I'll try and keep this as general as possible to avoid any spoilage..

Alright, just finished the Thieves guild questline (which was a great story arc), and after completing this, I have to post on here. After aproximately 214 hours of game time, and have now completed all the major 'Guild' storylines, I must say Skyrim rewards you greatly for being bad. Here is why.
The Companions story arc, is okay, with one decent perk which you can chose to keep or dispell, and then becomes utterly useless at higher levels. Also, the storyline is pretty short, and the gear you get is not so great.

The College quest line is very, very short, and the outcome is terribly unbelievable. Let's just say my sword and board Nord got the robes, with not one point in the magic trees....that's lame. However, the lore behind the story arc is worth it if you haven't done it.

The Thieves Guild story line, is awesome! It is full of shady business deals, and has a clever spin that caught me by surprise. Also the rewards are awesome as far as gear that you receive, and you get TONS of gold. So much more than the other 'guilds' reward you.

To further prove my observation, I'd like to point out the Daedra quests reward you with amazing and unique gear pieces, and those story arcs are full of naughty deeds. Also I might point out that the daedric shrines you find within the game are MASSIVE and epic looking, where as when you stumble upon an altar of Talos it is simply a meager statue.

I am about to embark on the DB quest lines, and I am excited indeed. Let's discuss. Do you agree with this? Also, why are the evil daedra gods so massively depicted within Skyrim? If the Nords truly hated the elves, wouldn't they destroy such abominations??

Note: I have played a total of three characters, 2 being good, and 1 being 'bad', so I am basing this on multiple play throughs.

Good characters are supposed to resist temptation. That's kind of the point; being good is harder than being evil.

Also, you're complaining that your warrior character wasn't given warrior-based rewards from this game's equivalent to the Mage's Guild?

Thieves' Guild rewards were trash. An awful sword with a weak enchantment, and it can't even be improved with smithing if you have the highest-scaled version. Even with a mod that allows you to improve it it still svcks beyond belief. It's a display case weapon at best. The bow is also garbage, and the armor is weak and the enchantments are also bad.

Now, the Dark Brotherhood actually does give you some good stuff, including the strongest dagger in the game, armor with amazing unique enchantments, and some other stuff. Probably the most rewarding questline.

Also, the "daedra gods" (Daedric Princes) are not "evil"; most people just perceive them as such. And trust me, the last thing you want to do is piss one off by desecrating their shrine. Also, it's kind of the point; you listen to the Daedric Princes when they tell you to do bad things, and you get rewarded with good items. Corruption is rewarded in the real word; being good is an effort.

Good and evil are just what you make them to be. There is no good nor evil.

Good guys slay giants and dragons for thanes. They do not join Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood or make deals with Daedric princes.

I think his point is "good guys" miss out on 80% of the content of the game. Which is absolutely true.

10000% agreed. My complain is only the LACK of "good" groups.

You have:

Thieves guild: Group of bully rats who demand payment from the town
Dark Brotherhood: Murderers and sociopaths
Boethiah follower: You have to murder an innocent person at a rock
The Companions: Supposedly they are the good/honorable group, yet in reality they are smelly werewolf mercenaries, who dont do it for honor, but "if the gold is good enough"
Daedra worshipper: They always tell you to murder whoever accompanied you.

The College of Winterhold is neutral, but only applies to Mages.

I wish the "Followers of Stendarr" had a quest to join them

jaree'ra.
why cant i turn you in!!

I try to play the noble knight type. But I did the thieves and DB questlines too just to experience them. But you are right for the most part. Most of the quests involve you screwing over someone else. If you played noble hardcoe you would probably miss 3/4 of the games content and be bored out of your skull. They need a knights of the nine kinda thing going on in skyrim for us holy warriors.

I actually felt bad for the jarl of whiterun after I did all quests and he made me a thane. then I joined the stormcloaks and screwed him over and now he hates me. I wish there was some kind of way to resolve the civil war where you could convince the nords to band together under ulfric and battle the empire. I didn`t start the civil war questline until I was lvl 54, so now ulfric is sending me out to bone everyone I have helped and it pisses me off I can only bone my friends or not do the quest at all.

Well yes. Skyrim isn't exactly a nice place.

Chivalry and actual honor (Nord version of honor gets bend left and right) is obviously for weak, milk drinking imperials

Oblivion also wants you to be bad, the result of that is in Skyrim.

I wasn't complaing about the mages guild rewards. I'm simply stating that I became archmage and got the robes as a melee class, which is lame, but you can do the same for the Companions who abhore magic, so that's lame too I guess.

Sorry, Princes is correct, and they absolutely are evil. SPOILER: To get Mehrunes Dagger you have to assasinate the guy who hired you to get the shards. To get the Mace, you have to beat an unarmed guy to near death who is already trapped in a cage! Uhm, that's pretty evil my friend!

And I do see your point about moral decisions to play good. This is more of a physical reward thread pointing out you get better stuff for being bad than a RPing good for the sake of being a hero thread.

