Originally Posted by
Vahnavoi
Ah, but they do - in a person's mind. That's at the core of this whole discussion, really. The activity of roleplaying asks you to imagine a human-like creature. Humans - real humans, the players engaged in the activity - tend to be averse to killing other humans. So if they accurately imagine another human, they will feel guilty of imaginary violence - just like they might feel guilty of imaginary violence towards a real person. So to avert that, the image has to be inaccurate or distorted in some way: you must imagine an enemy, not a human.
It's not an extra hoop - it's part of the process.
You can reach the same end result of dehumanizing your imagined human, by actively reminding yourself that it's not real. But that's not a hoop less. You still need to imagine the creature and the reason why killing it is okay.