I’ve beat Fallout NV as a true pacifist - no companions, no death caused by me.
It is funny, because it really doesn’t seem to fit the themes of the game to be a pacifist. You end up doing things that would (IMHO) be more fucked up ethically. It’s also hard for me to leave Vulpes alive - killing him is an every play through thing.
I’ve tried playing Morrowind and Oblivion as a pacifist. Morrowind you can get pretty far, but the Sixth House Base quest requires the death of an NPC. Oblivion… lol. You can sorta try if you don’t count dragging along companions from uncompleted quests, but that doesn’t fit the spirit of the challenge.
I wish more video games allowed you to play pacifist. I play most video games with the least violence possible, but even really well written stories like Planescape: Torment need you to solve some problems with violence.
I’ve really appreciated games like Undertale and Dishonored too.
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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.
Disco Elysium can totally be pacifist
Nobody would wish harm upon an innocent cardboard box
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 1 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.
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.
Ah my bad, I’ll correct it.
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.
Live a Live’s Twilight of Edo Japan chapter gives a special completion reward if you complete it with zero kills, or a full 100 kills. It’s designed in such a way that figuring out how to do the pacifist run is a puzzle you are unlikely to solve on your first playthrough.
This mechanic was actually one of the inspirations for Undertale!
As far as I know this mechanic wasn’t in the original SNES game, only in the remake.
It is in the original. For the most part, 2022 is very faithful to the original and doesn’t feature any big structural changes (apart from one new thing that’s a big spoiler), mostly just balance and quality of life improvements.
Like I said, Toby Fox openly cited this segment as an inspiration for Undertale (2015), and that came before the 2022 remake.
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.
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.
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…
can you even kill something that’s already dead?
But tbh, only played some of the beginning (edit: and remember even less). Should actually play it through.
Grain of salt? Disco Elysium is the perfect example and Torment would have been a better game without combat. I‘d like to add Citizen Sleeper. I‘m a bit tired of RPG where combat often is the only or favoured option.
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.
Dishonored can be completed 100% pacifist, IIRC
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.
Also some of the “non-lethal” fates you subject people to are way worse than just killing them.
Sending one lady away with her stalker, or frying the brain of a “genius”, just to name a couple.
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.
I think the Of Loathing games can be pacifist
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.
I see you subscribe to the Wolfwood school of pacifism: “I didn’t kill anyone!”
Yeah there is one section in the DLC that you have to work extra hard to avoid useless killing…
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
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.
Dishonored is an RPG. It also adjusts the world based on your body count, with corruption getting worse as you kill people.
Thanks, it’s been many years since i played and couldn’t find much comments on it being an rpg or having rpg elements.
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.
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.
I need to reinstall the VR version and do a run like that.
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.
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.
What? Amazing! I stopped playing Baldur’s Gate because I dislike the combat. How do I avoid it?
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.
IIRC there are six fights you always need to do (two of those in the tutorial and another shortly after, although technically you can use glitches to skip these). But if you only wanted to do these fights, you’d basically do an evil playthrough and miss most of the game, especially Act 1 and 3. And if you’re not talking to people, save-reload the correct dialogue choice, you would just sneak around everywhere, trying to avoid enemies, constantly saving and reloading, because you were spotted.
If you add a handful of boss fights, a good run is possible, but still, there’s going to be a lot of sneaking around and save-scumming.
In Nethack, you can fully complete the game 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.
I’ve played nethack for 20 years and have never gotten further than the Castle :(
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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