(DISCLAIMER : Please, it's not about whining, flaming, backstabbing or talking each other down)
(DISCLAIMER 2 : I adress that post to Bethesda and the community, but indeed i know only the community will read)

Hi !

So, as beautiful as the game is, as fun as the game is, as addictive as the game is, most people agree that it is very lacking story and characterwise. This post is an attempt at explaining it, and in order to be constructive, it inherently contains solutions to improve the writing within futur contents.

Before you read : I focus my anolysis on the MQ, but similar critics could be made elsewhere, I do acknowledge that some side-plots are good and successful, but shouldn’t the MQ be at least among the best ones?

• So, what makes a story subjectively “good”? Why don't the MQ achieve that?

First, conflict!

Conflict is the motor of the story. Here, in Skyrim, we have a clearly established conflict that has a flat evolution. We see the big end boss at the first minute of the game, we know after one dungeon that we are the dragonborn and that our sole purpose is to defeat Alduin. From that point on we know who we fight, and that we are meant to win against it. I repeat : from that point on we know (and everything confirms it in the game) that we are meant to win against it.

More than 50% of the time, a story that fails to deliver does so because the conflicting force is too weak, that’s the case here. At no point in the story do we feel things are getting out of hand, nor fear for ourselves, for the world, for the ones that surround us. We kick Alduin’s ass and plans from start to end, and the more we get through the MQ, the less impressive is the threat. The conflict curve is totally the opposite of what it should be : we should start more or less confident/neutral, and end up crawling on the ground, winning against all odds, when all hopes almost vanished.

TL DR :

Conflicting forces should have the upper hand, not the other way around, that’s critical. Or at least it should be a mix of victories and losses, not solely victories.

The prophetic certainty of the dragonborn’s victory removes any epicness and sense of heroic deeds (Sense of earning reward, Sense of sacrifice, victory against all odds, bravery in adversity, “hope and despair rollercoaster”, all that just vanishes with certainty of victory).

Indeed the balance of the game doesn’t help when we kill dragons in seconds on master difficulty xD, but that’s another topic.

Second, multi-dimensional characters!

The characters we meet do not evolve, or very little, they do not accomplish themselves or take meaningful decisions that will define them forever.

Instead, they have a mission, and just do that, their mission. They do not have weaknesses, they do not doubt, fear, fail, abandon, question their motives, understand more about themselves as they TAKE choices. No, they accomplish their purpose, and stick to it. Delphine might be the most monodimensional character of the game, a perfect example, I suppose I don’t have to explain why. Esbern at least evolves a tiny bit …

Plus, we need characters that tie strong bonds with us, that become good friends, mentors, lovers, or slowly good enemies, so then, later in the plot when something happens to/with them (Sacrifice, death, treason, you name it), we are even more involved, it’s not some random stranger quest giver that needs our help, that’s our good friend that saved our butt earlier in a scripted cinematic.

Have this test : Try to think about one character in skyrim’s MQ that would give a reaction similar to the one you could have had at Aeris’ death (final fantasy 7). When Sephiroth kills her, it’s like an emotional key point, because she had strong bonds with Cloud and the universal empathic feel of "it is unfair" overwhelms us. In the MQ, we are a linear lifeless "tool" in the hands of the quest givers, from a to z, and no one really ties honest, deep bonds with us, hence we don’t fight for them, risk our lives for them, we wouldn’t give a damn if they would die, etc etc etc …

TL DR :

Characters must accomplish themselves through choices, they must react and change to the events that occur around them. Their emotions must change accordingly, they can’t keep the same emotion from A to Z. Yes, indeed, a strong emotion is a great way to define a character, but such character becomes infinitely more believable if he overcomes it, or shows another face under a given circumstance.

Note : I do not suggest doing that for all the characters of the game, would be too hard (not even sure about that), but at least for the main quest, make the most important protagonists involve themselves and be changed forever thanks to the overwhelming events that happen to them. And also create characters that have strong bonds with the player, and tie in some drama for us to live when stuff happens to the characters we care about.

Third, emotional involvement through choices under pressure!

