What do we know about children?

[Karkarov]

@Karkarov, they took out the dedicated crafting skill, not crafting itself. The original idea was that the Crafting skill also affected item durability. After the discussion they decided that durability was more of a drag than a gameplay improvement, so they took that out. That left the Crafting skill without sufficient gameplay value, in their assessment, so they took that out as well. The upshot was that crafting is not associated with a dedicated skill, but instead crafting different types of items is connected to different types of other skills with other gameplay uses.

 

So the mechanics are the same and crafting is still in, just not item durability, nor a dedicated skill. 

That's fine Junta but apples is apples.  Man... my sword never wearing out or getting dull sure is unrealistic.  Man it is breaking my immersion!  Blah blah blah.  You get the point either way.

 

 

 

The child witnessed something you did and will report the foul deed, or the child was in the way when my area of effect spell did damage to the three bandits. Or three bandits held the child hostage, I don't negotiate with terrorists so I killed the child to make my point.

So why didn't you just wait for the kid to walk away before committing the crime?  Why was there a kid in the middle of nowhere standing in the middle of a fight between you and a bunch of bandits?  You don't negotiate with terrorists (which don't exist because the word "terrorist" is a modern contrivance and you calling bandits terrorists is immersion breaking to begin with) so you kill the hostage..... which was probably the very reason you were dealing with them in the first place... which basically makes you the terrorist?

 

Your arguments don't hold water.  Other than the one where you said... I would kill the kid effectively "just because".  The truth is you have no actual motivation for killing random children npc's.  You just want to be able to do it.  It has nothing to do with RP or immersion, you just want to kill children because for some... "reason" it makes the game better for you.

 

Well guess what?  There are crowds you should cater to... and some maybe you shouldn't.  Which crowd do you think "people who like killing children in video games" falls into?

Edited September 29, 2013 by Karkarov

[Sacred_Path]

Perhaps so, and even as someone who has suggested the kinds of things you mention I can admit that their relevance to the game is arguable. But I don't think the ease of inclusion is necessarily a justification for their inclusion; instead, I think that a discussion of relevance is necessitated in that regard. The pertinent question is then, "does including this feature facilitate a worthwhile role?". My case for a somewhat realistic economy is contingent on the notion that "roleplaying games" shouldn't be inherently limited to combat situations, and if this premise is granted it follows that the presentation of different social institutions is important. Personally, the argument for the relevance of a serial killing role doesn't resonate as much with me.

I never said children, killable or not, are very high up on my priority list. I also knew that some people would get hung up on the word IMMERSHUN, but I used it fully knowing that this signals something of little importance overall. But we shouldn't forget that Obs are very conscious of realism, or maybe just internal consistency, of their game world. Hence they look at real world architecture and languages, for example.

 

I also don't quite get why people use the strawman argument of "serial killing"; just as with any NPC, I might just end up killing one or two children. For fun, or because they may drop good loot, or because (best case) it's part of a quest. Really, the same reasons why NPC's should be killable apply to child NPC's, without limitations.

[Silent Winter]

I wonder (honestly) if those arguing against killable kids NPCs have bothered to vote in the poll?

I'm seeing 39 votes for and 4 votes against (combining the 'no-kids' and 'invulnerable kids' into one and then the other two into one)

 

Not that a poll can replace in-depth discussion - Just wondering if the polls here (and in other threads) are representative of general opinion or representative of who like to vote in polls.

Do some people dislike voting in polls?

[PrimeJunta]

@Silent Winter, I didn't vote and don't intend to. I'm cool with any of the options. It all depends on how the whole thing hangs together.

[Sacred_Path]

BTW, the only arguments against this ITT have been "there is no reason to kill a generic, non-quest-related child NPC", "I don't think that killing everything in sight constitutes roleplaying", "not everything about a fantasy world can be realistic or internally consistent, but certain unrealistic or internally inconsistent aspects are ultimately irrelevant to particular games", and "the reason that people want to be able to kill children is not for immersion but for player agency power tripping".

Allow me to fix that for you.

Alright, let's break this down:

 

1. You're convinced that there can never be a reason to kill a generic (by which I must assume you mean an NPC that neither offers a quest nor figures into one) child NPC.

