I've been talking to a friend who played dnd when he was young, but is pacifist now and while still interested in the game at one level wouldn't want to take part in the combat and violence.
In the long history of dnd surely others must have attempted to run a pacifist campaign at some point. I'm wondering if anyone knows of any resources or threads discussing such a thing.
One idea that came to me was the players could all be aid workers from the same religious temple or something to that effect. Trying to help destitute people with resources or resettlement, maybe uncovering corruption.
I think that a Pacifist campaign is entirely possible, but I think that DnD probably isn't the best system for that. There are plenty of Role Playing Games that are focused on roleplay and social interaction... that's part of DnD, sure, but the game very clearly draws its origin from war games, and the majority of rules and options relate to combat.
I had someone play a pacifist character once. We all hated that character.
Having said that you need to clearly discuss this with the rest of your players. I would also say your pacifist player needs to realize and accept there can and likely will be violence at some point, but he doesn't have to be directly involved.
I would recommend he play some type of support character. A dedicated healing life cleric or buff/debuff wizard could work.
Whatever you decide good luck to you.
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I ran a game where a character played a pacifist but didn't expect the party to be. He of course was the group healer and took the lead in almost all role playing sessions, it worked out good, and was liked by the party. That said in real life he wasn't a pacifist, so it was all just roleplay to him. If your friend is ok with the other party members battling imaginary evil monsters then shouldn't be a issue, if he isn't and ends up being preachy then it could go south fast.
Well, in the G.I. Joe comic, where they and Cobra actually shot at each other as opposed to around each other in the cartoon, there was a medic character, Lifeline, who was a Pacifist. Not sure if a character who does nothing but heals and abhors violence will necessary bond well with the rest of the party.
Your other option is just Tomb Raider style dungeons, where the only monsters are mindless bug swarms snakes and such, that can thought around as opposed to just killed, and traps, lots and lots of puzzle traps and physical feats to surmount. I could see that as a one shot as opposed to a full on campaign.
But yes, as mentioned there are other role playing rules systems that are less built around violence than D&D. Gumshoes good for detective/investigative work.
I guess part of the thing that you may know but isn't necessarily present in the thread, is if this potential players pacifism is a personal practice or something he feels the need to encourage in others as well. In other words, in game would he be comfortable with other players engaged in violent action? If not, you need to either tailor the game to this players own ethos (and wonder how that will go with the group) or find a ruleset that gives you more to do in non-violent adventure.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I happen to play in two campaigns with pacifist characters - one is a barbarian, and the other is a druid. Combat is always interesting. The barbarian attempts to talk the enemy down from violence and does not fight or even rage until after the enemy strikes. The druid usually heals or attempts to incapacitate and almost never deals damage. So it's entirely feasible for a pacifist to play a normal 5e game without the DM needing to reimagine one of D&D's pillars. That is, of course, if the player is comfortable with combat being a thing.
If the player is not...this probably isn't the best system for them, as others have said above. I myself run a combat-light campaign (my players fight something about once a month and we play weekly). The vast majority of my campaign is political intrigue and gumshoe stuff, and RP is king. With enough skill checks and environmental hazards, you can have a D&D experience that doesn't necessarily involve killing bad guys.
Knowing what the pacifist player is comfortable with is key, and ensuring that the rest of the party is okay with that is equally as important. It may be that the player just doesn't like hurting people, so you can build a campaign about destroying malfunctioning or evil constructs that have no souls. Or maybe combat is not against creatures, but against a semi-sentient landscape or a harsh plane (like Pandemonium), and it turns into a quest about survival and the restoration of nature.
There is a Pacifist Paladin (Oath of Redemption). I could also see a lot of Druids being pacifists if they wanted to... depending on if restraining is enough.
