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Any Good Games Where Running Away Can Be A Victory?
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<blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 8360588" data-attributes="member: 6785785"><p>You need a system that allows for non-combat mechanics to be as robust and engaging as the combat mechanics of D&D are.</p><p></p><p>It starts with the PCs’ goal. What are they trying to accomplish? Then you have to consider the method of accomplishing that goal. Then you have to look at it from two perspectives; how does the chosen method suit the characters in the fiction, and also how does the chosen method play as a game for the players.</p><p></p><p>So if the goal is to infiltrate a stronghold and steal a maguffin, then you need to make sure that it doesn’t make a lot of sense for the PCs to simply storm the place and kill everyone inside and walk out with the maguffin. So if things come to a fight, then that means things have likely gone poorly, or else the fight needs to be shut down quickly and quietly to maintain the infiltration.</p><p></p><p>To allow for this, you need mechanics that support a team stealth mission or similar, and also mechanics on how to deploy suitable challenges for this type of mission. It has to be fun for the players and a lot of games have a forced kind of expertise system where one or two PCs might be experts at stealth or deception, and then the rest of the group watches them do their thing. That may work for an occasional challenge or two (“This door is locked…thief, get up here”, etc.) but not when the entire scenario is based on something other than combat.</p><p></p><p>Combat is the one thing to which all D&D characters can meaningfully contribute (this is more true of later editions, but it comes into play pretty early in the game’s history such that I’ll generalize). So it makes sense that the game’s default expectation is combat. If the game was about intrigue, and every character class was designed around how they handled intrigue and each class had abilities or skills related to that, then that could be the default expectation.</p><p></p><p>So I do think that the system is a huge part of this. You need more robust mechanics for non-combat plans and non-combat challenges. Or, if you don’t want to eliminate combat entirely, then those mechanics need to be as robust and present as combat mechanics.</p><p></p><p>There are definitely games that do this, or at the very least attempt to do so. Apocalypse World and many PbtA games come to mind. I think FATE does this, although I’m not personally very familiar with that system. The Leverage RPG which uses the Cortex+ system does it. Blades in the Dark does it. The Alien RPG and Call of Cthulhu both lean toward combat being a bad idea that can really go poorly quickly. The Gumshoe system leans on investigation as its foundation, rather than combat, although there are versions that tweak things for more fighting.</p><p></p><p>I’m sure there are others that I’m not thinking of or of which I’m not even aware, but those are the ones I can think off the top of my head.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="hawkeyefan, post: 8360588, member: 6785785"] You need a system that allows for non-combat mechanics to be as robust and engaging as the combat mechanics of D&D are. It starts with the PCs’ goal. What are they trying to accomplish? Then you have to consider the method of accomplishing that goal. Then you have to look at it from two perspectives; how does the chosen method suit the characters in the fiction, and also how does the chosen method play as a game for the players. So if the goal is to infiltrate a stronghold and steal a maguffin, then you need to make sure that it doesn’t make a lot of sense for the PCs to simply storm the place and kill everyone inside and walk out with the maguffin. So if things come to a fight, then that means things have likely gone poorly, or else the fight needs to be shut down quickly and quietly to maintain the infiltration. To allow for this, you need mechanics that support a team stealth mission or similar, and also mechanics on how to deploy suitable challenges for this type of mission. It has to be fun for the players and a lot of games have a forced kind of expertise system where one or two PCs might be experts at stealth or deception, and then the rest of the group watches them do their thing. That may work for an occasional challenge or two (“This door is locked…thief, get up here”, etc.) but not when the entire scenario is based on something other than combat. Combat is the one thing to which all D&D characters can meaningfully contribute (this is more true of later editions, but it comes into play pretty early in the game’s history such that I’ll generalize). So it makes sense that the game’s default expectation is combat. If the game was about intrigue, and every character class was designed around how they handled intrigue and each class had abilities or skills related to that, then that could be the default expectation. So I do think that the system is a huge part of this. You need more robust mechanics for non-combat plans and non-combat challenges. Or, if you don’t want to eliminate combat entirely, then those mechanics need to be as robust and present as combat mechanics. There are definitely games that do this, or at the very least attempt to do so. Apocalypse World and many PbtA games come to mind. I think FATE does this, although I’m not personally very familiar with that system. The Leverage RPG which uses the Cortex+ system does it. Blades in the Dark does it. The Alien RPG and Call of Cthulhu both lean toward combat being a bad idea that can really go poorly quickly. The Gumshoe system leans on investigation as its foundation, rather than combat, although there are versions that tweak things for more fighting. I’m sure there are others that I’m not thinking of or of which I’m not even aware, but those are the ones I can think off the top of my head. [/QUOTE]
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