Do you have any personal gaming "rules" you adhere to?

[Emperor Megas]

I guess we just see things differently. You see "humans". But I see code executed on a screen that render a human graphic, but could just as easily be a banana or tennis racket for all it's worth

No, I see code as well, but that code is made to represent a human being. That's what the developers were trying to portray after all. I don't abstain from dispatching them because I think that the characters they represent are real, I don't kill them because I have no inclination to harm innocent people in the first place, whether real or imagined. I wouldn't feel an urge to kill a tennis racket or a banana peel either for that matter. It's just in my nature.

If you or someone else does feel the urge to off NPCs (needlessly I mean, when it doesn't serve any practical purpose), I'd imagine it's because you get some sense of pleasure out of it. I'm missing that part of the brain or something that makes that sort of thing appealing, though, because to me, harming innocents is off putting. This mainly applies to situations where there's no comic intent by design, and/or modern games where realism and immersion is the desired goal.

I don't play any modern, realistic warfare games either, because that sort of thing is really off putting to me (well...and boring, too). All those Medal of Honor, Modern Warfare and Tom Clancy games, they do nothing for me at all. I don't think anything is wrong with those kinds of games mind you, and I certainly don't think anything's wrong with enjoying them either. They're probably excellent games, just not my cut of tea.

Now I play plenty of violent games, but I'm more into stylized, over-the-top, fantasy type violence. Like putting demons and ninjas to the sword, that sort of thing. Mowing down realistically portrayed enemy soldiers with an M-16 in a gritty, realistic conflict, centered mostly on politics, isn't my idea of fun. I even try to kill as few people as possible in games like Metal Gear Solid, and Metal Gear is about as stylized and over-the-top as it gets for a realistic type of game.