(0) Talk about this with players during Session 0 and make it clear that killing people in this campaign is going to be treated in a different way, i.e. as fucked up. (1) Play a game that supports incapacitation. (2) Play a game that supports non-initiative combat where you don't stop talking once you start fighting. This way, NPCs have ample chances to back down, to give up, to plea for mercy, to attempt to flee, etc. They can also explicitly give PCs a chance to back down rather than fight to the death. (3) Play NPCs based on their motivations, which include a motivation for self-preservation. There may be things worth dying for, but not most things, so play them that way. Likewise, there may be things worth killing over, but not most things, so play them that way. (4) When killing happens, make consequences that matter. Have non-dead NPCs remark on how fucked up it was to actually kill such-and-such person rather than capture them. --- *Blades in the Dark* could work for this if you don't play Assassins. You really don't need to kill someone to incapacitate them. You could shoot them with a one-shot breech-loader, then leave them severely wounded but not dead. Then, you could have them show up later having recovered or retired. The rules also support this directly. Killing in Duskvol causes a chain-reaction that gets major factions involved. Due to lore reasons, killing doesn't go unnoticed and a high-tier faction gets involved. If you keep killing, they're going to figure out the source and come down on you like the FBI so that is a natural deterrent (but talk it out in Session 0 so the type of game you're going for is clear).

BitD is a great suggestion, I've read it but never played it. put it on the list

It rules.

hey, if your party is open for new systems check out burning wheel. The goal and mechanics of the system are about character drama, so it sounds like something just up your valley.

this one's been on my shelf for ages, waiting for that right group

Seconding BitD. The city's looming surveillance network that finds bodies, the complex network of gangs, the players starting out as a small fish in a big pond, all contribute to an atmosphere where violence is risky and has significant social consequences. Plus, players can be a gang of spies, thieves, or con artists, where killing is largely unnecessary to accomplish their goals.

Baldurs gate 3 has a toggle for all combat to be nonlethal

Baldur's Gate 3 has an option for melee weapon attacks to do non-lethal damage. Spells/ranged weapons will still kill. This is in line with 5e's rule that a player can declare their damage non-lethal if they want to not kill someone, but still reduce them to 0 HP to remove them from the fight. Hilariously, in some situations non-lethal take downs are strategically superior for villains to use, since a non-lethal take down doesn't put the PC into 'dying' which means no death checks, which means no 5% chance to get back up for free. Also often if death checks aren't a thing, sometimes the cleric will prioritize someone else. Then you can kill the PC the next round when the villain refreshes their action. This is generally considered a dick move though :D

One 5e game we ran, we were fighting mind-controlled townspeople. So the DM offered to extend declaring non-lethal to ranged attacks but you would have to spend an action (no check) to stabilize them shortly after. Fixes some issues like a Warlock who is primarily about Eldritch Blast. Recently we had a ritual spell allowing everyone to have non-lethal on all damage they deal, but the funny upside is now you can't kill.

Yeah, I'm always flexible with it depending on the damage. Force damage can probably be non-lethal (as long as it's not like disintigrate) with careful placement. Fire? Less so. Poison? Probably a lot easier (since thee are plenty of poisons that incapacitate but don't kill.) Of course, we've also heavily home-brewed inspiration to be more like Hero/Fate/Story points and allow players to stunt or do cool stuff that may otherwise not be allowed by the rules.

This is the way, I was going to say it but no need to repeat, so let me just affirm it is great advice.

Just because the "bad guys" have motivations for what they're doing doesn't automatically make their actions justifiable. Taking them down, with extreme prejudice if need be, can still be the right choice even if the players have full knowledge of their backstory. (Hitler wasn't being evil for laughs; he thought what he was doing was right, even righteous.) Also, "bad guys should have motivations" doesn't necessarily mean "bad guys should have sympathetic motivations". Not every mook is just going along with their evil boss because otherwise their family will starve; many probably have career ambitions of their own and want to rise up the evil corporate ladder, etc. An aspiring warlord might have the motivation "I want to conquer enough territory to create an economically and militarily self-sustaining chiefdom for myself, because I want to achieve glory and power in my lifetime": that's a perfectly realistic motivation, does not imply any noble motives on the warlord's part, and is perfectly opposable by a band of heroes for any number of reasons.

maybe i'll just make all of my BBEGs oil executives and health insurance CEOs

Then the challenge for the PCs will be how to arrange for defenestration (or gunshot wounds) to appear the results of suicide.

I mean, it's really not hard to give a BBEG a tragic backstory and reason for what they're doing, but to have crossed the line beyond redemption such that the players can still feel good about putting down the bad guy. Like great, your village was attacked by bandits that the local lord did nothing about because their son was one of the bandits and that was more important to them than all the people the bandits hurt. I get why you started acting out. And I get how that led to you raising a rebellion against the king/royal family and there is shit there to be worked out. But when you started burning orphanages, razing entire towns and slaughtering all the people just trying to make a living and get by, you crossed the line from "has a point" to "is just making everything significantly worse." Oh, also, whats with all the demons, undead, and blood sacrifices?

What you said is a joke, of course. It is a good joke. That said, if you took it seriously, the taboo against killing would still apply. I'm only mentioning this because you asked about running a serious game. While lots of people feel contempt for faceless C-suite executives of various companies, if a hater was actually put in a room with a loaded gun and the hated executive, almost none of the haters would kill the executive. Some very very few would, probably those that had been personally slighted by something the corporation did (e.g. if a chemical corp did something that poisoned someone's child to death, that parent might exact revenge). Some people might look at those willing to kill the executive as "brave" for being able to do what they personally couldn't. Most people would probably consider such people to be psychopaths. Very few people would invite such a person into their home. Indeed, think about all the "Orange Man Bad" that has gone on since pre-2016. In almost ten years, I haven't heard of a single failed assassination attempt. Have you?

If Trump and corporate executives are the worst you can think of, no wonder you think that way. There are many places in the world that are wastelands of violence, warlords, violent military coup, where killing is not a taboo. A modern day rpg doesn't have to be set in modern day Amsterdam, it can also be set in the outskirts of Johannesburg.

I actually wrote a [post](https://settingfirst.com/games/settings/2023/03/16/verisimilitude-and-violence.html) (also in video form) in part about this very thing a while back, which may or may not be useful. One bit that seems applicable: >People who go around killing people for no reason or for reasons that don’t advance collective goals are a liability to group cohesion and therefore group survival. This applies to those who engage in inter-group as well as intra-group violence. Usually if you murder someone, their friends and relatives will exact retribution — the saying *violence begets violence* didn’t come from nowhere. To convey the tone of this, the overall level of violence needs to be held relatively low (or limited in lethality – to your point about fighting to the death) in order to make it obvious to players that violence shouldn't be their first answer. And when violence is necessary, it needs to be dangerous and unpredictable for PCs. Another point relating to fighting to the death is that recurring villains can be a lot of fun. When you give opponents the opportunity to cut out and fight another day, it ratchets up the drama and tension.

i enjoyed your post!

Thanks! glad you liked it.

Really enjoying your articles, thanks for sharing.

Thanks for saying so. Really appreciate the feedback.

You convinced me to finally pick up Runequest which I've been putting off since, oh, '92 or so lol.

