Worst writing in the game?

[Wveth]

Sorry I always get Falskaar and Wyrmstooth mixed up.

 

That makes a lot more sense. Wyrmstooth was decent.

[Lachdonin]

I don't think of the Thieves Guild as a group of thieves though. It's basically a thugocracy protected by Maven Blackbriar, who later becomes Jarl of Riften and spreads her corruption throughout the hold. This is a group who takes an otherwise gorgeous village and sullies it with their extortion racket where members victimize hardworking and honest townspeople and then try and get you to conspire to be a bully and threaten violence and damage of their most sacred possessions.

 

I think it's a major flaw in the game not being able to oppose that level of evil and utterly burn every last thief in the village.

That's an inherently simplistic view of thieves though, and it's simplicity which leads to bad writing. Thieves aren't just shadowy second-story-men who steal priceless paintings ans then chortle about it with their classy friends at the local cigar club.

 

They're pick pockets, muggers, extortionists, bank robbers, embezzlers and even businessmen. Their only real commonality is money and a tendency for liking the shadows. Even then, they run the gamut from impoverished necessity to thrill seeking fun to being raised in the life.

 

Is Skyrims guild dirty? Yes. Does the city suffer for it? Yes. But it's CRIME, it SHOULD be dirty, corrupt and underhanded, and the city SHOULD suffer for it. Skyrims guild more makes sense, it covers more thief-archetypes, and it it's handled like an actual criminal organization.

[vram1974]

I think Riften's thieves guild would be more palatable if they were more subtle about it. But they're right there in the open about it, flaunting their extortion for all to see. I mean, you walk into a shakedown in progress of the stable boy as you walk in. Who shakes down a stable boy? What does he make, a septim a week?

 

The Thieves guild isn't terrible, it just needed some tweaking.

[Kestrellius]

You really should have had some options with the TG. Do it like vanilla, tell Nocturnal to screw off and kill Mercer on your own, just blow up the entire place, reform the Guild somewhat into more of a personal spy organization...

[BigBizkit]

I think the TG is sorta alright until Karliah shows up... "the three of us must pledge our souls to a daedric prince so that we can defeat one guy". Yeah, right.

 

It is obvious that Skyrim offers a LOT of quest variety, but for the cost of less depth. That is to be expected and all in all the balance is there. There are just some occasions where it feels like the lack of the alternative route is a gaping whole.

[117649AR]

The entire premise of the "new" Dark Brotherhood. In Morrowind, the Dark Brotherhood were a group that splintered from the Morag Tong because they wanted to kill for coin without the restrictions of the Tong's strict codes of conduct, traditions, and religious undertones: they were mercenaries who would take contracts the Tong refused and kill each other if it meant a little more coin.

 

Come Oblivion and Skyrim, they're a stereotypical and simplistic murder cult that dabbles in nihilism and worships "Sithis" because it's "much more evil" than any of the Daedra Lords. It lacks any real sophistication, and seems to only be meant to appeal due to its "edginess".

[MidbossVyers]

The entire premise of the "new" Dark Brotherhood. In Morrowind, the Dark Brotherhood were a group that splintered from the Morag Tong because they wanted to kill for coin without the restrictions of the Tong's strict codes of conduct, traditions, and religious undertones: they were mercenaries who would take contracts the Tong refused and kill each other if it meant a little more coin.

 

Come Oblivion and Skyrim, they're a stereotypical and simplistic murder cult that dabbles in nihilism and worships "Sithis" because it's "much more evil" than any of the Daedra Lords. It lacks any real sophistication, and seems to only be meant to appeal due to its "edginess".

Yes, but see what happened to Astrid when she tried to turn the Brotherhood into the mercenary group that you described?

[Lachdonin]

Yes, but see what happened to Astrid when she tried to turn the Brotherhood into the mercenary group that you described?

It was pinned as struggling because 'reasons' and shoehorned back into the spooky death cult on the flimsiest of premises? That's some grade A writing right there.

[kimmera]

The entire premise of the "new" Dark Brotherhood. In Morrowind, the Dark Brotherhood were a group that splintered from the Morag Tong because they wanted to kill for coin without the restrictions of the Tong's strict codes of conduct, traditions, and religious undertones: they were mercenaries who would take contracts the Tong refused and kill each other if it meant a little more coin.

