Warning: Spoliers Below

Does anyone else feel that this game unfortunately doesn't really give you the ability to be decent. There's just too many quests IMO where i'm forced to sacrifice people, steal from the good, kill decent people, etc..

Now I understand that I can simply not do these quests but as a player you kind of lose out by doing so. My options seem to be either take the quests and be rewarded for being evil or not do the quest and miss out on content. It would be much more interesting if the game were to allow more options where you can refuse to do things like these and deal with whatever consequences there are with the quest giver.

For instance, the quest to kill the orphanage person. Yeah, I did it but felt lousy doing so. But that's fine that's on me.

But once I did so and then rested I met whatshername from the Dark Brotherhood and was ordered to kill one of three people. Again, I did do but felt really dirty in doing it. Now after the fact I find that I could have killed the assassin instead. Its a shame that I can't still turn on the Dark Brotherhood. I mean, maybe I can and I haven't gone far in enough yet but i'm at the point with them where they want to give me jobs to kill people and I just don't want to do them. Am I going to miss out on a lot of interesting story line just because I choose not to be a cold hearted killer?

and then there's the thieve's Guild questline where I have to track down Mercer. Part of doing so involves my having to become a Nightengale which involves my pledging my life and soul to some deity named Nocturnal. Um, what? I know that this is only a game but what if I don't want to pledge my soul? Well, no story for me it seems?

anyone else having any moral problems?

Pretty hard to be decent in a 'kill or be killed' world.

I'm with you man, but this gritty stuff does make for an interesting game, and enhanced replayability. One of my next characters will be an evil one, sneak-theif too. It just gives me more for my purchase.

Unfortunately that seems to be a design choice and not a player choice though.

My character is in its mid 50s now and I've stopped in a few plot lines because they bugged me by making me dedicate myself to something that I didn't feel comfortable with.

The Companions - Becomming a werewolf
Joining the Stormcloaks - Taking the oath
The Silver Hand - Participating in a blood ritual
and now the Thief's Guild and Dark Brotherhood.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not overly religious or anything, I would just rather chose to be (somewhat) moral person in the game. I'll bend and steal from time to time but I prefer to not have to kill unless attacked first.

That's the dichotomy. You always have the developers' view as opposed to the views of the players. I find that fairly annoying in the TES world though, since it's been obvious since Arena that Beth has provided the player a very open world for the most part. Sometimes the devs get in their own way - not to mention the players' way and the "way of the open world"....

As far as how to be a decent individual in a game honestly not set up that way: you got caught in that dichotomy already. So.... start a new character, now that you understand there are pitfalls and where some of them are. You know that Grelod isn't a nice old lady providing a loving home for orphaned children, so you know that killing her isn't going to stain your conscience. And now you know that you can kill Astrid, release the "death row" prisoners, and go on to lay waste to the DB. So that quest line really can be done by a player who want to stay on the "good" side of the line (if you can manage to get beyond killing Grelod in cold blood - even though no one's going to be unhappy that you did so....)

Other than that.... don't do the Thieves' Guild quest line. Don't do any daedra quests (and you want to look all of them up on the wiki so you know what "gotchas" are waiting for you since they aren't very transparent....) other than Azura and Meridia (both of which in this game at least are reasonably "benevolent") - and I always do the Mehrunes Dagon quest (read up on it) simply because I can REFUSE to kill the original quest giver, remove an artifact from the game world by so doing, AND lay waste (over and over - considering respawns) to the daedra's shrine.... Oh, the daedra Sanguine's quest is really okay, and FUN.

Beyond that, you simply need to read up on quests as you run across them so you know what you're getting into. In this game, there's no just blindly accepting quests and staying on the "good" side. You really have to read up in depth and make decisions from there.

Um. Save a LOT. Really. Otherwise, you may find yourself up the proverbial creek with NO means of locomotion. NOT a good thing.

Yeah, it's a choice (sum of several choices, actually) and unfortunately there are some things I won't do ever and I guess I miss out - I just read the walk-throughs on the wikis, but I refuse to do some things.

When faced with an NPC or new race/species I approach them with weapons sheathed and let them act first so I get your point. Many games released nowadays put the moral dilemma on us and we have to choose - "simulation" maybe? I know it's just a game, but I feel it says a lot about us how we act in these games (I'm gonna' get some reactions from that statement. ) because our game actions bring out something that's in us somewhere. Just like you can only blame so much on "just doing my job" there's only so much you can attribute to being "fantasy".

It's not very realistic from an RP standpoint, but I guess you could always save, do the unpalatable quest/action and reload.

We can join them? I wouldn't FWIW, but I never realized we could join them.

I think I've been in this argument before...

