Those "What have I done?" Moments

[dling]

Ok, so after reading every post I see the following:

Fellglow keep - Peaceful solution

Peryite's Quest - Side with the afflicted

Falmer vs Bandit battle - friendly bandits

Dragon Nest Word walls - Talk

Maddannoch - forsworn faction

 

Ok, I'll take a look at these as they seem to be pretty simple changes and see if I can't make a mod for it. more ideas the merrier

Edited July 19, 2012 by dling

[Kraeten]

Which is why I like to put an arrow in Thonar after he gives me my stuff back. If you're quick enough about it and have a good stealth rank, you can do it without alerting any guards.

 

Can't say my Stormcloak character is very good with bows or stealth. Give him a shield and an axe though and he can do wonders. I've killed Thonar before too, but I always reload after doing so. I don't want to risk breaking my character until I'm sure Thonar isn't involved in an expansion later. :sweat:

Edited July 19, 2012 by Kraeten

[StayFrosty05]

Ok, so after reading every post I see the following:

Fellglow keep - Peaceful solution

Peryite's Quest - Side with the afflicted

Falmer vs Bandit battle - friendly bandits

 

Ok, I'll take a look at these as they seem to be pretty simple changes and see if I can't make a mod for it. more ideas the merrier

 

The Dragons at the Word Walls.... :happy: ...I don't enjoy invading their space then killing them for it... :( ....And if you side with Madannoch, have word actually spread among the Forsworn, so their all friendly, not just his small group....that would be awesome!.... :D

[StayFrosty05]

The 'What Have I done Moment' for me is, I had one Dovahkin try out the Namira quest and took the Priest to the cannibals, killed him, etc...That Dovahkin was soon after deleted....Had another go at evil with finding the Priest for Molag Bal and beating him to death twice in the cage....that Dovahkin didn't last much longer either.

 

As for the Bandits/Fellglow Mages, etc....The Bandit's prey on weak traveler's, the Mages torture and sacrifice others, as such I don't have much much sympathy for them...I do have the 'Mercy' mod and will let Forsworn and Soldiers walk away...but for those who prey on others for simply selfish and heartless motives, if their not dispatched they will continue preying on the weaker, so I tend to dispatch them anyway.

 

As for wild animals....someone mentioned having to kill them, which I don't enjoy either....The 'Skytest Realistic Animal Behavior' Mod has helped me a lot with that...if you don't go too close to many of the wild animals, they won't attack...though if they are near the roads and travelers are coming, I will sometimes put an arrow up their butts to drive them away (they do in fact heal over time) and if and animal does attack my Dovahkin, sometimes an arrow will send it running and I don't give chase...That's what's great about having no followers, I can get away with that... :happy:

[sinnerman69]

When I got to the throat of the world and seen Paarthurnax coming done, I didn't know he was a good guy and attacked and killed him right away, I use a teleport mod that adds throat of the world location to it and went there not knowing what it was!.. :unsure:

[Bettafighter]

I take a pot put it over people's heads and then rob their whole house dry. Thinking they will suspect me, I pull the pots of their heads. A cheerful Lucan valerius greets me with Thanks to you, the river wood trader is back to the way it used to be! *smiles cheerfully* WHAT HAVE I DONE BETRAYING THESE INNOCENT FOOLS

[Bhanqwa]

I killed Lydia :confused: , who has been my companion for a while now. She kept raving about how Skyrim belongs to the Nords, and my ruthless Argonian won't suffer that attitude (he's a little hypocritical).

[RileyEvan]

SPOILER:

 

When going through the quest to track down the Atherium Forge, I looted the dead body of the woman whose ghost was following me. I didn't need the money (her armor was just basic) and it wasn't that valuable. She says, "You had to take my armor? You couldn't leave me with some dignity?" To add insult to injury, I have a body replacer mod, so her corpse was stark naked.

[luzburg]

Àw you nasty person. I can't remember hearing that so either I did id before she talked to me or I'm a nice person (probably first option, honestly).

[Moraevik]

One of the reasons I really like Skyrim is that it's full of moral ambiguities. I dislike the fact none of these are actually ever resolved. Let's face it, though. Skyrim isn't a role-playing game. It's a D&D style hack-and-slash campaign with a lot of clever and not-so-clever puzzle solving thrown in. Approached in that fashion the moral ambiguities fade into the background.