There was a good look at Pacifism in the Thomas Covenant series, where some of the best fighters strove to actually be pacifists, with the mantra Do not hurt where holding is enough, Do not wound where hurting is enough, Do not maim where wounding is enough, And kill not where maiming is enough, The greatest warrior is he who does not need to kill
And that may still be too harsh for your friend. Another route is to go a Bard and only provide support spells. Anything really is possible, the key is to have an open conversation with all the players at the table and discuss how the party is going to interact with the world. A Tomb Raider campaign would certainly be entertaining, as long as everyone knew that they were not building combat characters, that they were building for skill checks and diplomacy.
No, you should not allow this player into your game if there are other players who do want to play D&D the way it's intended.
What this player wants to do is simply roleplay conversations. They are not a suitable player for a game of D&D, any more than a person who doesn't like balls should play tennis.
Your other players will resent having to have them along. It's inevitable. The other players are basically weighted down by someone who isn't interested in playing the same game that they are.
I'm noticing a lot of responses seem to be based on "How do I cater to a pacifist character in an otherwise normal campaign?" That doesn't really seem to be what the OP is asking about... they seem to be more interested in running a campaign that is fully pacifist for the entire party. That's very different and I'd assume everyone involved would know that's what they're getting into before starting a campaign like this.
So, you have a few options here. If the player is okay with violence against undead, constructs, and monstrosities, but not against sentient beings like humanoids or fey, you can build a campaign with just those monsters. If the player is okay with the party being violent as long as they don't have to be, they can play a full support character or even a Batman-style nonlethal monk. But if the player doesn't want any fighting, well, fighting is part of D&D, and the other players who want to play D&D won't be happy. In that case, you'll have to switch to a different system (assuming the other players are on board, maybe they like D&D) or just tell your friend that your game just won't work for him. That's tricky to do, but good luck!
Edit: I'm also curious how this will turn out, so would you mind giving us an update when you work out what you're going to do?
I can't believe nobody has mentioned oath of redemption paladin -- an oathbound 1/2 caster who focuses on defense and healing, while being obligated to only fight as a last resort. It is one of the few things written as an almost exclusively pacifist subclass.
I can't believe nobody has mentioned oath of redemption paladin -- an oathbound 1/2 caster who focuses on defense and healing, while being obligated to only fight as a last resort. It is one of the few things written as an almost exclusively pacifist subclass.
There is a Pacifist Paladin (Oath of Redemption). I could also see a lot of Druids being pacifists if they wanted to... depending on if restraining is enough.
There was a good look at Pacifism in the Thomas Covenant series, where some of the best fighters strove to actually be pacifists, with the mantra Do not hurt where holding is enough, Do not wound where hurting is enough, Do not maim where wounding is enough, And kill not where maiming is enough, The greatest warrior is he who does not need to kill
And that may still be too harsh for your friend. Another route is to go a Bard and only provide support spells. Anything really is possible, the key is to have an open conversation with all the players at the table and discuss how the party is going to interact with the world. A Tomb Raider campaign would certainly be entertaining, as long as everyone knew that they were not building combat characters, that they were building for skill checks and diplomacy.
Oath of Redemption doesn't abandon its martial abilities. If push comes to shove despite appeals to an adversaries better nature (seems the oath is presumptive that all beings are redeemable to the better self) this Paladin can still smite. So it comes down to the player and table being completely nonviolent to the point of turning the other cheek and rolling with a hit rather than compromise their principles or if there is allowance for preservation of one's own life or maybe the lives of others.
So yes, a nonviolent game could be done, but you're literally ignoring the bulk of the features a D&D character possesses, in which case why play this game as opposed to another more non violently driven game.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
The discussion with my friend was really more of a hypothetical. He said the passing thought had occasionally come to him to try to run one for his other pacifist friends. It kind of sparked my interest as a curiosity as to how it could be done.
I like the suggestions that a different system may be the way to go or, I haven't asked him yet, but would killing non sentients or irredeemably evil creatures such as demons be okay.
