What TTRPGs Excel At Not Having Combat?

[Reynard]

I'll second Cortex Prime. It emphasizes the fiction/narrative and storytelling beats, and as it's a toolkit it can be tailored to meet the campaign's needs. Be easy to use a challenge pool to represent both antagonists or broader obstacles, with everyone getting a chance to overcome the antagonist/obstacle by depleting the pool until it's gone. You could potentially smack someone in the face, but any other action by the PCs that makes sense is equally as powerful in building towards success. It's great.

Wanderhome is also a beautiful gem, but it plays very differently than most other RPGs (it's much more of a collaborative storytelling exercise than a "game", and to be clear I am in no way saying that disparagingly, I absolutely adore Wanderhome).

I'll be honest: everything someone suggests Cortex and emphasizes it's toolkit quality, I recoil a little. And it has nothing to do with not liking Cortex (never used it) or not liking toolkits (I love a good toolkit). It is simply the idea that I don't know if I have the mentality bandwidth to learn a new toolkit to get it to do what I want.

But I am not saying I wouldn't, just that it feels overwhelming. So sell me on it. Tell me it's not that hard, or it is hard but it's worth it. Or something.

 

[Blue]

@Reynard I have side questions which seems to satisfy that player's criteria, but not yours, but I want to be sure.

These questions are separate from each other.

1. Is combat okay as long as winning the combat is not required?

Stories have had upbeats and downbeats since before the written word. A system with combat, but with the (a) combat stakes not being to-the-death, and (b) combat not a common method of overcoming a challenge. So there would be an occasional combat, and it's okay if the character loses, it's just another fork of the plot.

2. Is combat okay if, like many types of challenges in RPGs, it's limited to one or two combat-focused characters. To give a D&D example, when it's time to track someone from the wilderness usually that's the ranger's chance to shine. In games like Leverage, there's often one Hitter, who is good at combat, and the others aren't.

Either (or both) of those would seem to allow non-combat focused characters, without the need for that player to engage nor "be tactical", while still widening the search for RPGs that meet their parameters.

 

[TheSword]

I am feeling the need to stretch my GMing skills beyond my comfort zone a little, and since I generally like high concept, high action games, I thought I would ask about games that don't rely on action, especially combat, to be compelling.

Whether it is romance, mystery, horror, politics or just slice of life, what games do you think excel at being engaging and compelling in play without being focused on action adventure or combat?

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4e of course.

• A system with careers like herbalist, envoy, peasant and nun
• A well developed status system with impacts on social skills
• 3/4 of skills aren’t combat/movement based - lores, bribery, gossip, evaluation, intuition and many more.
• 2/3 of talents aren’t combat based - eye for trouble, blather, natural leader, menacing.
• Success level based opposed tests that allow complex and nuanced outcomes
• Pre-written adventures that resolve around mysteries
• A deadly combat system which makes you want to actively avoid combat.
• Rich and detailed game world to explore

 

[Parmandur]

I'll be honest: everything someone suggests Cortex and emphasizes it's toolkit quality, I recoil a little. And it has nothing to do with not liking Cortex (never used it) or not liking toolkits (I love a good toolkit). It is simply the idea that I don't know if I have the mentality bandwidth to learn a new toolkit to get it to do what I want.

But I am not saying I wouldn't, just that it feels overwhelming. So sell me on it. Tell me it's not that hard, or it is hard but it's worth it. Or something.

Oh, hey, I don't have much personal experience with the Cortex system, but there are actual implementations in place already. I have heard the Leverage RPG using Cortex Plus, based on the TV show, is absolutely fantastic.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I quibble strongly.

I'd quibble with the degree, but combat is decidedly not front and center of the Star Trek Adventures game. Arguably the game steers you away from it more than the shows steer away from it.

I've been playing Star Trek adventures for four of five sessions and we've had no violent combat other than one duel staged between two player characters as a ruse. We are definitely looking at an imminent starship battle next session, and the potential for violent conflict is often in the background, so combat is definitely an integral part of the game. But, like the show, you spend a fair number of episodes mostly just solving sci-fi science mysteries, exploring strange new worlds, conducting diplomacy, and untangling moral quandaries. Part of the character advancement (and potentially regression) is based around an end of session reputation roll and you make your roll more difficult if you used deadly force or used force for any ends other than protecting self, ship, crew, or innocent life. Also compared to the trek shows where repairs and healing tended to convientienly happen off screen unless there was a compelling narrative reason for them not to, in the game, depending on your game master and the overall campaign, you may have to deal with the consequences and/or plan the logistics of fixing those situations. So the game has a bit of a thumb on the non-violent solutions scale.

I specified "violent combat" at the beginning of the prior paragraph because the game has a system of "social combat" for when a tense social situation requires the sort of turn by turn approach of a combat encounter, which is definitely an interesting wrinkle. I wanted to try out the game mainly because I was interested in trying out a less combat oriented rpg system after years of D&D, especially as I work on designing my own systerms, as I think a mono-focus on (overly complicated) combat is the achilles heel of D&D. I'm not sure Star Trek Adventures is the one for me as a major part of my ttrpg diet. I find the some of the core mechanics hard to really get comfortable with, and, fundamentally, trying to adapt a scripted television show where characters are always having 11th hour epiphanies that solve everything to a ttrpg has serious issues. But it has definitely given me a lot of cool ideas to work with. And I have not been disappointed by the lack of combat.

