I don’t play many purely war games, but you don’t and can’t know anything about all the victims because they are not detailed and fleshed out in the same way you’d want ROs and NPCs to be. Like you know murder, rape, starvation and bad things kill lots of people everyday, but most people don’t care because they don’t see it happening and don’t have a personal relationship with the victims.
Even if a person tries to personalize war, the reader might say why are they a part of a war if they’re passafists, or not play the game.
Unnamed Sci-fi Game- Demo as of 4/5 made me sad when
the crazy cat guy murdered the aliens in front of me, when I could have used my charisma and medical skills to avoid getting anyone killed and I had a chance to talk to the victims before they died. Both of the male ROs were pretty bad, so I probably wouldn’t pay for the finished game because it wouldn’t be fun, unless the plot was strong enough to make up for the lack of ROs .
Even if you try to create a character that the MC likes or feels a certain way for, the reader has the power to think what they want about the character and complain if they don’t like being forced to feel a certain way.
People’s morals they have before a game impact how they see in game situations. I wouldn’t go around serial killing everyone, but if my loved one was a zombie or was on life support and brain dead with zero chance of recovery, I wouldn’t feel too bad in a moral way if I pulled the plug. If you give people the chance to “humainly euthanize” people, you’d also have to give the chance to not do that and make each path interesting.
Having to convince readers that they shouldn’t kill during war or do something they may not agree morally with, without being blunt, can be difficult and the reader may still not care about the victim’s backstory.