History Main / InvulnerableCivilians

** 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. Always wondered 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.

** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'', 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. Always wondered 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''. 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'': [=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'': 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.

->''Shoot everything. If it blows up, it was bad.''
-->-- '''"Lessons learned from video games" t-shirt'''

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.

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.

Most video games take place in a No Man's Land, with [[EverythingTryingToKillYou 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.

See Also HideYourChildren and GameplayAllyImmortality. Contrast with the LordBritishPostulate, where {{NPC}}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.

** 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 VendorTrash.

* 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 it a lot less fun than killing Space Marines.
* Same for the earlier ''VideoGame/{{Driver}}'' games. Goes to the 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]].

* ''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]].