Your background determines how you met the Emperor, one of them includes you going to jail and the Emperor getting you out because he needs your help.

Tradition, another word for something that people do for no apperant reason other than the fact that it has been done before.
Anyways I don't really mind as long as the story is good and the gameplay is awesome.

prison, epic dragon attack, free from prison, kill or wound epic dragon, town/city in ruin = epic start

I don't remember seeing that at all. One of the questions you could be asked might have involved having been in jail at some point in time, but I'm fairly positive that absolutely none of them set up anything that took place immediately before the game itself.

EDIT: http://uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Background

So no, that's not the case.

It's something about you helping a boy as a child, who happens to be the emperor, and then later when you get caught for something, you meet him again, at which the whole thing begins.

This, I remember.


This, I can't remember encountering with any of the characters I've created.

EDIT: Just started the game up and generated a few characters while actively trying to get this. Still haven't seen it even once. And actually, given how the background questions are handled by the game, it wouldn't make sense. They don't generate a background for you based on how you answer the questions and earlier questions don't tie into later events. It's just a series of questions and answers that determine some of the things your character starts with. I can't think of any situation where you could answer "I helped the Emperor" and then later have the game tell you "While in jail...", because Daggerfall's character creation doesn't really work like that.

We're starting the game 200 years after a major event occurred that almost spelled the destruction of the planet. :disguise:
Yet we're still a prisoner. :mohawk:

Well, that's the third time, if prisoner equals jail. Still could be held in a cave, or on a ship, or anything else.
At any rate, starting in a secluded position is tradition, and a nice way to start a game.

Hey I think I become kind of found of the jail thing Over the years I thought of 1001 back story that landed all posible character there, so I'm ok with the "tradition"

Fine by me.

Nerd rage from those who go off on the "restricts roleplay" angle (as if starting anywhere else doesn't also pigeonhole you into having to explain how you arrived at that particular place at that particular time) is strictly icing on the cake.

Well technically we don't know if we are in jail. We are just a prisoner. Could be some work camp or something!

I've found it:

"(...) You told him the best way out of the village, avoiding the areas frequented by the blackclad ones, and he told you that when he found his father again, you would be properly thanked for that act of kindness.

Some years later, your luck ran out and you were imprisoned on the charge of breaking and entering. And stealing. You had been in jail for several days when you received a visitor in full regalia of an imperial courier. He told you that in reward for your services to prince Uriel, you were granted full pardon and an ebony dagger. You were given a simple, unpretentius letter inviting you to the Emperial City for an audience with the Emperor. You had your eyes set on bigger fish anyhow, so you went."

EDIT: missed a line.

When you play games, you play them to escape reality. Reality being the prison you escape.

Also, the prisoner finds out he holds the same powers as the Dragonborn, might mean he finds out in prison.
Maybe we will be using a Dragon shout/thu'um to get out of prison

i knew the hero was once again in prison for public urination

here is what I said in the other thread,

my thoughts exactly :banghead: . Well, first chance I get, I'm modding the hell out of it.


Way to make a [censored] generalization. A lot of us who do not want it did not only play 1 TES title. Hell, I've played all of them, save for the spinoffs, and I'm quite sick of it. Morrowind only gets a free pass because you are coming off a boat, without any prison cells or bars, and you sign yourself up in the census, as though you were a citizen. Arena has an excuse, in that Jagar Tharn imprisoned you because he knew you'd screw things up, and in Daggerfall you were on a ship (that wasn't a prison ship) that was wrecked and you ended up in a cave. Oblivion has no real excuse other than some silly ass pull.

The only title in this series that truly allows one to make up their past is Daggerfall and somewhat with Morrowind. Oblivion has you as a [censored] convict from the get go and reinforces that, and Arena was a pretty linear game anyway. There is only so many times I have to ass pull "I was caught doing a silly crime," "I was framed!," or other crap like that. It's getting hard to make up excuses for my good characters ending up in prison, even though they do not break the law

Being in prison is perfectly okay you can just presume it was a mistake or for a stupid reason like public urination. I like starting in prison if you dont like it i don't give a [censored].

This route of background story only appears on the thief/assassin side in answering question in the beginning list but not as the whole theme of all other player type. Even than, find the said story require playing around the menu to History. Even than again, the story given by the game can be outright forgotten since its really just a format for anyone who does not know how to create their own story background and just use it for their own use. The intro is easily expandable as it is all started with the Emperor senting ya to Daggerfall and wash up after a shipwreak.

So ya, I don't consider Daggerfall's intro as such "Prison" intro.


Okay than tell me this, would ya actually like the intro to start somewhere else with much more dignify like waking up in a campfire or an inn or in a ship rather than starting out in a jail? Why exactly would one want to start out in a Prison to begin with?

And How do we even know if its really a "lone prisoner" of faith or quest rather than an outright prison intro? There could be that the Hero is "destine" to clean up the mess of Skyrim, hence a prisoner of the Main Quest.


If its true with my own eyes, its Oblivion all over again. Ganna be my first mod to get.

Traditions, Traditions never changes.
There's your cliché.

Ok, chill. That was not a generalization directed at people who are actually opposed to the idea as it's stale. It's referring to those who say "Derp, no new beginning = stoopid gaem."

OR maybe you're just in some kind of mobile cage, like slavers would use, and then somehow it breaks and you're free (lots of possibilities on how this would happen).
which means that you wouldn't have commited a crime, but you would simply have been captured. that can go for any type of character, since you don't already start off being a godly character, but instead svck at almost everything, so it would give you TONS of choices for a background too

That sounds good. Like you escape the cage while at camp and you do the tutorial as you attempt to escape the camp.

No I wouldn't like so. The prisoner is a perfect setting because your past is even more obscure than the standard adventurer. What if you were a noble why the [censored] would you be near a camp fire or in an Inn?

The past is already obscure to the Player's Background. Adding a Prison Intro would require some bull crap as to why the Player is there in the first place, thus already destroying the openness and the vagueness of how the Player start the game (like fore example, any goodie two shoe player or religious person or just some random guy that does nothing at all or anyone following the law in general; no stupidity). If one want a noble background, they can just say they out camping or hated the housed life and wanted adventure or wake up in a inn because ya traveling to meet other nobles; it is MUCH more open to create background if not restricted to prison cell.

I'm sure someone had to have noticed that part...Just a typo I guess? It should be they...right?

Unless....

Why the hell would you be in jail if you were a noble?