It might be to late for that, but I feel it still needs some attention. To make this short, because I feel it is a highlight that can't be stressed enough and in my opinion nails perfectly what good role playing, dialog and NPCs should be about.

But why is Paarthurnax in particular so interesting? And why should it be used as some kind of reference by Bethesda for Fallout?

Well, before I start, this might be a bit long and it represents my OPINION. I am not writer. I am not some academic. I just describe how I feel about it. I have no clue what kind of intention the writers had with this quest.

Now, I feel that this is so important because Paarthurnax as character and one small quest in particular are very interesting and offering many layers here, of which some might be more obvious than others.

The Situation in Question is:

Seems easy enough. But in reality it is actually difficult. Most people probably don't kill him, as they see him as likable character, which is understandable. From his introduction by the greybeards and the first time you talk to him he is represented in a very interesting way. He has personality. Because he has a background that was build up. - Not something that I can say about the many other NPCs. But I digress!

The first thing is, both groups have reasonable arguments. They have realistic motivations. It is possible to understand both groups. The Greybeards protect him for his teachings and his wisdom. The Blades want to punish him for his crimes and because he is a Dragon which have been responsible for a lot of unspeakable atrocities.

So It simply isn't about clearly good vs. evil here.

But there is more to this. For example the effects if you decide to kill him or to spare him. The effects of your decision are very subtle. Now I have no clue if that was the intention or not, but it highlights why subtle effects can be just as effective in story telling like to give the player some epic pad on his shoulder or telling him that he now kicked the puppy - or kitten, to show that he's REALLY evil.

If you spare his life, the blades will refuse to give you their full support. If you kill him, the greybeards will do the same. Though, both factions will continue to work with you, though not FOR you. They respect your title, not your personality. This is in my opinion, very good story telling. I would describe this even as fridge logic. It took at least for me a bit of time to realize the effects of it. Simply because you don't get a huge loads of rewards by one faction.

This is in my opinion one of the best moments of Skyrim and it shows that you can create incredible story telling with several layers even if you don't have a lot of dialog. Sadly it was also one of the very few moments of any of the recent Bethesda games.

Well the reason is simple. Because this should be the core principle for Fallout. Not just this Fallout. But any Fallout game by Bethesda. What should matter is the motivation of characters and not if outcomes are clearly good or clearly evil. I am not saying that every quest and every NPCs has to follow that. It would be silly of course. There can be psychopaths and there can be also your typical goody goody two shoes. But most situations should be rather subtle in their effects. And that can be even done with very evil or very good characters. As long as the organizations you work for have proper motivations that sound - from their position - reasonable. I never felt like any NPC ever did that in Fallout 3.

The reason why this works so well is because it feels believable. We can relate to it. Not everyone for the same reasons of course. Some will always feel stronger with a certain faction. But as far as Fallout goes you should avoid factions that feel like obvious psychopaths killing everything in sight.

That is why Paarthurnax and the quest to kill or not to kill him should be a guide line for future Fallout quests in my opinion. Same as how New Vegas treated factions. And I really hope that someone at Bethesda took his time to look back on this and got this kind of quality also in to Fallout 4.

The only real issue I had was whether you killed him or not really didn't mean anything to the game world. One you can hang out with some old men, the other you can hang out with some old Blades. Either way dragons still attack and no one in the game world mentions anything about the choice you made. The choice could have been apples or oranges for all the game cared. So while the choice itself may have taken some thought, the result either way was completely meaningless.

FO4 please add some meaning to my choices.

How would average people not directly involved even hear about what you did though. It isn't like the Dragonborn has a publicist or a 24 hour news crew following you sending dispatches to every corner of the world about all that you do. How many people in Skyrim have ever even heard of Paarthurnax anyway?

Agree!!!!

What? Those consequences were completely appropriate for the actions taken... what did you want them to do with that?

Frankly I didn't see a choice there at all. You have a Dragon who Sided with one one of the divines against his own kind and works to suppress his heritage and live a decent life or you have a bunch of cosplaying rejects worshipping an army sent to conquer Tamrial and enslave its people........Hmmm. Akaviri were invaders. Blank them!

