A suggestion on quest design and lying

Petoften

Don't make quests where a character has no choice but to lie to complete it.

My char isn't willing to lie and so he abandoned a quest where the only way to finish it is to tell a lie. Always give another option, even a 'persuade', a 'bribe' or something.

Shraar

I respect you for that. I think I did something similar with a quest that just casually demands your character make an Oath and gives their Soul to the Veiled Inheritance or something. I think I just abandoned the whole questline! Nope, can't get me to say that!

I am amazed by how many RP opportunities Quests give your character, more than Skyrim at least, but it's not perfect. I don't like (Lies) either.

idk

In the context of the quest there may not be a choice. I expect there is are a number of players who have chosen to not do a quest line for various reasons due to their characters nature. Dark Brotherhood is probably a great example.

Jhalin

Shraar wrote: »

I respect you for that. I think I did something similar with a quest that just casually demands your character make an Oath and gives their Soul to the Veiled Inheritance or something. I think I just abandoned the whole questline! Nope, can't get me to say that!

I am amazed by how many RP opportunities Quests give your character, more than Skyrim at least, but it's not perfect. I don't like (Lies) either.

As a Vestige you have no soul. That’s why them asking you to devote your soul is hilarious

Petoften

idk wrote: »

In the context of the quest there may not be a choice.

I don't know of an example where in context there's not a choice. In this case, wearing a disguise - already deceitful - it's telling a doorman at a mine a lie to get him to let you in. Why can't you just use the disguise, or bribe, threaten, or kill him?

I understand that defeats the 'disguise' mechanic of the quest - he's hardly fooled by the disguise if you bribe him - but the lie seems gratuitous in ADDITION to the costume. Why not make it just one option, and let people use other approaches also?

It seems careless by the quest writer, to simply have only one dialogue option, just adding the lie for no good reason as required.

idk

Petoften wrote: »

idk wrote: »

In the context of the quest there may not be a choice.

I don't know of an example where in context there's not a choice. In this case, wearing a disguise - already deceitful - it's telling a doorman at a mine a lie to get him to let you in. Why can't you just use the disguise, or bribe, threaten, or kill him?

I understand that defeats the 'disguise' mechanic of the quest - he's hardly fooled by the disguise if you bribe him - but the lie seems gratuitous in ADDITION to the costume. Why not make it just one option, and let people use other approaches also?

It seems careless by the quest writer, to simply have only one dialogue option - why not tell a lie as well as get a costume?

So you do not want to pretend to be a spy but bribing, threatening and killing them are acceptable alternatives. It seems more that your character has very conflicting morals.

smacx250

idk wrote: »

In the context of the quest there may not be a choice. I expect there is are a number of players who have chosen to not do a quest line for various reasons due to their characters nature. Dark Brotherhood is probably a great example.

Yup. My main has skipped DB entirely - abandoned the first quest and that was it!

Lysette

smacx250 wrote: »

idk wrote: »

In the context of the quest there may not be a choice. I expect there is are a number of players who have chosen to not do a quest line for various reasons due to their characters nature. Dark Brotherhood is probably a great example.

Yup. My main has skipped DB entirely - abandoned the first quest and that was it!

Well, if you kill the first innocent, you are getting the blade of woe - but you are not a member of the DB yet - so you can actually have the quest line without to be a member and the blade of woe, but not yet be initiated to the guild. You won't progress in the skill line then, but you keep the blade of woe.

But I guess you want to avoid the "murderer" achievement.

Imryll

Several of the Vvardenfell quests require the character to trespass in populated homes. My character was very careful to avoid combat, but her bear was not, and she got the murderer achievement despite her pains not to injure anyone. Of course, that was the last time the bear accompanied her on such a jaunt.

NoTimeToWait

Make another char that can lie. True RPer can assume many forms

firedrgn

I killed the innocent . I thought i could get away with it. Its a slippery slope. Now i have to kill npcs and steal their stuff just to feel alive.

I went to the temple to confess my sins. I could not resist the urge snd i killed eveyone inside and looted them.

