Removing the PC from a Faction? (Dark Brotherhood Spoilers)

[Alixen]

So, I have become Listener, and slain the Emperor.

 

Is there any way to stop the bloody comments from random npcs/guards? It seems everyone in Skyrim knows i'm in the Dark Brotherhood. And the Thieves Guild.

 

Would removing myself from the faction stop these comments? Or does something else trigger them?

 

Ideally, i'd like to be recognised as head of neither guild. Or even part of them. I'm happy never to go back to the Dawnstar Sanctuary, so I don't care if it makes me unable to recruit the Generic Murderer #3 or Cicero. I just want the guards to stop saying 'Hail Sithis!'. Or that the destruction of the DB is not quite true.

Edited April 23, 2012 by Alixen

[RedRavyn]

Someone will have to dig into the guard AI in the CK and check to see if there's a faction check. It could be that it's a check to see whether or not the questlines have been completed, in which case you can't do anything about it. One of the most annoying things I've encountered in both Oblivion and Skyrim is that everyone in the world knows everything you do, and I consider this to be just poor game design on the part of Bethesda.

 

Guards should not know you're a member of an organization that operates in secrecy. To some extent that might not apply as a member of the Thieves Guild in Skyrim (but not in Oblivion), since some of your early quests are to bully local residents of Riften into paying debts. However, the DB is a different thing, altogether. A DB operative who becomes public knowledge becomes a liability for the organization, whether he's the Listener or not. That's just common sense.

 

It doesn't even stop at guards, either. As a DB example, there may be people you've had good dealings with in the past that you are assigned to kill. When you then approach them, everything changes. They're suspicious of you, even fearful, when before you might have been best of friends. Doesn't Bethesda consider that a professional assassin isn't going to be giving his intentions away? That too is just common sense. There's precious little of that commodity to be shared among all the Bethesda developers, it would seem.

 

It's just all of the "psychic guard syndrome" that plagues ES games. How do they know I can pick locks? How did they find out about a murder when there were no surviving witnesses and none of the dead ones had cell phones? Why do they keeping asking me to brew them ales because I'm an alchemist? They have no way of knowing, especially since I've never even been into a alchemy shop. If Bethesda changes just ONE thing in their game design philosophy, I'd be delighted to see guards not having instant and absolutely accurate access to the Akashic Record.

[thompsonar]

I'm not sure of the answer to your question either but you could just try using the command and see what happens without saving the game. It's not going to break anything (or if it does you can just reset it).

 

I think all the comments from guards and random folk are Bethesda's attempt to create immersion. It's a bad attempt. I'm sure they had the best of intentions and thought everyone would love it when someone comments about your affiliations or skills. But it's unrealistic and bothersome. I can almost understand the guilds part, it's plausible that some of these people have an affiliation with whichever guild and so they know about you. I can't understand the skills thing. "No I won't enchant your weapon, and how the hell do you know my skill in enchanting by looking at me."

Edited April 23, 2012 by thompsonar

[Brandy1123]

The check is done against your stats. Go into General Stats tab. Once you get past a certain point, say in murders, (as a comparison to all your stats), you then can be triggered as an assassin. Likewise, enchanter, alchemist, pickpocket etc. I also think it has to do with what you wear. You can be skilled in heavy armor but have on light armor and no skill in that perk. You will still have triggered, the light armor means light on your feet response.

 

So, by keeping your General stats in check (and avoiding the obvious gear of that class) you should be able to eliminate the unwanted triggering.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Brandy_123

[RedRavyn]

I can verify that the general responses (there are some scripted ones specific to certain quests) do not necessarily check what you have equipped. I think most of them are skill checks. As a relevant example, a Whiterun guard remarked on my archery when I had no bow or arrows equipped (in fact I had no weapons equipped at the time at all). In Oblivion, the NPC AI would check your skill levels, among other things, to determine "Greeting" events. I don't imagine that this has changed with Skyrim.

 

In one playthrough I went on a murderous rampage, just for fun, and had about 20 murders to my name. At no point did I get the "Hail Sithis!" remark from any guard. The only time I've heard this was when I was in the DB faction, so I'm pretty sure that's a faction check. There are other checks for player race and gender. The annoying "What do you want, cat?" is a good example. According to the wiki this involves two checks: The PC's race must be Khajiit, and the Guard is a Stormcloak. However, Alvor, the blacksmith in Riverwood, says this all the time to me. He isn't a guard, and in fact is in the "Civilian allies of Imperial faction", so I guess you can take some things in the wiki with a grain of salt -- or less.

 

Until someone looks thoroughly into the AIs of various NPCs in the CK, a lot of this is going to be just speculation.

[Pentigan]

Well at least the guards in an Imperial-aligned Riften have an excuse for knowing that you're the leader of the thieves guild. Mavern's probably told them to turn a (mostly) blind eye to Guild regulars sneaking in and out of the city.