Moral traps and ambiguities

[BrettM]

The only reason why people complain is because they are obsessive completionists who NEED every journal entry to be moved to the finished section and what makes it terribly funny is that they claim it doesn't suit "roleplay" when their supposed "roleplay" methods don't fit with how an item is normally used.

Where do I go to find the official rules on how a journal is "normally" used? This may be the way that you normally use a journal, but that doesn't mean that anyone who does it differently is some kind of deviant. People have different views on the best way to use a journal, and nobody is entitled to call any of these views wrong.

 

"Unkillable Daedric Lord who isn't even there" =/= "a totally random and normal person sitting RIGHT THERE in the open and seemingly defenseless" in ANY WAY, there not even REMOTELY similar.

 

PLEASE MAKE AN ARGUMENT BASED ON REASON

How many "normal" people do you know who sit on top of bookcases? How many "normal" people do you know who are capable of kidnapping someone out of their own beds with an armed bodyguard sitting in a chair three feet away and transporting them halfway across a province with all their gear? What evidence did I have at that point to prove that she was a normal person and not some unkillable daedric manifestation sent to test me? I had never met her or heard of her, and she was certainly not acting very normal.

 

Can you kill any given visible NPC in this game, regardless of how normal they might appear? No. Some are marked "essential", at least during certain times, making them unkillable. You can't tell just by looking at them. As a new player, I was trusting the game to tell me if killing that NPC was allowed or not, rather than performing my own experiment. I don't make that mistake any more.

 

Please stop trying to tell me I'm being irrational. It's highly insulting and rude, not to mention counter-factual. My arguments are not lacking in logic, regardless of your opinion, and you are not the only person posting in this thread who is capable of reason.

[yota71]

this may spoiler the game

 

 

 

I don't know if it is true, but somewhere i have read that you can exterminate the dark brotheroood, by first killing astrid

 

 

[meh12345]

Some of the moral ambiguities, though, are more disturbing, since you never get any confirmation as to whether your choice was right or not. Yet you are forced to make the choice anyway, despite having no rational basis for doing so, because there is never an option to just walk away.

 

Offhand: for dialogues, can't you always just tab out? I haven't encountered cases where you can't (but, then, I haven't often tried).

[CelerasRingor]

The whole "It's a journal!" argument some of you are using is just plain stupid. Have you noticed that when you complete a quest it doesn't disappear in you journal? I is simply greyed out. IMO instead of just completely dropping quests and deleting them from your journal, there should be opt-outs in the quests through performing actions or dialogue. For example in the "in my time of need" quest I believe there should have been some options when first talking to the Alakir...

 

Option 1. (persuade) Ask them for info on why they are searching for the Redguard girl. I understand that its meant to be left open as to whether or not she really did what she did but there is dialogue at the end of the quest that, IMO suggests that she did. This is just ONE option btw.

 

Option 2. Just tell them that you don't want to get involved. The quest gets greyed out with a journal entry that you decided to ignore the Redguards request but you are still able to reactivate it if you wanted to later by talking to the Redguards again or the girl.

 

I think it is not unreasonable to ask for a way to basically deactivate a quest through some sort of interaction by the player if they don't like the direction it is going.

[thompsonar]

I get both sides of this argument though it has never bothered me in the least to just leave a few quests unfinished in the journal.

 

That being said, it would be nice to have say an "ignore" or "refuse" button in the journal that would file that quest into a category like "incomplete" or something and have the entry then read "I decided not to help so and so..." or "I don't like where this is going..."

 

There are all ready a lot of quests that you can just tell the person "I don't have time" or whatever after they explain their situation to you.

 

Being forced into a couple of quests (like the abandoned house in markarth) seems reasonable. You are dealing with daedra for that and I doubt they'd just let you say "no" and be done with it.

[crazyjoe2k]

How many "normal" people do you know who sit on top of bookcases? How many "normal" people do you know who are capable of kidnapping someone out of their own beds with an armed bodyguard sitting in a chair three feet away and transporting them halfway across a province with all their gear? What evidence did I have at that point to prove that she was a normal person and not some unkillable daedric manifestation sent to test me? I had never met her or heard of her, and she was certainly not acting very normal.

 

Arguing about "normal" people in a complete fantasy world is silly, especially basing your argument on sitting on bookcases. And obviously the leader of the worlds ASSASSIN GUILD is far more powerful and capable than you could imagine. And nobody told you NOT to put an axe in her face, did they? The daedric lords themselves do not manifest themselves, as they have no need when they can toy with you however they want. Astrid is obviously a human just by looking at her.

 

When you start arguing about whether people sit on bookcases or not you definitely make yourself seem irrational and silly. I feel sorry for you that you'd let such a little nuance be such a gamebreaking point of contempt.

[BrettM]

You seem to have completely missed my point while contradicting yourself. You point out that it is silly to make arguments about normality in a fantasy -- which is exactly what I was trying to point out to the poster I was responding to -- and then proceed to make an argument about the normality of Astrid based on her appearance.

