Poll: A compromise for Skyrim's children

[LSPena]

Killing or raping children is not my thing but yeah, put it in the game, someone might use it.

 

[Gennadios]

That mod serves a very important purpose in Skyrim IMO. Child casualties of Dragon attacks on villages. Just because I wouldn't kill children myself doesn't mean I wouldn't be awestruck seeing a rampaging dragon tear one apart.

Then there was an entire colony of the little f*ckers in fallout 3. That entire location was totally out of place, poorly written, and immersion breaking. Wiping that settlement out should have been seen as a public service.

In both cases, compromise doesn't work. A Dragon wouldn't realistically "stagger" a child, and making them unkillable wouldn't make it any less frustrating that you can't exterminate the lot of them in Fallout 3 just because you can abuse them, I'd rather do quick and painless than long and drawn out.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

Moved to gaming discussion. Please try to keep threads regarding gaming in the Gaming Discussion Board.

 

[GeorgW]

I prefer this solution:

(As for the killing of kids, I think an acceptable compromise would be to link each child to an adult NPC. If the adult is killed, the child simply fades out. This way, the "whole village" is killed, but there is no need to depict dead kids -- what, are you going to loot them? -- and no need to empower the player to kill them.)

They're both good, but I don't really like the way that the quest essential characters are immortal either. Though I must say, the OP's solution is much more logical from a development standpoint and I really don't see why they didn't do that in the first place.

As for the larger question, I just don't care. Some people want to kill children in games, fine. Some think that's weird, fine. I see either party's point, but I have absolutely no feelings on the matter. I'm a very opinionated guy and this is a really weird feeling, but it's true.
I am happy there are mods though, that way everybody can be happy. That is, if people would just try to accept other people's differing preferences.

 

[Jonluw]

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?

Oh damn it.
I was going to go to bed, but now you made me sit up for a couple more minutes to photoshop this...

Spoiler

How much harder could they make it to find an iron helmet from a full-frontal view?

Okay, why the poop won't imageshack accept my image embed?
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/846/rapelayskyrim.png/

It's Rapelay, Dovakhiin edition Shout them to submission.
That's just horrible.

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.

That's what I was figuring. Compromise is about not getting everything you want after all, but I figured that it wasn't more immersion-breaking for players if children were treated that way, seeing how that particular bit of immersion has already been broken by the quests.

 

[IceStar100]

Two things I change is one.

Make them less annoying. Remember this one "Someone one else to lick my fathers boots."
Maybe after a beating the kid run in terror.

I think the main thing people are upset about is the attitude the children.

 

[TheCruxis]

There are mods to make children mortal? I need! I don't know why they bother adding kids if they trancend the laws of nature, cause that's just no fun. It's just like in Fable 2 and 3, imortal kids wtf?

 

[DarkRyter]

I think the best course of action is to just stop caring.

Really. There's like 2 kids in the whole game. And one of them's a vampire.

 

[Denariax]

Allow the children to fight back.

BAM, GAME IS NOW FIXED

except its still bad, oh well

 

[darthotaku]

If you don't want gamers to go around murdering children, just don't include children in the game. suspention of disbelief is much easier to sustain with non-existant kids than with immortal kids.

 

[teebeeohh]

immortal children are wrong because if i was a warlord in Skyrim i would build an army of children to rule the world. Thus immortal children encourages child abuse.

 

[Denariax]

Keeping the children immortal would be more immoral because I would purposely film beating them senselessly in videos, only to have them come back up, and repeat repeat repeat. Controversy is so cute.

 

[The Random One]

The compromise is obviously to not have the fucking children in the game.

It's not realistic, but immortal darksteel children aren't either.

 

[AlternatePFG]

I wouldn't want to kill the children in their games if Bethesda didn't go out of their way to make them the biggest dicks out of all the NPCs. Seriously, the majority of the kids in Skyrim are assholes, and don't get me started on Little Lamplight in Fallout 3.

That being said, I still wouldn't download the mod.

 

[Robert Ewing]

Immortal children would be immoral. Because it gives them the wrong life lessons, teaching them that they are invinsible, and they will therfore be reckless and super villains.

Also if they don't die, then you can endlessly beat them and abuse them without consequence.

DEAR SIR, I PRESENT YOU WITH THIS REBUTTLE.

 

[NastoK]

You can do that with heads
I didn't know that! * starts up Skyrim and tries it *

OT: I'm partially annoyed that quest related NPCs can't die either, though that bit I understand. Didn't finish my first playthrough yet, you are able to kill all of the NPCs once you've finished the main questline, right? Anywho, I'll be downloading the mod anytime now.

 

[naam]

Wait, people actually think this inclusion morally was a good idea?
I must have missed some kind of child-torture simulator in previous elder scrolls games that this is necessary?

 

[chadachada123]

I'd rather an option to slap them and tell them to shut the hell up.

Them simply falling to their knees does nothing to solve the actual problem, which is them being whiny arrogant shits that TRY to antagonize you, with which you have no recourse. Not even the ability to speak to them and tell them to learn some goddamn respect.

When an adult NPC is annoying me ("Have you been to the Cloud District lately? Ho, what am I saying, of course you haven't), I'm able to murder him so that I don't have to hear his dialog while walking through town. We should at least be presented with an option that would make the same possible for children. It doesn't need to be murder, hell, even a quest or dialogue (persuasion check?) would be fine, just give me the ability to make them shut the hell up.

 

[Sewer Rat]

What I really would enjoy is the option to Brawl with the children like you can with the drunkards. You think you can beat me little child? Let's see you prove it.
You win: The child shuts up, and talks only when spoken to, and then he is very kind and courteous towards you.
You lose: Your character kills himself and all your save files are erased, cause clearly you deserve it.

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

I would like the kids to be less of just dicks. I hated most of the little brats in Little Lamplight and it was all the worse because I couldn't harm them.

Kids who run around playing games and have fun little conversations are fine. I don't go on murdering sprees anyway, so it's not like I'll be upset when I can depopulate a town except for it's children.