History VideoGameCrueltyPotential / TurnBasedStrategy

** A particularly fun one: in every version of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemShadowDragon'', there's a chapter where you have to rescue Maria, a princess whose sister is willing to join the army if she's rescued. However, since ''Shadow Dragon'' came before they learned to code neutral units, Maria is still treated as an enemy unit; just one programmed to not move. Hence, despite being a defenseless healer and a prepubescent girl, it's possible for the player to attack and kill her. Notably, this is something the game [[DevelopersForesight actually acknowledges as a possibility]]; Minerva goes hostile if Maria is killed by the player, and in one version of the game, she even has special dialogue where she's simultaneously confused and outraged that [[WhatTheHellPlayer you murdered her sister for no reason.]]

* ''Franchise/StarTrek: VideoGame/BirthOfTheFederation'' can implement this trope. Though you're usually given a diplomatic option (an option you're [[VideoGameCrueltyPunishment encouraged]] to use if you play as the [[LawfulGood Federation]]), you can simply choose to subjugate or destroy other races. In fact, your people will actually be happier with you for choosing these options if you're playing as the [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Cardassians]] (in the case of the former) or the [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Klingons]] (in the case of the latter).

** It doesn't stop there. You can attack your fellow party members for experience and/or job points, invite people into your party just to take their gear and kick them out, or murder your own teammates, wait for their FinalDeath, and eat their soul absorb their crystal to instantly learn the skills they did. You can also raise monsters only to kill them permanently for their "skins" (which can then be traded for rare items in certain shops).

** And then there's the common occurrence of having said friend/mentor figure/family member/lover/etc. being on the same team as said player's characters. With the game's concept of FinalDeath and even having a few plotline deaths, you can pretty much ruin someone's day by killing off their partner.

*** As of a recent Crimson Flower DLC, if you ''[[KickTheDog really]]'' want feel like a [[{{Jerkass}} complete dickhead]], you can have Jeritza ([[spoiler:aka the Death Knight]]) fight and even kill '''''Mercedes'''''! Y'know, his ''half-sister he protected from her abusive father who intended to marry her and is like a MoralityPet to him?'' Worse still this is the ''only route in the '''entire game''''' that Jeritza and Mercedes can survive peacefully in the end and you ''just ruined it'', YouBastard

*** As of a recent Crimson Flower DLC, if you ''[[KickTheDog really]]'' want feel like a [[{{Jerkass}} complete dickhead]], you can have Jeritza ([[spoiler:aka the Death Knight]]) fight and even kill '''''Mercedes'''''! Y'know, his ''half-sister he protected from her abusive father who intended to marry her and is like a MoralityPet to him?''

** ''Slightly'' less cruel is the ability to LevelGrind yourself retarded so that every story battle is a demonstration of NoKillLikeOverkill, or going for a TotalPartyKill in the [[InstantWinCondition "Kill X"]] scenarios. The downside to this is that [[DynamicDifficulty random encounters scale with Ramza's level]], making certain areas {{Beef Gate}}s.

*** As of a recent Crimson Flower DLC, if you ''[[KickTheDog really]]'' want feel like a [[{{Jerkass}} complete dickhead]], you can have Jeritza ([[spoiler:aka the Death Knight]]) fight and even kill '''''Mercedes''''', y'know his ''half-sister he protected from her abusive father who intended to marry her and is like a MoralityPet to him?''

*** As of a recent Crimson Flower DLC, if you ''[[KickTheDog really]]'' want feel like a [[{{Jerkass}} complete dickhead]], you can have Jeritza ([[spoiler: aka the Death Knight]]) fight and even kill '''''Mercedes''''', y'know his ''half-sister he protected from her abusive father who intended to marry her and is like a MoralityPet to him?''

