Why do RPGs revolve around killing?Why not have games be something you could play with your friends that don't involve competition or simulating taking lives?
>Why do RPGs revolve around killing?Because doing it for realisies would be crime.
>>3649732It's not about killing, it's about violence.
You'd have to develop some kind of magic system that could resolve conflicts nonviolently where the obstacle enemy cannot be persuaded, deceived, or evaded. The implications of this are too great for most devs' minds to handle, and they only have so long to make the game so they can't take violence off the table for conflict resolution for the entire game.
>>3649732I would be kind of hard to make an RPG where you don't kill stuff, it's kind of essential for the genre.I'm reminds of this Cracked article I read a decade ago: https://www.cracked.com/article_21718_6-horrifying-implications-most-popular-rpg-universes.html
>>3649796What, like mind control? That's still violence.
>>3649732They don't necessarily have to. It's just that al lot of times the setting is an adventure in an unknown or dangerous place, and eventually the player will find themselves in physical peril. you can sneak away, talk your way out of it, fight, or otherwise use some clever trick to get away. that choice should be given to the player. Fighting just happens to be the quick and easy way out when other options fail. perhaps games just need to discourage combat/violence/killing and promote the other options.
>>3649805>perhaps games just need to discourage combat/violence/killing and promote the other optionsBut combat is intrinsically more interesting and dynamic than preset dialogue options or mind-numbing sneaking or alternative quest tricks. You really can't undo this unless you make combat boring itself, which is shooting yourself in the foot.
>>3649732Lmao what a wuss.Play this OP, it's for babies like you.HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
>>3649802>it makes you better at everythingMaybe it actually does, and we've just been lied to all our lives.
>>3649732Because killing is easier to handle in video games. You'd need to be able to gamify social aspects and that's much harder to structure and supply in a game.
>>3649732Because its an easy way to pad out a games playtimeYou can turn a 5 hour long game into a 100 long game with this simple trick.1. Divide the content into tens or hundreds of short 5 minute burts of story2.Make the player walk through corridors filled with a bunch of trash mobs like wolves and slimes and other garbage like that to get another piece of content(if you run out of mobs to add you can just recollor the same wolf 10 times and call it a "Ancient wolf" or a "Hungry wolf" or a "Wounded Wolf" or a "Black wolf" etc.)3.add mandatory boss fights so if the player tries to run away from the enemies instead of killing the 3 gorrilion giant rats in his way he gets one shot and cant go further unless he grinds the rats for 3 hours.And there you go.You have now turned your 5 hour long rpg into a 100 hour long rpg.You can also add a bunch of DRPG inspired "puzzles" like this into your game for even more playtime.Even better if you fill a puzzle room like this with enemies too so even if the player guesses the right way if they start being inefficent with their disposing of enemies duo to the stress of walking on a minefield and run out of potions right before they reach the key/switch they need to start over and do it all again.
>>3649804Yakuza does that. Kiryu mind controls the behavior of people using his... Hands.
>>3649732Pokemon isn't about killingunless you want like, a grocery store RPG where you collect groceries and talk to fellow customers to build up the strength to convince the old guy standing in front of the frozen pizzas in the freezer section to step out of the way for a secondif that sounds like fun then you'd love the sequel which is about combating suicidal thoughts at work with thoughts about big fat anime titties and playing video games
>>3649732captain tsubasa is a soccer rpghttps://youtu.be/FvznkadH4gI
It's an interesting question to answer. A developer would have to combine an rpg with another genre. For example, a business management rpg. Let's say it's about owning a restaurant.>Your employees would have to have stats for different tasks such as cooking, presenting, handling customers, and so on>Let the player build the restaurant and choose what's sold>"Boss battles" could be things like making sure your one star restaurant in a shady part of town passes the health inspection>If you want to go really crazy, you could add life sim elements like having your sons and daughters marry the children of other companies and have the next generation inherit both companiesThe thing is, doing something along those lines is way more work than making a standard rpg. There's also the question of who the audience would be for that kind of product, because you risk alienating both the roleplaying crowd and the business management crowd.>>3650125Sports rpgs are so comfy.>TFW no pro-wrestling rpg>Closest thing are the WWE 2K "story" modes
>>3649732im playing a rpgmaker eroge right now and you don't kill anyone, you have bug duels and occasionally you get raped or have normal sex with women and little girls who both crave shotacock. no killing to be seen here.
>>3650195>no killing to be seenyeah you killed your soul, which is invisibleOP was including all physical confrontation and battling anyway, not just what ends with death
>>3650198Speak for yourself, Mary was around 14-15 years old when she gave birth to Jesus. Mohammed had a whole ass harem besides aidha. My soul is fine, thanks.
>>3650204>soul so black he thinks "little girls" is what is soulless
>>3649732That's something that's bothered me about video games in general for a long time - the default behavior of nearly everything that isn't a friendly NPC is to mindlessly attack you, even if they're greatly and obviously outmatched. In reality very few animals will outright attack humans, but in games every single wolf, bear, bird, blob etc. absolutely, positively wants you dead, and sometimes maybe they might flee if you take out enough of their friends. After so many decades is this still the best we can do? Are there any games that are a little more thoughtful with their encounters? Seems like there's plenty of room for innovation here but it's just not something you really see.
