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[Aavak]

I know killing children zombies gives you the sads. Surely, butchering them should be worse? In fact, I'd say butchering all humans even if you don't intend to eat them should impose a morale penalty if it doesn't already.

I disagree. Butchering someone you KNOW might get to you, but only because you'd be remembering times you spent with them when they were alive. It's much the same as butchering an animal, you can hunt and butcher a rabbit easily enough, but would (I imagine this to be true of most people, at least) feel pretty miserable if you had to put your pet rabbit down, much less cut it up.

I can see why killing a child incurs a moral penalty, because we have instincts that drive us to protect human offspring (ours or not), but once they're dead I don't think we really attach any significance to the cadaver. On that point, do we incur a moral penalty for killing an adult survivor?

[notquitethere]

Can you imagine cutting up a human? Most people are empathic enough to feel a little squeamish, at least the first time. Even doctors must feel a bit queasy the first time they cut open flesh in medical school. I'm just talking a small morale sink. It's maybe not genre appropriate, but I even think the first time you bludgeon a living corpse should be at least a little traumatic.

[Descan]

Maybe have a modifier for characters of "Hardened", where they don't get morale penalties for killing things and butchering them.

First level of hardened being you're okay with killing adult zombies, second level is butchering them, third is killing children, (perhaps switch these two), fourth is butchering children, and stuff in eating corpses, killing fluffy animals, and killing survivors somewhere among these.

Just an idea, if you want to simulate the dorf "Doesn't care about anything anymore" thought.

[miauw62]

If you're getting penalties for even KILLING adult zombies, towns are pretty much places you don't go, ever, for characters without that trait.

[Descan]

I'd assume it'd be a base-line of 1 or 2 levels (killing adult zombies, and possibly forest critters), and you'd have to take a negative trait of "Squeamish" to get to level 0.

[notquitethere]

Perhaps the character could get hardened over time so they take decreasing penalties for doing taboo or grotesque acts (with maybe a negative Sensitive trait that prevents the player from getting hardened).

[Moogie]

Except, please don't call it "Hardened". Here's a whole page of synonyms that can't be misconstrued as innuendo.

[Descan]

Seasoned might work.

[GlyphGryph]

The more seasoned you become, the more zombies your delicious scent attracts and the more delicious you are to them?

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

   Something like what is being discussed doesn't work very well in this type of zombie genre. Its more of a mechanic that would be geared towards a setting where zombies are rarer and maybe the world isn't basically over. The sort of world we have there probably where people who would get depressed about killing a zombie, after all there are an awful lot of zombies in the town. I assume with the way zombies work by the games lore it started a while ago but was contained by the military or what ever and probably would have been somewhat contained as its not a one bite equals instant new zombie. When everything else went wrong all at once a lot of people died and became zombies and thats why they are everywhere. The people that lived basically are the ones that got out and that probably took some zombie killing to begin with.
   Now I don't mind if such things are added in but I do have some advices on it. First of all special zombies should not cause a hit because they are mutated beyond normal human form, how else would you be able to tell at a glance that a zombies is a shocker or what have you which since they are color coded apparently you can. Next though it will make ranged even better then it already is killing a zombie from range should be less of a hit and if you can't see the zombie die you should not take a hit at all. Also using martial arts to kill zombies should be less of a hit as you apparently received some form of combat training, that and balance wise I don't want to hose someone because they wanted to make bruce lee or whoever. Finally you have to decide before you even set down code whether this hit is a static number (IE whenever you kill a zombie in a certain way you take a specific amount) or if like a dwarf you eventually get the trait "doesn't care about anything anymore". This is an important thing because it will determine how powerful a hit you can cause and how much various things should affect it. If its a static thing then you can't have killing a single zombie drop a player down to suicide levels of depression while if its something that you become inured to over time then with the right traits and such it very much should be possible to do just that. Also depending on this also will affect how you can incorporate it into traits, for instance take the cannibalism one. If the number is static then making cannibalism reduce the hit of killing a zombie be relatively decent but if not then you might not even have it affect it because it deals with wanting to eat a person not kill them though that really is just splitting hairs. Also an interesting thing with the static number is you can make far sighted characters take less of a hit when they don't have their glasses on because they can't see well enough, oh just thought of it but with that have the hit be less in melee then with near sighted characters make the hit be less for killing at a distance without your glasses thought that would be harder to do, heh.

[Lightningfalcon]

Seasoned might work.

I don't want my charcter to be "Seasoned" when running from what are essentially cannibals.

The more seasoned you become, the more zombies your delicious scent attracts and the more delicious you are to them?

Damn it. 

[Rez]

Maybe everyone who survives the apocalypse will have a guro/vore fetish.  Then, everyone would be hardened to zombies.

Gaucheness aside, the average person isn't going to beat something that looks like a child to death, then sit down and cut it apart with a pocket knife.  However, after a week of battering furry animals and former acquaintances to death, I imagine you'd be steeled to the facts of life after the Death.  Perhaps a hidden stat that increments based on how much destruction you cause/witness that changes how much killing zombies and survivors affects your morale.  Perhaps, if you hole up in a shelter for a few days, you have the risk of a emotion break, where you suffer an epiphany of how shitty life is.

A few traits might alter your reactions: cynics are permanently less happy than normals, but experience a happiness gain from successful survival, aka, killing lots of zombies, building things, stuff like that.  Optimists are permanently more happy (they have hope for the future), but experience more happiness penalties for killing zombies (maybe they can be cured!) and humans (why can't we work together?!).

This kind of mechanic depends entirely on your opinion of how deep a simulation should go and of gamification.  Beyond that, you should make some assumptions about the player-character:  they managed to survive the world falling and, generally, aren't holing up in the survival shelter/their house until they start to starve.  I think it's safe to say the PC is both reasonably wise and survival driven.

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

   I would go against making it a hidden stat because its very much an important thing especially if it can change over time. After all you can view a very specific break down of whats making you unhappy and darn it, I wish I could analyze my mood that well in real life.

[Descan]

Like I said, I would think it would start 1 or 2 two levels, and only if you take a trait like "Squeamish" would it go down to 0 and cause you a morale penalty for killing zombies/critters.

[ollobrains]

what aspects would enable u to recover youre morale ( bionics, medications other ?)