Children

[Mabster]

I think having kids in rpgs is really positive overall, they add realism and life to the world and can provoke different emotional responses from the player than adults. I think one of the most memorable quests in Fallout 2 was the one in Modoc involving the tanners lost kid. I loved that quest.

 

Making child npcs immortal, and having them not react to attacks in any way would be pretty silly, but I'd be fine with kids that escape and disappear when attacked. If there must be death, a bit more 'neutral' way to handle things might be to minimize any player incentive to harm those npcs by just making killing them as boring as humanly possible. Using really simple animations, little to no blood, simple sfx, and the like should go a long way.

 

Bottom line for me though: I'd much rather the game included unmurderable kids than none at all.

[Gorth]

Making child npcs immortal, and having them not react to attacks in any way would be pretty silly, but I'd be fine with kids that escape and disappear when attacked. If there must be death, a bit more 'neutral' way to handle things might be to minimize any player incentive to harm those npcs by just making killing them as boring as humanly possible. Using really simple animations, little to no blood, simple sfx, and the like should go a long way.

So much for my franchise plans... selling the vibrant, young souls from freshly squeezed kids to mages and collectors

 

[Sabri]

Hmm are there legislation issues involved? I imagine the game would be insta-banned in Germany at least, but I thought a lot of the EU countries had some restrictions on what was/wasn't allowed with regards to harming children in video games?

 

Might be completely wrong though.

[Gorth]

Hmm are there legislation issues involved? I imagine the game would be insta-banned in Germany at least, but I thought a lot of the EU countries had some restrictions on what was/wasn't allowed with regards to harming children in video games?

 

Might be completely wrong though.

As somebody who bought the European version of Fallout 2, I can confirm that there are indeed some weird things taking place when it comes to censorship. I think it was the UK that was the lowest common denominator at the time.

[Perderabo]

Hmm are there legislation issues involved? I imagine the game would be insta-banned in Germany at least, but I thought a lot of the EU countries had some restrictions on what was/wasn't allowed with regards to harming children in video games?

 

Might be completely wrong though.

 

I dont think so. in a number of games you could kill children such as fallout 1 and 2 off the top of my head

 

Just read the comment above mine and i guess some places do have restrictions against it. If that is the case i can see a decent reason why it wont be available ingame

Edited September 21, 2012 by Perderabo

[Erollisi Marr]

Bout two weeks ago, there was a scene in an anime I watched called Beserk. Good anime that, terrible that they didn't complete it.

 

Anyways basically Guts is out to assasinate a minister, but he must do so without being seen. During the act the ministers son(of around seven) becomes a witness and guts puts him down as well, but is scarred by this evil deed he wrought. He threw away his ethics for the man he served.

 

Kinda woulda ruined the plot if when witnessed by the child, in his attempt to strike him down, the child was immune to damage.

 

Better yet, animated televison gets free rein on using children to move its plot forward in such a manner, but games? Nooooo. Besides, good arc there for any assasination mission in a game.

 

If you were doing an assasination quest in this game where you weren't allowed to be seen and the child of the person you murdered saw you, what would "you" do...? Better yet what would be at stake for letting him go. Now put THAT morality choice in there! Sure as hell beats "give bread to prisoner for key, or stab prisoner and take key.

Edited September 21, 2012 by Erollisi Marr

[KhaineGB]

Children yes... I think it makes the world more realistic.

 

However, and I feel this is important, they should only be killable if having them in the game could potentially cause a detriment to your character.

 

Example: Skyrim. If you kill someone, or steal something, you have a bounty. The bounty goes if you kill everyone who saw you commit the crime. Children count for this... if they saw you commit the crime, then the bounty stays because you can't kill them.

 

If children are going to have an effect on game mechanics like that, then you should be able to dispose of them in the proper, evil b****** way.

[teknoman2]

Killable. It is going to be an M rated title, so what is the point of slapping morality-armour on children? It isn't like making them killable means included scripted torture scenes or anything really upsetting. Would just be exploding pixels.

even if you dont want to actualy kill them, they may get caught up in a fireball explosion or something if you get into a fight in the middle of the street.

[andreisiadi]

I want Artemis Entreri's jeweled dagger in game so that when I'm low on hitpoints I can just drain a child in the street and get back to full health.

