screw just grey, i'd rather have the whole spectrum to choose

Black White and Grey.

Mine didn't either ... which made it even better.
While I was pretending to be one of them, I always secretly made fun of them and their stupid occult blabla.

+1
And the same goes somehow for the DarkBrotherhood as well. They had different characters. Some being the occult freaks, some being just a stupid giant ork who likes to kill, some being more professional, some being kind of "born into it".
And thinking back to the mages guild, you even had some evil/apostate people there.

I think there's nothing bad about a guild having a good or bad image. But of course, not everyone in it should really follow that image.
I have never played the warriors guild (only first quests), so I don't know, how it was there. A few members could/should be corrupt, but most people in there should rather be "good" people or just people, who do it mainly for the money.

I agree with this, only grey is highly unrealistic, illogical and would in my opinion just end up being lame.

I mostly agree. I haven't read the whole topic but this is my opinion:

Fighters Guild (Companions) - Since this is Skyrim, where Nords are a majority and the whole game has a rough, nordic feeling, they should be barbarians who use their melee weapons and train other people to fight using their strenght and brutality... And yea, there is some corruption and greed, etc... While in Oblivion they were noble knights from fantasy tales...

Mages Guild - College of magic, they should be similliar to Oblivion ... Maybe necromancy is allowed in Skyrim, 200 years after Oblivion, and while not under rulership of Septims ? If it is not allowed, there should be people in guild, who practice necromancy and nobody knows that...

Thieves Guild - I kinda liked how they acted in Oblivion, they had a respect for poor people (beggars), while they were stealing from rich people... But it shouldn't be like that I guess. They would do contracts to steal from the rich, but in their own free time, they steal from anyone they want, and they do it because they are poor or because they like it or because they want to get rich or any other reason.

Dark Brotherhood - Yes they are a cult who has their own god, bla bla, I never play evil characters, but I passed their questline and it was kinda fun, but there should be a real assassins guild ...

Yeah, that's always really annoying. It's not a valid "choice" if they give you two false choices and then at the end say "Psych! HAHAHAHA! You svck!"

That's not moral complexity, it's forced "see how edgy and post-modern we are! Twist ending, so complex!"




...and also - sure, stuff like that is fine for Dragon Age's Grimdark / Crapsack World setting. But like I said earlier... it gets tiresome when that kind of "ooooh, moral greyness!" gets all faddish and developers decide they need to hop on the bandwagon and throw it in every game in existance, just to show how "artistic" and "mature" they are.

I don't think that all of Dragon Age was like this. There were many times when your intended outcome came true. However, in a game which professes to have a more realistic morality, there will sometimes be things that don't go your way. That's how life is. If they did things like that with every single choice you had to make in the game, then yeah, it would be annoying. However, there is nothing wrong with the way they did it in my opinion.

Oh no,not another morally philosophical topic
Yes,im sure everyone knows that there is no true evil,and yes i can see how mature posting this must make you feel.But this is a roleplaying game,some people want to play as total [censored]s or total saints not just be grey,so having a basic outline of whos good and whos evil would be required for those people.
And besides its all about perspective,in oblivion the fighters guild wanted rid of the blackwood company because they were stealing their jobs,but you also discovered that they were slaughtering towns whilst they were high on sap.A good character could say that destroying blackwood company was necessary because of their slaughtering of towns,while a grey character could say they just destroyed them because they were stealing their jobs.

Morrowind and Fallout 3 were both "darker" game worlds then Oblivion, and it's no surprise that there were plenty of moral questions in those games (more so Fallout 3). Skyrim, between the climate and civil war, will almost certainly be a pretty gritty game world. I think that this will be one of the better influences from Fallout 3, Bethesda has probably realized that moral choices are fun for players to act on instead of everything being completely linear "good must beat evil".

Yes, great ideas.


Absolutely! :goodjob: They were too much like Robin Hood. In a more naturalistic game world, these kinds of organizations might do some good things but essentially the members of these factions would all be looking out for their own interests.



Not sure if you are referring to some lore or the version of DB in Morrowind, but essentially, at least in Oblivion they are clearly depicted as a religious cult, not just mercenaries for hire. I like the cult aspects of this faction.....Praise Sithis!
:bolt: *puts on flame retardant shrouded armor*




Indeed!


That could be fun!

The Thieves Guild was not Robin Hood. They used the beggars for information for a few coins so the beggars could survive and like the Guild, and they didn't steal from them since it would make the beggars hate them. The Gray Fox lets you murder people towards the end.

They stole for themselves.

I'm not sure I'd go along with a necro having to explain why they are going to make my corpse dance. This isn't a James Bond movie and I don't expect an explaination from everything and everyone that wishes my character harm.

I personally don't have any problem with the "black" and "white", mostly because I like to be a good guy, that's the whole reason my parents taught me "morality". Grey morality is (personally), cumbersome, except if there is permanent and significant consequences in both choices (not necessarily instantly visible). If whether or not I kill that thug doesn't cause the whole village to crumble, I don't want myself to think over and over "should I spare him or not take any chances?"