Okay, just so we're clear... you're not talking about just one pacifist character in an otherwise standard D&D group on an otherwise standard D&D campaign. You're talking about a fully Pacifist Campaign. Right? Sure, that's possible. Heck, anything's possible. Maybe not easy, but certainly possible. There are two concerns that you'll need to address first:
First - outside the game. You'll need to ensure that all the players in the group understand what kind of campaign they're signing up for. They will all need to agree on the terms and conditions of the campaign, meaning that this is no place for CN murderhobos. Be sure to have a session zero where you thoroughly explain to the group the concept of the campaign and the expectations of the players and their characters. This may be met with some trepidation, as it will probably be a rather new concept for most people. But if everyone is in agreement with the concept, then we can proceed to ....
Second - inside the game. The D&D world that our characters inhabit is much different than ours. It is a world of cruelty, and violence, and corruption, and... well... okay, maybe it's not so different. But standard groups of adventurers do seem to face potentially violent conflicts on a regular basis. Your players (through their characters) will have to formulate a plan for how they will survive those threats. When a standard party is searching for a missing villager and gets ambushed by some goblins, they simply kill those goblins. Maybe they'll keep one alive to torture, sorry, to "interrogate" for information. But how would a pacifist party respond to that threat? I'm not saying it's not going to be possible, I'm just saying they're going to need a plan.
It is an interesting concept, and presents fascinating new challenges for role playing scenarios. It will obviously lean much more heavily toward deep role playing, and complex diplomacy. But that, in and of itself, may be a good enough reason to try it. It breaks norms. The very concept of such a campaign challenges the players in an entirely new way, and would force them to exercise their role playing muscles to a far greater degree than ever before. It's a great idea, and I really hope you find a group willing to do it, because I'm curious to see how it turns out.
I think if your friend wants to do this, it could be an interesting way to play D&D. However, as someone mentioned above, the DM should be prepared that the vast majority of published content for D&D will not be usable as written. Most if not all of the D&D adventure books assume PCs who are at least willing to get into combat when needed, and probably every single one of them has at least a few spots, and some very many spots, in which the characters will simply need to fight. Creatures like undead are not usually willing, and in some cases literally not able, to negotiate or stop. Certain constructs likewise. And the writers of the game assumed that even a more RP-centric party would have players who enjoy getting into combat at least occasionally and have players who would like to do so.
This is not to say that you couldn't run some of the adventures without combat, but your friend will be in for very heavy, severe modification, to the point that even the published adventures would largely have to be homebrewed to make them pacifist-friendly.
One thing your friend could look into is running a lot of skill challenges. I do these for things like overland travel and my players seem to enjoy them. They get to roll dice, cheer successes, groan at natural 1s, and there is a win/lose mechanic, but nobody has to die or even take any damage. Consequences for failure are pretty open-ended, so for travel, for example, they can get lost or arrive down to very low supplies because it took them so long to get somewhere. Skill challenges would also work for things like, a political debate, or a court trial, or sneaking into a place to steal something, assuming you can set it up so the whole party can participate.
But ultimately to play D&D, at least beyond something like a short one-shot, with no combat at all, is going to require a lot of work on the part of the DM to come up with encounters, situations, and action scenes that are fun and challenging to the players but involve no battle.
This sure sounds an awful like going to a wine bar and asking for a beer. The game was never designed for pacifism. A player can try it. A whole group can try it, if the DM really wants to go all that extra effort. But is not anywhere near easy, nor the theme of D&D.
For sure it would have to be a homebrew campaign. As I've thought it over a bit, encounters would almost all have to be constructed to allow the characters to escape or negotiate in some way. I think maybe a fun encounter might be if they were escorting villagers and were attacked, how might they protect the villagers long enough to get them to safety behind some walls. The characters builds themselves would probably be different too, focused mostly on defense and subduing enemies.
Anyway, I'm sure it would be challenging and require quite a bit of work to make it fun for the players.
It's certainly possible. But yes, the character builds will have to be specifically designed with the pacifist goal in mind. A few thoughts on that....
