Pulverizing video game baddies ‘til they’re a bloody heap is a compelling power fantasy. You can be at the center of all the carnage, seemingly impervious to any sort of damage, or revel in the twitchy adrenaline rush that comes from dodging enemy attacks.

But unrelenting violence can also quickly become hollow. Sometimes the pacifist approach to problem solving is more gratifying—say, discussing the futility of a hyper-intelligent being’s military strategy or intimidating hapless mobsters into surrendering.

Discover how far your powers of persuasion can take you in the four games below. You may even learn something new about your enemies—and the surrounding world—by successfully navigating tense conversations with your powers of diplomacy.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong

Originally a tabletop RPG, the Vampire: The Masquerade series includes several video game spinoffs, from the critically acclaimed RPG Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines to the battle royale Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong centers on the politicking within vampiric society, breaking from its more combat-focused peers. Turns out vampires aren’t that different from us after all—they form alliances and councils, engage in cloak-and-dagger operations, and backstab one another for political gain.

In Swansong, you alternate among three vampires. There’s the relatively young vampire Emem Louis, the amnesiac Leysha, and the dignified veteran Galeb Bazory. All three work for the Prince, a vampire mayor of sorts who manages the city of Boston. When a mysterious attack takes place, the Prince instructs Emem, Leysha, and Galeb to uncover the perpetrators.

Humanity generally does not know about the existence of vampires in the Vampire: The Masquerade universe, so investigations have to be conducted in secret and with some persuasive sleight of hand. This means talking to tons of people (both humans and vampires), carrying out investigations like a detective, and persuading all parties to see things your way—without resorting to violence. Meanwhile, the Prince also wants to bring more cities under the sway of the Camarilla, an elite vampire sect.

In other words, there’s a whole lot of talking to do.

But you don’t have to rely solely on your silver tongue and charisma. After all, you’re a vampire with supernatural powers. You can tap into Emem, Leysha, and Galeb’s individual vampiric powers to aid in espionage, be it using Dominate to control lesser beings with just a few words or Auspex to trigger premonitions. Use these powers well, and you’ll be able to navigate the politics of the Camarilla like a seasoned vampire-politician.
 

Planescape: Torment

At the heart of Planescape: Torment is a burning riddle: “What can change the nature of a man?” This question plagues Planescape: Torment’s protagonist, the Nameless One—an immortal being who, upon awakening on a mortuary slab, discovers he has lost all his memories.

Conveniently, the Nameless One also cannot die. If he’s killed, he simply materializes on the same mortuary slab. The Nameless One sets out to discover his past and regain his memories—a goal that cannot be achieved with mere fisticuffs alone.

Unlike many of its contemporaries, Planescape: Torment is predominantly a game of words, with conversations that are made up of long, cascading texts about weighty philosophical topics. As the Nameless One, you’re free to adopt any approach you want to complete your quest. You can, for instance, play as a brute and mindlessly murder folks to achieve your goals. But it’s clear that Planescape: Torment would rather you resort to more non-violent means.

One quest asks you to deal with a persistent overstayer at a flophouse. The most straightforward way, of course, is to murder him—but you can also persuade him to leave by tricking another character into giving up his prized possession, which will net you a far more bountiful reward. You can also avoid several pivotal battles entirely by talking the foe into submission. The non-combat approach is much more rewarding for players who are drawn to the game’s rich and fantastical narrative, as opposed to clubbing enemies to death with your own arm.

There’s also the Nameless One’s nifty ability to escape death no matter what befell him, which opens new and fascinating dialogue options. This includes the capacity to ask a local seamstress to rip your intestines from your body…for your own ends.

Fallout

The Fallout series is almost synonymous nowadays with developer Bethesda Game Studios, but the original Fallout was a markedly different beast—an isometric RPG with turn-based combat and a heavy emphasis on resolving quests multiple ways. No surprise, both Planescape: Torment and Fallout were developed by the same studio, Black Isle Studios.

Playing a survivor known only as the Vault Dweller, you were born and raised in Vault 13, one of the many underground fallout shelters built to withstand global nuclear war. When Vault 13’s water chip abruptly stops working, you’re tasked with finding a replacement chip within 150 days—or else the vault will run out of clean water. This means heading out onto the devastated, radioactive surface. It’s a momentous task that few survivors have embarked on.

Fallout’s sense of urgency was unprecedented. You only have a limited amount of in-game time to complete your task. Talking to other characters and gathering information is paramount, but you can’t afford taking the time to talk to everyone.

And like Planescape: Torment, quests can be solved in several ways, whether that means talking things through or using a dash of violence. This extends even to the game’s Big Bad. You can convince them to abandon their carefully laid plans—and skip an admittedly challenging fight—if you’re intelligent and charismatic enough.
 

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

A sequel to Deus Ex: Human Revolution (and the fifth Deus Ex game overall), the cyberpunk RPG Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is a stealth-focused shooter that hews pretty closely to the series’ roots. You once again play as Adam Jensen, a cybernetically enhanced super hacker with an arsenal of guns, augmentations, and other contraptions that could take down an entire army of cyborgs. And that’s what Jensen has set out to do here—take down the Illuminati planning to tag augmented people with a biochip, alongside a host of other nefarious deeds.

But where’s the fun in carrying all of this out in the bloodiest manner possible? Mankind Divided has a Pacifist achievement you can earn by finishing the game without killing anyone. That includes subduing the more aggressive enemies with non-lethal weapons such as the TESLA, allowing Jensen to temporarily incapacitate them.

Or you can simply negotiate your way out of sticky situations with the aid of the CASIE augmentation, which gives your conversational skills a bit of a boost. From convincing people to give up crucial security codes to offering more information about clandestine projects, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided lets you wield the art of persuasion so you never have to murder anyone in cold blood—no matter how cool your high-tech gadgets are.