So Which Systems Are Best For Non-Violent Creativity? Lawyers? Surgeons?

[r***@adres.nl]

I normally nudge games toward gritty violence. This is sometimes a
problem for players who like bloodless, glorious fantasy violence,
somewhat like the 80's film version of Flash Gordon.

These players often tell me that the point of role-playing games is to
play *character*, not to wallow in gore.

Well, I'm game. I have no problem playing absolutely non-violent
types, like Gandhi and so on. But I'd like a system or setting that is
really appropriate.

D&D is well-suited to lots of violence. So is Shadowrun, Traveller,
the new and old Worlds of Darkness, and just about everything else I
can think of except perhaps Amber Diceless. (I've never played
"Bunnies and Burrows," but it might qualify as non-violent. And
Traveller can be twisted in a non-violent game of engineering and
travel, although most players will get bored and demand the opportunity
to kill something.)

Costikyan says:
[quote]

But there's no way to avoid conflict entirely. No conflict, no
struggle. No struggle, no obstacles. No obstacles, no work. No work, no
fun.

Where does violence come into the picture? Violence is an easy out.
It's the simplest, most obvious way to make a game a struggle. If
achieving your goal requires you to get through a horde of ravenous,
flesh-eating monsters, the conflict is clear -- and the way to win is
equally clear. You kill them.

Obstacles-of-violence, to coin a term, are compelling; the
kill-or-be-killed instinct is wired into our hind-brain, part of our
vertebrate heritage.
[/quote]
Source:
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/06/21/game_violence/index.html

I can't find the link, and I'm not sure if Costikyan wrote it, but some
game guru said that mass audiences like movies about exciting,
non-violent, good-looking professionals: e.g. courtroom dramas with
sexy lawyers, brilliant surgeons saving lives, fast-talking con men
dazzling the opposition.

I think just about any good role-playing group could make a totally
non-violent story work ... in theory. I've seen a lot of groups try
and fail. (I've participated in some of those groups.) On the bright
side, I've seen a lot of interludes in normally violent games when
there's nothing but character-based role-play, without a single fight
over many hours.

I *don't* think gamers can be made to feel guilty about game violence.
Costikyan, I think, has tried and failed with his "satirical" game
Violence:
[quote]
Violence: The Roleplaying Game of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed

Angrily and violently satirical roleplaying game that seeks to rub
players' noses in the moral implications of their actions by having
them play depraved, psychotic monsters who rape and murder and steal in
the modern world. You will either find it disturbingly funny or merely
disturbing.
[/quote]

I think most gamers didn't find it disturbing, or funny, or
interesting, or worth the money it would take to buy it. So guilt is
or ought to be out of the picture.

What role-playing systems and settings are the best for role-playing
these kinds of non-violent, exciting stories?

Ironically, the one system that comes to mind is the Buffy/Angel
Whedonverse. It certainly can be a typically violent game, but it
captures the feel of a fluffy, visually attractive show about visually
attractive people with lots of emotions. If the violence could be kept
to a minimum, it could be used to simulate artsy horror movies with
lots of emotional character interaction (e.g. Suspiria).

I think TV or movies would be excellent candidates for defining the
game genre. Unfortunately I am almost entirely ignorant of both, and
so I can't make many suggestions...
...except to say that "To Kill a Mockingbird -- the RPG" would be
doomed to failure. Even if it had a black-and-white movie still of
Atticus Finch shooting a rabid dog on the cover.

[Simon Smith]

Post by r***@adres.nl
I normally nudge games toward gritty violence. This is sometimes a
problem for players who like bloodless, glorious fantasy violence,
somewhat like the 80's film version of Flash Gordon.
These players often tell me that the point of role-playing games is to
play *character*, not to wallow in gore.
Well, I'm game. I have no problem playing absolutely non-violent
types, like Gandhi and so on. But I'd like a system or setting that is
really appropriate.

<snip>

Just a couple of quick suggestions - I may make a more considered response
later, time permitting - the Star Trek setting is reasonably violence-lite,
mainly because some of the weapons can auto-kill any character in one hit.
Kirk got into fisticuffs a few times, but compared to most other settings I
think Star Trek is one of the most idealistic - and thus gentle.

