[Salone]

All games center around a story. And all stories have a conflict and a resolution to that conflict. Sometimes the easiest conflict to tell is actual conflict. And at the end of the day, it's an excuse to punch someone and get invested in the combat mechanics. Without that, it becomes some indie game that tries to 'tell a story' and vanishes to the bargain pages of Steam because people want actual game play.

Also, people who torture NPC's for no reason are mentally unstable, and left unchecked can go on to do much worse and become staff on forum websites.