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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 8635434">The single biggest thing that has made a difference in my own campaigns and games is lethality and consequences. If combat is more like real life (where say drawing a gun is a very risky proposition), it tends to produce less combat. You still might have plenty of violence. I run a lot of crime campaigns for instance. So you can have plenty of mob cinema bloodshed, but if the system is lethal, even when things are moving towards a violent climax, folks are way more cautious and often try to resolve things through non-violent means first. If you know your character can be killed easily by a bullet or by a blade, you tend not to rush right into combat in every instance. In a fantasy campaign with a system more like D&D, I think there the key is to give players reasons to not always kill whatever it is they encounter. Not every encounter has to be about combat. This is often more about giving monsters and NPCs, even evil ones who could easily become combat encounters, more depth in terms of why they are there in the first place (presumably if they are encountering the party, they aren't all out there just trying to ambush and eat them, many have their own agendas). Also making good encounter tables. I try to include a lot of things like officials, sect members of organizations, etc. Sometimes those kinds of encounters will lead to conflict. More often I find they lead to role play heavy situations. Another is reward system in the form of XP. I like to give XP only for significant combats that are challenging (i.e.. beating someone equal to yourself). I also give XP for things like finding lost treasure, making a major contribution or causing significant change in the setting, etc (and you can only get 1 xp for each thing on the list each session).</blockquote>

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