You could use the Dr Who RPG in a similar way. The Doctor (almost) always
disdained brute-force solutions in favour of something more elegant.

Amber is another system that handles non-violent games reasonably
well, but apart from these three I'm finding it hard to think of any others.

Perhaps Pendragon, Ars Magica, Call of Cthulhu? Pendragon could be used for
a courtly setting, with the only violence being the occasional joust, and
court intrigue being the focus of the game. Ars Magica - again, if you
focused on the politics, mages might be able to hold themselves aloof from
the crudities of combat, although this might well require a certain
amount of shepherding work by the GM. CoC might be an unusual suggestion -
but the point is that if you rejig the rules slightly to that trying to
fight any monster equals automatic death, you could certainly ensure that at
worst, violence only happens once per character >;->

[Chuk Goodin]

Post by r***@adres.nl
Well, I'm game. I have no problem playing absolutely non-violent
types, like Gandhi and so on. But I'd like a system or setting that is
really appropriate.

I think gamers' general preferences in fiction/movies/etc. tend to overlap
pretty heavily with fiction/movies/etc. that include violence. That said,
Fudge is a perfectly fine system to run non-violent games in. As for
settings, why not try a slightly weird soap opera kind of thing?

There's also Seraphim Guard's _HeartQuest_, which is based on shoujo
manga. Web page is here: http://www.seraphim-guard.com/sgd201c.shtml ,
RPGNow.com page is here:
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=5345&src=Web

Maybe some kind of court intrigue thing if they want to stick to straight
fantasy gaming? And court intrigue translates pretty well to SF or even
nearly-modern gaming, too.

[r***@adres.nl]

Post by Chuk Goodin

Post by r***@adres.nl
Well, I'm game. I have no problem playing absolutely non-violent
types, like Gandhi and so on. But I'd like a system or setting that is
really appropriate.

I think gamers' general preferences in fiction/movies/etc. tend to overlap
pretty heavily with fiction/movies/etc. that include violence. That said,
Fudge is a perfectly fine system to run non-violent games in. As for
settings, why not try a slightly weird soap opera kind of thing?
There's also Seraphim Guard's _HeartQuest_, which is based on shoujo
manga. Web page is here: http://www.seraphim-guard.com/sgd201c.shtml ,
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=5345&src=Web
Maybe some kind of court intrigue thing if they want to stick to straight
fantasy gaming? And court intrigue translates pretty well to SF or even
nearly-modern gaming, too.

I personally have had many failed attempts to run "court intrigue"
situations, although some of my friends have done much better jobs than
I have done.

I really like the idea of shoujo manga as a unifying genre. Manga is
accessible; I can get loads of manga to use for atmospheric
illustrations. Shoujo manga is full of plots where the emotional and
social consequences of voluntary, non-violent social maneuvers are the
prime drivers.

So Heart Quest and Prime Time Adventures are looking like the two
systems I haven't yet seen that I want to see. Thanks for the input.

[David Alex Lamb]

Post by r***@adres.nl
Well, I'm game. I have no problem playing absolutely non-violent
types, like Gandhi and so on. But I'd like a system or setting that is
really appropriate.

In some of the generic systems like GURPS and FUDGE you can choose to make
nonviolent characters -- but the GM would have to create a setting to suit.
I'm not familiar enough with the many and varied GURPS sourcebooks to say
whether one of them would work out-of-the-box. Perhaps some of the historical
settings?

[Peter Knutsen (usenet)]

Post by David Alex Lamb
In some of the generic systems like GURPS and FUDGE you can choose to make
nonviolent characters -- but the GM would have to create a setting to suit.

The GM also needs to have an attitude such that non-violent campaigns
are fun. Otherwise, the players will quickly ask to retire their
non-violent characters, and create new violence-capable ones.

Post by David Alex Lamb
I'm not familiar enough with the many and varied GURPS sourcebooks to say
whether one of them would work out-of-the-box. Perhaps some of the historical
settings?

