Parmandur
Book-Friend, he/him
How is Tales of Xadia? I have...thoughts...about how the show ended, but mostly I really enjoyed the Dragon Prince and the Setting was interesting.
What TTRPGs Excel At Not Having Combat?
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
RenleyRenfield
Adventurer
Yeah, your OP didn't competently say that at all.... like not even close
But if squint hard, my answers still satisfy your entirely new request =
L5R = if you draw steel, you could lose honor, lose too much honor and be outcast or executed.
Deadlands = create social characters, there are pure social rules (and spells too!). One bad cheat at cards or bad comment gets you shot, and well.... it's deadlands. It can be the only shot it takes to kill you. I would suggest Deadlands Classic in this case, for better deadly and social performance.
They do require the players to make characters with these intentions and the GM to run plots with your intentions. As you request, this games would give very much a "combat is an inherent failure condition to the point of being effectively impossible without ending the game."
Reynard
aka Ian Eller
Fair enough.Yeah, your OP didn't competently say that at all.... like not even close
Reynard
aka Ian Eller
I think I am leaning toward Fate, mostly because I already know it pretty well (even if I will still have to wipe the cobwebs off, since it has been a while). I like the way "create an advantage" can be used in lieu of punching things in a pretty broad set of story types. I have to decies between Core, Condensed and Accelerated, depending on what I decide to do specifically. I do like Two Column Fate a lot, also.
Yeah, this was my first thought for a non-combat, non-adventure RPG. But then I had a second thought:
Wuthering Heights. The rules are pretty short, and pretty simple, and free here <wuthering heights> or here <https://www.oocities.org/soner_du/files/wuther.pdf>.
In my experience, a good non-combat RPG doesn't just have skills and rules for setting DCs. It needs to have a way of making the game "go" - of suggesting situations, and stakes, and their resolution. Wuthering Heights has this, which is why I think it fits the bill. Here's an actual play example: Played some Wuthering Heights today
Aldarc
Legend
Alas
Explorer
I have it, but haven't had a chance to play it. It's a pretty slick looking Cortex-based rule set. Characters' three main dice sources are abilities (agility, awareness, influence, intellect, spirit, strength), values (devotion, glory, justice, liberty, mastery, truth), and the standard distinctions (which is where human/elf shows up). These are supplemented by specialties (focused skills) and assets (like Rayla's hook knives). While the majority of the example player characters are adventuring types with signature weapons, there's at least one scholar with zero direct combat skills. Overcoming challenges includes fighting, but is just as or more likely to be impassioned arguments and heroic acts of derring-do. The tools provided steer sessions towards navigating culture clashes, encountering Xadia's weird-ass flora and fauna, and surviving interactions with dragons and similar large beasts (like a kraken with geo-political ambitions).
It definitely looks like the sort of rule set in which "traveling puppeteer who wants to put on shows" is 1) viable and 2) as capable of achieving party goals as the knight errant.
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RenleyRenfield
Adventurer
Tales of Xadia is actually quite fun to play, even if you know nothing about the show. (And many people have successfully converted 5e D&D to cortex using Xadia)
What Alas says is bang on = the way the system works is that as long as you can roleplay and narrate a way that makes sense, you can pull in any dice and roll to apply an effect. And since defeat/addressing the problem can come in the form of emotions, logic or combat = there are many ways to take on challenges.
Here is our (link) Exalted hack into Cortex as a demonstration of what a familiar game looks and plays like in Cortex. It works so well!
Kannik
Legend
Alrightee, here is my pitch to “sell you (and everyone else!) on Cortex.” 
As you’re familiar with Fate, many of the advantages and selling points about Fate applies here too, including a narrative/fiction focus, flexibility to define characters through Stunts (called SFX in Cortex Prime), ability to create advantages on the fly (called Assets here), use of a metacurrency, and more. On the whole I find Cortex handles them even better, along with adding a bevy of other advantages that really make things sing:
Adjustable “attribute” sets: While you can go the standard “Attributes” plus “Skills” route, there are a lot of other suggested sets that can really tailor the game to suit the tone, themes, and intentions of the campaign. Using Roles helps emphasize, well, character roles as well as character archetypes and/or aspects of adventuring, and can also be leveraged for something like a Star Trek as departments. Values pulls in moral questions and highlights a character’s state of being. Relationships is a bit self explanatory, great for games like the aforementioned Smallville that’s about people dynamics and drama or soap-opera like situations. And I’ve become especially enamoured with porting in Approaches from Fate Accelerated, coupling them with Roles as the foundation for my Cortex games.
Distinctions apply to every roll made: Unlike Fate, where a character’s Aspects only come into play by spending a FP, in Cortex Prime a Distinction is chosen and included in every test made. I did a big write up about why this is great here, but the short of it is that by doing so, it continually brings to the fore the important concepts of the character (and that is character in the more literary sense rather than just “collection of abilities for a game” type character). Even more so when a player chooses to hinder themselves with the Distinction, creating fodder for rich RP experiences.
Many dice is not a problem: Because Cortex Prime uses a “roll, choose 2” die system, there’s less worry about having to adjudicate “does that apply here?” to avoid characters overcoming things too easily.
SFX are tied to either Distinctions or Assets: SFX are very much like Stunts under Fate. However, each SFX is written under a Distinction or a Signature Asset (signature as it’s tied to the character and could be an item, specialized training, connection, perk, or etc). That narratively ties them to that Distinction or Asset, which again highlights the specialness of that Distinction or Asset and thus the character every time it’s used.