 

Immortal kids or no kids in the game just because players might kill them is the most retarded thing to come since the french started putting honey on their fried chicken.

[Entropious]

Generally, I am against imputing children into computer games, with the exception of very specific ones serving specific, plot-driven functions. I have yet to meet a single computer game, including the Fallout series, where children are anything more than part of a background or the source of cheap controversy. And I should know, since I'm George Bush.

Edited September 21, 2012 by Entropious

[Luckmann]

Present and killable, with appropriate consequences when applicable.

 

No children or immortal children is incredibly immersion-breaking. It doesn't mean that I have a wish to kill children. Quite the opposite. I would probably never use this "feature". When you have the option to kill children, you also have the option not to kill children. Just like real life. Taking that option away cheapens us.

[Entropious]

Please name one child NPC which, in any RPG game, played any important/memorable part.

 

Furthermore, once you implement children, you'll get brainiacs wanting homosexual/transgender/vegetarian children.

 

And being Goerge Bush, I should know.

[l3loodangel]

Should Obsidian take the route of Skryim and add children in their rpg, but make them unkillable? Should children be present and killable? Or should children be absent from the game? Thoughts?

 

If there would be children they should be killable, not skyrim PEDO fantasies.

Edited September 21, 2012 by l3loodangel

[Longknife]

Should Obsidian take the route of Skryim and add children in their rpg, but make them unkillable? Should children be present and killable? Or should children be absent from the game? Thoughts?

 

 

I really don't see the neccesity of children. If they can't be killed (if allowing killable children makes the game harder to market in certain countries or whatever) then maybe it's best not to include them. Otherwise sure why not, makes the game world feel more alive for some people I guess.

 

Sorta off-topic, but I always find it funny that Sawyer will say he regrets the Mick and Ralph's crier, citing his design of trying to make kids as inoffensive as possible, so as not to provoke the player into attacking the child and realizing they can't, thus breaking immersion. Meanwhile, Bethesda takes the EXACT opposite approach and you struggle to find a single child in a Bethesda game that isn't in some way offensive, annoying or antagonizing.

Edited September 21, 2012 by Longknife

[wbn]

Regarding unkillable kids:

 

First off, I think if you vote for making children unkillable but on the other hand are okay with killing adult innocents you're a bit ****ed in the head. I suppose Bethesda does this for promotional reasons - it saves them from having to deal with Fox News labeling their new blockbuster as a child abuse simulator. I get that. Bethsoft, in turn, has to get that I will never manage to give a damn about any of the kids they put in their games - they're not vulnerable and in need of protection as in reality, they could outlive my lvl 259 cybershamanwarlockbarbass when a titan starts throwing giraffes at us. Roleplaying is NOT just what we make up in our heads, it's the sum of all the game mechanics _and_ what our brains add to it.

 

I doubt that this would be a smart decision for a niche project such as Eternity - the demographic for this game is very adamant when it comes to being able to roleplay in as many ways as possible. Let's not even talk about the fact that most people want that feature, but only the very fewest actually ever play a character ****ed enough to kill a kid. It's not about that, it's usually about being able to and then deciding not to do it. Give me that power, and test my ability not to use it. Kids obviously would be great to have in general - not just as backdrop, but as characters - simply to enrich the world in a relatable way.

 

 

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Should dampening the media backlash turn out to be a necessity while you're still aching to make the sociopaths fans happy, an invulnerability flag attached to the lil' sluggers that could conveniently be disabled by creating a dummy file called IM_A_MONSTER_AND_I_LOVE_IT into the Binaries/ folder would be appreciated. To give me a reason not to throw that fireball into the orphanage to resolve their rat problem.

Edited September 21, 2012 by wbn

[Elerond]

Childers add vibrancy and life likeness to game world. Just same as townfolk and other npcs that stadn/run around world. Their main purpose is to make world feel more real and that there is some other life there than player.

