Playing as a good person in Skyrim is almost impossible. There are very few non lethal alternatives in the game, Calm is a great spell that can help you to play as a pacifist, however it is limited by the narrow corridor that is the Skyrim Quests. In many of the quests I have no option other than to kill said person. Although there are times in which I can persuade a person to give me an item, or to leave, that option is almost always impossible as the speech options are few and far between, followed by the lack of progression that the Speech skill can go through due to limited chances to actually raise it.

I'm not asking for a morality meter that is based upon responses that are either Bad, Neutral, or Good. I'd just like to go through the game without desensitizing myself from my character because he is forced to steal, murder, and pillage everyone, and everything.

Maybe Skyrim is a metaphor for life, detailing the whole saying that "Nice guys finish last", or that morals are useless in a world in which so much corruption exists. The more probable answer is it wasn't on the top of their list of priorities.

Roleplaying a milk drinker, hmmm...

So you want to play without killing nobody?

Is stealing an option or is it "being bad" too?

Not possible in any TES game
Even the Imperial Cult in MW required you to kill the ocasinal witch or ghost

I've done pretty well with my "nice" character, though to be fair my version of nice just meant "don't kill things." I managed to get through both the thieves guild and mage questlines only killing two people (one at the end of each.) Oh, and Mercer Frey ruined my undead statistics by killing a bunch of undead while I ran around trying to calm everything down. Damn you Mercer.

So I was level 40 with only two people murdered, no animals or creatures or undead or anything killed. I joined the dark brotherhood without murdering anyone either, though that required me to coerce others into doing your dirty work for you. Not very "nice."

It's a pretty neat way to play. But I understand it gets frustrating. I don't know why I would have to kill someone to get any house in the game (apart from Breezehouse, and there I have to kill a dragon, or get someone else to kill it.) I think it shows they weren't thinking about people trying to play this way. It's probably interesting to the developers to see it.

If you want to play the innocent damsel sort of character, you could cause accidents. Like get a giant to chase you and then run into a bandit camp, turn invisible and hide, and just watch the splatter.

How on Earth did you manage to play through the thieves guild, mage questline and dark brotherhood and reaching level 40 by killing just 2 people? Are you counting follower kills...?

i don't think he mean't not to kill anybody anything .
he mean't not to kill neutral NPCs .
and it's possible unless you joined DB and thieves guilds

I'd rather have to option to not kill people. Its mostly if I think they're a good person or not. I'll kill Astrid on sight because I think what they do is immoral, but I won't kill bandits if they yield, and I'll actually stay clear of them most of the time in hopes of not aggravating them. The same goes for most animals, and dragons in which I'll just run away, or calm them. Undead I may or may not kill depending on whether I believe I'm helping them by doing so.




I've played as a pacifist and a manipulator before. Manipulator is the most vial, demented character I created. Using fury and calm to basically set a entire bandit camp in chaos. A true pacifist is basically impossible, because you are always going to have to directly, or indirectly kill someone, or something.

Hi derby--it won't let me post a quote to you. No idea why.

To answer your questions, the thieves guild is pretty easy until you get stuck in a room, basically alone, with the final baddie. Then you have to kill him or fail the whole thing. So that was one kill. The other quests were just sneaking and stealing.

Mage questline, I specialized in illusion, so calmed things and used invisibility when I got it. Again, the only time I *had* to kill was at the very end, when you get stuck in the room with the final baddie. It's this type of finale that leads me to believe the devs did not expect anyone to try to get through without murdering anyone.

And the dark brotherhood, like I say, you have to be bad, even if you don't kill anyone. To kill Grelod I frenzied the other woman in the room and she did it for me. When Astrid asks me to kill people in the abandoned shack, I frenzied Astrid. Voila: she calms down and doesn't realize she's the one who did the deed. I actually got through the DB questline until you have to kill the son of the Emperor's security forces, and then he was so strong none of the NPCs could be frenzied to kill him. I had to do it myself, brining my total up to 3. Ah well!

I think you can play as a pacifist. You just might not be able to do a lot of the faction quests, etc. If you just wandered around you could be a pacifist, for sure. Have you seen Felix the Peaceful Monk? Search his videos on YouTube. It's pretty neat.

But yeah--the manipulator is really the worst. (Fun to play, though.)

Perhaps you mean "pacifist" rather than "good"?

I certainly think my characters are good - I don't murder innocents, I'm unlikely to do the Thieves' Guild and will never do the DB (didn't in Oblivion either), I'm unlikely to do many of the Daedric quests (they're quite dark this time), etc.

Certainly willing to defend myself from an attacking bear/wolf/crazy cultist/bandit, though. Or wipe out a cave full of evil whatevers. Seems quite "good" to me.



....I will say that I was disappointed there weren't some non-violent options in quests like Peryite's (?)

if you killed Gaius Maro "DB quest" it means you killed 4 , coz there's a kill before that one and its very evil one :q

keko4321,--No! I used Mayhem and everyone else did it for me. It really was mayhem. I had to use Harmony right away and still, innocents died. O:) But my hands were clean.


