Why on nirn would a "truly good" guy join the DB anyway?

He wouldn't, that is exactly my point. If you are evil, you get a well-developed quest line. If you are good, you get squat. It is imbalanced.

So to have a game to play other than the main quest.

I wouldn't call a rip-off of the Oblivion questline 'well-developed'.

I think Skyrim is just honest about the fact that almost all players are motivated by personal gain of wealth and/or power which is in the old D&D world Neutral Evil. Many games give the best rewards for doing "good deeds" so the way to get the most wealth and power - acting Neutral Evil - is to save the world and act nice. Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age had situations where acting good actually made you less powerful.

I like the refreshing fact that Skyrim does not make you pretend to be good in order to get the most power, it lets you be Neutral evil without judging you or making you game the system.

It doesn't let you be evil, it forces you like it or not. Even the civil war side quest forces

which is hardly in character for, say, a Paladin.

I felt more like a thug in the TG than a skilled thief and didn't care much about leaping into the Nightingale part.

And having to become a werewolf in the Companions I hate. An option not to or maybe using the Ring of Hircine quest as a method of becoming a werewolf would have been better.

The only saving grace about the werewolf thing in Fighters is that you can undo it easily. I did.

Thieves guild in Morrowind ftw!

Every one since.. thumbs down!

And snow d0es not equal dirt!!!!!

I lived in the snowy mountains for years..

-smh-

Dirt is NOT a cosmetic!

No it doesn't.

It gives you the choice to do so. You can turn it down.

The quest ends at that point. Like I and others said earlier on, if you don't do evil acts, you only get to play 10% of the game.

Y'know, I don't think I've asked before, but I guess now's a good time. Excluding the quests that are meant to be for "evil" characters(Dark Brotherhood, the majority of the Daedric Quests--a lot of which have alternate ways of completing for "good' characters), what quests force you to be evil? The only one I can possibly think of is Destroying the Dark Brotherhood, which involves murdering an old woman (sure she's a horrible person but murdering her is a bit much especially since you have no idea it'll lead to destroying the DB).

I would prefer the thieves guild to the thugs guild. Instead of thieves we got the mafia.

Granted the guilds did basically force you into doing things you didn't want to do (becoming a werewolf, selling your soul to a daedra, etc.) Skyrim *is* supposed to be dark. That's the point. The setting is 200 years after the fall of the Septim dynasty, 30 years after a horrific war with the Thalmor. Skyrim is in a civil war and now dragons are attacking for the first time in thousands of years. There's nothing really happy about any of that. Oblivion was 'sunny/happy' because it was at the peak of the Empire, there was relative peace and prosperity and it was all before everything went to hell. It was the calm before the storm.

I will admit that I was surprised how dark what I thought would be a heroic questline (Dragonborn) revealed itself to be. Consorting with Jabba the Hutt made my elf feel like she desperately needed a bath and, when asked to betray her friends the Skaal, she aborted the questline and sailed back to Skyrim never to return to Solstheim. To say I was disappointed in the Dragonborn DLC is a massive understatement.

The Thieves Guild being lowlifes is what they were in Daggerfall and Morrowind. In Morrowind we saw thieves who were smugglers, they couldn't extend their business to shaking down businesses because the Camonna Tong. Oblivion is the one game where the thieves were robin hood complex idiots. Skyrim is being true to the TRUE nature of the Thieves Guild, a actual crime organization.

Oh, why can't you be a good char in times of evil? Wouldn't that be possible? All some of us are asking for is a good or bad path in each quest. It can even be a compromise where, say, the DB quest includes solid good justifications for the people you are contracted to croak.

Instead of, "Go kill the beggar in Rifton" how about "There is person in Rifton now who poses as a beggar. He is a child molester escaped from justice in ______. He thinks he's free an clear. We have a contract to serve this man the justice he deserves.'

How tough would that be?

Because the Dark Brotherhood aren't law-abiding assassins. They aren't assassins for justice, they aren't good guys, they are a literal death cult assassin organization. The problem isn't skyrim is too dark, the problem was that Oblivion was too cheery and goody-two shoes. Skyrim is just returning to "You will be forced to do things you don't fully agree with" just like Daggerfall and Morrowind.

I have never played a Neutral Evil character ever, and I don't think that what you state here is true. You really have no way of knowing what "almost all players" are motivated by. You may have your own preferences, but that hardly translates into the kind of global claim you are making here. Many different kinds of people play games for many different kinds of interests.