Now its such a common occurrence that i had to turn auto loot on.

Lysette

Imryll wrote: »

Several of the Vvardenfell quests require the character to trespass in populated homes. My character was very careful to avoid combat, but her bear was not, and she got the murderer achievement despite her pains not to injure anyone. Of course, that was the last time the bear accompanied her on such a jaunt.

Yeah, but there is a bug with this - I reported it some time ago, not sure it is still valid. The bear will kill guards in a trespassing area - but as long as you are not detected, your trespassing attempt isn't broken. So with an eternal guardian this could be exploited, that is why I reported it as a possible exploit. It breaks the trespassing rules.

In general your bear will respond to any threat nearby, that is why I have him unsummoned until I really need him. Otherwise he is doing more harm than helping me, with breaking my stealth eventually.

Glurin

I say we need a lot more quests that let you lie to complete them. My character isn't willing to tell the truth and hasn't even made it out of Coldharbour yet because there's no way to complete the quest without telling the truth!

smacx250

Lysette wrote: »

smacx250 wrote: »

idk wrote: »

In the context of the quest there may not be a choice. I expect there is are a number of players who have chosen to not do a quest line for various reasons due to their characters nature. Dark Brotherhood is probably a great example.

Yup. My main has skipped DB entirely - abandoned the first quest and that was it!

Well, if you kill the first innocent, you are getting the blade of woe - but you are not a member of the DB yet - so you can actually have the quest line without to be a member and the blade of woe, but not yet be initiated to the guild. You won't progress in the skill line then, but you keep the blade of woe.

But I guess you want to avoid the "murderer" achievement.

The whole thing is just so far from my main's character. The starting quest being "kill an innocent" kind of says why. And my main doesn't have any use for BoE. I have done it on an alt.

Lysette

Glurin wrote: »

I say we need a lot more quests that let you lie to complete them. My character isn't willing to tell the truth and hasn't even made it out of Coldharbour yet because there's no way to complete the quest without telling the truth!

Hm, where do you have to say anything there?- Lyris is talking and the prophet does, you do not have to state anything really to get through that quest.

VaranisArano

Trying to role play a do-gooder is pretty hard in ESO. You cant even enjoy the Jester's Festival, since Jester King Jorunn wants you to steal apples and a pig!

Lysette

VaranisArano wrote: »

Trying to role play a do-gooder is pretty hard in ESO. You cant even enjoy the Jester's Festival, since Jester King Jorunn wants you to steal apples and a pig!

You don't have to do any quest to get something though - I got a "dubious" recipe just for saying hello basically, because I was late to the party with less than an hour left and I had to do that with 14 characters, so no time for questing.

Hoolielulu

So no lying even if it's for the greater good?

THE GREATER GOOD

Lysette

The greater good - as in "my wallet".

VaranisArano

Hoolielulu wrote: »

So no lying even if it's for the greater good?

THE GREATER GOOD

Petoften

idk wrote: »

So you do not want to pretend to be a spy but bribing, threatening and killing them are acceptable alternatives. It seems more that your character has very conflicting morals.

Well, there are different morals for different actions and situations. Spying is not the same moral issue as lying is not the same as bribing is not the same as violence is not the same as killing (is not the same as stealing, I could go on).

For example, I prefer games to have a 'no kill' option for playstyle - and games recognize that enough to often offer it, from 'Deus Ex' to the Styx series (with achievements for the much more difficult 'no kill' win) etc.

It's not 'very conflicting' that a char is willing to tell the doorman 'let me in or I'll kill you, because I'm trying to save lives' but not to be willing to lie. I understand this might not be common, but I think it's better quest design to be more flexible.

I've quit playing whole games over issues like this. For example, I felt SOMA was going for 'cheap' drama by gratuitously having a suffering person beg you not to kill them by leaving a power source attached, you had to remove to progress.

I never killed that person, or finished SOMA.

