Moral traps and ambiguities

[eltucu]

You can "tab out" of the dialogue most of the time (I think this has been mentioned) then you don't have to have the mead forced upon you. If it helps as you tab out you can say aloud "No thank you I don't drink!" Also as has also been said before, there are plenty of missions you can turn down in the game, just not all of them.

That is as satisfying and appropriate as opening the console and disabling them altogether. Or do you just walk away if someone's offer you some tea and you don't want it?

 

Those quest are clearly designed with one way in and one way out. Nothing else. I'd like to see a "no thanks, i dont drink" option, or an "you know what? Give me all you have except your pants and you may live to drink another bottle of that" option, but the only option that i have is to silently walk away without a single NPC giving a single crap about that fact.

 

Hell, the random skooma dealer guy has more ways to be dealt with than the main quests (except maybe the peace treaty). For an RPG, not allowing the player to express a tiny bit of personality through a simple selection of dialogue responses is pretty bad design because there is almost no other way for doing so. The way that you relate to the world is by the means of your skills (mage, warrior, thief, etc) and the dialogue/actions. How can i be a mage if i cant talk NPCs ear off about how intelligent i am and how little they know? How can i be a warrior without asking advice to the local blacksmiths about how to maintain my axe? And so on. Even the main questlines lack the appropriate dialogue lines that allow the player to express themselves a little bit like the role they choose to play along.

 

The Dovahkiin ends up as a pretty dull character. His only way to approach something is either follow it to the letter, or avoid it. On rails quests tend to be boring if not designed well (see the Companions questline, the Winterhold College questline, the Civil War questline, etc) and avoiding quests... well, that's the bottom of the boring stuff barrel that a game can have.

Edited March 7, 2012 by eltucu

[meh12345]

You can "tab out" of the dialogue most of the time (I think this has been mentioned) then you don't have to have the mead forced upon you. If it helps as you tab out you can say aloud "No thank you I don't drink!" Also as has also been said before, there are plenty of missions you can turn down in the game, just not all of them.

That is as satisfying and appropriate as opening the console and disabling them altogether. Or do you just walk away if someone's offer you some tea and you don't want it?

 

Those quest are clearly designed with one way in and one way out. Nothing else. I'd like to see a "no thanks, i dont drink" option, or an "you know what? Give me all you have except your pants and you may live to drink another bottle of that" option, but the only option that i have is to silently walk away without a single NPC giving a single crap about that fact.

 

I agree, on principle, but the designers seem to have taken tab-out to be a valid option that you can use right now. In most cases, the NPC'll have some relevant parting words when you do that.

 

Perhaps I read too much into it, but I thought there was concern that one literally could not get out of that conversation by any means.

[eltucu]

I agree, on principle, but the designers seem to have taken tab-out to be a valid option that you can use right now.

I hope not.

Perhaps I read too much into it, but I thought there was concern that one literally could not get out of that conversation by any means.

I dont think so, probably most of the time you can just leave. But thats not how conversations work as i said. Its an un natural way to deal with things.

 

I think i can explain why you got that impression. What makes the player feel that they're not opting out is that they dont state that they're opting out. By all means, the game reacts like you're still going to do that quest someday. Its not a satisfying way to reject a quest, the player is not stating anything to the world they're in, they're just walking away.

 

So that's why, in my opinion, you see so many ppl saying that there is no way out. They feel there is no way out, thats the point. The concern is not oriented to the actual actions you can make (do the quest, press tab or axe to the head), the concern is that the game doesnt makes the effort to make feel the player they're out at all. Its like not receiving a reward after completing a dungeon, or starting reading a book that suddenly stops before the plot closes. It doesnt feels right. Its an empty choice.

Edited March 8, 2012 by eltucu

[meh12345]

I dont think so, probably most of the time you can just leave. But thats not how conversations work as i said. Its an un natural way to deal with things.

 

I think i can explain why you got that impression. What makes the player feel that they're not opting out is that they dont state that they're opting out. By all means, the game reacts like you're still going to do that quest someday. Its not a satisfying way to reject a quest, the player is not stating anything to the world they're in, they're just walking away.

 

Well, let me first state that I agree (more on that below). However, as I mentioned, in several cases that I've tried, there's actually a *sensible* response to just tabbing out - that is, it seems that whoever wrote the dialogue anticipated that. Furthermore, nothing's forcing you to pursue it further. It's perfectly valid to feel that the lack of an explicit decline or the mere existence of the quest in the journal is bad, but it seems that the tab-out mechanism is in many cases used expressly for such a response.

 

I actually started a thread at some point regarding improving vanilla quests. Here: http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/587975-improved-vanilla-quests

[ChihaTanka]

I'll toss my 2 cents in on the Malag Bol thing. He is the kind of dark god that would trap you and play with you like a rat in a maze. I would expect nothing less from him. You walk into the trap, the only way out is to play his game. Playing his game means kill or be killed.

