RPGs that are optionally pacifist?

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• razzazzika@lemmy.zip ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I mean… Kinda Baldurs Gate 3, especially if you are a high charisma class. You can also be monk. They key is dont use attack spells, and knock everyone out instead of killing them on thr mandatory fights. SO MANY of the fights in that game can be avoided or skipped with dialogue. You can, for example, bluff your way entirely into the enemy bases, use their shops, and completely decide to stay out of conflicts. Again, like you said in NV, sometimes the ‘pacifist’ routr makes you feel like shit. Like, you can skip having to side with either Minthara or the tieflings in act 1 simply by leaving for act 2. A lot of people die in the background though.

  Only mandatory fights I think are at the end of act 2, and the final boss fight. Everything else can be avoided or conversationally skipped. In the final fight, depending on allies you got throughout the game you can technically have them fight everyone. Or you can just stealth past everything with greater invisibility or as monk or rogues that can sprint really fast.

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• bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Not an RPG, but in the Thief series the hardest difficulty usually means that you aren’t allowed to kill anyone. Many people even try to play the games as a ghost. Meaning the only sign of their presence after leaving is the stuff they stole. Every door has to be closed and locked again. Keys stolen from guards have to be returned (in lieu of a game mechanic for this you have to lay it on the ground behind them).

  People do challenge runs of the Gothic games as pacifists. So it isn’t part of the games but doable with some shenanigans.

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• Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Image

  Nobody would wish harm upon an innocent cardboard box

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  • Thassodar@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I was coming in here to say this: every MGS since they added the stamina bar I have beat non violently, including all the bosses. Even in the MGS 2 remake Twin Snakes for GameCube, no kills.

    In MGS 5 they have a whole set of non lethal shotguns, sniper rifles, and assault rifles. I think it’s super fun, and makes you come up with creative ways to knock out armored enemies.

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    • gaylord_fartmaster@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      They still all die in the cutscenes though to be fair. In MGS3 especially you tranq the bosses and then they explode right after.

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    • BigPotato@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Twin Snakes was an MGS1 remake - MGS2 was never on the GC but Substance was it’s first console release on Xbox to my knowledge.

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• TheRealKuni@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Some of my friends and I in a D&D campaign managed to talk our way out of so many encounters, and heist our way through so many quests, that we started calling ourselves Ocean’s Five. It was some of the most fun I’ve had in that game, improving our way through heists and getting away with it.

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• Malix@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Disco Elysium? More or less entirely conversation-driven RPG about an alcoholic cop who drunk himself to submission so hard he forgot who he is, hence developing him back with skillpoints. Off the top of my head there’s like one combat situation which you can talk around if you’re so inclined.

  Otherwise, it’s been said many times that “Planetscape: Torment” is similar … ish. Not the setting, but mechanics, apparently you can entirely go through the game without combat - but that’s not to say there’s not going to be bodies - or so I’ve been told, haven’t played the game to completion, only dabbled the beginnings.

  So, these suggestions are with grain of salt, obvs. But afaik both are pretty high up on the rpg shelf.

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  • duchess@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Grain of salt? Disco Elysium is the perfect example and Torment would have been a better game without combat.

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  • Trail@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Planescape Torment yes can be pacifist-ed, except for killing a zombie at the very beginning of the game.

    Then again, killing/death is a bit strange in this game, so…

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    • Malix@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      can you even kill something that’s already dead?

      But tbh, only played some of the beginning. Should actually play it through.

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• Agent_Karyo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  The Deus Ex series often have pacificist playthroughs (3rd one definitely does, you can play a pacificist playthrough of the OG game with a few exceptions).

  The Age of Decadence has a mostly skill check and conversation playthrough. I forget if it’s fully pacifict though.

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• XM34@feddit.org ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  All Dishonored games feel amazing when you manage to get in and out completely unseen and unheard. And there’s always a none lethal option to get rid of your target. Although I’d argue most of the times the non-lethal option is the more cruel one…

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• Panda@lemmy.today ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I think Disco Elysium might be the game you’re looking for!

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• Olhonestjim@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Well, Fallout 1 definitely allows it, and I don’t believe necessitates unethical behavior in order to achieve. It’s just a challenging and rewarding questline that I wish more games would emulate.