* In ''VideoGame/LaPucelle'', you are encouraged to take the monsters that you purified, [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/05/10 put into your party, and loved and nurtured to trust you...]] and sell them into eternal slavery to the Dark World. You are ''encouraged to do this'', as the Dark World will send you gifts for any accomplishments that monster does, such as working through the ranks to Demon Lord or Overlord. In addition, the process fuses any items they had together. Maybe there's a reason Prier is a Demon Overlord in the ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'' games...
** Granted, that "loving and nurturing" you did involved stuff ranging from making them break blocks and do push-ups to turning them into cyborgs and even ''shooting'' them (granted, you have to build up their trust a number of times before they wouldn't quit over that last one).

* ''[[VideoGame/JaggedAlliance Jagged Alliance 2]]'' has [[DeadlyGas mustard gas.]] It is entirely possible with a mixture of launchers, mortars, and hand-thrown canisters to flood an area with sickly yellow clouds, and then serenely walk with your own (gas-masked) mercs wielding [[CherryTapping knives and punching weapons]].
** Tear gas and stun grenades let you do the same thing. You can also, in the 1.13 mod, throw molotov cocktails onto unconscious/stunned enemies.

* ''Franchise/StarTrek: VideoGame/BirthOfTheFederation'' can implement this trope. Though you're usually given a diplomatic option (an option you're [[VideoGameCrueltyPunishment encouraged]] to use if you play as the [[LawfulGood Federation]]), you can simply choose to subjugate or destroy other races. In fact, your people will actually be happier with you for choosing these options if you're playing as the [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Cardassians]] (in the case of the former) or the [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Klingons]] (in the case of the latter).

* A favorite late-game battlescape tactic in ''VideoGame/{{XCOM}}'' 1 and 2 is to mind-control the first enemy you see and use him as a ''very'' expendable scout to locate his nearest friends. Mind control them as well and repeat until the entire alien force is under your control. Then herd them all into a nice big group, and force them to drop a couple HE or stun grenades at their own feet. Sometimes it's so effective you can wrap up a ground assault or terror mission on one turn without any of your own troops so much as leaving the ship. And even if a few baddies escaped your notice, they're likely to be so terrified and demoralized that they'll throw down their weapons and run about aimlessly.
* [[VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown The reboot]] offers its own method, overlapping with CombatPragmatist. There's a room ahead, and you can't see what's in it, but there doesn't seem to be much cover. Eh, send the NewMeat in to LeeroyJenkins his way in and get a line of sight into the room, with one of your precious high-leveled Heavy troopers near the door to lob a rocket in if there's a group of aliens clustered together.
** Mutons, with their low Will, make for very expedient suicide bombers. Just mind-control one and have him charge into a room with enemies, get next to the enemy you most want dead, and have him chuck a grenade at his feet.

* ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsUX'': In the chapter where Jin deploys with his first ever squad he leads. When you shoot them down, he casts Spirit Commands in anger and sorrow; Spirit, Strike, and Valor. When the last subordinate is shot down, a sad music begins to play. You can leave them alone so this doesn't happen, but they die anyways when the Island detonates with the Fenrir.

* ''VideoGame/{{Eador}}'' has random events with moral choices, so if traders are looking to buy some virgins, the player can refuse, accept, or have the traders killed and take their gold. Among the more creative options, the player can have shipwreck survivors killed and loot their wreck, force subjects to farm poisonous spiders and sell the silk, hire adventurers to clear out a dungeon and have them killed for the loot, kill babies, eat a mermaid, or eat a unicorn and have the chef executed when it tastes disgusting. The ever-popular favorite: a band of hunters can bring in captive evil sorcerers. The player can have the hunters flogged to get an item from the sorcerers, then have the sorcerers tortured to make them spill their magic. The good and neutral choices are ''not'' deranged, and it's a bit weird how good-aligned players can go along holding festivals and rewarding adventurers like normal people, while evil-aligned ones descend into madness.