 

It seems that one problem here is your lack of imaginative abilities. One reason why I've killed/ wanted to kill NPC's in RPG's is because they offered dialogue that was boring/ annoying/ frustratingly silly or not coherent with the story or setting, and killing is usually the only way you have of shutting them up.

 

They may also carry unique/ useful items. Please tell me, what are your reasons for picking the pockets of a fat, generic NPC in the Beregost inn? Apparently, the designers must have deemed it plausible that players would do such a thing, or that NPC wouldn't be carrying a Ring of Protection. Useful loot on NPC's is a tradition of the IE games, and P:E may well follow there.

 

Then there's the many, many reasons you may have to kill a specific NPC for roleplaying purposes. This completely defies discussion as it's not your responsibility to tell people what concepts should figure into their roleplaying.

 

You also make the obvious mistake of differentiating child NPC's from any other NPC's.

 

 

2. "Killing everything in sight" is an obvious strawman, because you might as well just kill exactly one child NPC in the game and still argue for all of them to be killable. Also, plz give a list of all roleplaying concepts that will be viable in P:E

 

3. Voting for killable NPC's = power tripping.

 

It can only be related to power tripping if it has no significant negative consequences, ever. However, killing a single, unimportant NPC out of sight should have no negative consequences. We didn't get rid of stupid DnD alignments just to crack down on player choice with illogical, arbitrary punishments.

 

Also, feeling powerful is important to quite a few CRPG players and is a frequently used argument against all forms of level scaling. Especially late game, it would be silly if players are afraid of killing an NPC because of the dire consequences, when you've been victorious against all kinds of odds.

Edited September 29, 2013 by Sacred_Path

[mcmanusaur]

I also don't quite get why people use the strawman argument of "serial killing"; just as with any NPC, I might just end up killing one or two children. For fun, or because they may drop good loot, or because (best case) it's part of a quest.

 

I'm just saying, neither of the first two reasons are valid roleplaying reasons IMO, and I'm not arguing against having children in quests.

 

It seems that one problem here is your lack of imaginative abilities. One reason why I've killed/ wanted to kill NPC's in RPG's is because they offered dialogue that was boring/ annoying/ frustratingly silly or not coherent with the story or setting, and killing is usually the only way you have of shutting them up.

If this is the issue, shouldn't we be asking Obsidian to address the deficiencies in their dialogue, rather than relying on the player to murder them?

 

They may also carry unique/ useful items.

I don't know how desperate of a rogue you roleplay, but for me a generic child NPC would hardly be the first target to come to mind.

 

Then there's the many, many reasons you may have to kill a specific NPC for roleplaying purposes. This completely defies discussion as it's not your responsibility to tell people what concepts should figure into their roleplaying.

It's not anyone's responsibility to tell others how they should play a game, but I think there's a case to be made as to whether a particular style of play constitutes "roleplaying".

 

You also make the obvious mistake of differentiating child NPC's from any other NPC's.

I'm not saying they should be treated any differently to other NPCs; I am simply referencing "child NPCs" because that is the topic of discussion.

Edited September 29, 2013 by mcmanusaur

[Sabotin]

I wonder (honestly) if those arguing against killable kids NPCs have bothered to vote in the poll?

I'm seeing 39 votes for and 4 votes against (combining the 'no-kids' and 'invulnerable kids' into one and then the other two into one)

 

Not that a poll can replace in-depth discussion - Just wondering if the polls here (and in other threads) are representative of general opinion or representative of who like to vote in polls.

Do some people dislike voting in polls?

 

I think it's that most people don't need an active deterrent to killing children. I'm probably not gonna kill any, so it does not matter to me if they can be killed or not. However it would probably be a good idea to have NPCs not get in the way. By which I mean if you want to kill a neutral person you need to actively try to kill him, or at most exhibit gross negligence.

[Malekith]

 

.... bad PR.

 

There is no such thing. The most controversial games are often huge hits.

And remember, while often games feature rasism/sexism/whatever, the only ones who seems to care are idiot bloggers with no evidence it affects sales. The most controversial game of the last years was ironicaly Mass Effect 3 with it's idiotic ending, and not because of some sosial issue.

For better or worse, evidence shows that gamers in general don't care about these things as kotaku would have you believe.

