Here's an idea

[Sacrifyx]

So I was thinking...I haven't seen one of these, so I was thinking of a mod that gives a short, basic questline BEFORE the game starts, one where we find what lands your player in jail in the first place. I was thinking of something involving a conflict with Valen Dreth that lands you both in there (giving a reason as to why he talks so much smack in the beginning), but after playing thru the Dark Brotherhood quest where he gets killed, I overheard him say that he had been in prison for 11 years so that wouldn't work. Plus, I don't know if his reaction to the PC is different depending on the race as I almost exclusively play imperials except for one time that I played a redguard. Anyhow, I was thinking about something along these lines:

 

Player character starts out employed by the Dark Brotherhood, maybe as a private assassin for one of the "fingers" as you become later for Lucien Lachance. This will avoid the need for voice dialogue as the quests can come from dead drops scattered here and there. Being that the PC has presumably worked hard to get to the level in the Brotherhood that they are at, starting stats would need to be set a bit high to reflect the work that went into attaining that rank, and the quests that are undertaken should reflect the PC's high level of abilities. After a challenging quest or three for them, maybe the PC gets sent on a mission to kill a high ranking imperial wizard of some sort (maybe the imperial battlemage, her name escapes me at the moment) This fight will of course be an impossible one to win, and will result in the PC being blasted by some spell that knocks him out cold and wipes his memory. The imperial battlemage I feel would be a good choice since she is, as a matter of course, quite powerful and as an imperial agent would be interested enough in the pursuit of justice to summon the guards and have the PC arrested. The spell the PC will be hit with is a good excuse for PC not knowing why he's in jail and having lost any skill gains you might have gotten from playing through the quests. This will make it easier since if I'm not mistaken your skills are reset to normal anyways once you choose your class and what not. If anyone out there has the modding experience (I have NONE) to make this happen and might be interested in trying please do...and I'll be happy to playtest and provide any other assistance I can.

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Seems like an interesting concept, but it doesn't terribly make sense for good-aligned characters to have started that way. And that nobody in the Dark Brotherhood would recognize you when you "rejoined." (You need to mingle with everyone else before silencer status) Furthermore, a few of Valen Dreth's "Ooo, the AI in this game can tell what race I picked" dialogues wouldn't really make sense, but you already mentioned another reason against that one. Also, amnesia (going by real life, for what little that's worth) in fact doesn't impair any skills you might have had beforehand.

 

There's actually been some talk of something similar before, and I would still like to see it done, but I just have way too many projects in the queue at the moment, and the line seems to be getting larger rather than smaller.

[Sacrifyx]

Agreed, for good aligned characters it might not be such a great start, but perhaps the whole amnesia thing can be reworked a bit...remember the whole forgetful thing is caused by a spell, so really it only need be known that the spell caused a complete loss of long term memory and abilities. As far as the dark brotherhood is concerned, in the game you are only really involved with the cheydinhal sanctuary and its denizens, and have no contact with any other members other than as Lachance's silencer when you're doing the killing, so it is conceivable that the dark brotherhood operates in "cells," similar to the way terrorists operate, autonomously and anonymously from the others, and one group is unaware of the members of the others...there is also no indication that Lucien Lachance would be aware of the PC's past, but it's definitely a loose end that needs some tightening up before I get to work on the story. There is a mention of one of the black hand looking for a replacement for his silencer that had failed a contract and the traitor was taking that spot, so perhaps the PC could be the lost silencer for that member...it could be worked in. And the loss of memory would be a good way for good aligned characters to turn over a new leaf, so to speak, and continue their game in whatever way they want.

I'm going to read up on making quests and what not in the CS, but can anyone give me an estimation on how difficult it might be to put something like this together? No new meshes, cells, textures or anything like that, everything necessary to do it is already present in vanilla oblivion, just some questy stuff...Thanks!

