how do you feel about games having killable children?

i dont hate kids or anything but if im playing a game were i can kill everyone except children it kinda pisses me off, especially if the kids are being little assholes. having immortal npcs always gets under my skin even if killing said npcs would impact the story. having immortal kids just because the developers are too afraid to give you the option to kill them seems like a bitch move to me. while its not game breaking and since i know some countries out there wont allow kid killing in there games and they want to have the widest base possible, its still annoying and can be fixed by simply not putting children in the game period. fallout 1 and 2 had killable kids and the world didnt breakdown to an apocalyptic hellscape, and oblivion had no kids at all and its story and world didnt suffer because of it.

the games im personally thinking of are fallout 3 and skyrim where children rarely bring anything to table anyway so if ur going to bitch out just dont have em at all. its not like they ever add much to the story (not that there respective stories are that good anyway) so why have em at all.

anywho, what do you think about killable kids in general?

Those games are the best kind

Why would you want to kill a child?

@Telekill: why wouldnt i?

@i-rock-socks: Ok. So you're a psycho that needs to be put down before some poor kid gets abducted and killed by you. Got it.

@Telekill: and your an idiot who needs to be put down before his idiocy infects our fellow man. got it

All for it. I hated those rat bastards at Little Lamplight.

He's a "psycho" for actions in a game? Really? Seems you have a problem with distinguishing fiction from reality.

@Bigboi500: If he or anyone including yourself has a need to kill children, fake or not, then those would be the people with physiological problems that at the very least need extensive counseling.

Yeah gotta say I tend to agree... even if it's in a game, doesn't make it OK.

BS. They're fictional settings for a reason. Do you carry your high morals in to games like Grand Theft Auto, Hitman or Uncharted? Do you run to the police station and confess to murder when you run over an innocent pedestrian in GTA?

You not being able to tell what's real and what's fictional would indicate you are more in need of therapy than the strangers you're judging on the internet.

If you can kill everyone in the game, and there are children in the game and you can kill them. I am personally neutral to this because i don't care

What if one of the soldiers, mercs or cops you kill in FPSs was slightly under 18? What if the drugs you sold in Saint's Row went to a child and he ODed and died?

Why drag reality in to games?

Ya I don't have a problem with it. I've found it more odd game companies have avoided it like the plague, due to media criticism. I think to date I've probably only played a couple that allowed it or had kid zombies etc.. Lets shoot more kids in games or beat them with nailed bats. Just don't make it a mindless killing fest and start writing stories and scripts that actually make doing so not so OMG I shot a kid!

then that makes you as stupid as him, its a game get over it

u think ur better than anyone because the virtual people ur alright with killing are 18 or older

by ur logic ur just as big of a psycho for killing at all, u think ur clean because ur killing adults

ur just too dim to see ur own hypocrisy

Why would you want to kill any human?

Drawing the line between killing adults in a virtual environment, and killing children in a virtual environment is highly hypocritical.

I don't care it myself. I don't really see a need for it in a game and games with kids that you can't never bothered me in that regard.

I WANT TO KILL THE CHDREN!

It probably is hypocritical, but IMO killing children in a game is crossing that line for me.

But let's say for example you shot an adult in real life, it's bad and would be frowned upon by people. But if you shot a child, do you think you'd receive the same amount of hate or more? Of course it doesn't matter, a human is a human... but it's a defenceless child.

And it's the same for me in a game. Some of you obviously don't have a problem with it, but I do. That's all I'm saying.

You're an angry person aren't you?!

@hrt_rulz01: i prefer aggressive

Killing (or any morally repugnant act) doesn't cross any line for me unless it's actual killing. Murder, whether it be a man, woman, child, elderly, is killing regardless. I don't see any degree of morality in the act itself, but that's just me.

so if the kid isnt defenseless its ok? then the armed children in Little Lamplight are alright to kill by ur standards, just open season? and its alright to kill defenseless adults?

murder is murder but none of that matters cause ITS A FUCKING VIDEO GAME ur "real life" comparisons are moot.

if you dont like it thats fine, but dont act like were in the wrong

That's pretty much my thoughts on this. Although, I don't really play games where children can be killed.