[Sacred_Path]

I'm just saying, neither of the first two reasons are valid roleplaying reasons IMO, and I'm not arguing against having children in quests.

You can't imagine any roleplaying that includes the killing of innocent, or at least neutral NPC's for roleplaying reasons? I can't really imagine what your problem here is, but hey, we'll just have to roll with that.

 

If this is the issue, shouldn't we be asking Obsidian to address the deficiencies in their dialogue, rather than relying on the player to murder them?

What about NPC's that are intentionally annoying, or simply stand in your way? I'd imagine quite a few players would have liked to teach that brat Janus (IIRC) in Divine Divinity a lesson. And teaching a lesson = killing them, usually, for lack of other options if nothing else.

 

So is a lack of options the problem here? Partly maybe, but not entirely. Even if I have other options to deal with NPC's I loathe, I do appreciate it if a game gives me the hypothetical option to simply run them through, rather than making them godlike and invulnerable for no good reason.

 

I don't know how desperate of a rogue you roleplay, but for me a generic child NPC would hardly be the first target to come to mind.

In my example, a Ring of Protection is nothing to sneeze at for a low level character in AD&D, so calling it desperate just doesn't cut it. It's simply calculating. Are you telling me you can't imagine playing a calculating rogue?

 

A child could carry any kind of precious item, especially magical ones. They may also carry a lot more gold than your average peasant, depending on their social status.

 

It's not anyone's responsibility to tell others how they should play a game, but I think there's a case to be made as to whether a particular style of play constitutes "roleplaying".

Again, you're calling very basic things into question here. Can a role encompass the killing of NPC's? Yes, it can. Killing all NPC's narrows down the list of potential motivations of course. But even that particular case, like psychopathy or service to an evil god, should be a real choice in the game. I am of course asking for realistic repercussions for whatever behavior you display; but making all kinds of behaviors viable choices is a great achievement for a CRPG. If you just say "being honest and religiously devoted to your task will kill you because you can't keep any gold/ equipment for yourself", and "killing NPC's will result in your fiery death on a stake, invariably", then you might as well not allow for these choices at all. So there has to be some middle ground.

 

I'm not saying they should be treated any differently to other NPCs; I am simply referencing "child NPCs" because that is the topic of discussion.

So you mean you can't understand why anyone would ever kill an NPC who doesn't attack you first.

[Death Machine Miyagi]

 

 

.... bad PR.

 

There is no such thing. The most controversial games are often huge hits.

And remember, while often games feature rasism/sexism/whatever, the only ones who seems to care are idiot bloggers with no evidence it affects sales. The most controversial game of the last years was ironicaly Mass Effect 3 with it's idiotic ending, and not because of some sosial issue.

For better or worse, evidence shows that gamers in general don't care about these things as kotaku would have you believe.

 

Right. I'm finding the implicit assumption in this thread that the gaming landscape has changed dramatically since the late 1990s, in regards to child killing, a bit unconvincing. Is there a single shred of proof for this, beyond people's gut feelings? 

 

If anything, games seem more violent and provocative than ever, and games often seem to almost court controversy. Not that I expect a non-AAA title like P:E would ever garner the attention of something like Call of Duty allowing you to massacre an entire airport full of civilians. 

[Death Machine Miyagi]

3: I find invulnerable kids obnoxious.  So you aren't in fact asking for killable children at all, you are asking for no invulnerable children in the game.  Works for me, we do like was said before.  Don't have children period, or put them only in areas where you can't attack them.  Like in the King's Throne room where drawing your weapon without approval causes powerful magical wards to instantly make your head explode.

 

It's not just that invulnerable kids are obnoxious. It's that I find the whole dispute nonsensical. It's like demanding that dogs be removed or hidden in places where they can't be hurt because puppies are so cute and innocent. Or demanding that references to genocide or rape or slavery be removed out of respect for the victims of these crimes. That's all fine if we're dealing with a kid's game, but this game is explicitly for grown ups, people who (I would hope) could deal with seeing an animated kid die on screen.

 

I mean, it's not like we're talking about a kid's torture porn simulation here, or a long and involved quest that demands you leave a trail of butchered toddlers in your wake. You hit them with a big sword and they fall down, like anything and everything else.

