Hello, I'm new to the Elder Scrolls series and quite new to Skyrim. I've only been playing it for about a week, and am having a blast. Well, I am now. Some lady in Whiterun said something like "I'm married... but I guess you have other things on your mind," so I got mad and killed her, got jailed, killed, and I went back to my last manual save. Of course I was only renting the game then, so I quit, but bought it last weekend and ended up back in jail with all my progress and now I'm having fun again. But I severely digress.

I noticed something odd... the game has a very large focus on evil. You can join the Dark Brotherhood or destroy them, but if you destroy them you don't get anything, and if you join them you get a lot. You can also join the Thieves' Guild, but you can't destroy it. There's also a ton of Daedra quests that have you doing evil things.

Why are there no good things? Why isn't there a reward for being good? Shouldn't there be two sides to the coin? I'm just wondering, because I'm not one to partake in these things (especially the Dark Brotherhood).

Daedra are technically not evil plus you have the Companions and the College of Winterhold >.<

If you destroy the Brotherhood you get a huge cash reward, the Thieves Guild isn't completely evil. It's not good, but they do have a code of honor (though this was more pronounced in previous titles. In Oblivion there was a Robin Hood vibe, and in Morrowind they were rivals with the Commana Tong who were pretty nasty). As for the Daedric Quests, they are not all evil necessarily. In Meridia's quest .

If you want some "good" quests, check out the vigilants of Stendar. I haven't got around to it yet, but it seems like they will have some good quests for paladins/clerics/etc.

Well, you do save the world...

Oops just realized. Anyone know how to make spoilers?

Elder scrolls is a very grey game. Things aren't straight good or evil for the most part.

Considering that the overall setting and vibe of Skyrim is much grittier than, let's say, Cyrodiil (Oblivion), the quests are also darker.
But not all, of course, even the ones you mentioned aren't all that evil. The Thieves Guild has a side quest in which you deal with a gang of really nasty people to recover something for a mourning father. I found that quest pretty nice. Also, some of the Daedric quests have more approaches to them, so you can choose. And Meridia's quest, for example, is what would be called "good".

The Thieves Guild isn't really evil, yeah. Kind of like how Bounty Hunters in Star Wars aren't necessarily evil. But most Daedric quests are sort of demonic, with voices telling you to do evil things like killing someone. I haven't gotten around to the Vigilants yet. I'm only about Level 25ish and have only taken Fort Dunstad for the Imperials and just got done with the Thalmor quest with Delphine. I've spent a lot of time doing sidequests.

More like the mortal definitions of "good" and "evil" don't apply to them. The Daedra Princes are god-like beings after all

[+spoiler+] whatever you want to hide [+/+spoiler+]

Take out the +'s and that's how you do it.

[ spoiler ] Write in here, and remember to erase the spaces in the tags, or else it won't work. [/ spoiler ]

Spoiler

Working spoiler tags look like this.

Edit: Seriously, I'm as blind as a Falmer. Ninja'd.

Many of the "darker" characters are that way because they're greedy, so of course they know how to get what they want. Think about it, you can be given a huge reward for taking out the thieves guild, but a talented thief can just keep stealing forever. It's just more profitable to take what isn't yours.
That being said, I don't think most characters are "evil," but they can certainly be morally ambiguous at times.

daedra arent evil, only mehrunes...

and thieves guild isnt evil, they just are skilled at releaving the rich of their material burdens and hte darkbrotherhood isnt evil they just walk up to someone, with a knife, and start swinging it, if tha tperson happens to get hit with the knife, well thats there problem...

When in doubt, kill 'em. Let Mara sort 'em out.

To my knowledge there are no Vigilant of Stendarr quests. There certainly is no quest line like the one with the DB and TG.

Yeah. They are such a fifth wheel. They could have made them some interesting quests, or even just some irradiated quests, to hunt down daedra around Skyrim.

Yeah, just noticed that. I think it'd have been a good idea to make them the arch enemies of the Dark Brotherhood, and have quests for both, kind of like the Imperial Legion and Stormcloaks.

No, I wouldn't think so. I was hoping it would be like the Bard's college-a couple side quests relating to the role. I was just assuming that they would have something since when you talk to a vigilant of Stendarr a map marker shows up, implying that something can happen if you go there. Once again, haven't followed it through yet, so can't say for sure.

doesnt go with the theme...

db doesnt even worship a daedra, but tg does...

stendarr would need an independent questchain


to the poster above me, there is no questchain, just a restoration trainer and some vigils of stendarr

sick spoilers. damnit.

Awwww...and I was looking forward to that.

I agree with the OP, Skyrm does seem to lean towards evil a bit more than other TES Games and Fallout 3.

Well, Sithis, the guy they worship, is considered "unholy". Besides, I'm pretty sure if the Vigilants saw a small child (Aventus) praying over a corpse, they'd have a problem with it...

Or worshipping the Dark Mother, a Sithis-worshipper who murdered her own five children to gain his favor. Probably not the kinds of people they'd invite to sunday dinner.

Being good really doesn't pay off. What does being evil get you? An immortal demon horse. Good characters just have to svck it up or keep buying new ones when they inevitably get murdered by some critter/bandits/Forsworn.