Basically I did it the same way, Only 2 dead, the crazy wizard and the one person you have to kill. That's on the quest's, I haven't done all the radiant quest's to get all the "holds" yet, but I will still try my hardest to not kill anyone with my Thief character.

I did try not to kill the crazy wizard but didn't manage it, I guess my char's sneak skill wasn't high enough at that time.

Their are quest's that you can help people with out killing anyone, quest related, what you run into along the way is another story.

Edit: I have about 550+ hr's on different characters, no mass murder's yet. I haven't done the DB yet, but I expect some murder their...assassin.

By mass murder I mean murdering everyone in my way of the TG quest. There are plenty of rpgs out there that do not involve mass murder like Skyrim. Lost Odyssey, Dragon Age, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Morrowind, Fallout NV, FFX, FFXII I could go on and on. I honestly think there is so much murdering in Skyrim so that it may compete with the FPS crowed. Like I said in the first post Skyrim is a FPS with swords.

The Final Fantasy games don't give you the OPTION to kill anyone outside of a battle though. Skyrim does give you the option. All the time. You keep saying mass murder in the Thieves' Guild, but I'm really starting to suspect that you just ran in everywhere, or killed people when you got spotted.

Killed a swan today. Did a [censored] right on it. Right on it.

^ This

But you didn't have to kill all those ppl/npc's, that is your playstyle . So far I have killed 2 NPC's while on a quest. With only the Hold's left to do, with the radiant quest's that come with doing those... and that's suposed to be non-violent. The "hold" quest's may involve killing someone, but I will still try to do it without, unless the game gives me no other choices...

BTW... no bounty, no murder on this char.

I killed everyone who spotted me what else was I supposed to do when they were trying to kill me. When I played Oblivion, I didn't have any problem sneaking through 80%+ of the theif guild quest. I feel like they force combat on you in the Skyrim Theif Guild quests.

P.S. If you guys want to admit it or not Skyrim has way more killing in the game then any other RPG that Bethesda has released.

You are just wrong about the TG...totally. You are just not playing it the way it was intended. And Dragon Age is far darker, and requires more killing. I really don't know where you're coming from. Sorry...

Run and hide until you're hidden again, chuck an invisibilty potion, cast calm on your enemies..... there are lots of ways to avoid killing even if you are detected

I do not consider Dragon Age to be dark, Your on a mission to save your people. Like I said many times in this thread its not the killing that I have a problem with. Its the go here and kill this random person because I told you to. There are not enough adventure quests where your helping people in Skyrim. Its always go here and kill.

Heck even the two quests that involve dogs in Skyrim have killing in them. The one dog the master is dead. The second dog sends you on a killing spree and in the end you have to kill the dog to keep the weapon. I could go on and on if you would like.

Nobody killed Meeko's master. He had a disease. Killing and death aren't they same thing. Things die all the time even if you don't kill them. And you had a choice between killing Barbas for the rueful axe (a terrible weapon by the way) or getting the Masque of Clavicus Vile. They straight up tell you you don't have to kill Barbas.

And killing people because they saw you is playing the Theives' Guild wrong. Try using stealth, and invisibility/illusion magic. Seriously, that's like complaining there's too much sword fighting in the College of Winterhold questline.

Maybe in patch 1.6, they will add some "reading-to-orphan-cams" or "giving-alms-to-the-poor-cams"

"Divines bless you! May the ground you walk-" *Slow motion starts* "-quuuuuuuuuuuuuuaaaaaaaaaaake aaaaaaaaaas youuuuuuuuu paaaaaaaaaaaasssssssss."

True but the guy was dead was he not? My point is there needs to be more happy endings in Skyrim. I.E. Helping people for the good of man. I can not even think of a single quest in Skyrim where I felt like I was doing some good.

Edit: I only did the book fetching and that too involved nothing but killing.

Run go back into sneak, invisibility potion.Illusion. I've never used the clam spell, but that would work also.

Their is alot of "killing", but not mass murder unless you want their to be.

I have a character that so far has only killed animal's that have attacked her, ran from bandit's, Her calm spell isn't high enough. I never used that spell on my thief, but my hunter/explorer will. Errr no dragon's for her, I wanted a character w/o dragon's.

Gildergreen? first one that popped into my head. I'm sure I could come up with more, if I think about it

Yeah he was dead, but that's irrelevant to your point, because your saying the game is nothing but mass murder. You've changed it in this post, but up until now you've said that this is a game that pretty much tells you to kill everyone.

Some that don't involve any killing whatsoever:
Ysolda's fetch quest.
Finding a book for a Redguard Blacksmith.
Helping two of your fellow classmates at the College of Winterhold (the third is a little more dubious...)
Helping resolve three cases of love.
Helping a beggar man learn what happened to his sister.


Some that involve killing, but are still good:
Rescuing an Argonian from the Falmer
Gildergreen
The fire in Morthal
Wiping out a witch coven
Taking out the Blood Horkers
Solving a mystery in a lighthouse.

