DB on a not completely evil character?

Ildun

I always roleplay a character who joined DB and TG first and redeem later. I try to avoid killing as much as possible, in DB case is avoid killing NPC other than target, pick contract where the target is more deserve to die, luckily most of the target in ESO DB quest is deserve it.

And about the innocent you have to kill in order to join DB, there are some "bad character" around. I remember I killed an orc who bullying a priest...and he revive after a moment later :P

Elsterchen

Nightowl_74 wrote: »

I play my character as true neutral, as per the old Dungeons & Dragons rules when it was frowned on (within my group at least) due to a general consensus that any true neutral person would have to be insane. It's an alignment I always wanted to try but it was never a good fit with others.

She sees herself as an agent of equilibrium, helping to maintain a balance between good and evil in the world. According to her philosophy without evil to define it good would become meaningless, so she's always careful to compensate. The idea of being either highly altruistic or sadistic fascinates her because she can't understand either one but due to that fixation she's often drawn to others who embody those extremes. DB is perfect because for every life she saves, someone has to die.

So you are the one turning on your comrades the moment your group challenges the dark mastermind and has a true chance of winning ? ... ... and you wonder why your comrades somehow don't like your character?

rpa

I'd suggest "Just kill em all and let Sithis sort em out!" approach if you want to roleplay a "good" character and still do DB. That seems to be one of the excuses in real life so why not in a game.

I myself do enjoy being evil in a game but I'd like it to be a choice. But that problem is not specific to ESO.

Darkenarlol

that's why my main will never ever get DB related achievements...

i've completed TG and DB on my crazy bosmer assasin NB alt instead.

btw there are even more ugly thing related to TG DLC - your character gets

TG skill line just for visiting Abah's landing zone (RIP my lawfull shiny templar -

deleted char with max guilds 60 all mounts etc because of this nonsense..

how the hell i've become a thief just for VISITING ZONE??)

Jeremy

worrallj wrote: »

Is there any way to do the DB zone story without being flagrantly evil and killing Innocents for kicks?

I mean besides coming up with complex mitigating head cannon about being an undercover agent and the Innocents you kill are actually in on it faking their deaths.

Considering the Dark Brotherhood worships Sithis - who is basically the embodiment of evil from what I can tell - probably not.

worrallj

rpa wrote: »

I'd suggest "Just kill em all and let Sithis sort em out!" approach if you want to roleplay a "good" character and still do DB. That seems to be one of the excuses in real life so why not in a game.

I myself do enjoy being evil in a game but I'd like it to be a choice. But that problem is not specific to ESO.

Good people say kill em all and let sithis sort them out IRL? You guys are saying crazy things...

DragonRacer

Admittedly, I created an alt character intending them to be my DB character so I could leave my do-gooder Khajiit tank main alone in that regard. But several gameplay vs roleplay situations cropped up and that kinda went out the window. But I head canoned an interesting way around it.

It all started with Rammimilk. Back before they nerfed it. A guildmate showed me the murder train you could do to level pickpocketing and make easy money fencing stolen goods. I was on my main at the time he invited me - she'd done some Thieves Guilds quests, sure, because what Khajiit can ignore pilfering a stolen item or two? But she'd never been to DB, no Blade of Woe, nuttin'. In hindsight, I should've asked to lemme switch to my DB character first, but his time was limited and he wanted to show me right away.

So, poor do-gooder got her hands dirty because of gameplay, not roleplay.

But the damage was done. She had murdering achievements now. So, I made a head canon that the artifact in Rammimilk had driven her mad.

After realizing what had happened and what she had done, she actively sought out the DB because she thought, perhaps, a nest of murderers might be able to help her figure out this new weird madness in her head... and maybe find a way to get back to normal, to get the bloodlust out, to quiet that madness.

Kill an innocent in Anvil, though. What a horrible thing. But she got lucky... very lucky. As she was pacing around the back alleys near the docks, trying to come to grips and decide what she was going to do, she spotted a shady figure lurking around behind the buildings. A thief? A murderer? She was not sure, but this NPC was skulking from building to building as if stalking someone. If a person needed to die... might as well be someone who looked up to no good?

That did the trick, and was... slightly less horrible than shanking a fisherman or something.

Afterwards, the DB stuff seemed a little less hard to head canon because almost all of the targets are extremely horrible people anyway, so... kind of doing the world a favor with some of those.

Nightowl_74

Elsterchen wrote: »

Nightowl_74 wrote: »

I play my character as true neutral, as per the old Dungeons & Dragons rules when it was frowned on (within my group at least) due to a general consensus that any true neutral person would have to be insane. It's an alignment I always wanted to try but it was never a good fit with others.

She sees herself as an agent of equilibrium, helping to maintain a balance between good and evil in the world. According to her philosophy without evil to define it good would become meaningless, so she's always careful to compensate. The idea of being either highly altruistic or sadistic fascinates her because she can't understand either one but due to that fixation she's often drawn to others who embody those extremes. DB is perfect because for every life she saves, someone has to die.

