Poll: A compromise for Skyrim's children

[Jonluw]

Hiya escapists.

The Skyrim child-killing mods have spawned some outrage lately, because it's apparently not okay to pretend to kill children in games.

Spoiler: My own opinion. Spoilered because it isn't really necessary to the thread.

Written in response to the recent Extra punctuation article.

Sorry. Yahtzee's articles are normally enough to convince me on an issue, but when it comes to child-killing. Nope.
To explain in terms of Yahtzee's "Not all roles can be available to you"-argument: When one of the roles available to you is "horrible indiscriminate murderer of innocent men, women, beggars and wildlife", it creates a dissonance when there is something you can't kill.
Even if those things aren't normally morally acceptable to ki- Hold on a fucking moment there. Since when did it become morally acceptable to kill defenseless adults?
This game lets you decapitate innocent people and carry their heads with you to store in your home where your thane is honour-bound to stay with the faces of their dead friends and relatives watching them from the walls to which you have crudely nailed their heads with arrows, but when you complain that there being immortal characters in the game feels odd and artificial the answer is "You can't have the option to kill children. That's just disturbing."
Fuck off, I'm not buying it.

I don't think the love-making mechanic simile holds up either. You don't necessarily hurt people by having sex with them, so if the game included a mechanic to sex npcs up, I would not expect it to include a mechanic that would let me sex the children.
If the game included a rape-mechanic, however, I would expect it to also be possible to rape children, yes.

Like some other poster said. It's not about having a desire to kill children. It's about wanting the rules presented to govern our experience to be consistent.

I would like to see what the different sides in the debate think of a compromise:
Let's say the game was released without the option to kill children. Fine. The children would, however, react to your blows in the same way that quest-essential characters do: by falling to their knees and recovering for a while before returning to health.

What do you think of this system?
If you are on the "child-killing mods are bad" side of the debate: Would this be suitably inoffensive?
If you are on the "child-immortality breaks my immersion" side of the debate: Would this be sufficient to sustain your immersion?
(Let's say you don't have the option of modding to affect your decision.)

 

[kickassfrog]

Immortal children are wrong, but it's not like it actually affects my style of play. Frankly the fact that I get forced to do the quests also breaks my immersion. Why can't I skulk in a cave in the wilderness, levelling up my conjuration skill, and hanging around with my two undead minions, Fergal and Bitey Steve.
But noo, apparently nobody else can solve the issue, once again it relies entirely on me.

On my fourth playthrough (or maybe my third) I'm playing a lawful evil ranger. And killing anyone who says the word dragonborn to me.

In the end, it's just ethics- the children have nothing I want, and killing them wouldn't be advantageous in any way. Although I am looking forward to the freedom in the next one- I think I'll marry my horse. Or my Flame Atronach.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

My problem with the game isn't that you can't kill the children, but rather that the children are invincible.

When a dragon lands on a village, burns it to a crisp and kills everyone there somehow the children will still survive because of their magical immortality, and THAT'S what's immersion breaking.

Wanting the children to be able to die does not necessarily mean that the players in fact want to kill the children in the game, it just means that we want the world's rules to apply to all the characters, be they children or otherwise. If an NPC is attacked by an enemy, be they adult or child we want the outcome to be the same, otherwise it's just silly.

 

[LilithSlave]

So, err, what is this doing in the off-topic section?

We already have enough Skyrim threads in the Gaming section.

Too many, in fact. Did there end up so many Skyrim topics that they spilled into the other sections?

This is mayhem. I think that we just needed on Skyrim megathread in the beginning so that everything can go there and everyone not interested can ignore it. There's about 3,000 too many Skyrim topics as it stands.

 

[Spiritofpower]

Part of my intense hate for Skyrim children stems from the fact that they are self-entitled little shits who thoroughly deserve a good beating, preferably with something big and made of iron. If it wasn't for that I'd care a whole lot less, i have no reason to kill them, except for the immersion-breaking when i make a character who's only goal in life is to kill anything and everything he can. So, this solution is much, much better, and I'd be satisfied with it. But for my human (or elf or orc) apocalypse, I'd still use a child-killing mod.

 

[EHKOS]

Yes. All I ask is to beat the shit out of them when they claim they could kill a level 36 warrior nord.

 

[Substitute Troll]

I don't want to kill any children. But what could be added is the ability for children to die from everything else. Dragons, bears, bandits etc. I don't necessarily care if the player has the ability to kill children or not, but I think the world should have. Saving a village from a dragon would be more dramatic.

