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Most video games take place in a No Man's Land, with [[MonstersEverywhere monsters aplenty]] and not a friendly face or InnocentBystander in sight. When they do show up, they live in houses or towns, far away from the monsters.

But sometimes these friendly faces show up where the monsters also live. Sometimes they don't, but follow you there. But the funny thing is, the monsters often just seem to ignore them. They only care about hurting [[GangUpOnTheHuman you]]. Even attacks that catch the friendly characters in their wake don't seem to hurt them at all. Why is that?

Why, because these are [[TitleDrop Invulnerable Civilians]].

A number of games have these. It's often a compromise between allowing more friendly characters to wander around the world to make it feel alive and populated, while at the same time avoiding violence that might upset MoralGuardians or come across as inappropriate. Obviously, violent games tend not to do this, allowing civilians to be killed if they are not protected. Most games avoid the issue by not allowing friendly characters and enemies to coexist in the same location. Another reason this trope occurs is when a game is characterized by sneaking around enemies, while escorting civilians. Human players get frustrated when they have honed sneaking skills that are worthless with bad AI sneaking.

It's generally the norm for players to not be able to hurt civilians, of course (though some games allow the player to [[VideogameCrueltyPotential commit such atrocities]]). This refers mainly to when enemies ignore or cannot hurt them.

Sometimes, the game is generous enough to treat ''you'' as a civilian extending to you these same privileges, at least until you get your gun. For examples where this is the case, see NonCombatantImmunity.

See Also HideYourChildren and GameplayAllyImmortality. Contrast with the LordBritishPostulate, where {{Non Player Character}}s can't be killed by normal means, but can still be offed using some rather..."creative" methods. The opposite of this is VulnerableCivilians. Please put your aversions there.

