It wouldn't be to hard to fit (nonlethal) violence in. Duels of Honor could work, as well as some sort of arena for getting into the cultures (For example, a tech culture would have a arena where combat machines are made for practice).

Perhaps the civilization has, due to low growth rate, developed weapons that focus on controlling over killing. (For example, a hallucination grenade) Combat would be focused on stealth over run-n-gun.

I was thinking about something similar a while ago about an RPG with combat but in addition to the standard Health bar there is a "Rage" meter (basically how much an indivitual wants to fight). So a character will leave battle whenever either their health or their Rage reaches zero.

Rage is reduced through the following means

1. Your Health decreases or you sustain negative Status effects
2. Your opponent looks tougher than you
3. Allies get killed or flee
4. Enemy uses fear tactics or logic to scare or calm you
5. You see no real reason to fight?


Rage is increased through
1. Having good health and positive status effects
2. Weak or damaged opponent
3. Great and/or numerous allies
4. Morale boosters or the enemies tactics backfire and anger you
5. A real reason to fight
6. A high Brave score?


When Rage reaches zero
1. Most animals run away
2. Humans run or plead for mercy (with a sentient enemy)
3. Fanatics or Monsters go into berzerk mode, commit suicide or explode
4. Blonde haired prettyboys reveal that they were under mind control the whole time and offer to assist you in your quest

So hopefully, it works out that most combatants will get scared and run before their health runs out. But this only happens when they would usually get killed anyway. Also, since there are at least two ways to defeat each enemy then different rewards could be gained from each.

Anyway, I think it might add a little extra stratagy and realism.

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Original post by sunandshadow Okay, I have a dilemma. I like combat in games, especially action/arcade style combat, it's fun. But, in real life I am a pacifist, who thinks violence almost always does more harm than good (anyone remember End Goblin Genocide?). And _Xenallure_(my game design) is about teaching people good philosophy, among other things - so how can I put combat into my design in a way that is ethical?

We're in the same boat, so I think I know how you feel. Not too many months ago I was looking for a way to seriously tone down all violence in my game, chucking a lot of material or striving to reframe it as "nonlethal" (nonlethal starship combat with nukes.... uh, yeah... [wink])

I've been long concerned of what effect I'll have if I create media that becomes consumed. But one thing that I had to confront recently was the incredible personal arrogance in thinking that, by playing my game, someone is going to be taught a way to live. Typically, people turn to ideology and religion for that, not entertainment.

But what of the effect on the young, you might ask. If we don't teach them good philosophy won't they grow up to cherish violence as a superior means of problem solving? Won't they objectify the world and cause harm because of their inability to relate? I asked myself, "if this is true than how do you account for your own philosophies?" How are you so different that you like violence in video games (as a release?) but don't practice it in daily life?

One of my all time favorite games was Civilization, a game where as a kid I regularly committed virtual genocide. I loved the predatory instincts that I developed in games of Quake, and the sneaky / nasty strategic planning (not to mention joy at ruining another person's day) in Starcraft. What I became interested in as a result was not how to thrash people, but how nation-building, imperialism, military strategy and diplomacy to prevent war worked.

My point is that you can behave in an awful fashion in the virtual realm against unfeeling avatars without that leaking into your personal life. Games provide us a cost free learning space where we get to test out ideas and develop opinions. But I don't think they download entire philosophies into us (heh, yet).

So I challenge you to actually look at the philosophy you have in mind for the game, and ask yourself why it doesn't live widespread in the world. If there is an answer that would work in the real world, then there are activities in the game. Once you have your answer, build all the conflicts around THAT.

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Original post by sunandshadow I'll explain more about the game for anyone who's interested. _Xenallure_ begins with the human PC being unexpectedly pulled into a different world. (Is it the past? The future? An alternate reality?) The main activity of the game is a mix of adventure-game exploring and RPG interaction with NPCs and their problems. By doing these activities you learn about the 3 cultures in the game and how their magical, technological, and spiritual powers work. There are two sets of goals for the player to persue over the course of the plot: political goals and romantic goals. Romantic goals are simply wooing the major NPCs, and political goals are things like getting home, establishng a human settlement in this world, or becoming a member of one of the three cultures.

