Going on child murdering rampage?

[AKB]

That being said, I say keep children out purely to avoid the moral outrage and necessary inconsistency caused by invincible children.

No, it is the child murdring causing the outrage. I'm pretty sure people who consider child murder being impossible as a moral outrage and inconsistent are simply insane. I hate to insult my opponent but since I'm arguing over the morality of child murder I think that that boat has sailed.

I also don't think that murdering people over the age of eighteen is okay either for any reason but self defense. I remember all of the people joking about the ways they murdered the Adoring Fan and becoming truly uncomfortable how people would murder someone for just really liking you. The difference between a child and an adult is quite simple, one can fight back and another can't, one can be a truly evil criminal while the other can just be raised in a bad environment, one is more likely to be truly innocent while the other isn't. There is a reason that the small skeletons were placed in dungeons in Oblivion, humans are programmed to feel wrong about the very concept of a child being injured for the simply reason that it helps guarantee that society will protect their children, ensuring the next generation.

I'm going to be blunt, if your suspension of disbelief is so weak that every tiny thing needs to mimic the real world than why are we arguing over children when there are so many other things to complain about. Why is the oxygen so thick (Proof, Giant Spiders) despite the fact that human-like creatures are clearly present on the planet considering that high levels of oxygen are lethal to humans? Why can't my character travel past a line surrounding the territory? Why is the sea around Vvardenfall infinite despite the relative closeness of the mainland? How can dragons fly with their large mass? Isn't it annoying how I can't simply accept that these things are this way? Why can't you accept that children can't be killed as it would be bad for Bethesda from any standpoint?

[Haravikk]

I'm pretty sure people who consider child murder being impossible as a moral outrage and inconsistent are simply insane.

I think Balta meant that we might as well just not include children, as otherwise we invite moral outrage at children dying, or inconsistency due to them being arbitrarily invincible.

The difference between a child and an adult is quite simple, one can fight back and another can't, one can be a truly evil criminal while the other can just be raised in a bad environment, one is more likely to be truly innocent while the other isn't.

I assume then that you've never seen children pulling limbs from insects or goading animals by throwing things at them, purely for their own amusement? Children are entirely capable of cruelty, and indeed are more likely to do so than adults, as anyone that's gone to school can attest to.
Their being unable to fight back is also a non-argument, as most adults in Oblivion can't truly fight back either, other than guards or other proper combat-oriented characters. The average civilian is just a potential victim to a cruel player, particularly at higher levels. If killing a helpless civilian is okay if they're an adult, what's the difference if they're a child? It's not like it really matters if they can defend themselves or not; unless the parent's AI makes them entirely negligent, then no child characters should be without some means of aid if attacked anyway.

Why can't you accept that children can't be killed as it would be bad for Bethesda from any standpoint?

Because while most of the things you've described (dragons, giant spiders, etc.) are natural within the context of Skyrim, children being entirely impervious to all known magic, weapons and deadly creatures is not, and boundary lines is simply a technical restriction.

[Balta]

That being said, I say keep children out purely to avoid the moral outrage and necessary inconsistency caused by invincible children.

No, it is the child murdring causing the outrage. I'm pretty sure people who consider child murder being impossible as a moral outrage and inconsistent are simply insane. I hate to insult my opponent but since I'm arguing over the morality of child murder I think that that boat has sailed.

I also don't think that murdering people over the age of eighteen is okay either for any reason but self defense. I remember all of the people joking about the ways they murdered the Adoring Fan and becoming truly uncomfortable how people would murder someone for just really liking you. The difference between a child and an adult is quite simple, one can fight back and another can't, one can be a truly evil criminal while the other can just be raised in a bad environment, one is more likely to be truly innocent while the other isn't. There is a reason that the small skeletons were placed in dungeons in Oblivion, humans are programmed to feel wrong about the very concept of a child being injured for the simply reason that it helps guarantee that society will protect their children, ensuring the next generation.

I'm going to be blunt, if your suspension of disbelief is so weak that every tiny thing needs to mimic the real world than why are we arguing over children when there are so many other things to complain about. Why is the oxygen so thick (Proof, Giant Spiders) despite the fact that human-like creatures are clearly present on the planet considering that high levels of oxygen are lethal to humans? Why can't my character travel past a line surrounding the territory? Why is the sea around Vvardenfall infinite despite the relative closeness of the mainland? How can dragons fly with their large mass? Isn't it annoying how I can't simply accept that these things are this way? Why can't you accept that children can't be killed as it would be bad for Bethesda from any standpoint?