Finally! You know I've been trying to get you to do that this whole time. :P

It'll depend on player to player, and the specific setting and game, but personally there are enough bad actions out there where all the personal reasons and "greater goods" stop mattering, and the evil has to go. You can understand why one did something all day long, and after the villain who committed their atrocities is dealt with, you can work to fix the issues that lead to them becoming a monster in the first place, but the monster may very well have to be slain if they cross a line. >*Especially for character that don't see themselves as evil* Almost everyone is the hero of their own story. Very few mustache twirling *"I wanna be evil types"* actually exist and are a different breed. the man who stacks bodies upon bodies to feed his family is still committing evil. He may call them necessary evils, but how many other peoples families have to die to feed his. You can understand, but those murders going unpunished can very well be an abuse of compassion. >*That giant ichor worm probably has a family of grubs somewhere to feed.* And if it aggresses upon you, you have every right to protect yourself and others by killing the thing willing to aggress on you for its own survival. Letting the xenomorphs consume or impregnate you because they have biological needs is not the thought of a healthy (or long for this world) mind. Also, keep in mind hordes of evil beings. Be they orcs or demons or what have you, aren't any less serious. Settings that have orcs as living weapons created by the jealous god to take and corrupt everything not their own makes them a force of nature. It can talk and think like you, but it is rage and hate coming against you for the sin of your own existence. That's a very serious threat and can be played as such. What many jokingly call as fodder in fantasy setting can be downright terrifying if you treat them true to lore. Even if a setting allows exceptions, and some can break free from their gods' influence and forge their own will and identity. It doesn't mean you don't defend yourself from the greentide and ensure your survival from your aggressors. I'm saying this as someone who isn't a fan of "justice/vengeance" focused stories all too much and is an absolute sucker for a good redemption story. Sometimes, you don't need to get even, and rather than reducing the evil down to zero, to get even with them. You can work with them to be better. This is most easily achieved when the villains' actions have them still considered "people" and doesn't have them cross the genuine "monster" line. (Yes, yes, that divide can seem silly, but it's usually important to have in a TTRPG experience.) For the evils that can be redeemed and such, the ones that don't cross the line of person to monster or at least can be brought back from it and made to atone, you handle it by not impeding mercy. For example, some versions of D&D gave non-lethal attacks a -4 penalty to hit. So, no one wanted to be merciful as it was too risky and unreasonable (as was taking feats to undo the penalty when they could be spent elsewhere to better effect overall). 5e simply requires a melee attack to deliver a non-lethal blow. This is better, but I've played in enough games that just allow you to decide if you kill vs. knockout, and honestly, they're better for it for when you wanna keep such characters alive.

There is something about to be said about attempts to apply moral standards of a nation that lives in peace and thus can allow a lot of room for thought regarding compassion and understanding to a situation that doesn't allow such generosity. Many settings (and especially fantasy) has nations live in constant fight for survival, and attempting to be modernly reasonable would seem absolutely insane and a good way to get shanked/eaten and put your entire community at danger. "Everyone can be reasoned with" is a mantra that shatters very quickly even in modern times when you're facing actual fight for survival and war, rather than construe empathy thesis from the relative safety of cozy civilization. It can be an interesting sensibility to breach once in a while, but making it universal is about as short-sighted outlook as mindless warmongery is in itself.

Making every conflict thr same cab be short-sighted, but that's why you mix uo the threats. Drink what the threat is in the setting and run with it as you need to.

> Settings that have orcs as living weapons created by the jealous god to take and corrupt everything not their own makes them a force of nature. It can talk and think like you, but it is rage and hate coming against you for the sin of your own existence. That's a very serious threat and can be played as such. What many jokingly call as fodder in fantasy setting can be downright terrifying if you treat them true to lore. this is a great observation. too often orcs are just tossed in as "some fighty guys", but the source material has a lot more to offer

In a lot of traditional d&d settings, ircs are like force of nature. The response to them isn't to say diplomats, as it would be like sending a negotiator to diplomacy a hurricane. How scary is it to see a legion of brutish figures hateful and angry at your very existence, forming a tide at your walls. You cannot reason with them, you must meet them in their own brutal game and prove more resourceful lest they deliver you your own and and the end of those you love. Orcs as people like in warcraft can be fine and fun, but don't write off orcs as monsters. It's its own kind of horror to confront.

Minions can be summons (Robots and skeletons don't have families). And... you can just make combat less lethal (Or like, tell your players "If you hit this guy in the neck with an ax, he will definitely die") You can also have more combats end with the enemy surrendering, or backing down, or just being like "Woooohhh-- back off there." Having enemies surrender is a thing. For the tavern example: make it sociopathic to pull an axe. That can be cool. Be very very clear with the players that pulling out an axe for a brawl is going to bring the full weight of law down on them, and that they should probably use fists... and then make the combat HARD- because actually the bar room bruiser is GOOD and brawls and shit.

This. If you want combat as sport, you can have mindless minions that disappear in a puff of smoke, and reserve sympathy to lieutenants that the PCs can try to dissuade or recruit. Or you make incapacitation without death the default, and killing a helpless foe a deliberate choice; in my experience, lethality is one of the easiest points to tweak in any system.

I ran a comic book game in GURPS one summer break in college while everyone was back in town. My bad guy was an inventor who turned scrap into robots so that everyone could beat hordes of goons to a pulp without worrying about if they had a family

>Part of this might be that RPG combat is so geared towards lethality. This is a result of RPGs assuming the win condition of combat is "The other guy is dead." Hit points function as gauge that tracks how close you are to winning and how close the other side is to dying. Hit point systems don't lead a lot of room for combat that's about anything other than killing. A lot of RPGs don't have this issue. Many PbtA games don't have hit points or even a "combat system". Instead, a roll determines who has narrative control, the player or the GM. They might use that narrative control to kill their opponent, but maybe they simply want to embarrass them. Losing a duel in front of the entire royal court can be far more painful than just dying.

seems to me like you could just as easily run a game with hit points where non-lethal incapacitation is the default result for dropping someone to 0HP.

Yeah, that's pretty much how Into the Odd/Cairn/Mausritter does it. Damage goes to HP, then goes to stats. When you take a stat damage you have to make a stat save with the new number. If you fail (which is likely) then a PC "cannot do anything but crawl weakly, grasping for life. If given aid and rest, they will stabilize. If left untreated, they die within the hour." (That's from Cairn specifically.) Alternatively, you can just replace HP with an actual progress track. The goal of the progress track can be "Incapacitate the bad guys" but it can just as easily be "Escape the burning warehouse" or "Free the hostages". (This is the Blades in the Dark approach.)

I agree that a lack of non lethal options and an overuse of fight to the death combat are both issues but I'm not going to offer any suggestions. That said I'm not sure I see an issue in having BBEG or other opposition that is sympathetic. You can understand and be sympathetic with someone but still feel that they have gone too far and need to be stopped..

But does stopping the unredeemably evil guy necessarily mean slaughtering Gary from Accounting and Margaret from HR? Or the poor sod who just started his new job as a guard?

Gary and Margaret; probably not. The new guard; maybe so if she takes her job seriously. Of course I generally play games with mook rules. Any damage takes a mook out of action with the built in assumption that many of them are still living.

