What do we know about children?

[motorizer]

 

Not reading all eight pages because... seriously...

 

I don't see what value having killable kids really adds. If it's for "BUT MY IMMERSION!!!!!" well here's a little trick I like to do:

I don't try to kill any kids and then as far as I know they're exactly as vulnerable as everyone else, oorah.

 

On the other hand, I can see downsides in terms of the rating of the game and the corresponding sales problems associated with having a higher rating that prevents some members of the population from legally purchasing this. I get the whole "BUT DON'T CENSOR YOURSELVES" thing but, is this really the thing you want to save from censorship? Child killing, really? Let's face it, Catcher in the Rye it ain't.

Ehh, methinks you're overlooking the fact that what's actually being "saved from censorship" is not child killing on the player's part, but child vulnerability. If a child cannot be harmed, then you cannot ever need to protect that child. You can't make difficult choices ("Do I focus fire to let that kid get out of the streets where battle is ensuing? Or do I just fireball it to go ahead and take out 5 of those orcs?").

 

What would be ridiculous is "I want the world to be populated with children whose vulnerability never amounts to anything in the gameplay/story besides my ability to flippantly decide to end them." But wanting kids to not be immune to danger is not the same thing as wanting to kill children.

 

This is pretty much it, I never intentionally killed any kids in fallout 1 or 2 in any of my playthroughs, but some did get hit in crossfires or by critical misses, both by my side and the enemies.

I vote for them to be killable but with strong in game consequences if you do (especially when no enemies are present or you have attacked them when not already in combat) It is possible to check if you were aiming at them or if it was a critical miss that hit them, so it should be possible to have the locals realize it was accidental.

However,  if they are invulnerable I understand the reasons and won't complain.

Edited October 22, 2013 by motorizer

[Hrrunstar]

Children, like all other critters, should act and react in reasonably believable ways, to the extent possible, within the limits of the game envirionment.  Why would it be otherwise?  It would be also nice to have destructable terrain, but that too is subject to the limits of the game envirionment, programability, etc.  Of course if the quest is about recovering all the missing children, the absolute absence of sub-adults might be explainable and the 'controversy' aborted

[Gorth]

Maybe they could be potion ingredients for crafting purposes. I sense potential there...

 

(still get a laugh out of the "baby oil" sold in Sigil in PS:T)

[Malekith]

Maybe they could be potion ingredients for crafting purposes. I sense potential there...

 

(still get a laugh out of the "baby oil" sold in Sigil in PS:T)

Seconded.