I've had an idea about making an interesting prison start: Make it a prison-break. You start the game out in a cell, as is usual, and across from your cell is a Khajiit. He calls out to you and asks for your name. Then he tells you that he and two other prisoners are planning a prison break. When you all meet up via a hidden tunnel in your cells, you see that the three prisoners are a Khajiit thief, an Orc warrior, and an Altmer mage. The three have very different views on how to go about escaping the prison. The orc wants to kill a guard as he walks by for his key to the armory and steal some weapons, then fight his way out of the prison. The thief wants to steal the cell key from a guard as he walks by and then silently sneak out of the prison. The altmer wants to kill the guard keeping watch from inside the cell as he walks by with a well-placed fireball spell or two, get the key from his corpse, then learn an open easy lock spell from a spell skillbook that that guard was reading and use that to unlock the door to get out of the prison. You are able to use any combination of these three to escape, but your use of stealth, magic, and fighting tactics will determine what class the Khajiit assumes you belong to after the prison break is successful.

No. Prison. Intros.

They're annoying, make RPing with a blank slate difficult, and it's not like every game had you in a cell. Something more akin to Daggerfall's cave beginning is more preferable, Morrowind's beginning (without the prison boat part), or anything that'll give your character a blank slate. I don't want to enter a game, and already be some felon right from the getgo, especially if I am playing a good character.

Hell, Fallout 3's beginning was less restrictive for RPing than OB's prison break.

maybe start off in a battle and be a pow that manages to escape the enemy during some raid or something, depends of what the mq would be

I always thought the game beginning with your being pulled from the icy waters of Skyrim would be interesting...

"What's your name?"
(Name)
"By the Nine Divines you look like you're cold, come inside...
This can be your room for the trip back to land, it isn't much, but it should do."
(You look in a mirror and you choose your race/appearance/gender)
"Do you have any idea about who you are... anything at all?"
(Birthsign, Class)

Bam. Non-restrictive and simple.

Thats actually quite a good idea. Certainly refreshing in relation to the prison intros. However, I'm not sure Bethesda will break with tradition and I'd assume we'll get a prison intro in some way or another.

It's not a complete tradition. They ignored it in Daggerfall, it was scaled heavily back in MW, and in FO3 there isn't even a prison (unless you metaphorically think the Vault a prison)

What Martut wrote is just perfectly fine.

That sounds like a great idea, I support this

I like it. Bethesda, use this idea.

Excuse me, but how is it difficult to RP with a prison intro? Last time I checked a person doesn't have to be a felon to be in a prison. In fact, you don't even have to be considered a criminal. Sometimes people have been jailed just for having the wrong ideas or knowing the wrong information. Give me a single RP character scheme for which a prison start can't work. If you have trouble coming up with a character background just because your character has to be in a prison at some point, then you are obviously creatively challenged.

Um, perhaps any character that you don't want to start your story in prison. If the story of your character doesn't involve ever being in prison, then it messes up your RP.

The Imperial prison is a common theme in the Elderscrolls games.

Everyone here has forgotten Arena, which started with a breakout from the Imperial Prison, just like Oblivion. In Morrowind, you are being set free from the Imperial prison, and in Daggerfall, you are being sent from the Imperial palace at least.

I'm sure TESV will stick to this.

I personally think it would be cool to be a slave. Maybe the new emperor has reinstated slavery, and you are being sent to Skyrim as part of the labor force for a big project that the new emperor is taking on. Maybe something like a huge statue of each of the divines, one in each province.

Then, something happens on the construction site that grants you your freedom.

That sounds like an arbitrary imposition. You don't RP by putting every single piece of your story together INCLUDING the time you are spending the game. Not everything always goes according to plan in ANY world. Sometimes things just happen. Just as importantly, why does this matter? It says nothing at all about your characters morals, character traits, or anything else. It plays no part later in the story. It's no different from if your character goes on vacation to Skyrim for a few days and nothing worth noting happens. Complaining about this is just like complaining that "Starting the game in Morrowind leaves me no room to have my character NOT start the game in Morrowind!"


And you are still sorely lacking in creativity. In Morrowind, I RPd a character that just barely missed the boat on his way to Morrowind and decided to hop on a prison boat. Everyone, including the game's narrator text, assumes he was a prisoner, when really he was just the replacement for another prisoner that the guards at the Imperial City prison accidentally let die. They told the Census office in Morrowind that two prisoners would arrive, so they help you put together some imprisonment papers. They viewed this as the perfect opportunity to replace their dead prisoner. Obviously these were some slackers of guards, because they forgot to put the original's prisoner's homeland on the original prison records, which is why the guard says that their records don't say where he came from. All in all, this has no effect on my character's story other than being a minor detour. I viewed it as a challenge to generating my character's origin story. I didn't whine and moan that my character ABSOLUTELY HAD to stay out of prison for the ENTIRETY of his life up to the start of Morrowind or else the entire RP would be ruined.

Frankly I think the prison starts set the Elder Scrolls aside in free-form RPGs by having a story detail consistent across the games, or at least all the games but one.

You are not getting it. If all you can say is that I'm not being imaginative, you are quite wrong. I find it takes more imagination to create your own story from a blank slate than having to make excuses as to why you were in jail in the first place. What if we don't want to be someone in jail right away? You may like to make jail time part of your RP each and every time, but a lot of us are annoyed that we start the game as a criminal, even if we are not. The fact that I'm in jail makes me a criminal, even if I pretend I was wrongly imprisoned, framed, whatever, and having to make this excuse is rather tiresome when it seems like every time I play, I'm already some sort of felon who got lucky. It breaks the flow of how I want to imagine my character, and that is what to end.

