History Main / VideoGameCrueltyPunishment

** Lets not forget the wonderous "church virus" code. Type any curse word into the game and you'll recieve a message stating "same to you, buddy!" and churches start appearing at alarming rates.

* In the Primitive Area on ''SuperPaperMario'' you come across mind controlled cavemen. Killing then will actually remove points from your score (The game's EXP system.)

** Additionally, in this one and the sequel, getting caught pickpocketing, killing NPCs, or summoning something that kills NPCs activates a toned-down version of Everything Trying to Kill You... this troper supposes it could be called Every NPC Trying To Kill You.

* It's not a part of the code, but when you kill people without reason in ''MitadakeHigh'' they will label you an RKer (random killer) and you are either banned from that server or so very dead.

*** Well, not... not as such. See, anyone with a 'Civilian' tag was generally either a Quest Giver or a Vendor of some fashion - the DK rules and penalties were specifically to stop high-level players from storming any lowbie town they wanted and slaughtering all the Quest-Givers, thus preventing any players from gaining or finishing their quests until they respawned. All of this was anti-griefing, taken to monstrous extremes. Civvies no longer give DKs, but they DO still summon swarms of guards, and the Wind Riders (essentially taxi stands) still spawn several elite Wyverns/Bats/Gryphons/Hippogryffs (depending on the race of the town) if you fuck with them.

*** This was an incredibly vicious example. To be as brief as I can: at the time, the only way to get the uppermost PVP gear was to grind literally weeks upon weeks upon weeks of Battlegrounds in order to make your Rank (and new gear could only be purchased upon attaining a specific Rank, with newer and better gear at each subsequent and higher rank) - the lower ranks could be easily achieved one per week, but once you got to the point where you were actually able to buy the really good gear, it could often take multiple weeks to gain a single rank. Thus, the top three ranks - with their ultimate, top-end gear - were a culmination of '''months''' of effort '''and''' being among the top 5 'honor' gainers of your faction. A herculean effort to begin with... and then we come to the Dishonorable Kills, or DKs. DKs didn't just sap your honor, no. They sapped your '''overall progress''' at a tune of 2% per DK. This translates to each civilian at high Rank costing you as much as a '''week's worth of effort.''' Making matters worse was that if you were in a party ''or a raid'' with someone as they killed a civilian - '''even if you were nowhere near the civilian in question''' - you would ''also'' be saddled with that DK and subsequent blow to your progress. This Troper was hilariously fucked out of the ultimate rank when some random schmuck in a raid he was in killed ''three'' Civilians at once, costing him '''a full month of progress.''' This Troper ''does not miss'' Dishonorable Kills. At all. In any way.

*** That seems similar to the nonstandard game over of the game Balance of Power (a RISK-esque political game where you play the US or the USSR for political influence. Whatever one player does, the other player can challenge in the UN, and escalate tension. The idea is that one of you two will eventually back out (and lose prestige). However, this can lead to a nonstandard gameover with the message "You have triggered a nuclear war, and no, there is no animated gif of a mushroom cloud. We do not reward failure". This also happens if tensions are too high and an accidental nuclear war triggers.

*** That seems simmilar to the nonstandard gameover of the game Balance of Power (a RISK-esque political game where you play the US or the USSR for political influence. Whatever one player does, the other player can challenge in the UN, and escalate tension. The idea is that one of you two will eventually back out (and lose prestige). However, this can lead to a nonstandard gameover with the message "You have triggered a nuclear war, and no, there is no animated gif of a mushroom cloud. We do not reward failure". This also happens if tensions are too high and an accidental nuclear war triggers.

*** That seems simmilar to the nonstandard gameover of the game Balance of Power (a risk-esque political game where you play the US or the USSR for political influence. Whatever one player does, the other player can challenge in the UN, and escalate tension. The idea is that one of you two will eventually back out (and lose prestige). However, this can lead to a nonstandard gameover with the message "You have triggered a nuclear war, and no, there is no animated gif of a mushroom cloud. We do not reward failure". This also happens if tensions are too high and an accidental nuclear war triggers.

*** Even when the ban on Planet Busters is lifted, however, it's very not-advisable to use too many of them too quickly without building a ton of elite defensive units. In this particular game, when you hit the planet, [[GeniusLoci the Planet ]]''[[GeniusLoci hits back]]'', sending a nearly overwhelming swarm of it's worst [[HordeOfAlienLocusts mind worms]] to chew through your bases defenses.

* In the SonicAdventure series, if you severely abuse your [[Mon Chao]], they won't listen to you or let you pick them up, and if your ''really'' cruel, they won't eat, and will even [[KilledOffForReal die earlier, without a chance to reincarnate.]]

** This is true with all friendly NPC meat to varying degrees of penalty. This is especially frustrating in the area with giant bees carrying off baby amphibians as it is hard not to kill them, and there is no way to differentiate bee meat from baby meat. Course its only a piddly 7 HP compared to the whopping 999 from the elder, but when you consider your HP will still likely be in the low double digits by that point, it still hurts.