Agreed, and combine that with being a "good" mage in Skyrim who only wears robes, well make that 98% of the games content. Seems the game revolves around melee and archer classes, 'cough' smithing, and at best our reward is getting a dodgy looking robe and a title that seems to go unnoticed by the majority of the population. Good=effort, effort for reward = bahahaha

The point is, in reality the good is always unnoticed and people really don't care.

But the news is 90% bad things happening, as it is unfortunately the only thing people watch it for.

I totally agree! When I started my 'bad' character, I avoided all 'noble' misc quests that could be done for the Jarls, because I knew I was going to screw them over later. The game in general has a short term memory. On my 'good' character, one minute I'm running through WhiteRun being hailed as the "slayer of the Glemoril Witches", and the next, I'm being told to, "keep your hands to yourself sneak thief", when I have only saved White Run from a frickin dragon and never lifted anything ever!. This also assisted me in deciding to go full bad, because of this game flaw, the lack of rememebering. I mean if Fable 1 on Xbox could get it right......

yep, the 'bad' quests give you the best rewards.

Nothing feels better than being a blood-thirsty werewolf at night and a praised Dragonborn, apocalypse preventer, at daytime.

Not bad but rather neutral and this is a very good thing.

Most of the guild quest lines are sad in TES V compared to prior TES. I really really think the Mage Guild questline should have had checks to see that you were proficient in magic before advancing you and having stages. The whole quest line was WAY too short and should have had alternate endings where you elect an archmage if you don't want to be one (which would have made much more sense).

And yes, if you want to RP a "good" character you're going to miss out on a ton of cool in this game. They really should have had alternative quest lines that are equally interesting for "good" and "bad", eg killing the DB should have been a huge quest line instead of one mission to stamp them out like cochroaches. A "clean up Riften" quest line would be awesome, where you infiltrate and destroy the thieves guild and the black-briar family.

*sigh* don't get me started on the civil war quest lines which was awful.

Thankfully the CK will be out soon and the game will be saved by modders.

WHICH IS NOT TO SAY BETHESDA DIDN'T DO A BEAUTIFUL JOB ON CREATING THE SANDBOX (although too buggy at the moment). I just think the modders do a better job at giving us buckets and shovels to use in the sandbox.

You guys are putting waay to much thought in the Good/Bad cannotation, OP's is saying being bad gets good unique rewards, being good gets garbage.


and my point? I agree the Questlines are lacking in many regards and the options are nil, I'd join the Stendar or Silverhand in a heart beat. "go anywhere do anything but make sure your imagening it while doing what gave you, because you don't have any other choice"

I really don't like this mentality of "its the modders responsibility" tbh and the more I hear that, the more I don't mind if modders get paid.

are you talking about the nigthingale sword?

because mine does 175 damage with all my buffs on, and its legendary.

u mad?

Whats "being good" means anyway.
My character cares for others, Yet she is in the Imperial army - Is that good or bad thing? Depends who you are asking.

Any event or choice, even the DB - can be considerd good or evil. It depends on your view of things.

/Thread


Edit: My argonian is a Shadow-Scale. He was trained since birth to kill others and join the DB. He is a nice fellow, really. He accepts his faith and the faith of those against him as a natural thing rather than good or evil. When he can - he does prefer to do "good" other than "evil". He would prefer to see smiles rather than frowns.
He is in the DB so his family in black-marsh will get the honor of it, so he could honor the tradition of being borned under the mark of shadow. He IS doing good.

Good girls go to heaven.

Naughty girls go everywhere.

I agree with the general sentiment.

If you want to RP a good person you're going to miss out a lot of the game. I guess you can do the dragon, civil war, mages guild, and a lot of the miscellaneous quests. While you can finish the main arc of the dragon questline, you probably shouldn't do part of it you're good (I haven't done it so don't know how much content I'm missing out) Can't do DB, thieves guild, daedra, perhaps the last half of the Companions, and probably several others (I haven't finished the game).

To be fair, there's a few minor questlines which are very good. The one for the temple of Mara in Rifton for example.

And while some Daedra are good, most are extremely evil. Hint: Killing your companion is probably not a good act. Anyone who tells you to do that is not good. More like very very evil.

I really hope that the next TES game has a lot more for people who want to RP a good person. I'd love to RP a paladin, which is kind of hard in this game. I think the dragon quest and a few minor questlines would be just about it for a pally.

I'll probably get ridiculed for this, but I worry about moral effect of rewarding evil in games like this. The message from this game really seems to be that you shouldn't be afraid to be evil. It's ok to screw people over.

even the baddest person in skyrim cant be badder than I. So its like playing st Angel's game to me with puppets and madonna.

Give me a break. Murdering anyone because someone prayed to the Night Mother (who is abjectly evil and wants nothing more than to spread pain and death wantonly) to have them killed is outright immoral anyway you want to look at. And no, Shadowscales, by definition are no better. Being a paid murderer so your family can get the honor of it doesn't make it any more moral. Argonian society is simply immoral.

Don't get me wrong. My first playthrough I was a wanton DB murderer. I also had no illusion that I was doing anything "good".