Have you ever regretted killing a NPC?

[RedxDecember]

You can skip all this and go to the question at the bottom if you want.

I never really started the story of GTA 4. The multiplayer was always so distracting, and by the time the DLC came out I had forgotten all about Niko Bellic. Since it's the summer game drought, I said "screw it" and decided to go through the story. I came to the part where I had to choose to either kill Playboy X or Dwayne. I parked my car between Playboy's and Dwayne's houses and sat there. I liked the missions I did for Playboy, and he seemed like he had everything under control. On the other hand, Dwayne had just come out of prison, and I liked his personality and not being called "Money" every five minutes. But if I had to do another strip club mission, Dwayne would be the one to go. I decided to kill Dwayne, just to put the poor bastard out of his misery. I was prepared to go when I lightly bumped into a cop car. Lights flashed, sirens sounded, and by the time I got away from the cops I was a block away from Playboy X's. I began thinking. Playboy is kinda a douche anyways. He lives in a fancy big ass apartment and makes Dwayne live in the projects. Plus, when he told me to kill people, he did it like a pussy. I decided he would die.

I killed Playboy X, and as soon as I did, I regretted it. I felt bad about it. I liked Playboy. He seemed like a good enough guy, and he talked about building playgrounds and saving people's lives. I felt shitty about the whole situation, and I wish I could go back and kill Dwayne. That's really the first time I've ever regretted killing a NPC.

My question is;
Have you ever regretted killing a NPC? If so, who, what game, and why?

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Any time I killed an innocent person in well, any game. InFamous, Assassin's Creed, or even an friendly soldier like in Halo or Call of Duty (not that the game lets you do that now). I felt so bad, I would end up resetting the game and make sure I didn't kill them this time.

And Dragon Age: Origins, some of the more practical choices (saving the Anvil, killing the mages)...I just mashed the X button to get through those cutscenes as soon as I could. Once I got the trophy, I reloaded the save and chose the nicer option. I can't even bring myself to kill Anders in Dragon Age II, even though he deserves it. Still, when he attacked me, I felt sad for killing him, but not the same sad as I normally feel. Like when you have to put your pet to sleep sad.
Hell, I even feel bad when I killed the ranting Krogan in Mass Effect 2. I just wanted to see what happened when I used the renegade option. I didn't realize it would cause him to burn to death screaming. Felt so bad.
Oh, and leaving the guy to burn in Spec Ops: The Line. Hearing him yell, then beg, then finally scream as you walk away...gut-wrenching. Again, once I got the trophy, immediately reloaded the save.
I have a really hard time doing 'evil' things in video games.

 

[Piorn]

The only games where it ever happened was Demon's and Dark Souls, because killing them was irreversible. No Quickload or immortal NPCs.

 

[Stopdoor]

Well; do you know what happens if you kill Dwayne instead? Because you'd be regretting it just as much, don't worry.

Playboy X and his talk of playgrounds, it's kind of funny how a fictional character was able to con me.

 

[Gatx]

I really, REALLY wanted the Ebony Chainmail in Skyrim, but I wasn't playing a douchebag character, so I felt bad about randomly hiring a follower to sacrifice to cultists.

Also tangentially related to regret and NPCs, married the wrong girl in Fable. If you ever played it and remember, all the girls have these really annoying accents with scratchy voices, but there was just ONE of the NPCs in the academy area that didn't, so by that quality alone I decided that would be the one. Of course, because there were also like 20 other NPCs that looked exactly the same in that area, somehow I ended up married to one with the annoyincg voice.

 

[XZ2005_A]

Pretty much everything I did in Spec Ops: The Line. That was quite the experience.

 

[ChildishLegacy]

If you kill that first undead merchant, he just asks quietly "why me?" and collapses.

Then you get his bitchin' uchigatana.

 

[RJ 17]

Can't say I've ever had that problem.

In fact, I was EXTREMELY pissed to find there's a shocking number of Highlanders in the land of Skyrim. By that, I mean NPC bragadociously wearing their Plot Armor and then calling you a festering pile of shitt knowing full well there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

So pissed was I that I couldn't go on a homocidal rampage that I actualy quit the game and hadn't played it since December (I got and played Dawnguard, now Skyrim is once again collecting dust on my shelf).

But here's the situation. I had beaten the main quest before beating the Civil War, as such I had to do the temporary peace meeting quest. When I beat the Civil War, I sided with the Empire because Ulfric Stormcloak is a fucking dick. After a few days (likely months in game ttime) I decided I wanted to try and get all the houses in all the holds. So I end up in Windhelm and go about the quest...only to find out that, evidently, if X number of days in-game has passed, you can't complete the quest to get the house.

So I'm in the Great Hall of Windhelm which, for some reason, was evidently filled with every noble from The Reach, specifically Markarth. Annnnnd every one of them apparently thought I sodomized and raped their children, because they all had nothing but sneering insults to throw in my way. Well fuck those bastards. I jumped up on the banquet table they were all sitting around, charged my my Master Fire spell, and laughed with glee as I unleashed an explosion that sent food and bodies flying in all directions..............only to see - once the dust settled a moment later - that all the (what I had presumed to be) corpses were hobbling around on their knees, completely impervious to the icy grip (or I guess in this case the fiery grip) of death.

