At the moment I trying to figure out how I could make an rpg Strategy game that doesn't focus on combat. The only thought I had is that everyone in the game is working toward an end goal for their faction or King. When you start the game you are a peon and advance through the ranks by completing tasks or crafting items. For example imagine a medieval city where everyone that plays can pick city based class. Most people wouldn't need combat gear unless you were a knight or a city guard, but those items would just help you to complete tasks or help you get payed more gold. The game would be high level and wouldn't have a need for hacking and slashing for hours. Some classes could be Assassin Artisan Merchant Blacksmith Noble Thief Seer Priest Classes could have trees like Serf->Knight->Lord. Each one allows the player to do more in the game as time goes on. These classes could be ranked based and could be usurpted from under you by another player if you are lazy. Another option could be to make all the players lords under a single kingdom or faction. Having them all requires the service of various classes that are the players subjects (property).

So umm, where's the design? You've pretty much taken a standard RPG (kill, fetch, chat, craft quests) and removed the kill quests... I don't see much strategy there. Is there politicking? Is the game single player? What does the average player do, and why is it fun?

I'm no expert, but I think that including a gameplay element, taking something away from the player which they earned is a no-no. I know I hate it when I just about to beat a boss then something happens for example, PC crashes. I've just had something taken away from me, my time, and progress.

Another thing you might want to mull over before starting: Ask yourself, "What hasn't been done in this genre before?", "Will this new concept work?", "Is it fun?".I know I enjoy playing a unique game where I say to myself: "Wow, that's really neat!". These are the games I remember and enjoy the most.

Why would you want to remove combat? The whole point of an RPG is to pretend you're someone else that has abilities that you don't. In this case, some badass warrior with a big sword that gets to do some skull-crushing. I'm not allowed to do this at work, so I have to turn to games at the end of the day. If I wanted to work cooperatively with others for the good of the whole while gathering berries, I'd stay at work. (Yes, I'm a berry gatherer by trade)

I like a good gme that's not based on battling hordes of zombies (I get enough of that at work, thank you), and have in my day enjoyed many games that do not feature karate as a primary element.

However, this thread doesn't seem to describe a video game at all. Looks to me like an idea you'd scribble on a cocktail napkin after a four-beer conversation about why you're bored of playing WoW.

Noble? What the hell?

I think i can sum up the other comments. Where is the GAME in your game design?

While the definition of what constitutes an RPG is one of the loosest of all genres, I see them as having a number of defining traits:

• a bunch of stats to represent your characters abilities (this is prime, to me)
• the ability to shape your path; if not choosing your outcome, at least modifying significantly how to get there (common although lacking in some, particularly console RPGs, which I feel should be separated out into a class of their own personally).

There's heaps of potential ways of satisfying this, and many of them don't have to have any combat at all. Just change the objective to something non-traditional. Aim to become a famous actor, or a rock star, or a president. Try to win over your dream girl/boy. Raise your child as well as you can (see Princess Maker for an example of this one).

The key to make it actually implementable is to limit your objective to a very specific job description. Traditional RPGs just have "adventurer" as your job, and that typically involves lots of combat, or if you're lucky combat, stealth and/or negotiation. Don't go for the kitchen sink approach to RPG design and plan for your player to be able to do anything, as you won't be able to build a game that does that satisfactorily.

yeah man

I think it would be very difficult to play an assassin without actually killing anyone.

But yes, it is very possible to make a non-violent RPG. It's been done to death in Flash, such as stick RPG, or some form of life simulator. It's perfectly fine to make a life simulator, but it probably won't be too terribly successful. Unless you have something noticeably different, it will be just another life sim RPG.

My ideas on a non-combat RPG is that it should greatly enhance crafting instead.

Many people also choose to throw in politics to add to gameplay. Personally, I can't stand politics.

Also, @ Feralrath: This is not a game design, this is just one thought that 00Kevin is suggesting.

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Original post by Feralrath I think i can sum up the other comments. Where is the GAME in your game design?

I didn't think that I had to explain away an entire game here. I just wanted to post a few game elements. I thought that perhaps there are others who are working on games that focus more on crafting and character strongholds then on hack n slash.

It seems to me that the purpose of crafting items and gathering resources is so that you can attain power in comparison to other players. Players have to fight for something or they don't feel that they have earned it. There has to be away to compare players against others. This doesn't mean that you have to include low level combat in your game at all. All you have to do is find away for them to complete against each other.

Take for example the old game Populous. The player can grow their civilization with the goal of having it conquer an enemy force automatically(another player). The player god doesn't do any of the low level fighting or micromanage units.

The problem is that there just doesn't seem to be a way around combat. There doesn't seem to be anything that I can replace it with. I guess there are games like sim city, but those have been done before.

The thought I had was that you could create your own parties of characters. You could place these parties over areas on the map and give them high level comands like "grind", "explore", "defend", "craft" etc.. Ever day you could log in and see how your characters are doing, what items they have gathered, how many things they have killed, how many times they have died etc.. kind of like a RPG Bot game or something