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!!Examples:
* ''VideoGame/BoogieWings'' have several levels in the middle of the city, where bullets and missiles from either you or onscreen enemies will ignore civilian crowds. Best exemplified in "Konyi Island", a stage set in the middle of a parade of floats, where enemy planes crashing to the ground will have zilch impact on the bystanders.
* In ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'', civilians will often find themselves struggling over purses or ancient artifacts, but they can walk through groups of evil body-possessing mages without a problem. Villain-side Mayhem missions are the only times they ''are'' attackable by players, just like enemies and scenery. However, the same attack that puts a dent in a SWAT officer's armor or destroys a car does absolutely nothing to a citizen.
* In the EA developed ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberiumWars'', you can spot tiny little pedestrians running around in the city campaign missions, they are unaffected by the hordes of tanks driving over them. ''Not'' the case in previous games in the series, where civilians were units just like any other... including being squishable beneath tanks if on foot (several of the games had cars and trucks as well as pedestrians).
* In ''VideoGame/CrazyTaxi'', pedestrians jump out of the way of your taxi when you drive towards them. It's impossible to hit the pedestrians, even if you realistically should be able to. The only exception is that it is sometimes possible to reverse and turn into a passenger that you've just dropped off, but the game doesn't register the collision (the person's body passes right through the car).
* ''VideoGame/TheCrew'', which shares ''D:SF''[='=]s developer, maintains the incredible dodging skills on the pedestrians.
* In ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'', monsters will completely ignore the few [=NPCs=] scattered around the game world. This is a good thing, as several [=NPCs=] are found in the middle of major danger zones will monsters crossing their path regularly while trying to get to you. However, monster attacks will still ''damage'' friendly [=NPCs=], so it's possible for them to die if you get into a fight near them and they get hit by, say, a few stray thrown boulders.
* This trope applies to ''VideoGame/{{Driver}}''. It goes to a ridiculous extreme in ''VideoGame/DriverSanFrancisco'' in which pedestrians dodge out of the way of cars as if [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation the Spidey Sense bit them in the taint]].
* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'':
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'' has a few areas with {{NPC}}s in dangerous areas. While most of them are in areas that don't have monsters spawn there, if you run a mob over there and manage to lose aggro, do they attack the {{NPC}}s? Nope. The only time the mobs seem to notice the {{NPC}}s is when you are supposed to escort them somewhere for a quest. In fact, during the early years of the game, there were almost no player-race enemies whatsoever. In fact, the only player-race enemy you fought at that time transformed into a monster.
** {{Justified|Trope}} with Namingway in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'''s DS remake: he has the ability to always appear in whatever location the story mandates your party to visit next, complain about his current situation, find a new calling, change his name to way and ask Cecil to help him out in some way and possibly reward him somehow, in no particular order. Said locations are invariably filled with lots of dangerous monsters, and the one time you actually need to fight him a good way into the game, he only has a measly 32 HP. So how does he survive? Simple: after you complete his subplot and find him in one of the randomly chosen locations afterwards, he gives you his good luck charm that he's apparently carried with him the entire time: a Safe Travel augment, which eliminates all random encounters. The game doesn't bother to elaborate if the very first monsters he runs into afterwards kill him brutally or if he barely manages to escape to a nearby town, realizes the danger he's been in the entire time, and spends the rest of his life sobbing in the corner of a nearby inn.
** He's still alive and well in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIVTheAfterYears'' and has settled with setting up [[BonusDungeon challenge dungeons]] in each character tale, which might or might not mean he's learned his lesson. There's another member of his species that pops up during various dungeons to sell you items which might or might not be him, though.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2'' has an interesting version, as many [=NPCs=] will attack enemies that appear near them on the overworld, but that's purely visual and has no bearing on the actual battle, nor will anyone ever die to these monsters.
** In ''VideoGame/LightningReturnsFinalFantasyXIII'', you can have Lightning swing around her massive sword in civilian-populated areas. This will typically result in panic if you are too near any [=NPCs=], though it can never actually harm anyone.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has several camps and other points of interest where many of an NPC populate them. While it is possible to drag monsters over to them, they won't attack them and even if you get them to use an AOE attack, the NPC will not get hurt at all. The only time an NPC can get hurt or attacked directly is if they're part of an EscortMission.
* In ''Global Defence Force'' (Chikyuu Boueigun 2) there are crowds of civilians running away from the alien enemies on many levels. Even if the player is fully kitted out with a superweapon capable of killing a gigantic Godzilla-alike lizard in one hit, shooting civilians will make them fly through the air, lie on the ground for a moment, then simply pick themselves up and start running again. Likewise, if they are stepped on by the aforementioned lizard. If you shoot a single civilian with a continuous-fire weapon for long enough, though, they will vanish into thin air, but this seems to be a bug rather than 'death'.
