True Story. I have played through Morrowind and Oblivion a bit and never bothered to complete either main quests. I was too busy getting my freak on.

People, are you really so clueless? What wheedling excuses and justifications for lazy plots. "If we don't stick to the same unconvincing cliches, the game will be boring! What, did you want to be the farmer who tills land all game? Booooooring" That's a rather black and white idea. Either you're a perfect cliche or you're nothing. Have you people not got functioning imaginations? Can you honestly not conceive of some other plot line other than the same old chosen hero/ancient evil dynamic that has been absolutely run into the ground time after time after time? I know you people love to bemoan the lack of depth and quality in games today. Apparently you're perfectly fine with lacking imagination, so long as the trope is one you're well accustomed to. You have no right to whine; you and them are one in the same.

Though if you want to get technical, you weren't "the chosen one" in Oblivion. Martin was. He was the "lowly" bastard child and a priest that grew to become Emperor, then finally became the avatar of a god to kick Dagon's butt and save Tamriel from destruction. You were "an important one", as was Baurus and Jauphre. If you want to say anything broke the cliche, it was Oblivion.

There are reasons why such clichés are successful, and the first one is that having a determining part in the Good defeats Evil story always draws attention - as someone said above, it is rather how well this story is told / developed that makes it too 'cliché' or a real story.

The fact becomes even less relevant in TES' case, where you can completely abandon the mission imposed upon you without dire consequences. Now, I understand the OP's main concern, he was not attacking this obvious part of most storytelling, but the fact that practically all main quests in this and other franchises are obvious variations of the straight "go get them there, champ" out of nowhere. You are barely introduced to the game and there already is a huge crisis in which the royal guards are impotent to deal with it - BUT hey, you, prisoner, academy student or army trainee, are the only hope.

How satisfying wouldn't it be if you started just as some John Doe, minding your biz, when like everyone else you just noticed an important assassination attempt or an attack by a dangerous creature thought to be lost / forgotten, etc... Then getting involved little by little in the greater scheme of things, thru a series of apparently unrelated side-quests... EDIT fixed some pelling et al.

Well, I see your point but frankly, your character did all the job. Plus the Empreror just says "you are the one from my dreams" and "destined for higher fubecas" and such... pretty omen-like:

If you try any story can fit into a cliché...

But yeah they can make the story so that its not so terribly clichéd.

Here is an idea.... instead of the "chosen" label gets put on the character and so then the character thinks they have to do great deeds, the character does great deeds and then people call him a "chosen one". There is a distinction for people like me who think prophecy and fate are complete BS and ruin immersion. I do not mind if the rabble start calling me the "insert generic fantasy title for hero". The thought that my character would automatically run out and do the "fated" actions because someone, something, or somehow tells the character it is predestined. I would probably say, " OK, give me some supplies for my journey since I am your champion with no history to back that assumption," and proceed to take my loot across the neighboring kingdom then point and laugh at the svckers as they burn. Does that make sense?

I gave Bethesda a pretty wide berth with Skyrim's setting, hoping they could do some pretty exotic locations and a deep culture to permeate the atmosphere of the game.

I don't want some generic unlikely hero plot, regardless of whether that title refers to the player or another NPC. Personally I think that cliché's can be executed very skillfully, but I'd really like to see something refreshing after Oblivion just to prove to me that Bethesda still has their creative wits about them and don't have to keep playing the MW/OB "chosen one" card. There's a lot of potential here, and fan speculation has already brought up a lot of interesting plots. Bethesda can either roll with their current lore and bring an epic conclusion to some ages-old story we've all been dying to see the outcome of, like with the Underking or King Wulfhart, or they can just tie the dragons to some silly new threat and just leave our jaws on the floor. "Oh, never saw that guy there before."

The suspense! :ahhh:

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I like (love, even) the classic Good Hero defeats Evil villain and gets the girl (assuming that there is a girl to get). I just don't want it to be quite that simple. The "chosen one" theme is overdone, I will give you that, but it works if it isn't overemphasized. What I like to see is the traditional Good v Evil skeleton with all sorts of side- and sub-plots woven into it. Just like several others have said, the how is what makes it interesting.



Like a False Incarnate, perhaps?

i also want to be a non hero that spends my days toiling in the feilds and i dont get called upon but i just decide to defeat the not ancient or evil bully at the local school

yea im gonna stick with a cliche

there is a reason some stories are redone over and over for the last 2000 years because you can change them up add some polish and make it damn good

This is kinda what I mean with cliché.

I dont mind the player being the Hero, but I would just like a fantasy game where it is no my destiny to be the hero. Thats what I mean by cliché. You become the hero to save the land because fate/prophesy have chosen you to become the hero, an not because you choose to be the hero and save the land.

What would really be interesting is if... well, just to give a hypothetical example, there is a legend that states that a chosen one destined to fight evil will be able to pull a sword from a stone (not trying to be original here, okay). And your quest sends you to place with sword in the stone by random chance, where you find another guy, who actually does manage to pull the sword from the stone after you're set upon by enemies. And then gets killed. You survive and grab the sword before leaving (let's assume it unlocks a door or something, whatever), and everyone assumes you were the one that pulled it out and they treat you like the hero -- but the player knows it's all BS. You can even try to tell people the truth, but they'll think you're either modest or just trying to dodge your destiny ("Only the true Messiah denies His divinity."). Would make things very interesting, especially if it resulted in the antagonist thinking that there must be something to all this chosen one nonsense and deciding to nip it in the bud.

