It’s been a while and I’ve never tried a 100% pacifist run, but I think that it’s theoretically possible in Planescape: Torment (Steam, GoG).
I know for a fact that the vast majority of encounters can be skipped with dialogue, and in fact, it’s heavily incentivized because the combat system is not very good.
I’m pretty sure you have to kill a zombie in the first level to escape. And I don’t think you can avoid fighting (and killing) Ravel and the Deva. The Deva I think you can maybe spare after defeating, as long as you don’t bring a certain party member with you…
Kingdom Come: Deliverance has an achievement for a main quest line pacifist run. There is one NPC you have to kill for story reasons which apparently doesn’t count towards that achievement.
In Nethack, you can fully complete the game as a pacifist, although it’s VERY hard and the game is already hard to get into to begin with. In that case, you are only allowed to indirectly kill enemies by having your pet(s) kill them or by using spells which make enemies attack themselves. Or simply by avoiding enemies completely. Playing as a healer or wizard is the easiest option, but still very hard. The game rewards this and other conducts (= supported “challenges”) by mentioning it in the very end after you’ve ascended.
That’s not so bad. The good news is that the game gets easier the farther you go. The endgame is the easiest part. The bad news is that you still need to know about a lot of the enemies, items and potential situations that can occur and how to handle them. The most important thing is to gather what’s commonly called an Ascension Kit, which is an approximate list of items you pretty much should have in order to win the game because then you can deal with literally every enemy and situation (unless you make a stupid mistake). So you need to know what those items are, how to get them, how to identify them in the game and not waste them, and things like that. You can get somewhat far just through sheer luck but you’ll never make it through if you play blindly (don’t read any tips or spoilers) or just rely on luck.
There are some fun ways to complete some Hitman missions “without killing anyone”, just by fiddling with the environment so that the target coincidentally dies “by accident” later on. You can even get one of your targets in Hitman 3 to commit suicide.
It’s mainly just talking to people, but if you want to fight as few times as possible, you probably need to know the game or tons of save-scumming. You’ll also have to be ok with just missing a bunch of stuff, or pick and choose your fights, which again, needs prior knowledge.
I don’t think it’s a good way for a first playthrough.
IIRC there are six fights you always need to do (two of those in the tutorial and another shortly after, although technically you can use glitches to skip these). But if you only wanted to do these fights, you’d basically do an evil playthrough and miss most of the game, especially Act 1 and 3. And if you’re not talking to people, save-reload the correct dialogue choice, you would just sneak around everywhere, trying to avoid enemies, constantly saving and reloading, because you were spotted.
If you add a handful of boss fights, a good run is possible, but still, there’s going to be a lot of sneaking around and save-scumming.
Disco Elysium? More or less entirely conversation-driven RPG about an alcoholic cop who drunk himself to submission so hard he forgot who he is, hence developing him back with skillpoints. Off the top of my head there’s like one combat situation which you can talk around if you’re so inclined.
Otherwise, it’s been said many times that “Planetscape: Torment” is similar … ish. Not the setting, but mechanics, apparently you can entirely go through the game without combat - but that’s not to say there’s not going to be bodies - or so I’ve been told, haven’t played the game to completion, only dabbled the beginnings.
So, these suggestions are with grain of salt, obvs. But afaik both are pretty high up on the rpg shelf.
Grain of salt? Disco Elysium is the perfect example and Torment would have been a better game without combat. I‘d like to add Citizen Sleeper. I‘m a bit tired of RPG where combat often is the only or favoured option.
Not an RPG, but in the Thief series the hardest difficulty usually means that you aren’t allowed to kill anyone. Many people even try to play the games as a ghost. Meaning the only sign of their presence after leaving is the stuff they stole. Every door has to be closed and locked again. Keys stolen from guards have to be returned (in lieu of a game mechanic for this you have to lay it on the ground behind them).
People do challenge runs of the Gothic games as pacifists. So it isn’t part of the games but doable with some shenanigans.
Fairly certain the NPC in Morrowind could theoretically be killed by a combination of his own drain health spell reflected back at him and/or - once he’s out of magicka - dying to fire shield.
In Morrowind, you have to kill a ghost to please the Urshilaku, Dagoth Gares for the Sixth House Base, Dagoth Vemyn for Sunder, and Dagoth Ur/the heart. I guess you could probably cheese reflect spells, but that doesn’t feel quite “true pacifist” to me - just like dragging Eridor everywhere in Oblivion doesn’t quite feel like “pacifism.” You’d also have to do a lot of leveling/side quests to get the Hortator/Nerevarine skip to avoid the inevitable slaughter of Venim, Gothren, the bad Erabenimsim, etc (it’s annoying, Gothren stalled out my “no inventory” run and working on the skip took 5ever)
You could trade the ghost and Gares for Vivec if you wanted, and then not have to do the leveling/side quests.
I believe it’s possible in Cyberpunk 2077. Blunt weapons are non-fatal, other weapons can be modified to be non-fatal, stealth is usually an option, and you can even remotely disable enemies if your hacking skill is high enough.
There are sections you can’t do alone, so you might need to be proactive about neutralising enemies before your companion does.
spoilerTalking about the section where you’re directing Reed from a distance through a stealth section, there’s a couple of spots where you can preemptively act to have Reed not just stealth kill them or smth
Hey, in a setting like Night City, beating people unconscious to spare their life practically makes you a saint.
If you really want to ease your conscience, I don’t think they ever explain how non-lethal weapon mods work. You can head-cannon that your assault rifle is loaded with nanites that safely shut down enemy cyberware if you want.
I think you can only be non-lethal, not truly pacifist, if someone cares about this difference. You still need to knock people out and do stuff to them, even if they don’t die by your hand.
I think frying that guy’s brain was a lethal option, but the worse one from that level is the brothers who have their tongues torn out and get thrown into their own mines as slaves. Corvo’s blade really is the kinder option!
The lady with the stalker actually kills him a couple of years later and lives the rest of her life peacefuly and secluded off of his fortune. (According to the wiki)
Sil (specifically Sil-Q, the most modern fork) is a great Tolkien-esque roguelike in the vein of Angband where pacifism is a first-class citizen. You get a lot of XP just by observing hostiles from the shadows. I highly recommend it!
I was coming in here to say this: every MGS since they added the stamina bar I have beat non violently, including all the bosses. Even in the MGS 1 remake Twin Snakes for GameCube, no kills.
In MGS 5 they have a whole set of non lethal shotguns, sniper rifles, and assault rifles. I think it’s super fun, and makes you come up with creative ways to knock out armored enemies.
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