* In ''VideoGame/GuildWars'', a young girl you meet in an early area playfully follows you around. Enemies ignore her and only try to hurt you. This is more a case of ImprobableInfantSurvival, since most other civilians can be killed if you lure monsters close to them. And when the same character shows up as a teenager in Eye of the North, she is most certainly not invulnerable (though she's not a civilian anymore either).
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Infinity}}'' models aren't allowed to declare attacks against civilians.
* In a non-videogame example, the [=NPCs=] of the Resistance in ''Webcomic/KidRadd'' actually ''weaponize'' this. Even though they are unable to damage others, their complete invulnerability (due to not being coded to take damage) makes them very effective shields for their more damage-oriented allies. [[spoiler: Even more dangerous are the [=NPCs=] who attack others after taking damage, ''but are still invincible''. Sheena, due to a series of events, eventually is able to transform between [=NPC=] and player character modes.]]
* Played straight in ''VideoGame/{{Lagoon}}'' for the SNES, where the first major thing you do is explore a dungeon and do an EscortMission with a little boy. He can't be hurt at all, but goes at quite a slow pace...
* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
** In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'', Dampe the gravekeeper wanders around the graveyard at night. As you pull gravestones and ghosts come out of some of them, the ghosts attack you, but kindly ignore Dampe, who in turn ignores them. One has to wonder why the hordes of skeleton monsters wandering around Hyrule field at night didn't march into Lon Lon Ranch and go on a stabbing rampage. Its door was always open.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask Majora's Mask]]''. Tingle, the map selling fake fairy, can be found deep in the well-defended Clock town, on the peaceful road to Milk Ranch and...in the horrible, death-shrouded, fairy-frightening, blood-streaked, zombie-filled canyon/death temple found later in the game. Sure, he has unlimited balloons but there are heat-seeking flaming bats and death-birds everywhere.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild Breath of the Wild]]'': [=NPC=]s cannot die, despite often needing to be saved. If attacked by monsters, the worst that will happen is that they're knocked out briefly. If you attack them yourself, they'll dodge in fear but never get hit, while the Goron elder will [[VideoGameCrueltyPunishment knock you back in retaliation]].
** ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom Tears of the Kingdom]]'': As in the previous game, [=NPC=] cannot be killed. In particular, the Koroks' complete immunity to damage combined with the fact that they can be fused to objects with the player's Ultrahand powers makes them popular targets for VideoGameCrueltyPotential, and even players aren't trying to be mean will usually end up accidentally rolling one down a mountain. Koroks never react with anything more than "oof", even if they've just been attached to a rocket and pancaked into a cliff. Monsters don't target them either, and while they can hit them by accident while attacking the player, it doesn't have any effect other than knocking them to the side.
* In ''VideoGame/LegoDCSuperVillains'', you can attack civilians, but no matter how many times you hit them, they won't die.
* ''VideoGame/MachineHunter'': The hostages in each level cannot be harmed in any way, either by hostile aliens, robots, or friendly fire from you.
* ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight'': Subverted in Batman Arkham Knight, You have the Batmobile which is equipped with an arsenal of deadly weaponry such as a 60mm cannon, a minigun, and missle salvos, but when ever you try to shoot any of those weapons at a mook the weapons targeting automatically switches to the non lethal missle launcher (which is still brutal.
* Civilians in ''VideoGame/MetalSlug'' are most of the time immune to damage and harm from both the player and enemies, and are completely ignored by most enemies. In particular, the first stage of ''Metal Slug 2/X'' contains a baby crawling around. Like most civilians they're immune to damage but they can get tossed around by your explosive weapons. They'll just get back up and continue crawling no worse for the wear. This trope, however, is [[VulnerableCivilians averted]] when mummies and zombies are involved. And at that point [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential you can sometimes get more bonuses for letting the civilians get mummified/zombiefied and then killing them]].
* In ''[[VideoGame/MidnightClub Midnight Club: Street Racing]]'' has invulnerable civilians that you can run over, but they'll get back up on their feet and continue on like nothing happened. The sequel, ''[[VideoGame/MidnightClub Midnight Club II]]'', averts this, as pedestrians you run over don't get back up and are treated as dead. [[WhatTheHellPlayer The opponents would even call you out for doing so]]. This stands out in a game that is otherwise non-violent, and subsequent games grant the pedestrians super dodging skills.
* The pedestrians in ''VideoGame/MidtownMadness'' also have incredible dodging skills, though in the first game, you could turn the weather to snowy and drive down the sidewalks of Lakeshore Drive to force them to dive into Lake Michigan. They would welcome death after that.
* In ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic VI'', if you lured monsters into town, they'd continue attacking you, but would completely ignore the townspeople walking around (funnily enough, the townspeople would be happy to attack ''you'' if you start killing them).
** This was corrected in ''Might & Magic VII'', where townspeople and monsters would fight each other if they ever crossed paths (all townspeople were randomly generated; all plot important {{NPC}}s were unkillable signpost conversations safely tucked away indoors).
** There is one exception to this in the first play area, where a semi-plot-important NPC offers the players [[DiscOneNuke a wand of fireball]] [[DealWithTheDevil in return for a later 'favour']]. Since the character in question carries the wand on him, enterprising players who know how M&M aggro works quickly learn that no favour is incurred if they just so happen to loot the wand from his corpse after he was [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial tragically killed by a completely random and not-at-all player-led monster incursion]] focused on his location.
* ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'' features one of the most frustrating applications of this trope. Some Invulnerable Civilians will ignore your attacks, but God help the adventurer who takes a swing at an NPC only to discover that a.) he's invincible and b.) he's ''pissed off.''
