No Combat

[GSHamster]

Some ideas:

Murder Mystery - these tend to be very roleplaying/skills heavy. Normally, the only point combat occurs is when the PCs attempt to arrest the villain.

Exploration - Go off exploring through a jungle. Use a lot of natural hazards. If the primary dangers are things like animals (snakes, especially large ones, are a good choice), combat isn't a foregone conclusion, and players can use various skills and abilities to avoid it.

Make non-combat an artificial reality - In the show Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, one of the characters got a microchip implanted which prevented him from causing violence (it caused intense, paralyzing pain whenever he tried). Perhaps a city has a similar artifact or device. Anybody entering the city has to wear a (very visible and non-removable) magical bracelet that keeps them from committing violence. So characters are actually forced to be non-violent.

Actually, you could combine this with the Murder Mystery and have kind-of an Asimov's 3 Laws story. One that is especially dangerous because the murderer can apparently commit violence and the players can't defend themselves. This might be pretty cool, but you'd have to set it up in such a way that it makes logical sense.

 

[Oghma]

Actually, this is a campaign idea I've had for a while. No combat.

Combat is basically a bunch of d20 rolls with physical consequences.

A non-combat campaign would be a bunch of d20 rolls (skill rolls, mostly) with emotional, political, and physical consequences.

Imagine a party scene where innuendo, sense motive, gather information, and bluff are rolled repeatedly in order to get some necessary information and manipulate some situation.

Perhaps they blow a few rolls, and offend someone, I can imagine jump, climb, and tumble rolls being useful to get them out of trouble physically (jumping across a balcony, climbing down from a 3rd story window).

The party would have to be created with that in mind, however.

Exp awards would all be story awards. You could, if you want set CRs for story goals, and give exp that way.

 

[Klaus]

Try Wyvern Claw's free adventure "A Thief Among Us" (available at their website). It is a good of how a non-combat adventure would be laid out.

 

[mmadsen]

RPGnet

I heartily recommend visiting the RPGnet forums, where this won't seem like an unusual request at all.

If you simply want to play a mainstream RPG with next-to-no combat -- but with danger, etc. -- play Call of Cthulhu (either the d20 version or the original version from Chaosium). The characters play investigators uncovering supernatural horror. They encounter some evil cultists along the way, but it's not a hack-and-slash game.

If you want something a bit more mind-expanding, take a look at the tongue-in-cheek Wuthering Heights RPG, where rolling up a character involves rolling up a Problem (e.g., you are without a family), your levels of Rage, Despair, and Oldness (not to be confused with chronological age), etc.

In that same vein, you might enjoy a game like Teenagers from Outer Space, where everyone plays...teenagers from outer space. Moving away from a quasi-medieval fantasy setting gets people out of the "kill 'em and take their stuff" mindset.

 

[Rel]

How are they going to rob the place without the possibility of combat?

The traditional approach is that one hands the teller a note that says, "I'm robbing this bank. Please place a bunch of money in the bag I'm about to hand you and I'll be on my way without shooting anybody because this campaign doesn't have any combat in it."

 

[Dark Jezter]

No combat?

There's actually a system ideal for no-combat adventures, and it dosen't even require a DM to run. Check it out:

 

[Aust Diamondew]

At the very heart of D&D is the dungeon crawl. Take that away and it's not d&d. That being said a noncombat game is possible as others have said. But IMHO it'd be pretty boring. People roleplay for escapism. But if your group wants it give it a shot. Good luck.

 

[Raven Crowking]

You've received a number of interesting and worthwhile answers here, so you should be in pretty good shape. There are some books that make non-combat interactions as interesting as combat (largley by modifying combat-type rules into skill-use type rules). Among these, either Empire or Dynasties & Demogogues is a must for social/political interaction, and The Medieval Player's Handbook is a must for scholarly/craftsperson interaction. Your player is going to seek out these opportunities, so you should be ready for them.

On the other hand (again, as others have pointed out) our desires do not always change the nature of the world. Will orcs and other goblinoids disappear just because we don't wish to fight? Perhaps your player will prefer a city-based campaign where standard monsters are far less common. She may still have to contend with lycanthropes, human enemies, thieves, rats, and all sorts of other "normal" D&D problems.

Sherlock Holmes bloodied his knuckles from time to time. Your player, though, might be encouraged to choose a character build where that won't be necessary very often: a high charisma and a few charm spells can go a long way, after all. Violent situations may be avoidable, but situations to which a violent response is common may still exist with the same frequency as in a normal game.

I would be quite clear here: "I am setting up the world and its challenges. In some cases violence might be an appropriate response from PCs. I am not going to dictate how PCs react to these problems, however, and a nonviolent solution will gain as many XP as a violent one. I will make sure to include lots of things that can challenge you apart from combat, but just as I am not dictating PC responses, I won't allow players to dictate NPC responses. Like the real world, there are some very reasonable people (of every alignment), and a great many who react in a more passionate manner, for good or ill."

Hope that helps.

RC

 

[D+1]

Obviously, you need to call the D&D police, since she offends your core gaming dogma so much.

However, such a campaign would reveal the fundamental flaw of the rather stupid and quite worthless "CR" system. In a situation wherein combat does not determine the challenge, "CR" does not reflect the challenge posed.

Despite the fact that this is flamewar bait, irrelevant to the original response, and quite unhelpful I wanted to respond. In a situation where combat does not determine the challenge then the CR is determined by the DM to reflect the challenge posed. CR works just fine for non-combat encounters even if the game's XP reward system IS designed for combat and trap oriented encounters more than skill application and roleplaying. Remember, it's a roleplaying "Game".

To the original post I would ask if the players want to eliminate combat or all dice rolls. Also, I'd ask the players WHY they want to eliminate combat. What kind of game DO they expect? How will you know? You're not psychic and you need to tell them that.

Ultimately, if you don't want to run a game that way then DON'T.

 

[Arnwyn]

The problem is simple. One of my players for an upcoming campaign has stated she simply doesn't want combat. None, zero. The other players think the idea is worth a shot. What in HADES DO I DO?

I'm trying to get the player who came up with the idea to be DM,

There, you solved your problem. Simply put, (for me) if my players wanted to play a type of game that either I have no interest in or seems like too much work on my part, I'd tell one of them to DM it. Problem solved! (For you, at least. The one who came up with the idea can deal with it, now.)

Any game "systems" or whatnot for these kind of games?

Beats me.