So my daughter wanted to start playing Skyrim as she watches me and thinks its pretty cool. Now when she was watching I did not do anything terrible evil around her ie DB quest line and some of the Daedric quests. I mainly stuck to random exploring or thieves guild/Companions stuff. She is enjoying herself so far and doing really well for herself playing on adept difficulty. I have limited her to the following guests/guest lines due to her age let me know if I missed anything that I can add for her.

-MQ
-Companions
-College of Winterhold
-Thieve guild (nothing truely evil and she wants the Nightingale armor and I already said no to Shadowmere)
-Dawnbreaker Quest as thats not a evil Daedric quest
-Spellbreaker Quest another non Evil Deadic quest
-Civil war
-various misc quests

What fun is a game with no Evil?
Let her join the DB, The Dark Lord commands it!

I was even a bit iffy about my 14 year old granddaughter playing this game (though she's played WoW since she was 12....) I'd like to encourage you to not allow your girl to play when you aren't nearby, to begin with. Now, there's not going to be any online six-offenders to deal with in this game (unlike WoW....) so you don't have that worry - but it's all too easy to stumble over something that's going to get really hairy (such as when one of the daedra gets involved - and many of the princes' starters in this game are "gotchas" - like Barbas and the guy that starts the Molag Bal quest in Markarth....)

Many of the radiant AI quests are probably okay though the entire game is pretty violent. The cut-scenes for finishers, for instance, are quite graphic for a young person. Though I must say, kids these days (even 10 year olds) seem to be fairly unbothered by that sort of thing.

Good luck - I hope you both love the game! Oh, is there any real way to ACTIVELY limit the access to quests in the game? I don't know personally.... doesn't seem as if there could be....

I agree with Serethil. Depending on your choice of parenting it's probably a game that you want to be around when she's playing.

I on the other hand have nothing to worry about. My daughter has no interest in playing because she gets mad at me when I kill a wolf... or a bear even. I point out to her that the nasty thing is trying to kill me. She always has some explanation on how I could have avoided the confrontation.

ROFL!! Gotta love kids.... talk about throwing you for a loop when you're least prepared!

That I do personally agree with, just to watch what she's doing.

Other than that, I personally don't think you should limit what she's doing in the game at all. I'm a 21 year old male with no kids, so maybe you shouldn't listen to me, and I'd fully understand it if you didn't.

But what I think: You should let her play how she wants. If she's playing what I would do is say: "This character represents you, and is basically your shadow. So you should act in this game how you would in real life." Imo, this would get her in not only the roleplaying mindset, but her own personal mindset for living.

Follow that up by watching her playing and reminding her "That could potentially be a person that you're killing. Do you want to do that?" whenever she were to run into some type of quest, such as DB or other things.

I'd basically act as her jiminey cricket, asking her things like: "If you were to do that in real life, do you think you'd be able to live with yourself?" kind of things. That would give her the freedom to make her own decisions, realize that there were consequences for the aforementioned decisions, give her a better (in my opinion) grasp upon how her actions could possibly affect reality, and let you know how her brain works.

I might be wrong though, not to mention that I'm...well, I'm an alcoholic who is currently inebriated, so I might be wrong (though my typing should be spot on because I quadruple-check it)(and I hope I don't sound like a buffoon) but that's what I would do. It enables her to make her own choices while you're able to monitor what those choices are, so you're able to see what she's learned from wherever (be it school or whatever her in-game choices are based off of) and you'll be able to teach her right from wrong within the same scenario. I'd seen it as a boon towards child-teaching more than anything else.

@PoeticMadness - that's an excellent take on things. It would depend on the child.... some kids would probably accept that okay at 10, others might need to be older - and the older ones might simply get angry that dad's breathing down their necks.

I have to admit, I don't really "get" kids these days. I think I'm glad mine's the one dealing with kids - if it were me, they'd NEVER get online!

I am always in the room when she is playing, normally because she still has questions and I have been banished to Skyrim on the PC. I took over for the Molag Bal quest yesterday when she stumbled upon it and sent her to get a snack. as for the 3rd person kill scenes those don't bother her in the least. I was more worried about her creapping through Bleak falls Burrow with the Draugr and then having to go the sleep that night but all went well.

The wolf/bear thing is funny. My son saw me kill a bunny so I could get my bunny kills up and he got so made at me told me "daddy we dont kill bunnies! they are nice!"

Again, 21 year old male...I've seduced enough women online to agree with you 100%. If I have children and my wife doesn't stop me (assuming I get married), they will never be allowed online.

My daughter has asked me several times about WoW as she has a couple friends that play it and I have said no that I dont have the time to be with her all the time to keep track of the interactions that will be going on. She is also a Huge starwars fan (got that from me) and two of her friends for the old republic for christmas and she wants that now and again I had to explain to her that I cant be there all the time to monitor what she is doing online that she it to young to be interaction with anyone and everyone in the world. Like you said atleast with Skyrim There is only the Daerda to worry about no crazy online six offenders.