I should apologize for wording myself badly. The moral outrage to which I was referring was what would be caused by allowing killable children in the game. Switch out the "and" for an "or" and the sentence will grammatically express what I wished.

I'll better be able to respond to your post if I know if that changes anything about it.

[AeraDunmerMoon]

M'aiq believes the children are our future, but he doesn't want them spoiling our fun.

[Believe]

I don't really understand why some people are being called "insane" for wanting something in a game. I mean, just because they've said that killable children will add to immersion, doesn't mean that THEY will be running around slaughtering them all for fun. What happens when a dragon attacks a town? All the adults burn but the kids just stand and watch? THAT is the kind of immersion I believe would be ruined.

Having said that, I do have to agrree with the point that if Beth did add killable children to the game, how many countries would ban it just for that one reason?

I think they will just mark kids as "essential" oblivion style. So if you had to kill someone in a house (as per an example above), you would simply knock the child unconcsious (which still sounds pretty bad I admit. But if your already murdering someone I don't think it matters).

[lostlast]

Why is killing adults ok but killing kids not?

From a moral standpoint, i would never do anything that my character does, but im allowed by the various governing bodies to do so, unless it is killing kids? F that in the A. God is no more or less present in a fully formed human than a nascent one

Exactly. They should be killable, and you treat it that same as any other MURDER. They are both human beings. It's just an inbuilt human response to feel worse because it's a child.

[born2beagator]

It would amuse me if a game gave children supernatural powers of punishing you badly for ever wanting to harm them.
Like superb stealth detection, running fast as hell, squealing for a big bad Nord who punched you into pulp if you even raised your weapon.

I like having kids in games, how they're zipping around towns and being lively. Unlike real kids, you can just turn down the volume

edit:

I don't like how everyone uses immersion as an excuse for to add or take away everything. If I wanted to play a rapist and used immersion as an excuse so I could molest women in game, I be looked at funny. But going around clubbing kids like baby harp seals is ok ? I just say any time you try hit a kid, the says the nine knocks the weapon from your, they are not pleased with your actions.

Yeah, that's what I mean.

Like the killer chickens for Zelda

[AeraDunmerMoon]

It would amuse me if a game gave children supernatural powers of punishing you badly for ever wanting to harm them.
Like superb stealth detection, running fast as hell, squealing for a big bad Nord who punched you into pulp if you even raised your weapon.

I like having kids in games, how they're zipping around towns and being lively. Unlike real kids, you can just turn down the volume

edit:

I don't like how everyone uses immersion as an excuse for to add or take away everything. If I wanted to play a rapist and used immersion as an excuse so I could molest women in game, I be looked at funny. But going around clubbing kids like baby harp seals is ok ? I just say any time you try hit a kid, the says the nine knocks the weapon from your, they are not pleased with your actions.

Yeah, that's what I mean.

Like the killer chickens for Zelda

O.o Those chickens frightened me.

[OtherworldOdd]

Or we could just remove this argument entirely and just not have kids in the game at all...

[Master Z]

I really don't care if kids are killable, I wouldn't be doing it even on my evil characters. Although, it would be kind of immersion breaking if even a dragon can't harm one.

The point is that by making a group of characters arbitrarily invincible you break from immersion; a great big unstoppable dragon can pick up a giant and throw him away or wolf down a couple of guards, but if he steps on a child then it'll be unharmed?

This.

[AKB]

I should apologize for wording myself badly. The moral outrage to which I was referring was what would be caused by allowing killable children in the game. Switch out the "and" for an "or" and the sentence will grammatically express what I wished.

I'll better be able to respond to your post if I know if that changes anything about it.

Yes I should of expected it was a mistake on your part, your post makes a considerably larger amount of sense now. It seems strange that we are technically arguing the same stance (That children shouldn't be in the game), but for different reasons. I simply don't want them in the game because I don't want to deal with all of the people complaining about children being unkillable (Something that annoys me every time I hear arguments like that), while you don't want them in the game because the won't be killable. I admit I went in here without the clearest head because the last thread similar to this one went much worse with random pedophilia jokes strewn in as well for good measure.

