I am a good guy-player, and I couldn't be happier with the way it is handled in Skyrim.

It's not a perfect place where doing the right thing is in any way easy, but neither is it a sinkhole of depravity not worth saving. It's a grim but majestic world where a proud and noble, but fallible and corruptable people live. A world that deserves your best efforts, and sometimes they won't be enough, but if you want to be a real good guy, you carry on anyway and in the end you'll find it quite rewarding.
Those are the best stories, if you ask me.

Great post Audioepics.

Face it. This is Pretty much Fallout with swords. Same gritty outlook, same limiting quest writers, and pretty much one sided.

Nice.

Good.

Saintly groups are boring.

The DB almost felt 'Good' to me... so strange. They almost tried to justify every target, unlike in Oblivion where I was pretty reluctant. That isn't a complaint though, just an observation. The daedra quests compensate well in this regard.

But I'd say the issue is not the lack of "good" quests as much as it is the lack of non-evil paths in quests. I had two instances where I had the option to kill or not kill someone, I'd like more of those types of choices. Too often a quest reaches the point where it is a choice between: [A] Do unethical action to progress questline. [B] Walk away from questline.

I guess a better way of putting that is "Too infrequently is there an option [C]..."

NPCs plead for mercy all the time, I would have loved it if there was a way for those NPCs to realize when you had granted their wish.

I Love the More "Grey" approach to things!

Absolutely.

I really did get used to playing the Goodie Good where there was always a compassionate/"White" option to fulfilling quests. In Skyrim there isn't in most cases, and that's caused a lot of discomfort for me as a player, which gets me invested into the world proper and ultimately leads to a more satisfying experience.

I saw some Vigilants of Stendar on my travels. I had Rockjoint and they healed me! Then I backstabbed them both and continued on my way to Hircine.

lol

btw the backstab animation with a fire enchanted dagger looks amazing

Ahem. Fallout 3 is Elder Scrolls with guns, thank you.

And not to mention, Imperial vs Stormcloaks has generated a lot more heated and passionate discussion then NCR vs Legion ever did.

There should definitely be questlines with Mjol cleaning up Riften, she really seems like an NPC who had her quests cut for time.

But I find it really strange you would list the Silver Hands as a group your good aligned character would want to join. They come off as knight templars of the worst sort, as their hideouts are full of dead and tortured victims...not all of whom are necessarily werewolves. In fact, I remember one fort where there's a guy outside talking about his family being trapped inside, and you can find the dead bodies of several people stuffed in a sideroom near the bottom...

Say what you will about the Companions and whether or not just being a werewolf makes you evil...but there aren't any victims lying on bloody tables with torture implements nearby in Jorrvaskr.

I feel like the game is just as dark as morrowind. I find morrowind more shockingly dark. and this game more vulgarly dark.

other than trying to kill you once, and being a weakened power, the imperial side is not evil. not anymore evil than any other superpower.

the mages guild was not evil at all. and other than gandalf, most mages are not "good" they are more scholars and neutral than holy.

the TG was more realistic than oblivion. because though I loved the robin hood vibe, it was totally unrealistic.

the suprises: making the fighter's guild have daedra worshippers.


I think that the evil and neutral options in this game are great. I do agree that for the sake of choice/freedom, some more obviously good paths should be included in DLC.

I have not progressed in the DB. because Narfi is a beggar who lost his sister. why would anyone need him dead? he just stands near the river all day. could not do it.

and I agree on choice. I think for daedra quests, there should rarely be a non evil choice...don't mess with daedra if you ain't morally grey/evil! but how cool would it have been to elevate the companions to a more noble fighting guild?

ah...so looking forward to MODS to address these things

The dialogue of the Vigilants of Stendarr that I've met in the game gives me the impression that they're not particularly 'good' either - true, they probably do good in many cases, but they come across as being sufficiently hardline/fanatical that I wouldn't be surprised to find "necessary casualties" being left in their wake. (They more or less outright declare that mercy isn't on their agenda, and any group like that is apt to cross moral lines VERY quickly.)

To be fair, given the events of the Oblivion Crisis, a hard line stance against Daedra Worship is completely understandable.

I would say.... given the fact that most game producers tend to do new games which play to the responses they get from older material... that many players must have been asking for darker material. I may abhor that particular slant myself (and I do....) but a game publisher needs to give its fans what it seems they're asking for.

I think I won't get any further into speculation regarding motives and reasons than that though.

I was pretty let down that there were no true good guy guilds to join, but I was also especially put off by there not being any interaction for being a vampire. Where is my vampire order, damn it?

A good organization would seem odd to me. Organizations with primarily well intentioned people on the other hand. And Skyrim has a number of those sort of people.

About the Knights of the Nine, I remember that it is in DLC not in the original content.
The Pure good group in skyrim I met is only the Vigilant of stendar, the daedra hunters, still no chance to join.


Oblivion at least provide minor good group such as vampire hunter, knight of a city that I forget and Knights of the Nine.