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• danciestlobster@lemmy.zip ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Disco Elysium can totally be pacifist

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• Bbbbbbbbbbb@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Dishonored can be completed 100% pacifist, IIRC

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  • Poopfeast420@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I think you can only be non-lethal, not truly pacifist, if someone cares about this difference. You still need to knock people out and do stuff to them, even if they don’t die by your hand.

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    • Coelacanth@feddit.nu ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Also some of the “non-lethal” fates you subject people to are way worse than just killing them.

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  • Snailpope@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I came to say this The game actually discouraged violence. The more people you killed the more police rat swarms you have to deal with.

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• nimble@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Styx games have rpg elements and have shadow achievements which you do not kill anyone. Dishonored i believe have the same but i don’t think those can be loosely called rpg

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  • Landless2029@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    +1 for the sytx games. Freaking hard to be a ghost.

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  • Hubi@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I will never forgive Dishonored for glitching the peaceful achievement on the Xbox 360. I went out of my way to not kill anyone and it was still locked when the credits rolled. I remember there was some funkyness with knocked out enemies dying from external factors.

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  • eRac@lemmings.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Dishonored is an RPG. It also adjusts the world based on your body count, with corruption getting worse as you kill people.

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    • nimble@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Thanks, it’s been many years since i played and couldn’t find much comments on it being an rpg or having rpg elements.

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• Allero@lemmy.today ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Iirc, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided can be completed as a pacifist - and you get an achievement for that.

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• IndieSpren@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Baldur’s gate 3 has only a few required kills for main story progression. Most combat can be avoided.

  Not an RPG, but: In the Hitman series, you will have to kill the target, but how many non targets you kill/cleverly avoid killing is up to you.

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  • november@lemmy.vg ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    There are some fun ways to complete some Hitman missions “without killing anyone”, just by fiddling with the environment so that the target coincidentally dies “by accident” later on. You can even get one of your targets in Hitman 3 to commit suicide.

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  • snek_boi@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    What? Amazing! I stopped playing Baldur’s Gate because I dislike the combat. How do I avoid it?

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    • Poopfeast420@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      It’s mainly just talking to people, but if you want to fight as few times as possible, you probably need to know the game or tons of save-scumming. You’ll also have to be ok with just missing a bunch of stuff, or pick and choose your fights, which again, needs prior knowledge.

      I don’t think it’s a good way for a first playthrough.

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• jimmux@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I believe it’s possible in Cyberpunk 2077. Blunt weapons are non-fatal, other weapons can be modified to be non-fatal, stealth is usually an option, and you can even remotely disable enemies if your hacking skill is high enough.

  There are sections you can’t do alone, so you might need to be proactive about neutralising enemies before your companion does.

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  • EnsignWashout@startrek.website ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I see you subscribe to the Wolfwood school of pacifism: “I didn’t kill anyone!”

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    • jimmux@programming.dev ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Hey, in a setting like Night City, beating people unconscious to spare their life practically makes you a saint.

      If you really want to ease your conscience, I don’t think they ever explain how non-lethal weapon mods work. You can head-cannon that your assault rifle is loaded with nanites that safely shut down enemy cyberware if you want.

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  • JustARaccoon@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Yeah there is one section in the DLC that you have to work extra hard to avoid useless killing…

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    • piyuv@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Tap for spoiler

      Are you talking about the underground agency where they market kids?

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• Nibodhika@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  There are lots of games where combat is not even an option, like Life is Strange, Before your eyes (do play this one with a camera and a box of tissues nearby), or Firewatch. But games where you’re expected to fight but can find ways around it the first example that comes to mind is Metal Gear Solid 3, you can beat that game without killing anyone, there’s even an achievement for that and one of the bosses will be particularly easy if you go this route.

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• ordinarylove@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I think the Of Loathing games can be pacifist

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• kyub@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  In Nethack, you can fully play as a Pacifist, although it’s VERY hard and the game is already hard to get into to begin with. In that case, you are only allowed to indirectly kill enemies by having your pet(s) kill them or by using spells which make enemies attack themselves. Or simply by avoiding enemies completely. Playing as a healer or wizard is the easiest option, but still very hard. The game rewards this and other conducts (= supported “challenges”) by mentioning it in the very end after you’ve ascended.

