FMguru posted:

Fiasco is another RPG where combat doesn't get its own system.

slap me and kiss me posted:

Let Thrones Beware is explicitly this, but it is ... not finished.

PerniciousKnid posted:

Just to be clear, I was asking specifically about tactical social combat, not just games with universal conflict resolution.
This sounds really interesting, thanks.

CitizenKeen posted:

What are some role playing games with good, board gamey mini games that aren't combat? Shardix's mentality is similar to my own, but also, for most games, combat is the part that's the crunchy, interactive, gamey part. Which is the part I want.

Ars Magicka is a little too solitaire. Red Markets is a little too depressing. Even optimistic, relationship-centered, narrative games like Flying Circus put the game in the combat.

What's a good, crunchy game where the meatiest chapter is for something other than fighting?

Vadun posted:

Pendragons 'Book of Feasts' is a fantastic supplement about throwing lavish parties, with modifiers for varying levels of drunkenness, what offends hosts and your lord, etc.

Arivia posted:

In all honesty, I'd look at Pathfinder 2e, which has really strong involved skill rules and subsystems built off of them. This is the big subsystems chapter http://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1187

Leraika posted:

Ryuutama?

Asterite34 posted:

Well that brings up the hypothetical: What situations and kinds of stories lend themselves to the traditional RPG mold (a party of differently classed specialists overcoming challenges with discrete moves and skills and attributes) but which would usually involve no physical combat of any sort?

Asterite34 posted:

Well that brings up the hypothetical: What situations and kinds of stories lend themselves to the traditional RPG mold (a party of differently classed specialists overcoming challenges with discrete moves and skills and attributes) but which would usually involve no physical combat of any sort?

CitizenKeen posted:

That's an excellent point.

I would love a game about hacking, that's reasonably crunchy. And "hacking" often is just "virtual combat", but I'd love a game where you're hackers, because encounter could fail. And instead of dying, it becomes another kind of scene. Now you've got to beat feet before private security forces show up, because they'll throw you in a hole, at best. You can do that with most cyberpunk games, but cyberpunk games should allow everybody to participate in hacking, just like most games allow everybody to participate in fighting.

Asterite34 posted:

fake edit: Maybe a collaborative art form like filmmaking? Classes include Director, Screenwriter, Producer, Leading Man, that kinda thing.

CitizenKeen posted:

That's an excellent point.

I would love a game about hacking, that's reasonably crunchy. And "hacking" often is just "virtual combat", but I'd love a game where you're hackers, because encounter could fail. And instead of dying, it becomes another kind of scene. Now you've got to beat feet before private security forces show up, because they'll throw you in a hole, at best. You can do that with most cyberpunk games, but cyberpunk games should allow everybody to participate in hacking, just like most games allow everybody to participate in fighting.

theironjef posted:

At a certain point just about any complex social mechanics just resemble combat mechanics with different nouns. All "I'll launch a probing thrust of questions against his stonewall defense method. Two points of social damage and he's stammering (save ends)."

CitizenKeen posted:

You're not wrong.

We currently have a paradigm where the group is trying to get into a room, but two guards stand in the way.

1. "I'll attack the guards." --> Break out the mini-game.
   
2. "I'll try and convince them to let me pass." --> Engage core mechanic, roll a die, you're done, moving on.

I just wonder, wouldn't it be nice to have a paradigm:

1. "I'll attack the guards." --> Engage core mechanic, roll a die, you're done, moving on.
   
2. "I'll try and convince them to let me pass." --> Break out the mini-game.

Or at least one game where that was the way it worked. Then, the fun way to play the game is to parley, negotiate, and threaten, as opposed to stabbing people in the neck.

CitizenKeen posted:

You're not wrong.

We currently have a paradigm where the group is trying to get into a room, but two guards stand in the way.

1. "I'll attack the guards." --> Break out the mini-game.
   
2. "I'll try and convince them to let me pass." --> Engage core mechanic, roll a die, you're done, moving on.

I just wonder, wouldn't it be nice to have a paradigm:

1. "I'll attack the guards." --> Engage core mechanic, roll a die, you're done, moving on.
   
2. "I'll try and convince them to let me pass." --> Break out the mini-game.

Or at least one game where that was the way it worked. Then, the fun way to play the game is to parley, negotiate, and threaten, as opposed to stabbing people in the neck.

Hel posted:

I think partially that the problem is that currently every other systems failstate can be converted to combat. Having increased level of complexity works well there were if you succeed you don't bring out the combat map, but if you sweet talk them you skip that. It also means that trying diplomacy has almost no out of game cost, but in the other way bringing out the diplomacy map and failing kinda sucks, when you then have to clean up the table for a simple roll.