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But there is no other sanctuary in Cyrodiil... It's all an elaborate lie spread by the higher-ups (that no-one thinks to tell you, apparantly) to boost the Dark Brotherhood's morale. :P

Or, if you just moved the player from interior cell to interior cell as the plot continued (and made you unable to leave by the way you came in) linear action-game style, (Which also seems like the only reasonable way to stop the player going off on other quests) you could just say you were working in a different province until then.

 

The quest would be work, and quite a bit of experience, I'm afraid. And it would require you re-writing the game's start method. (Though I suppose that's a given) If you wanted the past-self to have magic, you'd need to give him unique spells that can technically be used by novices, since there's no real reliable way of giving the perks and then dropping it back to zero. He would also need to technically be level 1. You could probably accomplish the existing stats with a lot of 'past-experience' fortify effects on the player, removed once the standard game starts.

[Sacrifyx]

One of the bumpers when you're entering the cheydinhal sanctuary says that it is only one of many sanctuaries spread throughout Cyrodiil. Never seen another one personally, so who can say? Also, Lachance said he oversees the group in that sanctuary, and as there are other members of the black hand it is fair to assume that they oversee other sanctuaries around the province. Also, the player won't actually be involved with any of the sanctuaries, or even any of the speakers. He will simply run around the world and pick up his quests from dead drops all around the province, just as you would when you become Lachance's silencer. A lot of presumption, I know, but hey...it will make it alot easier on the story, if I ever get around to it. Now, what I was thinking as far as the players abilities go (don't wanna get in to rewriting the games start method atm, I know it's gonna suck), I was thinking there must be a way to make the player start at a reasonably high level and have spells and abilities commensurate with that level. However, I don't wanna bypass the actual start, just hold it off for a bit, so that once the final quest has been completed (or failed, depending on how you want to look at it) the game will start as it normally would with a level 0 character. Now, as far as the player going off on other quests while in the midst of this opening one...I dunno, again with no experience with the CS, I have to assume (correct me if I'm wrong) that there would be a way to disable any quests until this one is completed and the game has started as per usual...jeepers, I'm thinking it would probably involve editing each quest-giver manually...ehh...maybe forcing the player from interior to interior would be the easiest way...I need a day off so I can get my learn on.

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Sadly, yes, it would require disabling every quest individually, and even then wouldn't work with modded-in quests. Also, while there's no real way to level-down, what you can do is add a ton of fortify effects to the player (boosted Health, Magicka, Attributes, and any assassin-y skills.) before being thrown in prison, as well as (if mage-ish) a few low-level "high-level" spells. (If that makes any sense). I was joking about the other Sanctuaries, and even then you could probably just be speaking with one of the speakers in his fort-getaway Lucien-style, which might intrude on the game less.

[Sacrifyx]

Eh...sounds like I have my work cut out for me. I actually didn't plan on having the player interact with any characters, speakers or otherwise. That's why I thought of the Brotherhood angle, since it would allow the interaction with the speaker through the dead drop orders, this avoids the complications of who should know who and why they don't know who later on in the game and so forth. It also means I don't have to worry about PC/NPC dialogues with subtitles and no voice over, I hate that personally though I understand why it is necessary in some modded quests. Of course, I could do the voice over work myself, but ah...no. I think it would start with a brief written story detailing the player's lot in life and from there go immediately to a dead drop to start a quest. If I made the story lengthy enough, I could even do it with just the one quest that results in the battlemage opening a can of magic whoop ass on the player...

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Or you could start out on the assassination mission in question, in the palace, and handle the backstory using the quest-update logs. That seems like the quickest and easiest way.

[Sacrifyx]

Yeah, that's kind of what I had in mind...now to figure out how to rewrite the game start method...eek.

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You might look at the code of Alternate Start, Modular Oblivion Enchanced's Main Quest Delayer, and Alternative Start-Arrive By Ship. I would imagine the Main Quest Delayer is the one that would be most accurate to what you're trying to do, since it still moves you to the Imperial Prison and starts the Main Quest normally, eventually.