 

Come Oblivion and Skyrim, they're a stereotypical and simplistic murder cult that dabbles in nihilism and worships "Sithis" because it's "much more evil" than any of the Daedra Lords. It lacks any real sophistication, and seems to only be meant to appeal due to its "edginess".

 

Just to play devil's advocate here, I am not sure that a 'kill for profit' organization is that much more complex than a 'kill for profit in the name of a Daedra' organization.

 

These are assassins guilds. How many different types of motivation can they have? The Dark Brotherhood were unjoinable in Morrowwind weren't they? How much do we know about them from that era?

 

 

Furthermore, these guilds are at best splinter groups, particularly after the diminishment of the Empire. In the case of the Thieve's guilds there is no evidence that regional guilds were ever linked at all.

 

Of course the silliest aspect of the official history is that many PC's end up in charge of multiple such guilds, and exceedingly powerful on top of that..... so lore has to assume no pc's were involved in history, that the Nerevarine didn't actually end up in any significant positions in any guilds (and that includes the blades), that the Hero of Kvatch similarly rose to no prominent positions or at least wasn't as good in them as he or she was at ending the Oblivion Crisis, nor did either have any meaningful influence whatsoever in preserving the Empire or doing anything at all noteworthy other than the bare minimum needed to save the world.

 

There is also the MAJOR continuity issue with the thieve's guild plot in that in prior ages, the skeleton key was either in the hands of a Thieves' Guild Leader nowhere near Skyrim (Morrowwind) or actually given to a mortal by Nocturnal (Oblivion) and the world didn't all unravel nor Nocturnal's power within it. Nor does the explanation that this is the reason for the thieves' guild lack of success make any sense since the Dragonborn has no problems whatsoever. And in fact it is implied that other thieves are still doing work for the guild as well.

 

I understand that they are a greedy bunch, but if the Dragonborn is the only one having success even with minor heists, then why aren't they more impressed with the DB? And if money has been coming in, why hasn't the empty vault been discovered empty sooner? Don't they make regular deposits to their stash? If there isn't enough coming in, then don't they at least make some withdrawals? And why, exactly are the other officers not out trying their hand?

 

 

It isn't a conventional thieves' guild so much as a welfare program.....

[117649AR]

 

The entire premise of the "new" Dark Brotherhood. In Morrowind, the Dark Brotherhood were a group that splintered from the Morag Tong because they wanted to kill for coin without the restrictions of the Tong's strict codes of conduct, traditions, and religious undertones: they were mercenaries who would take contracts the Tong refused and kill each other if it meant a little more coin.

 

Come Oblivion and Skyrim, they're a stereotypical and simplistic murder cult that dabbles in nihilism and worships "Sithis" because it's "much more evil" than any of the Daedra Lords. It lacks any real sophistication, and seems to only be meant to appeal due to its "edginess".

 

Just to play devil's advocate here, I am not sure that a 'kill for profit' organization is that much more complex than a 'kill for profit in the name of a Daedra' organization.

 

These are assassins guilds. How many different types of motivation can they have? The Dark Brotherhood were unjoinable in Morrowwind weren't they? How much do we know about them from that era?

 

The issue arises mostly from the fact that Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood literally changed everything about the organization save the fact that they were assassins who splintered from the Morag Tong: virtually no lore explanation given as to why or how this change occurred, and the entire premise of the Dark Brotherhood's religious veneration of "Sithis" is flawed in and of itself. Further, their lore is plainly uninteresting: the Morag Tong had a complex history, a role in Dunmeri culture and the Dunmeri political system, and a set of traditions and code of conduct derived from their particular veneration of one of the three "Good Daedra", Mephala. The Dark Brotherhood by contrast does what it does... why? There is no very well-put explanation as to why they operate as they do in Oblivion and Skyrim, and their entire mythology is one of the few in the setting that can be said with fair certainty to be false. The Dark Brotherhood was originally conceived as a foil to the Morag Tong: they highlighted the fact that for all its unsavory business, the Morag Tong still had standards, tradition, and a code, and for this reason played the important part that it did in Dunmeri society. They were never meant to be a particularly significant faction in and of themselves, only a plot device and a point of comparison to the Tong.