So you are the one turning on your comrades the moment your group challenges the dark mastermind and has a true chance of winning ? ... ... and you wonder why your comrades somehow don't like your character?

The human mind is truly an ingma....or elven, dwaven, orc....pretty much all of them other than my own, now that I think about it! 😂

Casul

You could just pretend your character got possessed by a daedra or something?

twev

worrallj wrote: »

Facefister wrote: »

worrallj wrote: »

Is there any way to do the DB zone story without being flagrantly evil and killing Innocents for kicks?

I mean besides coming up with complex mitigating head cannon about being an undercover agent and the Innocents you kill are actually in on it faking their deaths.

People the Brotherhood eliminates are far from innocent.

The first quest of the chain is to "Kill an innocent."

You realize that being told to 'kill an innocent' isn't being given a task we can actually possible to do with surety as we aren't able to see background checks.
We can't 'know' how innocent a random NPC is in this game beyond us being told to kill a 'random' who is innocent by virtue of the fact that we are given no specific motive beyond that.

I don't accept that random NPCs are pure and innocent of electronic NPC faults just because I don't have knowledge of what they are.

My 'toon hasn't had a shower (besides rain) or a decent cup of coffee since beta, and she is damned well fed up with mollycoddling the NPC population with such trivial politeness regarding guilt/innocence.
She goes in to rescue countless NPCs with little thought to personal safety and rarely gets the parade she deserves, usually getting not much more than a bag full of thrupenny bits and the occasional and halfhearted 'Hail'.

otoh, she doesn't kill bunnies or farmyard animals, because that would just be wrong.

Fleshreaper

Just go play the DB in Skyrim and you will have the answer you are looking for.

Zacuel

*chuckling*. Or just remind yourself that it's just a game. Clear the content that needs to be cleared then go back to telling yourself whatever you want.

It couldn't matter less.

DocDova

twev wrote: »

I think of DB as not 'evil', but just a job.

The game doesn't have karma.

DB might be a different job if karma was involved.

Edited to add:
NPCs are just electrons.
Give them 5 minutes and they're back, taking up space and cheating on their spouses and cheating on their taxes, just like before....

I actually left DB questline where it said 'kill an innocent in Anvil' and never looked back. I did DB in skyrim with mods and revived everyone immediately.

Everybody understands they are not real (though not electrons, they are simulation on something which is made up of matter, so individual NPC can't be expressed in atomic or sub atomic terms), for some of us (consiously or subconsciously) making an intention of killing an innocent NPC is hard. If you can't feel this then you won't be able to understand.

But at end of day it takes all kind of people to make this world and when there are such organizations (if they kill in high enough numbers, you can call them governments) in real world and I don't be part of it, I can personally avoid yet accept their existence in game.

Zacuel

This is why we run through towns slaughtering all the NPCs...

Just let go. You may even enjoy it.

Danikat

I think you've only got 3 choices with the Dark Brotherhood quests:
1) Your character is evil and willing to be a murderer.
2) Your character is not evil and wouldn't normally murder innocents but...[insert whatever justification fits].
3) Lol it's just a game, your "character" is just pixels to show which skills triggered, do the achievements.

Most of my characters don't do it, I made a dedicated evil character specifically so I could see what happens with this and various other choices they won't make. It means achievements are spread across characters but that's the case with a lot of stuff on my account.

starkerealm wrote: »

Nightowl_74 wrote: »

I play my character as true neutral, as per the old Dungeons & Dragons rules when it was frowned on (within my group at least) due to a general consensus that any true neutral person would have to be insane. It's an alignment I always wanted to try but it was never a good fit with others.

She sees herself as an agent of equilibrium, helping to maintain a balance between good and evil in the world. According to her philosophy without evil to define it good would become meaningless, so she's always careful to compensate. The idea of being either highly altruistic or sadistic fascinates her because she can't understand either one but due to that fixation she's often drawn to others who embody those extremes. DB is perfect because for every life she saves, someone has to die.

You're killing people for gold. That is, by definition, evil on the D&D alignment scale. A principled killer is Lawful Evil, a psychopath is Chaotic Evil, but they're still evil.

Also, true neutral isn't insane, though they do tend to be kinda hard to play, because they really are impartial in most situations.

According to the descriptions in Baldurs Gate Chaotic Neutral is insane. Or at least they do things purely for the sake of doing it, with no more fought or logic than that and can be completely inconsistent and unpredictable. It's the alignment I picked when I made a character specifically to pick all the obviously terrible dialogue choices just to see what happens.

StormeReigns

No NPC is truly "innocent." Especially the "Neutral" NPCs. They are always up to something.


https://youtu.be/k8ws_APXilE

SFDB

You do have a choice of victims, there are plenty not-so-innocent looking people around. Especially if you're a heavy roleplayer and have a strong hatred for certain behaviors or types of people. Though it is one of those times when maybe achievements should be shared, as a lot of characters would be out of character being criminals, and if it's your main, you'll be stuck with either never getting the achievement on the character that gets your achievements, or having to break immersion and go through the story on a character where it doesn't fit.