I hate to quote people, but I grant this to Robert Mc Kee : A character only truly defines him/herself when forced to have a choice under pressure. The characters we’re around don’t take “hard” choices, hence stick to the mono-dimensional stuff.
The player don’t take “hard” choices either, the game is extremely linear. Go talk to “X” (a character with emotion A), then do dungeon D, go back to “X” (with same emotion), then go do Z, get back to X, still with same emotion, etc … No scripted events and no choices in this.
The worse of it might be the dungeon side. We are told what to do, but there is no emotional charge built on any task. So a luck that the dungeons are wonderful and fun, because emotionally speaking, we just don’t give a damn about what we’re doing, we just do it.

TL DR :

Where are my defining, stressful, and emotionally involving choices?

Example : Should I protect town A from total destruction or save character B, a friend/lover that saved my life earlier in the MQ, given I cant do both? Maybe cliché, but if wrote well, that’s at least one step toward a choice with consequences, that forces us to think about what we’re doing, and no matter what we choose, we will carry the emotional charge throughout the quest. “Go get item X at the bottom of dungeon Y” is not likely to bring us anything despite draugrs to kill.
I acknowledge some attempts to do this, but they either fall flat, or are optional subplots (Example : Paathurnax, Thieves guild).


Fourth, atmosphere, fantasy, and mystery!

We see the look of the big baddie at the first minute, there is no “building” tension/drama.

There’s little to no mystery about the plot, prophecy is quite clear, what we are is quite clear, our goal is quite clear, the different protagonists are known pretty fast (a small attempt to make things blur with the elves but falls flat too quickly), in short, we have way too much knowledge, way too fast, no mystery is built, no lore-learning curve.

• My take on Bethesda’s main mistake :

Okay so far I am merely stating the key points of a good story, no matter the media (Books, screenplays, videogames).
On top of that, there is a point, I humbly think, where Bethesda clearly fails, and will continue to do so in future DLC, patches, extensions, and I daresay, TES VI, and that is :

The recruitment process :

To understand their failure storywise is quite easy, just check their jobs requirements. To become a writer for Bethesda’s games, you have to have programming knowledge, and/or knowledge in their construction kits.

Call me elitist, call me what you want, but with such requirements they will only attract and hire “technicians with some storytelling skills”, no matter how good these guys will be, they do not master the art/craft of story telling, dramatic building, emotional involvement, etc …

Being a writer is a full time job, not something you are on top of your programming degree/fanboyism with the CK (although I respect that). The best writers out there –even for games- will not apply (and would not be accepted anyway) with an explanation as simple as : They don’t have a clue about construction kits and programming, and truly, they shouldn’t care about it, let them know their craft, programmers will master theirs.

Look at Ubisoft, you can love or hate their games, but most of their openings for writers have in their requirements to have proven experience in screenwriting (hence storytelling), they don’t give a damn that you know how to program, because what they expect you to do is to write a damn good story with damn good characters, not to program and implement.

So I will finish on this : change that recruiting process, and you will get rid of that bad storytelling reputation for your next games. You need writers/screenwriters who master their craft, not technicians/fans that know how to write.

That's all i have. Hope i brought something to the table, if not, sorry for the pointless hassle of reading me

Two more things : I never applied to them (I can foresee some lame personal attacks, yes, i'm paranoiac). And i do not pretend to be "Mister awesome" when it comes to writing (even if doing better than Skyrim's MQ is still something ... easily fathomable?).

Rico.

An average-Joe screenwriter (not english native so forgive spelling errors)

Edit 1 : I wanted to add that in order not to be unfair, i do acknowledge how incredibly hard it is to create one good and compelling story with all the limitations Bethesda's writers must have met (given the main focus of the game is freedom, not story). But although it explains a few things, it does not excuse everything.

Let me give you an example from my personal life :

Once i had to make a script with a thousand absurd, and truly stupid limitations, i did my script, and really, it was a bad script, i backed myself saying that all these limitations killed it for me. On that project, i behaved like a really sub-par writer, or at best average.

A few months later the same year, i made a script without any external limitations. Once finished and in preproduction, the director came to me and said "Alright, bad news, that movie will never see the light if we keep it as is, budget issues, we have to merge scenes XYZ and cut some more here and there etc etc etc...", at first i was like "okay, the spirit of that script will not survive these limitations". But after a rewrite, even if everything wasn't saved nor perfect, the script became feasible, and the director came to me saying that what i did with scenes XYZ was way better than what i did when i was totally free. That day i felt like a good writer, i did more, with less.

Bethesda had years to work on it and rewrite a thousand times ... limitations are merely a delay before a genious idea pops in to circumvent these.