I'll give Bethesda "No killing children...even though every one of them will be the most obnoxious brat you've ever encountered in a videogame and practically BEG you to slit their litlle throats" because they didn't want the inevitable drama that came with the censorship psychos saying "OMGWTFBBQ?!?! SKYRIM ENCOURAGES WHOLESALE CHILD SLAUGHTER!!!!" So fair enough. But other than that, I think EVERYTHING in Skyrim should be fair game. I don't care if they're important to a questline - even the main one - or not! No, for it to be a true sandbox everyone should be able to die and you just have to deal with the consequences. "Killed the Erl of Whiterun before you finished the main quest? Well tough-titty, guess you don't get to see the end of the main quest on this character." I'd much rather it be that way than "Oooooo this guy's important so no matter how big of a dickhead you are we're not gonna let you kill him."

Seriously, how are you supposed to play a murdering vampire assassin-mage when the majority of the people can't be murdered?

 

[electric_warrior]

Yeah, in the Souls games (Demon and Dark) because you don't know how useful they'll be an you can't undo what you've done.

 

[RJ 17]

In fact, the most time consuming part of playing the Halo games for me was reloading every time an NPC died. Most of the time regardless of whether or not it was even my fault. I wanted to save them all. That's just one example.

Oh I bet the Flood were your favorite evil alien race of all time, then.

 

[Fenra]

For anyone whose played it, the dark brotherhood questline in Oblivion, I'm sure you know which one I mean...

For those who want more detail

Spoiler

specifically the quest where you are told to kill everyone in the sanctuary, by that point, I'd developed bonds with all the NPC's there and this strange family of outcasts, they'd given my character a home, not shunned him for his desires, even given him the gift of imortality and vampirism by choice, almost affectionatly given (platonic, friendship affection I add), not forced upon you, just waking up to the 2 marks on ones neck and knowing soon the gift will be complete, one that after everything that had happend and the affection I felt towards him, I was very willing and eager to accept.

Heck even the dick of a khajiit was warming up to me. As I said (probably helps I really get into roleplaying all my RPG characters) these people were my family... and then, I had to kill them all, I put it off for soooooo long, finaly, very begrudgingly finishing it to see where the quest went but I didn't feel good about it at all, hated myself for it! Even kept a seperate save game just before I did so I could go back and see them again if I wanted to

 

[Dogstile]

In fallout. Blowing up megaton was something I never enjoyed. Did it for my evil runthrough, throughout the game I kept trying to travel back there, forgetting what i'd done. Really sucked.

Although I admit, I mainly hated it because it was a good place to keep and sell gear. I don't like killing NPC characters mainly because I feel i'll experience less if I do.

 

[el_kabong]

The only time I've felt "bad" (using fingered air-quotes) is when the game punished me for doing so, but the emotion wasn't really regret, it was anger.

I've killed more civilians in the old AREA 51 shooter than I could count. Since it penalizes you life, it pisses me off every time. Stop jumping out from behind crates! True weak humans would stay hidden.

 

[Surpheal]

I only ever regretted having to kill Narfy while playing Skyrim. I grew a bit attached to that little cloud of numbers while I was helping him find his sister('s necklace) and because he was the only character in Skyrim that wasn't a prick. The only reason that I killed him was to further my progress in the Dark Brotherhood quest line.

Still feel a bit sorry for the mentally deficient man child

 

[jimplunder]

I don't know if I ever remembered feeling remorse for killing an NPC... Probably felt bad when some died (or angry when some didn't) and it wasn't me behind the deed. Usually when I kill an NPC it's because I want them dead, the game wants them dead, or they got in the way of me shooting an arrow/bullet into someone's face. In any of those instances, why should I feel bad about it? They're digital pixels. Sure, sometimes those characters had a lot of effort put into them and it gets wiped away by something or other, but if you're going to kill someone, you might as well go full steam ahead.

On a side note, I did feel rather disturbed when you had to cut off part of your finger in "Heavy Rain." Despite it being a digital character, it just made me queasy when he went through with it...

 

[RJ 17]

For anyone whose played it, the dark brotherhood questline in Oblivion, I'm sure you know which one I mean...

For those who want more detail

Spoiler

specifically the quest where you are told to kill everyone in the sanctuary, by that point, I'd developed bonds with all the NPC's there and this strange family of outcasts, they'd given my character a home, not shunned him for his desires, even given him the gift of imortality and vampirism by choice, almost affectionatly given (platonic, friendship affection I add), not forced upon you, just waking up to the 2 marks on ones neck and knowing soon the gift will be complete, one that after everything that had happend and the affection I felt towards him, I was very willing and eager to accept.

Heck even the dick of a khajiit was warming up to me. As I said (probably helps I really get into roleplaying all my RPG characters) these people were my family... and then, I had to kill them all, I put it off for soooooo long, finaly, very begrudgingly finishing it to see where the quest went but I didn't feel good about it at all, hated myself for it! Even kept a seperate save game just before I did so I could go back and see them again if I wanted to

The first time I played through the game, I didn't hesitate a moment to purge the sanctuary. I felt all the same things you did, a true family bond with my dark brothers and sisters as they welcome you in and show you more caring than any of the other guilds...and we're talking about a bunch of murderers here!

But if those in the sanctuary were my brothers ans sisters, Lucien was my father. It was to him that I was most loyal, for it was he who showed me the ligh--errr...darkness of the void. :3

As such, when he called upon me as his personal Silencer to carry out one of the darkest rites of the Brotherhood, I felt nothing but honor...even though I had a VERY strong feeling that the traitor wasn't anyone in the sanctuary. Lucien's got himself 10 juicy poison appeals in his personal lair, and so that was my weapon of choice. Slipping the tainted fruits into the pouches of my brother's and sisters, I would sit across the table from them smiling pleasantly as they munched away one-by-one......and then they munched no more. >

 

[kortin]

Not really, no. I tend to save before I kill an NPC that isn't already trying to kill me.