One question I overlooked is that of the marital relationship of other NPCs. Will you be able to break a marriage by seducing one (of both) spouse(s), and then get married with the one of your choice? Will you be able, as an evil character, to kidnap one spouse to force the other to do something for you? Well, it would raise many difficulties for the devs, but I hope that some day, the ES games will reach that level of complexity... (Perhaps with Skyrim already :bowdown: ?)

One of the most interesting of these questions, from a gameplay and story-telling viewpoint (but not necessarily from the point of view of role-play) is that ennemies may try to harm the player through his family. Or to kidnap the beloved one to force him doing something. This could lead to long fascinating questlines (and would offer a brilliant application to the radiant story mechanics, since it would be heavily depending on the previous actions of the player). I really hope it will happen.

Marriage opens indubitably many unexplored and promising areas for the Elder Scrolls game, and could add immense depth to the world and its role-play dimension, but it seems to be a very complex stuff to handel, from a story-telling viewpoint as well as from the point of view of gameplay mechanics. I am really curious to know how the devs will handel the following matters.


If marriage is in the game, then divorce surely should be in. But how do the laws of Skyrim allow it (if they do), to what conditions? Would it raise many problems related to ownership?

Divorce isn't the only way to make an end to a marital status. Will repudiation be in the game? Widowhood is an other possible outcome. How will the inheritance be handeled? Will I be able to play a black widow, chasing for heritage?

Will homosixual relationship be possible? Will they possibly give rise to a wedding? How will other NPCs react to people involved into homosixual relationships? And how will they react to people involved into interracial relationships? In addition to official marriage, will there be unofficial romantic kinds of union?

Will we witness marital ceremonies? Will, for example, magic be involved to seal the oaths in some way? How do two people worshipping different gods get married? What kind of ceremony will they attend?

Will advltery be possible? What kind of consequence would it give cause to? What are the dictates of the different religions regarding faithfulness? Most probably will they vary considerably from a cult to another. Will some of them tolerate polygamy?

What new crimes will the laws punish? The examples that pop into my mind are conjugal violence, and possibly advltery.

Will it be possible to make or adopt children? In case of interracial wedding, will it be possible to have hybrid children?

How will it be possible to seduce people, and will your chosen appearance affect the way different people react to your charming attempts?

Will there be forced weddings? Will a powerful mage be able to cast spells in a permanent enough way to force someone to marry him/her, which could be seen as a form of mental and de facto enslavement? In a similar context, will I be able to invoke a Mazken or an Aureal, to bind her/him to Nirn and then to marry her/him?

Will my wife/husband be able to follow me into dungeons? Will my ennemies try to harm me through her/him?

Finally, and I surely hope not to focus the debate on this nearly off-topic point, to the point I hesitate to make a thread to it, but it is sufficiently closely related to the marital stuff to be posted here, will there be nudity and sixuality in the game? I mean, it would be very strange that spouses wouldn't even know what each other look like.

The only friend I need is gold.

I have to say I am quite worried about this "relationship/marriage" thing in TES. I'm of the belief that we as a society and as individuals already don't take our serious relationships seriously enough and that it may be because we are not willing to do all the hard work required to make such relationships work and because we just don't put enough thought into just how serious it is. Inviting it into a game seems to somehow cheapen serious relationships further.

Sort of makes me sad because they could never put the work and time into these in game relationships to make them have any real significant meaning.

Absolutely, I've noticed that RL relationships certainly do require a lot of work if you want them to "work"

I can see what you mean about relationships in-game in some way perhaps trivializing the notion of a romantic relationship. At the same time, on some (perhaps very basic) level, as we play any decent RPG, we are already entering into a sort of virtual relationship with any NPC that inspires any kind of emotional reaction (even if that emotion is just sympathy or camaraderie) which is part of what makes any story great.

Even taking a step back from the interactive nature of games, if I watch a sad movie, for example, and actually cry (damn you PIXAR!), or when I read a page in a GRRM novel that makes me want to throw the book across the room, on some level by virtue of engaging with the world and characters of those stories, I have some basic sort of relationship with those characters, even if they don't exist IRL.

In this way, greater complexity in the relationships between the PC and NPCs in Skyrim, while it might trivialize the concept of relationships in some way, in another it is simply following in the footsteps of basic storytelling. A good story desperately requires characters that the reader, or viewer, or gamer, etc., cares about on some level.

No to all of the above. I do not want a relationship in ANY way in Skyrim. Gold is my only friend.

But for me, I will more than likely avoid being married as I avoid companions most of the time. I like playing the loner.

No to all of the above. I do not want a relationship in ANY way in Skyrim. Gold is my only friend.

Since we're discussing all relationships does that mean that my Dwemer love-bot and I no longer have to hide our love from a cruel and indifferent world?

Sure we don't care as long as you keep all details private.

Sure we don't care as long as you keep all details private.

If you have no friendships or relationships, who does your character plan to leave all that precious gold to when he/she gets eaten by Alduin?

A deserving charity perhaps?

My gold comes with me to my grave!

What about melting it down into a solid gold tomb? :hubbahubba:

Will we actually have to put effort into things, or will the people we decide to like just throw themselves at us happily?