 

[Saladfork]

I still don't understand why anyone would have a problem with the possibilty of killing a kid in a game, especially when you can already kill everything else anyway.

It's like we're regressing to the 'video game violence causes real violence' arguement again. Aren't we past this?

 

[Bambi On Toast]

If Bethesda originally included the ability for children to die, I wouldn't have noticed because I don't attack children. Even now I've never tried to kill one of the children in Skyrim. However I know that there are some people who do want to do this. The first thing my brother did when he arrived in Riverwood was attack an annoying child. I guess we're just different people.

As for the children dying, it's just unpleasant. I partially agree that maybe they should be vulnerable to other creatures like dragons, but really who wants to watch children die? Even in movies you don't see that very often. Not being able to kill children doesn't break my immersion. I wouldn't have cared much if Bethesda originally had mortal children in the game, but a child killing mod just goes too far. Are people that desperate for it?

Yes yes, you say you don't WANT to kill children, you just want the OPTION of doing so. I do understand how it can break your immersion, but it may not be the same for others. I also know nobody is forcing me to download the mod. But seriously, how many people will actually take the time to download and install it? You've gotta hate the children of Skyrim a lot. I wouldn't even say the children of Skyrim are half as annoying as real life children.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Yes yes, you say you don't WANT to kill children, you just want the OPTION of doing so. I do understand how it can break your immersion, but it may not be the same for others. I also know nobody is forcing me to download the mod. But seriously, how many people will actually take the time to download and install it? You've gotta hate the children of Skyrim a lot. I wouldn't even say the children of Skyrim are half as annoying as real life children.

No, I want to know that if a Dragon lands in the middle of town and starts breathing fire on the townspeople, the children won't stand in the middle of it like lamp posts enjoying a warm breeze.

I mean, hell...who wants to see innocent men and women die? Or innocent animals? Perhaps there should be a mod that renders everything immortal, including the flowers and fish. And you could just wander around and say "Why hello there, young sir", and the child would say "Hello guvnah!", and you would say "Pip pip my lad, where might I order a strong cup of mead?" and he would say "Oh no, guvnah, we don't allow mead here in Whiterun, alcoholism leads to violence".

 

[dead.juice]

Let's say the game was released without the option to kill children. Fine. The children would, however, react to your blows in the same way that quest-essential characters do: by falling to their knees and recovering for a while before returning to health.

This system your proposing isn't any better. It's sounds like a child abuse system.
"I trust you'll watch your mouth next time, Jimmy, or you'll taste my Mace of Molag-Bal on your backside. Now get your ass of the ground and wipe that blood off your face. And don't tell your parents, or you'll have none!"
I'm not on either side of the debate. If you could kill the children, fine. Its a tough world.
The fact that you can't kill them, cool too. Bethesda doesn't get shit from the media, the normal adventure isn't affected by this, and immersion is only ruined for the dorks who take the insults of a child seriously.

 

[dead.juice]

...And you could just wander around and say "Why hello there, young sir", and the child would say "Hello guvnah!", and you would say "Pip pip my lad, where might I order a strong cup of mead?"...

British accent mod? Now THAT would be awesome.

 

[DEAD34345]

But I'm on neither side: I don't want the child-killing mod myself, but I don't think it's wrong for anyone else to get it. If they want a child killing mod, good for them, I don't really care.

As for that compromise though, it's pretty much the worse of both sides. The anti-child harming people would still complain that children can be horrifically beaten etc, and the pro-child killing people would still have their immersion-breaking children that withstand 100 axe blows to the head without dying. It's a lose-lose situation.

 

[Jonluw]

So, err, what is this doing in the off-topic section?

We already have enough Skyrim threads in the Gaming section.

Damn, that's right.
I only ever really use the off-topic forum so I sort of forgot the gaming section exists.
My bad, I'll get a mod to look at it.

 

[Mr_Universal]

im sorry, i just got stuck on the rape part......what kind of game would skyrim be if you could do that? playing as an old scary wizard, using mind tricks to get pleased by both man, women, beast and child.........i mean, who would do the quests?

 

[AndyFromMonday]

You people are perfectly fine with killing innocent civilians but are completely against killing children? Seriously?

 

[AngryMongoose]

Immortal children in Skyrim isn't as much an issue for me as it was in Fallout:3; where killing children was damn near encouraged. There is no reason my character would be happy to nuke an entire town (with children in it), but reluctant to shoot an armed bad mouthing punk who's actively blocking me from saving the wasteland. Burn little lamplight. Burn.