My point is, indeed too much creative limitations can be dangerous for the story, but truly good writers will find a way around.

As for me, i still have to learn to be "truly good" on a stable basis.

Merry christmas everyone!

I'll just give you some infomation.

The story designers and script writers have been working on the game since Oblivion, they put these guys aside onto Skyrim when they were working on Fallout 3. They have dedecated stroywriters working on it for a long time.

I think the problem stems from taking the amazing story and implementing it....to much focus on cramming in more rather then polishing what was there.

Well that's indeed an information i did not consider. Maybe the writers are awesome, and did a good job, but the lead designer prioritized everything over the sake of the story (hence game experience), slowly destroying what the writers initially wrote. If that's the case ... i hate to say it, but i can't help but think how ... mmmh ... ill-advised it is to decrease "game experience" for whatever reason ... aren't we here to live an alternate life, hence an alternative story to our own?

However i still think the writers are to blame, even a little. I am aware of all the pressures, cutting, conditions, and restrictions the writers of Skyrim might have met, but that will never excuse something like monodimensional characters. Even when overwhelmed by a thousand restrictions, a good writer should be able to at least succeed in that area. The only excuse they would have is if someone like the lead designer would tell them "listen, we want simple characters, archetypes, easy to follow, keep the slightly more complicated motivations/characters for the sidestories" ... but if he ever said that ... just ... *facepalm*

Edit : Oh and if all that time was put into writing awesome awesomeness toward the background information, the books, etc etc etc ... that is, to me, wasted time if the "core" fails to deliver. By core, i mean, emotional building and basic conflict curve building. It is the duty of the writers to insure that we "feel" and "live" the awesome story, that's what matters the most, background information, althought important, should only come once that "core" is secured. If they had 5 years to write Skyrim, polished all the background, but rushed the main story/characters/discussions, then i humbly think that's one big problem in how they prioritize.

This is the basic conflict of broad versus deep.

Excellent post! I agree completely, Bethesda should take a hint from Ubisoft, Bioware, Valve and most recently, WB, and employ actual writers and authors to develop their stories.

To the other posters above, yes there is a limit to how much the engine can do, but writers write around the limitations of the medium, they are trained to that. You don't write a book like you write for a movie, and you don't write a movie script like a tv script. A good story teller working together with a game designer will be able to tell a good story even with a rudimentary game engine.

Skyrim's plot falls flat because it's a cliche, it lacks character development and most of all, as it was clearly explained above, it fails to follow very basic guidelines for good scripts, things like even Michael Bay is able to grasp. It's not even a good cliched story, it's mostly something squeezed in to give the player travel directions around the beautifully crafted world.

By the way, you don't necessarily need to introduce the main villain later, after you build tension. Darth Vader is the prime example of this. But if you go for an early introduction, you need to keep building tension in the course of the game. Alduin is meaningless to the world around him. Most inhabitants of Skyrim won't even acknowledge he exists, he does not cause any direct conflict, his coming and going does not cause any lasting damage out of Helgen and the player never gets to know his motivations or his personality. He's not even a cardboard villain, he's a distant reference in dialogue and whenever he is reachable, he is a shallow plot device moving you from one goal to the next. Even Bowser and Dr. Eggman are more relatable as antagonists.
You could argue Nords don't even fear Alduin, they fear armageddon, that's the real thing that scares them, not an individual character with a threatening presence. This is amplified by the fact Alduin was designed and animated to resemble a slightly different dragon.

I think that the problems with the storytelling in Skyrim, and Oblivion, resides more with the method of storytelling and less with the story its self. Namely, the voice acting.

The over reliance on voice acting, particularly in such an open world, cripples the potential for character development in a practical sense. It works in larely rail-roaded cinematic games like Mass Effect, but in games like Skyrim is gets bogged down in the need to get information out. When its all about passing information along, and not about building an atmosphere and story, it drains life from the story its self.

Does make sense.. Oblivion and Fallout 3 both had a pretty thin storyline, so im not surprised if it is the same with Skyrim...

Morrowind on the other hand, was thick with TES Lore and a very good storyline, they still have so much to learn from the games pre Oblivion..