Besides it was mostly Delphine driving this and the very fact that she tried to dictate terms to the dragonborn. "Until you kill him, we will withhold our aid"....Okie fine. You and old man Winter there have not really been what I would term Helpful. I love how you helped block my shot into that Forsworn's Head. But yeah withhold your help

OOOOOHHHHHHH. Don't even get me started on Blades.

Now I want more of a choice of dealing people who literally impede my progress to a goal....Say Like Ulfric or Tullius and that Cease fire. (Mostly Ulfric, Like to see that Thuum stuff you tried on Toryg)

Anyway.

It just didn't mean anything. It's like whether I want to wear the blue pants or the green pants. As far as what Bethesda could have done, that's their problem not mine. They want my idea they can pay me for them and I'll put some effort into it.

I can steal a sweet roll and everyone seems to know about it. Save the world and no one cares ... and why should they? There are still dragons attacking just like always. While I agree the Paarthurmax choice was tough, it just didn't really mean anything, which I hated. Course not much different that when you finished the MQ and still nothing. At least in OB you got a statue and some armor.

I don't really find the Paarthurnax Dilemma all that great. The Blades reasoning is so [censored] illogical it rustles my jimmies. An old coot that lived in a sewer and an undercover bar wench have the audacity to make demands of the Dragonborn to kill a Dragon that helped them stop the apocalypse.

They completely ignore the fact that the Dragonborn can summon up Odahviing at will, a Dragon that was initially aggressive and fighting alongside Alduin, but ultimately bowed down to your will. What about him? No, let's worry about the [censored] dragon on a mountain because we're absolute morons. [censored], are you serious? Not to mention the Thalmor, the guys responsible for destroying most of your order, who are actively sending assassins out to get the Dragonborn, and have strong activity in Skyrim. Nah, dragon on the [censored] mountain is more important boys and girls. [censored] morons.

The order knew about http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Atlas_of_Dragons. Isn't it still a bad time to go [censored]in' around with the Greybeards? I mean come on, the Nords are all hot and buttered that they can't openly worship Talos, and now you want to go instigate a confrontation with the Greybeards? They're held in relatively high regard to the Nords, practically a national symbol. Yeah, real smart Delphine, let's go make more enemies on top of the Thalmor. [censored] moron.

TL;DR Paarthurnax dilemma is an example of writing you should NOT mimic. Also, Delphine is an idiot.

There's also the problem that you can't really speak to either the Blades, Paarthurnax, or the Greybeards about the kill order and why it's dumb. This is a common problem with Bethesda quest lines - they revolve around someone else making decisions, with the player's only choice being 'who do I listen to'. The player is given no agency to forge their own path or to question the wisdom of those who deign to give him quests.

Just out of interest, could you point me to game that does? I'd really like to play it.

As a general rule I've always accepted these kinds of decisions as a limitation of technology. As far as I'm aware there isn't a game on the planet that offers the genuinely unlimited potential for any action to have a reaction, and for the world to act dynamically to that reaction in a meaningful way and for NPC's to offer such huge amounts of dynamic dialogue (certainly not voiced). It's just a design and development nightmare. The problem becomes exponential. It's the reason Mass Effect "failed" in some people's eyes because they expected every random person they met to have an affect at the endgame, which is both a) factoring in hundreds of variables with thousands of outcomes, and illogical to start with as 90% of the people you deal with really wouldn't have the weight to make a blind bit of difference. Of course each person did have knock on consequences based on your decisions that were revealed in news articles, war assets, cameos, etc, but it seems most players either didn't notice that, or just went "not good enough".

Now that's not to say I wouldn't like to see it. Of course I would. But realistically I cannot see choices and consequences extending beyond the realm of canned binaries any time soon.

In New Vegas, Cassandra Moore orders you to murder the Brotherhood of Steel. You can ignore her and ally them with the NCR instead. Heck, there's a whole ending about the player forging their own path.

But again it's very much a "who do I listen to" situation. It's a binary choice, as are the endings. New Vegas certainly does a better job than most, but it still doesn't allow the true freedom requested, even if it does do world reactions very well. The only difference in your example compared to Paarthurnax is that the BOS didn't ask you to kill Cassandra Moore.