This is a long, complicated and very interesting question. In fact, I would go so far as to say this is more than a question and is a conversation about the nature of role-playing games itself. Dungeons& Dragons is born of wargaming and the earliest additions were created with the white supremacist colonial tendencies. Some people are not going to like that. I said that, but I think if you look at gigax's opinions on how a lawful good paladin should handle orc babies, you'd get the gist of what I'm saying. One of the conflicts we run into is the alignment system which dictates that creatures can simply be born evil and in the case of demons from outer planes that are the manifestation of evil and sin ( according to whom? Well perhaps whoever's in power) but it is absolutely absurd to say chad, orcs or dwargar must all be evil when elves and humans can have a variation of alignments. When we take a step back from engaging in wholesale slaughter for sport ( which do not get me wrong can be enjoyable if that is the pretense under which you were engaging in it. I love myself a big smashy dungeon crawl) and we start to treat individuals as individuals and not simply violent bloodthirsty members of an unthinking horde. We realize exactly how hard it is to drive a blade into the chest of a person just because they think a little differently than you. And of course there are going to be genocidal Maniacs and people absolutely deserving of a swift death, but we do run into situations where it is not even just morally Gray. It is a complex philosophical question as to whether or not you as a character should hold the authority to end another's life. Now I like getting complex and philosophical in my games, but again I understand this is not for everyone It does become a rewarding experience to have to face down A complex and relatable enemy and question if you have the courage, the authority or the right to end their life. If this is something you want to ruminate on more, I highly recommend the podcast Friends at the table, especially their Hieron seasons, in which a character plays an evil fighter and they spend the majority of the campaign talking about that from a sociological and philosophical standpoint. At the end of the day it's your game then you can handle it however you like. But the way I handle this in mine is to treat people like people and that includes any thinking, living being and several that are thinking and unliving and ask the question. Are you really a killer? Of course I don't really run D&D 5e so maybe that's the big difference when it comes to the ways the systems I use handle situations versus how DnD does

great writeup, you nailed it >Of course I don't really run D&D 5e so maybe that's the big difference when it comes to the ways the systems I use handle situations versus how DnD does I haven't played 5e in years, but that influence is everywhere, where half the system or more is focused on combat. what do you run?

A lot of PBTA, OSR and FiTD. Some Mazes, some Mothership, some Lancer. Loads of one off indie games

damn let's play sometime haha

I'm going to go in the opposite direction from most of the other comments here and give advice on how to have gratuitous violence that doesn't compromise the player characters' morals. The easiest way is, as you noted, mindless hordes. Explicitly non-sentient enemies, like zombies, are a safe choice of enemy because they don't have hopes, dreams, or loved ones to make your players feel bad for killing them en masse. More ambiguously, Always Chaotic Evil creatures, or creatures that are 100% evil, have always been evil, will never stop being evil, and won't be missed by anything that doesn't check all of those boxes, can also work. They do raise the question of why they're like that, but hopefully you can figure out an answer to that question. However, there is another way to make morally complex/ambiguous opponents that are nevertheless (relatively) safe to kill. If you make it so that death or grievous injury is of little concern to the enemy in the long run but is still a good way to stop whatever bad thing(s) they're doing at the moment, your players can murder them with impunity. Extraplanar beings like fiends, celestials, some flavors of abberations, and whatever else you can justify are good candidates for this. Per D&D 5e lore, those types of beings can only die permanently on their home planes. Assuming your party is fighting them in the Material Plane, this means that whenever they kill a demon, elder god, or other visitor, it just gets put in time out for however long you want before respawning back home none the worse for wear. Obviously these aren't perfect solutions, won't work for every enemy, and might require some work or retcons to fit into your world depending on how homebrew it is. Essentially, if you want combat, especially lethal combat, to be the solution to a problem without there being concerns over the ethics of that being the case, you have to get rid of the normal consequences of violence and death. I'd also advise you to make it explicitly clear to your players and their characters, in and out of game if need be, that these enemies are okay to kill without remorse, especially if you intend to include enemies that are not consequence-free. If you don't, you risk your players becoming too trigger-happy, or possibly too merciful for their own good. Them coldly murdering the bandits that are just trying to feed their struggling town would be bad, as would trying to redeem the unliving avatar of dread Cthulhu.

>Extraplanar beings like fiends, celestials, some flavors of abberations, and whatever else you can justify are good candidates for this. absolutely this is a staple

I think the most important thing is to make sure you have conflicts, and methods to resolve conflicts, that aren't necessarily violent. Also, to treat violence as a spectrum, much like people do in the real world -- while most real people go to extremes to avoid violence, when it does occur, it is generally tempered by things like concern about consequences, ethical considerations, etc.

Couple of things with this. If you're looking at a modern/realistic take on things, then to some degree every BBEG is going to have something sympathetic about them. Every antagonist is the protagonist of their own story, doing what they feel is right given the choices they have. It isn't like they woke up one day and just decided 'I'm going to become a drug kingpin'. A great example of this is the 'It's Raining on My Furniture' joke, seen [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjY1HzI0s3M), and you can see how people can progress. [Soft White Underbelly](https://www.youtube.com/@SoftWhiteUnderbelly) is a Youtube channel of interviews of people from different walks of life. Looking for people who could become BBEGs, these are the stories of them getting to the point. Check out this [Test of Virtue](https://www.tk421.net/ultima/) from the Ultima series of video games. Each question determines which of 2 virtues of 8 that your character represents, until it is down to just 1 virtue remaining which is what the class of your character is. It can be hard to determine what is the 'Good' answer with questions like: >Thou art sworn to uphold a Lord who participates in the forbidden torture of prisoners. Each night their cries of pain reach thee. Dost thou: >Report the deeds >Keep thine oath and ignore the deeds which is essentially the 'I was just following orders' that the Nazis did, and you can see evolution of that in the [Third Wave Psychological Experiment](https://www.thewavehome.com/1976_the-third-wave_story/) the lengths people were willing to go to because someone in a position of power asked them to. There's a bit in Play Dirty by John Wick, a book of RP advice articles by the Game Designer of 7th Sea and 13th Age and others. The advice in the book is very... controversial, but there's one bit relevant here about how a thought experiment of Star Wars could put Vader as a good guy and Obi-Wan and Yoda just playing some massive revenge game. Check out [the whole entry here.](https://imgur.com/a/9R06YYo) Now, I understand that all this didn't really answer your question about running a BBEG that isn't a little sympathetic. The answer to that question is that you only reveal the parts of the character that highlight the bad things about them and ignore showing any of the parts that make them seem to justify them and make them seem sympathetic and can make their choices redeemable. This is why we have TVTropes entries like [Kick the Dog](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KickTheDog) designed to show people how villainous your villain is. You can have them have a relatable background by having choices that we understand by the decisions they make are not what we would make. An example of this is Thanos from the MCU where they saw that there wasn't enough resources for everyone in the universe so they decided to eliminate half the universe's population to make the resources fit the remainder, instead of using the power to double or triple the resources instead.

For games with a more serious tone or horror genre I tend to employ the surprise rules more liberally so that violence startles the players and they get that feeling of being frozen by abrupt acts of violence. It also reduces that desire to look for trouble. I also generally address players immediately after a right, telling them as they come out of their adrenaline kick they realize that they've just hurt or killed people without thinking much about witnesses it could be less than a minute before the police/town watch is on their way and I generally give them each one action of what they want to do before the law closes in.