But honestly how can they include this into the game where it will help anything but immersion (Something that shouldn't be so weak as to be broken by something as small as child killing)? Imagine if they took a similar approach used in Fallout 2 where if you murder a child the game becomes virtually unplayable as no one wishes to associate with you, making child murder little more than a mindless rampage (Probably why I went into this thread in a less polite tone considering the title). If the death of the child was handled in a very artistic manner such as in Dragon Age: Origins I wouldn't care if it was part of the plot; for those of you who aren't aware of what I'm referring to during one of the quests you are given the option to kill a possessed child, but only after you are given several other ways that lead to the child surviving the ordeal (I haven't played that game in a while, I'm probably remembering it wrong (Yes I remember you had the option to allow the demon to repossess the child at a later date for those playing extremely evil characters). Or for a better example based in the Elder Scrolls universe, in Daggerfall contracting lycanthropy will lead to a hunter sending you a letter demanding that you cure the disease or he will hunt you down. To cure this disease you have to infect and than kill a child, this is a great moral scenario as the above; do you kill the child to save yourself or do you spare it (I believe there was a mention of the child dieing of disease making it more morally skewed but still).

Note how neither of these scenarios were mindless rampages. While I can understand killing a child as part of the plot I don't support rampages against any adult or child. I think this is where some of the confusion stems from as while I can understand I child dieing, I can't understand why anyone would want to slaughter the residents of an orphanage for fun (Oh crap, now I'm thinking about The Cradle again...)

Immersion seems to be your only argument, which while is important especially for the role players I think you would be able to work around it with a little bit of creativity (In Oblivion and Morrowind I simply believed that there was a giant Battlespire like facility for children with compulsory attendance). With a simple thought such as, "Random God" offers a blessing for all children keeping them safe from harm, you can easily ignore the lack of this feature. I didn't complain that I couldn't travel to every province like in Arena because I knew the plot was focused on Cyrodiil, my character simply wouldn't leave the center of the story no matter how cool it might of been to explore the other provinces. My point is that despite me not being able to do something that should be possible, suspension of disbelief wasn't broken. The same can easily apply to children, and will have to apply as they are pretty much guaranteed to be included.

[Pandamatak]

I'm pretty sure people who consider child murder being impossible as a moral outrage and inconsistent are simply insane.

I think Balta meant that we might as well just not include children, as otherwise we invite moral outrage at children dying, or inconsistency due to them being arbitrarily invincible.

The difference between a child and an adult is quite simple, one can fight back and another can't, one can be a truly evil criminal while the other can just be raised in a bad environment, one is more likely to be truly innocent while the other isn't.

I assume then that you've never seen children pulling limbs from insects or goading animals by throwing things at them, purely for their own amusement? Children are entirely capable of cruelty, and indeed are more likely to do so than adults, as anyone that's gone to school can attest to.
Their being unable to fight back is also a non-argument, as most adults in Oblivion can't truly fight back either, other than guards or other proper combat-oriented characters. The average civilian is just a potential victim to a cruel player, particularly at higher levels. If killing a helpless civilian is okay if they're an adult, what's the difference if they're a child? It's not like it really matters if they can defend themselves or not; unless the parent's AI makes them entirely negligent, then no child characters should be without some means of aid if attacked anyway.

Why can't you accept that children can't be killed as it would be bad for Bethesda from any standpoint?

Because while most of the things you've described (dragons, giant spiders, etc.) are natural within the context of Skyrim, children being entirely impervious to all known magic, weapons and deadly creatures is not, and boundary lines is simply a technical restriction.

This is amazing. After reading AKB's post on page 5, this seems to blossoming into a very good argument in which both sides have strong points. Personally I believe children shouldn't be in the game at all, but since they are, I will probably get a mod to be able to kill them. Not because I'm going to kill them, but "suspension of disbelief, you know." Even the fact that certain characters in Oblivion couldn't be killed made me very upset, and even stopped me from playing the game for a while (I have many games competing in terms of entertainment to be put in my system). This is one of the reasons why I put off playing RPGs until technology has evolved to a certain extent. Getting into it at Morrowind's time was perfect, but that's not to say there's many things that could be improved upon.