>>3650214Pool of Radiance, a 1988 computer RPG, models parley and party strength and intelligent humanoids will opt to leave you alone if you seem strong and flee in battle if they are losing, you also encounter them at various distances, it's not always you are on top of them. Contemporary developers are lazy and lack creativity.
>>3649732it sucks I really want to just play a merchant or blacksmith or something
>>3650170the mcdickie games come close https://youtu.be/_gAGO-Nkrnw
>>3650204Being given one if those is not a problem.You dreaming about having one is a problem.Same with everything else.>being given a drug empire>dreming about having a drug empire>being given a task to kill someone>dreaming about killing someone
>>3649732based disco elysium enjoyer
>>3649732Because, my dear underage poster, you need some challenge to give meaning to all those character abilities and stats and equipment, and fighting is a good and easy way to do that.>b-b-but you can use puzzles!Wow, static challenges that just stand there and wait for you to figure them out, no time pressure, no easy way to scale difficulty, no easy way to connect the solution to the RPG elements you're supposed to challenge...
>>3650214Reminded that Left-click in most games is an attack. It's the main method of interacting with the world.
>>3649732Because it's what everyone wants to do but is too afraid to actually attempt.
It's not even really about RPGs, so much as about games in general. There aren't many games that don't center around violence, other than ones that are a direct port of some real life interest that is just a lot of work to actually go and do on any given day (sports games, puppy grooming simulators, etc.) I think that the main issue is that enjoyable activities that are peaceful and healthy usually are either fairly monotonous and non-interactive (sitting quietly on a beach), rely on 'fun-ness factors' that are hard to replicate for people not in that exact situation (putting on silly accents with your friends or something), or just are completely covered in another medium already (it would be pretty silly to have a game about reading novels, when you can just go and read an actual novel). Conversely, killing is a dopamine-driven, unique (everyone only dies once), taboo activity that most of us never get to do in real life.Interestingly enough, the only other real life activity that seems to fit the basic criteria for being the driving activity of a game is sex. It can be interactive, we can all understand the basic appeal so it doesn't rely on a "you just had to be there" factor, and it's not something that most people can just go and do however they want on a moment's notice. Really, it would make even more sense as a basis for an RPG because of its relational and 'conquest' aspects. Unfortunately, our society is much more tolerant of violence than sex (even though we are all literally the product of sex and exist to have sex to make more people), so this possibility is ignored by the mainstream.
>>3650357This.
>>3649875I'd say stick to movies, but you'd probably just complain and read Wikipedia summaries
>>3649732In fallout and arcanum you can resolve more or less every encounter without violence. You can even convince the final boss he is wrong and needs to kill himself.
>>3650125MLB Power Pros 2008 had a JRPG mode, it was really fucking weird.
>>3650447talking someone into killing themselves is sadistic as hell and worse than just killing them outright
>>3650548And that's what makes it all the more kino when it's written well and in a good, engaging story.
>>3649732>Why do RPGs revolve around killing?I'd say it's because life or death situations are more engaging. RPGs get boring when you become overleveled and stacked with items and possibilities.Early low level survival against everything is where games are most interesting.
>>3650548It's not sadistic. You win a philosophical debate again Kerghan The Terrible and he understands that his worldview is flawed and his crimes are grave.
>>3649732They make low combat games that are about farming or just socializing with other people. Some games are just glorified chatrooms.Combat heavy games dominate because it's the most desired thing.
Because a lot of them are based on a game of telephone version of D&D which is the murderhobo game. Other tabletop RPG's end up with you being murdered if you tried just random killing first. There's also some with no real fighting or combat at all, or at least not the focus on it.
>>3649732Because violence is the most exciting phenomenon known to man.
>>3650881It is the ultimate authority.
>>3649875>Xe did not leveled up xer characters in discovering traps and got filtered.Lol, lmao, get fucked.
>>3649732Unfortunately in real life criminals have more rights than honest people. One can't do justice, one can't kill the trash of society. One can't monetize their corpses or exterminate their whole families like they were a bunch of goblins. In RPGs you are not only allowed to do it, you level up and make money killing monsters, doing what is right.
>>3649732Because killing is good, as is competition
>>3651037In games, you fight the villain's goons. Think about (((who))) is the villain today, and who tries to stop you fighting.
>>3649732What about Pokemon?
>>3649875I look at this map and I'm reminded of the fucking tremor-worms puzzle in The Immortal. What a sadistic pile of shit that was.
>>3649732There's literally dozens of "cozy" game. Go play those, why the fuck are you here?
>>3649732Play Disco Ellysium
>>3650367Violence is more prevalent in RPGs than in gaming as a whole, where there are games about building, sports, vehicles, fishing, puzzles, etc,RPGs as a genre were founded on combat and it's as simple as that. Combat is an ideal means for character progression, character interaction, exploration, and strategy.