Rather than grey morality, I think Mass Effect's approach is better: a few bad behaviors won't destroy a hero's reputation, while a few good deeds won't help an evil warrior. Black and white in every choices, so you can build your morality with more freedom

I note a number of people here who seem to have misperceived the idea behind the Thieves Guild's "Robin Hood" sort of approach to things. I also think that misperception is pertinent to the issue of "moral greyness."

The Thieves Guild wasn't "good." That wasn't the point. They didn't go out of their way to avoid killing people and actually earn the support of the common people, and particularly the beggars, because of any overarching moral perspective - they did it because it was the most self-servingly logical thing to do. If they had started wantonly killing people, then they would've lost the support of the beggars and the general tolerance or willful ignorance of the rest. Hieronymous Lex wouldn't have been an obsessive crank all bent out of shape over an organization that many thought didn't even exist and many of the rest tolerated, but would've been a noble crusader with the full support of the masses and everyone would've pitched in together to wipe out that murderous scourge. Since it's a relatively smart organization, they recognized that that wouldn't be in their interests - that instead it was in their interests to try to seek the support of the lower classes and at the least not earn the overt enmity of the rest - that it was in their interests to keep as low a profile as possible and give the powers-that-be as little reason as possible to seek to stamp them out.

That's real moral greyness - choices made simply because those choices serve the ends of the people who make them, regardless of the fact that some of those choices are viewed as morally "white" and others morally "black." That's the way that real moral greyness actually works - not the contrived "grey-at-all-costs" morality that's forced on things by trendy post-modernists.

I agree that TES is best when it's grey and grey. Have the thieves guild steal from anyone who doesn't pay their protection money, but only kill people who steal without their sanction (and, naturally, only from people with enough money to be worth robbing). Have the Dark brotherhood only kill for high political purposes, since when they were first introduced they were essentially a secretive arm of the government and were an necessary tool of staving off utter chaos and open war. The hierarchy of the Companions and College should be corrupt, but there should also be people at the bottom who want to see that change, and are willing to go any distance to do so. That sort of thing.

EDIT: Also, gpstr is pretty much right on the money. It can't be a forced thing, it has to be a logical and smooth part of the way it's written. Not just "oh, he murders people but he gives his paycheck to charity." Because that's just stupid.

This. Real moral greyness isn't just someone who uses cruel methods for a noble goal. Sometimes, that works. However, it also involves an [censored] who puts on a friendly face but really helps the people for money. Everyone thinks they're a noble paladin warrior-king (or a noble thief), but it's all a lie. Or they paint themselves as the good guys and demonize the enemy (this is one of the reasons I like the first pocket guide.)

Thieves guild shouldn't be so robin hoodish though. Sure, they should protect the poor, childs and beggars being their eyes and ears, but they shouldn't only steal from the super rich. They should do some killing, if the situation needs it.

Dark brotherhood has to be evil though, with love within the family, as it had in Oblivion. The bond between dark brothers and sisters should be stong, but they should still be cold-hearted killers. I don't want them to be any more good than they were in Oblivion.

I realize other people may have seen the thieves guild in a different way than I did.

So, a bosmer died. I fail to see what's 'grey' about that...

There should be black and white with shades of gray. Not one or the other.

I really wouldnt like what the topic starter is asking for. You basically want every organisation to have bad ulterior motives.

I think he's asking for a bit more nuance, motives of self interest among the various factions, and some quests that might make the PC question that particular faction a little more. Personally I would welcome this with open arms.

The Mages Guild went after all Necromancers, despite it being legal.

Hes asking for only shades of grey.

Ive no problem with a morally shady factions but why make them all the same? There should be "good", "evil" and middle ground factions.

I think the best option personally would either be branching quest lines for the "good", "evil" and middle ground or multiple ways to successfully complete quests and still be given rewards. If you wanted rewards from quests in Oblivion you almost always had to play as the good guy.

Not the entire organization, but certain people or cell groups within it. Gives you more variation within the questlines, allowing you to take a darker or lighter path within that organization, depending upon your choosing.

Thank Archmage Hannibal "Galerion's #1 really devoted fan" Traven for that. Since it's also illegal to practice magic in the Empire without the Guild's approval, anyone they kick out and refuse to deal with must stop practicing or become an outlaw. The Mages Guild was a corrupt political mess, and if it hadn't collapsed with the Septim Empire, it would've collapsed on its own, eventually.

And this is the organization you're helping in Oblivion.

This is exactly what I would have wanted.

Unless that bad guy reformed in my opinion a more obscure Dwarf kingdom that isn't corrupted by the brutal rule of an iron fist is far superior to a well known powerful kingdom that rules through oppression. I didn't play that game, but that's my take on it from what you said.

As a few others said in the thread the constantly gritty and gray (often times LITERALLY a gray and brown world devoid of color to the point that some have complained that Oblivion dare have blue skies) gets tiring after awhile. Not everything has to try to be Blade Runner and such all the time. I think the Thieves Guild was done just fine. While it was the first quest line I did in Oblivion and I haven't played through it in years, it's one of my fondest memories of the game.