[Karkarov]

It's not just that invulnerable kids are obnoxious. It's that I find the whole dispute nonsensical. It's like demanding that dogs be removed or hidden in places where they can't be hurt because puppies are so cute and innocent. Or demanding that references to genocide or rape or slavery be removed out of respect for the victims of these crimes. That's all fine if we're dealing with a kid's game, but this game is explicitly for grown ups, people who (I would hope) could deal with seeing an animated kid die on screen.

 

I mean, it's not like we're talking about a kid's torture porn simulation here, or a long and involved quest that demands you leave a trail of butchered toddlers in your wake. You hit them with a big sword and they fall down, like anything and everything else.

 

All I am saying is that "I want killable children" and "I don't want invulnerable children" are not the same thing.  To quote a book I read recently which was quoting another book entirely... "Just because a gun has entered into a story does not mean it actually has to be fired."  The point is that you can have children in the game, who are "killable" but never get killed due to one reason or another.  Or going through the act of killing them is basically you giving yourself a game over, or maybe for some overarching purpose you are just never in a position where you can even attempt to kill them.  An example would be the Lady of Pain in Planescape Torment.  The game gave you the freedom to attack if you wanted, but doing so was signing your own death warrant.

 

No one has argued against a killable child character for a logical story/plot based reason, that by definition would also carry consequences.  The only thing I (and others) are arguing against is the inclusion of just random kids who are there for no other purpose than being there to serve as some child killing check mark on some guys "needs to be in game" list.

 

Edit: I will take this one step further actually.  Forget killable kids.  The reason I don't like features like this isn't the subject matter, so much as it is that inclusion is being asked for 1: for no good reason, 2: as a part of some silly immersion/wish fulfillment argument.  If the inclusion of a feature does nothing to actually enhance the game then by definition it's exclusion does nothing to hamper the game.  People who want to play "crazy killer psychos" already have plenty of npc's to take that  "RP" out on.  How does the inclusion or exclusion of killable children enhance or take away from that?  It doesn't.  The lack of five year olds to slaughter makes you no less capable of playing a crazed murderer. 

 

I will always be against any feature that does nothing to make the game better and is there purely for the excuse of "being there".  Be it killable children, massive ui artwork just to look "pretty", or weapon repairs just to justify blacksmith as a class skill.  If it doesn't make the game better, it doesn't need to be there.

Edited September 29, 2013 by Karkarov

[motorizer]

 

 

 

.... bad PR.

 

There is no such thing. The most controversial games are often huge hits.

And remember, while often games feature rasism/sexism/whatever, the only ones who seems to care are idiot bloggers with no evidence it affects sales. The most controversial game of the last years was ironicaly Mass Effect 3 with it's idiotic ending, and not because of some sosial issue.

For better or worse, evidence shows that gamers in general don't care about these things as kotaku would have you believe.

 

Right. I'm finding the implicit assumption in this thread that the gaming landscape has changed dramatically since the late 1990s, in regards to child killing, a bit unconvincing. Is there a single shred of proof for this, beyond people's gut feelings? 

 

If anything, games seem more violent and provocative than ever, and games often seem to almost court controversy. Not that I expect a non-AAA title like P:E would ever garner the attention of something like Call of Duty allowing you to massacre an entire airport full of civilians. 

 

This is true, every even slightly controversial issue ever mentioned on a game forum raises the spectre of bad PR, but I've never seen a good game that had bad PR ever do anything other than sell by the bucketload... the only games a bit of bad publicity has ever harmed are the ones that were crap anyway.

 

 I don't really care about the killing kids issue, I think I've made points on both sides of the argument in the past..I don't play these games as a psycho madman so it doesn't affect me.... but bad PR and upsetting politicians and self appointed moral guardians should never be a reason for censorship IMO.

 

If it makes the game harder to sell in some countries though or gets it banned, then that's a good enough reason not to include it.

 

Although if they didn't mention it, and there wasn't a fuss about it every five minutes on the forum, the censors would probably never even notice, it's not exactly core gameplay.

[Karkarov]

 

To quote a book I read recently which was quoting another book entirely... "Just because a gun has entered into a story does not mean it actually has to be fired."