A battlemaster fighter, with the protection fighting style, who uses maneuvers like Commanding Presence, Evasive Footwork, Parry, and Rally to protect his teammates from attack.
A way of the shadow monk to be the scout, using stealth to recon the enemy's position so the party can work its way around. And the monk can use their ki to create Darkness, Silence, and Pass Without Trace, enabling the party to avoid potential confrontations.
An enchantment wizard to trick the enemy into not attacking. The enchanter's Hypnotic Gaze and Instinctive Charm give the party great opportunities to make more friends than enemies. And the enchanter can back those up with the full range of useful wizard spells.
A college of glamour bard. Their Mantle of Inspiration not only heals allies, but let's them use a reaction to move away from an enemy without provoking an opportunity attack. That alone is pure gold! Add Mantle of Majesty (Command), and the massive skillset of bards and you're all set.
And of course you'll need a cleric. Every party needs a cleric. Arcana, Light, Grave, Twilight, Life, Trickery - any one of them will give you what you need to keep the party alive.
So that's how I would set it up. The rest is up to the players, and how they bring those characters to life. That's where the REAL magic happens!
The OP's original post implies directly that this one particular friend is a pacifist in real life, and that their level of pacifism is such that they don't want to participate even in harming imaginary creatures, even if that has a "good" outcome in the game.
Now, I'm a pacifist. That means that I do not like violence, or want to see it used to solve anything. However, in a game, I am a fantasy roleplay character and I might play a homicidal warrior or a necromancer willing to kill anyone for immortality. Therefore being a pacifist for this friend seems to go beyond just believing in pacifism and all the way into not wanting to play a game that involves them having to imagine attacking things.
If this is the case, then D&D is absolutely not the game for them. You will not run a successful pacifist campaign where there are threatening creatures and NPCs that wish to harm people, because even in a culture entirely of pacifists, there is a need for some people to fight. In modern society they are our police and our army; they have a monopoly on violence so that most people don't have to. You can even be a pacifist and be a soldier, just as you can be opposed to setting fire to things but need to bring down a building and burning it to create a fire break to stop more fires spreading.
I think a good point to start with this friend is to ask what they think the type of goals a roleplay character they would be playing would pursue, and then see if there's a game system which is about that. 99% of all D&D rules are about combat.
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I've been talking to a friend who played dnd when he was young, but is pacifist now and while still interested in the game at one level wouldn't want to take part in the combat and violence.
In the long history of dnd surely others must have attempted to run a pacifist campaign at some point. I'm wondering if anyone knows of any resources or threads discussing such a thing.
One idea that came to me was the players could all be aid workers from the same religious temple or something to that effect. Trying to help destitute people with resources or resettlement, maybe uncovering corruption.
I think that a Pacifist campaign is entirely possible, but I think that DnD probably isn't the best system for that. There are plenty of Role Playing Games that are focused on roleplay and social interaction... that's part of DnD, sure, but the game very clearly draws its origin from war games, and the majority of rules and options relate to combat.
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I had someone play a pacifist character once. We all hated that character.
Having said that you need to clearly discuss this with the rest of your players. I would also say your pacifist player needs to realize and accept there can and likely will be violence at some point, but he doesn't have to be directly involved.
I would recommend he play some type of support character. A dedicated healing life cleric or buff/debuff wizard could work.
Whatever you decide good luck to you.
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Sword Dancer - A Cleric subclass specifically for the Drow goddess Eilistraee.
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In the end, you could play a pacifist campaign, but 95% of the material in the game system would be useless to you.
What level of pacifism is he wanting?
I ran a game where a character played a pacifist but didn't expect the party to be. He of course was the group healer and took the lead in almost all role playing sessions, it worked out good, and was liked by the party. That said in real life he wasn't a pacifist, so it was all just roleplay to him. If your friend is ok with the other party members battling imaginary evil monsters then shouldn't be a issue, if he isn't and ends up being preachy then it could go south fast.