Did I say you were wrong? I'm just saying it bothers ME.

u agreeing with the guy that said we need consoling and then saying "its not ok" implies we are in the wrong, you dont need to say it literally to say it.

and good job dodging the real question

I would not classify killing children as something "missing" from a game, but I do dislike arbitrary restrictions on what a player can do. In Fallout 1 and 2, "Child Killer" was actually a negative character trait you could aquire in the game based on your behavior, but in Fallout 3 and up you can only render children unconcious like major characters.

-Byshop

i mean i don't care, if children aren't being able to get killed and everyone else is, then it's somehow hypocritical. But i personally don't care because i don't play games to kill children. Even though there are games that allow this like Dying Light

Wouldn't bother me. I like as much freedom as possible in games.

Besides some of those kids in fallout 3 and Skyrim are just absolute turds!

I wouldn't feel comfortable with it.

That being said I understand people enjoy the prospect of virtually expressing themselves and who am I to judge...

This is exactly how I feel. I loved that I could gruesomely murder kids in Fallout 2, but thast's in large part because the kids in that game were such assholes. If the kids hadn't been annoying dipshits, I wouldn't have minded if I couldn't kill them. Buit they are annoying and I can kill them, so good job. By contrast, the kids in Fallout 3 were just as bad or worse, but the fact that I couldn't kill them was bullshit. That entire game gives the option of solving problems by shooting people in the face. That is, right up until you run into a town full of the most obnoxious assholish kids in existence. And then suddenly I can't kill them just because they're kids. **** that. I understand the stigma against killing kids and I'm fine with games not having killable kids. But if a game is gonna go that route, then don't put kids in the game. Or at the very least, don't design a segment of the game in which kids are actually the single most annoying and prominent obstacle to progress. Third option: if you're gonna arbitrarily have your character not kill any kids (even if the kids are annoying dipshits), then set that up earlier in the game. If you establish way in the beginning that this character has an emotional attachment to kids that prevents him from harming them, then I'm more likely to accept inconsistencies in player options since that has already been logically established as part of the character. The WRONG way to do it is to allow the player to be as amoral as he wants right up until the point where kids are a problem, and then to act like killing kids is off limits. This is a game where I can walk into a market, mow down every innocent bystander in the place, and then rob their corpses. If you're gonna have a no-killing-kids rule in that kind of game, and if you actually make kids prominent and give players the incentive to want to kill them, then you need to set up and explain why killing kids is off limits for that character.

That's like asking why I would want to kill an innocent adult. Makybe because I'm a sick twisted bastard, or maybe because the game actually gave me an incentive to kill him/her. Either way, it's an inconsistency that hurts my suspension of disbelief. If you make it a feature of your game that I can murder innocent people for no reason other than thaty I'm evil, then it breaks immersion to have an entire group of people who are off-limits. Bec consistent. Either allow me to slaughter everyone, or stop letting me slaughter adults. But that's sort of beside the point. One of the big reasons why someone would want to kill kids in games is because the developers encourage it. Fallout 3 is the biggest offender I can think of here. The game is spent establishing the murder of innocents as a totally viable way to solve problems. Then they throw at you a problem involving kids that could be solved if you just shot them. Except you can't because "it's kids". That's garbage. You can't point the finger at the audience for being sick when they're just following the established rules that the developers created. One of the biggest reasons why anyone complains about not being able to kill kids was because the developers made kids a problem and have already established brutal murder of innocent people to be a viable solution to problems.

I'm tempted to link to a video showing the killing of kids in Fallout 3, but I fear a mod or even banning. It was possible with a few tweaks.

Maybe I'm disturbed, but I've no trouble with literally any action in games. Murder, rape, killing children......no matter. Sometimes I tend to believe that those who find these variances so objectionable but others not really are the ones that have difficulty making the distinction between real life and fiction. Real violence, literally, literally sickens me to the point of vomitting. I get nauseated, shaky, sweaty, faint. I'm an utter wimp for real life violence.

But I absolutely LOVE the red stuff and pain in my entertainment. I crave it. The portrayal of violence in games, and even movies, is so comical when compared to reality it's not even funny. It really is. I can watch even the most gruesome movies without batting an eyelash, but I cannot stomach seeing someone beheaded or those shock videos all over the net that have real suffering. My sense of morality is not based on the act, but the knowledge that there are real people and real ramifications behind it when committed. So I'm basically open to anything because those "bad" actions are totally meaningless.

All characters schould be killable esspecially braid from whiterun mocking the allmighty mr.purrington the kajiit archer who can kill a dragon with a single arrow!