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  • andros_rex@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I’ve played nethack for 20 years and have never gotten further than the Castle :(

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    • kyub@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      That’s not so bad. The good news is that the game gets easier the farther you go. The endgame is the easiest part. The bad news is that you still need to know about a lot of the enemies, items and potential situations that can occur and how to handle them. The most important thing is to gather what’s commonly called an Ascension Kit, which is an approximate list of items you pretty much should have in order to win the game because then you can deal with literally every enemy and situation (unless you make a stupid mistake). So you need to know what those items are, how to get them, how to identify them in the game and not waste them, and things like that. You can get somewhat far just through sheer luck but you’ll never make it through if you play blindly (don’t read any tips or spoilers) or just rely on luck.

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• JASN_DE@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Kingdom Come: Deliverance has an achievement for a main quest line pacifist run. There is one NPC you have to kill for story reasons which apparently doesn’t count towards that achievement.

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• Aielman15@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  It’s been a while and I’ve never tried a 100% pacifist run, but I think that it’s theoretically possible in Planescape: Torment (Steam, GoG).

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  • andros_rex@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    combat system is not very good.

    Fuck the final fortress with the shades….

    I’m pretty sure you have to kill a zombie in the first level to escape. And I don’t think you can avoid fighting (and killing) Ravel and the Deva. The Deva I think you can spare, as long as you don’t bring a certain party member with you…

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  • grrgyle@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Related, while I’m sure it’s not fully pacifist, Torment: Tides of Numenera greatly emphasises dialogue and text descriptions.

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• EvilEdgelord@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  [deleted]

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  • match@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    because the OP does

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• makeshiftreaper@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Technically speaking Far Cry 5 meets this definition. At the beginning of the game the big bad guy arrests you and says to wait while he brings you the person you’re trying to save. If you sit there for 10 minutes doing nothing he returns with the person and lets both of you go. Most people just start murdering instead

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  • melmi@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I think you’re mixing multiple endings. Far Cry 4-6 all have quick endings like that but none of them I know of fit your description? In Far Cry 5 you go in to arrest the BBEG, not the other way around, and the way you get out early is by not arresting him and leaving. If you do your job and arrest him, then you get attacked.

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    • makeshiftreaper@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      You’re correct, I had mixed up several of them in my memory. I think 6 is what I was thinking of where you can say “fuck your civil war, I’m out”

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• sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Most games require killing the end boss to finish the game, how exactly would you play around that? Or do you mean don’t kill anyone who doesn’t try to kill you?

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  • kurcatovium@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I believe you can persuade boss of Arcanum (amazing game) to commit suicide.

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  • andros_rex@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Ideally, games where you kill nobody at all. Even avoiding killing creatures for a “true pacifist” run.

    There’s quite a few games where you have alternatives when it comes to main bosses - in the original Fallout you can talk the Master into suicide by proving that the supermutants are infertile, in Planescape Torment there are multiple ways of convincing your mortality to merge back with you, New Vegas lets you talk down Legate Lanius, at least on the NCR route, Jade Empire will give you a bad ending where you surrender to the Glorious Strategist in exchanged for being fêted as a hero, even Fallout 3 will let you talk Colonel Autumn into surrender for like no reason at all.

    I’d really like that to expand into video games having killing “mooks”/generic enemies be more of an action with consequences. Undertale does a good job of that - if you kill any monsters, even if you spare all bosses, the ending still mentions that there are some hard feelings towards you. Spec Ops has no “pacifist option” but also makes you realize that you were slaughtering American soldiers and innocent civilians because you were going insane.

    The default problem solving strategy in most games seems to be violence, and that breaks my immersion. The last time I was in a physical confrontation with anyone was fighting my sister in high school - I’ve certainly never killed anyone.

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    • Nibodhika@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Spec Ops has no “pacifist option”

      I mean, the whole point of the game is that you could have not killed anyone, you could have stopped playing, you choose to keep playing, you choose to kill all those NPCs, the game never forced you, turning off the game was always an option.

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    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      All those games you listed are violence centric, so I imagine the non-violent route isn’t as satisfying. I tried to finish Dishonored (not really an RPG) without violence, but most of abilities involve violence and getting caught just meant waiting for them to kill me instead of fighting back. The gameplay just isn’t optimized for it like something like Thief is.