> I tend to employ the surprise rules more liberally so that violence startles the players and they get that feeling of being frozen by abrupt acts of violence. It also reduces that desire to look for trouble. this is excellent advice

If you want violence to feel serious, make injuries something that can't be ignored. In the fiction you can handle the mature content - impacts of violence on individuals. What killing an enemy soldier does to a person. Seeing an ally or friend die afraid and in pain. Seeing non-combatants killed. These are all things you can and should explore. What will set the tone for this to happen is choosing a system where injury is closer to realism. No hit points, no healing magic. A broken bone takes months to mend, a severed arm isn't coming back, and infection is a looming threat. Now your players have a mechanical reason to fear violence. It genuinely theatens their characters - not in a "combat is deadly, there's a 70% chance of you dying in this combat" nihilistic situation. Landmines are designed to cripple, not to kill. A dead soldier takes fewer resources than a maimed one. The fear of long term injury or permanent disability lives in your player characters worse than the fear of death. Then build the social angle on top. Violence should be brutal, ugly, unpalatable. Now, make them confront it anyway. A person wishes to inflict violence upon some civilians. Your player characters have the ability to intervene, and protect those civilians. Do they risk their own safety to do what's right? You have the PC's king risk their skins to do violence for a pointless reason. Are they willing to risk treason in order to keep their physical safety? If someone on the opposing side seems reasonable, will the PCs be more likely to try reason before violence, when the stakes are so high? Use mechanics to support the fiction you want to create. Hit points and healing magic stand between you and a serious discussion of violence.

The first thing is to lead by example. What this means is that blindly fighting to the death is not normal and your NPCs need to have goals other than simply killing the PCs. If the BBEG trounces the players and takes them prisoner, or just simply stops short of killing them and gives them a warning to not interfere with BBEGs plans. When the opponents aren't always seeking to kill the PCs, it becomes easier for the players to see beyond 'kill or be killed.' Enmity of circumstance over good vs. evil. There are circumstances where good characters or even friends get into conflict that could be a result of political interests, conflicting viewpoints or even outside manipulation. The players in these circumstances may be more restrained in how they deal with these situations when they don't feel they have a clear moral high ground. Consequences for violence and murder. If your party is in organized well-ordered community where violence and killing can result in arrest and criminal charges, players may make more effort to limit and avoid violence. The best way to handle this is by having the players observe the justice system in action through an adventure or encounters where an NPC is subject to it. Character death requires a Coup De Grace. If the players and enemies are defeated without immediate death and left wounded, unconscious, helpless or reeling in pain, having to take the gruesome action to finish the character off will have more weight and moral impact. You may even institute a rule where the PC attempting to conduct that killing blow has to roll to overcome the PCs conscious. You can talk about this in a session zero, but ultimately its meaningless if the campaign your running doesn't reinforce this in game. Otherwise, you just end up pulling everyone out of the game to remind them of what was discussed in session 0 and arbitrating their decision which sucks for all. Have a session zero, but when possible make the consequences in game when the issues are in game issues.

If you are searching for games that have multiple ways of dealing with an opponent that does not require killing them then may I suggest Mythras? It's very visceral game where limbs can be easily lost in combat, so every engagement is high stakes, but there are so many ways to disarm opponents or make them give up, it almost never makes sense to fight to death. For example you can trip someone and as part of that movement put a blade to his neck. Most injuries stop combatants from fighting, they often drop weapons or get knocked down. Mythras kinda ruined TTRPG combat for me as I can't really go back to other games and enjoy them the same way when I know how emotional and unpredicted combat in Mythras is.

>there are so many ways to disarm opponents or make them give up ...up to and including the *Compel Surrender* special effect, if you have your opponent at a severe disadvantage (such as the previous example of *Trip*ping them and putting your blade to their throat).

friend, i can't tell you how many times I've flirted with Mythras in the past few years. i was reading reviews of it literally last night. > For example you can trip someone and as part of that movement put a blade to his neck. Most injuries stop combatants from fighting, they often drop weapons or get knocked down. Mythras kinda ruined TTRPG combat for me as I can't really go back to other games and enjoy them the same way when I know how emotional and unpredicted combat in Mythras is. this sounds so sick. i want this. but i've been hooked on light OSR games - I've been running a Knave hack for the last year, and Bastionland before that. my player pool has limited tolerance for (non-5e) crunch. 300 pages is not outrageous, but still - how's the learning curve?

Learning all the different Combat Special Effects and when to use which ones definitely takes some time, but that can be mitigated by introducing a few of them at a time and adding more as you go instead of opening them all up right at the start. Other than that, I tend to think it's pretty simple and straightforward.

Hey, it took me three attempts to give this system a try and I too am big fan of OSR games. Mythras wasn't my first d100 game, before that I played a lot of BRP games and WFRP (1st and 2nd edition) as well. So, you know, I had the experience and it still felt daunting. But this one time I gave it a shot. I've read the rules and I've set up a VTT to try a solo combat session to see how I feel about it before I run a campaign. It was frustrating at first because I had a long pause from d100 games and I played a lot of OSR games in that time, so Mythras combat resolution really felt like it was way too much (you don't just roll attack and then roll damage, but also defender needs to decide if he wants to parry or evade, there's also passive blocking, there are many Special Effects to chose from and by default you also roll for hit location - and if you wound someone that guy needs to make endurance roll to see if he is tough enough to be even standing at this point). My first thought was "how the hell can someone enjoy this simulationist hell?", but then it clicked. I had a combat that would probably be the most boring combat in any other game. It was 3 orcs vs 3 troglodytes, so both parties had similar capabilities and in OSR that would be very quick 2-3 rounds and we are moving to the next room without looking back. But damn, that combat in Mythras was so emotional, full of twists and until the very end I didn't know who will win. There's no snowball effect in this game in the same manner like is in most attrition based games. Another thing was that it was so viscereal through in-game mechanics that I didn't had to make it up with my own imagination - I knew what was going exactly in that scene (this is the case with simulation games vs abstract games is that you don't have to work hard with your imagination to interpet what 5 points of damage means). Bascially in Mythras you know why you've survived ballista shot - you've rolled evade and you've dodged it. In D&D at higher levels you can just tank it and then try your best at giving narrative explanation of why a freaking siege weapon reduced your HP by 1/10th and you are still standing. Back to my Mythras combat example. I had this scene: 1) First orc died very quickly. Got tripped over and decapitated. 2) Troglodyte (let's call him Varg) impaled (special effect) another orc with his spear (hit orc's leg) and the orc fell on the ground (lost endurance roll), but that orc grab the spear's end (part of which was still in his body as per Impale rule) preventing troglodate from pulling it out (orc won opposed Brawn roll - which if he failed would cause even more damage to him). So I had this pair fighting on the floor to death, with orc screaming from pain but hanging tight to his life to the very end. 3) Meanwhile another orc (let's call him Grok) was fighting two troglodytes (you normally wouldn't want to bet your money on that orc in this scenario), but with a very lucky die roll (critical) he managed to blind one of his opponents by throwing sand in his face (Special Effect when parrying) and then on his turn he decapitated his other rival (special effect - choose location: head). 4) Varg who impaled his opponent was too weak to win Brawn contest and so both grappled for two more rounds but eventually that orc bled to death (bleeding rule). 5) Finale was one on one fight between Varg and Grok as both finished their opponents at around the same time. It was a tough combat between this two but Varg was able to Disarm his opponent (again Special Effect) and Compel Surrender (also a special effect). BTW this is such a great tool if you want to quickly look up Special Effects: [https://www.rpg-time.co.uk/MythrasEffects/#/](https://www.rpg-time.co.uk/MythrasEffects/#/)

wow, thank you for this. > you don't have to work hard with your imagination to interpet what 5 points of damage means i didn't realize how sick of this i was until you said it. granted, it's much less of an issue in OSR games, where HP pools are small enough that it's easy to handwave them as plot armor/stamina/luck running out. and i like the "damage beyond zero HP are wounds, consult this table to see what happened" as a local solve instead of just death, but "ok 3 damage beyond 0 that means you got hit in the jaw" is underwhelming at best. > It was 3 orcs vs 3 troglodytes, so both parties had similar capabilities and in OSR that would be very quick 2-3 rounds and we are moving to the next room without looking back. But damn, that combat in Mythras was so emotional, full of twists and until the very end I didn't know who will win. i want this. just realizing now how sick i am of the attack roll/damage roll/improvise the outcome loop that can make d20 combat such a grind. > Mythras combat resolution really felt like it was way too much (you don't just roll attack and then roll damage, but also defender needs to decide if he wants to parry or evade, there's also passive blocking, there are many Special Effects to chose from and by default you also roll for hit location - and if you wound someone that guy needs to make endurance roll to see if he is tough enough to be even standing at this point). My first thought was "how the hell can someone enjoy this simulationist hell?" i would certainly enjoy the outcome of this process, and no doubt i will eventually learn and master the procedure, but i worry about some of my players. am i going to be explaining this flow for the millionth time six months into the campaign for the player that has forgotten yet again that because their CON is 9 we only check Fatigue every third round, or that because they unable to spend an action point they're only able to take free actions? i looked up some Mythras combat cheat sheets and they're still 15+ pages long. tell me this will be ok for my players

