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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 5299808" data-attributes="member: 80487">I for one do not believe that "role play" happens only in activities other than combat.However, if you do not believe that making lots of combat a quick end to a character's career tends to lead to less combat, then either(A) you are basically calling those of us who speak from experience something or other, or(B) you are missing the point of your own statement thatLook: If players see killing and looting as its own sufficient reward, to the extent that they do not give a hill of beans about their characters surviving -- much less succeeding to attain more prestige -- then obviously getting their characters killed will not dissuade them.Here's a really fundamental thing:If you want a game that's not always with the killing, then you want players who want a game that''s not always with the killing.Otherwise, the most that trying to pressure the fire-and-hackers to play something else is likely to accomplish is to make them unhappy enough with your "badwrongfun" attitude to say, "Hasta la vista, baby."Players who don't care about "solving problems" are not the target!On the other hand, if the problem is how to survive and succeed in a society that can fill you with bullets (or hang, electrocute, gas, inject with poison, incarcerate, enslave, anathematize, lobotomize, or otherwise interfere with your career plans), then the situation is different.The most pragmatic solutions to a lot of problems do not involve acting like a sociopath. So, the question of what the problems are -- where the game is -- is very basic.People who are game players, who have come to the affair to play a game well, are motivated to adopt whatever strategies are effective. The very first step is to learn the victory conditions. In most popular RPGs, as in many arcade games, there is no set end point. There is opportunity to score points (either literally, as in D&D, or not) until a character is removed from play. Avoiding that event is up to the player, and is a key element of skill that permits the attainment of high scores.The effect of old D&D awarding few points (especially from Supp. I on) for killing, while the clear object is securing treasures, has been much remarked upon. I think AD&D's equation of treasure with literally "cashing in" has made for a lot of trouble among people who get stuck grinding an ax about "money grubbing".Peace among nations can be a treasure, or a good marriage -- a great many things that may have a high "cash value" partly because people who have them are loathe to give them up.In my experience, the single biggest contributing factor to pace of combat operations in D&D and similar games is hit points. Characters fight a lot because they can fight a lot. First-level characters in old D&D are likely to be dead after very few hits. A Fighter Lord has "nine lives" even before figuring in magical healing resources.Traveller is, short of the "universal systems", about the most wide-open game around in the sense that it is up to players to choose whatever "scoring" system them may desire. That there are no built-in goals makes it a bit more like the "game" of real life. The whole field of science fiction is open, all its utopias and dystopias and everything in between. It may be best suited to those for whom exploration itself is the greatest reward.However, there is also a strong military-SF and war-gaming element. Traveller characters tend not to get killed in one shot, but two hits often do it. The first shot might knock them out, which can actually be a saving grace as "nature's way of telling you" that it's time for Plan B.In my experience, that is about perfect for a setup that involves(A) long-term character development, and(B) a fair amount of combat, but(C) an attitude toward combat somewhere between a real soldier's and a comic-book character's, tending more toward the former than in games that make getting beaten, shot or stabbed trivial.</blockquote>

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