Well, that's exactly the question, OP had. Why do so many games today have children below a certain age NPCs invincible? Or women? Or some NPCs with specific jobs? If the game is specifically advertised as "do what you want, play as a good or evil character, you are free to do any choice" - then why make a distinction between characters that has no in-game explanation whatsoever?

Have you played Fallout 2? The children in The Den are thieving scum, little pickpockets who stand next to the entrance of the town's inn and steal your stuff. At the very least they deserve a beating, but you couldn't even blame a player who just shoots them.
Personally I think they should have added a quest where some businessman gives you the task of ridding the town of its street children problem. Maybe including a peaceful solution, but just killing them all should also have been an option.

Again?

Old habits are hard to break, you know? ;)

Not really. A lot of RPGs have a lot of evil pathways, and they are surprisingly little treaded when you look (ie: spy) at players stats.

I'm currently playing the quite wonderfully fascinating Vampyr which is, well, a vampire RPG where you play, well, a vampire defined by his ability to, well, suck random people's blood in total impunity. It's the game's selling point, it's its attraction, it's its identity, and it's strongly encouraged by the game, as sucking innocents dry give you a huge boost in xp and therefore in unlockable abilities which are very precious for the game's sometimes tough fights, and which are impossible to grind in other ways (we're talking about 2000 xp for killing an innocent citizen vs 5 xp for killing a monster).

But the citizens have personalities, background stories, identities, etc. And in practice, the vast majority (I've read : around 90%) of the gamers who bought this vampire simulation opt to not use this bloodsucking feature. And to go the much more difficult path of sparing all citizens (even nasty ones) and, well, behaving like a vampire who rejects his own vampirism.

It's a very interesting (and extreme) example in a very interesting game. But it echoes the overwhelming tendency of computer roleplayers to act goody-two-shoes in cRPGs, in particular when the game's options don't force it onto them.

In practice, enjoying the presence of evil options don't mean opting for them. Their presence (and rewards!) gives more meaning to the ethical choices.

Or...maybe...just maybe - some of us (and I'm not in a position to judge, if we're the "overwhelming" majority, or not) simply don't like to act in cRPGs, in ways that run contrary to our RL personas.

See, I have no problem with killing bad (!) guys in games.
And I probably would have no problem with killing bad (!) guys IRL, if the necessarity ever arises (be it out of self-defense, or in defense of a third person).

Thing is: I see absolutely nothing wrong with punishing the bad (!) guys.

But...apart from not being a hangman in real life, there are a few more things, that I don't am in real life: a rapist and a child murderer, to give just two examples

And I wouldn't want to play any of these "roles" in any game.
Simply because I have no interest in "trying out" any of these "roles".

That has nothing to do with being a "goody-two-shoe".
It's simply who I am, as a human, empathetic, being.

Another criminal activity, I have no problem with in games: stealing.
Though I'm not a thief IRL, of course.

And yes, you may call that hypocritical (oh, so stealing in games is ok, yeah? But at killing infants we're supposed to draw a line, huh!?! You hypocrit!!) , but thieving is often used as a gaming mechanic, and I use it just as that.

However - and this is where your accusation of me being a hypocrit would get rendered ineffective - if a game would make it clear to me, that the people which I steal from, have to suffer because of that - I would stop stealing in that game.
Again: that's just who I am IRL.
I don't want innocent people to suffer because of my doings.

And then there are people who argue with:

"Stop crying, snowflake, it's not real!
Grow a thicker skin, boomer!
I've played murderers and rapists for years, and I have yet to rape and kill someone in real life!
I play uber violent video games since I was five, and I'm totally normal, asshole!
If we can kill children in real life, we should be able to kill children in games, too!
Who are you to judge over me, when I want to play a child killer?"

Yes, I'll admit - such people are suspicious to me.

Because - even when playing as a bad guy - some things need to be taboo, or - rest assured - some people will play these "roles" for the wrong reasons.

Hey, why not make a modern remake of "KZ Manager"?
After all - it's not real, right?
It's just a game.
Nobody gets hurt in real life.
There's absolutely nothing to worry about, just because someone might want to play it...uncensored, of course, with all the right symbols included.
Everything else would go against everything we as "gaming community" stand for. /s

Edit: two word twisted (two just)

People like to act like everyone that plays mount and blade wants to actually violently fight to the death in a war. Everyone that wants to play GTA wants to waterboard people. Most people found the waterboard scene distasteful and it actually made people stop playing given how visceral it was. There are reasons why a show like Westworld exist, to portray the dichotomy between how people treat reality and fiction. The difference is more nuanced. I certainly don't feel an insane connections to dropping blocks in Tetris nor little mushroom people in Mario. Its just a game. I understand that the more robust the simulation gets(such as in VR) it can feel wrong but its still just a game.
I don't think it makes sense to virtue signal for fictional characters and actually believe its very harmful to draw parallels between fiction and real life.

