RPGs are not about Combat

I once ran a session that was supposed to end at midnight. It wrapped up at four in the morning. Not because of a climactic battle. Not because of troubles with solving a puzzle. But because six players spent two full hours locked in a fierce debate: should they form a temporary alliance with a group of Nazis to stop a Cthulhian god from rising and destroying the world? Could they even trust them? 

The tension was unbearable. Every argument made sense. Every counterargument cut deeper. They hated the idea of working with human monsters, but what if it was the only way to prevent the end of the world? The question wasn’t just tactical. It was moral. Existential even.

And no one wanted to be the one to say “yes.”

That moment had no initiative rolls. No dice. No stat blocks. Just fear, revulsion, urgency—and the weight of consequence. When players are that engaged, the game is doing something powerful.

I’ve written a lot about combat mechanics, because when you fight, it should matter. And because many GMs bungle combat. But the best sessions aren’t defined by what gets killed—they’re defined by what gets decided. And the hardest, most meaningful choices in RPGs rarely happen on the battlefield.

The Ultimate Challenge

It’s easy to think RPGs are about combat. Many systems spend most of their pages on it. Videogames train us to expect it. And in D&D, the most famous RPG, the backbone of character progression is built on it. So GMs naturally reach for combat as the default challenge.

And I love a good old-fashioned tactical fight. Tension, resource management, desperate choices, there’s so much drama in a well-run battle.

But combat should serve the drama, not replace it.

Ask yourself: What is still exciting if the players can win every fight?

If the answer is nothing  then you’re game is probably missing something.

The question isn’t how hard the enemies are. It’s what’s at stake.

In a good Superman story, it’s never about whether he can beat the bad guy. He can. He’s Superman. The story is about what he's willing to risk, who he chooses to save, and what price he’s willing to pay. The drama is in the dilemma, not in the punch.

The same goes for RPGs. Combat isn’t the ultimate challenge. It’s just one way, sometimes the loudest, but rarely the deepest.

Real Challenges: Tough Decisions, Dilemmas, and Mysteries

Most of the best RPG moments happen between fights, when players are forced to make hard decisions with no easy answers. Instead of throwing stronger enemies at them, present moral dilemmas where the players can’t save everyone and everything and must make a difficult choice. 

Uncertain consequences can also create tension—should they act now or wait? Either option might make things worse. And sometimes, a victory itself comes at a cost. They may have won the battle, but what did they have to sacrifice?

This is not even about making your game world morally gray or amoral. Tolkien’s Middle Earth is not morally gray, but even there the protagonists are faced with enormous ethical dilemmas. Both Boromir and Faramir must at a certain point decide whether to take and use the evil power of the Ring for good. Gandalf must decide whether to protect Frodo or let him suffer for the good of all. Frodo must decide whether or not to kill the Gollum, a clearly evil but pathetic creature. None of these decisions is easy.

Beyond moral dilemmas, one of the best ways to challenge players is to make them figure things out. Not just puzzles in the traditional sense—though those can be great —but situations where they have to deduce what’s really going on. Who is a friend? Who is an enemy? What’s actually happening behind the scenes? What was the reason behind the disconcerting actions of an NPC? The uncertainty and the process of uncovering truth pull the players deeper into the fictional universe.

This is one of the most engaging and under-appreciated forms of challenge in RPGs. A mystery doesn’t just feed players information, but makes them work for it. Players should feel compelled to build theories and devise plans to test them and uncover hidden motives or unravel deeper plots. This process is highly creative, often requires collective problem solving, and leads to exploration and discovery of the fictional world. Each moment they spend planning what to do, the players place themselves more firmly in the point of view of their characters. Tactical combat may have the opposite effect, removing them from the fiction and throwing them in the abstract world of tactical choices informed by knowledge of the game mechanics.

A hidden enemy can be much more than just “the next boss fight”—uncovering their motives should be as engaging as the final confrontation. And maybe even the final confrontation can be more about what is said and decided than about tactical positioning and dice rolling.

Mystery forces players to engage with the world differently. If every obstacle is solved by rolling initiative, you’re missing out on the full range of what RPGs can do.

But What About Combat?

I’m not suggesting you never use combat, far from it.

However, in my favorite genres (horror, mystery, low level fantasy), violence should feel like a dangerous option with potentially fatal consequences. When combat is an active choice of the players, they should want to  know very well who they’re fighting, why, and what advantage they have—and even then, the outcome should never feel certain. When combat isn’t a choice, it should feel like an unavoidable danger they must overcome, maybe with simple survival being the main goal.

Almost no one—not even the most reckless creature—enters combat without believing they have either a significant advantage or no other option. Animals posture before fighting, trying to intimidate their opponents before engaging. People plan, gather allies, or seek ways to avoid combat unless the benefits outweigh the risks. Players should feel the same weight when making those decisions.

Conclusion

RPGs should not just be about combat. Even if your system supports it, even if your players are combat-focused, the best RPG sessions derive tension, challenge, and excitement from the fictional world more than from the mechanics.

Tough choices are often more interesting than tough enemies. Figuring out what is really happening—who to trust, what’s at stake, and what the right path is—increases engagement and adds depth. 

And if/when combat happens, make it count.

In summary, next time you prepare a game, ask yourself how the adventure challenges the players besides combat.