Trust me, I'm usually quite sensitive to these things (I don't much care for The Witcher) but besides the jail episode following the Forsworn Conspiracy quest, I haven't had any problems playing as a noble hero. As others have said, the Stendarr priest attacks you first so it's just self-defense and after that, while talking to Molag Bal, I distinctly remember saying "Let me go, I never wanted to help you" and then he just releases you. No problem! Yes, the quest is still unfinished in my log and I never intend to do it, but that's it.
Similarly, the main quest does not require you to frame that guy in Riften. You can ask other people for the information you would have gained that way.
There is more freedom than you think but sometimes you have to look a little bit further for it.
I don't mind that being a good guy implies missing out on treasure or that it's sometimes harder... That only makes it more challenging, more worthwhile and more real.
If I want to do the Thieves guild or the Dark brotherhood I'll create a less noble-minded character.

The thing about Skyrim is that it portrays the idea of a Nation divided very well.
Whatever choice you make,on one end you will always make a bad choice.
Someone will always be unhappy.
Sometimes there simply are no 'good' choices to be made,or not even any middle ground to step on.
Quite often there will only be the lesser of two evils.
Life will force you in many ways.
Storywise,the Molag Bal quest was similar.
When Bal ordered me to kill the npc i walked in with,i had no such desire.
It was simply the NPC's foolish and weak response of 'i have to kill you to live myself',that forced me to defend myself.
The Good option in that situation?
Die so that the other might live.
That how you wanna play the game?

As a bandit one would think i could hang with other lowlifes in their camps,but they see me as an enemy and attack me,so naturally i have to defend myself.

You join the Companions,get forced to become a Werewolf,but never use its power.You didnt even kill a single soul in your initial transformation.

Do any of these choices make you inheritely Evil?

Life throws a lit of [censored] at you,its how you react and what do do with the options that are GIVEN to you that define who you become.
Like stated before,in a Civil War where both sides have an equal and fair point of view,you can never make 'the right choice'.

If you cant comprehend that concept,i'm afraid there's little more to be done than a bullet to the head.

I think the worst concept of ''good'' heroes is when people want to complete every single quest in their log. I mean seriously,that just won't happen here,since this isn't fable(and to think that used to be a good game). You can be good because life's not always about good or bad. The witcher portrays amazingly this .I played first one and since the very beginning you have to pick between 2 hard situations: Do you save a woman that's being accused of being a witch and that WILL be burned if you do nothing, or you will kill the stubborn villagers? It's the same thing here . Or dragon age origins also had this kind of decisions where there isn't a good or bad situation. Do you save the werewolves who were transformed because of an elder,but by doing this you get all elves slaughtered,or you kill the werewolves with cold-hearted blood because they are ''beasts''? Some games are just NOT the usual fairy tale with the charming prince going to save the princess, and the companies started this with many games,because they realized gamers find the concept of good and evil too boring sometimes.

Yeah you can help Mara or Dibella.

I want to get the Oblivion Walker achievement, cause I like collecting artifacts, but for the life of me I can't bring myself to complete Namira's quest. What she asks is even a part of my race's culture! I still can't bring myself to do it, even in a video game! Murder, fine. But THIS! No.. no.. it starts making my stomach turn thinking about it.

Have to agree with everyone who wants a 'third option out' here.

Walking away/Ignoring the quest is just silly. Fine, you can deny most of them it seems (except the house of horror's where you are truly tricked, you go in to do good, but get wrapped up in semi-evil), but everyone should have an ending like the one with the dagger or the one with the nightmares where you can choose to either screw over the daedra or kill the guy. Saying no robs you of the experience, and as said pretending the quest isn't there is just stupid. Personally I don't fully RP a character so if it's in the quest log, it's supposed to be done one way or another. And by done I mean not just saying 'no'. And it's a lot more fun to see the quest through while having an option at the end or preferably several along the way, which regardless will give you some form of conclution to the questline.

RP/gaming wise, where's the good in ignoring a bunch of zealots who wants you to bring innocents to be killed at their altar? I know I can just kill them randomly, but it'd be a lot more fun for it to have a questline and so have some sort of effect on the world.

I don't mind quest having bad ends, I'd love to be able to mediate between the stormcloaks and imperials (after MQ) even if it meant it'd all blow up in my face, I just want the options is all.

TL;DR: All quests would be cooler if they had some way of choosing between good/evil and maybe even a third option.