Politics and romance allow a lot of room for non-violent conflict. I don't see everyone's concern about a lack of content, unless they're thinking physical combat is relatively inexpensive content to provide, which isn't necessarily true given the thought people put into combat systems. Most conflicts in real life are solved without physical-violence. Perhaps emotional, but not physical. I've seen people fight over a girl, or have troubles with a significant other, or have a diplomatic war of words, or mediate groups with widely differing beliefs, etc. without things getting physically violent. Heck, there are even games where combat isn't necessary (e.g. I saw Fallout mentioned).

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So there aren't really evil villains or inhuman monsters running around the setting, and cartoony violence does't fit with the realism of romance and philosophy...

If that cartoony comment is in response to me, cartoons aren't necessarily cartoony. I don't see much TV anymore, but Batman, Gargoyles, and what I'd seen of Spiderman and Superman had a lot of non-cartoony combat (and in some cases interesting emotional conflicts as well).

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Original post by sunandshadow By doing these activities you learn about the 3 cultures in the game and how their magical, technological, and spiritual powers work.

How about using some sort of telepathy? The one whose mind is quicker and more agile will win stunning the opponent (perhaps some sort of minigame).. I guess that could work if your game already has a "spiritual side".

Argh! Combat is combat, no matter how you try to hide it. Making it clinical or cute is not really appropriate. Make it really horrible and disgusting. Make the player feel the pain the formless heap of blood and guts that used to be a man had to go through as the player mercilessly pounded on him with a sledge hammer. This way the player will know it's not really all that nice. Doesn't sound good or peace-loving? Well it shouldn't. Violence is ghastly. That was the whole point, I'd assume?

[crying] While these ramblings of mine are probably not exactly what sunandshadow was after, it's still one big mess about philosophy, ethics, and morality revolving around violence...

First off, ethics and moral are relative. A pacifist would consider killing evil regardless of situation. Making the opponents "inherently evil" doesn't mean anything in this context. Killing the ultimate bad guy is still killing. No matter how evil a man is, he is still a man. Of course, this argument is a traditional overture for applying Godwin's Law, but I'll refrain from doing that. Instead I just say that you don't remove violence by justifying it.

As for fighting against robots, animals or reanimated corpses, how can you know they are not sentient? Do they have no rights? Do they have no souls? For instance, would destroying Data (from Star Trek: Next Generation) be an evil act? After all, he is nothing but a bunch of circuits and heuristic functions. Or is he? Is he sentient? Am I a sentient being? You cannot know. The player's character can't know whether the opponent creature is sentient or not. Still he has to make the decisions.

Beating up mosters to turn them into bunnies can be seen "inherently evil" just as well. You are practically killing the monsters. What if the monster wants to continue its existance as a monster, and not a bunny? At the bunnification process, the true, monsterly mentality of the monster is utterly destroyed. On the mental level, they are different entities. Might sound like a moot point, but then again, would you like to be turned into a fluffy bunny against your will?

Non-lethal fighting is still fighting. Is it better to leave someone paralyzed for life or suffering horrible pains ever after rather than ending his pains for good with a swift blow? I have no answer for that. I would consider mental fighting (as in projecting horrifying images into each other's minds etc.) even more evil, as it blurs the participants' sense of reality and causes mental disorders.

What is my point? My point is that if you want to have violent confrontations, do not make them "less violent" or "less evil" by making them seemingly better alternatives, as that just encourages the player to fight more.

If you want to encourage the player to avoid violence, make violence actually cause mental disorders. Instead of giving the player character experience from the deaths of the enemies, take away sanity. Replace character levels with levels of different exotic mental disorders. Make these disorders very concrete: depression will cause the character to mutilate himself with sharp objects every now and then; schizophrenia will cause severe illusions that make gameplay harder; etc. No wait, sorry... That was the main idea of the unethical, immoral, and ultra-violent game I'm working on... [grin] Nevermind... Let me try again.