 

In a fantasy, you can't tell who is or isn't normal just by looking at them. Your own character is normal looking for a member of his/her race, but is certainly not normal, being dovahkin. Normal-looking NPCs may be anything but normal, having unsuspected powers or the backing of some Aedra or Daedra. I don't see how it is irrational or silly to point out this simple fact.

 

In terms of game mechanics, many quest givers are unkillable while others are not, but there is no way to tell the difference except by experiment. (And experimenting with the mortality of quest givers does not seem like an advisable course of action.) As a new player to this game, I did not understand that at the time I ran into Astrid. Other games I have played have always made it clear whether or when an NPC is or becomes a legitimate target, and it simply did not occur to me that this game would not do so consistently. Sometimes it does and sometimes it does not. I find this disappointing. Is that really so hard to understand?

 

I am totally baffled, though, by how you reached the conclusion that I consider this situation to be game breaking or that I hold anything in contempt. Have you even read my posts?

[ZvS]

I agree with a lot of points in the OP's original post and thought the quests that were listed were pretty good examples. In fact, I've thought about writing a similar post, citing many of the same examples.

 

I like the concept of moral ambiguity; however, I found some of the writing in Skyrim to be a bit lazy. If we're talking true immersion, then there would be opportunities to go a little further down the path of asking why or being able to investigate the facts a little more.

 

"In My Time of Need" is a fine example. Neither side was willing to give enough information to make an informed decision, so yeah, the simple choice might be to ignore the quest. However, I think it would have been a lot more fulfilling if the writers could have gone a little deeper. They simply could have added more dialog options when talking to either side, or even better, allowed for you to investigate by talking with more people.

 

Moral ambiguity is great when you can make an informed decision vs. an arbitrary one. A good example of moral ambiguity is when you have to choose to follow the "the law of the land" vs. being a vigilante. For "In My Time of Need", it would have been a little better if we had to make a choice between serving justice or serving our own personal greed, or some other similar choice.

 

Choosing Team A vs Team B with no information isn't that exciting to me. Fortunately, Skyrim has so many great things about it, such as the open world, combat, etc. that it more than makes up for the lazy writing and thus I still find it a great game -- I just think it could be even better if the writers put a little more into it.

 

In the old DnD days or Baldur's gate days, I always went for neutral-good alignment. I'm a golden-rule kinda guy and like to do the right thing, but not necessarily follow the law just because the authorities "said so". In Skyrim, I have to put that aside and instead just play through and care less about the moral consequences, otherwise there are way too many quests that would go unfinished. The end result of my first play-though was that I went through nearly all of the main quests even though they don't cohesively fit my character.

[Cataxu]

Maybe don't enter into pacts with Daedric princes if you're scared/dislike (of) the consequences. I find it absurd you would want the option to reject a Daedric prince's orders as well. Somehow I don't think your moral compass holds any weight with these guys. You don't just tell Molag Bal, an immortal other-worldly God, to settle his dispute himself after you've entered into a pact with him just because the choices offend your character's delicate sensibilities. I suppose Bethesda could give you that option and railroad you into being brutally slain for your disobedience, which is the most sensible conclusion.

 

As far as the redguard woman goes you honestly can't expect to find out the truth given the concept of the quest, what are you going to do? Beat the truth out of them or her? Follow them to Hammerfell to witness the trial? The choices you have are not always in your favor, and you don't always have all the information handed to you or the time to think about it. It works the same way in the real world! You should be happy Skyrim affords you the luxury of just walking away from a quest if you're too afraid of adding some depth to your character.

 

Besides, your concept of a paladin is absurd to begin with outside of the realm of pure fantasy. I'm sorry Bethesda refused to appeal to these pacifist "Lawful Good" characters who never want to make any tough decisions.

Edited February 29, 2012 by Cataxu

[Rennn]

 

As far as the redguard woman goes you honestly can't expect to find out the truth given the concept of the quest, what are you going to do? Beat the truth out of them or her? Follow them to Hammerfell to witness the trial? The choices you have are not always in your favor, and you don't always have all the information handed to you or the time to think about it. It works the same way in the real world! You should be happy Skyrim affords you the luxury of just walking away from a quest if you're too afraid of adding some depth to your character.

 

Besides, your concept of a paladin is absurd to begin with outside of the realm of pure fantasy. I'm sorry Bethesda refused to appeal to these pacifist "Lawful Good" characters who never want to make any tough decisions.

 

Actually, I think it'd be great idea to let you interrogate people in Skyrim. I mean, I'd probably never do it, but having the option and refusing it should mean more to "Paladins" than simply not having the option.

 

I agree with the idea that Lawful Good Paladins are absurd, btw, especially when they still want a 'good' way implemented to do all the ambiguous stuff. It's almost like they want to be the ultimate symbol of heroism without actually having their character lose anything for it.