A few requests/ideas regarding followers...

[VikingPrince]

JUST TO BE COMPLETELY CLEAR, I UNDERSTAND THIS IS NOT A MOD REQUEST FORUM, AND SO THIS IS NOT A MOD REQUEST POST AS SUCH.

I'm not making a specific mod request here, I'm just posting about the general aesthetic of the game and a trend I see in certain mods.

 

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So last night I scanned through the Nexus looking at followers. I wanted some warriors, Nordic warriors, Conan-types, an orc or two, Reguards, whatever. I've got Ultimate Follower Overhaul and ASIS both running, I figure I might see large numbers of baddies, best to have a large party. And the core, the front line of every party is the warriors, right? So I figured I'd go find a mix of warriors - sword and board, dual-wielders, two-handed types, lotta different hulking brutes to stick an axe in the face of my enemies. Something out of a Conan movie, or a Frazetta painting.

 

And yet they just aren't there, largely.

 

Just scanning through the followers, I estimate that male followers might be something like 5% of the total - maybe. The rest are women.

 

And a lot of the women aren't really a viable choice for anybody wanting to immerse themselves in the feel of the game, that barbarian-fantasy-art kinda Frazetta/Conan kinda thing. Some fit in with that, but I'd say a good half of them don't even fit the "scantily clad warrior woman" kinda mold. They look more like they're modeling for a Frederick's of Hollywood catalog, or working a street corner.

 

Now, I don't care what people do. People are entitled to make whatever mod they want within the game's ToS, and frankly I think Bethesda is doing the right thing by not dictating what people can and cannot release as mods. I guess they are stricter about the stuff released on Steam, and for the consoles, but the Nexus has always been right to not censor the mods people make. If people wanna make a mod where everybody in the whole game is nude all the time, fine by me. I don't have to use it, I don't think the Nexus should censor it, and I don't think Bethesda should try to censor it. People should make what they want to make.

 

But my problem is this: I like the aesthetic of Skyrim. I like the fact that there are more realistic Viking mods out there, adding more real-world Viking armors, weapons, and clothes to the game. I also like that there's plenty of mods that work more in the vein of the Viking Revival kind of thing, with the horned helmets and all and the Frazetta/Conan type fantasy type stuff. My issue is that it's damned hard to find followers that fit in that style, which is the original style of the game.

 

If you want to find anime followers, they're all over. Want teenage girl followers? They're there, and I'm sure you can find a Catholic Schoolgirl uniform to fit them. Want a goth vampire in something that looks like a dominatrix's outfit? All over the place. Need a girl wearing Daisy Dukes and a belly shirt, that looks like she could live next door? She's there. Looking for a blond-haired angel-girl complete with wings and wearing pasties and a thong, or maybe just a smile? EVERYWHERE.

 

Want a chick that looks like a Valkyrie, beautiful but not covered in makeup like she's going to the prom? Probably out of luck. Want a chick reminiscent of Red Sonja, or any other fantasy sword-wielding, ass-kicking chick? Also hard to find.

 

And a dude? Extremely rare, The only guy on page one is in a mod that adds two samurai-types (Akaviri?) to the game, one dude and one chick, and so not in the original style of the game. Not bad, for sure; I think it's good to have the occasional element that is obviously foreign to the country and style of the majority of the game. Still, finding male followers is a real chore.

 

Many of the rest of the men have the same problem as too many of the women: they're not just good-looking people, they're pretty. I mean, they aren't just beefy and muscle-bound; that fits with the game's concept and setting. I mean they're pretty. They look like they're really there to model Calvin Klein underwear or something, not swing an axe into an orc's face.

 

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Now, don't get me wrong. I have nothing against sex appeal. I want sex appeal in the game. I get that many of the dudes are gonna be brawny, musclebound, and shirtless. I get that the chicks are often going to be wearing skimpy clothes. I installed the UNPB body and the Swap Hide Armor mod, for crying out loud. Sex appeal is fine. But I'm looking for sex appeal that fits in the style of the game.