      There are games designed for non-violence where violence simply isn’t an option, such as Disco Elysium or WanderHome. Searching specifically for games without violence is probably a better option than finding games where nonviolence is an option, unless you’re specifically looking to find clever ways to play games non-traditionally.

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• Klear@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  While Skyrim probably has the same issues you ran into with Fallout/other TES games, it’s quite viable to roleplay the game without doing the main quest without the game feeling empty.

  I did one “playthrough” as an Orc blacksmith, with the goal being maxing out the smithing skill and crafting a dragonbone armour to present to a chieftan of one of the orc strongholds in order to join. I started out hunting deer and making leather stuff to gen enough money for food and board, working my way up, eventually venturing into dwemer ruins to gather metal. I did a handful of quests if they felt doable for a non-heroic regular dude and ran if I got into too much danger.

  Strict pacifism wasn’t my goal, I was just playing as a non-heroic normal person, but I’m sure you could do something similar. You just need to abandon the main quest and set your own goal.

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  • MojoMcJojo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I once modded Skyrim to make hunger, thirst, sleep, wounds, infections, and weather as realistic as possible. Then, from nothing, set out to go dungeon diving. My guy had heard there were untold riches, and being dirt poor, it was going to be his ticket out of squalor. The amount of preperation that was needed took days. I had to build a small camp outside the entrance, catch kill and prepare foods that wouldn’t spoil. Make water skins to store enough water. I may be down there for weeks! Finally ready to go in, I have no idea what to expect, only rumors. It’s very dark (mod), but I made torches. Surprise Frost Troll. Dead. Bethesda update corrupted my modded save, but that’s ok, just another death of no one special in the frozen lands.

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    • Klear@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I need to reinstall the VR version and do a run like that.

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• chunes@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Sil (specifically Sil-Q, the most modern fork) is a great Tolkien-esque roguelike in the vein of Angband where pacifism is a first-class citizen. You get a lot of XP just by observing hostiles from the shadows. I highly recommend it!

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  • chunes@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Also forgot to mention the latest version has tiles support that looks like this: Image

    So you don’t have to play with ASCII graphics. ;)

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• someguy3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  You end up doing things that would (IMHO) be more fucked up ethically

  Example?

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  • andros_rex@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    With Mr. House, it feels like a quick golf club to the head is much more merciful than keeping him trapped in his mind for possibly hundreds of years.

    With the Khans, IIRC I ended up needing to help them expand their chem empire. Selectively excising a few very evil people seems like it would have been a better choice. Which is really the larger moral question of a NV pacifist run - it’s a game about war, people are going to die, and playing as a pacifist seems more about not wanting to get your hands dirty rather than about practical morality.

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    • logicbomb@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Is pacifism ever about practicality, though? The issues you describe sound like the normal issues that always accompany pacifism.

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• tgirlschierke@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I think your best bet would be looking into the CRPG subgenre, though I can’t name any specific examples of games with pacifist routes.

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• elvith@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Not sure if you can count it as a RPG, but Undertalencan be completed “normally” and with a pacifist run and also with a genocide run.

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• Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I tried a run like that in New Vegas. I think I got to Primm, and just kept getting tore up too much to be fun.

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• dormedas@lemmy.dormedas.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Fairly certain the NPC in Morrowind could theoretically be killed by a combination of his own drain health spell reflected back at him and/or - once he’s out of magicka - dying to fire shield.

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  • andros_rex@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    In Morrowind, you have to kill a ghost to please the Urshilaku, Dagoth Gares for the Sixth House Base, Dagoth Vemyn for Sunder, and Dagoth Ur/the heart. I guess you could probably cheese reflect spells, but that doesn’t feel quite “true pacifist” to me - just like dragging Eridor everywhere in Oblivion doesn’t quite feel like “pacifism.” You’d also have to do a lot of leveling/side quests to get the Hortator/Nerevarine skip to avoid the inevitable slaughter of Venim, Gothren, the bad Erabenimsim, etc (it’s annoying, Gothren stalled out my “no inventory” run and working on the skip took 5ever)

    You could trade the ghost and Gares for Vivec if you wanted, and then not have to do the leveling/side quests.

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