* In the recent remake of ''[[TheBardsTale The Bard's Tale]],'' your character was an unmitigated bastard at times. This often came back to bite him on the rear. One town he accidentally burnt down by releasing a dragon [[ManOnFire set him on fire]]; being snarky with a child gets you [[GroinAttack kicked where it counts]]; and if you [[KickTheDog drive off the lovable pooch]] at the start of the game, later on you have to fight an undead version of a previous enemy rather than get an ally.
** Nice is the ''slightly'' better choice the ''majority'' of the time. Of course, there's no way to find out beforehand, and a few choices make no real difference (Nice to the innkeeper = lousy room, Snarky to the innkeeper = great room; neither affects any of your stats or future events). There are a number of cases were Snarky is obviously better in the short run, but it costs you later on (a future service is more expensive, for example). Really more a Guide Dang It than anything.

* In the recent remake of ''[[TheBardsTale The Bard's Tale]],'' your character was an unmitigated bastard at times. This often came back to bite him on the rear. One town he accidentally burnt down by releasing a dragon [[ManOnFire set him on fire]]; being Snarky with a child gets you [[GroinAttack kicked where it counts]]; and if you [[KickTheDog drive off the lovable pooch]] at the start of the game, later on you have to fight an undead version of a previous enemy rather than get an ally.

* ''TraumaCenter''. Whoo, we have a tough case here. From what you can see, your job is to fight some strange malicious virus that's somehow looks like a vector graphic version of aliens from SpaceInvaders. But here's the thing: that's the only thing you'll be killing through the whole game(s). You can try hurting the patients you're treating, but it will only result in a bad rating for your stage. Oh, and Angie and Val will scowl you pretty badly, which is something you will ''not'' want these 2 cuties to do. At some point of the game, you may realize that this series just... leaves no rooms for cruelty!

* In ''NancyDrew Danger on Deception Island'', it's possible to give Nancy and Kate food poisoning. You can make Nancy a sandwich that turns out to be the most volatile sandwich ever created (Such as putting Jellyfish, Ice cream, Mayonnaise, Tomatoes, and peanut butter on a sandwich) or have her give it to Kate. However this gives you a game over.
** It's actually the Mayonnaise that's the bad thing, since it expired in 1994. BLEGH.

* TraumaCenter. Whoo, we have a tough case here. From what you can see, your job is to fight some strange malicious virus that's somehow looks like a vector graphic version of aliens from SpaceInvaders. But here's the thing: that's the only thing you'll be killing through the whole game(s). You can try hurting the patients you're treating, but it will only result in a bad rating for your stage. Oh, and Angie and Val will scowl you pretty badly, which is something you will ''not'' want these 2 cuties to do. At some point of the game, you may realize that this series just... leaves no rooms for cruelty!

** Tsk, tsk. The best response to rampaging PC's is to realize that 1) they are not the only adventurers in the world, 2) someone whom they have wronged can spend a lot of money to hire those willing to revenge the wrongs, 3) there are always adventurers, good aligned churches, orders of paladins, noble-minded wizards, and so on willing to respond to murderous bastards who are to quick to butcher innocent people, and 4) spells like Speak With Dead and Clairvoyance can make identifying the culprits rather easy. Good {{GM}}s make the punishment seem to come organically from the game world without needing to use game mechanics.

** Tsk, tsk. The best response to rampaging PC's is to realize that 1) they are not the only adventurers in the world, 2) someone whom they have wronged can spend a lot of money to hire those willing to revenge the wrongs, 3) there are always adventurers, good aligned churches, orders of paladins, noble-minded wizards, and so on willing to respond to murderous bastards who are to quick to butcher innocent people, and 4) spells like Speak With Dead and Clairvoyance can make identifying the culprits rather easy. Good GMs make the punishment seem to come organically from the game world without needing to use game mechanics.

** The GameMaster might also implement other measures to keep psycho PCs in check, such as changing their CharacterAlignment to suit their actual StupidEvil style of play, or sending the local authorities after them. This is also one of the reasons why no sane DM would award experience points for killing civilian or "friendly" targets.

**** [[spoiler: And, when coupled with high Wyrd, begins to ''turn them into one of the True Fae.'']]

** Although the entire "black skin is evil, white skin is pure" mechanic has some ''serious'' {{Unfortunate Implications}}

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* While not technically a videogame, the roleplaying system in ''{{Darths and Droids}}'' makes civilians worth negative XP.

* ''Below the Root'' takes place on a planet that tries to avoid violence. At some point, you can potentially get a sword-like object, the wand-of-Befal, from a rebel group called the Nekom. If you use it for any purpose other than hacking down plants (i.e., killing people or animals), you lose spirit points permanently. Spirit points give you various magical powers as you get more of them, and it's possible to make the game {{unwinnable}} if you lose enough of them.
** It's worse than that. Slaying a human will strip ALL of them away from you, as a warning that you just crossed the MoralEventHorizon. This is guaranteed to make the game UnWinnable if you've managed to progress that far. Oddly enough, you can get rid of one of the guards blocking your way underground permanently by giving him enough poisonous berries (well, actually more like alcoholic berries), and that won't strip you of your points.