Violence in solarpunk RPGs, and a consideration of an absurdly-lethal cowboy miniatures game from the 1970s

I've seen some discussion, mostly over on Mastodon, about whether solarpunk games should include violence. They make the case that we already devote too much headspace to killing, and believe that solarpunk should be held above that, as a space to think about alternatives.

I think that's a good goal, but I'm not sure banishing violence from the setting is a good way to go about it. Solarpunk is very much a genre space for exploring possibilities, and trying out new ways of doing things, but its also often pretty grounded in reality, whether that's technologically, socially, or politically. Maybe I'm pessimistic, but I don't think it's unrealistic to expect conflict and violence in the world's future, and I think its worth it to consider solarpunk answers to how/when to fight as well as to deescalation and conflict resolution.

The 'But why? Section of the 'Combat' page says: "Even if you don’t like running combat (and we’re right with you), having a combat system that is easy for a GM to use raises the stakes when situations get tense. Knowing that a fight is possible and easy for the GM to run in-game makes the risk of violence more present from the metagame perspective of players. This increases the stakes and instills standoffs with a higher urgency to deescalate."

I really like this approach - you don't have to add violence to your game, but you can, and much like in real life, the threat of it is always there if you can't find those other solutions.

I think this is a really good use case, and it reminds me of an article from awhile back that I really liked, about a campaign that went even further. Using an surreally lethal shoot'em'up cowboy miniatures game from the 1970s as the mechanics for a tense campaign of politics, deception, and intrigue.

The gist is that by providing a game where gunfights were, perhaps, realistically lethal for the players and NPCs alike, the GM was able to ramp up the threat of violence to the point where the players found all kinds of clever ways to avoid it, or to minimize risk to themselves when they decided it was necessary. And because it was sparse and high risk, the tension remained tight throughout. To quote Rutskarn (the GM):

'Though a “powerful” character might tend to go first or hit more often, where they hit and how much damage they do has nothing to do with character (or player) skill. All hits debilitate, and a fifth of the time they’ll kill outright with no recourse for the victim.

[...]

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.

[...]

The vicious, tense, and bloody combat made players very afraid of the consequences of mis-stepping. There was a fear, a tension, a thrill every time they even picked up the dice; if they were attacking they knew they were taking a great risk, and if they were being attacked, they knew they may have made their last mistake.'

At a glance, that doesn't sound like something you'd include in a solarpunk game. It's sudden, brutal, and bloody. But this is, I think, a pretty blunt impression of what violence really looks like. There's a reason most of us want to avoid it so badly.

Now his goal was different from ours - his simulated Toombstone was far from aspirational, and the player characters were a ruthless, corrupt pack of murderers. But the game mechanics didn't make them do that, and the ultra-lethal combat was the main reason why they only participated in fights five times in what sounds like a months-long campaign with a plot to otherwise rival Game of Thrones.

Fully Automated's Firefight system isn't this vicious, and it's also packed with less-lethal alternatives to bullets and buckshot. But I think there's a similar chord in the decision to make violence possible, so that the threat is there. What we do in the space around it is up to us.