 

And frankly, while I like sex appeal, I don't need a party full of five hotties or something. It can kill the immersion if it feels like I'm going in to battle with a cheerleading team at my side. Having a woman follower is fine; having a party of all women just becomes too much to really accept, and feels more like I've assembled a harem rather than an adventuring party. But it's really difficult to find male followers, and too many of the men have the same problem; immaculately brushed hair, carefully trimmed facial stubble - they look like something off the cover of a bodice-ripper, or maybe GQ, not a Conan-esque warrior looking to decapitate the enemy.

 

I found a few. It's just surprising that there were so few of them. I think I picked up two Argonians, one Khajiit, one Orc, and one Dark Elf. I don't remember any Bosmer or Altmer. As for humans, I found one Redguard and I think two Nords. I don't remember seeing any Bretons or Imperials at all, although it's possible I overlooked one or two; I was looking for warriors more than spellcasters.

 

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So, okay, rant portion over. Had to vent a bit.

So what am I asking for, really? Just that maybe somebody take a look at what's available and consider filling a void. Consider the aesthetic of Skyrim, the artistic style that went into its creation. Consider making a follower that looks like he (or she!) could have stepped out of Lord of the Rings, or Game of Thrones, or maybe a Conan movie or novel. It's fine for them to be good-looking, but maybe consider making them look like a good-looking person living in a hard, dangerous world, rather than a good-looking person auditioning for a role in Hollywood. More male followers that look like Jorah Mormont, Aragorn, or Conan, and rather than a surfer. More female followers that look like the Sand Snakes, Red Sonja or Eowyn, rather than a beach bunny or lingerie model.

Look at it this way: hot chicks are a dime a dozen in this game. Consider standing out from the crowd by making a follower that fits in the game so well that everybody says they should have been built into the game from the start by Bethesda. Make a woman that looks like a Valkyrie come to Midgard. Make a woman who looks like a wandering Celtic warrior. Make a hulking Nord warrior. Make them all good-looking people if you want, or make them ugly...just consider making them look like they fit in Skyrim, rather than looking like transplanted prom kings and cheerleaders.

Thank you for reading.

Edited May 6, 2017 by VikingPrince

[Shadeybladey]

Yeah, I never use those sorts of mods, I think they look daft. But they seem to be the most popular, for some reason. I don't want cartoon soft porn in my game at all.

 

I used the original UFO - Ultimate Follower Overhaul by fLokii. you can have 15 followers and there are enough Vanilla followers that were good enough for me. I built a Stronghold with Pocket Empire Builder and left most of them there, and they carried on partying, mining ore, chopping wood etc. I usually took the most Stealthy ones out with me, as I didn't really want a massive warrior stampeding into combat all the time.

 

Mjoll and Jenassa were hysterical. They'd get drunk and one of them would find a gem on the floor,

 

"What have we here?" and the other would say

"I'll just take that!"

Over my dead body!"

"That can be arranged"

 

and they'd start whacking hell out of each other! So I could command them to stop fighting, tell everyone to relax, go off on a quest and come back and Mjoll's making armour and Jenassa's sweeping the porch! LOL! And all my followers would have a ton of wood and ore I could sell off.

 

By the way, actual Viking helmets never had horns.

[VikingPrince]

Yeah, I never use those sorts of mods, I think they look daft. But they seem to be the most popular, for some reason. I don't want cartoon soft porn in my game at all.

 

I used the original UFO - Ultimate Follower Overhaul by fLokii. you can have 15 followers and there are enough Vanilla followers that were good enough for me. I built a Stronghold with Pocket Empire Builder and left most of them there, and they carried on partying, mining ore, chopping wood etc. I usually took the most Stealthy ones out with me, as I didn't really want a massive warrior stampeding into combat all the time.

 

Mjoll and Jenassa were hysterical. They'd get drunk and one of them would find a gem on the floor,

 

"What have we here?" and the other would say

"I'll just take that!"

Over my dead body!"