One of the problems with fighting in, say, rpgs, is that it is too easy and there is no consequences. You can slay dozens of enemies without getting hurt yourself. If you do get hurt, you just gulp down a few healing potions and the battle can continue. Make combat more difficult, possibly add severe penalties from getting hurt (e.g. permadeath). This way, players will consider other alternatives than just fighting everybody. If killing the opposition is easier than talking to them, why even consider talking? Then again, don't make combat next to worthless. Something most people seem to miss is the fact that the assertion "easier the dark side is, not more powerful" does not imply that the light side was more powerful than the dark side.

Also, one reason for always having to fight is the attack-on-sight-and-fight-to-the-death-mentality of most enemy creatures; making them avoid violence will help the player avoid it as well. A violent environment spawns violence. If you make the world a beautiful and peaceful place, with lots of interesting scenery to explore, the player is less inclined to fight than if facing the four horsemen of the apocalypse in the cursed shrine of eternal carnage, which seems to be a much more commonplace environment in rpgs than the aforemention peaceful place.

Actions dictated by the player can be influenced through gameplay, but a player will almost always resort to violence some of the time, even if he has to reload it every now and then. ;D

The key to encouraging pacifism is to give consequences to the players actions, not in him getting hurt (at least directly or in the short term), but to effect courses of events later in the game through his actions. A good example of having the player save someone would be having an obvious enemy traped in another room, the player would really like to kill him, but if he sits and thinks about it he can't, since he'll need his help later on to stay alive. Taking Halflife as an example, you have to save the lives of your co-workers in order to work your way through the factility. How many people actually shot the scientists and security guards who tried to help them? If the player shot the only scientist in the room, then how would he open the door with the retina scanner? Who would operate the teleporter to get him back from the Dimension of Xen? If he killed the security guards, he'd be wasting more ammo than saving, and without the extra help he would most likely start having a hell of a time later on. Whether the player goes out of his way to actually save the guard or not would depend on the complexity of the AI (even in Halflife 2 there were times i stoped caring about them because they would stand there and not follow my orders, getting minced repeatedly).

After establishing consequence, its a matter of bluring the line between good and evil, to more of a grey, no one really being good, or pure evil. So the player could be fighting for the rebels one minute, and end up defending the confederation the next (or some 3rd party group with confederation members perhalps?). The enemies of the player may defect to a 3rd organization the player would eventually work for, so the number of people he kills would directly effect the help he gets in certain situations and would effect his future efforts. This is somewhat seen in Deus Ex, where the player can play a pacifist, beating on rebels one minute and helping them the next. But other than changing a few lines of story, has absolutly no significance on the gameplays development, or the players abilities or help he recieves.

I don't really think people view combat in games as violence. It is simply an obstacle that requires some interaction to overcome. Combat is so widly used because it is something that can be repeated many times and still be interesting.

Combat is an activity that has a beginning and an end and you don't know how it is going to turn out. Also, there is a lot of strategy thoughout the course of it.

So, I dont think people see combat as hurting someone as much as it's an obstacle that is overcome. Also,it has an in-game reward attatched to it.

Could you use a strong legal system. There are obviously many other reasons why people don't start fights at the drop of a hat, but the presence of law is one element that is virtually unused in games. Punish players for wilfully and wantonly starting fights.

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Original post by Acapulco Could you use a strong legal system. There are obviously many other reasons why people don't start fights at the drop of a hat, but the presence of law is one element that is virtually unused in games. Punish players for wilfully and wantonly starting fights.

I think the problem with law is that it leads to uninteresting situations, and then may make the player either try to beat the system (which, as an evil player they think they should be allowed to do) or question why combat is in the game in the first place, if not for enjoyment.

If getting punished or going to jail, OTOH, is interesting, then it isn't a deterrent because people will want to get into that gameplay.