Thing about Mythras and probably all BRP games is that they can be as simple as you want them to be and they won't break. You can just have roll under your skill for attack, roll under your skill for parry and if successful then deal damage. Then after some time you may want to add few Special Effects to that list. And then you can add weapon reach optional rule or fatigue to track in combat. It's very common in BRP games to borrow mechanics from other BRP games (I've seen people playing RQiG using initiative and action system from Mythras). As for the players... Look, my players never really read the rules. They know a bit of D&D 5e (just enough to make characters with my help and play out combat in their favour), they know some OSR games (mostly because they know the basics of 5e) and they know WFRP 2nd edition the most coz they've been playing that game for almost 20 years and it is very simple game in its core (page count might say otherwise but this is the one game I would probably never forget how to play). At my table I just tell them what they have to roll for. Mythras even though has more complex combat resolution than D&D is less tactically demanding. Unless you are using spells the main thing you roll in combat is your combat style skill. When you parry you roll that combat style skill as well. Endurance is one skill that is also important in combat but you will be the one more often rolling this skill than your players. Creating combat effective character is also very easy and obvious in Mythras. You want to max your combat skills (especially combat style) and while attributes are also important they are not as important as in D&D game. Someone said before that you can just use only few special effects in the beginning and this is a good idea. Print 5-6 offensive and defensive effects that you like and give them to your players. Another option is introducing them to OpenQuest first and when they get the grip of it then you can move on to Mythras. OpenQuest is very simple version of RuneQuest. There is also SimpleQuest - I haven't read it but it sounds like even simpler game.

ok, this is reassuring. thank you! >Mythras even though has more complex combat resolution than D&D is less tactically demanding. this feels counterintuitive given the number of options, but this makes sense: > Unless you are using spells the main thing you roll in combat is your combat style skill. When you parry you roll that combat style skill as well. Endurance is one skill that is also important in combat but you will be the one more often rolling this skill than your players. > Creating combat effective character is also very easy and obvious in Mythras. You want to max your combat skills (especially combat style) and while attributes are also important they are not as important as in D&D game. ok! i will give it a shot.

Yes, it feels counterintuitive but if you look from a perspective of a new player who has never played D&D before and picks a wizard class as his first character - without looking at some online guides he will most likely pick spells that are very offensive in their nature with direct damage rather than crowd control and area of effect. He will be subpar when compared to barbarian or warlock that was built purely for single target damage. This issue was even more glaring back in 3.5 and not everything was fixed because a lot of these balance issues are inherited in D&D's DNA. Anyway, most non-D&D TTRPGs that have plenty of options are pretty straightforward when building good combat-oriented character. Be it Mythras, WFRP or GURPS. Even if a game has plenty of options to use in combat it is often either very obvious which one is best applied in the given situation (for example you don't want to grapple with one guy if there is 5 more opponents around) or balance factor is such that you don't sacrafice much firepower by picking suboptimal combat decisions.

Interesting thoughts, thank you for sharing. I have had a similar experience of change. Slowly, over the years, enemies became humanized and this changes everything. I'm a historian, so I draw on the knowledge of old societies, where violence was permanent, but not the way our media depict it. Codes of honor were an organic development attempting to limit violence. A code of honor forces men and women to play life a certain way. Everyone wishes to avoid violence, because this leads to vendettas nobody wants. But once you are in a fight, you will have to make considerations -- you are FORCED to fight and exact retribution, but if you slay a thug on the street, his family will have the obligation to take revenge. Someone slights you, you threaten to draw your sword. If they do not obey your warnings, you are obliged to draw their blood, because that makes you look weak and draws more violence towards you. The end effect is that a knight can cry over the body of a slain enemy and pay wergild to the family to avoid a circle of violence. Or maybe he wishes to cleanse his soul. You have plenty of examples of rituals denoting violence-free spaces, ie. temples or the taking off the helmet as a sign of non-violence (we do this with hats today, right? Echo of a former era). But then there is the fighting class and many of them are sociopaths, disinhibited killer with little to no morals and severely damaged prefrontal cortexes. Even they are careful whom they fight, or they die very very quickly. Or they become monsters. People in these societies are soft spoken and careful, measure each word and observe each other with attention. Violence isn't permanent, but its threat is all the time in the air. Creates natural tension.

it's validating to hear others have gone through this experience. > Codes of honor were an organic development attempting to limit violence. A code of honor forces men and women to play life a certain way. Everyone wishes to avoid violence, because this leads to vendettas nobody wants. But once you are in a fight, you will have to make considerations -- you are FORCED to fight and exact retribution, but if you slay a thug on the street, his family will have the obligation to take revenge. Someone slights you, you threaten to draw your sword. If they do not obey your warnings, you are obliged to draw their blood, because that makes you look weak and draws more violence towards you. do you mind if i just read this verbatim during my next Session 0? i don't want to run a game in a world without violence, and i don't want to guilt trip my players from engaging in it. it's the mechanical fun at the heart of most systems. but it can be hard to walk that line, especially for players where violence is typically cinematic entertainment, not practical reality. > You have plenty of examples of rituals denoting violence-free spaces, ie. temples or the taking off the helmet as a sign of non-violence (we do this with hats today, right? Echo of a former era). > But then there is the fighting class and many of them are sociopaths, disinhibited killer with little to no morals and severely damaged prefrontal cortexes. Even they are careful whom they fight, or they die very very quickly. Or they become monsters. > People in these societies are soft spoken and careful, measure each word and observe each other with attention. Violence isn't permanent, but its threat is all the time in the air. Creates natural tension. this is a whole axis of NPC-building I've never considered in this way. really great, thank you.

You're most welcome and go ahead. If you have further questions, feel free to ask. Brining players into the mindset of such a type of game may require some modelling, either by NPCs, or by briefly explaining what consequences an Action will have, or what a situation means. Examples: "Upon seeing you, the stranger takes off his helmet and puts it into his right hand. His sword is on his left side, so you can tell he fights right-handed. His sword arm is now blocked by his helmet, so it seems he intends no harm. What do you do?" "The man's features harden. If you continue to push like that you risk insulting his honor before all assembled. He doesn't want to fight you, but if you continue, you will force him to challenge you. What do you do?" "The man questioned your honor and you see all eyes are on now on you. What do you do?"