Well, in the G.I. Joe comic, where they and Cobra actually shot at each other as opposed to around each other in the cartoon, there was a medic character, Lifeline, who was a Pacifist. Not sure if a character who does nothing but heals and abhors violence will necessary bond well with the rest of the party.
Your other option is just Tomb Raider style dungeons, where the only monsters are mindless bug swarms snakes and such, that can thought around as opposed to just killed, and traps, lots and lots of puzzle traps and physical feats to surmount. I could see that as a one shot as opposed to a full on campaign.
But yes, as mentioned there are other role playing rules systems that are less built around violence than D&D. Gumshoes good for detective/investigative work.
I guess part of the thing that you may know but isn't necessarily present in the thread, is if this potential players pacifism is a personal practice or something he feels the need to encourage in others as well. In other words, in game would he be comfortable with other players engaged in violent action? If not, you need to either tailor the game to this players own ethos (and wonder how that will go with the group) or find a ruleset that gives you more to do in non-violent adventure.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I happen to play in two campaigns with pacifist characters - one is a barbarian, and the other is a druid. Combat is always interesting. The barbarian attempts to talk the enemy down from violence and does not fight or even rage until after the enemy strikes. The druid usually heals or attempts to incapacitate and almost never deals damage. So it's entirely feasible for a pacifist to play a normal 5e game without the DM needing to reimagine one of D&D's pillars. That is, of course, if the player is comfortable with combat being a thing.
If the player is not...this probably isn't the best system for them, as others have said above. I myself run a combat-light campaign (my players fight something about once a month and we play weekly). The vast majority of my campaign is political intrigue and gumshoe stuff, and RP is king. With enough skill checks and environmental hazards, you can have a D&D experience that doesn't necessarily involve killing bad guys.
Knowing what the pacifist player is comfortable with is key, and ensuring that the rest of the party is okay with that is equally as important. It may be that the player just doesn't like hurting people, so you can build a campaign about destroying malfunctioning or evil constructs that have no souls. Or maybe combat is not against creatures, but against a semi-sentient landscape or a harsh plane (like Pandemonium), and it turns into a quest about survival and the restoration of nature.
There is a Pacifist Paladin (Oath of Redemption). I could also see a lot of Druids being pacifists if they wanted to... depending on if restraining is enough.
There was a good look at Pacifism in the Thomas Covenant series, where some of the best fighters strove to actually be pacifists, with the mantra
Do not hurt where holding is enough,
Do not wound where hurting is enough,
Do not maim where wounding is enough,
And kill not where maiming is enough,
The greatest warrior is he who does not need to kill
And that may still be too harsh for your friend. Another route is to go a Bard and only provide support spells. Anything really is possible, the key is to have an open conversation with all the players at the table and discuss how the party is going to interact with the world. A Tomb Raider campaign would certainly be entertaining, as long as everyone knew that they were not building combat characters, that they were building for skill checks and diplomacy.
No, you should not allow this player into your game if there are other players who do want to play D&D the way it's intended.
What this player wants to do is simply roleplay conversations. They are not a suitable player for a game of D&D, any more than a person who doesn't like balls should play tennis.
Your other players will resent having to have them along. It's inevitable. The other players are basically weighted down by someone who isn't interested in playing the same game that they are.
I'm noticing a lot of responses seem to be based on "How do I cater to a pacifist character in an otherwise normal campaign?" That doesn't really seem to be what the OP is asking about... they seem to be more interested in running a campaign that is fully pacifist for the entire party. That's very different and I'd assume everyone involved would know that's what they're getting into before starting a campaign like this.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
So, you have a few options here. If the player is okay with violence against undead, constructs, and monstrosities, but not against sentient beings like humanoids or fey, you can build a campaign with just those monsters. If the player is okay with the party being violent as long as they don't have to be, they can play a full support character or even a Batman-style nonlethal monk. But if the player doesn't want any fighting, well, fighting is part of D&D, and the other players who want to play D&D won't be happy. In that case, you'll have to switch to a different system (assuming the other players are on board, maybe they like D&D) or just tell your friend that your game just won't work for him. That's tricky to do, but good luck!
