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Games are a blast. Unfortunately many facilitate the thoughtless slaughter of countless NPCs. Such high body counts often render NPCs as nameless, faceless targets, reducing encounters to a simple shooting gallery where digital figures are dispatched without impact. This approach lacks emotional weight
and fails to engage or resonate. The experience could be far more compelling if players were invited to thoughtfully slaughter them instead.
This function or mod would, upon a player the death of an enemy, briefly display a small, pop-up: a fleeting thought bubble or textual notification. It would reveal a single, random personal detail about the neutralized NPC. "He had a ten month old daughter named Emma" "He was hooked on coke and planning to steal money for some" "She wanted to open a pizza shop," "He kicked his dog when he was bored" "He was getting married next month" "This would have been his last heist before retirement" "He read a book to his dying grandmother every Sunday." "She was cheating on her husband"
This would create brief moments of reflection or unexpected connection allowing developers to convey richer, more nuanced narratives and tell stories or evoke emotional responses without relying on vast numbers of generic antagonists. Each encounter, even with a standard enemy unit, could contribute to the game's thematic depth. Burgeoning psychopaths may particularly enjoy the power inherent in reading these messages.
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Annotation:
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I like it... but would gamers even look? |
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Your category choice shows that you think in terms of video games, which would be well practical for this idea. |
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Unfortunately I find no entertainment in those, but instead relish TTRGs, or Tabletop Roleplay Games, also known as collaborative storytelling. |
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I have done as you suggested with many NPCs and monsters in traditional D&D games, letting the player character learn that the monster was defending their cute baby monster cubs. |
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Or, upon slaying the goblins in their lair, searching for treasure to find only a copy of PlayGoblin secreted under a bunk bed. |
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I had some imprisoned players who were breaking out collaborate with a guard once to escape and leave the guard visibly beaten and tied rather than kill him, because he pled for his life and family he had to support. |
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Much later, said guard struck a similar deal with a different set of players to release them, explaining that once he'd been done a favor, and he wanted to repay it. |
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I have had lowlife NPCs give up their evil ways, go to school and become teachers after witnessing unbelievable events in game. |
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Those were EASY, in the explore/combat/treasure/puzzle model of sword and sorcery games. Currently I'm running a TTRPG loosely set in the Firefly universe, where the Slow Horses rock band tours in a Firefly that Mal Reynolds kids sold to them when Grandpa could no longer be trusted with the keys. |
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Cameo appearances by phone and text welcomed. The surface is a rock band with the expected problems, but espionage, money laundering and pharmaceuticals complicate matters. |
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Those baby goblins were SO DAMN CUTE too ... Very amusing discussion regarding whether to let them live, and probably die because their parents had been killed, or go ahead and slay them despite their EXTREME CUTENESS. |
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I only got to spend a year or so playing Dungeons and Dragons before getting uprooted. They are fond memories. I've got a really cool story I've just typed out and then deleted because it is completely irrelevant. |
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I always thought that there should be more real-world consequences. For example you could use prisoners, or foreign slaves, and wire them up to electrodes so that one gets a painful shock when you kill a being in game. A live stream could show their reaction on the corner of your screen, and they could watch you play via your webcam. |
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/This would create brief moments of reflection or unexpected connection allowing developers to convey richer, more nuanced narratives and tell stories or evoke emotional responses.../ |
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I don't think the attraction to FPS shooters has any room for this kinder/gentler content. It takes time away from the killing. The elevated plane of the idea gets a bun but it is really about another kind of game altogether, with another kind of player, so the equalizer bones mercilessly back to zero. |
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This is a great idea, but I'm pretty sure we've done it before. |
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I don't see this as much of a FPS game but one with more of an action shooter open story game with an AI throwing in narratives for more complex enemies frenemies, and such. John Wick with some further backstories. That could get intense really fast. Maybe you take turns playing each of the characters in the same repeated scene. What would be really cool is if the AI could learn your style of gameplay so you could sortof play against yourself. |
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The genre could really take off as its own thing. |
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Or picture this: you assume the identity of whomever you kill, and with each kill it becomes progressively harder to and more desperate to not get discovered. The further you go the closer you get to taking down the mob or whatever. |
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That might be a little too messed in the head for current people to handle without going psycho though. |
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Or if that doesn't grab your fancy, you could actually possess your target, and have to go ffom one to another to advance and win the game. |
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Or... blend the genres... sometimes ya gotta just shoot 'em, sometimes ya gotta possess them by letting them shoot you but with some weird amulet active or something, sometimes ya gotta possess a bad guy, switch sides for a minute, shoot your own teammates to get past that level. The trick becomes eho to shoot and who to become as far as how to get to where you need to ultimately be. |
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I might just shop that one around to people who know how to write video games. |
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Doh. Looks like that's sortof already a thing. |
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