"That can be arranged"

 

and they'd start whacking hell out of each other! So I could command them to stop fighting, tell everyone to relax, go off on a quest and come back and Mjoll's making armour and Jenassa's sweeping the porch! LOL! And all my followers would have a ton of wood and ore I could sell off.

 

By the way, actual Viking helmets never had horns.

Right, that was a thing from the Viking Revivial in the early 20th century.

[VanKrill]

I don't dispute the observations made in the OP. Agree with 95%.

 

But a few observations.

 

The Audience is demanding the junior high sex silliness because of repression in the real world. Males are not allowed to be "Males" anymore... except in a sword and sorcery video game!

 

So, they let it out here! Where they don't get sent to the school councilor and recieve a three day suspension for it. ( A perm black mark on their potential employment record, I might add)

 

Second, the Steel Bikini thang is largely driven by what has become endemic in our society, Power-Girls Kicking Butt around effeminate, dependent, submissive, clueless, ineffective "Boys". It is thrown at them from every angle, Rework of their comic book Heros into Lesbian Heroines, Star Wars movies with new, female, butt kicking protagonists, Power Puff Girls Cartoon network shows... for many teens and tweens, their whole lives have been saturated with the "Power Girl", "Evil, Inept, or Gay White Males".

 

It has become "Familiar" to them. They feel out of place without it, so they take the original context of the game, and rework it with mods to become the familiar. They probably don't even do it consciously.

 

I've got 5 grand children who are going through the same process ATM. It is disturbing. Understand, I'm not some sort of old guard sexist. My daughter is an Army Officer, because I raised her to become one from a very early age!

 

The problem lies in Realism, Acceptence of the basic biological facts of sexual dymorphism, and differences between suspension of disbelief being spoiled by inaccurate gender role depictions, and the ever present threat of Political Correctness.

 

The reality is, before most combat was done by machines, and chemical propellant driven slugs, Male upper body strength was a definitive addvantage! While there were a few exceptional women who made the tapestries, MOST women in the dark ages tended hearth, home and the wee bairns.

 

But, if Bethesda made a game which accurately reflected the historical record, imagine the outrage!

 

You can take what is given in Skyrim, and carefully mod it to reflect the historical record, but it takes work! And when you're done, most of the mod downloading audience would find the results so foreign to their familiar gender roles of 2016-> America, it would get few downloads.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VYaN6MfRrQ

 

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Edited May 7, 2017 by VanKrill

[VanKrill]

If you want to get an interesting viewpoint on true medeval social gender and sexual mores:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxPEcd6mLlY

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thale_(film)

 

 

The mythology of the Thale or Mountain Troll as a beast hybrid temptress is common in traditional Norse mythology.

 

Norse sexual/gender mores were, not surprizingly Male-Centric and typically depected women (outside of marriage) as hazzards, temptations, and folly.

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Edited May 7, 2017 by VanKrill

[VikingPrince]

I don't dispute the observations made in the OP. Agree with 95%.

 

But a few observations.

 

The Audience is demanding the junior high sex silliness because of repression in the real world. Males are not allowed to be "Males" anymore... except in a sword and sorcery video game!

 

So, they let it out here! Where they don't get sent to the school councilor and recieve a three day suspension for it. ( A perm black mark on their potential employment record, I might add)

 

Second, the Steel Bikini thang is largely driven by what has become endemic in our society, Power-Girls Kicking Butt around effeminate, dependent, submissive, clueless, ineffective "Boys". It is thrown at them from every angle, Rework of their comic book Heros into Lesbian Heroines, Star Wars movies with new, female, butt kicking protagonists, Power Puff Girls Cartoon network shows... for many teens and tweens, their whole lives have been saturated with the "Power Girl", "Evil, Inept, or Gay White Males".

 

It has become "Familiar" to them. They feel out of place without it, so they take the original context of the game, and rework it with mods to become the familiar. They probably don't even do it consciously.

 

I've got 5 grand children who are going through the same process ATM. It is disturbing. Understand, I'm not some sort of old guard sexist. My daughter is an Army Officer, because I raised her to become one from a very early age!