Edit: I'm also curious how this will turn out, so would you mind giving us an update when you work out what you're going to do?
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I can't believe nobody has mentioned oath of redemption paladin -- an oathbound 1/2 caster who focuses on defense and healing, while being obligated to only fight as a last resort. It is one of the few things written as an almost exclusively pacifist subclass.
(its in XGtE btw)
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Oath of Redemption doesn't abandon its martial abilities. If push comes to shove despite appeals to an adversaries better nature (seems the oath is presumptive that all beings are redeemable to the better self) this Paladin can still smite. So it comes down to the player and table being completely nonviolent to the point of turning the other cheek and rolling with a hit rather than compromise their principles or if there is allowance for preservation of one's own life or maybe the lives of others.
So yes, a nonviolent game could be done, but you're literally ignoring the bulk of the features a D&D character possesses, in which case why play this game as opposed to another more non violently driven game.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
The discussion with my friend was really more of a hypothetical. He said the passing thought had occasionally come to him to try to run one for his other pacifist friends. It kind of sparked my interest as a curiosity as to how it could be done.
I like the suggestions that a different system may be the way to go or, I haven't asked him yet, but would killing non sentients or irredeemably evil creatures such as demons be okay.
Okay, just so we're clear... you're not talking about just one pacifist character in an otherwise standard D&D group on an otherwise standard D&D campaign. You're talking about a fully Pacifist Campaign. Right? Sure, that's possible. Heck, anything's possible. Maybe not easy, but certainly possible. There are two concerns that you'll need to address first:
First - outside the game. You'll need to ensure that all the players in the group understand what kind of campaign they're signing up for. They will all need to agree on the terms and conditions of the campaign, meaning that this is no place for CN murderhobos. Be sure to have a session zero where you thoroughly explain to the group the concept of the campaign and the expectations of the players and their characters. This may be met with some trepidation, as it will probably be a rather new concept for most people. But if everyone is in agreement with the concept, then we can proceed to ....
Second - inside the game. The D&D world that our characters inhabit is much different than ours. It is a world of cruelty, and violence, and corruption, and... well... okay, maybe it's not so different. But standard groups of adventurers do seem to face potentially violent conflicts on a regular basis. Your players (through their characters) will have to formulate a plan for how they will survive those threats. When a standard party is searching for a missing villager and gets ambushed by some goblins, they simply kill those goblins. Maybe they'll keep one alive to torture, sorry, to "interrogate" for information. But how would a pacifist party respond to that threat? I'm not saying it's not going to be possible, I'm just saying they're going to need a plan.
It is an interesting concept, and presents fascinating new challenges for role playing scenarios. It will obviously lean much more heavily toward deep role playing, and complex diplomacy. But that, in and of itself, may be a good enough reason to try it. It breaks norms. The very concept of such a campaign challenges the players in an entirely new way, and would force them to exercise their role playing muscles to a far greater degree than ever before. It's a great idea, and I really hope you find a group willing to do it, because I'm curious to see how it turns out.
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I think if your friend wants to do this, it could be an interesting way to play D&D. However, as someone mentioned above, the DM should be prepared that the vast majority of published content for D&D will not be usable as written. Most if not all of the D&D adventure books assume PCs who are at least willing to get into combat when needed, and probably every single one of them has at least a few spots, and some very many spots, in which the characters will simply need to fight. Creatures like undead are not usually willing, and in some cases literally not able, to negotiate or stop. Certain constructs likewise. And the writers of the game assumed that even a more RP-centric party would have players who enjoy getting into combat at least occasionally and have players who would like to do so.