But what if these children are committing crimes and are likely to grow up to become bandits or mobsters? Wouldn't it be better to preemptively take them out? At least in a post-apocalyptic setting like Fallout which doesn't have the facilities for rehabilitating juveniles, and where stealing scarce ressources from a traveller may be a death sentence.
Now I don't think all games should allow you to kill everybody, I'm not in favour of games catering to every depraved, sadistic impulse. But there are settings where killing children (or "children", let's say adolescents of about 12 or 13) might make good sense from a role-playing perspective.

Yes, it's essentially what I'm saying. But some variations should be taken in account. On one hand people often play idealized versions of themselves, because in real life, dilemma between altruism and personal gains are often crushed (well, rationalized) in favor of egocentrism, by people who see themselves as the good guys and project themselves as such in fictions (identification to characters in non-interactive worlds, virtuous roleplaying in interactive worlds). And also some genuinely good people are more cynical about pixels than living being (I remember the irritation of an otherwise good-hearted, generous friend when my NWN character gave out our gold to a pauper ex-slaves family, because the pragmatism of using that gold for our equipment was more important to him than symbolic waste for the "well being" of soul-less computerized NPCs).

My point is that, statistically, more often than not, people import into their roleplay the values they hold in real life. Roleplaying games are above all fantasies to affect the world the way we wish we could (or -to put it more cynically- the way we wish we'd genuinely want to). And that's interesting to behold, because, humans being generally trash, you'd expect facts to justify the moral panic of free will in videogames. Turns out, player characters tend to be good people even if front of the opportunity of consequence-less evil.

Then again, the question of videogame morality and subjective thresholds thereof is a rich and complex question that pops us legitimately every now and then (see recent threads about rapey pedophiley porn and about nazi submariner simulators). I've also known very sweet, soft people -and careful, respectuous drivers- who enjoyed Carmageddon games with a hilarious enthusiasm.

I'd argue that (surprise) people are different from each others. That the same thing can be enjoyed through different perspectives (just like a same "racist" joke can be racist or anti-racist depending on the context, just like a same movie can be seen as glorifying or denouncing mafia life depending on the spectator, a "baddie" simulator can be played at different levels of distanciation and awareness, and evoke different emotions for different people).

But it's a broader discussion, that cannot be resolved with blanket judgement (if only because, while we could always throw extreme examples at each others, it wouldn't solve the question of moral thresholds between them). And we're not even discussing straight "evil simulators" here (like Sid Meier's Pirates, or Tropico, or Silent Hunter 4, or more geopolitically ambiguous ones). We're discussing freedom of choice (in RPGs), and I point out that, in practice, contrarily to what you said, available options are not as often used as you were assuming, even when their mere presence is seen as a plus.

:D

Most video games have a cartoonish version of evil ("Hahaha, I kill people just for fun, because I'm an evil maniac!"), and you're also often heavily penalized for evil actions, whereas being good brings a lot of material rewards. There are very few games where consistently being altruistic is the harder and less rewarding choice, or where evil options might be genuinely tempting (like "That lone traveller I've encountered in the middle of nowhere has one of the best weapons in the game...why not just kill him, while there aren't any witnesses around?"). So people taking the "good" choices in video games says more about video games design than anything about real life morality.

Well, as I said, I'm currently playing one where being good is very heavily penalized - and yet most players take that path.

But also I could name a shitload of games where being evil is rewarded. From grand strategy games to business simulators, from military sims to crime sims, not to mention all the open world RPGs where you can win through the darkest path.

And yes, humor is often what facilitates distancing (you often play with the innocent glee of an actor hamming up his big baddie role without endorsing it). BreOl72's point is that there'll always be people revelling in the genuine sadism of it, using the toy to fulfill serious fantasies. There's no safeguard against that. But taking it in account would be too restrictive for ... well, not only videogames, but art in general.

I mean, is there even a game that Let's Game It Out can't (hilariously) turn into a Grace Torture Simulator ? Others can do this more seriously. We can't chase everyone with regulations punishing everyone else.

There's, again, thresholds to set, with games that don't allow for much irony and distancing and clearly aren't meant for that (creeps don't have an "ironical" erection in front of pedophile rape simulators). But this isn't incompatible with staying far from excessive puritan moralism. It's never an all-or-nothing matter - even though it would be much easier to treat it as such (practically and rhetorically).

I haven't played Vampyr, so can't comment...but most games I've played are strongly tilted towards playing "good", you get better rewards, it's easier, evil options are either completely lacking or just "being evil for evil's sake"...and gratuitous sadism without any rationale isn't attractive for most psychologically normal people, myself included.
The only game I've played that really felt different in this regard was Age of decadence...you can do some altruistic deeds, but it's harder, and having the feeling you did the morally correct thing is often your only reward. And the "evil" options are generally things that would make sense in a harsh world where one has to fight for one's personal survival.

EDIT: Also played Mafia last year...and while the character you play as does have a conscience to some extent, you're still a criminal who kills dozens of people, including at least some policemen and security guards.
But I think it works, because in the end it's a "Crime doesn't pay" story and the Mafia life isn't glamorized.

I bought Fallout II in '98 and I still haven't killed any kids. Having the option is nice, though. I'll get around to playing an evil character, eventually. As far as "evil" games go, I play Postal and Hatred. There's a DRM-free store that sells Hatred. :)