The moment that inspired this question:
A long time ago I was playing an MMO called Voyage of the Century Online. A major part of the game was sailing around on a galleon ship and having naval battles in the 1600s.
The game basically allowed you to sail around all of the oceans of the 1600s world and explore. The game was populated with a lot of NPC ships that you could raid and pick up its cargo for loot.
One time, I was sailing around the western coast of Africa and I came across some slavers. This was shocking to me at the time, and I was like “oh, I’m gonna fuck these racist slavers up!”
I proceed to engage the slave ship in battle and win. As I approach the wreckage, I’m bummed out because there wasn’t any loot. Like every ship up until this point had at least some spare cannon balls or treasure, but this one had nothing.
… then it hit me. A slave ship’s cargo would be… people. I sunk this ship and the reason there wasn’t any loot was because I killed the cargo. I felt so bad.
I just sat there for a little while and felt guilty, but I always appreciated that the developers included that detail so I could be humbled in my own self-righteousness. Not all issues can be solved with force.
When I was a pretty young Makyo I rented of of the Dragon Warrior games for NES. It was one of those JRPGs with a pretty customizable party, naming them and all that. I was sick so I had a bunch of uninterrupted time playing and got so wrapped up in the story and gameplay, like I was cheering them on by name and really having one of my first somewhat immersive experiences with gaming. Then when it came time to return it, in the following days I actually really missed these characters! Like I was dealing with a new kind of loss that I hadn’t felt before.
Just a really cool experience overall and I always look back on it as a reason I really got into gaming as a lifelong hobby and taught me how even more rudimentary versions could be artistic in ways that rival other means of storytelling.