(eu criei esse post num
fórum gringo e não queria ter que traduzir a porra toda pro português.
mas se não tiver outro jeito, me falem! )
As an electronic-rpg junkie, I like games that allow me to take roles that has nothing to do with combat, and provide me with options to rely on these role´s potentials consistently. So, if Im taking a Thief, the game must gimme options to act like a fucking Thief, and I dont mean "backstabbing enemies" here - I mean robbing mansions in the night, pickpocketing, conning, shadowing victims for information and blackmailing, fencing loot in the black market, gain reputation, etc. So, I DONT FUCKING WANT to waste my time with boring tactical combats and martial minutia, I want to waste my time making decisions that will be crucial to my success in the
role I choose, a thief. And if this is really a
role-playing game, I expect it provide me with that.
But its a rare thing to see in an electronic rpg game, really. Ive only seen this kind of thing well implemented in games from the old Interplay/Black Isle/Troika´ guys - Fallout 1 & 2, Planescape Torment, Arcanum, Vampire: Bloodlines. (forget Bioware, they cant do this even if their life depended on it).
So here is the big question: would this "concept" be portable to tabletop ? Would a rpg game called "Thief" (for example), that presented various classes/archetypes for making a team of thief characters in a dark ages setting, with mechanics for depicting and emulating the main aspects of such role (info-gathering, breaking and entering, evidence cleaning, underworld reputation, thiefs-guilds conflicts, etc), but stating that "theres NO combat - when you enter combat, you run or you DIE", would be a cool game to play in your opinion ? In other words, if the game took out the tactical and decision-making relevance from "combat" and transported it to aspects related to its premisse ("Thieving", or "heisting" in this case) would this still be great to play ? Or, without combat, its DOOMED ?
Obs: the "Thief" premisse here is just an example. The game could be about a troupe of Bards, about a guild of Merchants, or about a order of Clerics (or even Inquisitors). The main point is: theres NO COMBAT. There is adventure, and tension, and conflict, and "tactical" decision-making. But all this is related to those premisses, not combat. Maybe the system wouldnt even have a "STR" stat. Would you still find it fun to play a game whose implied "roles" are not related at all to that of combatents ?