Video Game Cruelty Potential/Video Games/Roguelike


 * Dwarf Fortress adventurer mode. Not only can you indiscriminately kill (although the guard will come down heavily on you for that one), but there's a fun way to kill people without getting into trouble:
 * 1. Find a dwarf, elf, human, or other friendly standing next to a tree. 2. Set the tree on fire. 3. Friendly dies, because DF is very, very bad when it comes to fire (unless you're after the laughs, in which case it handles fire perfectly).
 * See also: Elona, provided you aren't the one who started the fire.
 * The newest versions of Dwarf Fortress allow players to specify their attacks in great detail in adventure mode, including the type of attack and the body part to target. This includes, but is not limited to, grappling and breaking limbs and joints, hacking and slashing with edged weapons, bashing with blunt weapons and shields, punching, kicking, scratching, and biting. Given how the game generally doesn't use a hit point system and bodily damage is realistically simulated, players could potentially break an enemy's every joint in every limb, gouge out both eyes, bite off both ears and the nose, and cut open the enemy's torso so the guts spill out. The guts may, if desired, also be ripped out entirely. And this is all in one fight, against any NPC you choose.
 * Heck, you can be evil and cruel in any game mode. Adventurer? Randomly kill things and use the hilarious combat mechanics to torture an elf for three days with an iron whip. Dwarf Fortress? Magma traps (for purging useless dwarves), releasing poisonous creatures anywhere you want, evil temples with frequent blood sacrifices, and more. Kittens are butchered to make the game run faster. Magma is dumped on sieges so the player has less clean up later, useless dwarves are culled... The list goes on. The less said about Arena mode, where you can summon any creature with any level of skill and equipment you want, control any of them, and assign teams, the better.
 * When ghosts were implemented, players took to many inventive methods of inflicting on their own dwarves variously miserable deaths and/or torturous lives guaranteed to drive them berserk, in order to get their ghosts to appear. To kill more dwarves.