and you get a disease

:cryvaultboy: The inability of modern roleplayers to actually roleplay astounds me...

If your an inscrutable holy paladin then make it part of your backstory that you were framed for the murder of your loved one and you can role play the avenger to your hearts content...
If that does not tickle your fancy then use your human evolved talent for imagination and think up a backstory that matches how your preferred character would end up as a prisoner. Its really not that hard once you try.

Effectively the same thing happens in Oblivion, by the will of the Emperor... in both you START as a prisoner and shortly after the beginning you are free to become whoever you are destined to be. Your point is?

I can see why the devs give the player a blank slate by starting him or her off as a prisoner, but I also think it borders on lazy writing. We're this many games into the series and they can't come up with a different opening?

Nonsense, the whole prisoner-starting is in the heart of The Elder Scrolls series. Sure it wasn't in Arena or Daggerfall, but the prison part is actually very important to the series. It tells us that our character could have been anyone, from a cold blooded murderer, a petty thief of a framed warrior, mage or noble. It allows more freedom than people think.

Come on, even Azura is the first voice you hear in Morrowind, going: "They have taken you from the Imperial City's prison, first by carriage, now by boat, to the east, to Morrowind. Fear not, for I am watchful. You have been chosen."

And even Todd Howard tells us that you have, and ALWAYS WILL start in prison: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUtvj_pqxvs&feature=related go to around 1:19

Todd Howard in the vid: "This is where the game starts, like our others, in PRISON."

Awesome.

Champion of Skyrim! The man/woman who saved Tamriel once again! And none of us remember when you lit that building on fire and brutally killed it's inhabitants!

EDIT: Although I totally agree with the guy above me.

I always assume that some sort of riot occurred, and my character, an innocent by-stander, was falsely arrested.

There's no logic in that at all. That's just your own made-up excuse (and a pretty lame one) for not being a prisoner. What don't you get?
You are a prisoner dammit! In Arena, Morrowind, Oblivion and now Skyrim.
It is tradition.

And the intro is not too "vague". It's very clear. You are a prisoner, transported from the Imperial City's prison. How is that confusing?

Heh, I always pretend that I was just a bandit like all those random bandits out in the wilderness constantly trying to kill you. We bandits are an oppressed peoples, you see, and the Empire discriminatorily locked me up simply because I was in a gang that killed travellers and stole their stuff. :tongue:

Anyway, don't bother replying to QA, he's obviously just a troll or somebody suffering from severe denial. His argument boils down to "Just because the narrator tells me I'm a prisoner, the guards tell me I'm a prisoner, Jiub tells me I'm a prisoner, the Emperor told me I'm a prisoner, and I'm in a Prison Boat does not mean I'm a prisoner... and just because I was captured by the villian and put into a prison cell does not mean I'm a prisoner either!"

Really though, the prisoner intro is the most wide-open and freeform there is. You can make up literally any reason you are there (ol' QA made up an elaborate one and now believes that that is the actual story and that Bethesda is wrong...) whereas waking up in a tavern or in a town automatically determines your status or home/family and whatever. Even going with a different intro for each race like DA isn't as freeform as prison, because you are still limited to a certain number of intros. If I was playing DA and wanted to play a poor human who was trying to make a life for himself, I didn't really get that choice. I had to be a noble's son or something, no ifs ands or buts. But in Oblivion and Morrowind, if I wanted to be a poor human trying to make a life for myself I could make up a story like I joined a gang or something just to get food but was arrested. That story only took a second to make up and there is nothing in the game telling me it's not true.

[img]http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/3880/prisonerb.jpg[/img]

PRISONER!!!!

And a few seconds later it is directly SAID that you've been transported from the Imperial City's PRISON. You are given RELEASE PAPERS! Not citizenship papers, RELEASE PAPERS. The npcs themselves say RELEASE PAPERS. You cannot deny this.

Just to end the "were you really a prisoner in Morrowind?" debate.

A release identification accompanies you to Vvardenfell from the Imperial Prison. It says:

For release, by Emperor Uriel Septim VII's decree, to the district of Vvardenfell in the province of Morrowind.

Signed,
Socucius Ergalla
Agent of the Seyda Neen Imperial Census and Excise.
16th of Last Seed 3E 427

Azura very clearly states at the start of the game:

They have taken you from the Imperial City's Prison.

Any further attempt to deny or misinterpret this as implying that you are not a prisoner is a blatant denial of reality. Period.

I like to start of as a prisoner. However, it′s not important if the game start with the prisoner-idea or not. The important thing is that it starts.

I did & I scared me!