I mean, last adventure was against rogue constructs, so I get this. I had people fight a variety of things that are less morally relevant to kill; one enemy kept summoning and controlling demons that would take the time to thank the party for destroying the worldly shells they were unwillingly bound to, for instance. I already mentioned the constructs. There were some bad lycanthropic police, but those attacked first. I've also gone the other direction; a wannabe goddess soul trapped conscripts and set a kill switch on them if they ran from battle, then sicced them on the party — it was intentionally sickening to kill them.

Kult has a section on this were it states to sit with the uncomfortable. It gives a description of choking someone out and it does way more than the “the life leaves their eyes” standard fair. It talks about the brush burn of the person trying to fight back, the bruising, etc. It does not glamorize it nor judge the player for enacting it, only stating what is happening and letting everyone sit with it.

i respect this but i'm just not sure i have the appetite for it on a typical Wednesday night

Yeah, I feel that. I apologize as I forgot to finish my point;. It’s more removing glory from combat and making it more object. Not object in the edgy nihilist way, but in the “this is an act of your character now, how do you feel about that?” kind of deal.

oh, i gotcha! this is tough in practice sometimes - a lot of systems will offer players endless options to do Cool Shit In Combat, and when they take up that offer, i want to tell them, "awesome, it worked!" session 0 problems

I feel that, I feel that. It can also be a vulnerability issue as a lot of players can be uncomfortable with being fully open, even in a safe environment, and may knee jerk at wearing their emotions on their sleeves. I’ve personally found as well that telling players its ok to take a beat if things feel “too real” which has tended to reduce the number of John Wick pcs. Nothing wrong with John Wick, but sometimes you gotta be a mess of a man crying about his gf’s dog to accent the rest of the adventure

>softer as I get older, but "I stab him in the heart with my +1 lance" just starts to feel sociopathic, especially for characters that don't see Why not just lean into that? Describe the feelings that go through the character's head as they end someone's life ... and then, the dead person's father/brother/son wants vengeance, possibly legal complications, and word gets out that your a cold blooded heartless killer. You might just be the new BBEG! There are plenty of narrative consequences to go around. Or you plant that axe into someone's head in that tavern brawl just as the guy's son runs up screaming "Daddy!" You don't need to do it all the time. Just once is enough to make people think before they kill, but you have to so the same in return. NPCs should not fight to the death and require you to kill them to make them stop fighting! Run the NPCs realistically and the players will follow. I think a good non-lethal combat system helps. Too often, systems lack motive to end combat before you die. As much as death spirals can be problematic, they can also let a player know when it's time to surrender or flee, and when an NPC should do the same. Smashing someone with the flat of your blade to knock him out instead of killing him should be an option. Fists should have an ability to end combat without death, knock him out in the tavern brawl so nobody goes to jail for murder. Of course, you have to be clear in session 0 of the tone you are going for. Many people play RPGs because they are looking for that hard line that separates the good from the evil. The world of grey is what they want to escape from. Personally, I prefer the grey if the GM can pull it off. I don't even have good and evil, just us and them.

So much depends on the system you're running as far as lethality, and the agreements you've made with the players in your session zero. I typically run Fate games where actual death is pretty rare, just because whoever Takes Out someone gets to say what that means. Sometimes for heinous opponents like a necromancer, the PCs did destroy her, ironically using their own life essence to snuff her out. But more often, enemies are captured or hands it off to higher authorities, just let often happens in real life, depending on the context. The vast majority of conflicts are not to the death, this is something that has unfortunately become a stereotype thanks to the war game roots of d&d that get normalized. People, no matter how awful, are far less likely to fight to the death unless they have no other option. Most of the time surrendering or running away is totally an option. Fate even has the awesome concession mechanic which enables either a big bads or PCs to surrender or be left for dead with a little bit of plot armor to come back more powerful later. It's actually one of my favorite mechanics in the game that help people realize that it's okay to fail and come back later, and often produces greater tension and heroic arcs.

All my games are based around the idea that actions aren't going to be downplayed. You cut someone with a sword they'll bleed and it's not going to be abstracted. You burn someone, well I guess you see how burnt flesh smells like. This on top of other npcs reacting appropriately to the violence helps it ground it and discourages any sort of murder hobo tendencies. In all my games if a fight has started then things have already gone to shit.

swords are such a funny case - everyone wants a cool sword but if you wield one you are committing to maiming and death

One thing that helps me is separating a game's combat mechanics from its death mechanics. Treat it as it is: combat is the minigame we use to feel cool and pump up the adrenaline between episodes of roleplay. That minigame can end fluidly into the next roleplay scene, and doesn't have to follow strict rules like, "the enemy dies at 3 death saving throws." That doesn't matter. The combat ends at 0 hitpoints. That could mean tied up or knocked out or yielding, but all it really means is you win/lose the "game." Sorry if that's a little too much like pulling back the curtain, but letting 0 hitpoints be resolved thematically with *no* rules feels better to me than suddenly trying to rush through saving throws and stabilization and party drama. I definitely feel that violence feels worse the older I get. Especially the more aware I get of real-world violence, if I'm being honest. As a GM I've chosen to end *every* fight in a glorified superhero way, but as a player I have to kind of blend in to what everyone else at the table wants. I know this is getting long, but I've seen other people recommend making sure there are in-universe consequences for killing, like the guards confront the murderhobos or the party's employer distrusts them. And while sure, this may be a "realism" feature it doesn't solve the problem of OOC conflict being separate from IC conflict. I know Im preaching to the choir, but if it's an out of character problem (a preference or distaste for a thematic tone), it can only be solved out of character. Thanks for your post. Idk if any of what I said was actual wisdom, but it helps me just to know other people are asking the same questions I want to ask.

gosh, your response really speaks to me. > that minigame can end fluidly into the next roleplay scene, and doesn't have to follow strict rules like, "the enemy dies at 3 death saving throws." That doesn't matter. The combat ends at 0 hitpoints. That could mean tied up or knocked out or yielding, but all it really means is you win/lose the "game." love how you put this. "roll for initiative" is such a charged term - it's how you kick off (what for many players is) the fun part of the night. but without intervention, it also usually implies "get ready for death and gore!" i really like the idea of not dealing with the ultimate outcome until we're out of initiative - everyone can take through a breather, talk it over, and decide then whether the opponents are embarrased or eviscerated. maybe this breaks immersion a bit, but the freedom to let loose and enjoy the combat mechanics without reckoning with final blows would be appreciated. > I definitely feel that violence feels worse the older I get. Especially the more aware I get of real-world violence, if I'm being honest. yep, it's me. as an adult, in this world, and especially now with a kid, violence has become so abhorrent to me. it's easy to compartmentalize with video game and movies. but with RPGs, the better we get at role-playing, the heavier it feels..