I think Skyrim is the last game to take notes from when it comes to making choices in a moral dilemma situation.

The problem isn't 'there are a limited number of choices' - that's a requirement of game design. The number of choices may be a problem, but the fact that there are only a finite number isn't.

The problem I was referring to in regards to Paarthurnax is that the player character doesn't make any decision other than 'who do I listen to' - they make no plans, they have no input into the decision, etc. Games like The Last of Us avoid that dilemma entirely by giving the player character an actual personality and free will (though the player may not have entirely free will).

Other role-playing games allow the player character to actually provide input into the decision-making process, even if the final choices are decided ahead of time. GTA5 is a good example of handling this sort of thing well with its heist missions - there are only a limited number of ways to actually approach each heist, but the player makes choices that impact those ways and the player characters come up with the plans themselves rather than making the PC an idiot who can't think their way out of a paper bag like all Bethesda PCs ever.

Well sure, Bethesda could certainly take a leaf from Rockstar's book. I can't ever argue against GTAV's achievements and it's raising the bar in many areas. The heist system was still very binary though, it just had a more dramatic "this or that" differentiation which is certainly a good thing thing from a player perspective. I will agree that the setup missions did help you believe you knew what you were doing. It would be nice to see this a little more in Bethesda games (setting up your own contacts for example, rather than having Delphine hand one to you).

Regarding Paarthurnax again I don't think they really presented it that badly. The Blades want him dead and have their reasons, the Greybeards don't and have their reasons. These are long standing, deeply rooted opinions for each faction. there's not really much the Dragonborn could do in that situation except do what one asks. I think it would be cheap to actually make it so the Dragonborn could change those opinions. Fact is Bethesda already offers many choices on a regular basis, it's just that they don't make such wildly varying outcomes (within reason sometimes) as we would like to see either during (like GTAV) or after the fact.

Another thing to remember though when comparing to GTAV is that those heists didn't have an impact on the world as a lot of people are asking of Bethesda. You set up the mission, rob whatever it is, and then run away again. Afterwards your bank balance has grown and there's a few news reports, that's it. In that respect it's no better than Bethesda's current offerings.

I didn't think it was a hard choice at all.

I liked Paarthurnax, so nope, never killed him once. I also liked the Greybeards. But who I liked aside, know what Paarthurnax and the Greybeards were during the main quest? Useful. Know what the Blades were not? Useful. Seriously, at what point did the Blades actually help you, ever? What did you learn from them that was critical to defeating Alduin? "We'll need a shout to defeat Alduin!" Well, great detective work there. No, seriously, I would never have guessed that one, Mr. Blade. I hope you're well paid, considering this breathtaking insight you and [censored]y Mc[censored]alot add to my life. This is almost as useful as that time Delphine sent me on a busywork mission because she's paranoid about the Thalmor that turned out to provide nothing

Besides the fact it led you to Esbern, who led you to Sky Haven, which gave you the knowledge of the existence of the Dragonrend shout, which in turn allowed you to force the Greybeards to cough up the clear skies shout, which let you reach Paarthurnax, who put you on the path to the Elder Scroll, which let you learn the dragonrend shout needed to beat Alduin.

Without The Blades, the Dragonborn would have never been able to defeat Alduin, because the Greybeards are idiots who care more about "but DAT SHOUT IS LE EVIL!" then saving the world, and deliberately without the existence of the shout until you and The Blades found out it existed at Sky Haven, and then turned around and rubbed their faces in it. Hell, Arngeir even pulled the idiotic "well have you ever considered that maybe the world should end!" card because he is that ass blasted about the supposed "evil" of the shout.

The Greybeards, and Arngeir in particular, are colossal morons. So much that they make the massively paranoid Delphine look sane by comparison. The only thing of note that they did during the MQ was teach you a few shouts you could have otherwise learned from word walls. Besides that, all they did was hinder your ass at every step of the way. The Blades and Paarthurnax actually tried to help you, The Greybeards would rather let the world die because "maybe its supposed to!"

The effects don't have to be always earth shattering. Like others said, it really depends on the situation.

