Killing innocents in BG
mlnevese
Member, Moderator Posts: 10,214
This discussion was created from comments split from: If BG were a game of DnD....
Post edited by mlnevese on
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They are immune to the Damage effect.
I wish I could have been like that as a kid, ah, so many times it took me to learn that some things hurt.
EDIT: Looks like this only happens with the Gore On, later I've tried killing them and they even got chunked.
I haven't done these things in my evil runs, being evil isn't killing children... Also, I was ensured that my PC was named Elric AND I only did it to test it.
edit: I'm going off topic, sorry.
enter thread "aww how adorable. Let see th- 0.0 :O
Farts are funny though.
And not to forget all the exploited children in india, africa thailand... you name it. Nothing has changed, just the place is different!
And kids are never stupid by nature, they are like their parents or the TV shows they watch. So if a kid is shitty you know the society and it´s parents already;) They ARE the exact mirror of what is going on w/o any need of long explanations.
I really get what you're saying and I agree with. Killing children in a video game is not okay.
But "humanity"? If characters kill children they're inhumane, but if they kill innocent peasants, mothers, fathers, starving beggars, animals, cats, dogs etc it's all okay because it's a video game and it's more realistic?
I'm not sure I agree with that logic. Innocent people and animals shouldn't appear as disposable and children as the most sacred beings that shouldn't be killable.
If the issue is about innocence, aren't peaceful, non-attacking animals just as if not more innocent than children?
They're following their instincts after all, they are not capable of conscious thought and morality even when they become adults.
Even if it's hard for some people to accept, I prefer if everything was killable, children included, or no one that is innocent at all.
I agree. That's why I'm against the logic "Killing children?! No that's wrong! ...Everything else? Yeah whatever, chunk it."
"You're funny lookin'"
"Ew... you smell"
"You're a stranger"
cute stuff
Mommae says not to talk to strangers!"
"You aren't from around here, I knows it!"
"you ain't little, you ain't a girl you ain't a boy, you ain't strong or smart, you're alive". i like this quote in Telltale's The Walking Dead reminding you that everyone is the same, and as such they should be treated the same as a child or adult. you can watch if you mess up Clementine get killed in some horrible way and I stare at the game over for a few moments feeling terrible about what I just saw but then I wouldn't ask that they get rid of it either because poor little Clem is human like the rest of us and can die like the rest of us and so we must protect her and when we fail we get to feel absolutely awful that we failed our duty before reloading to the checkpoint. i can't even bring myself to watch a season 2 death compilation and see her die in numerous ways but I am glad they are there to make me feel terrible when I mess up the game's already minimal gameplay. I guess it is different in an RPG where you could be going around just mindlessly slaughtering them for no apparant reason out of free will, but I say it could be included. we are already able to kill all the innocent adults so everybody should be included or nobody at all. maybe I could even feel bad when I let loose a fireball and that poor child steps into the radius and gets blown up before I then reload and he/she is back.
I simply do not accept the "all killing is wrong and killing a child is no worse than killing a peasant". Traditionally speaking, killing men in warfare and conflict is socially 'acceptable' to most cultures, whereas harming women and children is not. These traditions exist for good reason and is one example of where traditional virtue should be maintained rather than eroded for whatever reason.
I think that in the context of the BG games, it would be a bit ridiculous if children were exclusively invulnerable to prevent the depiction of children being killed, whilst it is obviously possible to slaughter other good people and defenceless peasants. I appreciate that in a game with alignment options, players ought to be given the freedom to play evil.
However the people who genuinely enjoy slaughtering innocents, particularly children, and roleplaying it with any seriousness... I would question their moral compass and virtue.
"Killing stuff" is pretty much central to games like BG, and I have no problem with evil characters and moral ambiguity per say, but gratuitous violence against innocent children "for the lulz"... is distasteful and wrong.
Just my personal view of course.
So that leaves children then. Not sure what the view on children in the Forgotten Realms is as they don't really get much of a mention. Mechanically speaking they're as inferior to a "class level" character as any other civilian though and since they tend to act like total pricks much more than beggars, commoners or other helpless creatures they're not more innocent, quite the opposite...
It's because, as someone said in another thread, artistic media are supposed to teach you something.
For example: good wins, you shouldn't kill children, harming innocents is wrong etc.
That's why in many games you cannot kill non-hostile people or children and you're usually the good guy/girl.
But in RPGs where you're supposed to be given the choice to act evil and be the bad guy of the story, you should be able to kill anything, even children.
Not because there's nothing wrong with it, but I don't think children are more innocent than animals or kittens or peasants and that should be above being killed.
Sure, it's controversial, but either you're trying to make a believable and relatively realistic (in context of the game) world or you have children set as unkillable because... children.
Although there are things like Clementine in The Walking Dead... but in that case it's zombies who do most of the killing, and maybe it's justifiable for the purpose of story telling in that case. Or maybe it's important that it's not the main character who ever attacks her. I don't know what all the regulations are.
In BG there's no justification for going around attacking kids; you'd have to just be a mad killing spree trying to reduce the population of the sword coast to six, your party, and then probably turn on them. One way to play the game I suppose, but it gets boring very quickly. Although really I think most the evil NPC's would leave if you were doing that, as its totally pointless and beneath them.
never have i wanted to punch a child so much after hearing the same one say that time after time after time *seethe* i get it! im heavily armoured / in a robe calling down death from the skies. its rather odd to look at!!
I hope I don't sound aggressive - I honestly don't mean this as an attack.
I am not offended, and I don't deny being an old fashioned conservative/traditionalist in some respects, but I'd rather not expand this discussion into women as well, and make @mlnevese have to split yet another thread from this one.
Children are not angels. They might have irresponsible or immoral parents who have neglected them or mislead them, or they might simply be in the process of learning the difference between good and bad, right and wrong. They have the potential to change and grow as individuals, and are extremely malleable to the influence of parents and authority figures. You cannot equate a child's misdeeds with the same moral compass as that of an adult, and you cannot equate a child's 'innocence/ignorance' with that of animals of much lower mental capacity.
I was always an empathetic individual, and I can honestly say that I have mostly behaved in a manner that I can be proud of. However, as a child, I am not proud to say that I was briefly a bully myself, to satisfy my curiosity as much as anything else. Of course the influence of education and my parents meant that I felt terrible about my actions, and stopped pretty promptly (I wish I also apologised, but 10 year old me wasn't mature enough for that). Did that make 10-year old me 'not-innocent'? No, or at least not guilty in the same extent as if I went out now and kicked a cyclist off his bike for no reason. My mental capacity is much more developed and I am much clearer about the rights and wrongs of my actions and the effect they have on others.