I don't think it's such a huge issue, although you do have a point. Budget and scope does limit how many hours of voicework you can add to the game, however the main plot should take precedence over anything. If it was brilliantly conceived and voiced, we would be more forgiving if side quests or filler quests were shallow as they are. Games like Arkham City, Red Dead Redemption and Old Republic are also very big on scope, employing dozens, if not hundreds of voice actors, and ultimately feel very rewarding when it comes to plot development. And they too have generic complementary "fetch quests".

One must understand how game development works with different departments. Good graphics can't be used as excused for bad character development, a good script won't cost you a good soundtrack, great models is not a choice over quality art direction...While budget restraints may have an impact on the variety of voices we hear (fewer actors), it does not excuse poor writing and poor story implementation.

Some characters in Skyrim, like Esbern and the Arngeir actually have quite a few lines. It shows. It's what they have to say that is compromised and ultimately made pointless by a very shallow plot.

You are correct. In a linear game like Witcher 2 with minimal choices in plot where the character is guided along each Act, Point A to Point B, voice acting works fine. In an open world sand box, not so much.

Think about this, Bethesda tries out, hires voice actors and flies them into their recording studios. In a short amount of time they just sit in front of a microphone and spam words, sentences, sayings all day. Weeks or months later after they long gone one of the QA testers realize some of the plots don't sound right. Before voice acting a writer from Bethesda could merely change the script and soon be implemented in game but with the present case it's slim and none a game studio is going to fly back in the same voice actor(s) to redo the script. What if they are too busy to fly out and or have laryngitis or cold and sound different?

Basically Bethesda writers need to have a down pat script from day one when voice actors arrive into their studios but in an open world sandbox game the chance of that happening is slim and none.

Skyrim has a dearth of decent characters. Oblivion had a few compelling actors in the DB and Prince Martin was a good tragic hero. I don't feel any connection to any of the characters I've met in Skyrim. I would say the most interesting by a long shot are Cicero and Esbern, but they only play minor peripheral roles in the grand scheme of things.

I think that not having any connection or play on the player's emotions through Ulric or Tullius is the biggest mistep. There's no humanity behind either character and thus no reason to side with either of them except out of curiosity to see the different results of following each questline. It doesn't matter if I pick a Nord and say I'm going to fight for my people and my land, or if I say I'm going to be an Altmer or an Imperial and fight to restore order to the Empire, I can't roleplay either sucessfully because neither does anything to illicit any sympathy or understanding.

The most concerned and involved with a character I felt was towards a 500gp merc I hired from a bar that journeyed with me for a long time and who's dialogue consisted entirely of idle banter. There's some opportunity being lost there, surely.

I felt dragon age 2 was a very good story, in that you made alot of grey choises where, in honesty, you didn't want to pick either of them, and you easilly see the emotional and physical results of your choise.

What I am all for though is going against the typical story. Even you want the story to be another copy of other stories with different names for the people and places. It's almost allways the same, in that you're charicter is allways the "do everything hero", and as it's a videogame you don't need the story to tell you that you're obviously going to beat the bad guy. I'm all for twists however, But I don't like the same stuff over and over.

Even skyrim followed it to an extent, most games go along the notion of

"we're depending on you, you are the only one who can save us, you go here to fight bad guy's assistant, then you fight bad guy who escapes, then you get stronger, then you fight bad guy and win"

We really need something a bit different.

Your logic is COMPLETELY off.

By proving your point, you should've name the writers and criticize their skill not the recruit board.

That's a good point, it becomes more apparent in a free roaming world like Skyrim. What makes the hero journey interesting is the illusion of choice. Frodo is a hero because he chose to destroy the ring. Luke is a hero because he chose to help strangers and sacrifice himself to stay true to his ideals. Batman is a good hero because he chose to use his resources to fight crime. A hero leaves his comfort zone and get dragged into adventures because they have a sense of duty. But In Skyrim, where you're supposedly have endless choices under your belt, it starts as: You are dragonborn, you are special. Regardless of how you play, as an evil murderous bastard, or a compassionate paladin of virtues, you're still the world's only hope and your actions will always carry the same weight. This is even less effective than the karma system of Bioware games....at least those have binary possibilities according to your playstyle.

From early on you are treated as being special, while it should have been the other way around. Your choices should be the reason why you're special. The NPCs in an open world like Skyrim need to be better at reacting than acting. And it's exactly its weakest limitation, even for a good, politically correct character, most guild quests and side quests presume you're the only person in the world causing any sort of disturbance in the otherwise static world. And there are only two possible outcomes: it's done or not done, completely ignoring the fact you may want to avoid killing or hurting people just to get the story moving.