Certainly neither GURPS Vikings or GURPS Middle Ages 1 would be a
natural for this. GURPS Arabian Nights might. Set the campaign in one of
the heavily civilized cities, such as Bagdad (in the Golden Age of
Islam, of course. Somewhen like 8th to 13th century, IIRC). GURPS
Imperial Rome or GURPS Egypt or GURPs Greece are other options. One
would imagine that Rome or Greece would be good places for a political
campaign, but neither of those GURPS supplements have all that much on
politics.


A very important question to ask is: what are the issues? What do people
in the game world mostly conflict about? In my fantasy historical
setting, Ärth, the key issue is religion. Not everybody cares about it,
but religious officials do (both Christian ones, and pagan ones such as
Druids and the priests of the Norse lands), and the lords of the various
lands also do. This can (and will, at least some of the time) result in
violent conflict (as in crusades, or civil wars), but there's also a lot
of potential for doing things in another way.

As an example, Denmark was split in two after Harald Bluetooth's
conversion to Christianity, with his son Sven Forkbeard taking rulership
over the still pagan Eastern Denmark. Harald remained king of Christian
Western Denmark for some time. Then he died, and Olav Tryggveson (who in
our timeline because king of Norway) decided to go and fill the power
vacuum.

Both sides have invasion plans, but it's a major undertaking to invade
an extremely war-like nation, even if you're no less warlike yourself,

Therefore there's also a lot of covert and clandestine action going on,
among them a plan by Sven Forkbeard to muck up the economy of Western
Denmark by planting lots of false coins (coinage also being seen as
somewhat of a Christian phenomenon). There's spying. Even recruitment
(there are some extremely competent NPCs hopping around the setting, who
have no particular loyalties. Either side convincing just one of these
free agents to join up would gain a significant advantage).

Research is another possibility. Gunpowder is known, but nobody (not
even the Chinese, who are rather restrained by having been under the
same Lich Emperor for more than a thousand years) has made guns yet. So
that's a possibility. Or better gunpowder (the formula can certanly be
refined), or rockets.

There are also bunches of lost artifacts to find. One, the Raven Banner
that used to belong to the Danish royal family, is a powerful magic item
that can enhance an entire army (similar to the Ark of the Covenant,
which of course also exists within the setting, just farther to the
south). Eastern Denmark would want to get it. Not sure about Olav
Tryggveson. It's a pagan item, but he can be quite pragmatic at times.

Artifact hunting is not guaranteed to be non-violent (think Raiders of
the Lost Art, or even rather more traditional dungeon crawling), but
there's no reason to assume things will go D&D (especially since the
combat system is harsher, and magical healing is rarer, both of which
serve to discourage frivolous combat[1]).

Magical research is also a possibility, as in inventing better spells
(or, rather easier, variants of existing spells better suited for
whatever it is you want to accomplish). Also, all the magical artifacts
of the setting can be reproduced, by characters who have the right
skills, but to Enchant items you must expend Essence, a personal and
non-reneable ressource, which means that doing it for a cause will
involve lots of roleplaying and angst ("Should I? I don't like this new
Southern religion one bit, sure, but is it really worth it, making an
army-boosting item? Isn't my precious Essence better spent on making a
Focus, to enhance my own spellcasting prowess?").

Elsewhere, there are also plenty of issues to deal with, one example
being the Iberian Caliphate's ban on wine imports, in spite of the fact
that there are lots of thirsty Christians and Jews living within the
Caliphate. The French nobility are unhappy about that, and so would be
open-minded about funding a diplomatic expedition, sent to the Caliphate
to resolve the problem.

And in Rome, the Pope and his Curia are debating a new concept, somewhat
similar to the Moslem notion of Jihad. They don't like it much, but the
idea that it is necessary (i.e. to free Jerusalam from the infidels) is
gaining a foothold.


[1] I believe it was in a review of Riddle of Steel that I read it,
although I had similar ideas before (just not verbalized). When the
combat system is extremely lethal, characters will avoid fighting,
except when the fight is about something they really *care* about.

