Preposterous!

Her 2 year old child will replace her, and then you really won't be able to kill em

I'm kind of curious about this. On one of my later characters in oblivion, I was actually sucsessful in infaltrating the Mythic dawn without anyone knowning, cause my sneek was so high and had a few chamelion things, and snuck up behind Mankar without anyone knowing. I actually killed the guy, but it said he went unconsious. The game basically said I couldn't save the world, Martin had to do it. I understand why things went that way. But if we can kill everyone, I do wonder how that will play out? Cause there will always be people, myself included who go off and do other things before even starting the main quest. So by the time we do start it, we're uber. It'll be interesting to see what they let us do.

I think you should for sure to be able to kill anybody in the game, but maybe give quest-related people an icon or something? Something distinguishable.

then you're screwed

Got a letter in Daggerfall, didn't show up, woman emperor told me to meet tried to kill me, main quest undoable, everyone happy. If you really feel the need to butcher whole settlements why should you get the quests, besides would make for interesting role play if you have to live in the wilds and do the whole game without shops Guilds or trainers

As long as the family and townsfolk remember you killed that person and don't suddenly talk happily if you talk about specific topics.

Also, maybe there should be level scaled fines for murder; in Morrowind it worth it some times just to pay the 1000G to pay off the guards and everythings fine.