Do you think it’s possible to enjoy a Dungeons & Dragons game in which you don’t kill every being you encounter? Is the notion so against-the-grain that removing it removes the fun? The fun (I assert) is joking around with the other players and the tension of getting out of sticky situations. Normally, the method of escape is to kill everything and the reason for that is because everything in your way is a monster. I don’t know how the economy in these worlds work: the constant overcast, the constant stream of monsters, the roving bands of amoral adventurers, not to mention dark lords. Are there farms? Does anyone raise chickens? Wondering about the economy and other world-building elements (aside from maybe exitentential/authoritarian politics) isn’t really the point, surely, but what if you did wonder about them? Would that lead to new kinds of adventures?

For instance, your mission might be to deliver a cure to a remote village and in the course of doing so, you have to apprehend bandits and turn them into a sherif, or scare off monsters with a show of force, or deal with one of your party who is somehow a traitor. (DM sets this up before hand?)

Another mission might be to capture a rare “monster” in a remote, mountainous, wooded area because you want to preserve the species. You already have a male, you need a female to start a breeding pair. Maybe you discover that the females are sentient and now you have an ethical dilemma.

Or perhaps you’re hired to find some townspeople who joined a cult. You need to capture them, de-program them (if necessary) and bring them home. You encounter dangers along the way from bandits and wild-animals (or monsters) requiring you to hide and run away, and maybe you get some get from entertaining fellow travelers, or hospitable farmers when a bandit takes your map early on.

Maybe you’re escorting privileged pilgrims to a remote shrine in a time of civil unrest!

I’m not attempting to make the game realistic, at least not all that much, but removing death as the default game-play tactic would surely make for a richer ecosystem.

And make for better podcast listening, too.