I’ve beat Fallout NV as a true pacifist - no companions, no death caused by me.
It is funny, because it really doesn’t seem to fit the themes of the game to be a pacifist. You end up doing things that would (IMHO) be more fucked up ethically. It’s also hard for me to leave Vulpes alive - killing him is an every play through thing.
I’ve tried playing Morrowind and Oblivion as a pacifist. Morrowind you can get pretty far, but the Sixth House Base quest requires the death of an NPC. Oblivion… lol. You can sorta try if you don’t count dragging along companions from uncompleted quests, but that doesn’t fit the spirit of the challenge.
I wish more video games allowed you to play pacifist. I play most video games with the least violence possible, but even really well written stories like Planescape: Torment need you to solve some problems with violence.
I’ve really appreciated games like Undertale and Dishonored too.
With Mr. House, it feels like a quick golf club to the head is much more merciful than keeping him trapped in his mind for possibly hundreds of years.
With the Khans, IIRC I ended up needing to help them expand their chem empire. Selectively excising a few very evil people seems like it would have been a better choice. Which is really the larger moral question of a NV pacifist run - it’s a game about war, people are going to die, and playing as a pacifist seems more about not wanting to get your hands dirty rather than about practical morality.
Is pacifism ever about practicality, though? The issues you describe sound like the normal issues that always accompany pacifism.
Yeah, these are people who’s solution to the trolley problem is to refuse to touch it.
Yeah - I think those questions are actually part of why New Vegas is such a well written game. It does give you the option to get out of most situations without violence - but it doesn’t automatically equate pacifism with “good.” It doesn’t really equate anything with “good.”