[Erol K. Bayburt]

On Thu, 01 Sep 2005 13:16:50 +0200, "Peter Knutsen (usenet)"

Post by Peter Knutsen (usenet)
[1] I believe it was in a review of Riddle of Steel that I read it,
although I had similar ideas before (just not verbalized). When the
combat system is extremely lethal, characters will avoid fighting,
except when the fight is about something they really *care* about.

I strongly suspect that "Make combat highly dangerous so as to
discourage it" is one of those ideas fraught with unintended
consequences, like making a game treasure-poor in order to
de-emphasize treasure. [1]

There's a big risk that "combat is dangerous" will make combat
super-important to the characters, and cause them to obsessively
scrounge for every scrap of combat advantage they can get.

There will also be pressure to modify the rules so as to make combat
less lethal: E.g. the "maximum hitpoints at 1st level" and "-10 death
threshold" didn't exist in the original D&D rules. At first they were
house rules, produced from the pressure to make (low level) combat
less lethal - and now they are Official.

Also, in a low-combat game, I'd expect *non lethal* combat to be
relatively more common. E.g. in an "Arabian Nights Sultan's Harem"
game, I'd expect more hair-pulling catfights and fewer cases of
eunuch's hacking people to death with their scimitars than would be
seen in a typical dungeon crawl. An extremely lethal combat system
cuts against this.

IMO, the way to de-emphasize combat is to make it less rewarding,
rather than more lethal. A large part of this means getting everyone
(players and GM both) to buy in to the idea of combat as a
low-priority option, since the chance to vicariously experience
successful combat is a major reason *why* many people game.

[1] We've clashed before over your "essence" system for permanent
magic. I still think it's screwy, but at least obsession over magic
items is something you're deliberately designing for, rather than
something that will bite you in the ass when you were expecting the
opposite.

[DougL]

Erol K. Bayburt wrote:

[SNIP]

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
IMO, the way to de-emphasize combat is to make it less rewarding,
rather than more lethal. A large part of this means getting everyone
(players and GM both) to buy in to the idea of combat as a
low-priority option, since the chance to vicariously experience
successful combat is a major reason *why* many people game.

I agree in general. Systems where loot from combat is a
negligable source of income help a lot; few magic items
(or easy item manufacture so the items are cheap) helps
here; as does custom fiting required for armor; armor
and gear being damaged by combat; non-adventuring sources
of income or income for adventures in the form of rewards
paid for solving the problem rather than loot taken off
dead enemies. It's not hard to divorce all in game rewards
from combat.

If replacements for lost or damaged gear and the cost
of living expenses routinely excede the likely loot based
income fighting gets a lot less attractive.

Nor does loot driven match well with story or myth:
Beowolf got nothing directly off Grendal or his mother
that I remember; Arthur got his income the old fasion
way, from the peasants in taxes; Arthur's knights got
their incomes largely from Arthur or from their own
holdings; even Robin Hood fought almost exclusively for
reasons other than profit, his robberies were themselves
almost always non-violent.

IMAO combat also being more lethal DOES help: but only if
the PCs can plausibly avoid combat!

The last high lethality combat game I ran with non-combat
rewards and challenges saw the PCs steadily migrating toward
more diplomacy skills, while letting combat slide to the point
of not bothering with any combat equipment upgrades even when
such were easily available and they were told they needed
them. They were staying alive by not fighting, so preparing
for fights was seen as not contributing at all.

DougL

[r***@adres.nl]

Post by DougL
IMAO combat also being more lethal DOES help: but only if
the PCs can plausibly avoid combat!
The last high lethality combat game I ran with non-combat
rewards and challenges saw the PCs steadily migrating toward
more diplomacy skills, while letting combat slide to the point
of not bothering with any combat equipment upgrades even when
such were easily available and they were told they needed
them. They were staying alive by not fighting, so preparing
for fights was seen as not contributing at all.

I'm trying to figure out a range of conflicts without violence that
would be more interesting than violence. Genre plays a big role. Lots
of people enjoyed watching "To Kill a Mockingbird," but there was never
a possibility that it would turn into "High Noon."