I have no idea why it says I can't post links every time I try to Quote someone's post. I'll go ask at the troubleshooting forum (when I find it.)

aha ok
and i think you couldn't quote coz i was editing my post , i added that link in spoilers tag

I think it was because I'm a newbie, but I'm learning. O:) Sorry, OT.

hehehe not a problem m8
welcome to forums

Now I killed the thread.

But it would be really interesting to hear from the devs about whether they had any inkling that people would even try to play Skyrim as a pacifist. I haven't heard of many Oblivion pacifists, so maybe not.

I disagree. I play as a good-sided character (310 hours, level 38) and I don't find frustrating situations that force me to do evil deeds... and I don't exactly know what you mean when you talk about persuading someone to give you an item, "or you kill them". Not asking for spoilers either, but I'm not sure right now if I found myself in that situation... Of course I've been asked to do lots of things about stealing or killing, but I ignored them all.

The same I don't pick any item that is not mine, even if it's flagged white (barres on streets, items on friend shops, etc.). And if I get asked to take something from someone, I only take the quest if I think it's fair. I mean, I may disagree with a situation so I just don't take the quest, because I feel the "victim" doesn't deserve to be either persuaded or intimidated. I don't have to "beat" all quests. At least not with this char. For example, someone asked me to bring a copy of a book. I finally found it, and even if it was there, ready to pick up, it belonged to someone else, so I didn't (it also has the "steal" text on it). This is an example of being able to do something (as player), but also follow the rules I decided for this char.

This character is also good at speech, so depending on the quest I can either intimidate someone (if they deserve it) or try persuading, but if any of those doesn't fit my "good-sided" character, I just bribe, or maybe even exit the conversation and ignore that quest. Just a way of let it be.

You talk about the Calm spell... well, I don't use magic neither read magic books with this char (it's just an archer), but I have a shout that calms wild animals. I use it with bears, sabrecats and some other wild animals which "home" I invade while traveling, that I understand have nothing to do with me, so I also let them be, and this also gives more immersion to this good-aligned character.


All this with my current char. The next one could be all the opposite, and I will have same fun doing other things. But it will be different stuff, that fit with that char, but doesn't with this one.

Anyway, even if you want to be 100% good, it's the medieval era. You CAN be good, but smart at same time. And remember you can always ignore a quest if you feel it doesn't fit the char, even if you agreed to do something and the quest log is there waiting. As far as I know there is no phase on the MQ that forces you to be evil, so at worst you will just end up with several unfinished side quests on your log.

I'd like to see an alternative to killing with each and every quest...not talking about dragons or dragon priests or the like. I don't care for playing a bounty hunter but if it has to be that, couldn't I take the criminal in like the quest where I took the guy in to Modryn Oreyn in Oblivion? I had to fight my way to him but at least I could take him in.

I often choose not to do a quest but it cuts out a lot of the game because I don't play a thief or a werewolf or a vampire or do the DB faction either. I'd like to explore the non-killing path more, either through speech options or Calm or Fear or something else they can create. If the devs don't, I'm going to play anyway because I love these games (the exploration, etc.) but it would be nice to stick to a more noble path instead of having to go to the dark side...that's just how it makes me feel. Anyway...just a point of view.

There is a quest that is has a chivalry type feel. It's two sided in which you can either be good, or bad. However even on the good side you're still forced to basically kill people. I'd love for the ability do do quests (that help the quests giver such as retrieving an item) but most require me to actually kill the person with the item, or steal it from them, both of which are bad to me. I'd love for the ability to speak to a bandit and either persuade them to give me the item, or bribe them.

A lot of guilds are morally wrong. I was hoping that the Champions would be a group full of good, sane people however it becomes the opposite of that. The only guild that I feel is the least bit sane, or good would be the mages guild which is crazy ironic given how magic is frowned upon and also the stigma mages have within general lore.

Like the other games before it your morality is your character's decision.

This was too much rope for a lot of people in "Oblivion" and many strangled themselves with it, needing the game to make these personal decisions for them.

So it was easy to immerse yourself in the "Dark Brotherhood" for example.

Ironic that so many people complained about the "Map Marker" in this game as well.

"Skyrim" is the same. Be yourself or be how you think your character would be.

Azrael
The Nord with the Sword

Sounds like you are confusing "good" with being a pacifist. I find it very easy to be a "good" defined as one who tries to help people and only kills in self defense, but yeah, I imagine it would be pretty tough to play a pacifist, not just in Skyrim but in any Elder Scrolls game. But you could certainly do it with a bit of effort by leveling your illusion. Once you illusion is at Master with appropriate perks, you should be able to calm just about anything.

I am curious though whether your pacifism extends to undead and dwarven animitrons, and if so, how do you intend to get any loot? Wouldn't stealing from bandits, or the undead, or whatever be just as bad as killing them?

I use lots of magical efffects like calm, ward, turn undead and invisibility. it helps a little.

but I agree they are difficult to develop in the early stages and it means lots of quests can't be finished.

its nice to role play a hero but to get the most out of the game you have to be morally ambivalent a lot of the time.