More choices for Evil role-players. : V - Skyrim

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 2:05 am

Yes, evil characters need more choices.

Also I really love quests and dialog choices where it isn't obvious what is a good and what is a bad choice. I want to make a decision that I think is right, and then suffer the consequences whether they are good or bad. Black and white choices are just boring.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 3:33 am

And the Thread Title Mashup of the Day Is: More Choices for Evil Role Players: Cannibalism, Harvesting the Dead for Decorative Skulls

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 2:00 am

Killing for Sithis is the best.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 7:19 am

Adding a good/evil bar would be a step back for TES IMO. if they add one i'll be devastated.

actions should just have consequences, there shouldn't be some all-knowing all-powerful "karma".

It's always been funny to me that in Oblivion, The gods judge your actions on how people view you... if you are evil but still have a higher fame then infamy because most of your actions were undetected... well apparently the 9 divines don't notice that either. Yet in Fallout 3, people react to you based on your Karma.... where Fallout 3 is suppose to be based on the real world and we certainly aren't speaking to any gods or karma enforcing forces.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 4:23 am

I like this idea very much, that there could be multiple ways to complete any given quest, not just "evil" or "good" but as you described, you could steal the item or kill the person... it would even be cool if in some cases you could "fake" having completed your task (lie) and the NPC would believe you were telling the truth in some instances. In each circumstance, something different could take place as a result. With Radiant Story, hopefully Bethesda will do a lot with this, if not, at least I'm sure the groundwork will be there for people with lots of smarts and time to make systems where this is possible. Also, as far as morally ambiguous goes, sticking your nose into other people's business may end you in various situations where there really isn't a "good" or "evil" choice, but you must act and people's dispositoin toward you will change as a result in different ways.

Imagine, poor Igna tells you her husband Sorkvild is being threatened and strong-armed by Honthjolf Stone-heart. She will give you a precious heirloom in return for you keeping her husband safe from this man, and hints at you needing to kill to accomplish this.

1. You can confront Honthjolf and get him angry enough to challenge you in a duel and then kill him. -- Igna is forced to give you the heirloom but seems very unhappy for some reason, and later turns up dead, murdered by Honthjolf's brother Vled, who figures out via overhearing the dialogue spoken just before the duel that she must have asked you to kill Honthjolf, and Vled then informs you of the truth and attacks you on sight if not caught by the guards first for Igna's murder.
2, You can just murder Honthjolf outright. -- Igna reports you to the guards and runs from you, not giving you the heirloom after all, and Igna and Vled attack you on sight from then on if you elude prison time for your crime. No one involved will speak to you anymore about it and you never learn more about the mystery.
3. You can talk to Sorkvild and find out that Honthjolf is extorting him, but learn in this conversation that Sorkvild isn't actually Igna's man, Honthjolf is, but Igna lied to you to kill him because she seemingly wants her no-good thug of a man gotten rid of (but has sudden remorse for going through with it if you accomplish the task). You can then give Sorkvild the money or pay Honthjolf on Sorkvild's behalf. If you give Sorkvlid the money, he tries to skip town but is waylaid by Honthjolf and slain. If you try to pay Honthjolf on Sorkvlid's behalf, Honthjolf challenges you to a duel, but the dialogue is different in that duel, and Vled never finds out about Igna's plot, leaving you with Igna giving you the heirloom and no consequences other than in her sadness, Igna takes her own life.
4. You can sneak into Honthjolf's place and discover for yourself via some clue that Igna is Honthjolf's woman, and find evidence that Honthjolf is extorting Sorkvlid. You can then either use this information in the same way as in option 3, or you you can go to the guards with this evidence, and the guards will arrest Honthjolf, Igna gives you the heirloom, and Vled and Igna both are happy Honthjolf is not dead, but no longer being a thug and ruining their lives.

Maybe I'm not the best writer in the world, but If all quests had this general level of options, then you'd have a real "shades of gray" type of world.

This is really quite beautiful, actually. I especially like that there is no way to know which strategy would work best just from the beginning.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 3:08 am

Biased poll is biased. I'd rather have a cookie. Damn muffins...

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:05 am

It needs an evil ending.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 3:30 am

I liked Raven Rock... I like that you could join the corrupt basterd... and ever tried MW's fighters guild?

» Sat Mar 05, 2011 11:55 pm

agreed. another thing though, we need "good" resolutions to the evil quests. Instead of having to kill someone you could say "the Dark Brotherhood is after you and if you stay here you will die. Get your family and leave town immediatly if you want to live. Here I'll just take your signet ring to "prove" I killed you"

Exactly - That's an excellent idea! One of the few things I was always missing was to have not-obvious outcomes to clearly obvious morally quests, and that was something that would always take away this great sense of outsmarting the environment and the people around you. I sincerely believe that a goodhearted-'noble' so to say-rouge living on the edge of law could try and start working with the DB only to torpedo their operations from inside out and save some lives in the process. In the similar manner, It's almost obvious that a dark knight, ruthless yet intelligent ally of evil would join a Templar-like order in sense to betray them after 'years' of faithful service and give them up to his evil sovereign. Plus that would give us some cool roleplaying opportunities for purely evil or good characters exposed to a overwhelming influence of the other in the classical "If you look in the oblivion for too long, it starts looking into you" scenario with shifting allegiance, and some additional perks for either conversion, or downfall perhaps.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 4:15 am

In my opinion, the choices people have to make should not always be boiled down to good and evil moments but normally should be part of areas where both sides can be considered as black or white. In other words, similar to the situations we face in real life where we usually have to deal with topics which are seen as grey areas.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 1:24 am

More evil options? Sure! But what I'm finding lacking in many games are more good options as well. Resolutions which require you show compassion and forgiveness. Being able to chose the non-violent option - like finishing the main quest without harming anyone, nor helping anyone harm anyone else, nor directing anyone to harm others. Solutions where given the choice between siding between two warring sides, you negotiate out peace between them instead.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 1:15 am

In my opinion, the choices people have to make should not always be boiled down to good and evil moments but normally should be part of areas where both sides can be considered as black or white. In other words, similar to the situations we face in real life where we usually have to deal with topics which are seen as grey areas.