It's very similar to Dead Island, a very linear, casual, action game, which happens to take place in a large map. It's not a true sandbox game, just one huge theme park, but where most of the ride happens on tracks.

Very nice anolysis, OP.
Hopefully one that is noticed and paid attention to.

I like your point about certainty of prophecy. What I liked about the prophecy in Morrowind was that it was always uncertain whether we actually were the Nerevarine, possibly even after the end, and we had to do a lot more work to convince others that we were. Plus, the Skyrim-prophecy is as flat as it can be: The good guy will save the day. Nothing else about him is known except that the is Dragonborn. The Morrowind prophecy is much more specific, which is the reason why you have to become Hortator and unite all the Ashlander clans. The whole thing becomes much more involved and important to you, because you actually DO those things mentioned in the prophecy. In Skyrim it's a simple "Yep, you're it" from the start. No development whatsoever.

Also, I agree that full voice acting makes it nearly impossible to write a good story in an open world game of this scope. If Bethesda can't do it with their huge budget, I don't think it can be done.

And last, I really really want Michael Kirkbride back.

My main gripe with Skyrim storytelling is that you often are put in a position here you have to make an uninformed decision - pretty much all the faction you can join suffer from that.

*sigh*

Another person who doesn't understand TES games.

Oh well, there's always easy-mode, dike and Jane MMOs for you thataway ---------------------------->

I thought it was herp versus derp.

In all seriousness, Bethesda really do quite need to hire some more and better writers. Chris Avellone's DLC content was more inspired, inventive and creative than all of Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Skyrim combined. Of course the entire population of gaming writers can't be MCA, but there's got to be a few more professional writers out there who need jobs. Don't get me wrong now, because there are certainly flashes of inspiration in Skyrim (Cicero is a great character, but he's one of merely a handful if that) but it's almost as if every writer was forced to nerf his own content for the sake of fitting MOAR COOL THINGS!!1 into the game.

Nice reading! A great exposure of some of the most challeged decisions that defined the game.
After 150+ hours of trying to roleplay, I can't get any juice out of the character I created. As far as the Skyrim world goes, all that is left is sightseeing.

Trying to "live" another story, in Skyrim, is as boring as it gets. Also because one design decision is to delegate important information to imaginary storytelling. And that can only be found in books. See for example http://mplayer.pastemagazine.com/issues/week-19/articles#article=/issues/week-19/articles/reading-a-videogame-the-books-of-skyrim:.

Time for a new game, a new story... This one is just getting old, running into dead-ends, and failing to deliver the original concepts of the game.

All the characters feel like robots, with mono-tone lines. No heart, no care, no emotion and improper expressions at the wrong times. That mirrors into the gamers heads. (Well, it does into mine.)

Sand-box, yes... that is all the whole game feels like. A kids sand-box with mixed-toys, bad story elements, and the only entertainment is the entertainment you create yourself... alone... in the sand-box... A dump-truck, a few dolls, some sticks for a fence, some stones for a road, cardboard boxes for castles, and something stinky buried in the corner.

The closest thing to bonding, was my dull relationship with Lydia... Who seems more like an actual wife than the one you are allowed to wed. The guards are a joke, even they think-so.. By the many self-degrading comments. The citizens do nothing that warrants them being saved by risking my own life. (Before or after any events in the game.) The leaders all seem dumb, clueless, seemingly over-relaxed for a civilization at war, and the greatest conflict in the game is deciding if it is safe to walk by anything with lips, that can possibly spout-off another useless random quest, which can not be avoided.

But I am DRAGONBORN... Oh, and so are a bunch of other guys...
But I slayed the boss, and quelled the drag.... oh, no.. there are still dragons... So much for being a hero... But the big one is gone!
But I avoid multiple assassinations... Yea, and... (Great reward for helping others. They seem to be the only ones who notice you are doing others any favors.)
But I am now more powerful than anything in the game... Hmm... Wasn't that the main boss who just complained that, "There were no worthy challengers. I was bored." (Deja-Vous... RESURRECT BOSS... Nope, still not a challenge. DUPLICATE BOSS... Nope, twice as boring now.)

