Guards randomly killing people

[Unseen]

So I went to one of the castles to get help for the defense of bruma. I talked to the guy in charge (chancelor/king whatever they call em) and he told me to close the oblivion gate nearby. Pretty standard, then all of a sudden I heard the guards attacking, thought it was me at first for breaking some kinda law. But instead they ran upstairs and killed some guy. I went up there and checked out his body and he had a manor key on him. Which is nice for me, but he must of been working for the castle. So why did they randomly kill him? Is this a glitch, was he with the daedra, was he an assassin or a spy? I'm just asking cause no explanation was given as to why they just killed this dude.

[AC Denton]

Bethesda developed Radiant AI[en.wikipedia.org] which makes NPCs in their worlds replicate unique behaviour such as stealing, pickpocketing etc. depending on the situation.

Example:
If an NPC is set to eat at 6pm but has no food they will go look for food, usually from the room they're in or a container.
If the NPC in question has a low enough Responsibility rating they may steal or pickpocket said food.

In the game NPCs have different values such as Responsibility, Aggression and Faction along with other skills etc. These influence how an NPC may react such as stealing or attacking - someone of a hostile faction with high aggression will likely try to kill you.
See the character City-Swimmer[en.uesp.net] for example; note her Responsibility of 5 and Aggression of 5.

I don't know which character you died, but if you check their page on the wiki, they may have a noticeable stats that made them get killed by guards.

Radiant AI is awesome but this was their first game using it. It has it's issues. They toned it down after launch because it was wild. Things like this still happen though. Later games improved this system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUDwZj-A6Ck

[Unseen]

Yea I didn't get his name and his body is probably gone now, but he looked like someone who worked for the castle. But I guess that's why they toned it down. It makes sense but not so much when loyal servants do it, and the guards just flat out kill them without taking them off to jail or demanding a reason. They probably could of fixed this by making certain NPCs less likely to pull stuff like that.

But then again this was close to the start of the 360 era and was one of the first games to have all this open ended stuff. I mean there was morrowind and other games before it but this game felt really fresh and unique when it came out, and the glitches only added to the charm.

Thanks for the explanation was an interesting read.

[psychotron666]

Guards are murder hobos who will kill homeless people for stealing a loaf of bread

[Unseen]

Originally posted by psychotron666:

Guards are murder hobos who will kill homeless people for stealing a loaf of bread

This was a servant of the castle tho, I mean its one thing to kill thieves. Not justifying killing someone for theft but this is an empire we're talking about. Empires are even worse than the feudal system.

[AC Denton]

Originally posted by Unseen:

Originally posted by psychotron666:

Guards are murder hobos who will kill homeless people for stealing a loaf of bread

This was a servant of the castle tho, I mean its one thing to kill thieves. Not justifying killing someone for theft but this is an empire we're talking about. Empires are even worse than the feudal system.

Empires are Feudal too. Well, Feudal Empires anyway - e.g. Byzantine Empire, or Holy Roman Empire. It's really just the allocation of land to title holders in exchange for service to their liege through taxes, levies etc. enforced by social rules.
Just like the Septim Empire in these games (besides TES Redguard - set in the Second Era & Skyrim, obviously set after Uriel Septim VII's death in oblivion).

We have the Emperor, under him we have Kings such as King Lysandus[en.uesp.net] in TES2: Daggerfall or High King Torygg[en.uesp.net] in Skyrim then under Kings we have Dukes & Jarls etc.

Dude, if you like strategy games I highly recommend Crusader Kings 3. It's really cool.
Then try the mod for it, Elder Kings 2; a complete overhaul set in The Elder Scrolls set in the Second Era. You can play as any of the races, including Goblins and Atmorans & create your dynasty and conquer Tamriel.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2887120253

On my first run I conquered quite a lot of Tamriel for the Empire of Elsweyr lol:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2893409279

[emmietiie]

The Mythic Dawn has sleeper agents everywhere. They become hostile when you reach a certain point in the main quest I believe?

[Unseen]

Originally posted by emmietiie:

The Mythic Dawn has sleeper agents everywhere. They become hostile when you reach a certain point in the main quest I believe?

That could of been the reason that god hater chick also freaked.

Originally posted by AC Denton:

Originally posted by Unseen:

This was a servant of the castle tho, I mean its one thing to kill thieves. Not justifying killing someone for theft but this is an empire we're talking about. Empires are even worse than the feudal system.

Empires are Feudal too. Well, Feudal Empires anyway - e.g. Byzantine Empire, or Holy Roman Empire. It's really just the allocation of land to title holders in exchange for service to their liege through taxes, levies etc. enforced by social rules.
Just like the Septim Empire in these games (besides TES Redguard - set in the Second Era & Skyrim, obviously set after Uriel Septim VII's death in oblivion).

