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Design a Combat-less RPG
shutz
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
One of my goals in life is to try to come up with original ideas for games, so that we never have to be stuck playing games that are just prettier versions of previous games. So I like to challenge myself to come up with particularly different game ideas. Here's one I'd like the people on this forum to try to answer:
Your assignment: design a combat-less RPG.
Details:
Come up with a setting, main character, and goal for that character, in a game that plays like a role-playing game, but offer other means of making the game compelling and exciting than the now-common combat mechanics in most RPGs.
You must find a way to replace combat with something more than a simple substitution. For example, the first PC adaptation of the game Magic: The Gathering included a gameplay mode that played as an RPG, where the combat was replaced with Magic card duels. To me, this still counts as combat.
I would also say that scripted, linear and repetitive action sequences found in many recent RPGs aren't a good substitute either, as they wouldn't work if they had to be played in place of every place where a battle would otherwise have occurred.
I'm looking for the most original and compelling ideas you can come up with. Describe a game YOU would want to play, and hopefully, it'll be a game I will also want to play.
I'll drop by, from time to time, to comment, and hopefully, to come up with my own answer to this challenge. I'm really curious to see what some of you are going to come up with.
Don't be afraid to post multiple ideas, if you have them.
Note: I've also posted this challenge on my blog (URL in my sig) and I hope some of you will be interested in pasting your ideas in the comments there as well. Yes, I'm trying to drive traffic to my blog, but it's not for money (I don't have any ads) I'm just trying to build a community of people who like coming up with original game ideas, and discussing those ideas. Mods, if this last paragraph offends you, just ask, I'll edit it out.
Now, everybody, get designin' !
Your assignment: design a combat-less RPG.
Details:
Come up with a setting, main character, and goal for that character, in a game that plays like a role-playing game, but offer other means of making the game compelling and exciting than the now-common combat mechanics in most RPGs.
You must find a way to replace combat with something more than a simple substitution. For example, the first PC adaptation of the game Magic: The Gathering included a gameplay mode that played as an RPG, where the combat was replaced with Magic card duels. To me, this still counts as combat.
I would also say that scripted, linear and repetitive action sequences found in many recent RPGs aren't a good substitute either, as they wouldn't work if they had to be played in place of every place where a battle would otherwise have occurred.
I'm looking for the most original and compelling ideas you can come up with. Describe a game YOU would want to play, and hopefully, it'll be a game I will also want to play.
I'll drop by, from time to time, to comment, and hopefully, to come up with my own answer to this challenge. I'm really curious to see what some of you are going to come up with.
Don't be afraid to post multiple ideas, if you have them.
Note: I've also posted this challenge on my blog (URL in my sig) and I hope some of you will be interested in pasting your ideas in the comments there as well. Yes, I'm trying to drive traffic to my blog, but it's not for money (I don't have any ads) I'm just trying to build a community of people who like coming up with original game ideas, and discussing those ideas. Mods, if this last paragraph offends you, just ask, I'll edit it out.
Now, everybody, get designin' !
Creativity begets criticism.
Check out my new blog: http://50wordstories.ca
Also check out my old game design blog: http://stealmygamedesigns.blogspot.com
Check out my new blog: http://50wordstories.ca
Also check out my old game design blog: http://stealmygamedesigns.blogspot.com
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For a strategy game that had no combat, see the PC game 'A Force More Powerful.'
EDIT: For a semi-serious answer, would you have a problem if the point of my made-up RPG centered around evading combat? Like Pac-Man evading the ghosts, you could make a RPG where you gain points by evading attacks and spend those points on better evasion techniques. Think Symphony of the Night but you're not attacking but only dodging. Would that still be combat?
EDIT: #2 Ooh, stealth game with strong RPG elements might fit this better. This is tricky because, in my mind, if you focus on collecting and stat boosting, you immediately turn your game into a management sim and not an RPG. What's the difference between Railroad Tycoon and Final Fantasy 6?