What irritates me is when a core gameplay element, killing, is changed. Imagine if Bethesda said that you couldn't kill females any more since, by some people, they are also considered "helpless, weak, and unable to defend themselves." This is an RPG game, players should be able to do as they please. Killing children could have larger consequences, such as the parents of the children never forgiving you, but making them invincible is unreasonable. It would at least help if, say, a spell was cast on the children at the beginning of the game by the gods that made them immortal. While this wouldn't ruin immersion as much, I would certainly find this disappointing.

[Penguin _Overlord]

First of all, hardly "everyone" is arguing that there be killable children in the game. The more popular idea seems to be either including killable children or abandoning the idea of children altogether as their invincibility outweighs the immersion they add by being present.

The comparison of murder to rape is reminiscent of Godwin's Law. Rape has never been a feature of the the Elder Scrolls. There are not certein NPCs you can rape and not others, and there are not NPCs who rape. This is consistent. Murder, however, is present to the point of there being a faction based on it. If you wish, you can murder most of the urban populations. With the Gray Cowel of Nocturnal, you can do this with near impunity. When discussing the murder of children we are not talking about adding a feature like rape, but only the logical extension of a feature to new NPCs. Penguin_Overlord argues those that value immersion want to take away features to increase immersion, but it is really him and people who want invincible children who are arguing to take features away like murder for moral purposes while completely ignoring how this fits in with the rest of the game. Apparently to these people child NPCs are sacred but once they turn 18 it's ok to shoot them in the back, poison them, and set them on fire. Makes a lot of sense.

That being said, I say keep children out purely to avoid the moral outrage and necessary inconsistency caused by invincible

First of all, I've never said any of that .I never said they should take out murder for the sake of morality and rape was only an example to show how foolish even having this discussion is.To my knowledge child killing has never been apart of the elder scrolls series so what now? Also, the main reason people want killable children is so that they can't annoy them, immersion is just what people put up front to seem less barbaric. People cry about invincible npc as if it has such a big impact on the game. "Boo hoo I don't get to play god and decide who lives and who dies. If they don't die how am I supposed to get my yaya's?" I don't even see why this is on the table in the first place, I guess all you guys immersion is so fragile that if one little thing doesn't work the way you think is should the game is unplayable. The fact is that using immersion as an excuse to add something that is unexcepted pretty much in all other mediums is [&@%!]. If invincible children is so terrible that it makes the game unplayable for you, to bad. I'll call the waambulence to mend your broken heart over Skyrim not letting you decapitate little jimmy.

[soda popinski]

Just like in real life, everything is better without kids around

[GoatLiver]

I just generally hate children they are so goddamn anoying! Here in Australia we have a saying for annoying kids "Someone fetch the dingo!"

[Haravikk]

One alternative to permanently invincible children is to have them properly tied to their parents or some other form of guardian, and if those guardians are killed, the children attached to them will disappear; behaviour wise the children would flee from any threat, preferably favouring hiding places to exiting a building and rousing the guards, meanwhile their guardians will stand and fight.

This would get around the issue of a town being wiped out except for the children, and also if you try to murder a household the child shouldn't be an issue, as they'd just hide in a corner while you fight everyone else, and once you're done the child will be gone, preferably when they're not in view; i.e - they'll sit and cower for so long as you can see them, but if you turn your back then they'll seamlessly be gone from the game, as opposed to fading out before your eyes since this would also break immersion.

But honestly how can they include this into the game where it will help anything but immersion (Something that shouldn't be so weak as to be broken by something as small as child killing)?

I think you're missing the point; having the game full of killable children won't improve immersion, the point is that adding children into the game to make the environment more realistic, but making them arbitrarily invincible, will simply counteract any good that having them in the game to begin with would do. i.e - Adding children should improve immersion by creating communities that feel more realistic, but making them invincible without any good reason just takes that away again. Oblivion doesn't really suffer from not having child characters, meaning the absence doesn't really impact immersion, but if you add their presence in an alien way then it will definitely impact it for the worse.

Immersion is something that is easily broken, be it a badly designed menu, overly repetitive or unnatural dialogue, bugs, and so-on; there are plenty of unintentional ways to break immersion without adding more in on purpose. But basically, if adding children is to benefit immersion, it needs to be in a way that doesn't have the potential for breaking it in glaring ways.