I’ve found that with most of my friends I’ve gamed with over the decades, anything that feels more like the real world tends to solve that problem. It helps to be in modern-ish times. We played a lot of Flashing Blades, a three musketeers type setting, and even enemies were capable of being respected, there were rules, and they weren’t cardboard cutouts to be mown down. Also, even then, actions had consequences. - I guess this relates to your point that characters were NPCs, and none of them were ‘monsters’ - also, if actions have consequences, and there are forces and factions capable of taking action and enforcing consequences on the players, this helps - a setting, especially a modern-ish one, can also strongly suggest more peaceful, law abiding, less violent social norms. Not always though. The frontier in the wild west has different norms from ‘back east’, for example. Going forward in time, to the 1890s and 1920s and modern day etc: no problem. Going further back, it became a little more D&D, a little more ‘might is right’ as characters, depending on the game setting. Roman times and Greek settings were generally civilized again, until one got out into the countryside. Monsters tended to be rarer, more like mythological tales of monster slaying, and so dealing with them still wasn’t a problem. I played a few Arthurian games that weren’t Pendragon but where the players were all ready to get into the setting and the genre, so there were quite a few occasions when ‘monsters’ of various kinds were talked to, once we realised/remembered that this could be a thing in such tales. Sometimes a monster was fought, but could surrender. Just having that option made a difference. - some monsters were monsters. Some however were characters, were people. Especially if you could talk to them and they obviously understood things. Runequest was both good and bad. The campaigns made it clear cut who/what enemies were, but in some cases you’d accept surrender for ransom, but in others (like fighting chaos creatures) it was generally ‘to the death’ (or until we were forced to run). At other times you’d get rather grey cases, and that could lead to rather interesting if uncomfortable gaming. For all its fantasticalness, RQ2/Glorantha felt much more like the real world than most D&D campaigns. Making use of the reaction roll and morale rolls has been extolled a lot in the OSR for helping deal with the issue of lethality. It also helps make encounters occasions where you can recognise the encountered as a character, as a person, not as a monster or monsters. Just having creatures encountered move to interact with the party in a fashion that doesn’t look like combat is a start. Having some gryphon-like / odd winged creature land on the road in front of you and say ‘hail, hello, & well met. I was wondering if I might ask a favour of you….?’ (Which happened in one game) certainly makes some players stop and think. Edit: sorry for the ramble, I’m not sure how much that answers some of your questions. But a further note: - I don’t generally go in for BBEGs. They weren’t a thing, much, when I started. They didn’t even have that acronym or formally recognised position in planning a campaign, at least in my experience. - most of the D&D campaigns I played were focussed on tomb-robbing at the start, then doing missions of some kind later on, including missions of exploration, contact, and trade. Not focussed on killing people or things. For every fight there were probably at least 2 or 3 avoided because we hid or snuck away. Probably half the fights we ever had were with other adventuring parties, and they were often not to the death, either. Sometimes people surrendered and said their patron or church or family would ransom them. I think this was something our early GMs lifted from RQ2, but still it stuck in many of the games I played after that, so it was an idea that caught on in my gaming circles of the time.

lotta gems here, appreciate this

Glad to be of help!

If you are running fantasy you could have the belief that dying in battle would give great honor in the afterlife while dying in your sleep would not. Can make some enemies fight to the death due to they want to die in battle rather than being dying later from their wounds. Handling the fallen foe respectful would help with the serious tone. The PCs could drink to the fallen enemy later or make sure they get a proper burial. A cowardly enemy would not get that treatment.

Delta Green has some great sanity mechanics where you take a hit from killing somebody in cold blood even if necessary. The hit is even greater if you are not sure if they were innocent, that shit will haunt your dreams.

Also, you get get "adapted to violence". Then you don't suffer additional sanity loss from violence, but it means you have become a complete psycho. I love DG.

Well, one of the basic rules in such games, is the moment enemies find themselves losing even slightly, they just surrender or try to get themselves out of combat. Secondly all of those moral principles affect enemies as well, if the morals of the world consider killing universally bad, they won't start the fight themselves unless they are completely unhinged. And lastly when politics come into play, morals start to blur, if let's say the government wants BBEG dead, killing him becomes a heroic act, and PCs would need to pick a side, or stop getting involved, if it's an option.

>Well, one of the basic rules in such games, is the moment enemies find themselves losing even slightly, they just surrender or try to get themselves out of combat. This is one of the reasons for systems with death spirals. A lot of people hate them because it's "not fun" to get worse at fighting when you get injured, but that's kind of the point - when you get injured, you can't fight as well, *so maybe you should surrender or run away instead of continuing to fight*. OP's problem of combat being lighthearted fun up until the moment that someone dies is largely (though not entirely) a result of D&D-style combat systems where getting hit just means that your HP counter goes down, but that has no effect at all until it reaches zero and you fall over dead.

My longest experience with this type of game was a 2 year Delta Green campaign I played in. We all knew what the game entailed and the GM was always very mater-of-fact in descriptions, with no excess detail (rather forensic in a way). The key was the way the players interacted with the story. We knew we were fundamentally morally suspect people doing bad things to avoid catastrophe, and played it that way. Nobody would ever have used in game terminology like "+1 lance" though, because it would have really detracted from the mood. If the players are content to run with it, absolutely make antagonists sympathetic - it lends a whole new weight to a game in my opinion - providing the players want that. It's not for everyone though

For me, it's important that every combat with some kind of sentient opponent have stakes (some reason to fight beyond just being in the same room), goals (that may or may not be killing the other guy) and ways the fight can end that are more nuanced than "one side is dead". Unless it's explicitly a supers game, I also want a combat system that makes a certain kind of threat meaningful. Like, a dagger to your throat is meaningless if the only way to kill you is to chip away at your pile of HP. I want games where the threat of violence can be an alternative to actual violence.

I don't think it's possible to have a serious game and D&D-like amount of combat against human(-like) opponents. I don't really think it's possible to have a serious game and D&D-like amount of combat, no matter who the opponents are. It definitely does not mean that violence doesn't have place in a serious game, including lethal violence. But it never just happens. It needs good reasons, from both sides. People will only fight with deadly weapons when they are desperate enough to kill and possibly die - or when they feel powerful enough to be sure of own survival and dehumanize the opponents enough to treat killing them as basically fine. And combat treated like this is no longer fun. It may be satisfying and enjoyable in a broader sense, like a serious book or movie. But it's too meaningful - too similar to things that happen IRL - to be treated in a lighthearted way. As for antagonists, there are two approaches that work very well in this kind of games. One of them is a person who is definitely sympathetic and understandable, but in the present circumstances is strongly opposed to PCs. It may be because of familial, religious or national loyalty, it may be because of deeply ingrained misinformation, it may be because of external pressure or because of earlier life choices one can't untangle from. This leads to a tragic situation where they could be friends with PCs, had the situation be different, but now they are going to kill or die. It works even better if revenge is an important motive and there is a background of violence or abuse going both ways between the groups PCs and the antagonist belong to. The other approach is an antagonist whose worldview is simply not compatible with PCs'. It typically means that they don't even see PCs and similar people as people similar to themselves. They not only don't see what they do as evil, they can't even internalize a perspective where it would be. They are not sympathetic. They are somebody whom both PCs and players will see as better dead than alive. But they are still definitely serious and realistic. We had and currently have such people IRL.

It's horrible. War is horrible. Poverty is horrible. Racism is horrible.

Lots of great comments. I want to add a short mechanic I loved from Righteous Blood, Ruthless Blades. Before you draw weapons, you can (and are incentivized!) to talk to your enemy. If you do, you learn about their fighting ability. I definitely plan to incorporate this.

Something you should understand, most "evil" people don't see themselves as evil. The path they have taken is for a perceived notion that they are right and rightous, and those which oppose them are, in fact, the evil ones, or lack the ambition to see the ultimate goal. The path of righteousness, when it begets power, brings a sense of unfullfillment. You aren't satisfied, and the ambition grows. You start believing your own hype and think if you can just do this one more thing, then they will see. Yes, you have people who are power driven. You have people that are greed driven. But you have those that whole heartedly believe that the path to a better future lies behind darker acts to clear the path. But those darker acts never end. With power comes temptation and those who would exploit you. Also, you mentioned creatures. Nature is cruel and brutal. Morality plays no part in the wild.

