does it end. You're playing a role in almost every game.


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## Epona (Feb 28, 2014)

Fez909 said:


> I think the problem is that RPGs have now been associated with that gameplay and if they different then they aren't RPGs, even though they might contain many of the same attributes. Take for instance a football game. You start off as a 15 year old footballer and you have to train him up and work your way through the leagues and end up at a top club and win the Champions League. On the way you do training, make transfers, concentrate in certain positions, etc. You could say that is an RPG. But no one would. It's a sports sim.
> 
> Why is the fact the role you're playing is one of a sports star enough to change the genre? Dunno, but it is.
> 
> But then where does it end. You're playing a role in almost every game.



Some people find it difficult to delineate between a role playing game (where the primary factor is playing and developing a role) and playing say an action game where you take the role of the protagonist.  It's not so difficult for people who grew up playing PnP, it's clear in my mind where the line is.

Yes you do play a role in pretty much every action game.  But take for example something like Tomb Raider (2013) or Alan Wake - both excellent action games btw, I have nothing bad to say about them.  But there is little decision making either in terms of character (even though Lara Croft has skills that can be levelled up in Tomb Raider), or decisions made either through dialogue or action in the course of the game, that impact on the experience or outcome of the game, or change much in the way of gameplay.  You're playing through one story.

RPG is greatly hindered as a genre on computers, simply because every possible option has to be thought of and programmed and is therefore limited due to technological and/or design constraints - whereas playing in a group around a table with a DM, the DM makes decisions on the fly and a good one will be able to deal with any situation that his/her players present via their actions just using imagination and storytelling and a set of dice where a random element is desired.  It's not possible for a computer, or even the best dev team, to do that to anywhere near the same extent, therefore there is a blurring of lines at the edges of genres.


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## Fez909 (Feb 28, 2014)

Epona said:


> Some people find it difficult to delineate between a role playing game (where the primary factor is playing and developing a role) and playing say an action game where you take the role of the protagonist.  It's not so difficult for people who grew up playing PnP, it's clear in my mind where the line is.
> 
> Yes you do play a role in pretty much every action game.  But take for example something like Tomb Raider (2013) or Alan Wake - both excellent action games btw, I have nothing bad to say about them.  But there is little decision making either in terms of character (even though Lara Croft has skills that can be levelled up in Tomb Raider), or decisions made either through dialogue or action in the course of the game, that impact on the experience or outcome of the game, or change much in the way of gameplay.  You're playing through one story.
> 
> RPG is greatly hindered as a genre on computers, simply because every possible option has to be thought of and programmed and is therefore limited due to technological and/or design constraints - whereas playing in a group around a table with a DM, the DM makes decisions on the fly and a good one will be able to deal with any situation that his/her players present via their actions just using imagination and storytelling and a set of dice where a random element is desired.  It's not possible for a computer, or even the best dev team, to do that to anywhere near the same extent, therefore there is a blurring of lines at the edges of genres.


So my football example...RPG or not?


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## Epona (Feb 28, 2014)

Fez909 said:


> So my football example...RPG or not?



How many decisions are there to be made and of what nature?  I can certainly envisage an RPG where you could play that role and it would be RPG.  But it would have to involve more than making training decisions to get him into a top flight team and get to the top of the league - that sounds like a sports game.

One of the main complaints you hear from RPG fans about computer RPGs is 'linear' and that is a major point about RPGs - decisions you make ought to have a wide impact.  Something that is difficult to get across in computer games, sadly even more so with the popularity of voice acting as that tends to limit choice on a cost basis.  It's easier and cheaper to write 20 different text dialogue options and responses than it is to record a few set lines of VO, but (some) people want the VO, and it has led to RPGs that are more linear.


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## Fez909 (Feb 28, 2014)

Epona said:


> How many decisions are there to be made and of what nature?  I can certainly envisage an RPG where you could play that role and it would be RPG.  But it would have to involve more than making training decisions to get him into a top flight team and get to the top of the league - that sounds like a sports game.
> 
> One of the main complaints you hear from RPG fans about computer RPGs is 'linear' and that is a major point about RPGs - decisions you make ought to have a wide impact.  Something that is difficult to get across in computer games, sadly even more so with the popularity of voice acting as that tends to limit choice on a cost basis.  It's easier and cheaper to write 20 different text dialogue options and responses than it is to record a few set lines of VO, but (some) people want the VO, and it has led to RPGs that are more linear.


I guess the outcome is the same, usually. The only difference is how long it takes you you to get there and what position you play in. But over all, the choices don't make a lot of difference.


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## Epona (Feb 28, 2014)

Fez909 said:


> I guess the outcome is the same, usually. The only difference is how long it takes you you to get there and what position you play in. But over all, the choices don't make a lot of difference.



The ideal RPG would be one where you could act in any way fitting with your character and have it make small impacts in the game world. Maybe one day technology will be able to result in that sort of 'think on the fly' stuff that made PnP roleplaying so popular back in the '80s, but I imagine we're a long way off (if ever) from a computer being able to adjust stuff and imagine stuff without being specifically programmed to recognise and allow a small set of actions and outcomes.

As it is, a lot of the computer RPGs that give most choice and freedom only do so in as far as not railroading you into quests - such as in Morrowind if I didn't want to do any quests I didn't have to, it is possible in that game to just find a shack on the coast and do nothing but dive for pearls and sell them in the nearest town for as long as you like, months or even years of game time, living as a simple fisher/trader.  That I suppose is the real element of role playing that is absent from a lot of games, and in general, the more freedom the better. 

