This is the internet, not real life. :whisper:

I think Skyrim added a great deal of RP to the game even when thinking of to Morrowind (though not as much as Morrowind), and it certainly offers much more than Oblivion ever did. Still, nothing compares to Daggerfall in the series, IMO. But, you can make choices in the game that have effects, they are not "Dragon Age: Origins" type effects though where player agency effect the plots states by any sense of the measure. Still though, you start off with a blank slate not knowing what you could do. And you can join a side in the war between Stormcloaks and Imperials. I do miss the reward system type like in Morrowind or even Oblivion (Fame and Infamy), but even that in Oblivion had no effect except a few comments from the locals and one's ability to be able to pray at the Altars of the Divine.

But, since Morrowind on (the dawn TES games on console) TES games have gotten away from what Daggerafall was. Hell, even Bioware lost its touch with Dragon Age 2, an abomination to it predecessor.

I agree. My biggest frustration with the lack of in depth quests or branching dialogue and meaningful choices is that it is unlikely to be addressed much by mods.

Reason?

I have yet to see any substantial, worthwhile voice acting done by user created mods. Midas Magic had a few lines or so, which was totally awesome and I give him all the kudos in the world for that, but even that was frankly very obviously a low quality recording compared to voice acting.

100% agree. i had to take a break for skyrim since ive been playing it nonstop since release and the game i ended up going back to was fallout NV. dont get me wrong i love skyrim to death but its a very shallow game compared to NV in many regards. i would love to see a game where bethesda did the game world design and obsidian did the dialogue and quests.

I agree. In Oblivion there was a quest about that Paranoid guy and you had multiple options:

-You could lie to him and tell him not the truth

-Try to convince him no one was against him

And even then you could have:

-Told the guards what he was planning

-Have the guards go after

-He could attack you or not

-You could attack the people paranoid guy wanted you to attack.

That's completely lost onto Skyrim. You don't have those branching options as you once did. It's just Yes or No and even then your No is completely ignored.

It's not just dialogue choices, but choices between factions as well (except the civil war factions). Being the leader of every faction is just plain dumb. In Morrowind you had to choose, because factions actually had something magic and strange called RELATIONS with each other, and weren't isolated cells that operated in worlds of their own. Joining the Thieves' Guild got you in trouble with the Fighters' Guild sooner or later, for example, and things like that made your choices have a weight to them. In Skyrim you begin a faction questline, and then you are railroaded all the way to the end and become the leader. No thinking needed. No sacrifices made. Everything is good and jolly and the world is peace and butterflies.

No, you could become the leader of all factions in Morrowind, except the great houses and probably the two religious ones.

NV also did away with essential NPCs aside from one case.

They let you violently reject quests, and by allowing such you reap the consequences of never being able to do them.
They usually had multiple ways to finish some quests.
Your skills/attributes could actually be used out of combat, as a part of conversations/actions.
They actually sometimes had follow up dialogues after a quest was finished, instead of finishing a quest and the npc sometimes acting like nothing happened.

All they had to do was introduce an alignment system similar to D&D. And they could have kept it super simple still: Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic. Three ways to respond in any quest.

One thing that really aggrivates me about Skyrim from a RP perspective is you can't ABANDON quest - even if they're given to you automatically.

The last one bugs me a lot. Sometimes you're just dinking around a dialog tree to see exactly what someone wants you to do and you've ended up accepting a quest that's completely counter to your characters moral ethos. A perfect example is the demon house in Markarth.

This is simply not true at all. Firstly, I see people referencing NV. But that was Obsidian, and they are mostly the same folks who did the first two Fallouts, the absolute best of any of them, IMO. They carried over the story that was supposed to be Fallout Van Buren, keeping the older faction system with choices. Beth bought out the franchise when Black Isle Studios went under and went in a totally different direction with Fallout 3, which I liked, because it was different. Vegas just re-used all of 3's assets and perks while tacking on more. I loved the choices in the game, but felt not much more to want to play it since I experienced the graphics, perks and mechanics with 3 and the story carry over from Fallout 1 and 2, nothing fresh there, for me mind you.

Now to Skyrim and choices.

That one quest you mention in Oblivion is about the only one, you are forced with others to do as they guide you, or you just simply don't do them.
Skyrim, a few that I have found:

You have a choice what to do with Cicero when he asked for help.
You have a choice what to do with Paarthurnax.
You have a choice what to do with Odahviing.
You have a choice on how to appraoch the Dark Brotherhood

These are just a few that I have found and I haven't even come close to finishing the DB and have not started any other quests yet in Skyrim, so that remains to be seen. This, outside of some great expository dialogue I encounter with many NPC in Skyrim as well. This, when you consider the bad dialogue in Oblivion that amounted to no more than quest giving or yes or no answers, nothing more with maybe 6 voice actors altogether. Now, does Skyrim offer player agency like in NV, not even close, it's not as good as Morrowind in that respect either, and none of the TES games (except for maybe Daggerfall) have really ever come close to Bioware when it comes to story and choices, but that is what Bioware always did best, and they didn't offer large open world games. But when you compare having choices to Oblivion, that is total nuts, Oblivion was just awful at choices having meaning.

Completely agree with op. One of my biggest complaints in skyrim. No branching dialogue and very rarely branching quests. Makes them boring and reduces replay value to almost none.

Dialogue is one of the most important things for me in rpgs, helps me immerse myself a lot, so this really ruins a lot for me. It is better than oblivion but nowhere near good. I just replayed knights of the old republic 1 and 2 which both had pretty amazing dialogue. Especially knights of the old republic 2. Theres a particular conversasion with a jedi in a sort of college that is without a doubt the best part for me in the entire game. Obsidian generally seems to get dialogue right. New Vegas had pretty good dialogue. Lots of flaws as well though.

I agree with most of the responses here. Not enough dialogue options. Still an excellent game though.

Dialogue is one of my disappointments in this game. Just isn't as deep for the players as past games.

This has always been a problem with Bethesda games, Fallout 3 was better than the ES series but still not particularly good. Compare to the dialogue in New Vegas and it's pretty bad.

I even had a sidequest in Markarth where I could

A) Steal the Key to get in

B) Do what the guy asked and get the key given to me

C) Break in without the key at all

No choices my ass.