Resolving conflict and achieving outcomes without combat

[doctorbadwolf]

In Battleship Potemkin, the time is a few minutes. The money is we're in possession of a battleship. I'm not sure what the skill is. No talking takes place.

Yeah this brings up a thing Ive been thinking about.

I think maybe D&D could use some sort of skill for moxy.

But the example is an odd one. First, you’d need a character with deep ties to their home/people, and you’d need the right socio-political situation, and for the PC to occupy the right place within that socio-political situation, and then yeah it’s just a matter of nerves.

 

[aramis erak]

In Battleship Potemkin, the time is a few minutes. The money is we're in possession of a battleship. I'm not sure what the skill is. No talking takes place.

Knowledge of countrymen?

 

[Campbell]

I think there is a general issue where most role players (including GMs) hold onto their conceptions of the characters they play far too tightly and don't really chew on or deeply consider what they might do. That tends to make genuine changes of heart even more rare than they are in meatspace and substantially more rare than they are in fiction.

 

[Umbran]

Another thread has had me thinking about this topic. What sorts of things can be achieved via non-combat, social or near-social means?

That depends a bit on the mechanics you have to use. In some games, there are few reliable, rules-based non-combat ways to resolve conflict. One issue is that having the fully-fledged combat system gives players a solid handle on a problem. We, as GMs, don't usually give players handles for non-combat. We expect them to make up handles on their own. In a game with life-or-death stakes, one reaches for solutions one has a grasp of.

In the film Battleship Potemkin (SPOILER ALERT for a nearly 100-year old film)

How about we use some more recent media references? In the Netflix shows Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, and She Ra and the Princesses of Power, while there is physical conflict, the important things are resolved by having empathy.

My impression is that this sort of thing is not all that common in RPGing. Am I correct?

Define "common". I am sure most people here will say, "Oh, no! We solve things non-violently all the time!" But the description of "kill things and take their stuff" rings true for a reason. I daresay that, over all RPG play, resolving conflict through violence is the dominant mode.

 

[BookTenTiger]

My players in my 5e campaign often do everything they can to avoid fights, especially with humanoid opponents. It's charming!

The campaign is structured around a quest to kill the BBEG (based on Strahd), and so many of the players like to try to convert smaller villains to their cause. It means that many combats I plan for get resolved through negotiation rather than 0 hit points.

As a DM, I now plan out Plan B resolutions for combat. I think about what the enemy would want, and how to make that ask as challenging as combat would have been.

 

[chaochou]

"We raise the red flag and sail between the lines of the other vessels..."

GM: Okay, you're acting under fire - you realise that if this doesn't work you're surrounded by a hostile enemy fleet?

Player: Sure

Acting under fire roll: 11

GM: Okay, the Tsarist fleet refuses to fire at you and the sailors cheer as you pass by.

That's how it works in Apocalypse World, with absolutely no need for the GM to predetermine the whys or wherefores of any of the potential outcomes.

 

[Cadence]

GM: Okay, you're acting under fire - you realise that if this doesn't work you're surrounded by a hostile enemy fleet?

Player: Sure

Acting under fire roll: 11

GM: Okay, the Tsarist fleet refuses to fire at you and the sailors cheer as you pass by.

That's how it works in Apocalypse World, with absolutely no need for the GM to predetermine the whys or wherefores of any of the potential outcomes.

What determines how high the roll needs to be?

 

[Esau Cairn]

But I don't think it's that common for a Battleship Potemkin-like event to occur ...

Certainly driven by quite a bit of ideology at work in both the story within the film and with the authorial voice of the film. Most rpg session are not.

Most. But not all...

 

[chaochou]

What determines how high the roll needs to be?

The rules. It's there in the book. Why?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

But the description of "kill things and take their stuff" rings true for a reason. I daresay that, over all RPG play, resolving conflict through violence is the dominant mode.

IMO it mostly “rings true” due to history and memes, but YMMV.

It means that many combats I plan for get resolved through negotiation rather than 0 hit points.

Another thing D&D, and many other games, lack is a way to use social skills, empathy, and other non-tangibles, during a fight. Which is odd, considering how much talking happens in a fight in fiction.

What determines how high the roll needs to be?

The resolution system always has the same target numbers. Mixed success has a floor of 6or 7 (it’s been like a year since I played a pbta game. We barely games this last year), and total success has a floor of around 10.