 

And why killable children. It is not because some psychopatic fantasy to kill children but add drama and caution. In some games civilians and children don't take damage from your or enemy attack which lowers dramatic impact which they can bring to game. Image that your party is in small town when it is attacked by bandits. Your band of adventures is full of good guys who die rather than let civilian to die. Bandits could not care less if they kill civilians and some them even prefer that. And now we can compare this scenarion in different systems. One where all civilians are immortal, both your party and bandits can use area effects, like fireball, firebomb and ice storms, because you don't risk life of those civilians that you try to protect. But in scenario where civilians can die, your party must use caution when they use their mass destruction attacks and they must do reckless attacks to stop bandits to use their wepons. So killable civilians have dramatic effects to gameplay in some cases. But why childern must also be killable? Image that second scenario but some cilivilians are unkillable childern and for example band of bandits are in middle of group of scared childern, but you know that those childern can't die and you make you mage cast fireball on middle of that mixed group of bandits and children and bandits die and children are unharmed. But if childern can die you can't employ that easy tactic or town will see you as bigger villian than they see those bandits.

 

So for drama and more complex city fights I want killable cilvilian which includes children and I want children because their existence make world feel more real. But I would also want see reputation system which causes you to think can you kill these civilians and I would like that killing children gives you more hars penalty than killing adults. I know that in middle ages killing children was often seen as lesser crime than killing adults especially if those children were street kids, but my morality compass says other wise and so that is what I would like to see.

[wbn]

Bethesda takes the EXACT opposite approach and you struggle to find a single child in a Bethesda game that isn't in some way offensive, annoying or antagonizing.

 

 

This was puzzling until I played FO3 in a drunken stupor one night and realized that the Bethsoft grunts were too afraid to notify Todd Howard about his unlikable/unkillable typo in one of the design docs and then just stuck with it over the years in favor of consistency.

 

 

You read it here first.

Edited September 21, 2012 by wbn

[Darth Trethon]

Ah yes....child killing is deffinitely the one crazy topic we were lacking around here.

[Aotrs Commander]

I say go with the earlier IE games on it, and have 'em, and have 'em no more invulnerable than anyone else. Murder is murder is murder, so if you let the player run around with the ability to murder every living soul in the village, then children should get no more of a pass than anyone else. (It's also worth noting the double-standard in citing children as vulnerables that need extra protection when the elderly never recieve the same, and they are often just as vulnerable, given that the vulnerability issue is why child murders tend to be viewed more harshly). At the end of the day, it's doesn't matter what age the person you murder is, it's still murder.

 

There should be (as in earlier IE games - well BG/BG2 anyway) harsh but plausible consequences for being a mass-murdering nutjob (especially since you're most likely doing so for either a) for the kicks and giggles or b) to squeeze every last XP out of the game...! Which is fine, in either case...) but if you are going to allow it at all (which many later games simply didn't, removing the problem), then you should apply the same standard to everyone. Regardless of age, gender, species, hair colour, height or any other differentiation.

[Longknife]

Bethesda takes the EXACT opposite approach and you struggle to find a single child in a Bethesda game that isn't in some way offensive, annoying or antagonizing.

 

 

This was puzzling until I played FO3 in a drunken stupor one night and realized that the Bethsoft grunts were too afraid to notify Todd Howard about his unlikable/unkillable typo in one of the design docs and then just stuck with it over the years in favor of consistency.

 

 

You read it here first.

 

Suddenly it all makes sense.

 

Thanks alcohol.

Edited September 21, 2012 by Longknife

[Zeer]

doesn't really mater if they are in game or not.. but if they are, then not immortal.

sacrificing to dark gods, consuming souls, selling into slavery, killing, giving candy, making them your followers, ignoring.. if something can be done to an adult npc, then same goes for a child.. just provide the right reaction to your actions and let players decide if they still want to make the action.

[TwinkieGorilla]

Nothing living should be exempt from dying (unless in some special, specific, elixir of life sort of explanation). I remember in an early play of Fallout 2 when I was less than careful in The Den and suddenly I had "Child Killer" listed in my stats. I had done quite a lot since my last save and had to live with that unfortunate title. Was a bummer on one hand, but on the other the game's reactivity was appropriate and important.

[Malcador]

If they're in you should be able to kill them and deal with the consequences of that - ideally playing like it's a game of Postal shouldn't work in towns/settlements with guards and so on. I doubt it'll happen though, PR storm waiting to happen - "People donate money to a game where you can MURDER innocent CHILDRED", etc.

[daz23]

Every NPC in the game should be killable. Every NPC in the game should also fight back if the player starts hacking on them. Children should be around towns to make the environment more authentic.

[Pidesco]

Remember Fallout.