We have the Emperor, under him we have Kings such as King Lysandus[en.uesp.net] in TES2: Daggerfall or High King Torygg[en.uesp.net] in Skyrim then under Kings we have Dukes & Jarls etc.

Dude, if you like strategy games I highly recommend Crusader Kings 3. It's really cool.
Then try the mod for it, Elder Kings 2; a complete overhaul set in The Elder Scrolls set in the Second Era. You can play as any of the races, including Goblins and Atmorans & create your dynasty and conquer Tamriel.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2887120253

On my first run I conquered quite a lot of Tamriel for the Empire of Elsweyr lol:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2893409279

Thanks for the recommendation and yea really agree as all great (sorry using history terms, mean powerful and corrupt) empires were spawned from kings and queens.

[MonkeyMummyMoney]

Originally posted by AC Denton:

Bethesda developed Radiant AI[en.wikipedia.org] which makes NPCs in their worlds replicate unique behaviour such as stealing, pickpocketing etc. depending on the situation.

Example:
If an NPC is set to eat at 6pm but has no food they will go look for food, usually from the room they're in or a container.
If the NPC in question has a low enough Responsibility rating they may steal or pickpocket said food.

In the game NPCs have different values such as Responsibility, Aggression and Faction along with other skills etc. These influence how an NPC may react such as stealing or attacking - someone of a hostile faction with high aggression will likely try to kill you.
See the character City-Swimmer[en.uesp.net] for example; note her Responsibility of 5 and Aggression of 5.

I don't know which character you died, but if you check their page on the wiki, they may have a noticeable stats that made them get killed by guards.

Radiant AI is awesome but this was their first game using it. It has it's issues. They toned it down after launch because it was wild. Things like this still happen though. Later games improved this system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUDwZj-A6Ck

If the NPC didn't have any stolen property on him, then that's not why they killed him. Besides, I'm pretty sure most of Radiant was Disabled in development once Bethesda realized it was way too smart for what they were wanting to do and then even more of it was disabled after launch.

Although I suppose if the NPC stole gold there's no way of telling...

[Unseen]

It was around the time I was getting ready for the last battle think he might of been a spy.

[MonkeyMummyMoney]

Originally posted by Unseen:

It was around the time I was getting ready for the last battle think he might of been a spy.

Do you remember what Castle it was?
It could be he was an assassin, but it could also have been Radiant being very quirky.
Despite being VERY intelligent, it still has it's rough edges. Thing happen leaving you thinking "What the ♥♥♥♥ did I just see?" One could liken it to an episode of Jerry Springer where things sometimes escalate rapidly for seemingly no reason.

[Unseen]

It was when I was gathering alliances for helping with the last battle. Really hard to say since it was close to a week ago maybe I'll look at some older save files.

Same happened to the god hater lady but I read she's pretty unstable. And yea that's part of oblivions charm and why I think its a real classic. Loads of humor and quirks even if its not meaning to (or is it?). Morrowind had some funny glitches and stuff at times, but the overall feel of morrowind is more serious imo. Oblivion seems a lot more oddball. Even the plains of oblivion are humorous with all the glitchy madness.

On a side note playing arena and trying to beat it and lol.

https://postimg.cc/xc7jL6m9

Dude spins like a toy top. I see where all of this series quirks come from.

[psychotron666]

The god hater person is a mythic dawn agent. Later in the main quest, just getting in sight of a mythic dawn agent will have them go hostile and summon their armour. The guards will go after them so it's easy to have a mythic dawn agent attack and get killed without you knowing because of how far and through floors enemies can detect you.

[Burdy333]

Originally posted by psychotron666:

The god hater person is a mythic dawn agent. Later in the main quest, just getting in sight of a mythic dawn agent will have them go hostile and summon their armour. The guards will go after them so it's easy to have a mythic dawn agent attack and get killed without you knowing because of how far and through floors enemies can detect you.

This.

[SQUID_MCDIG CLASSY]

One time during that mission one of the guards accidentally attacked another guard in the courtyard. Then all the guards ganged up on that one guard but other guards started striking each other so... Everyone was fighting each other during the Daedra invasion and I'm just standing there watching

[MonkeyMummyMoney]

Originally posted by psychotron666:

The god hater person is a mythic dawn agent

Very subtle on Bethesda's part, huh? The hateful ♥♥♥♥♥ that outright says she hates the gods is a mythic dawn agent. Colored me surprised.