>>3654032...to discover how shitty an RPG about just talking is
>>3650204>gave birthTwo out of towners with a baby hiding in a stable, and the woman has an intact hymen? No, that was a kidnapping, anon. Jesus was kidnapped.
>>3651037>Unfortunately in real life criminals have more rights than honest peopleDo they have more rights, or are they invoking more rights?
>2nd questionStardew Valley and Story of Seasons
>>3651037Exactly. RPGs allow you to be a real human being and take care of your own problems in a land where the State doesn't have a monopoly on violence. This is why modern setting RPGs are shit and no one wants to play them. Defanged modern slaves hate this, because it echoes against the chains they have internalized, and so they cry out "y all this violence in games?".
Well you see it has roots in Wizardry, a dungeon crawling rpg and gameplay revolves around fighting monsters. Not to mention fantasy was popular in the time, all the common tropes came during this period
>>3655009STOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL SCUM
>>3655682Also D&D and pulp fantasy.
>>3655693At least it isn't a crime to defend yourself with violence even in the sneakcuck land of The Elder Zion.
>>3649732I've been storyboarding an RPG where the 'battles' are social interactions. The protagonist is a little girl and the story is about raising her to be a refined lady fit for inheriting her aristocratic title. Equips and stuff are things like different types of makeup and nail polish. You're trying to rank up her ability to empathise and help the people she meets in the region the game is set in. No fighting or killing, but still a lot of strategy regarding how to handle diplomacy between various individuals and factions with competing interests.
>>3649732Why not go to sleep and dream?
>>3649732in real life, living things must consume to live, or they are consumed
>>3649732>Why not have games be something you could play with your friends that don't involve competition or simulating taking lives?rpgs are singleplayer experiences in the first place, the fuck does that mean? but yeah plenty rpgs don't revolve around killing
I can't believe no one mentioned Undertale as being a friendly RPG where you befriend monsters
>>3658792Not an RPG
>>3649732>Why not have games be something you could play with your friends that don't involve competition or simulating taking lives?Like masterbaiting with your friends on discord?
>>3649802>I would be kind of hard to make an RPG where you don't kill stuff, it's kind of essential for the genre.what are you fuckin' smokin' bud
Speaking of RPGs that don't focus around killing people.I'm very fond of Golf Story, but I heard the sequel was shit; because they didn't port the OG off the switch.
>>3649732Because RPG devs are too lazy to come up with something else.Killing stuff in game is usually boring, even gameplay wise, although lately devs are opting for more action oriented, rather than turn based static oriented combat.(monster hunter / dark souls combat VS classic final fantasy combat basically)Each battle is comparable to a puzzle with a solution, but battles scale down in difficulty even if coming to the answer remains the same, which gives the player this idea of progress.There is also a need for people to feel superior over others; its one of those appeals with this genre.Why do people enjoy overpowering others and feeling better than others rather than average? This isn't because of narcissism; it's rather because of the second world war and generations of indoctrination.The US needed soldiers, so what did they do? They promoted the idea that strength == money, fame, girl, happinessThat is the source the reason why grade eachother and people earn ranks in education, etc. Its the cause of this idea of hierarchy, and it became culture.So now the rich feel superior than the poor rather than equal. and in RPGs killing is escapism from that, as well as dopamine providing the same feel.Now you're powerful.... and now there are shitty isekai stories everywhere with OP protagonists and Mary Sue characters on deviantart.
In OD&D/AD&D (the actual basis of cRPGs), you primarily exp from the loot you found. Killing monsters gave you exp, too, but you weren't suppose to be trying to wipe out all enemies in the dungeon. You could simply scare them away or even negotiate depending on their will to fight and their alignment. Random encounters were based off of wandering monsters; something to add stakes to the game when you were walking down hallways or empty rooms. In addition to that, there were a lot of puzzles and things to do as well. along with freedom of player agency to do what they wanted (or try to, anyway). At the end of the day, you were going into the Crypt of the Crimson Quim to find treasure and maybe slay the Troll Warlock inside. But video games need to keep people engaged, so killing scores of monsters is the go-to way to progress, along with other constraints baked into the medium.
>>3649732SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU GAY FAGGOT I'LL KILL YOU TOO
>>3649732Every game must be inherently violent. The tradition of "play" originated with baby animals practicing hunting and self-defense. As such, any video game must not only have violence as its primary focus, but must also stimulate in such a way that it tests player's skill
>>3651037Once you realize you can do anything you want, that the "authorities" do not have the resources, will to actually go after you unless you do something really dumb or blatant, and that the average citizen won't do jack shit..then you can taste real freedom. The only price this real freedom has, is that you'll have to shut out the whining and bitching of people around you thinking they can stop you with words
>>3649732>that don't involve competition or simulating taking livesdo porn games count it's not a competition and nobody dies ohh wait...I think the problem is you and not the games