A recent example for me was in Fallout: New Vegas; I decided to wipe out Caesar's camp at the fort, and was happily dodging between cover, quietly eliminating enemies or sniping them from afar, identifying them by the red marks on the compass, when suddenly one of the targets I was taking out from a range just refused to die, and proceeded to run around alerting other enemies. Once I'd dealt with the waves of enemies that I shouldn't have had to face (as I was being extremely stealthy), it turned out what I had been trying to snipe was a child that for some stupid reason was invincible.

Of course it didn't help that the Caesar's Legion children are visually indistinguishable from the soldiers unless standing next to one, or you are close enough to better gauge their height, and it also didn't help that were identified as enemies due to being part of a hostile faction. But the net result was that it ruined my entire assault on the camp, and spoiled what should have been an epic confrontation as I fought my way, alone, into the heart of my enemy's camp, seeking to eliminate their leader.

[POMC S117]

Just like in real life, everything is better without kids around

Popinski, your arguments, in my opinion, are terrible. They seem to be constructed solely on offending, insulting comments on children in the real world. If you want people to agree with you, then calling children stupid, smelly and immature, which are all crude generalisations, is not the way to do it.

Personally, I completely agree with Haravikk's last comment. The children should tag along with parents or guards, and maybe they should have an agility or speed boost when running, because most human beings can run extremely fast when their life depends on it. Maybe there should also be holes in walls, in which children can go through and disappear until you leave the cell.

[Ratwar]

Alright guys, time to calm down with the arguments in this topic. There's no reason to start insulting other members.

[Balta]

I should apologize for wording myself badly. The moral outrage to which I was referring was what would be caused by allowing killable children in the game. Switch out the "and" for an "or" and the sentence will grammatically express what I wished.

I'll better be able to respond to your post if I know if that changes anything about it.

Yes I should of expected it was a mistake on your part, your post makes a considerably larger amount of sense now. It seems strange that we are technically arguing the same stance (That children shouldn't be in the game), but for different reasons. I simply don't want them in the game because I don't want to deal with all of the people complaining about children being unkillable (Something that annoys me every time I hear arguments like that), while you don't want them in the game because the won't be killable. I admit I went in here without the clearest head because the last thread similar to this one went much worse with random pedophilia jokes strewn in as well for good measure.

But honestly how can they include this into the game where it will help anything but immersion (Something that shouldn't be so weak as to be broken by something as small as child killing)? Imagine if they took a similar approach used in Fallout 2 where if you murder a child the game becomes virtually unplayable as no one wishes to associate with you, making child murder little more than a mindless rampage (Probably why I went into this thread in a less polite tone considering the title). If the death of the child was handled in a very artistic manner such as in Dragon Age: Origins I wouldn't care if it was part of the plot; for those of you who aren't aware of what I'm referring to during one of the quests you are given the option to kill a possessed child, but only after you are given several other ways that lead to the child surviving the ordeal (I haven't played that game in a while, I'm probably remembering it wrong (Yes I remember you had the option to allow the demon to repossess the child at a later date for those playing extremely evil characters). Or for a better example based in the Elder Scrolls universe, in Daggerfall contracting lycanthropy will lead to a hunter sending you a letter demanding that you cure the disease or he will hunt you down. To cure this disease you have to infect and than kill a child, this is a great moral scenario as the above; do you kill the child to save yourself or do you spare it (I believe there was a mention of the child dieing of disease making it more morally skewed but still).

Note how neither of these scenarios were mindless rampages. While I can understand killing a child as part of the plot I don't support rampages against any adult or child. I think this is where some of the confusion stems from as while I can understand I child dieing, I can't understand why anyone would want to slaughter the residents of an orphanage for fun (Oh crap, now I'm thinking about The Cradle again...)

Immersion seems to be your only argument, which while is important especially for the role players I think you would be able to work around it with a little bit of creativity (In Oblivion and Morrowind I simply believed that there was a giant Battlespire like facility for children with compulsory attendance). With a simple thought such as, "Random God" offers a blessing for all children keeping them safe from harm, you can easily ignore the lack of this feature. I didn't complain that I couldn't travel to every province like in Arena because I knew the plot was focused on Cyrodiil, my character simply wouldn't leave the center of the story no matter how cool it might of been to explore the other provinces. My point is that despite me not being able to do something that should be possible, suspension of disbelief wasn't broken. The same can easily apply to children, and will have to apply as they are pretty much guaranteed to be included.