It would be original though if they had good and evil options for all quests. Too many games do that anyways

No, there should be no "good" option for communing with and opting to serve the King of [censored].

Sorry.

Even fable has some quests that have ONLY a good or evil outcome - it just warns you up front that this is a good or bad quest instead of the player having to understand what is being asked of him, and follow his own moral compass, and make his own decisions.

It's true many games allow good AND bad outcomes, but TES is a different formula, it has a wide range of quests for a range of players. It's up to YOU to understand what is being asked of you before you accept it. games with multiple outcomes usually have far elss quests. it's a range of content/depth of content tradeoff. In meantime - don't join a guild or thieves or murders if you don't want to thieve or murder

Isn't it funny that they refer to Molag Bal as the king of R.ape in their own books, but I can't call him that on their forums?

well making a "quest" for the devil is always evil oO
you can always just not do it

I assume you mean "not original".

True, but it's not like it needs to be Holy Paladin VS Child-molesting murderrapist here. For example, letting the boethiah guy win against Molag Bal and keep his altar free of blood would't be evil nor nice, as the priest isn't exactly good.

Stuff like that. Some variations should be possible to make for gamedesigners.

An awesome addition to the game would be the possibility of putting the various followers of the daedra up against eachother. Like some sort of "good" madman. Do little evil for greater good is always a kicker.

yeah my bad. it was a typo . As for the variation,yeah that would be good,but it's possible they forgot or didn't had time.Skyrim is a huge game after all,and I'm quite impressed by the work they did

Of course. It's not like it's a gamekiller. This is more of a wish.

Aye.

I think the main problem is that you can't turn down quests.


It would be nice if they could code a "good" ending to all quests. modders might! but that would be alot of time and money.


easier would be the ability to highlight a quest...and decline. "go kill a baby and eat it!" nope. decline. out of sight out of mind.

"John Francis Dovahkiin, a jury of your peers has found that on the 5th of Sun's Dawn, you did wilfully and unlawfully commit the unprovoked murder of five innocent citizens of the realm and the desecration of their corpses in order to, let's see here, "harvest their blood for the demon prince of forbidden knowledge". Is there anything you have to say in your defense before I pass sentence?"

"I had to do it. I had no choice. It was stuck in my quest log."

There is always a way... well sort of.
One of my personal solutions to one of the quests: I "fixed" my Molag-Bal anger by doing something evil. I simply killed the priest after talking to him (before he leaves to face Molag-Bal in the house). The quests was marked as "Failed" and removed from my journal. Jep, it's evil, but I prefer him to die quickly by my blade, without enduring what would have awaited him at that house... And I still had the reward of course.

It also always depends on your character, the way you role play him/her.

If it wasn't for that damnable Achievement/Trophy nobody would have a damn problem with it.

It wouldn't come down to "whelp I can't complete the game now because I'm missing a trophy". It would come down to "well I don't really need nor will I ever use the Staff of Corruption, so I'm not gonna murder this priest in cold blood".

Even if you can ignore the quest, a good character would never leave the person trapped in a cage until they die. We're fighting dragons and Alduin, but we can't go against the wishes of Daedric princes? Right..

It seems sloppy and incomplete. You should be able to finish all your quests, either by denying the quest giver or simply going the opposite route -- having to ignore them should never, ever be required.

Personal problem if your OCD gets in the way of simple logic. Don't like what the quest entails, then don't do it.

Why? It should be on Bethesda to make sure all quests can be completed by any character, regardless of how they choose to play the game. Not us. They're the developers and Skyrim is an RPG. It should cater to role-players by giving them the options they want rather than features they have to ignore.

Stop defending them already. They're good at what they do -- Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim are all great games -- but they do make mistakes, and a forum full of people blindly justifying their every action isn't going to make them learn from those mistakes, is it?

I feel blessed that I'm not OCD, but I don't really know what to tell you OP, I don't think they sat and thought about "Well what if we have some OCD players who would hate to have quests sitting in their quest log?" I can only say that wasn't thought about.

They were developing a game where the ability to play your character however you'd like is the selling point, and you don't think they thought about actually creating quests that reflected that? Oh, no, of course not. You're right, that would be absurd!

Basically youre trying to blame someone else for the choices you made.

Something existing in your quest log doesn't mean you have to or should do it. It means it's something that can be done that your character knows about.