You either misread this or the book was titled "How not to write a story". 

No I didn't.  You are going to the original source, I am talking about what was said in the book I read.  Which as I mentioned was going back to the idea of "Chekov's Gun" but merely stating that it does not in fact have to be true.  Either way, hair meet split.

Edited September 29, 2013 by Karkarov

[Dawn Quixotic]

This is such a weird topic. As in, weird that it's spelled out this way.

Because, I doubt the majority of gamers who want children to be killable are in it because they really want a child murder simulator.

The real question is... are there going to be any characters that are not able to be harmed? Which sounds a lot more valid.
 

Which... the discussion centers around this, because children are usually the prime candidates for arbitrary immortality, and they always seem to show up. The solution never does seem to be, "let's not have kids in the game". Probably because they feel the setting needs to include them for verisimitude or whatever? But the question is "can we kill the children" not because we hope there will be children so we can kill them, but because it's already assumed they'll be there, because they always are in the big sandbox world kind of game, and we want to know if there's going to be arbitrary invincibility on.


Another thing is... say you have some kind of deal where you want to limit what terrible things the player can do... that makes sense to me.

And like, you can already kill anything else. It's more acceptable to just have unharmable NPCs because, well, they just aren't enemies and that's not the point of the game.

Different kind of game... yeah, you're not supposed to, but it's fantasy, you can play evil, you can murder people.

Also, if there's stuff like... say, Skyrims dragons which attack people and can actually kill them... but the kids are still invincible, well, maybe they jus shouldn't be there, if it has to be that way.
 

Because really, yeah, it's stupid and immature, but it does get frustrating when you're *that* kind of player, who every so often gets a "what if I killed everyone in the world" urge and you just... can't. And you rack up a really huge bounty because the last witness was that one kid you can't kill.

 

Same deal with "important" NPCs,  who, while having a definite purposes, also get in the way of Mission: Kill the World.

 

But then, there'll be a mod for it anyway, so, if it's a PR thing, then maybe it really is best for  game creators to stay on the no-kill side.

[JFSOCC]

This is true, every even slightly controversial issue ever mentioned on a game forum raises the spectre of bad PR, but I've never seen a good game that had bad PR ever do anything other than sell by the bucketload... the only games a bit of bad publicity has ever harmed are the ones that were crap anyway.

Six days in Fallujah was pretty much cancelled because of bad PR.

[JFSOCC]

 

To quote a book I read recently which was quoting another book entirely... "Just because a gun has entered into a story does not mean it actually has to be fired."

You either misread this or the book was titled "How not to write a story". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov

 

IE the worst kind of foreshadowing, obvious and clichéd.

 

The real question is... are there going to be any characters that are not able to be harmed? Which sounds a lot more valid.

Dawn Quixotic hits the nail on the head there.

 

I think Morrowind did it right: if you killed a key NPC, the game would allow you to continue, but you got a message saying your game couldn't be successfully concluded now.

As for children, I see no reason why they should have some kind of divine moral shield against harm.

Edited September 30, 2013 by JFSOCC

[Dawn Quixotic]

 

Dawn Quixotic hits the nail on the head there.

 

I think Morrowind did it right: if you killed a key NPC, the game would allow you to continue, but you got a message saying your game couldn't be successfully concluded now.

As for children, I see no reason why they should have some kind of divine moral shield against harm.

 

 

See, I think a potential feature any kind of "hardcore" mode would be turning off invincibility for key NPCs.

So, on the easy mode, you wouldn't have to worry about that sort of thing, but on the extra rules, you would be free to create your world of silence.

Now if only you would permanently eliminate any kind of, like, respawning encounters...

That would be a nice sense of finality to the game. Every living creature but you is dead... all that is left is to forever run around in the empty world, gathering up all the items that exist and hoarding them in your stronghold.

[Amentep]

 

It doesn't matter; its a video game which has to have a fairly well defined operational parameters.  There will always be arbitrary things you can't do because they're outside of the scope of the game.  I see no particular reason to treat one arbitrary thing you can't do from a different arbitrary thing you can't do.

 

But then I really don't give a crap about having all the NPC's killable in the first place (unless the game in question is a serial killer simulator, in which case that would be entirely within the scope of the game)

You may not realize it, but you're arguing for more arbitrarity in the game, which seems very odd at best.

