Evil/Good Gameplay

[Know Won]

Why does the entire game seem centralized around being evil??
Werewolf (companions are mainly bullies, barely 'honorable')
Vampire
Assassin
Rogue(tho i suppose you can try to play a 'good' rogue)
... no priest/monk/paladin orders?
Dawnguard allows werewolves so not 'good'. Just because they want to genicide vampires does not make them 'good'.
Where do you sign up for Silver Hand? How do you join Order of Stendarr? (mods do not count in this)

[Central]

what one person considers to be good, another might consider evil.
in the eyes of a daedra worshipper the daedra are the only worthy gods to worship.
a follower of hercine will consider being a werewolf a blessing.
in their eyes the silver hand is evil for trying to getting rid of the blessings hercine bestowed upon the world.

on a more serious note, i do agree that the elder scrolls could use a few more "good" organisations. forcing warriors to become a werewolf was also bad design, in werewolf form you do not train your warrior skills, so doing the companion quests can actually be bad for your development as a warrior. i would have preferred if they did some deeper backstory with Ysgramor's legacy or something like that and than made a separate story for werewolfs.

[Mochan]

Publicado originalmente por DemonTed:

Why does the entire game seem centralized around being evil??
Werewolf (companions are mainly bullies, barely 'honorable')
Vampire
Assassin
Rogue(tho i suppose you can try to play a 'good' rogue)
... no priest/monk/paladin orders?
Dawnguard allows werewolves so not 'good'. Just because they want to genicide vampires does not make them 'good'.
Where do you sign up for Silver Hand? How do you join Order of Stendarr? (mods do not count in this)

Vampire/Werewolf play has been popular in TES since Daggerfall, since video gamers tend to be edgy edgelords.

TES has always provided for content for the "main" character archetypes since Daggerfall, which are

1. The Epic Hero (this is the main quest)
2. Warrior (Fighter's guild)
3. Wizard (Wizard's Guild)
4. Rogue (Thieve's Guild)
5. Assassin (Dark Brotherhood)
6. Cleric (Temples/Aedra/Daedra)
7. Knights (Knightly Orders/Nobility)
8. Vampire
9. Lycanthropes


These are the central archetypes that have been present for three decades now and are the basis for all TES official questing content.

Among these, the Hero, Warrior, Wizard, Cleric, Knight roles are usually good, or good enough. Rogue, Assassin, and the monster routes are usually evil.

Skyrim is a bit special because, as is the case with all Elder Scroll games progression, the game gets smaller and less ambitious in scope and world building with each game, so a lot of the archetypes were consolidated.

The Dragonborn is still the epic hero and is done relatively well, and is generally a "good" questline.

Warrior (The Companions) got mixed up with Lycanthrope in this game. Wizard is college of winterhood, the actual Wizard's Guild got banned a long time ago. Thieves are thieves. Assassin is Assassin. Cleric got shafted because Talos worship is illegal in Skyrim and religion seems to be much more controlled and regulated by the Empire/Thalmor, but you can still do a ton of Daedra-related content which is where this goes really. While you can't join the Temple faction per se you can do quests for them.

Knightly orders kind of got thrown by the way side, Order of Stendarr/Vigilants are in the game but without mod support are largely rubbish, but you could argue the Dawnguard are basically the Knightly Order of this game, and it, we're seeing a trend here, got combined with the vampire line.

That said I didn't find most of the quests and organizations "evil" per se Rogue and Assassinobviously will be evil, as will vampires. Werewolves aren't really evil here, they're also highly-romanticized like the vampire Serana, and they may be uncouth louts but they're certainly not evil.

[HazakTheMad]

Knightly orders are a Glenumbra special, the Bretons are well known for their knightly orders.

[Kamiyama]

I look at the crime menu and try to avoid ever having any murders on my character. So far I've kept it to 0.

Haven't joined the dark brotherhood yet. I might be able to pull that off using fury or pickpocketing poison.

[Mochan]

I got a spellback where you can imprison an NPC in a different dimension, then recall them at your leisure at a later date.

I throw the NPC into a pocket dimension, travel out into the middle of the woods out in nowhere, summon them, then murder them where there are no witnesses. :D

[jss1138]

I hear ya, Ted. I tend to favor playing the "good guy". My very first play through of Witcher 3, I got the "good ending" without knowing what that ending was or which decisions would lead to it. It happened just because that's the way I play.

I dislike that Skyrim is full of so many quests & options that no "good guy" would choose, thus making it impossible to complete the game without playing the "bad guy".

Elder Scrolls history be damned! This is a large and fundamental flaw in Skyrim. One I desperately hope is not repeated in the future.