Everything can be reduced to a dice pool: Similar to the Fate fractal, many things can be represented in Cortex as a dice pool, whether a large challenge or small obstacle, a powerful opponent or a mob of goons, or even a nebulous looming threat. Actions and counter actions reduce the pool in an intuitive and easy way until it is whittled down to zero, at which point the obstacle/opponent/etc is overcome or no longer an issue.
Asymmetric characters are not an issue: One of the important things to get is that Cortex aims to ‘simulate’ fiction (whether novel, TV series, movie, etc) rather than quasi-reality. And main characters in the fiction are all able to contribute towards moving the narrative forward, resolving things happening in the plot, and creating meaningful moments. So too then are all characters in Cortex able to move things forward in most situations. As was just dexcribed by RinleyRenfield above, if the player can create and narrate what their character is doing and it is reasonable to the table, then they can go for it and be as effective as everyone else in forwarding the action and overcoming challenges or antagonists. This allows for both different ‘power levels’ of characters as well as allowing for different methods and character concepts/shticks.
Different modes of resolution for different moments in the game: Beyond the simple Test to overcome something, there’s also several method for longer-run encounters, be they two-person showdowns (arguments, duels, chases, etc), larger-scale obstacles (environmental, research, rounding up wild horses, mobs of small animals, etc), or going all the way to traditional “action rounds”. This allows the narrative and the game to flow smoothly by tailoring the resolution method for what's happening in the fiction at that moment. (It’s also easy to merge in a Clock-type mechanism if desired.)
---
Those would be my top-line selling points for Cortex. It is one of my two go-to rulesets for nearly every non-D&D campaign that I run (with the other being a game system I wrote). And for a "non-combat heavy, alternate-means of success, and when there is combat it is non-tactical" type game you’re looking for I think it really fits the bill.
(And as you’re familiar with Fate, I wrote some optional additions to Cortex Prime that ports in a few ideas and concepts from Fate that I think enhances Cortex even more, link to them here.)
As you’re familiar with Fate, many of the advantages and selling points about Fate applies here too, including a narrative/fiction focus, flexibility to define characters through Stunts (called SFX in Cortex Prime), ability to create advantages on the fly (called Assets here), use of a metacurrency, and more. On the whole I find Cortex handles them even better, along with adding a bevy of other advantages that really make things sing:
Adjustable “attribute” sets: While you can go the standard “Attributes” plus “Skills” route, there are a lot of other suggested sets that can really tailor the game to suit the tone, themes, and intentions of the campaign. Using Roles helps emphasize, well, character roles as well as character archetypes and/or aspects of adventuring, and can also be leveraged for something like a Star Trek as departments. Values pulls in moral questions and highlights a character’s state of being. Relationships is a bit self explanatory, great for games like the aforementioned Smallville that’s about people dynamics and drama or soap-opera like situations. And I’ve become especially enamoured with porting in Approaches from Fate Accelerated, coupling them with Roles as the foundation for my Cortex games.
Distinctions apply to every roll made: Unlike Fate, where a character’s Aspects only come into play by spending a FP, in Cortex Prime a Distinction is chosen and included in every test made. I did a big write up about why this is great here, but the short of it is that by doing so, it continually brings to the fore the important concepts of the character (and that is character in the more literary sense rather than just “collection of abilities for a game” type character). Even more so when a player chooses to hinder themselves with the Distinction, creating fodder for rich RP experiences.
Many dice is not a problem: Because Cortex Prime uses a “roll, choose 2” die system, there’s less worry about having to adjudicate “does that apply here?” to avoid characters overcoming things too easily.
SFX are tied to either Distinctions or Assets: SFX are very much like Stunts under Fate. However, each SFX is written under a Distinction or a Signature Asset (signature as it’s tied to the character and could be an item, specialized training, connection, perk, or etc). That narratively ties them to that Distinction or Asset, which again highlights the specialness of that Distinction or Asset and thus the character every time it’s used.
Everything can be reduced to a dice pool: Similar to the Fate fractal, many things can be represented in Cortex as a dice pool, whether a large challenge or small obstacle, a powerful opponent or a mob of goons, or even a nebulous looming threat. Actions and counter actions reduce the pool in an intuitive and easy way until it is whittled down to zero, at which point the obstacle/opponent/etc is overcome or no longer an issue.
Asymmetric characters are not an issue: One of the important things to get is that Cortex aims to ‘simulate’ fiction (whether novel, TV series, movie, etc) rather than quasi-reality. And main characters in the fiction are all able to contribute towards moving the narrative forward, resolving things happening in the plot, and creating meaningful moments. So too then are all characters in Cortex able to move things forward in most situations. As was just dexcribed by RinleyRenfield above, if the player can create and narrate what their character is doing and it is reasonable to the table, then they can go for it and be as effective as everyone else in forwarding the action and overcoming challenges or antagonists. This allows for both different ‘power levels’ of characters as well as allowing for different methods and character concepts/shticks.
Different modes of resolution for different moments in the game: Beyond the simple Test to overcome something, there’s also several method for longer-run encounters, be they two-person showdowns (arguments, duels, chases, etc), larger-scale obstacles (environmental, research, rounding up wild horses, mobs of small animals, etc), or going all the way to traditional “action rounds”. This allows the narrative and the game to flow smoothly by tailoring the resolution method for what's happening in the fiction at that moment. (It’s also easy to merge in a Clock-type mechanism if desired.)
---
Those would be my top-line selling points for Cortex.
It is one of my two go-to rulesets for nearly every non-D&D campaign that I run (with the other being a game system I wrote). And for a "non-combat heavy, alternate-means of success, and when there is combat it is non-tactical" type game you’re looking for I think it really fits the bill.(And as you’re familiar with Fate, I wrote some optional additions to Cortex Prime that ports in a few ideas and concepts from Fate that I think enhances Cortex even more, link to them here.)
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