I think I might need a system (possibly FUDGE or FATE based) wherein
combat is trivial and lethal, but in order to start it up, you need to
roll to overcome your inhibitions, your social embarrassment, your bad
luck -- in effect, give civilized society lots of circumstantial dice
that prevent violence from starting.

I think Star Trek might be the wrong system. I might rip off that
emotional aspects of Buffy/Angel, which I really like, and if possible
I'd like to look into shoujo manga systems -- which might need to be
patched to avoid violence.

I want to avoid giving "screen time" to violence. I've made fantasy
worlds in which gunpowder just doesn't work -- there's too much magic.
I could make fantasy worlds in which violence just doesn't get into the
storyline -- there's too much other stuff. But I have to figure out
what "other stuff" to use and how to use it.

[Neelakantan Krishnaswami]

Post by r***@adres.nl
I think TV or movies would be excellent candidates for defining the
game genre. Unfortunately I am almost entirely ignorant of both, and
so I can't make many suggestions...
...except to say that "To Kill a Mockingbird -- the RPG" would be
doomed to failure. Even if it had a black-and-white movie still of
Atticus Finch shooting a rabid dog on the cover.
But there's no way to avoid conflict entirely. No conflict, no
struggle. No struggle, no obstacles. No obstacles, no work. No work,
no fun.

Expand upon this thought. What you need is:

1. Some protagonists who want X, right now.
2. Some antagonists who want Y, right now.
3. X and Y are incompatible.
4. Some reason that neither the protagonists nor the antagonists
can easily give up on X or Y.
5. The protagonists need some effective action they can take to
get what they want.
6. The antagonists need some effective action they can take to
get what they want.

1-4 give you the conflict. For a "non-violent" game, the things the
protagonists and antagonists can do to effect meaningful change needs
to be something other than shooting people. That's all there is to it.

Well, almost all there is to it.

First, the antagonists don't have to be people -- remember Man vs.
Nature from your high school lit classes? It can be a brain tumor or
an overflowing dam. Second, the antagonist can be the protagonist, if
you want internal conflict.

Then you play, and find out what happens.

[Simon Smith]

Post by Neelakantan Krishnaswami

Post by r***@adres.nl
I think TV or movies would be excellent candidates for defining the
game genre. Unfortunately I am almost entirely ignorant of both, and
so I can't make many suggestions...
...except to say that "To Kill a Mockingbird -- the RPG" would be
doomed to failure. Even if it had a black-and-white movie still of
Atticus Finch shooting a rabid dog on the cover.
But there's no way to avoid conflict entirely. No conflict, no
struggle. No struggle, no obstacles. No obstacles, no work. No work,
no fun.

1. Some protagonists who want X, right now.
2. Some antagonists who want Y, right now.
3. X and Y are incompatible.
4. Some reason that neither the protagonists nor the antagonists
can easily give up on X or Y.
5. The protagonists need some effective action they can take to
get what they want.
6. The antagonists need some effective action they can take to
get what they want.
1-4 give you the conflict. For a "non-violent" game, the things the
protagonists and antagonists can do to effect meaningful change needs
to be something other than shooting people. That's all there is to it.
Well, almost all there is to it.
First, the antagonists don't have to be people -- remember Man vs.
Nature from your high school lit classes? It can be a brain tumor or
an overflowing dam. Second, the antagonist can be the protagonist, if
you want internal conflict.
Then you play, and find out what happens.

Yeeah... that's good in principle, but putting it into practice in most RPGs
can be difficult. Consider /why/ violence is a favoured part of most RPGs in
the first place; because you have a set of reasonably-detailed mechanics,
the possibility to perform trick manoeuvers, stunts, critical hits and so
on. When done well, it's 1) exciting, 2) tactically challenging, 3)
entertaining, 4) takes a reasonable amount of time (not too short, but also
not too long), 5) and has a sharply-defined endpoint at which you know you
can stop.