So basically yes they schould be killable....

It's not something I feel is missing, but I also wouldn't have gone haywire if a game contained child figures that could be damaged and I do think it is a valid point when you bring up Fallout 3 where the child characters simply fall unconsious even if you launch a mini nuke at their face. It does break immersion. And then you had a game like Resident Evil 2 where you play one part as Sherry Birkin who is a child and can be killed, which had you invest in trying to keep her alive.

I also agree that if you intend to have kids in a game in a manner that is exposed to damage and then make them immortal, then it'd be better if they weren't in the game to begin with.

And the whole " You're a psycho if you want a game where one can damage a child character" Is rather silly. For one it shows you lack the abillity to see the difference between fiction and reality and If you do enjoy actions games and over the year have racked up a substantial kill count of fictional characters, and you then claim that is okay cause those fictional characters are different then other fictional characters, it does make you a hypocrite.
If it was the case that those that killed fictional characters are going to do so in reality, then we'd have seen several millions of us already doing it. Including you. Know why we don't see it? Cause the massive majority can see the difference between fiction and reality.

@Treflis: soccermoms are the problem here....

To be fair, in F3 you can only be amoral to the point of killing. You can't torture or rape people, you can't make people torture, rape or murder each other. There's a whole lot of amoral stuff you can't do in that game. That said, I can sympathize with your point. It's not something that ever broke my immersion when I played F3, though. I'd be totally fine with killable children in games, although I would like to have the option, not be forced to kill them. But of course, if someone wants to make a game in which you're forced to kill children, he or she can go right ahead. I'm not going to play that, though. Hypocrite or not.

Edit: No, wait, scratch that, I might actually play a game like that if enough of it appeals to me. I doubt it would, though.

I don't care about it, I never felt the need to eliminate the youth anyway. I understand why people believe it's unnatural for immortal children to exist especially in a game world striving for immersion. On the other hand, it's not unreasonable to be afraid of what certain individuals would attempt, which could lead to further discussion of games promoting violence and disturbing behaviors.

@johnd13: See it like this: You are bored in skyrim and decide to go on a killingspree but the childeren keep attacking you with their daggers but can't be eliminated if you ask me it's annoying and it is not like they are quest essentials :p

I don't see how killing a child is any worse than killing an adult in a game. Hell, at least the adult has most likely contributed to their country's GDP! I find games that make baseless killing your objective kinda sick (yes, I find hatred disgusting) but to put a barrier between killing adults and killing children seems foolish to me. They're all people.

@dylandr: This could be fixed with a "run for your life and don't look back" mechanic associated with children AI in case of imminent danger. :P

@johnd13: Still if they run and you shoot an arrow in the back of their skull i think they schould be dead or atleast unable to move untill you leave the area...

If they are killable in multiple ways and forms count me in.

I feel games should either have killable children or not have them at all. I hated that in Fallout 3 your bullets just pass through them.

Deus Ex and Fallout 1&2 allowed you to kill kids. The first time I killed a child in a game was Deus Ex where after a big gun battle I noticed the body of a child caught between the crossfire. It worked great for the gameplay as it demonstrated the consequences of my actions in a non-scripted manner.

Without having to worry about innocents being caught in the crossfire there is little reason to not just grab the biggest gun you can find and go on a shooting spree

@toast_burner: i agree because in skyrim you just shoot the kid and he crouches for a minute or 2 and walks away and all that happends? a few underpowered guards attack you or you pay the bounty/say you're the thane...

Children are innocent and adults are not.

A child can do wrong but without knowing it did wrong because an adult didn't teach it right from wrong. Children don't know, they are innocent. (Don't kill them, ever)

I'm not saying an adult can't be innocent but a child is pure innocence and if you want to talk about killing for the sake of killing take a look at women.

Why should I shoot a woman just for being in a gang? Why should I blow her head off with a shot gun because she is a raider? I should send her to rehab instead.

@TheHighWind: Look buddy they aren't real you kill the characters in the game because it is something you wouldn't do in real life, you shoot them because they are included and 9/10 times the shoot first anyways but if you want to hug the L4D2 tanks and stuff be my guess hope you'll survive more as 5 seconds!

(like really dude it's just a game)

I love them too. Reduces the urge to kill children in real life. I hate waking up with that, "oh no, not again..." feeling.