[Arthur two sheds Jackson]

alway long for a real fighters guild in skyrim compagnion just dont cut it sadly and after hundreds of hours the werewolf are kinda boring to play no depth whatever to them so it dont really help their cause how ironic that skyrim the land of nord warriors dont have any arena or guild for playing said warriors

[DerRitter]

LMAO

[Know Won]

Somehow only the companions can control lycanthropy , everyone else loses control. MY guess is the pact they made with the witches, evil is that not?
Why do many npcs applaud and cheer at the player for finishing the companions quest chain (don't want to spoil anything). Yet are fine that companions made the pact in the first place???

There is no way this was a secret for as long as they have been described to be around ...

[Know Won]

Also please understand i see dark/light as being mostly gray. But some things are a bright light that blinds compared to a darkness that is gut churning evil.

[SapphireSage]

If it makes you feel better, if you start the dark brotherhood quest line by killing Astrid instead of any of the other three, you start a chain that ends in you killing everyone in the brotherhood that isn't either, "she's really a 1000 year old vampire guys honest", or an insane jester, so there is that. You can also cure all but Aela of Lycanthropy after you finish the quest line as well as the two brothers mention never wanting to become werewolves in the first place like Kodlak, but I guess they were forced into it as well.

Unfortunately, you can't do anything regarding things like the socio political situation in Markarth/Riften and in fact giving those holds to the SCs/Imperials respectively allows the extremely corrupt individuals to take the throne instead. Nor can you eliminate or otherwise remove or deal with problematic individuals due to being marked essential for a minor thieves' guild quest.

Not only do the main faction quest lines encourage more evil or corrupt actions aside from those listed above, but the "essential character" system actively discourages trying to do good. But that's just Elder Scroll's lack of nuance for these situations I guess. Your only answer for not wanting to help Black Briar is "Don't join thieves guild and don't help the Imperials get Riften".

[lukandroll]

There's always the choice of not doing a quest if you feel it kind of goes against your character

[Mochan]

Publicado originalmente por DemonTed:

Somehow only the companions can control lycanthropy , everyone else loses control. MY guess is the pact they made with the witches, evil is that not?
Why do many npcs applaud and cheer at the player for finishing the companions quest chain (don't want to spoil anything). Yet are fine that companions made the pact in the first place???

There is no way this was a secret for as long as they have been described to be around ...

Pretty sure the werewolf thing is a secret. Nobody outside the organization knows the Companions are actually werewolves. I could be wrong, though, it's been a while since I played their quest line.

Publicado originalmente por SapphireSage:

Unfortunately, you can't do anything regarding things like the socio political situation in Markarth/Riften and in fact giving those holds to the SCs/Imperials respectively allows the extremely corrupt individuals to take the throne instead. Nor can you eliminate or otherwise remove or deal with problematic individuals due to being marked essential for a minor thieves' guild quest.

Not only do the main faction quest lines encourage more evil or corrupt actions aside from those listed above, but the "essential character" system actively discourages trying to do good. But that's just Elder Scroll's lack of nuance for these situations I guess. Your only answer for not wanting to help Black Briar is "Don't join thieves guild and don't help the Imperials get Riften".

Sadly Skyrim isn't Fallout 2. The Elder Scrolls has always been about big open world, but it's never really been about character role-playing choices the way the early pre-Bethesda Fallout games were. All the plotlines are set in stone for the most part, just like Ultima before The Elder Scrolls.

Can't really stray from the script. I actually found it annoying, right now I'm playing through Vigilant, there's a quest where you have to compensate the innkeeper for damages when you killed a Daedra in her inn. I'm like, "You stupid lizard I just saved your inn, now you want me to pay you? You should be paying me." And the compensation she asks for is highway robbery. But what can you do, you break the quest if you don't do it.

So what I did was I entrapped her in a tomb in Oblivion, brought her to the middle of a giant camp north of Winterhold, and left her there. She can walk home to Riften. She's essential so she'll get back safely sooner or later after getting crushed, mauled and pounded to death.

[wtiger27]

Publicado originalmente por Luk:

There's always the choice of not doing a quest if you feel it kind of goes against your character

Yep. There are some which I will not do. Like the Dark Brotherhood or The Taste of Death quest to become a cannibal. I kill Astrid in the shack and then set all 3 of the captives free.

But I do not feel bad about killing murderers or scums. Like the old lady which runs the orphanage, who is a evil ♥♥♥♥♥.

It's all a matter of choice in how you want to role play your char.

[Know Won]

Publicado originalmente por Luk:

There's always the choice of not doing a quest if you feel it kind of goes against your character

80% of the game (or close to it) is evil/bad choices.