 

Anyways, this argument is pretty weak, as the inclusion of killable children is one aspect of verisimilitude that is very easy to achieve. Other things, like a believable economy and its related aspects like architecture are much harder to simulate realistically.

 

 

I'm not arguing more or less arbitrary elements, just pointing out they'll always be there regardless.

 

And frankly a better economy would be a higher priority to me than being able to mow down children or punt babies like footballs or whatever passes for dark/edgy/adult/buzzword these days.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

'Tep just gave me an idea. What if someone statred a Kickstarter for "Baby Bowl", a football game with babies used for the ball?

[Amentep]

With it being the point of the game, I have no problem with it.  Done with a certain sense of humor, it might even be fun in a blood bowl kind of way.  But again, the scope of the game puts that element front and center.

[motorizer]

 

This is true, every even slightly controversial issue ever mentioned on a game forum raises the spectre of bad PR, but I've never seen a good game that had bad PR ever do anything other than sell by the bucketload... the only games a bit of bad publicity has ever harmed are the ones that were crap anyway.

Six days in Fallujah was pretty much cancelled because of bad PR.

 

I had to look that one up, seems to have been a publisher decision, so not relevant to P:E

also it is one game, compared to the multi million selling GTA series, modern warfare 2, oblivion, duke nukem 3d, doom, medal of honor, carmageddon... etc..etc.... that all had bad PR and indignant spluttering politicians and moral campaigners frothing at the mouth..

[Faerunner]

If they have reason to include children in the game? Sure, go ahead. If they have something planned for the children that happens to be harmful? Sure, why not? Adventurous settings with hostile creatures and monsters tend to be hazardous to people's health anyway. Including children just for the sake of including children, or creating some contrived situation to keep them from getting hurt just to avoid upsetting players? Er... not something I support. Writer's choice, though.

[Lephys]

One point was made about having to restrain oneself as a good guy when children are around... I like the idea behind it but how often do we fight in places crowded with innocents anyway? And wouldn't I try to restrain myself for the adult innocents anyway?

I think people give this and their logical reasoning concerning it too much weight. As a normal player you won't ever notice the children or try to interact with them. Because there will be all that awesome stuff to do. You won't fight in crowded places but spend most of your time on adventures.

I'm pretty sure that, throughout history, people have employed the "Ha-hah! You can't attack me without killing all these innocent 'shields' around me, but I couldn't care LESS about all these silly people!" tactic. It's pretty simple logic to baddies. "I'll employ a factor that gives me an advantage."

 

So, I'm not going to say the world HAS to have this in it. But, it seems like a pretty forced thing to just say "Nope... no one in this world, run by fallable humans, could EVER have the means or desire to execute some plan utilizing the innocent populous as counter-attack deterrents."

 

Not to mention, you can't even have any kind of specific scenario in which you need to save an endangered child without:

 

A) Allowing sadists to intentionally allow the child to die OR contributing to its death, OR

 

B) allowing ONLY the enemies to damage the child, and thus rendering the danger of the situation somewhat moot.

 

I'd say a complete lack of conflict in areas populated by innocents, in general, is a larger concern, but the endangered child scenario is just something else to think about.

[Amentep]

So, I'm not going to say the world HAS to have this in it. But, it seems like a pretty forced thing to just say "Nope... no one in this world, run by fallable humans, could EVER have the means or desire to execute some plan utilizing the innocent populous as counter-attack deterrents."

 

The problem - IMO - with this argument is that it comes back to the arbitraryness of ANY kind of "well this can't happen" in the game.  Take BG2, for example, you can stretch an argument that your main villain didn't kill you initially because he wanted to study you.  There's no reason why he shouldn't have killed you (there were other Bhaalspawn and you were a problem) when you get captured in Spellhold.  Other than that would suck as a game ending.

 

A REAL sadistic monster would put your hand in a vice crushing it, rape your friends, etc. etc.  But I don't really want to play a vice crushing minigame and can't imagine playing my PC being raped and left for dead because I sided with doffy old King Niceguy whose army got obliterated by the REAL sadistic monster would ever be "fun".

 

YMMV, of course.