Having to mod alternate ways to start the game is increasingly annoying, and for console users they don't have such freedoms to change the game. So please, tell me why do we NEED to be in prison to start a TES game?

And to keep with tradtion; it is either a prison ship you are pulled onto or you dock in a prison.

NO! Keep it as blank as possible, while making it interesting.

Where did I ever say we needed to? Please, tell me. Because I just reread my posts in this thread, and nowhere did I ever say that it was a NEEDED FEATURE. In fact, I didn't even say that not having the feature would detract from the game in the least. I am simply defending it as a tradition that I, as well as many other TES players, enjoy.

And nice job ignoring the fact that I pointed out not only that this being a part of the story is COMPLETELY NONCONSEQUENTIAL TO YOUR RP CHARACTER. ESPECIALLY in Morrowind, where you are just being let off a prison boat. Granted, it would play more of a part with a prison-break start, but that was just a suggestion for a possible variation of the prison start assuming that Beth wants the prison start still, not a suggestion for a preferred game start. Like I said, complaining about prison starts is like complaining that you can't stop your character from getting mauled by a bear on your way to Bruma in Oblivion. Also, you are a hypocrite for complaining about a prison start but being okay with having to be pulled up out of the water like what was suggested earlier.

Finally, I love the fact that you are turning this thread into a "prison start bashing" thread rather than actually discussing my idea. Obviously my idea wouldn't apply if Beth decided not to do a prison start, so saying that you don't like prison starts is irrelevant to a thread about an idea for such a start. There could be a thread about general game start discussion, this isn't it. Go make one.

Generally when i play an RPG for the first time, I just go along with what's happening and invent a personality and a backstory as I go along.

Then the second time, I come up with a backstory first and just ignore the prison part if I have to.

You've got to start somewhere, so there's got to be a reason why you are where you start. No matter what they do, it's gonna mess up somebody's rp plans somewhere, unless they just have you appear on some part of the map, which would be kind of bland.

How about this?

You get an option to choose from three or four different beginnings, each with their own story and character creation process.

Maybe something like:
-Prisoner being shipped to province
-Refugee fleeing to province
-commoner visiting province on pilgrimage
-nobleman visiting province on business for the emperor

I still think each should be departing from the Imperial City, to stick with tradition.

One function that I think is served well by the prison start is it explains why you are able to arrive but not leave the province you are in. Notice that there's never a way to travel out of your province. From a practical perspective it's because it would be almost impossible to put every province in the game, and from a story perspective it's because they don't want you to leave. Kinda like how the fog in Morrowind was because of technical limits, but story-wise was because of the blight.

I know we have to start somewhere, and I am not suggesting the least bit that we just appear out of no where with nothing going on. What I am opposed to is that we're forced to start the game as a prisoner.


That I am not opposed to either, and something Beth should look at. This kind of start gives us options, and a more seamless beginning to RP in. Gives us an ability to create the type of character we wish to play as, with little interference. :goodjob:

The emperor even said "Perhaps the gods have placed you here so that we may meet." Being in prison doesn't limit role-plays, and if you're going to say it does just because it happened, then how should a game start out? What if my role-play involves not wanting another beginning? The game has to begin somehow, so merely saying being imprisoned(when not given a reason, such as in Morrowind and Oblivion) is a bad idea doesn't solve any problems, because the game is going to have to start somehow. In Morrowind and Oblivion, I merely accept being put into prison by the gods as part of my destiny, as Uriel Septim says so in Oblivion.

If that is why you don't like prison starts then don't lie about how you don't like the idea of having to come up with an excuse for it. If you wash up on shore, you have to figure out why that happened. If you are part of a convoy of guars that gets attacked by raiders, you've got to explain why. For every single possible start that doesn't involve you getting randomly plopped somewhere, you will be forced to figure out a reason for it.

Now will you PLEASE stop highjacking this thread? Noones said a single thing about the prison break idea except that they don't like prison starts.

this is a good idea. just something to think about. nothing wrong with prison.

I made another thread for discussing prison starts in general, go to that one if you aren't discussing my prison start idea.

You should just be happy that your topic has inspired so many different people to express their ideas, and that it has grown this large this fast.

Let it stray where it may, if the moderators feel the need, they'll lock it.

As for your specific idea:
I like the concept. Different choices that affect your class.
I don't like the idea of knowing any spells right from the beginning (unless you choose magic skills), which is another reason I support your idea to choose.

There should be a non-combat option, though. Maybe get the guards drunk instead of kill them.

It should all be about choice. I'm really leaning towards this multiple beginnings idea, though. Wanna get that out there.

I don't have a problem with the prison starts, but I also don't care about tradition. A new sort of beginning would be a welcome, but not necessarily needed, change.

Back to your idea; I like it but THAT truly is restrictive, having to murder guards to escape from prison. Maybe if there was an option to not break out, and you're released anyway, for another reason. Or if you had the option of just waiting for your three companions to clear the way for you, then strolling out.
It's a good idea though, maybe you can explain how it would work for a full-on goodie-two-shoes character?

EDIT: I realize I basically just said what the post above me said, but he posted it while I was typing mine D:
But like he said, you should just go with the flow of a 'how to start the game' thread, instead of making it specifically about your one idea.