Maybe at some point you start to get a vague idea that the person that wrote the prophecy knew it was BS, but that it would trigger a chain of events leading to the antagonist's defeat anyway.

I mean, obviously it's too late to rewrite the story of Skyrim anyway, it's just a thought.

What if you're chosen to help the chosen one out in battle and they turn out to be a coward and a loser, and you end up saving his ass, so then everyone starts calling you the chosen one?

See thats a brilliant idea!

No. I liked being the reincarnated god-king immortal superhero of Nirn! :batman:

cliche is not necessarily bad

Take Dragon Age for example as it is a good game despite being very cliche.

I don't remember being the chosen one in Dragon Age, you just became a Grey Warden. If anything (Dragon Age spoilers)

I wouldn't say Dragon Age was cliche. You weren't a chosen one, it's just that circumstances forced you to join a GROUP of Grey Wardens to bring down the Archdemon. And there was betrayal and politics, and all that good stuff. I understand what the OP is trying to say though. I'm the chosen one, I'm here to save the world. And what if I'm an evil person that joins up with the Darkbrotherhood? I'm still the hero??? It's cliche, and it doesn't make sense if you think about it.

But think about FO:NV. Wasn't cliche at all. You weren't destined for anything. You chose what you wanted to do, and all the possible endings weren't cliche at all. There were good and negative effects on the world no matter what you chose to do (unless you helped Caesar. Then you basically screwed the wasteland over.).

But i also grew tired of it.

I dont mind being the savior of the world in fantasy games, but I just dont like it that fate or some old prophesy has chosen the player to be the hero. Why cant I just be a guy who has the skills and talent to be fitted to be the hero. Why cant I play a guy who says "The threat of this world has become fatal, and im gonna stand up against it" and then will the blades aid him in how to do so?

What he said :laugh:

I'd say fantasy so often follows this particular formula because it has so often been proven to work,

I'd say that I like being the hero in fantasy games, I also like reading about the hero in fantasy books or watching him in movies and TV. Fantasy allows us to experience things that most of us won't be able to experience in real life, like epic adventures through strange lands of magic and mystery, and this is how I like it, if I wanted real, everyday life, I wouldn't be reading, watching or playing fantasy. I want to read about the people who go on these epic adventures, why would I care about a simple farmer who grows crops and raises chickens when the world could be in danger and there are people trying to save it? So I'm just fine with being the hero. But the hero doesn't always have to be chosen and the evil doesn't always have to be ancient. Sometimes, the hero can end up being involved in the story simply for having the skills necessary for the job, and the main threat can be a new one. But what can I say? Fantasy seems to have an obssession with ancient things, everything is just better if it's ancient. Ancient weapons somehow hurt more even though you'd think they'd be all rusted, if they still existed at all, ancient ruins always have all the good loot, whereas anything you'll find in recent ruins is lame. If there's some ancient extinct race, you can bet they had either better technology or better magic or both than the modern races (I guess that's what they mean when they say they don't make 'em like they used to.) and if any beings live long enough to qualify as ancient, whether because of magic or their natural lifespan, you can bet that age will be kind to them. I reckon the obssession with having ancient enemies returning also comes from this logic, after all, if the antagonists are ancient, then they must be more evil than any modern threat!

I do like being the hero, but I won't complain if Bethesda averts some of the cliches often associated with them in fantasy. I'd certainly rather be the hero again than the hero's sidekick like in Oblivion, in that game's main queast, I still had to do all the work, without me, Martin would never have even left Kvatch alive, let alone reach the temple of the one, all that he really did was help me read the Mysterium Xarxes and summon a deus ex machina when he wasn't able to light the Dragon Fires at the end. Yet Martin is the one who gets hailed as a hero, whereas I get a weak suit of armor.

Walt Disney's ass, or Apocalypto? That is the question...

If you take a look at the name of the series, you know why they won't make you a nobody. The games are called the Elder Scrolls. The Elder Scrolls are creations of prophecy that present the events of the world. By playing one of the Elder Scrolls games, that requires you to be an object of prophecy. By that reason, there are only two ways to handle it - like Morrowind, where you are unaware of the forces that decided your fate, or in Oblivion where you are explicitly told "I'VE SEEN YOU! YOU ARE THE ONE FROM MY DREAMS! SAVE THE WORLD!" right from the get-go. Regardless of either possibility, the one unchanging fact must be that you have a destiny to fulfill. And even if you didn't, you'd still end up saving the world even if it was because you crawled your way up from the bottom yourself. That scenario must apply in order for the game to feel appealing. That is the basis of fantasy, to be a world-changing individual. Do you think anyone wants to play Grand Theft Horse, where you are a rightfully-imprisoned individual who breaks free from jail to establish a skooma smuggling business? Sure that could work for a faction, but the main story must be "epic". Everything else, I feel, is covered by the guilds and other factions who have their own, less world changing storylines. I just hope that Skyrim makes it so that you can't do them all on one character

LOL! My sentiments exactly. It was weird playing second banana to the most popular man in Cyrodiil only to be given armor, a pat on the back, and then shown the exits. bliviongate:

i had a dream today. i met todd howard and he showed me tes v - skyrim. it felt so real. and the game was just INCREDIBLE and original. i hope its a sign :rolleyes:

oh, and there was a gigantic "nordic" troll in it which made the awesomest noises.