 

[Reynard]

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4e of course.

• A system with careers like herbalist, envoy, peasant and nun
• A well developed status system with impacts on social skills
• 3/4 of skills aren’t combat/movement based - lores, bribery, gossip, evaluation, intuition and many more.
• 2/3 of talents aren’t combat based - eye for trouble, blather, natural leader, menacing.
• Success level based opposed tests that allow complex and nuanced outcomes
• Pre-written adventures that resolve around mysteries
• A deadly combat system which makes you want to actively avoid combat.
• Rich and detailed game world to explore

I am legitimately baffled at this suggestion.

Are we just playing "My favorite RPG" now?

 

[Aldarc]

Clearly the answer is my favorite game that I am always looking to plug.

 

[Reynard]

@Reynard I have side questions which seems to satisfy that player's criteria, but not yours, but I want to be sure.

These questions are separate from each other.

1. Is combat okay as long as winning the combat is not required?

Stories have had upbeats and downbeats since before the written word. A system with combat, but with the (a) combat stakes not being to-the-death, and (b) combat not a common method of overcoming a challenge. So there would be an occasional combat, and it's okay if the character loses, it's just another fork of the plot.

2. Is combat okay if, like many types of challenges in RPGs, it's limited to one or two combat-focused characters. To give a D&D example, when it's time to track someone from the wilderness usually that's the ranger's chance to shine. In games like Leverage, there's often one Hitter, who is good at combat, and the others aren't.

Either (or both) of those would seem to allow non-combat focused characters, without the need for that player to engage nor "be tactical", while still widening the search for RPGs that meet their parameters.

I think he wants a game that doesn't have combat at all, and if it exists, it is a quickly resolved non-tactical experience.

 

[TheSword]

I am legitimately baffled at this suggestion.

Are we just playing "My favorite RPG" now?

That’s a bit rude. Why would you be baffled when I have just given you a full eight reasons why WFRP 4e excels as a game without combat. Maybe you aren’t familiar with the system.

If you watch streaming games of WFRP such a Lawhammer or Garblag Games you will see several sessions go without combat. Instead they rely on politics, mystery, and intrigue for challenges. If you want more examples you could also check out the adventures Heart of Glass, A Night at the Opera, Nastasia’s Wedding, Eye for an Eye, The Blessings that Drew Blood, and the classics Shadows over Bogenhafen and Power Behind the Throne. This isn’t some niche indie game with a limited lifespan some of these adventures have lasted decades and been reprinted several times because of the quality.

The last in particular is famous for being 152 pages of adventure without a single necessary combat. So much so that for the reprint they tacked a few optional ones on just for the folks that did want to swing a sword because it was so intrigue heavy. Just to put it in perspective a nefarious force is trying to take over a mighty city state by manipulating the rulers’s two courtiers with various plots during a week long carnival.

This isn’t rare. I’m currently playing through Empire in Ruins the finale of the Enemy Within campaign and the party have spent the past four sessions, advising a lord, scoping out a potential groom for his daughter, attending a parade where they stopped a runaway tank, investigated a suspicious doctor, attended a wedding. In those eight hours of play there was one combat that lasted 2 rounds.

I’ll remind you, you didn’t say a game without combat at all, you said a game that didn’t focus on combat. WFRP is famous for being a game where folks will do anything to avoid getting in a fight. All the reasons I gave above explain why the game is very rich and detailed away from combat. The fact that it also does combat very well is kinda irrelevant.

 

[Kannik]

I'll be honest: everything someone suggests Cortex and emphasizes it's toolkit quality, I recoil a little. And it has nothing to do with not liking Cortex (never used it) or not liking toolkits (I love a good toolkit). It is simply the idea that I don't know if I have the mentality bandwidth to learn a new toolkit to get it to do what I want.

But I am not saying I wouldn't, just that it feels overwhelming. So sell me on it. Tell me it's not that hard, or it is hard but it's worth it. Or something.

-nods- I hear you on that -- it's one of the biggest hurdles to get into Cortex. Fortunately, as Parmandur mentioned, there are handful of official though unfortunately out of print Cortex games that showcase it's breadth, including Smallville, the superhero drama game where combat is not the expected course of play (despite involving superheroes). There's also a tonne of non-official settings put together by fans that really run the gamut that can be cribbed from.

And I'm totally down on selling you (and others!) on Cortex. I'll write more in detail later when I have more time, but my top three selling points would be a setup and resolution system that A) continually emphasizes both the personal aspects of a character as well as campaign themes, B) that seamlessly can handle things from individual tests to contests to grander challenges*, and C) at the table plays easy and smooth and there isn't a lot to learn to play.

(* As a bonus for your friend, one thing Cortex is not set up for in any way is for tactical combat. It can create flavourful, exciting, and adventurous combat scenes, but it isn't concerned with range or positioning or lots of different individual combat actions and abilities.)

I'll try to find time tonight to elaborate, if not, tomorrow afternoon.