The main quest is an interesting story but fairly linear, BUT there's a world where you can do all sorts of things and ignore the main quest for as long as you like (I had been playing the game for 7 years before I got around to doing the MQ), the game world allows for all sorts of types of play, whether you want to do a gazillion quests, or just sandbox.


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## classicdish (Feb 28, 2014)

*A Tale in the Desert http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tale_in_the_Desert
*


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## stuff_it (Feb 28, 2014)

Fez909 said:


> That's the one. Seems I got the concept slightly wrong; and I was way off implying it was an RPG.
> 
> I could imagine an RPG in that 'genre', though, which didn't involve combat.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leisure_Suit_Larry_in_the_Land_of_the_Lounge_Lizards ?


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## Buddy Bradley (Feb 28, 2014)

The thought that prompted the thread, by the way, was a realisation that for computers, "role playing" always involves fighting; whereas in the 'real world' where we all play a role, virtually nobody has to engage in combat several times a day to improve themselves.


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## tommers (Feb 28, 2014)

Role playing actually seems to have come to mean improving your skills, levelling up, wearing different trousers.


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## Fez909 (Feb 28, 2014)

Buddy Bradley said:


> The thought that prompted the thread, by the way, was a realisation that for computers, "role playing" always involves fighting; whereas in the 'real world' where we all play a role, virtually nobody has to engage in combat several times a day to improve themselves.


I think a part of that is how easy it is to use combat as the test for experience when writing a game. Consider the alternatives: in real life when we 'level up' we take exams, do interviews, do exercise, learn new recipes, etc. 

Those are all possible in a game but it's hard to make them exciting and most importantly, challenging. How do you go about programming a scenario when you try to learn a language but fail? You have to abstract the 'learning' part away so much as to be meaningless. Combat is both easy to model and maps pretty closely to the inputs we have. 'hit' X to 'hit' baddie with left first. It's a one to one mapping. And it's easy to scale up the difficulty without losing the representation/modeling.

Sports are easy to do in this way, too, which is probably why I was thinking about football last night. Anything physical, in fact. It's when you move beyond the physical that the abstraction becomes weird. Hit X,X,Y to learn  Gergl's language? It works but it feels too far removed from how you gain experience in that sort of skill in real life.


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## Buddy Bradley (Feb 28, 2014)

Fez909 said:


> Hit X,X,Y to learn  Gergl's language? It works but it feels too far removed from how you gain experience in that sort of skill in real life.


All good points. Anything mental is definitely very hard to translate into a gaming experience. We've got quite a lot of crafting related stuff in most RPGs now, where the modeling is basically "practice makes perfect" - do something enough times and you'll get better at it.


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## Old Gergl (Mar 1, 2014)

Fez909 said:


> Hit X,X,Y to learn  Gergl's language?



_The creature tilts its head slightly. Though you are unable to read its expression, you have the uncomfortable feeling it is laughing at you. _


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## Fez909 (Mar 1, 2014)

Old Gergl said:


> _The creature tilts its head slightly. Though you are unable to read its expression, you have the uncomfortable feeling it is laughing at you. _


lol, wtf. I just made up (or so I thought) a 'typical' RPG name 

Soz


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## Silva (Mar 1, 2014)

If we're looking at personal improvement, then The Sims is a combat-less RPG.

Under the most common definitions for RPG (leveling up, loads of stats) then managing games and most modern sports games also fall under it.


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## FridgeMagnet (Mar 1, 2014)

The thing really is that "RPG" has  bizarrely specific meaning in computer games. Tabletop RPGs can certainly have no combat at all, even if the system supports it, but not only do CPRGs have to have fights, they also need levelling, inventories, all the other guff. And not much role playing usually. It rarely makes much difference what you do non-tactically.

Text adventures, which forked off from roguelikes as the expression of RPGs in computer form very early, usually have far more role playing and only rarely any combat at all. Fights are mostly just like any other puzzle. Even sophisticated CRPGs like Skyrim or Fallout which are considered to have quite responsive plots pale when compared to, say, Galatea, which is entirely about having a conversation with an AI work of art.

Boredom with the rigid conventions of CRPGs is one of the reasons I don't play them much these days. I just play games that look interesting and if they happen to be classified as RPGs, fine.

An amusing example of the rigidity is To The Moon. This is routinely classified as an RPG solely because it looks like one (it was made with RPGMaker so looks like a JRPG). It even takes the piss out of gaming expectations at one point with a fake fight scene.


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## tommers (Mar 1, 2014)

To the moon is a good shout.   Not sure it fits the OP but still,  no fighting.


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## fen_boy (Mar 2, 2014)

Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon. But they're not open world.


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## fen_boy (Mar 2, 2014)

Minecraft on peaceful.


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## emanymton (Mar 2, 2014)

Not sure it counts as an rpg but there is redshirt, pity it is shit. Sorry tablet won't let me paste links.


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## Tankus (Mar 2, 2014)

I used to like Myst...........very pretty for early graphics


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## mauvais (Mar 2, 2014)

Is Kentucky Route Zero an RPG? I don't know what the term means tbh.


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## tommers (Mar 2, 2014)

emanymton said:


> Not sure it counts as an rpg but there is redshirt, pity it is shit. Sorry tablet won't let me paste links.



Is it?  That's a shame.


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## emanymton (Mar 2, 2014)

tommers said:


> Is it?  That's a shame.


Well I thought it was. I felt it played like a free flash game more than something I had paid quite a bit for.


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