Nightowl_74 wrote: »

I play my character as true neutral,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY6RyRkl9uo

Varana

While you could make a case for the actual DB quest line, the random dailies and the Black Sacrament quests should make it absolutely clear where your character stands - not on the side of good, or even neutral. The Black Sacrament guy gives quite a bit of background info on your targets, and there are several of them where you're sent to kill someone because an evil person performed the ritual over some perceived offence, or some item that they'd like to have.

There is one where you're sent to kill a miller because she won't sell her mill to someone.

Sure, you can do all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify what you're doing. Humans are really good at this.
In the end, though, that doesn't matter.
You are an assassin. One that doesn't even do it for the money. You're killing because your religion demands it. You're in a cult of some murder-god.

You are, by all normal standards, evil.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

Varana wrote: »

While you could make a case for the actual DB quest line, the random dailies and the Black Sacrament quests should make it absolutely clear where your character stands - not on the side of good, or even neutral. The Black Sacrament guy gives quite a bit of background info on your targets, and there are several of them where you're sent to kill someone because an evil person performed the ritual over some perceived offence, or some item that they'd like to have.

There is one where you're sent to kill a miller because she won't sell her mill to someone.

Sure, you can do all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify what you're doing. Humans are really good at this.
In the end, though, that doesn't matter.
You are an assassin. One that doesn't even do it for the money. You're killing because your religion demands it. You're in a cult of some murder-god.

You are, by all normal standards, evil.

But doesn't that make the person who did the sacrament psychotically evil?


I usually tend to ignore the repeatable quests for anything roleplay related and strictly see them as the mmo game mechanic that they are. Since they don't make any sense whatsoever. Not even for the Dark Brotherhood.

Varana

It does.
And the Dark Brotherhood for accepting the sacrament.

On the contrary, I think the quest line is the exception. In the Black Sacrament and other repeatable quests, we see what the organisation does when no emergencies are looming, their daily business.
I.e. killing random people because "they don't fear us enough".
As I said, it's a cult. It's neither a business nor a service provider.

Samas_R_Counts

This one kills when the contract is given. Samas doesn't loot the dead, rather pick them clean before the blade drinks upon their life essence.
(Seriously, you only scoop on one item if you gank their a** compared to the three if you pick those pockets first. So that alone let's you know killing innocents has its downsides in itself)

twev

Varana wrote: »

While you could make a case for the actual DB quest line, the random dailies and the Black Sacrament quests should make it absolutely clear where your character stands - not on the side of good, or even neutral. The Black Sacrament guy gives quite a bit of background info on your targets, and there are several of them where you're sent to kill someone because an evil person performed the ritual over some perceived offence, or some item that they'd like to have.

There is one where you're sent to kill a miller because she won't sell her mill to someone.

Sure, you can do all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify what you're doing. Humans are really good at this.
In the end, though, that doesn't matter.
You are an assassin. One that doesn't even do it for the money. You're killing because your religion demands it. You're in a cult of some murder-god.

You are, by all normal standards, evil.

Nope.
I do it for the cash and the loot.

starkerealm

Danikat wrote: »

I think you've only got 3 choices with the Dark Brotherhood quests:
1) Your character is evil and willing to be a murderer.
2) Your character is not evil and wouldn't normally murder innocents but...[insert whatever justification fits].
3) Lol it's just a game, your "character" is just pixels to show which skills triggered, do the achievements.

Most of my characters don't do it, I made a dedicated evil character specifically so I could see what happens with this and various other choices they won't make. It means achievements are spread across characters but that's the case with a lot of stuff on my account.

starkerealm wrote: »

Nightowl_74 wrote: »

I play my character as true neutral, as per the old Dungeons & Dragons rules when it was frowned on (within my group at least) due to a general consensus that any true neutral person would have to be insane. It's an alignment I always wanted to try but it was never a good fit with others.

She sees herself as an agent of equilibrium, helping to maintain a balance between good and evil in the world. According to her philosophy without evil to define it good would become meaningless, so she's always careful to compensate. The idea of being either highly altruistic or sadistic fascinates her because she can't understand either one but due to that fixation she's often drawn to others who embody those extremes. DB is perfect because for every life she saves, someone has to die.

You're killing people for gold. That is, by definition, evil on the D&D alignment scale. A principled killer is Lawful Evil, a psychopath is Chaotic Evil, but they're still evil.

Also, true neutral isn't insane, though they do tend to be kinda hard to play, because they really are impartial in most situations.

According to the descriptions in Baldurs Gate Chaotic Neutral is insane. Or at least they do things purely for the sake of doing it, with no more fought or logic than that and can be completely inconsistent and unpredictable. It's the alignment I picked when I made a character specifically to pick all the obviously terrible dialogue choices just to see what happens.

Yeah, chaotic neutral was usually labeled as insane, or as someone trolling the DM. I've never seen someone call TN insane.