Much out-of-combat conflict resolution can be done by a couple of skill
rolls. You roll your Negotiation skill, so too does your opponent, and the
best roll wins. Presto, two days' of challenging conflict (from the
character's point of view) compressed into a few seconds. Combat dominates
RPGs because it's harder to compress. It's harder to compress because if a
duel to the death was represented as opposed rolls using the Swordfighting
skill, a character could live or die as the result of a few seconds of
die-rolling. Not 1), not 2), not 3), not 4), just 5). That's not very
emotionally satisfying.

Conversely, not 1), not 2), not 3), not 4), just 5) is the ground state for
out-of-combat activity, so the players' (and GMs') tendency to gravitate to
combat is understandable.

To make a non-violent game work, you've got to make non-combat skill
interaction more interesting relative to combat. So it's often not enough to
beef up the interaction rules; there's a lot to be said for abstracting
combat at the same time. Then the players have a disincentive to use combat
as well as positive incentives to use non-combat means.

Game mechanics are a crutch for roleplaying. In combat, the mechanics are
more important, the roleplaying less so. Out of combat, the reverse is true.
It's necessary to make out-of-combat conflict resolution more mechanically
sophisticated, 1) so that there are tactical choices the players need to
make, 2) so that it takes a reasonable amount of time to resolve rather than
being over in seconds, 3) so that a character's interaction skills (Bargain,
Diplomacy et al) actually have a bearing on the outcome rather than it being
entirely down to the roleplaying and interaction skills of the player.
However, it's important to ensure that the player has to do /some/
roleplaying; how much weight to apply to player skills over character skills
is a tricky question, and varies from group to group, and from one game to
another. If the player's not prepared to roleplay it, you might as well just
use opposed skill rolls.

This of course is why non-violent conflict resolution tends to play second
fiddle to good old violence; making the former a workable part of any RPG is
difficult to achieve. Making it interesting enough to succeed as the
/dominant/ part of the game is even harder.

[Hendrik Belitz]

Post by Simon Smith
This of course is why non-violent conflict resolution tends to play second
fiddle to good old violence; making the former a workable part of any RPG
is difficult to achieve. Making it interesting enough to succeed as the
/dominant/ part of the game is even harder.

I think most narrative RPGs and also HeroQuest are good examples to show
that these statements are exact. Gamistic System tend to rely heavily on
violence, but if you don't have to support "Kill foe, get gold, buy magic
sword" stuff, doing a non-violent system is as easy as creating a violent
one. Designing non-violent RPGs requires usage of different approaches.
Like Ron Edwards said a couple of years before: System does matter!

You can't make interessting non-violent campaigns by using Dungeons &
Dragons. But you can do that using Prime Time Adventures. And resolving a
philosophical debate in HeroQuest can be as much fun as resolving a duel
with greataxes.

Just my two cents on this...

[r***@adres.nl]

Post by Hendrik Belitz
You can't make interessting non-violent campaigns by using Dungeons &
Dragons. But you can do that using Prime Time Adventures. And resolving a
philosophical debate in HeroQuest can be as much fun as resolving a duel
with greataxes.

My friends and I tend to have enjoyable philosophical debates all the
time, so there's no need to put it into the games as well, IMHO.

Prime Time Adventures is another system that I need to see -- I suspect
that it would have a lot of useful input.

[r***@adres.nl]

Post by Simon Smith

Post by Neelakantan Krishnaswami
First, the antagonists don't have to be people -- remember Man vs.
Nature from your high school lit classes? It can be a brain tumor or
an overflowing dam. Second, the antagonist can be the protagonist, if
you want internal conflict.

Neelakantan has a key point here, that I often forget: I want to get
more non-punchable antagonists. I've never been good at giving foes
that can't be killed. Some of my friends, on the other hand, ran
really exciting adventures where the party was the crew of a ship in a
storm. There were no monsters. There was no one to punch. We all
just had to cooperate and try our hardest to survive.

Good point, I have to work on that.

Post by Simon Smith

Post by Neelakantan Krishnaswami
Then you play, and find out what happens.