It wasn't that there was a hard moral choice - that's a good thing in a game. If it had felt more organic, and needed, that'd be another thing. But rather it felt like, 'hey let's make the player cruelly kill someone just because' and gratuitous.

In contrast, games that actually have some care about moral issues, and present harder choices, like "This War of Mine", are gems artistically. That one is rooted in trying to educate people to the real horrors of war.

To go beyond just gaming, there are moral choices in other things also. Continuing the war theme, one of the most haunting stories I remember hearing from a WWII solder was how devastating it was for him when he was forced to kill a teenage German soldier in self-defense. Chris Hedges wrote a book excellent in title and content with "War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning" about the addictiveness of war, with stories that help people understand the horrors better, such as a man in the Serbian war who was devastated and unable to continue participating when he inadvertently shot a teenage girl.

And these are important counterpoints to things like wargames, which are legitimate entertainment but rather lacking the moral dimension. It's all too common for people to not appreciate the moral issues, where they can only care about whether their nation is 'winning' more than any harm done by a war. The majority of Americans who turned against Vietnam did so because of the cost to us, not the morality of the harm to Vietnam - when you hear the war criticized, you'll likely hear "58,000 Americans killed" dozens of times for every mention of millions of Vietnamese killed. Right now, we're involved in great suffering in Yemen to please Saudi Arabia, and few Americans have any interest.

RPGs are a genre especially oriented to trying to include more of these sorts of issues, letting players play good or evil, but what's less acceptable is to be careless in how they do that, to be gratuitous about it.

And games have some real issues in this area. Many gamers might not think about it much, but there's a reason killing Nazis or Zombies is such a staple in games - it's simply a way to let people kill masses of people without moral consequence.

"It's just zombies. They'll eat you if you don't kill them so it's ok". Of course there are no zombies - so they're invented to let people enjoy carefree mass killing. Just as the fun of a wargame usually doesn't ask questions about the real horrors of war.

"But it's just a game, it's just for fun". Yet how many games borrow interest from the player by letting them dabble in real-life events? A lot more wargames are based on real conflicts than with fantasy lands and fantasy enemies.

RPGs including ESO take a bit of this moral shortcut also - even Lord of the Rings did - with nebulous demonic enemies.

It removes moral questions to say, there are demonic forces who want to invade and kill everything - easy call to kill them.

But this hides the moral issues in war, of real human opponents, where the morality is a lot less clear - and war happens in large part because aggressors succeed in - the word is demonizing - and dehumanizing their enemies.

The aggressors always try to paint themselves as the victims of aggression, whether it's true or not. So the sinking of the Lusitania - filled with weapons the British lied about - was a leading cause for entering WWI. The false claims of attacks on a US ship in the Gulf of Tonkin was the justification for the Vietnam war. Claims of WMD threat of attack on the US by Iraq, including the claim of a threat from cropdusters spraying chemical weapons, were used to justify war on Iraq. Even in the biggest wars, WWII was triggered by a Japanese attack the US pushed them to do for just that purpose, the Civil War was triggered by a small incident at Fort Sumter with claims of aggression by each side.

In Tolkien, a more realistic war would have been between elves and dwarves, elves or dwarves and men, men and hobbits, different groups of men - those would have raise larger moral issues about the harm and need to prevent that war.

Instead, by having demonic enemies, it's easy to just cheer a side and cheer the victory. Yay. But war never actually quite fits that fantasy.

It'd be nice if RPGs like ESO included a bit more of this - for example, stealing and pickpocketing is a big part of the game because players find it fun. What if it included a bit more of the issue - how it might hurt people? What if the theft resulted in an innocent servant being jailed, instead just of a theft skill increase? It's be a richer experience if done well. I've seen discussion reference in ESO flexibility where you can play a robin thief that gives to the poor or a thief that is greedy - but not a lot of give to the poor options and narrative, other than I guess the offer to give gold to other players, who don't so much qualify as poor.

From X-rated to RPG fantasy to violent stories and more, there is an issue of desensitization. How many players would agree that in RPG's, 'big evil demon wants to take over the world, you are a a hero to prevent it' is a cliche they're tired of?