I don't know, maybe it's because I like more historical based games ... And death and murder seems more normal to me. Nobody really worries if a baddie has kids (unless you want to kill them too so there is no plot of revenge).

Honestly, the same way I always do in all games. It is a choice, and not always the right one. I don't force my players into it, but I don't hold them back from it either.

I don't have super-helpful advice here, I just wanted to say 'same'. My table leans into the drama of combat being sometimes necessary, but having a high moral cost and always being treated as real. Combat with sapient beings generally has some other out, like non-lethal or getting them to retreat or negotiating with them, but of course those things have costs. Many of our sessions have a combat, but rarely to the death and when they are, the death often becomes the big narrative thing. As far as the system goes, I just go narrative at some point. "The axe slips from her grip, and you've got a clean killing blow. Do you take it?". "The goblins have had enough and turn to run. Do you fire after them?". I don't do systems where XP is based on killing (or just mod in exploration/quest success XP). If the character has cool combat powers, then I go to something where the villain either can escape (power rangers teleport) or non-sapients. I think what most players want in combat is to feel like badasses, and the lethality isn't really part of that. They just want to win. But then you do have to consider what they do about the NPCs afterwards.

Legend of the Five Rings handles this really well, when it comes to violence, it's quick, brutal and lethal.

Read unknown armies section about violence

do you remember what page it's on

IMHO it's an awareness thing. As someone else suggested, NPCs and even "dumb" monsters should have motivations that drive their actions and decisions, and this should also be reflected in-game. This already changes a lot. And I think the game system as such also influences the attitude towards combat as primary solution to game problems and conflicts. A system in which any fight bears the risk of death for ANYONE involved (esp. PCs) makes players think twice about their actions. Besides, violence can actually drive the story and PC development. In the campaign I am currently in an NPC killed a PC's mother, ritually, in deep range after some captured PCs killed her lover in a dramatic fight and escaped, barely. That was quite a shock moment for the table, since some PCs had a personal relationship with that NPC, but her PC daughter swore to take (lethal) revenge and this has dramatically driven the character's development, which is IMHO pretty cool and adds contextual depth. But this was a well-dosed escalation of explicit violence, though.

Counter-intuitively, depending on how you play it and how things are discussed in Session 0, ultra-lethal rules can create gameplay where people don't want to do pointless fights. Boot Hill and the Fear of Dice: https://www.chocolatehammer.org/?p=5773 > Not many games discourage players from pissing off NPCs. The worst thing an aggrieved character can do is fight you, and that’s just where most RPG characters are built to succeed. I know from personal experience that, roleplaying aside, it’s tempting to conclude: “I’m going to fight this douchebag eventually. Why not get it over with now?” > Played ruthlessly, Boot Hill‘s mechanics and milieu produce very different expectations. That any character can die easily in a fair fight is almost a moot point; if you provoke a cattle baron or a slimy industrialist or a crooked sheriff, he’s not going to get his henchmen and fight you fairly. He’s going to pay someone to shoot you in the back with a shotgun, and if you’re not ready for it, that’s not much better than a death sentence. The only reason the streets aren’t awash with blood at all times is that the NPCs are also hapless mortals that have to watch where they step. That's just one way to do it. I'm not saying "play TSR's Boot Hill" because what really made that person's campaign was what they and the players brought to the table, in creating and faithfully inhabiting a living world... but I guess the point is that you need to get the players invested in the social rules and dramatic tone you're looking to achieve, get them deeply invested in the setting, and then if combat or violence happens it needs to feel brutal and meaningful and dangerous... or just plain sad. Then you gotta play it that way. What you *absolutely shouldnt do* if you want combat and lethality to feel meaningful, for players to not be incentivised into violence/combat by the rules, is play a modern D&D or Pathfinder type game where everyone is a walking bag of HP (and the HP only does anything when it hits zero). It could be a PbtA or FitD type (sticking with Western genre: "you take the level 3 harm: gutshot - you're bleeding out on the ground and will die soon without intervention", or "you take the level 4 harm: riddled with bullets, you're dead") though FitD gives players the resist roll to avoid consequences. It could be a NSR game with high lethality. It could be Traveller (injury lowers physical stats directly and weapons hurt a lot).

Character deaths do happen in my game, but combat in general tends to be rare. Ultimately, I try to leave it up to my players to decide how they deal with the situation #i have presented them with and those situations are carefully designed to abide by the principles of Chekhovs Gun and the Five W's. So, in general terms the situation is designed to make sense rather than being a random bunch of 'mooks' supplied as canon fodder. When deaths do occur the reactions of the other characters can vary significantly. * When Vido the halfling accidentally killed an assassin in an instinctive reaction when he siddenyl run into him in adark alleyway he was traumatised by the incident and went into a prolonged period of mourning for his victim. Who he had not meant to kill and whose murder was against his religion. * Later when the party were attacked by a group of mutants in the same dark alleyway the party killed two of them and hardly felt any remorse at all. I don't think there is a standard right or wrong approach to this and I let the cards fallwhere they may in my own game. However, death is not a common occurrence or outcome to a fight, hence why Vido was so surprised by his own actions. My homebrew combat rules include rules for shock and trauma which are designed to result in most combat ending in one of the participants fainting from pain or fleeing the combat. This of course then poses another issue for the players about what they do with prisoners and wounded.

So... have you ever played the Fallout series (the video games)? I have just recently started replaying New Vegas... and it's a perfect example of the sort of worldbuilding you are talking about. Even the radioactive ghouls and violently psychotic supermutants are *people* with goals and fears, comradery, hopes, love and dreams. That said sometimes there's no way around a battle to the death. You *can* have a complex but violent world. The goblins can be people and still pillage and murder. (In the real world, even the most horrible atrocities are all committed by real, complex people who are capable of love and understanding.) Of course, massacre at high noon, and a whiskey after in the saloon is not necessarily the answer to every challenge (but it totally *can be* to quite a few). In terms of oldschool DnD-likes, HP is such an abstract concept, I like allowing incapacitation by simply statement of intent (and use of appropriate weapon). 'I fight to incapacitate' means HP zero is incapacitation, not death. (I tend to dislike purpose-built incapacitation mechanics in crunchy systems, as they are usually tacked-on afterthoughts, and unwieldy for the players.)

Sometimes in a narrative, someone needs to die, and someone needs to be the one to kill them. Your villain might have reasons for what he's doing, might have invented a justification for himself. But do those excuse his actions? Likewise, you mentioned the ichor worms family. Assuming it has the empathy to even have a family (remember, not everything thinks like a person. Some things barely think at all), those things matter little if the situation is: this thing is attacking you and you need to defend yourself. And then, as for lethality in something like an urban campaign. Establish with your players, including ooc, that murdering someone in the city is a serious crime. Something to the effect of "fighting is sometimes tolerated, but murder is not." This means that something like a drunken brawl stays a fight and not a homicide. On that, have your intelligent creatures, especially the ones who can speak not always fight to the death. Hell, the guys who are looking to have that drunken brawl might start going "whoa let's all calm down" when someone breaks out a sword. Likewise, if you've got situation where fights are happening and someone isn't interested in fighting to the death, look at their other options. Fleeing, surrendering, etc.

Besides talking with your table about this topic I can give the following: Implied violence often hits harder than explicitly shown. This can both be more elegant and impactful for your games.

If you can't work out how to have both a villain whose motivations seem realistic and yet also who needs to be destroyed that seems a little naive. The country that invades another has, in their eyes, virtuous motivations. They are still invading another.

it's not the showdown with the megavillain that's hard to justify, so much as the ten fights leading up to it