Pacifism is a type of hindrance/disadvantage/flaw that works very differently in different types of games. In most games I play or run, no-one would take the pacifism unless there's a work-a-round against it's limitations - and I can't blame anyone for that, as these games usually have at least one combat each session, and usually everyone's most eagerly waiting for those combats! And they often are the most exciting parts of a game session.

So, in a rpg campaign where there's a good change that there's at least one combat each session, would you take pacifism? I probably wouldn't. But I could think of taking a modified version of the hindrance.

In combat-heavy games, I believe lower level of pacifism (Minor hindrance in Savage Worlds) should become the major one; Current Major version should have some additional benefit, and should be renamed to Total pacifism.

New Hindrance: Peaceful

Peaceful doesn't prevent a character from using lethal violence, but he should try to avoid such situations whenever possible. A peaceful character would allow enemies to flee, or if the fleeing would cause complications he orders them to halt before shooting, or in critical situation shoots them to legs.

The character always carefully weighs the situation; An option where lives can be saved is always preferred to a Peaceful character. A peaceful character attempts to persuade a gang to let them pass, as they probably are just misguided youth, most of which would really prefer avoid the fight. He could kill a hostile company's swat team members, but when they're outnumbered and pinned down, he'd try to make them surrender.

This kind of attitude would be closer to normal people than normal heroes attitude, but reality in the games I've seen is quite different - many of my players are way too trigger-happy to have any remorse for getting any poor npc's killed. This makes Peaceful -hindrace a viable choise, and is easier to adopt by players. And if you have better name suggestions for this hindrance, I'd like to hear your suggestion - I'm not quite happy about the name and am seeking for a better alternative.