Enough with you gray sages!
The point of this topic is that there isn't enough black in TES world in order to create proper shades of gray!

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:21 am

Eh, I'm honestly not a big fan of hugely black-and-white moral choices like "blow up Megaton or save it", etc.

What Skyrim needs isn't more "evil" choices, but more shades of gray.

I agree completely, games dont have to be about good and evil, often trying to find your way through moraly ambiguous disicisions is the most fun, does the end justify the means.
Dare I say, that was one of the things I loved about Dragon Age ( of course not a patch on Elder Scrolls ).

Of course Elder Scrolls does tend to point you to the hero route, so that that often the best you could be was an anti hero.

but I would deffinatly like to see, shall we say darker rather than Evil choices.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 6:57 am

Would be cool if you can also be in The Mythic Dawn instead of Blades , Necromancers Instead of Mages Guild, Morag Tong Instead of Dark Brotherhood,Blackwood Company Instead of Fighters Guild,Imperoal Legion Instead of Thieves

Who agree ?

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 7:37 am

I don't see any reason to make evil characters the focus. I can get that people want more options in general, but specifically evil players I mean... I thought the Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion was dark as [censored]! There wasn't really much recognition any way you played in Oblivion. You could wear the DB uniform and people wouldn't care, and you could be even be the head of the mages guild and no one outside the guild would know. The only thing people NPCs would respond to was actually if you had killed so many people that there was a big bounty on your head. So my reasoning is that in Oblivion, evil characters had more than good, so no need to put more emphasis on evil people in percentage, but in general adding more options/variables/reactions in the game is definitely wanted.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 12:33 am

Would be cool if you can also be in The Mythic Dawn instead of Blades , Necromancers Instead of Mages Guild, Morag Tong Instead of Dark Brotherhood,Blackwood Company Instead of Fighters Guild,Imperoal Legion Instead of Thieves

Who agree ?

Well said.This is what we need.I've always wanted to betray the Fighter's Guild by joining The Blackwood Company.

Depends on the characters of the NPCs,really.I hate "holy paladin" role playing,and it's also not necessary to be "ultimate evil" .If both sides had their good and evil parts,that'd be very fun and interesting. :yin: :yang:

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 4:01 am

Lawful evil?
Neutral evil?
Chaotic evil?
Stupid evil?

Screw it, I want them all, I like being a sadistic bastard in RPG's. :evil:

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 11:13 am

I was playing Oblivion the other day and I can't remember which quest it was, but someone evil asked me to join them and the one and only option you could pick was basically 'No.' I was pretty annoyed - I mean, sure, you can do DB quests, which are fun, but they have little to no impact on anything you do (apart from finding out your damn infamy is too high when you go to get yourself healed in a chapel). Some people slightly dislike you, but it's far too easy to bring them around with bribes.

(Then again, the same can be true of the result of pretty much all the guilds. Why does no one recognise the genius of my supreme archmage?!)

So, yeah, it would be nice if being evil did have more of an impact on how the game plays out for you and more evil quests in general. If some evil guy asks me if I want to join their little cult, I should be able to say yes.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 7:03 am

Ya i want to be able to create my own faction and take over a town and make them constantly give up their money and half their food to me, Then any rebellion member found will be eaten alive..... sounds fare

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 1:25 am

I agree, we mostly need to have more than one way to finish a quest. Some quests in Oblivion had multiple outcomes but it was not enough. What I would prefer is that quests have multiple outcome, but no good/evil thing, just choices that you have to make. An example that comes to my mind is the tenpenny's tower quest in fallout 3, there was many way to finish this one and it was not 100% clear which choice was good or evil.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 12:34 pm

Being confined to be the good guy in the end is always a bit of an annoyment.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 12:22 am

Being confined to be the good guy in the end is always a bit of an annoyment.

A good way to fix that would be more dialoge options. I think Team Rocket summed it up pretty good when they said "If the world was distroyed we'd have no one left to steal from!"

Even super evil characters have a reason to stop Aldiun. "Like Oblivion I'm letting you end the world, that's my job you swit!"

A few different dialoge paths, even if they lead to the same conclution, could make it easier to play different playstyles.

» Sat Mar 05, 2011 11:43 pm

Sorry but this is gamesas, evil is always SOL, just look at what they did to Fallout. They took the classically grey and turned it into a black and white fest, and forced you to join the white side, just like oblivion. I don't see it changing anytime soon. they seem incapable of writing evil paths.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 3:51 am

agreed! we won't be evil! also 1 vampire quest svcks, we don't want a cure! not me atleast... Also I want to kill kings and queens, stop protecting them,

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 2:21 pm

MMMM good mutton..i mean muffin.

Theres always more then enough chances to be many shades of good or evil when it comes to Bethesda rpgs so i dont even think about it. In FALLOUT 3 it was pretty amazing to be playing a good guy yet feel tempted to eat a corpse with the canibal perk to heal up. So far i've resisted the temptation yet it raises some interesting moral questions of how far would one go to survive.