For me, there is nothing "refreshing" at all about having to play an evil character in order to progress. Nor is there anything more 'real' about the evil preference over the good one. If you enjoy playing evil characters, that is your prerogative. Those of us who do not enjoy that path should not have to follow it in order to get an equal amount of game content to play.

In short, the Dark Brotherhood is a gang of killers. Their entire gig is 'murder for gold and the Dread Father'. Yes, maybe some of the victims could be scums, but as it was made painfully clear in Oblivion, they are paid to murder someone. It doesn't matter if that someone is a kindly old lady with a shopping list or a man accused of sixual assault. You can make up your own reasons for why the victim must die, but don't make the assumption that the Dark Brotherhood is somehow a bastion of 'lawful killers killing the unlawful'.

If you join that guild, you do so knowing your character will be killing a lot of people for no other reason than money. If you join the Thieves' Guild, you do so knowing that you will be stealing other people's things for profit. They are not the guilds for people who want to play 'good' characters.

Granted, there should've been alternate questlines to destroy/dismantle the Dark Brotherhood/Thieves' Guild for the good characters who would want to see them end. A 'good' character should not have to be forced to murder an (albeit cruel) old lady just so he/she can then go destroy the Dark Brotherhood. There should be paths to the same goal that doesn't require evil acts.

I'll ask again, when are you forced to be evil? You're tricked into doing icky things, but not necessarily forced into evil.

I need examples so I know where this is coming from.

(Has spoilers) Here are a few right off the bat: The DB destroy, which you have to start off by killing the old lady. The Thieves Guild, in which you have to commit your soul to a Daedra to complete. The Molag Bal house, in which you go into a house with the intent to help a good guy, then you have to kill that good guy just to get out of the house. Similarly, the Namira quest you go into the tombs with the good intent to help, and then have to deal with Namira now running a cult of canniblas. Even rejecting the invitation and killing the nut-job in there, you are still regarded as being a cannibal-chosen of Namira ever thereafter. Likewise Hermaeus Mora, even if you reject him, still considers you his pet that he will turn to him. The Companions, in which you have to become a werewolf in order to progress (including at least one night of feeding frenzy). The civil war quests, though you don't have to be outright evil in them, are basically a choice between whichever you consider the lesser of two evils, since neither side is really very good, and both seem to be Thalmor fodderanyway. And if you want to keep up with the Blades, you have to kill Paarthurnax.

Now, you don't have to complete all these quests. And you don't have to do the DB storyline either. But if you don't, you run out of quests pretty quickly. I mean, you don't have to play the game either, really. But if you want to play the game, there is not much chance to play for very long on the good side, and not certainly without being tainted. After a while of playing, your character seems to get slimed with all kinds of nastiness. Nearly impossible to play a Paladin-type character; and pretty hard even to play Neutral-Good or Chaotic-Good, for any length of time.

I am inclined to agree with you on this point, I must admit. It is really hard to justify a good character going into the DB. The DB is a Sithis-worshiping bunch of killers. So, trying to play a good character and be in the DB is a little bit of "bad faith", of denial. There is not much of a way around that. Maybe a little more wiggle-room in the old Morag Tong of Morrowind; but with the DB it is a pretty hard bit of psychological juggling to fit a good character in there.

And, like you said, I think the way to make it more balanced, is to have better developed quest-lines for players who want to choose the good side, both in the Thieves Guild (for those of us who liked the Robin Hood thing in Oblivion) and in destroying the DB.

Wouldn't a "chaotic-good" character be ok with beating Grelod to death considering she shackles and beats poor orphaned children? That's justice to a chaotic-good person who follows their own rules of righteousness. (which is what the title implies)
Killing the DB after is right in line with that same smiting of the wicked in the world. Killing a cannibal that attempts to kill you after rejecting her is also acceptable imo.
Becoming a werewolf isn't really "evil" as you don't kill anyone after the initial transformation if you simply run for the gate like a beast trying to get free. You can later cure yourself and save your soul from Hircine as you do for Kodlak. I see the shared blood thing being the ultimate level of being a brother/sister as you literaly share the same blood...this is why I think they tie it to the upper levels of the Companions as you have to be bound in blood to become a true brother/sister; your soul can be saved after making the blood pact so no worries about your chaotic goodness.

There is a door in the cave under the skyforge that leads to outside of the city, I'm surprised not everyone knows about it as it's not hard to see.