Yeeah... that's good in principle, but putting it into practice in most RPGs
can be difficult. Consider /why/ violence is a favoured part of most RPGs in
the first place; because you have a set of reasonably-detailed mechanics,
the possibility to perform trick manoeuvers, stunts, critical hits and so
on. When done well, it's 1) exciting, 2) tactically challenging, 3)
entertaining, 4) takes a reasonable amount of time (not too short, but also
not too long), 5) and has a sharply-defined endpoint at which you know you
can stop.

And Simon raises the second good point here. I love mechanics. I love
having that crutch. I can tell a thousand stories in a split second if
I have a handful of dice to prime the pump of imagination. If I'm
trying to story-tell in a totally free-form way, I have a lot more
trouble.

Post by Simon Smith
Game mechanics are a crutch for roleplaying. In combat, the mechanics are
more important, the roleplaying less so. Out of combat, the reverse is true.
It's necessary to make out-of-combat conflict resolution more mechanically
sophisticated, 1) so that there are tactical choices the players need to
make, 2) so that it takes a reasonable amount of time to resolve rather than
being over in seconds, 3) so that a character's interaction skills (Bargain,
Diplomacy et al) actually have a bearing on the outcome rather than it being
entirely down to the roleplaying and interaction skills of the player.

There's another point I don't anyone has mentioned yet: combat is
generic, but other skills are very setting-specific.

A shoujo-manga game might have rules for looking cute when crying "I'm
late" and running out of your parents' Tokyo house with a piece of
toast in your mouth.

A surgery-based game would have mechanics for scrubbing in to surgery
properly.

A courtroom-drama game would have brief-preparation rules, snappy
dressing for courtroom appearance rules, etc.

Post by Simon Smith
From what I recall, Prime Time Adventures doesn't give a lot of

specifics. I need to find a copy of that, and Heart Quest if possible.

[Peter Knutsen (usenet)]

Post by r***@adres.nl
I normally nudge games toward gritty violence. This is sometimes a
problem for players who like bloodless, glorious fantasy violence,
somewhat like the 80's film version of Flash Gordon.
These players often tell me that the point of role-playing games is to
play *character*, not to wallow in gore.
Well, I'm game. I have no problem playing absolutely non-violent
types, like Gandhi and so on. But I'd like a system or setting that is
really appropriate.
D&D is well-suited to lots of violence. So is Shadowrun, Traveller,
the new and old Worlds of Darkness, and just about everything else I
can think of except perhaps Amber Diceless. (I've never played
"Bunnies and Burrows," but it might qualify as non-violent. And
Traveller can be twisted in a non-violent game of engineering and
travel, although most players will get bored and demand the opportunity
to kill something.)

[...]

Part of the reason why players so often gravitate towards violent
conflict while disliking other conflict-types, in roleplaying gaming, is
that they have no experience with - or expectation of - being able to
win decisively over their foes outside of the violence arena.

If you fight an enemy, physically, you can literally kill him. He'd
dead. Gone. You've won. You've *inarguably* won.

There is almost never analogies to such a decisive and unquestionable
victory in other types of conflict. You can score "points", figuratively
speaking, ruining your enemy financially, or burdening him with an
extremely disfavourable reputation. But first of all that is difficult
to achieve. Many GMs will tend to look at the enemy's character sheet,
and see the trait Very Wealthy listed on it, and therefore conclude that
not only is he rich at that particular moment, but that there must be
(or ought to be) some force that keeps him rich - so that he cannot
actually be ruined (for more than a few hours, or at most a few weeks).
As for reputations, many GMs fall into the trap of binarism, thinking
only in terms of either/or. Either a character has a reputation, or he
hasn't, and obviously is is exceedingly difficult to immediately inflict
a starkly bad reputation on a man who previously had none. They
completely fail to contemplate the possibility that any and all
reputations have magnitudes, which is bad, because once reputation
magnitudes are used by the GM, it becomes possible for the PCs to
gradually add to the disfavourable reputation of their enemy (each
increase being more difficult to achieve than the former, of course).