I don't play this way, but someone will surely come along and argue that they are role playing. And if they mean something similar to writing a book/story about an evil character, then it's not really them, because they are making the decisions that the fictional guy would make, just as if they were an author. If I was writing about Hannibal Lector then yeah, the character would be into cannibalism. I play games to run around in a fantasy world as myself, though, so there's a ton of stuff I wouldn't do.

Ya like in Namira's quest were you have the option to fail or murder and then cannibalise an innocent man.

It's often kill or be killed but tell me... how do you figure going to join the Dark Brotherhood if you're trying to be "decent"?

Yeah, I just can't step too far outside of myself...even in a game.

That's one I'll never do. Even though I want to see that apparatus I've seen in the loading screens.

There is the option to wipe out the DB, but of course you do need to kill the Orphanage woman. I watched her in sneak mode for many days, and decided to bump her off because the game was better off without her and her viciousness. Didn't know at the time that it was the intro into the DB.

There are a few Daedric quests in Skyrim that I just won't do, and I don't even have any agenda to be 'decent'. There's one in Markarth where I resent that you get no other option but to kill the Stendarr guy in the Abandoned House because he freaks out and attacks you... I tried everything to not kill him once I was inside, but eventually I gave the game the finger and loaded up a save from before I went in there.

Evil characters face the same dilemma. There aren't really enough choices/alternate endings to quests.

You don't.

Here's another example of the kind of things I would have liked to have seen in this game

The Thieve's Guild sends me off to do a job. Maybe steal a valuable item from a vendor or change their ledger. I do the job. Then later in the game I return to that vendor and find that he was out of business because of unexplained losses. Maybe even find that the vendor turned into a beggar because he went broke. Things like these would show that there are consequences to actions.

There was another job where I had to poison or ruin mead that the guards were to test. When the guards tested it the vendor was arrested but that was the last that we heard of it. I would have liked to have seen another quest were we later saw the poor mead vendor in jail being tortured or at the very least pleading for his innocence since he was in fact innocent.

Again, I'd really enjoy it if the game gave us more choices and then showed us the consequences to our actions.

I made the decision to kill her before she finished her first sentence. ...but I was there because of the quest - I wasn't just snooping.

We may see something like that in an expansion. There has to be a reason that the Black-Briars and TG members are essential, but we can wipe out the DB.

I've never checked, but I'm guessing you have: the Honningbrew guy is not in Whiterun jail then?

Tried being this on a priestess character. Got her some of the hooded robes in the beginning of the game...
But the need for money, food, shelter, has had her do some less than proud things.

I wasn't aware you could join the silver hand, so how are you taking a blood ritual to join them?

Niamh is an angry woman - (she has a continuously threaded backstory from Morrowind) - she's back in Skyrim through no fault of her own.
So far 6 individuals have been on the wrong end of her temper, actually it's more than that, but the others fought back.

The Cyrodiil that Niamh lived in was dark and nasty and I am gratified to note that the Skyrim she was sent to can be an equally dirty and violent place. I play a low fantasy, gritty game and it works here...

All I know is that the first time I met that witch running Honnorhall Orphanage, I wanted to kill her. And I will. SOON.

You feel bad for killing an Evil Old Woman who slaps and beats children around?

This is what multiple characters are for.
I usually make my first character Evil/Neutral, so I can learn which quests my good character would avoid. You could start off playing a good character, just save a lot and be prepared to reload in some cases (like Molag Bal's quest, in my case). But honestly, there's no reason to do ALL of the content on one character. For example, I started with a Thief/Assassin (more chaotic/evil), and went through the TG, DB, & Companions line, as well as some of the Daedric quests. My second character was a Mage, and did the MQ/College of Winterhold quests, he was more of a neutral char. I played a Warrior who only did 'good' quests (although she wiped out Grelod and then the DB because in her view it was justice). etc. So don't feel forced into doing quests if it's not what the character would do. Just sort of mentally note them, and go back with a more evil character.

Agreed. There were some natural outcomes to things that did not get explored any further, like:

It would have been nice if the alt ending to DB questline had you meeting up with the three "victims" later if you let them go free and maybe found the key phrase to the Dawnstar Sanctuary lying about the other one when you went to dispose of DB. Heck, It would have been nice if Astrid had been riding Shadowmere and left him outside the Abandoned Shack for you or that you found a note on her telling how to raise him....

Well, yeah. I would have rather set her up to get arrested or something like I did with other less deserving NPCs in the game.

Just be descent and work in the farms, mine or woods. I'm sure you could make a descent living in Skyrim by doing this.

Hey, I'm not some voyeur who sneaks around spying on orphans for kicks... I was there checking out if her bad press was true for the quest as well.