I'm arguing on immersion because that's the only reason that I've seen people arguing for including them or not. The children I've been considering are the ones that are apparently going to be present as normal NPCs.

If you are arguing that there's no situation where children would be killed except for mindless rampages which you do not support, then why allow the rampages at all? Stopping this from happening by making making unaggressive NPCs who are irrelevant to the plot invincible as well would be more consistent. Of course this would cause problems with dragon attacks being impotent except against town guards, but this would hardly be stranger than having large segments of the population being wiped out with only children being able to withstand the full force of a dragon. This would be ridiculous to me, but it's a matter of opinion.

As for the issue of suspension of disbelief, neither of us knows every situation that will occur in the game, nor do we decide what everyone's playing style is. Allowing children to be killed or not including them at all would be easy and allow a conisistency of gameplay mechanics regarding NPCs. I can't accept the comparison to going to all provinces in Arena since, due to issues including hardware, it would have been impossible to include every province and maintain detail and quality of Cyrodiil in Oblivion as it is now. Coming to an invisible wall at the Cyrodiil border broke immersion for me, but I accepted that because practically I knew the developers had to make a choice there. It was a necessary tradeoff. Including children is not a necessity, therefore the issue is different. The issue of moral outrage at the death of children can be avoided, the hardware of PCs and the Xbox 360 cannot.

Should invincible children be present in Skyrim, I'll probably use your idea of pretending children have been blessed by a random god. For me, this would only be a way of tolerating a feature that flies in the face of consistent gameplay mechanics. This would easily be avoided by not including children at all.

[Balta]

First of all, I've never said any of that .

If I've misrepresented your argument, please elaborate.

I never said they should take out murder for the sake of morality and rape was only an example to show how foolish even having this discussion is.

If this discussion is so foolish you are welcome to stop participating.

To my knowledge child killing has never been apart of the elder scrolls series so what now?

Children have never to my knowledge been part of the Elder Scrolls either making this argument irrelevant.

Also, the main reason people want killable children is so that they can't annoy them, immersion is just what people put up front to seem less barbaric.

I didn't know you could read minds.

People cry about invincible npc as if it has such a big impact on the game. "Boo hoo I don't get to play god and decide who lives and who dies. If they don't die how am I supposed to get my yaya's?" I don't even see why this is on the table in the first place, I guess all you guys immersion is so fragile that if one little thing doesn't work the way you think is should the game is unplayable. The fact is that using immersion as an excuse to add something that is unexcepted pretty much in all other mediums is [&@%!] If invincible children is so terrible that it makes the game unplayable for you, to bad. I'll call the waambulence to mend your broken heart over Skyrim not letting you decapitate little jimmy.

Calm down, you're embarassing yourself. Again, I am not demanding killable children be in the game, I would merely prefer no children to invincible children.

Our debate will be more productive if you subtitute something like considering my argument for your current tactics of rage and personal attacks.

[lostlast]

Personally, I completely agree with Haravikk's last comment. The children should tag along with parents or guards, and maybe they should have an agility or speed boost when running, because most human beings can run extremely fast when their life depends on it. Maybe there should also be holes in walls, in which children can go through and disappear until you leave the cell.

This is a great idea. Children can not be invincible. They should be able to be killed in any event. But they should also have easy escape paths when there is danger. Not to say they will always escape and survive.
I, and I'd strongly assume most that want children killable don't want it so they can just F up kids for fun.

[Sloady]

In my opinion, you either have to have no children, or make them killable. I won't go any further onto why, because it's all already been said. This is why, in my opinion, you should either have children and make them killable, or not have any children. Is it not more cruel to allow me to beat the living [&@%!] out of a ten year old with my fists? I jest, but I repeat - this is simply my opinion. Even if not by me, by other NPC and creatures, make them killable, or don't put them in at all.

[Arch-Mage Matt]

I really don't understand what the big fuss is. I could name a dozen things off the top of my head in Oblivion that is less realistic than immortal children. It's only a game -- not everything has to be realistic.

[Dark Lord Cam]

Immortal children are also easily fixed with modding so... point is rendered moot.

[lostlast]

Immortal children are also easily fixed with modding so... point is rendered moot.

Just need the link to modding info for people on Xbox and PS3. Cheers.