Again, I'm not obsessive about the quest journal. The quest journal is of no concern to me.

The quest just svcks. If you're "evil", then you arguably shouldn't be initiating it in the first place as the beginning involves assisting a card-carrying do-gooder, and if you're "good" then you either have to abort it or complete it under the rationalization that the priest deserves a good bludgeoning. That's it. That's all you can do. There's a decided lack of options here, and simply disregarding the quest or not finishing it does not count as a choice. It's anti-choice.

At least the other Daedric quests that can only be played out one way have the decency to be unique or mildly interesting in some fashion. The House of Horrors, by contrast, is not interesting at all. It's "This priest has been descrating my shrine. Bring him to me." That's it. It's garbage. It's completely phoned in.

I find the issue to be the fact that the "Vigilant of Stendarr" simply falls for Molag bal, while we and a pitiful old man do not

So much for worshipping the God of Mercy. You would've thought that at least he can endure quite a bit of pain before submitting. Even Lorgrof do not submit until you kill him twice, and he's a f**king frail old man

I think that what OP wants is a different resolution. Perhaps one that allows us to get the hell out of there and call some more Vigilants to do more than just a 3 seconds mini-gladiator show and destroy Molag Bal's shrine. Heck, that would justify making Vigilants of Stendarr a joinable faction (and a very awesome questline involving Boethiah, Vaermina, Namira, and Hircine)

EDIT:
Now that I think about it, Lorgrof's soul was Boethiah's, how the hell can Molag Bal resurrect him when his soul was already gone?

Also, how did Lorgrof escape from the place in the first place? When Molag Bal can essentially shut the doors and starve him to death?

What's wrong with just walking away? Why is that not an option? I've never carried through with that quest. I thought it was something a decent person would realistically do.. and something my character felt disappointed with, and just wanted to forget.

edit: I would agree on wanting something that led to joining the Vigilants though. It almost seems half-done. Why are they even in the game?

Not everything in life has a resolution. That said, I don't think another option would go amiss. Unfortunately the other option might be to lie down for the King of... well, you know. I really don't see Molag Bal letting the player challenge his will and get away without punishment.

Because real men and Chuck Norris do not run like a wimp with tails between 'em legs at a problem

They face it, they deal with it, and be done with it like a man

But this problem? It has no place for a real man. Real man wants to fight, to have a chance. This problem has only place for the weak of hearts and the wimps

Uh, fair enough. But that's not the kind of "walking away" I'm talking about. lol

I followed the Vigilant. Then everything goes crazy, I kill him, follow the voice downstairs.. he wants a bloody deal. I say the whole thing is [censored] crazy and "walk away". Molag seems happy enough that I even killed that guy in self-defense, and unlocks the door.

Because quests generally aren't written to be abandoned. Avoided? Sure, if it doesn't suit your current character's personality. Abandoned once taken? Nope. If you've written a quest where a player is even considering doing so, then your quest svcks.

I can't believe how many players seem to be defending this quest. Leaving the moral dilemma aside, it's hands-down one of the least inspired quests in the game. There's little mystery. There's little in the way of tension, and nothing in the way of decision. The "choices" the player does get (like the choice of whether to be truthful or deceitful with Lolfrug) bear no consequence whatsoever.

you had me until u mentioned consistency!

but anyway as soon as i started that quest i got a large smile on my face.

they could have done more with it! but it was still good.

people have said legitimate ways to get out of the quest


if you really have a problem with it. when the CLK comes out make a mod to improve it
and then any1 that agrees with u will praise u.

\

To be fair, the set up was pretty awesome. The lights went out, a mysterious voice speaks, and the whole place went crazy with everything flying around

But the Vigilant simply giving up is the killer.

The art designer was pretty awesome, but the storywriter svcks.

Well, believe it, I guess. Different strokes, etc..

It's not unprecedented in fantasy stories to end up like this. Half of Robert E Howard's Conan stories (especially the short stories) have this kind of unresolved unsettling air about them. Usually whenever Conan finds himself involved with magic or demons. He ends up in some situation, way in over his head with a bunch of mystical stuff, and looks for the nearest exit. It always ends with him having a minor existential meltdown by even finding out stuff like this exists. "By Crom!" He doesn't want anything to do with it.

Yes, that was good, but it amounts to them tossing out arguably the best part of the quest right at the outset. Like when Obama began his State of the Union speech with "We got Bin Laden!" and then Jon Stewart later commented, "You don't start the address with that! That's like Rick Springfield opening a concert with "Jessie's Girl!"

Oh, and to the other repsonders who keep inserting themselves into the conversation to point out that there's way's "out" of the quest, please read the thread a little more carefully. That was never my point.

Now I'm really confused. How are people inserting themselves into the conversation? It's a public forum.

I think avoiding the quest molag gives is good enough. I don't need Bethesda to spell different outcomes out to find a story there. Most stories within in the game are all up to the player's imagination anyways.. and just working with very brushed over, implied situations.

I personally don't think that imagination can cut it for quests in a game like Skyrim, where everything is pretty explicit. You can imagine who you are and your background as to how you managed to end up in Skyrim, but imagination can only take you so far when some things are explicitly happening (or mentioned). To be fair, imagination can get you very far away, but usually it's not accompanied with explicit instances is what I'm saying

Well, some consistency would be invited.

There was a thread awhile ago where an OP had complained he sold off an item that he apparently needed later on for a quest (can't remember what it was). The general reaction to his complaint was "You should have known better." I thought that reaction was totally unfair to the OP. After all, both these and the Fallout games have weened players on a mechanic that quest-protects items of special significance. Whenever they deviate from that, they break a precedent that they themselves have set, and it's perfectly undstandable to me how a player might think, "Well, what the hell? Why wasn't it flagged as a quest item?"

Similarly, when most quests involving moral choice allow for more than one possible resolution, then when you get a quest that doesn't, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

It's no secret that this game was rushed to market, and The House of Horrors plays very much like a quest that fell casualty to this. As Raestloz pointed out, there's at least one very strong sequence, but this happens right at the start. The rest of the quest consists of blatant padding (i.e. go fetch NPC at randomly-determined location), inconsequential dialogue "choices" (lie or be truthful) that make no difference whatsoever as they give you the same result, and a single possible ending that conflicts with a very common RPing archetype (the good guy).

Some of the best stuff isn't explicit to me. I mean, I'll agree to an extent, but sometimes.. my mind just starts producing little stories when I encounter little unspoken things. Like coming into a bandit cave and seeing a dead Khajiit couple, impaled on spikes or something. Stuff like that has a story, even though it isn't explicitly told. It's kind of Bethesda's style to do a lot of that. I wonder wtf happened to them.. I probably "avenge" them by killing others in the cave.

And in this quest, avoiding the Molag's request has it's own story, at least in my head. Would I like to see more explicit confirmation of that path - sure. I just don't exactly need it either. I'm fine. If the OP isn't fine with it, fair enough.

I didn't mean it that way. I meant replying to the initial post seemingly without following the thread. I've mentioned more than once that I'm aware of the ways to abort/fail the quest and have it removed it from your journal.

Very good thinking