Oh, but I have a wife, (useless), a lot of property, (useless), and well... Um... no friends... no thanks... no gratitude... no world-advancements... no progression around me... and 130lbs of dead-weight sitting in my inventory, following me like a dead-weight reminder of the games shallow depth.

If you are going to use voices... hire "Voice Actors", not just people who read out-loud like the game is an e-book. Hire a "voice-director", and focus more on content, not explanations. A picture is worth a 1000 words... A good sentence is worth a chapter of bad paragraphs of irrelevant information that could be derived by a child. The silence should clue-us-in, that a quest we are about to take, is a random radiant quest. (Silence, as in, lack of spoken dialogue.)

This.

Writing a story is not the same as writing quest dialogue for a sandbox game. There's nothing wrong with applying these principles to the writing, but you can't ignore the limitations imposed by the format.

Let me give you an example of a very easy story to write: You have a character who has been designed by a studio. Every part of this character's past, his general attitude toward life, his role in the narrative, his friends and family, his colleagues, his opponents and their unique motivations are all known beforehand. All of the dialogue is written directed toward this character. A small amount of flex dialogue has been written to provide players with a small illusion of choice, but, by and large, it's all cut from the same cloth. The number of characters this protagonist interacts with in a meaningful fashion is probably a couple of dozen. The number that require extensive dialogue maybe half a dozen. There is one plot with two or three alternate endings and a couple of "branches" that rotate around the main trunk. Any competent developer should be able to write a good, engaging story and provide decent dialogue and voice acting.

Let me give you an example of a very difficult story to write: You have a character designed by a player of which the studio can have no knowledge. This character might be anything: a hero, a villain, a madman, a pacifist, a drunkard, a farmer, a wandering bard, a barbarian, a sophisticated urban thief, a village priest, a sultry mage, etc., to infinity. The designers give him the role of the "chosen one" to provide a single thread of consistency between all of these possibilities. Without that thread, there is no way to attach a major narrative. They have no idea what his role in that narrative will be, whether he will follow it, ignore it, pervert it, screw it up, or actively reject it. Because this person is a complete unknown to the developers, they can't create friends, family, colleagues, or a personal nemesis. All of the dialogue has to be written toward an everyman and any player who has created a character that is not incredibly generic and bland will find the dialogue choices and responses inappropriate in direct proportion to the degree of individuality with which they have infused their character. The number of characters that the player will have meaningful interactions with is probably the same, but they could be any of hundreds of different characters, all of which have to be given back-stories, personality, goals, routines, dialogue, relationships, opinions toward the player and the events of the world, etc. The number of characters that require extensive dialogue has grown from half a dozen to three dozen at a minimum. All of them need professionally written dialogue and voice acting, all of which must be directed at toward a character who is a complete unknown to the developers. Multiple plots have to be written, each with branches and subplots that provide some modicum of choice for players who want to pursue them in a non-standard fashion, all of which have to work together harmoniously without interfering with each other. The number of companies that have performed this feat successfully, to the standards you have indicated is exactly 0. The number that have a shot is perhaps 2: BGS and RockStar.

Knowing the principles of good writing is not enough. You also have to understand the format and the game requirements.

The easiest way to create the type of narrative that you are suggesting is to remove choice from the player by defining the central protagonist beforehand as various other "RPGs" do: DA2, the Witcher, ME, etc. It is no mystery why these studios receive kudos for their writing. They've chosen the easy route. Mostly because people keep demanding better narratives from RPGs.

Excellent insights, and a fantastic discussion going on in here. Very good read with lots to think about.

Excellent post. I agree entirely.

Fallout 3, as much as I love it, was pretty much the same thing. You follow the linear story with no choice along the way. Well, apart from the completely nonsensical final decision regarding Project Purity at the very end. And even that was rendered meaningless once Broken Steel was introduced. As you quite rightly say, its done or not done, and there are no consequences or reaction either way.

I read a lot of posts here describing roleplaying certain characters, as well. But to me, its not real roleplaying as such, you either choose which quests you want to do, or avoid. That's it, because once you start them there's little in the way of paths to follow. Any other considerations, like race, combat class etc are purely cosmetic. Be a Khajiit mage, or a Breton warrior - it makes no difference, you're still hunting down Alduin. And the world won't care before, or after, if you've even done it. To play a role you should have to make decisions, and the world react to you as a result. If this is not done through intelligent storytelling, then how else?