* ''VideoGame/OctopathTraveler'': Downplayed. Townsfolk can be challenged by Olberic and H'aanit to fights, though these are typically just sparring matches that leave the civilian dazed until the player exits the map.
* The Demon Scrolls in ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'' will happily float right past any [=NPCs=] in the area, but if you get anywhere near them, they actually ''chase'' you out of SuicidalOverconfidence.
* The second level of ''VideoGame/ProjectHornedOwl'' has a hostage situation in an airport taken over by Metalica's forces. Despite your lieutenant telling you to "Watch out for those hostages!" You ''can'', in fact, shoot passing civilains (which are immune to your bullets) while gunning down enemies without suffering any penalties.
* In ''VideoGame/RavenswordShadowlands'', anyone who isn't explicitly an enemy cannot be harmed at all, and is completely ignored by monsters.
* In ''VideoGame/RecettearAnItemShopsTale'', whenever you go into a dungeon, you need to hire an adventurer to do the fighting, while Recette tags along handles all the loot, and it's explained in-universe the non-combatants are magically protected and can't be attacked by monsters, but can't interact with them either.
* The webcomic ''Webcomic/RPGWorld'' lampshades this trope (just like it does for every single other video game trope in existence), in [[http://rpgworldcomic.com/d/20021027.html this comic]].
* ''VideoGame/ScarfaceTheWorldIsYours''. The main character, Tony Montana, will refuse to fire his gun at innocents. However, running people over is easily possible. Explosions? The pedestrians are just rattled. Even if you play with the 'murder spree possible' sub-characters some essential civilians, like the bank tellers, are still impossible to kill. Explosions? Tear pedestrians to shreds.
* ''VideoGame/SecretOfEvermore'' follows this trope to a T, as a number of enemies like Rogues and Mad Monks actually pop up as friendly [=NPCs=] as well who cannot be harmed, and in the volcano you'll find a single friendly Viper who offers to save your game after berating you for smacking him with your weapon unprovoked. [[spoiler:It also pops up as an insane case of DevelopersForesight for anyone who uses a walk-through walls cheat in the TutorialLevel and smacks either Professor Ruffleberg Carltron with the bazooka: the friendly professor will be unharmed, but Carltron will pop just like any enemy, and even award you with some talons and experience points, as he is secretly the game's BigBad]].
* You can kill everyone in ''VideoGame/Sharpshooter3D'', except non-combatants. A stage after a BarBrawl have you coming across a cowering bartender, and shooting him will have the bullets harmlessly passing through.
* Late in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'', [[spoiler:all of the Manikins]] are killed except for the shopkeepers. [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/39865635 all out of vacation days]] pokes fun at this and offers an explanation: all shops are invincible. The shopkeeper, the shop itself, and the merchandise cannot be attacked or damaged. The shopkeepers take advantage of this to [[spoiler:rescue the surviving Manikins. Anyone hiding behind the counter is classified as merchandise, but the shopkeeper can refuse to sell them]].
* In ''VideoGame/TheSimpsonsRoadRage'', however, you ''can'' run over both the pedestrian you've dropped off and other pedestrians waiting for a taxi on the road. However, other than complaining at you and being dragged off like every other object you can collide and drag with you, the pedestrians aren't any worse for wear afterwards.
* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'':
** Averted. At one point, there was a near-invincible civilian in the form of the Guide (who could still be killed by lava, but would quickly respawn), but an update changed this to allow him to die like the other {{Non Player Character}}s. [=NPCs=] still can't be killed by the player under normal circumstances, although it is possible to with magma, and goodie bags dropped by enemies around Halloween commonly have Rotten Eggs, which can be used to damage and kill [=NPCs=].
** Killing the Guide by throwing his voodoo doll into a lava pit summons the Wall of Flesh.
** 1.2 adds the same potential fate for the Clothier, which lets you summon Skeletron again.
* A famous trick to beating ''VideoGame/TwoWorlds'' in three minutes is to trick the FinalBossPreview into attacking a villager, then the lot of them will gang up and beat him to death.
* In the ''VideoGame/TyTheTasmanianTiger'' series, the townspeople won't get hurt if you throw boomerangs at them, [[WhatTheHellPlayer but they will still yell at you]].
* The civilians evacuating the planet in the second campaign map in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}: VideoGame/DawnOfWar'' are completely ignored by the attacking Orks. In the Orks' defense, killing fleeing civilians is a lot less fun than killing Space Marines.
* Certain areas in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' have wandering predators and wandering herbivores passing right by one another... but so help you if YOU should happen to walk near either of them.
** That specific case (herbivores and carnivores walking right by each other) was actually addressed in the game's latest expansion pack, where in some cases you have predators ignore you to go eat something that they actually hunt (wolves on some sort of moose like animal), though they will gladly start attacking you as soon as they are done 'eating'.
** The game also has several examples of merchants who are somewhat allied with enemy forces, but you can still purchase items from. They are usually marked as traitorous, or just willing to accept anyone's coin. And ShopFodder.
* Exaggerated and lampshaded in ''[[Website/GaiaOnline zOMG!]]'' when a lost little girl is found on the cliffs by the Otami Ruins, unharmed by all the particularly nasty Animated that live there.

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