House recommendations/ Which is least jerk-ish?

[Cyrodeus]

I'm trying to choose which great house to join. I don't know how substantially different the quest lines are.

From a role-play perspective my character generally does the nice thing, but I'm also trying to do most quest lines with one character so he doesn't mind being a thief and assassin. I'm a dark elf pilgrim born under the tower.

Stat wise I wield a short sword and shield while using a bow or crossbow for range. My acrobatics is high. Endurance is decent. Restoration and alteration are the main magic schools I get use out of, but my highest is illusion because that is what I'm using as my high skill for the Mages Guild. I'm also working on uping my sneak and security.

All the Great Houses kind of seem like jerks, so I don't know which best fits my character's morale. Hlaluu seems to be the least racist, but they're still fine with slavery. Redoran has less slaves, but hates outsiders/is rather racist. The Telvanii both hate outsiders and slave holders though admittedly the whole flying social darwinist wizard angle does make them interesting to say the least.

I've done research pouring over the wiki and have no idea which house to go with. Any input would be appreciated.

[Valden21]

The thing is, each one of the Great Houses has both good and bad people in it. Take House Telvanni, for example. Yes, most of its leaders are messed up. Yes, a lot of them keep slaves. But one of its leaders, Master Aryon, is actually an okay guy, even by Telvanni standards. House Hlaalu has a similar situation. One of its leaders is Crassius Curio, a guy who's honest and noble-hearted, but has his...eccentricities. Most of its other leaders, with the exception of Duke Vedam Dren (another good guy), are corrupt to the core, and one of them is actually as racist as it gets and is just hiding it.

I would suggest that given your character's skill-set and roleplay style, you go with House Hlaalu, and choose to help Crassius Curio when the time comes. Most of his quests are about exposing corruption within House Hlaalu and the other two great Houses, so a character that's mostly nice will benefit greatly from helping him.

[Taiwan Number One]

House Telvanni is without doubt the most "jerk-ish" as they have no morals at all. It's a bit more tricky between House Hlaalu and House Redoran. The former is 50/50 on slavery which still makes them more abolitionist then the Redoran, but there is A LOT of corruption. The latter is generally honest and honorable but supports slavery though I never got the vibe they were hugely against abolition, but more of having abolition thrust upon the Dunmer by foreigners without their consent.

[Ankou]

Do not forget your skills effect promotions in Morrowind, if your only magic skill is restoration you will struggle in Telvanni even if they aren't 90% bastards.

Yeah, there are good Telvanni (in fact, 3 of those ancient wizards are some of the most decent people in Morrowind) but morally they are just... not very nice.
Sadly, and most damning, most of their quests are also petty and boring. Most are fetch errands of varying complexity for the councilors. Given their whole "Might Makes Right" evil 3000 year old wizard thing, it's really depressing how many times you'll be asked to go shopping or murder someone just for a shiny robe or amulet.
However it easily has the best and most interesting mod support. TONS of new content if you use mods (most notably, Tamriel Rebuilt's finished content centers around this house.)

House Redoran itself doesn't keep slaves from what I can remember from my last Redoran character, not one noble or mine has them. They aren't pro-abolition either, the lack of slaves seems to me more about personal honor and hard work than it being morally wrong. They are nationalist, though you also won't find a lot of support for dishonorable criminal organizations like the Camonna Tong. They do have a fair amount of respect and friendly rivalry with the Fighter's Guild and Imperial Legion despite that, they respect other warriors to an extent.
They are a very knight/paladin/ group and many of their quests tie into or at least go along well with The Temple. Their quests are generally about helping their people from various threats, upholding Redoran honor, assisting the temple against the Sixth House, their own proximity to Red Mountain, and proving an outlander can be an exemplar of Redoran honor.
It has decent mod support if you are into that, mostly through LGNPCs.

House Hlaalu is extremely corrupt, even Crassius Curio but in a sort of fun way rather than just being a jerk. They have their hand in as many pockets as possible, including smugglers, and generally love "cheap labor." They have Imperial ties yet the biggest Hlaalu mines and plantations are all slave labor. There is more bad than good, but you do get an opportunity to go against the worst members.
There is quite a bit of roleplay in the quests it offers, generally providing you with some fairly corrupt material but with a good option. I'd also say it's quests have fairly good variety and are about gaining wealth or status for your house in a variety of ways. As far as I can remember, you will never be forced to do something truly nasty.
Unfortunately there is almost no modded content for them... which would make them a good choice for a vanilla or near-vanilla playthrough.

[WingedKagouti]

Originally posted by Ankou:

Do not forget your skills effect promotions in Morrowind, if your only magic skill is restoration you will struggle in Telvanni even if they aren't 90% bastards.

Yeah, there are good Telvanni (in fact, 3 of those ancient wizards are some of the most decent people in Morrowind) but morally they are just... not very nice.
Sadly, and most damning, most of their quests are also petty and boring. Most are fetch errands of varying complexity for the councilors. Given their whole "Might Makes Right" evil 3000 year old wizard thing, it's really depressing how many times you'll be asked to go shopping or murder someone just for a shiny robe or amulet.

The shopping quests are the introduction quests, but given the location of the quest givers and the ease with which you can get the stuff they need, you'll likely get a bunch of the fetch-quests turn them in after a quick run through Sadrith Mora and then get another set of fetch-quests in about 5-10 minutes. Those quests are the "You're new, do some menial work" part of the Telvanni quest line.

The quests you get from each Master (before getting a patron) are more in the vein of "I want this, you're expendable, go fight the person who has it".

Given that there's only 1 option for a patron and it's one of the aforementioned decent people, you don't get a good view of how Telvanni are supposed to work internally (lore wise and from what everyone, including themselves, says about them).

House Redoran itself doesn't keep slaves from what I can remember from my last Redoran character, not one noble or mine has them. They aren't pro-abolition either, the lack of slaves seems to me more about personal honor and hard work than it being morally wrong.

Redoran does use slaves, but not in as visible positions as the other houses nor in as large numbers. And as far as I can recall, the few Redoran (non-beast race) slaves in the game are treated more like servants.