Not only is it an RPG that has no combat, but it's got combat, too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_River_King
since I doubt anyone is going to come up with a design doc for you to use yourself anytime soon
The first Fallout could be done without any combat. Fallout 2 forced you into it at a few points, though.
And the only part that would force you to do combat in FO2, as far as I can tell, would be the President part. I'm pretty sure I tried every conversation option, but who knows.
There might be a few side-story parts that are combat only, but you can just avoid those since none of them are part of the actual save your family and get E.D.E.N storyline.
Half a dozen cardpgs
Harvest Moon
Animal Crossing
At least when you compare fighting to things like debate, conversation, and manners.
Fighting reduces things to simple boolean values, like alive/dead and friend/foe.
Now hold on, is the OP restricting physical combat or all contention? Because it seems to me all fables and fairy tales have a brains-beating-brawn gooey center to them. I mean, trickery and clever dealings can be quantified in meters, too, as easily as fighting stats. Convincing an enemy to join your side? Watch how the convince-o-meter at the bottom of the screen reacts to your dialogue choices.
When your father first saw you, he must have been mortified
League of Legends (your friendly neighborhood support): PAPRPL8
I'm not saying it's impossible to get closer to the real thing, it's just that designers are reluctant to put enough time into it.
(Those weren't Lucas were they? I didn't keep up with companies and shit back then, sorry)
I don't know how I could prove it for you, other than to say I'm not even currently employed in the Games industry, nor am I studying the subject in any sort of school.
If you check out my blog (I know, I know site whoring... but I really do believe this could be a valid discussion here...) you'll see that I regularly post ideas and concepts for games that I believe to be pretty creative and original.
This is just my attempt to trigger discussion and thought about ways to turn common game ideas on their heads and see if any interesting games might come out.
I actually agree that if you take almost any existing RPG, and remove all combat, you're left with what amounts to a good 'ol adventure game à la Lucasarts/Sierra. Which is why I'm trying to see if there's anything we could add back into the mix that would be really different from combat, but would still fit within the narrative and be more than just a "contest between enemies". So if your idea consists of:
1- encounter an enemy
2- pull out a chess/checkers/go/Monopoly game and duke it out that way instead of fighting
...well, I don't see that as much of a change (well, the Monopoly thing might be intriguing... maybe...)
I'm trying to (and encouraging you all to) think about other ways of making RPGs interesting, apart from combat.
Some of you might have played pen & paper RPGs: try to think of any adventures you had which did not involve any combat which were still fun, perhaps.
Also, I don't mind hearing about existing games that already seem to fill my requirements. But try to justify yourself. For example, from what I know about "A Tale in the Desert" (as I've never played it) it kind of replaced combat with more crafting, and eventually, conflict came from economic forces? Am I right there? That's intriguing, but I wonder if the game could still be called an RPG...
For that matter, when you take combat out of an RPG (and put something else in), are you still left with an RPG, or do you now have an entirely different genre? That's the kind of debate I'd like to see here.
Check out my new blog: http://50wordstories.ca
Also check out my old game design blog: http://stealmygamedesigns.blogspot.com
Harvest Moon?
Is there anything like this for PC?
Also, define combat. Say you have a game where you pit your team of sports players against other teams over multiple seasons, with advancement coming in the form of increased budgets and better draft picks when you do well. Such a game is certainly an RPG, but would you consider it to contain a form of combat, since you have to defeat foes to advance?
Any RPG with a combat focus ends up becoming a combat sim, too. It's arguable that RPGs and simulations are actually the same genre.
touche. So can we design a sim without simulation?
This is kind of irrelevent. Fighting is useful and simplifies things, but the point is to make an RPG not predicated on these things. I think that's entirely doable.
An RPG without combat? Simply an RPG with different skills that are used in checks to perform goals that aren't related to fighting. You might come upon a gateway on the side of a hill. If your character is strong enough, he can knock it down. If he's good at climbing, he can climb over, and if he's skilled at lock picking, he can pick the lock. An adventure game would do this by having you acquire a key, a ram, or a rope at some point. Instead you would design a character and attempt to overcome social and environmental problems.
