TLDR: What are your favorite games that have almost no combat, but aren’t billed as “non-violent“ in an annoying way?

Starforged has me hooked. And on the days I don’t play, I am playing SOMA (video game). There has been no combat in my game, nor in SOMA. Sure there’s plenty of conflict and tension; we hid in an asteroid belt from space cops, had our ship rendered totally inoperable as it spun out in a death spiral after being slammed by an asteroid… SOMA has extremely dark themes, suicide etc, you get stalked a la Alien Isolation. I looove the slow, deliberate exploration and problem solving. So lonely. It is making me realize my favorite aspects of rpgs generally is tone / vibes / exploration / story. I find combat tiresome, overly represented in modern culture. YOU are the HERO! ZZZzzz. BUT this doesn’t mean I want the tepid interactions of Vantage, or the preachy eco-warrior message of Earthborne Rangers (yes I agree with its themes, I just don‘t want other adults telling me to shift my relationship to nature when I already have a deeply personal respect for it). I love me some dark, spooky, sad, depressing themes. Probably cathartic. I think I just don’t love combat in my rpgs, not because it’s bad, but because it’s boring to me. I usually glaze over when it’s time to roll initiative. What are your favorite games that have almost no combat, but aren’t billed as “non-violent“ in an annoying way?

So I'm making a TTRPG based around finding lost artefact and treasures. With it I want to make a sort of "evidence board" mechanic. So there's a mystery to be solved, e.g the location of a certain artefact, and the player will compile clues about it for the evidence board, connecting clues with each other. At the end the player will roll to determine if the mystery is solved or not.

I'm looking for reference, are there any games that handle mystery this way? I need ideas on how to implement this mechanic.

I've gotten into solo roleplaying the past couple of months or so, and typically things go the same where I learn a book, take notes on the system, create a character I like, and... nothing. It wasn't until I played The Walking Dead game by Free League that I really played a game, and it was awesome. I decided to check out Free League's stuff, and I got back into my previous loop of never really playing a game. When I got to checking out Death in Space, I saw that a lot of people said that Mothership was just a better alternative. So, I checked that out instead; it seemed simple enough, so I pulled the trigger on it, and it rekindled the magic that I had experienced with TWD.
I think I'm starting to understand my taste a little bit more, but I still can't quite explain what I want. I know I don't want something lore-heavy like Traveller or Alien, but I don't want a universal system like GURPS or savage world. More a game for a genre or a type of story rather than a game for a specific world.
This may all be nonsense; I'm just telling you what I've experienced, and I'm trying to find the best path forward.

I’ve had the G.I. Joe (and Transformers) RPGs for a while - but, no one to game with. I just got the new Mythic GM Emulator. Anyone ever played any of the Renegade RPGs custom Essence20 system, a d20-based ruleset that incorporates a "ladder" mechanic of skill dice?

So I've just gotten my copy of the Obelisk RPG. Pretty typical gritty D6 pool system dungeon crawling in terms of mechanics. I have friends who will want to join but I do love a good solo game, and im somewhat new to the solo game, does anyone have any recommendations on how to go about running that for a system like this?

Hello there,

I just posted ep. 10 of my blog series for my ongoing Solo Campaign using 4 different RPG Systems. The current set of episodes use the Suldokar's Wake system but still have my Gamma World 1e PCs from Ep. 1-5. If you want to check out the whole series; just go to ancientshell.com or go to the latest episode at STQK: EP.10 (Dinner is Xorn...) – Ancient Shell Publishing Enjoy!

Hello! So I love the idea of solo RPGs and have tried playing many different systems over the last… 6(?), or so years, but I never enjoyed them. At some point I stoppet trying to solo when I become GM for a small group of my friends, and we had a 2–ish year long campaign (really fun!). But recently I wanted to play a solo rpg, so I grabbed a pen, and wrote stuff down on my whiteboard! This is the polished result of that (but not the final version). I plan to do more polis on the core rules to make them clearer and shorter, and provide a page of clarificatio/QoL tips, and 8 pages of the best, simplest tables I think a player or GM would need. There’s no license on it officially right no, so I would ask that you not share it anywhere else on the internet (feel free to download the image to try and play it thought!).

thanks for reading, I seriously would love your thought!