Secondly, it is far too easy for the GM to bring such a defeated enemy
back, because he can just fiat that the enemy somehow regains his
wealth, or changes identity (reputations should obviously stick to
identities, not to individuals, as Peter Parker/Spiderman is a fine
example of), or pulls of a massively succesful PR campaign. Doing that
in a rules-free manner, by decree, the GM is able to bypass all the
difficulties (including monetary cost and time expenditure) that such a
maneuver usually entails, and just declare that it has happened.

Outside of fantasy or ultra-tech campaigns where resurrection is
possible, violent victory differs, in that dead means dead, to the point
where if the enemy returns from the grave, the players can justifiably
draw their guns and shoot the GM for being a filthy, cheating bastard.


The solution is to strive towards creating a campaign (both in terms of
rules selection, creation or modification, and in terms of world design
- making sure that all the world's social structures are realistic, so
that rumours and reputations propagate correctly, and so that the
economy can be worked with, and so forth) in which these problems are
minimized, so that the player's longstanding habit of gravitating
towards violent conflict is mitigated. Don't expect instant miracles.
The players in your campaign are coming to it with long ingrained
habits. They'll need time to learn that your campaign is different, more
realistic, better.

And of course a core lesson is that players do not want to play the GM.
They do not want to play you, or play me. They want to play the *game*.

Playing the game means that the rules are used, and that dice are rolled
frequently, so that that which affects the world are the abilities and
ambitions of the PCs, rather than the *opinion* of whatever random
person (e.g. you or me) sits behind the GM's screen. Therefore you must
change the resolution of nonviolent conflicts so that the procedure
becomes much more similar to the resolution of violent conflicts.


As for systems, I'll naturally point at my own still-in-development:
Sagatafl. It's a question of having a good skill roll mechanic, a good
Task roll mechanic (e.g. for engineering and research, which you have
expressed an interst in), and subsystems for things such as how
Reputations and Popularities change (these don't even have to be
complicated - they just have to be there, and subsequently *be* *used*
(which of course requires that they aren't so cumbersome that the GM
gets lazy, or difficult to internalize so that the GM gets it wrong or
decides to commit fudge instead)).

[Bradd W. Szonye]

Post by Peter Knutsen (usenet)
If you fight an enemy, physically, you can literally kill him. He'd
dead. Gone. You've won. You've *inarguably* won.
There is almost never analogies to such a decisive and unquestionable
victory in other types of conflict. You can score "points", figuratively
speaking, ruining your enemy financially, or burdening him with an
extremely disfavourable reputation ....

Hm, maybe game designers should watch more French drama? Period pieces
like "Ridicule" and "Dangerous Liaisons"[1] show how devastating social
conflict can be. For contemporary settings, see "White" (the middle
volume of the "Three Colors" trilogy[2]) or "Romance" (which is violent,
but not in the same manner as most RPGs).

It's true that non-violent victories aren't as final as death; indeed,
most of the films above feature revenge stories, where one character
solidly loses a social battle but later wins the war. Violent conflicts
often work out the same way, though. Killing a villain won't keep his
allies and admirers from seeking revenge; often, the opposite is true.

One problem with emulating this kind of social conflict is that much of
its appeal is in the details, the clever strategies, and the
role-playing. I don't think that lends itself as well to game mechanics
as tactical combat does.

[1] I've only seen the American production, but it's still a good
example of the genre.
[2] This film is also not-exactly-French, but close enough.

[al]

Post by r***@adres.nl
These players often tell me that the point of role-playing games is to
play *character*, not to wallow in gore.
Well, I'm game. I have no problem playing absolutely non-violent
types, like Gandhi and so on. But I'd like a system or setting that is
really appropriate.

A good compromise would be HARP or Rolemaster (from ICE) in which
combat is very deadly and a thing to be used only when necessary.

Experience is based on goals not body count, characters have a
past, and don't start out as cookie cutter archetypes.
Character development is very flexible so you can make the kind
of character you want. (without 15 million badly written
prestige classes)

Rolemaster is a rule for everything game and fairly rules heavy.
HARP is rules light, with simple methods of resolution, but both
share the character over bloodletting bent.