 

The problem lies in Realism, Acceptence of the basic biological facts of sexual dymorphism, and differences between suspension of disbelief being spoiled by inaccurate gender role depictions, and the ever present threat of Political Correctness.

 

The reality is, before most combat was done by machines, and chemical propellant driven slugs, Male upper body strength was a definitive addvantage! While there were a few exceptional women who made the tapestries, MOST women in the dark ages tended hearth, home and the wee bairns.

 

But, if Bethesda made a game which accurately reflected the historical record, imagine the outrage!

 

You can take what is given in Skyrim, and carefully mod it to reflect the historical record, but it takes work! And when you're done, most of the mod downloading audience would find the results so foreign to their familiar gender roles of 2016-> America, it would get few downloads.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VYaN6MfRrQ

 

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I agree to a large extent. It bugs me to see so many women among the guards and soldiers and such. I don't mind female adventurers, even warrior types; adventurers are supposed to be exceptional, and will include deviations from the social norm - but an army should be all-male, really.

 

That said, my problem is not really about there being female followers made by modders, it's about the fact that almost all of them are women. It's not just a bare majority, I'd say something on the order of 95% of the followers are female, if not more. To me it loses the whole uniqueness of a female adventurer. Part of what made Eowyn's killing the Witch King so heroic was that she was a woman disguised as a man so she could fight with the men in a time when this was not done. There should be women fighting in Skyrim - it just shouldn't be the norm, or even close to it.

 

That said, if the women only represented 60% of the follower mods, or even 75%, I wouldn't care, because there's a zillion follower mods, and 40% to 25% of a zillion is still a lot of mods to choose from. When it gets down to only about 5% (maybe less) of the follower mods being men, and a large percentage of those being so prettied up that they don't fit with the tone of the game, it gets really difficult. I didn't go all the way through to the end of the list of follower mods, but I went through a lot of pages, and I really did have a very difficult time finding men in there once I sorted out the ones that looked like they just stepped off a Calvin Klein modeling gig.

 

Another thing I noticed: a large percentage of the followers I did select, I found out they were all hanging out in the Bannered Mare in Whiterun. I mean, I just walk in, and there they are, all walking around the fire in the center of the room. Some of them even work for free, apparently. No fee charged, they aren't mercenaries, but also no explanation as to why they were willing to follow me and fight for me.

 

I dunno, I was thinking about tinkering around with modding, and maybe that's where I should start: follower mods. I don't even have to start with a huge idea, with a custom voiced follower or something, just something simple, that fits in the style of the game, and that isn't just hovering around Whiterun waiting to do my bidding for free for no reason.

[VikingPrince]

If you want to get an interesting viewpoint on true medeval social gender and sexual mores:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxPEcd6mLlY

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thale_(film)

 

 

The mythology of the Thale or Mountain Troll as a beast hybrid temptress is common in traditional Norse mythology.

 

Norse sexual/gender mores were, not surprizingly Male-Centric and typically depected women (outside of marriage) as hazzards, temptations, and folly.

-

 

Sounds similar to stories about changelings, except instead of them replacing people's babies, they hang around in the wild tempting men sexually, like a succubus.

 

But in the end, aren't women hazards, temptations, and folly? They're certainly dangerous at times, they're definitely tempting, and men will definitely dive into folly to get them. :laugh:

 

But they make the world so nice. If it was all men the whole world would smell a little funky, things would only be mostly clean, and we'd all dress like slobs and get too fat for our own good. And we'd be bored as hell.

[VanKrill]

There is another aspect of the Skyrim Fantasy and its audience to consider.

 

I'd be willing to bet that Bethesda has done audience demographic studies and knows who it is writing the games for...

 

I'd bet that the vast majority of the Skyrim purchasing audience is Hetero White Males between the ages of 12 and 32 who are rather nerdish, non-athletic, and socially clumsy, particularly around women.

 

I'm now as OLD as the hills, but I fit that demographic when I first formed an interest in the elder scrolls series of games.