* In ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'', you can pass bills in the Dark Assembly to improve at-base quality-of-life, recruit advanced-proficiency units, gain in-battle perks like boosted EXP, and so on. If a bill fails, you can force it to pass by [[BloodOnTheDebateFloor killing the Senators who voted Nay]]. ''Orrrrr'', noting that many bills are cheap and repeatable, most notably "I Need War Funds!", you can use the Dark Assembly as an excuse to beat up Senators over and over. Granted, [[VideoGameCrueltyPunishment this will make them like you less and more likely to vote Nay on future bills]], but hey, [[ViciousCycle all the more excuse to keep kicking their asses]]!
* ''VideoGame/MutantYearZeroRoadToEden'' offers Achievements for the following deeds:
** Taunt a mind-controlled team mate.
** Kill a team mate.
** Eat a dead team mate.

** A particularly fun one: in every version of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemShadowDragon'', there's a chapter where you have to rescue Maria, a princess whose sister is willing to join the army if she's rescued. However, since ''Shadow Dragon'' came before they learned to code neutral units, Maria is still treated as an enemy unit; just one programmed to not move. Hence, despite being a defenseless healer and a prepubescent girl, it's possible for the player to attack and kill her. Notably, this is something the game [[DevelopersForesight actually acknowledges as a possibility]]; Minerva goes hostile if Maria is killed by the player, and in one version of the game, she even has special dialogue where she's simultaneously confused and outraged that [[YouBastard you murdered her sister for no reason.]]

** A particularly fun one: in every version of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemShadowDragon'', there's a chapter where you have to rescue Maria, a princess whose sister is willing to join the army if she's rescued. However, since ''Shadow Dragon'' came before they learned to code neutral units, Maria is still treated as an enemy unit; just one programmed to not move. Hence, despite being a defenseless healer and a prepubescent girl, it's possible for the player to attack and kill her. Notably, this is something the game [[DevelopersForesight actually acknowledges as a possibility]]; Minerva goes hostile if Maria is killed by the player, and in one version of the game, she even has special dialogue where she's simultaneously confused and outraged that [[YouBastard you murdered her sister for no reason.

* It is a common occurrence in ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' games for there to be a non-recruitable friend/mentor figure/family member/lover/etc. of one of the player's characters on the enemy side. If one so chooses, he can make them the one to do their loved ones in. Usually, they get a special battle conversation for that.

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'', pretty much from the very beginning, you can pass over Mandalia Plains repeatedly until you get a random encounter. The enemies' party will invariably have a yellow chocobo in it and you can kill off everyone else in its party, then surround it and attack it virtually endlessly as its only healing action, Choco Cure, also heals characters on all four sides, thus giving you a way to level up and get a hell of a lot of jp to boot, and joy of all joys, all you have to do is torture a sad-faced chocobo forever.

* In ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'', you can pass bills in the Dark Assembly to improve at-base quality-of-life, recruit advanced-proficiency units, gain in-battle perks like boosted EXP, and so on. If a bill fails, you can force it to pass by [[BloodOnTheDebateFloor killing the Senators who voted Nay]]. ''Orrrrr'', noting that many bills are cheap and repeatable, most notably "I Need War Funds!", you can use the Dark Assembly as an excuse to beat up Senators over and over. Granted, [[VideoGameCrueltyPunishment this will make them like you less and more likely to vote Nay on future bills]], but hey, [[ViciousCycle all the more excuse to keep kicking their asses]]!

* In ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'', you can pass bills in the Dark Assembly to improve at-base quality-of-life, recruit advanced-proficiency units, gain in-battle perks like boosted EXP, and so on. If a bill fails, you can force it to pass by [[BloodOnTheDebateFloor killing the Senators who voted Nay]]. ''Orrrrr'', noting that many bills are cheap and repeatable, most notably "I Need War Funds!", you can use the Dark Assembly as an excuse to beat up Senators over and over. Granted, [[ViciousCycle this will make them like you less and more likely to vote Nay on future bills, but hey, all the more excuse to keep kicking their asses]]!