Killing the ruler of a city in open daylight with several witness? That should have a serious effect. But killing a character hardly anyone knows and which effects only one or two secretive societies? That should not really bother anyone. So it made sense with the blades and the greybeards.

Point is that what is meaningless or not depends completely on the situation and writing. I feel that this was not intended with Paarthurnax and maybe I interpret to much into it. But the way how the effects feel subtle is either excellent writing or a nice accident - that should be rather a rule rather than the exception. You can still have very big consequences later, like said, it depends on the narrative and situation.

What's really Important though is that it is one of the few situation that are really not about morale, good vs. evil or what ever, but just different motivations and you as player have to decide which one to follow.

Maybe for you it was not a decision. Yet, here we are, talking about it! I respect your reasoning and I personally follow much of your points but I counter it with the fact that the Blades have reasons rooted in history and recent events of Dragons returning to pretty much destroy the world.

When you combine the atrocities together with the fact that almost every Dragon you face is "bad" it really doesn't take much to understand where the Blades are coming from. If I remember correctly Delphine even makes a comment about that, saying that Paarthurnax betrayed his own kind which makes him already untrustworthy in her eyes. That's what I mean you have two sides and they are both understandable in their motivations. No one's saying that you have to accept Delphines position, because we should not forget what the Blades are.

It is very comparable with the situation of war criminals and characters which committed genocide. Even if they have a change of heart in the future, it will eventually not pacify those who seek either justice or even revenge. Even if those crimes are like 60 years old by now. And if you consider how severe the crimes have been, can you really blame them for their thinking?

Like I said, there are decent arguments for both sides. There is no hammfisted moral compass to follow and that is the beauty of it, of course the quest can not be taken directly out of Skyrim and thrown in to Fallout 4. But the fact that it is more about arguments and motivations rather than, those guys are simply evil! Kill them all! Is what should be a guideline for most of the factions and writting.

New Vegas has shown that it can work. The rest is just how much characters have to say and how much of a backstory they have.

Ive always hated what they made of the blades. It had been a cool faction in morrowind, and they were again in oblivion, but Josephine and Egbert (i think he was named) were not blades, they were bitter people trying to re-enact a dead order. The arogant way they helt themselves just made me say ok i cut ties then and have a nice day going extinct again. What i like about the quest thought, is that neither option is overly good or evil, wether you kill paarthunaax or not.

But on the other end those greybeards were just a bunch of seniel old man stuck in centries old tradition who "also" acted all arogant and such, feeling like the world was beneath them and such.

So in the end, i would have burned both bridges then and there.

I totally get the whole Dragons are bad thing. In fact I just completed Shadowrun Returns Dragonfall where I came down on the other side of this same situation. I just think Delephine's vehemence was out of place. She just didn't seem the proper source for this level of hatred. She was an operative who didn't even believe in dragons, never dealt with dragons, likely didn't know one person who had been killed by dragons. She had a Thelmor level of Hatred for dragons that seemed out of place. When I first encountered it I was like. "Woah, where is this coming from". Now if it had been the old guy (Name escapes me) who had lived and breathed the lore and been the one crying that they were coming, I would get it. But Delephine had nobody to avenge. She had no personal stake in it. Why wasn't she crying for me to kill anyone of the other dragons, I mean there was one living within eyesight of skyhaven temple (or whatever its called). I mean flying in our view as we talked about it out on the veranda. But I guess, since that was obviously not a more immediate threat than a pacifistic dragon miles away.....

You get where I am going with this right.....It's a made up situation, meant to add drama that has no actual reason or effect on anything at all....from a bitter old woman who also doesn't matter at all. Fortunately the mod allows us to explain that to her!

I can't claim to speak for everyone. But I don't think anyone will complain if in future games. We are allowed more choice in how we respond to these types of situations. Even a response to her demands with a sarcastic "Okie Fine buh bye now" would have been sufficient. A dismissive response with absolutely no regard for her as a factor in anything at all. That's all I am asking for.

But on the technical side of things, Writing dialogue is a major hassle and you will never please everyone/anyone because we are all different with different attitudes. This quest (as implemented) however didn't even really try in my opinion.