 

Well, our fantasy is to be the strong, big, dexterious, heroic warrior who saves the damsel(s) in distress, and is rewarded with a warm, wet, Kiss and more...

 

Who wants a bunch of other males to compete with our Hero in that scenario?

 

Do you want a campanions who are likely to get half or more of the eager wenchs in the town you save from the evil Grendel Troll?

 

Much better to have those companions end up, after the battle is done, even MORE eager wenchs, who will drink and laugh with you as you go swiving among the townsfolk in the Inn, but also warm your tent on the road to the next adventure.

 

And if those Women Companions also happened to be Bi-Sexual, and don't mind putting on a "Show" to entice you, with that brazen tavern hussy with the golden hair and doe eyes... well then... Life as the Dovahkiin is good!

 

I suspect, at least in the minds eye of the players, most of those Female Companions are Bi-sexual co-conspirators in wenching to the player character. The player likes petite, submissive, eager, tavern wench women, so it is only reasonable that his Amazon Queen Sidekick would too!

 

The same male player would feel kinda yick-homo creeped out to go around seeking other males to "Ride With", since in the campsite at night, you're by need of the cold, sleeping with them.

 

Other males as companions are sexual competitors. Other Bi-Women Companions are possible mates and fun wenching-run-of-the-Taverns buddies.

 

I am not saying that it is healthy, realistic, 2016+ real world socially acceptable behavior! But running around with meter long razor blades removing heads of anyone who annoys you isn't either... it is Fantasy.

 

Don't underestimate the cleverness of your average Skyrim player, in making the most of his fantasy!

 

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Edited May 7, 2017 by VanKrill

[Shadeybladey]

Ancient Rome was very patriarchal, but pagan Celtic society had female warriors. Boudicca (also a Druid) being the most obvious. The concept of medieval knighthood with females being squawking, helpless maidens requiring rescue is a more Christian, chivalric thing. It strikes me as rather odd that in order for modern females to fulfill their potential, some societies thank that this is only possible by emasculating males.

[VanKrill]

Ancient Rome was very patriarchal, but pagan Celtic society had female warriors. Boudicca (also a Druid) being the most obvious. The concept of medieval knighthood with females being squawking, helpless maidens requiring rescue is a more Christian, chivalric thing. It strikes me as rather odd that in order for modern females to fulfill their potential, some societies thank that this is only possible by emasculating males.

 

Yes, I think we're all very aware of Boudicca, and the acceptance in CELTIC-Only medeval society of women warriors. The PC agenda of the Public Schools makes damn sure of it.

 

Viking Shield-Maidens were slightly different in character. They were considered auxiliaries and defensive line troops, not front line aggressors. But they existed.

 

They were both also, historically, very rare.

 

No matter, Skyrim is FANTASY, not anything like reality.

 

Real Vikings didn't have to contend with Draugr or Liches, and they didn't have the tools of Fire Runes and Frost Bolts to do it.

 

There is a video game called Mount & Blade, which attempts to capture a historically accurate version of the era.

 

http://media.moddb.com/images/games/1/1/146/box_142565-hd.jpg

 

 

In the game, Mount and Blade, there are only few warrior women. I like it, but not as much as Skyrim.

 

And I like the concept of the Warrior Queen as well. Most of my companions, in my Skyrim play throughs, have been such. Its hard to beat Lydia!

 

And I really don't find the idea of sharing a tent, and bitter cold night, with a big, hairy, stinking, male, barbarian warrior... that is not an enticing fantasy.

 

In the above posts, I'm just trying to give the OP poster a bit of perspective about why the Skyrim Modding community makes the types of mods that they do, and what the thinking/motivation is behind them.

 

 

P.S. From what I've read on forums and mod response posts, quite a few Male Skyrim players, play female Heroic chacters, with Female Companion SideKicks. The pair are usually played as romantically envolved. I personally find that strange, and can't image playing that way, but I don't judge.

 

Again, these players are searching for and downloading attractive female companion mods.

 

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Edited May 7, 2017 by VanKrill