Wanderhome posted:

Unsheathe your blade and immediately kill the person in front of you. Then, remove your character from the game. You cannot play them any longer

Tulip posted:

To my own mind, part of why you don't see high-crunch non-combat games is that the main other 'thing' people want to do for RPGs tend to be social stuff, and the basic human default level of social capability is orders of magnitude beyond their ability to fight with any skill, plus playing the game is its own set of social maneuvers, that high levels of crunch feels kind of silly. "Playing an RPG" is already performative, so adding mechanics that do much more than keep the ball rolling or keep things on topic feels like a skateboarding competition where the boarder has to dismount and fill out paperwork after each trick.

Asterite34 posted:

This feels like the issue, we're barking up the wrong tree trying to replace highly gamefied combat with highly gameified social interaction. It's a cliché that D&D players are socially awkward, but even the most catpiss of neckbeards is probably better at socializing than they are swinging a sword or throwing a fireball.

The trick here is to find something that, like combat, is a highly complex thing with lots of dynamic interactions and customization and flourish that is esoteric enough as an IRL skill that it requires special rules to model in an interesting way.

Leperflesh posted:

As we all know, roleplaying game combat originated from tabletop miniature wargames, Gygax's shadow still looms large, and while there are RPGs that don't use minis/grid, the "puzzle" part of combat generally still sticks to mechanisms familiar to wargamers: opposed abilities, chances to succeed or fail at attempts to hinder/injure/kill individuals or groups, maneuver, terrain and cover, morale, and so forth.

But there are tabletop and board games that aren't about combat. Why can't any of them serve as models for noncombat crunch? For example, a worker placement boardgame with lots of depth can serve as a structural model for any RPG subsystem in which limited resources and limited capacities for tasks are engaged with, and both cooperative and adversarial modes are available. Let's use the previous suggestion of cyber hacking; multiple hackers working from their terminals have limited attention or system resources to apply to multiple tasks, each of which can be saturated to a point where additional player resources can't be effectively applied; we model this by using worker-placement mechanics, and can add depth with complexities typical of such games - some tasks have more or fewer workers possible, some achievements give you more workers, some actively hinder your allies but roll dice that could give you a big boost, the situation may shift each round, etc.

One aspect of playing an RPG with crunchy combat rules that differentiates it from a typical boardgame or tabletop battle game is that the GM is there and they (and sometimes the players) are empowered to modify, ignore, add, or replace rules as needed, ad-hoc or formally, which permits players in theory to do things with their characters in a fight that the rules didn't anticipate. To borrow a boardgame mechanism like worker-placement and "RPGify" it, I think you'd want to incorporate that as well. So rather than pulling out a literal worker-placement board game to play your hacking RPG (and why would you do that rather than just... play that boardgame), give the GM the power to make referee calls. A player says "hey, the CEO of McCorp that we're hacking is also the governor of Megatexas, right? I want to hack social media and post fake news to smear him" and the rules don't say what to do here so the GM says "Ok let's add a new custom node you can place workers in called Smear Campaign where you direct resources to social media posts alleging dirty deeds by the CEO that have been covered up."

Without having given it a ton of thought it seems like adapting noncombat board games to mechanisms for nonviolent RPG systems with heavy crunch could be a fruitful avenue to pursue?

Asterite34 posted:

This feels like the issue, we're barking up the wrong tree trying to replace highly gamefied combat with highly gameified social interaction. It's a cliché that D&D players are socially awkward, but even the most catpiss of neckbeards is probably better at socializing than they are swinging a sword or throwing a fireball.

The trick here is to find something that, like combat, is a highly complex thing with lots of dynamic interactions and customization and flourish that is esoteric enough as an IRL skill that it requires special rules to model in an interesting way.

Nessus posted:

Phoenix Wright style legal action. Your archetypes are Investigator, Attorney, Wacky Sidekick and Sorceror - pick any two!

e: Your problem with this is that you do ultimately have one guy who is Phoenix Wright and everyone else is not, and that would be a lot more stark than the fighter/wizard divide, even if being able to shout in real life would probably be a lot of fun.

Black August posted:

Congratulations after 20 years, TG.

CornHolio posted:

Is TG no longer linked to the Games forum? It looks like its gone.

Tiler Kiwi posted:

Congratulations on being top level now, trad games

CitizenKeen posted:

Tiler Kiwi posted:

Congratulations on being top level now, trad games

Nessus posted:

Phoenix Wright style legal action. Your archetypes are Investigator, Attorney, Wacky Sidekick and Sorceror - pick any two!

e: Your problem with this is that you do ultimately have one guy who is Phoenix Wright and everyone else is not, and that would be a lot more stark than the fighter/wizard divide, even if being able to shout in real life would probably be a lot of fun.

Asterite34 posted:

This feels like the issue, we're barking up the wrong tree trying to replace highly gamefied combat with highly gameified social interaction. It's a cliché that D&D players are socially awkward, but even the most catpiss of neckbeards is probably better at socializing than they are swinging a sword or throwing a fireball.

The trick here is to find something that, like combat, is a highly complex thing with lots of dynamic interactions and customization and flourish that is esoteric enough as an IRL skill that it requires special rules to model in an interesting way.