No matter how righteous your character may be, they can still fall into a trap, sometimes, there is only one way out. Leaving a "journal item" there is a good reminder for future references, or, a note on the subject as a previous poster mentioned.

[thompsonar]

I understand the problem many have with just walking away from a conversation, and it would be nice to a few more options here and there. However, it's not like you ever hear your character say anything anyway. While my comment about speaking your response aloud was sort of a joke, it's as viable a solution as picking an arbitrary option from a list of dull responses. The writing could use some work but to me it's a small part of the game with an easy workaround.

 

There's just no way to please everyone with this. Even if they spent more time on the dialogue options they cannot cover every possible response that every player would like to have. Someone is always going to feel left out. More would certainly be better, but it would not be perfect.

 

What you're looking for is a game with real artificial intelligence that allows you to speak (or type) a response to any given situation and the a.i. understands what you're saying and forms a proper response to you. Wouldn't it be awesome?

[meh12345]

What you're looking for is a game with real artificial intelligence that allows you to speak (or type) a response to any given situation and the a.i. understands what you're saying and forms a proper response to you. Wouldn't it be awesome?

 

It would! :)

 

You can do a lot with relatively little, though (think Mass Effect, for example). Like I mention in the post I linked above, many of the dialogue options could simply be a little additional flavour without even without any mechanics changes. One very simple case I just ran into yesterday at a cemetary: parents burying their child, this is told to you, but none of your dialogue options include condolences! Even if it makes not a whit of difference in the actual result of the action, when I'm trying to play a nice character, I feel weird only having a rude line.

 

Many perception problems could be solved by just ensuring all accept/decline questions have impolite and polite responses both ways.

[fraquar]

I'll toss my 2 cents in on the Malag Bol thing. He is the kind of dark god that would trap you and play with you like a rat in a maze. I would expect nothing less from him. You walk into the trap, the only way out is to play his game. Playing his game means kill or be killed.

No matter how righteous your character may be, they can still fall into a trap, sometimes, there is only one way out. Leaving a "journal item" there is a good reminder for future references, or, a note on the subject as a previous poster mentioned.

 

Maybe what the righteous need in this case is a way to atone - since as you said there is no "clean" way out. Maybe they could put some of these temples in Skyrim to good use in that regard?

 

As for things like the mead revelers, I think people take these things way too far - when in Rome do as the Romans do. Skyrim is like the mead capital, it would be like me turning down an offer to share some ale in Ireland, some beer in Germany or some wine in France - it's simply what the locals do. Just because I share some mead with these guys doesn't turn me into a lush playing out of character (though sharing a case of mead might).

[NegativeInterestRate]

I will agree there is a need for more options in Skyrim as the railroading can sometimes get quite absurd.

 

If I can take Mr Malog Bol as an example: When you first encounter him he's not a powerful Daedric Prince; he's a voice in a house with rusty lump of tin he calls his mace. He even admits it's powerless and that he a champion to kill that pesky priest. Indeed, what does he do to rope you in? Lock the doors and throw some tupperware around. Who is this guy? Prince of angry housewives? And somehow he makes the Vigilant lose it (which probably says more about the quality of their recruits than Malog's actual abilities). It's all a little bit odd to just play along when its clear this guy couldn't scare a corpse to death. And let's face it; who hasn't at some point wanted to turn around to one of the most powerful beings in the world and say "screw you." just for the lulz. This sort of thing is why I chose not to kill Barbas for Clavicus Vile "Get off you high horse you git, I'm the dragonborn, you can't tell me what to do. And I don't use axes." I think, for once, I'd like to be able to give to fingers to these "all-powerful" daedra because I'm the dragonborn. If anyone can tell them where to shove it, surely I can?

 

As for "In My Time of Need", I took a third option. As an Imperial Soldier, Saadia could be a genocidal maniac in Hammerfell for all I care, but she wasn't the one harrasing my citizens and in light of the fuzzy details all round; "not your juristiction my dear Al'kir, gtfo!". Maybe I just take an independent minded approach to my questing?

 

The Wabbajack quest was plain weird. Um...you just gave me the hip (pelvic. Anatomy fail) bone of a guy who's been dead for two-hundred years and I'm completly O.K. with this?

[Tidus44]

It would have made the game different (not sure if better or worse) for a greater level of quest choices in order to play a "good" or "evil" character. However, in looking through the thread only one thought came to mind regarding the quests mentioned. If you dislike the choices in quests; Do not speak (ever) with a NPC named Brother Verulus. Do not be a "good guy" and do anything for or accept a quest from him. Do not follow through on the quest, just leave it in the Journal or go back to an earlier save game so it never appears.

 

Since playing this quest, I am now waiting for a mod that allows me to sit on the porch and knit or to do something equally mundane and "safe". There is evil and then there is evil and to quote a famous Admiral, "Its a trap!".