This is not to say that you couldn't run some of the adventures without combat, but your friend will be in for very heavy, severe modification, to the point that even the published adventures would largely have to be homebrewed to make them pacifist-friendly.
One thing your friend could look into is running a lot of skill challenges. I do these for things like overland travel and my players seem to enjoy them. They get to roll dice, cheer successes, groan at natural 1s, and there is a win/lose mechanic, but nobody has to die or even take any damage. Consequences for failure are pretty open-ended, so for travel, for example, they can get lost or arrive down to very low supplies because it took them so long to get somewhere. Skill challenges would also work for things like, a political debate, or a court trial, or sneaking into a place to steal something, assuming you can set it up so the whole party can participate.
But ultimately to play D&D, at least beyond something like a short one-shot, with no combat at all, is going to require a lot of work on the part of the DM to come up with encounters, situations, and action scenes that are fun and challenging to the players but involve no battle.
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This sure sounds an awful like going to a wine bar and asking for a beer. The game was never designed for pacifism. A player can try it. A whole group can try it, if the DM really wants to go all that extra effort. But is not anywhere near easy, nor the theme of D&D.
For sure it would have to be a homebrew campaign. As I've thought it over a bit, encounters would almost all have to be constructed to allow the characters to escape or negotiate in some way. I think maybe a fun encounter might be if they were escorting villagers and were attacked, how might they protect the villagers long enough to get them to safety behind some walls. The characters builds themselves would probably be different too, focused mostly on defense and subduing enemies.
Anyway, I'm sure it would be challenging and require quite a bit of work to make it fun for the players.
Thanks for all the input.
It's certainly possible. But yes, the character builds will have to be specifically designed with the pacifist goal in mind. A few thoughts on that....
A battlemaster fighter, with the protection fighting style, who uses maneuvers like Commanding Presence, Evasive Footwork, Parry, and Rally to protect his teammates from attack.
A way of the shadow monk to be the scout, using stealth to recon the enemy's position so the party can work its way around. And the monk can use their ki to create Darkness, Silence, and Pass Without Trace, enabling the party to avoid potential confrontations.
An enchantment wizard to trick the enemy into not attacking. The enchanter's Hypnotic Gaze and Instinctive Charm give the party great opportunities to make more friends than enemies. And the enchanter can back those up with the full range of useful wizard spells.
A college of glamour bard. Their Mantle of Inspiration not only heals allies, but let's them use a reaction to move away from an enemy without provoking an opportunity attack. That alone is pure gold! Add Mantle of Majesty (Command), and the massive skillset of bards and you're all set.
And of course you'll need a cleric. Every party needs a cleric. Arcana, Light, Grave, Twilight, Life, Trickery - any one of them will give you what you need to keep the party alive.
So that's how I would set it up. The rest is up to the players, and how they bring those characters to life. That's where the REAL magic happens!
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
The OP's original post implies directly that this one particular friend is a pacifist in real life, and that their level of pacifism is such that they don't want to participate even in harming imaginary creatures, even if that has a "good" outcome in the game.
Now, I'm a pacifist. That means that I do not like violence, or want to see it used to solve anything. However, in a game, I am a fantasy roleplay character and I might play a homicidal warrior or a necromancer willing to kill anyone for immortality. Therefore being a pacifist for this friend seems to go beyond just believing in pacifism and all the way into not wanting to play a game that involves them having to imagine attacking things.
If this is the case, then D&D is absolutely not the game for them. You will not run a successful pacifist campaign where there are threatening creatures and NPCs that wish to harm people, because even in a culture entirely of pacifists, there is a need for some people to fight. In modern society they are our police and our army; they have a monopoly on violence so that most people don't have to. You can even be a pacifist and be a soldier, just as you can be opposed to setting fire to things but need to bring down a building and burning it to create a fire break to stop more fires spreading.
I think a good point to start with this friend is to ask what they think the type of goals a roleplay character they would be playing would pursue, and then see if there's a game system which is about that. 99% of all D&D rules are about combat.