 

Even so, I'm a role-player, even in games like this one, and I occasionally have to agonize over the decisions I make. Did Grelod The Kind really have to die? Why isn't there a peaceful solution to the problem at the orphanage? The game forces the quest on you in the first place, unless you go to great pains to avoid hearing about the situation. The only way to get it out of your journal is to follow through like the developer of that questline wanted you to and murder someone in cold blood. As a role-player I generally wouldn't do that (depending upon how I'm playing my character), and if I'm playing a good person I wouldn't even have made that journal entry to investigate the situation in the first place!

 

Then I'm faced with the prospect of murdering a bound captive in order to escape the Abandoned Shack, and I don't even know which of the three really deserves to die. It took me a couple play-throughs to realize that when Astrid says I can't leave until someone dies that the person who could die and make that possible is her. While parts of the Dark Brotherhood questline are interesting and engaging, as a player who generally opts for the "good citizen" role I find myself having to take the option to wipe out the Dark Brotherhood. It still irks me that I have to murder someone to even get that option, though.

 

Many of Dark Brotherhood assassinations leave me with a bad taste in my mouth. Who could possibly want Narfi dead -- well, except maybe someone connected to the human flesh and human heart he gave me as a reward for returning his sister's necklace to him. I have to take into consideration, though, the way the game drops loot, even as quest rewards. Or what about Beitild? I'm pretty sure it was her husband who took out the contract on her, but a little bit of business rivalry is a reason to murder someone?

 

I feel equally uncomfortable with the Thieves Guild. These are not Robin Hood types. They have a profitable protection racket going, and I hate protection rackets. The earliest part of the questline has you alienating some people with whom you might actually have a good relationship before you join the Guild. I just wish there was a way within the game to tell Brynjolf to take a hike and then have the journal entry to listen to his scheme (which I would almost never put into my journal in the first place!) would disappear forever. Better yet, a way to destroy the Thieves Guild needs to be part of the game. I'm sure the jarl of Riften (unless you've replaced her with Maven Blackbriar) would be delighted if this happened.

 

Then there's the Boethiah priest you have to murder in cold blood in order to get out of the vacant house in Markarth. The game leaves you with no option but to commit two murders -- first the Vigilant of Stendarr and then the priest. You can't get out of the house until you do and you're suckered into the quest. Now, I don't much like Vigilants of Stendarr or Boethia, but that's beside the point. The Vigilant didn't deserve to die and while the priest might have, slaughtering a caged, unarmed, defenseless old man is not my style of play.

 

I see the Forsworn and the Falmer as victims. I understand their situations and can sympathize with them. The moral ambiguity ends right there, though. It quickly becomes obvious that both groups are cruel, evil, and murderous. Even if you spare Madanach there are only a handful of Forsworn who won't attack you on sight. You'd think word would get around. Even so, I have to wonder why no peaceful solutions to engagements wtih the Forsworn and Falmer aren't available. There's even an NPC in the game who understands the Falmer language, so it would be possible to talk with them. They aren't mere beasts. I felt pretty much the same about Goblins in Oblivion. These three groups are people -- not animals to be slain on sight.

 

We get suckered into the Boethiah quest, which I think is one of the most reprehensible things in the game. I know now to never read the book the Boethiah Cultist carries (or if I find it in a stack of books on a shelf). When I first got this quest I was like "Really! I have to sacrifice a follower just to get this damned thing out of my journal. And for what? A set of heavy armor I'll never wear? I immediately went way back to a previous save before I was attacked by the Cultist, and stewed for a long time about developers trapping players into doing things that they'll hate themselves for.

 

And as far as wild animals are concerned, hunting is in my blood as a player of this game. My characters tend is hunters who just happens to be in Skyrim through no fault of his/her own. The reason is that generally go my own way, avoiding the cities until later on in the game. If I want good armor (light, of course) I need leather to make it and that means killing some animals for their hides. No moral ambiguity here, though. Predators will attack you on sight in this game -- something which is not normal behavior for real animals. Bite me and I'll bite back. It's that simple.

 

I could go on and on, but I won't. Suffice it to say that a player with a strong conscience is going to be at odds with himself in many places in this game. It's probably best to approach it from the D&D Neutral-Neutral or even Neutral-Evil alignment, because that's what the game appears to be all about. The Dragonborn cannot be an all-achiever in this game and be a good person at the same time. If you're a role-player, playing a good-aligned character, and you're a completionist then Skyrim isn't for you. If you're a basic hack-and-slash player who likes the occasional puzzle then you'll feel right at home.

 

Still, like I mentioned in my first paragraph, I think the developers spent some effort into not painting this game in black and white. The shades of grey gives Skyrim a much more "real life" atmosphere than is the case with most games in which the moral decisions are pretty cut and dry. It would have been better, though, had we been given the opportunity to back out of the evil decisions needed to advance certain questlines.