You could let her do Sanguine's Daedric Quest for the Sanguine Rose; that one was rather peaceful all things considered. Azura's Daedric quest... maybe not so much, after all, creeping around in there might just be a tad bit creepy.

Vaemira's quest is good too.

Malacath's is good as well.

They're like a fairy tale.

Personally it depends on the child and mindset... if they are advlt enough in mindset than the game and its full content shouldn't be a problem. Its no more grotesque and evil as the real world. However this doesn't apply to all children as some may react negatively to it.

I got my first dungeon slasher "Diablo" at 10 years old, and I absolutely loved it. It had blood, gore, boobs, and swearing and I felt like I was breaking all the rules by playing it. However I recall the fundamental principal of my gaming experience was to defeat the "evil" and when this took hold it could have been a game full of unicorns and bunnies and I would have felt the same about it. The only adverse reaction I can recall from it was that i couldn't play it in the dark because monsters randomly making noises would make me jump.

Again this is a personal point of view, it all depends on how your child can handle such things. I wouldn't recommend Skyrim for the boy who lives across the street who is 16 because things like this game petrify him, and cause him bad dreams and effect him on a subconscious level. Alternatively I know many children who are well adjusted, and mature enough to handle the brunt of the content of Skyrim.

I applaud you taking an active interest, many parents I meet don't and just let their children play anything without considering how it may influence them. I know of children in my own family playing advlt games who ended up acting poorly in real life because of it, their comprehension between reality and fantasy was rather poor.

I see TES series to be slightly less advlt than these other games. They remind me a great deal of books which the same concepts are found in that I was reading and comprehending properly at about 10 years old.

Anyway, good luck.

Sounds like you don't think much of your child.

Molag Bal's quest allows one to be an instrument of justice against vandals.

I don't recommend it though.

There is a moral lesson in there.

Now you see, this is more of what society needs. Lots of parents who actually consider what their children are doing. Alot of people out there who just cave in to a child asking for the latest, gory 18+ modern life simulators just to get 2 hours of peace on a friday afternoon.

Anyway, I thought that poetic had some very good thoughts in there. It is your child don't forget, you know them, possibly more than anyone else in the world does. If you think that your child can watch violent scenes and be uneffected, then there would be no harm in it. Alot of people have misconceptions that all children are the same and that parents should follow a baseline. There may be children out there who are very adept at telling between reality and fantasy, those are the children who would be more comfortable playing games. But just remember to allways keep an eye on them, and to mention on the occasion that this is a video game, that it's meant to be fun, and that they should be careful about what they do in the real word regaurding certain subjects and actions.

EDIT: a few spelling and grammar errors.

Vaemira's not so much, depending on what you tell her at the end of the quest and whether or not you think cannibalism...acceptable <.< unless my spelling is wrong and I'm thinking of the wrong quest.

Malacath's should be fine.


Agreed, I applaud you heavily for taking the time to judge upon the content of the game rather than just looking at the rating. My parents weren't so kind, and I wasn't able to purchase my first M rated games until I was 17. I saw them upon buying them, and though "Why are these games rated 'M'...? I've been seeing this kind of gore since the age of 14...in driver's ed!"

Hircine's quest wasn't offensive, I think.

Depending on how much attention she's paying, the extortion quests for the theive's guild might be unpleasant, but no-one dies.

There's a lot to be said for just exploring all the dungeons. If you talk to Arngeir or do the shouting in towns you'll get directions to the word-wall dungeons - they tend to be fun and worth going through.

Remember even though your not letting her do "evil" quests she is still KILLING and robbing and looting, so what are you saving her from???? Nothing, let her play the game she will thank you for it down the road.

I wasn't referring to the cannibals, but to the quest of dreams.
There's a serious moral choice there. Morality can be taught.

I think very much of my child its other people I dont trust I spent 5 years playing Everquest I cant evet count how many times I had people ask me stuff like how "how old are you" "so were do you live". I was worse for my cousin she would get it every day from people. Thats why I dont want her out there playing online games yet.

I understand your point. I did not wish to offend. I apologize.

Many of you make some very valid points, I guess if she is smart enough to find the DB with out me directing her to the start of the quest than I wont stop her. I will let her make her own choice about what to do

So I *was* thinking of the wrong quest my apologies. Yeah, the dream quest should be fine...but there's still the choice of taking the staff in the end. The quest should be fine as long as you're watching her play that exact quest and question her upon her choice at the end. "Why did you take the staff/not take the staff?" kind of thing, along with teaching her what each choice meant.


edit:






Agreed with letting her do the quests, but I do suggest asking her what she learned from it after each one, along with trying to gauge her sense of morality after it. Something like "You were paid to kill someone. Is that wrong? Is that right? Can you tell me why it's either of those?"

I'm a philosophy major at college, so I'd honestly accept either answer (It's wrong/it's right to kill someone for money) but that's just me, and I can justify almost every moral action. But asking her what she learned from the experience and whether or not she thinks the action in real life would (hopefully) reinforce the idea that this is just a game,and would further build upon her ideas of right and wrong within the real world.

you did not offend me, just letting you know why.