That seems to fit the bill the most for me anyway. It makes me think of GURPS as a pnp, or fallout as a game. There is plenty of game in both without even brining stabbing into the mix, and whether the game pigeonholes you into it doesn't void the ideas it represents where you have repair skills and first aid skills and barter skills that you use to interact with.
Unless you're talking about an RPG without violence, in which case you're opening it up to way, way more possibilities, and you'd just have to remove the gun from my detective RPG to make it fit the criteria.
I could be pedantic and say:
a) there must be some kind of role-playing involved
b) it must be a game.
But that wouldn't be very helpful.
What is a role-playing game?
For one thing, the player needs to have a role assigned to him or her. The player then needs to be placed in some sort of situation that requires that player act and react according to the assigned role. (I need to put in that last bit, otherwise almost any old action game could fit.)
In general, a role-playing game tends to be about placing the player/character in a specific situation and environment, and then provide an abstracted level of interaction with that situation and environment.
What I mean is, in an action game, you tend to interact directly: see a door, open it. See a giant bug? Hit it until it dies. Whereas RPGs (except for action-RPGs, such as the Zelda games, or, say, Secret of Mana) tend to add a level of abstraction where you decide on an action, and an arbitrary set of rules determines the consequences.
So that the mechanics of combat could be mapped to other actions that a player would take in a game.
For example, think of an RPG where you're a politician. You have to manipulate public opinion in your favor, you accumulate facts, you decide which ones to say, which ones to distort, and what lies to say. Then the game system crunches some numbers and then spits out the results of the latest opinion poll, along with new headlines (including some surprise events, such as, say, a school shooting, or a successful Space Shuttle mission.)
Same thing could be done with a Lawyer RPG. (I haven't played any of the Phoenix Wright games yet... I only just got Puzzle Quest, give me a break!) Arguments and counter-arguments, you decide which points to bring up, what evidence to use, how to phrase your arguments for maximum impact...
Also, people keep mentioning Harvest Moon: I admit I haven't played that either. I'll have to check it out soon. But if the game has enough of a role-playing component, I guess it could fit.
Check out my new blog: http://50wordstories.ca
Also check out my old game design blog: http://stealmygamedesigns.blogspot.com
I wonder, though: in what way would your game be any different from the old point and click adventure game "Déjà Vu" ?
I think we're trying to figure out what to put back into an RPG once the standard kind of combat has been removed, since a standard RPG with combat removed basically turns into an adventure game.
I guess there needs to be some kind of growth for the character (this need not be stats growth.)
I had a discussion recently with someone where a character's "growth" in the game was based on how many secrets he knew about the other characters, meaning that the more dirt you have on your "opponents", the higher you are in the sociopath ladder.
So maybe you're a PI who, as a sideline, collects secrets. Think about that for a bit. I think this could be an interesting game, if played in a detailed sandbox-style environment.
Check out my new blog: http://50wordstories.ca
Also check out my old game design blog: http://stealmygamedesigns.blogspot.com
You can factor a lot of RPG gameplay elements into it, and there's nothing that prevents it from being plot-driven rather than sandbox. It'd be much, much easier and more engrossing if there was a central story that you were working with, and even then you can have freeform elements. Think Fallout 2, how much there was to do in that game even though there was a clear-cut goal and plot.
Pure sandbox would be impossible to make things like this engrossing. Witness the Diplomacy system in Vanguard: there are plenty of unique conversations that are well-written, but by the time you've done a few dozen parleys you see repeats, and after maybe 50 you just stop reading them altogether and focus on the card game unless you're doing a "plot" parley.
A detective RPG could be combatless and could be done in the vein of Fallout or PS:T or any other story-driven RPG.
It sounds to me like you're defining an RPG in such a way that includes combat, and then trying to make us design an RPG by that definition without it. Which is clearly just silly. An RPG without combat does not suddenly become an adventure game.
So you're saying that a roleplaying game is partly defined by the player not directly playing a role, but directing the actions of others? Except of course for action-RPGs, which are almost completely like non-RPGs except that they're RPGs instead.