So what to do about that issue? Perhaps treating moral issues with a bit more thought and avoiding 'cheap' moral dilemmas would help create more rewarding and interesting gaming.

VaranisArano

Lysette wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Trying to role play a do-gooder is pretty hard in ESO. You cant even enjoy the Jester's Festival, since Jester King Jorunn wants you to steal apples and a pig!

You don't have to do any quest to get something though - I got a "dubious" recipe just for saying hello basically, because I was late to the party with less than an hour left and I had to do that with 14 characters, so no time for questing.

Sure, you can get rewards. You got darned lucky getting that DCT recipe.

But law abiding characters can only do 2 out of the 3 dailies if they arent willing to steal.

runagate

Lysette wrote: »

Glurin wrote: »

I say we need a lot more quests that let you lie to complete them. My character isn't willing to tell the truth and hasn't even made it out of Coldharbour yet because there's no way to complete the quest without telling the truth!

Hm, where do you have to say anything there?- Lyris is talking and the prophet does, you do not have to state anything really to get through that quest.

/stagewhisper that's meant to be sardonic, pointing out the absurdity of the op by taking it to it's logical conclusion by positing it's reverse

AbysmalGhul

I guess manipulation and bribery are the lesser of 3 evils.

Lysette

VaranisArano wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Trying to role play a do-gooder is pretty hard in ESO. You cant even enjoy the Jester's Festival, since Jester King Jorunn wants you to steal apples and a pig!

You don't have to do any quest to get something though - I got a "dubious" recipe just for saying hello basically, because I was late to the party with less than an hour left and I had to do that with 14 characters, so no time for questing.

Sure, you can get rewards. You got darned lucky getting that DCT recipe.

But law abiding characters can only do 2 out of the 3 dailies if they arent willing to steal.

Yeah, I really like that recipe - I tried to get it on PC NA as well, but so far I haven't seen it offered anywhere. It would be a bit too pricey for me anyway currently - on PC EU it was priced around 400k.

Lysette

@Petoften

Those are games, not real life - we aren't becoming killers in real life, just because we role play in a game. I am not my characters, I am role playing them, they have their own lives, or at least I try to see the world through their eyes and decide based on their experiences, what they might do or not. My characters are average guys, who might or might not become heroes under certain circumstances, but if they rise to the occasion, they might not always get through with it. They might have their brave phases, but their bravery is limited and they tend to be picky, sometimes opportunistic, sometimes of stubborn morals, sometimes not caring at all. They are average people with moods, desires and dislikes. It's role play.

Edit: Ah, something else I wanted to tell you. In Assassin's Creed:Syndicate I was opening chests inside of houses - normally nothing happens, the inhabitants might complain that one is intruding and so, but normally nothing else happens. Then I opened a chest in a house in Lambeth - a really poor borough of victorian London. And one of the inhabitants said to me something like "now you have taken all we had. May your hands fall off for this" - and I looked around in their house - 3 children and a grandmother sick in her bed. And I had no way to give it back, I felt really bad for doing that and didn't take stuff from chests inside houses for quite a while after this happening.

Petoften

Glurin wrote: »

I say we need a lot more quests that let you lie to complete them. My character isn't willing to tell the truth and hasn't even made it out of Coldharbour yet because there's no way to complete the quest without telling the truth!

Kudos to you for the consistency.

Except that we both know that, ironically enough, you're lying about lying.

Myyth

If I can't lie then how else will my Daedra worshipping skooma runner get a house?

Lysette

We are all lying on a daily basis - this is just human nature - it starts with "how are you doing?" - "fine, thanks" - normally a lie on both sides. One side does not care at all, and the other is not telling.

Sylvermynx

I have a lot less trouble with a lie to get through a quest line than I do with the TG and DB quest lines. I shrug off the lies - I don't do the TG and DB at all, ever.

Lysette

But why, we are killing people all day round in ESO - a few more is not a big deal, is it?