Longest part of this list was just typing it. It's easy to find quests that are genuinely helpful if you just try.


And why are you expecting "helping people for the good of man" in the THIEVES' GUILD?

I never said I killed the dogs master, I said he was dead. How ever I forgot he died of natural causes. Right now I am @159hrs played across 3 playthroughs. So no I have not done every Single quest in Skyrim. How ever 99.98% of the quests I have done so far involved killing.

So far I have only developed feelings for one NPC in Skyrim and that was ONLY because we had went through so many tough battles. And guess what she died! In Oblivion, Morrowing, Fallout 3 and Fallout NV I had feelings for a lot of the different NPC's and wanted to help them out. Its hard to develop any feelings in Skyrim because there is so much death.

I just wanted to say it was very nice chatting with you guys, I enjoyed everyone's different opinion. How ever I am off to bed.

Change your playstyle. Most dungeons can be cleared without killing a single person. You might have to kill the odd Draugr/living person here and there, but for the most part you can actually get through completely on stealth if you feel so inclined.


I don't use followers because I'm afraid they'll end up dead. I don't kill any of the named NPCs I find in towns and settlements. I use "Heal Other" on essential NPCs. I talk to every NPC, and visit every shopkeeper when I get back to town even if I don't intend on buying anything, and then I at least buy something because I feel like I wasted their time if I don't. I do favors for just about everyone I come across. I get saddened when the people DON'T want me to do a quest for them. I acted like Santa Claus one time and gave a bunch of people presents I thought they'd like.

If anything, the violence outside of city walls made me care more about the people, because they were in a cold, harsh, land fraught with danger to begin with, and to top it all off a civil war came about along with dragons. I'd say I'm protecting these people when I take out that fort full of bandits, and I go into dangerous territories because I know I can survive it and they can't.

But that's just it... you don't have to go on a genocidal killing spree if you don't want to. There are many ways to get around killing more than what is absolutely necessary in this game. Plenty of ways.

Now, I'm all over these Forums spouting my love of everything that is the Dark Brotherhood and the Morag Tong. I loves my Assassins to the point that they are all I really play. I did it in the Marine Corps, I do it in my games because I like it, and it works inordinately well.

My characters have killed thousands if not tens of thousands of NPC's over my 20+ year gaming career. But my Assassins have allowed more people to live than they have killed. It's all about how you play the game. The devil is in the details of your character build, and if you would take the time to look at each quest and each situation as you come across them (and I mean actually sit and think about your situation), you can very often find that there is a non-violent way to get past 80% of the obstacles in this game (as well as most RPG's).

There are plenty of options that you haven't tried, OP, and I know this by simply reading your original post. If you were looking for (and seeing) the alternative solutions and/or were fully using all the abilities of your character, then you would have found these alternatives and would have been utilizing them already.

Don't give up on the game as being a genocide-in-a-bottle type of game. There is so much more that you haven't discovered!

As you go through the game it is entirely possible to minimise the number of people you kill.
Niamh does the exact opposite, granted, but because she practices a lot her sneak skill effectively allows her to steal the nails from the fingers of anyone she comes across without them noticing.
Practice.
Practice.
Practice.

While I agree that it is largely about how you play the game, I'll give the OP the fact that the Dark Brotherhood really goes above and beyond when it comes to violence. It spans more than just Skyrim, of course, but the lore is pretty gruesome (particularly how the Night Mother came to be) -- enough so to really make me question whether I want to do the questline. Oh, I'll almost certainly go through with it, but not without that classic Boondock Saints moment of "do you possess the constitution, the depth of faith, to go as far as is needed?"

You know?
Only you is a mass murderer at the Thieves Guild.

I've only killed some bandits on the way to the quests, I had to look for a crap of a magic Quill just to not kill an NPC during a mission. So you're not playing correctly, because the game gives you many ways to complete the quests, be it killing everything you run into (this includes rabbits) or without killing anybody.

Specifically, here's what you can do to get you through most of the game with a minimum of killing. Get your Illusion up to 100 and take every perk on the treee. This way you can even bypass most Draugr and the automotons in the Dwarven ruins. I don't know how well Pacify (Calm on steroids) works on enemies like Briarhearts, Wisp Mothers, Deathlords, and Dragonpriests, but you can avoid killing 90% of your enemies by completely filling out the Illusion tree.

The DB is another matter. You can't Calm someone to death.

P.S. To get your Illusion to 100 in one playing session, get the calm spell. Then go to the Bee n' Barb in Riften. Find the woman who tells you to get out of her face and cast calm at her until your magicka runs out. Wait for one hour, do it again. Rinse and repeat until your Illusion gets to 100. It's tedious but if you get the Pacify spell it works faster. But you have to get to a certain level before you can buy Pacify. Some might not like the idea of doing it, but it rapidly facilitates the ability to have a non-killing playstyle.

P.S.S. The reason I suggest the girl at the Bee n' Barb is because she never moves. You can do it with any other NPC but sometimes you have to chase them around a little.