PC Gamer - Why too Much Combat Hurts RPGs

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Jody Macgregor of PC gamer published a new article with her opinion on, "Why too much combat hurts great RPGs". Here is a small sample of the article.

Warning: Article does contain spoilers for a few RPG games.

In the tutorial dungeon during the first act of Pillars of Eternity you meet a xaurip-one of the game's reptilian kobold creatures. It's feebly waving a spear (see the video above) but obviously isn't much of a threat. In another RPG you might be tempted to heroically slaughter this sickly three-foot specimen because, hey, level two ain't gonna hit itself. But in Pillars of Eternity you don't earn experience points for every single thing you kill. It ties its biggest XP rewards to quest completion instead, theoretically allowing you to pursue non-violent solutions without feeling like you're holding yourself back, without having to worry that you're weakening your future self by not beating up every single wheezing geckoman you meet. You could talk to him instead.

The tabletop RPGs Pillars of Eternity draws heavily on for inspiration have gone down similar paths, with the last few editions of Dungeons & Dragons all suggesting heroes who sneak past an ogre deserve the same amount of experience as those who murder it, while other RPGs hand out points for making in-character decisions or even making other players laugh. What a game chooses to reward says a lot about the kind of play the creators want to encourage.​