The big issue with Dark Brotherhood membership and RP elements

Parasaurolophus

Already a year since I passed Murkmaer. After completing all the quests, I decided to close the achivement "surreptitiously shadowed" where I had to talk at Choixth. And I was very disappointed when in one of the dialogs I had no choice but to say "Hail Sithis, sister" ... And I was depressed for a long time after that ... I even wanted to create a new main char . Understand me, today it’s not necessary to join the Thieves Guild or the Dark Brotherhood. But when the Dark Brotherhood was released, the skill point was still not enough to take all the abilities that I wanted. Therefore, I still had to become a member of the Dark Brotherhood. But I decided to play a certain scenario. I had already received a spiderkit skin by that time and decided to become a vampire. Allegedly, for the murder of Velidreth, Mephalla cursed me and took possession of my mind and sent me to spy in a dark brotherhood. I know that this may seem to many just stupid. But after going through DB and closing a few more criminal achievements to kill, I nevertheless cleared the character of this "corruption" and forgot about the fact that I ever touched this at all. And here you go, Choixth and ““ Hail Sithis, sister. ”I understand perfectly well that they will not give us any opportunity to refuse or purify ourselves from the Dark Brotherhood, or even destroy it like in Skyrim. But I’m sure that if such an opportunity were then most of the players who care about their characters would use it.
On this I ask the ZoS, please do not mention to us that we are still formally members of the Dark Brotherhood. Or at least give us alternative answers in dialogs that are related to the Dark Brotherhood as in the case of Choixth. After all, perhaps the ZoS will still want to remind us of this.
I was keen enough at this moment, because all the same, joining the DB is a very important moment for setting the Elder Scrolls and cannot be just another DLС.

snoozy

i'm not sure i can follow
it's just a game

max_only

This specific detail doesn’t bother me however I support your request for more dialogue choices.

In previous games I always tried to choose the snide, sarcastic, or neutral dialogue.

Raisin

It would be nice to give different options. There would certainly not be any harm in letting you abandon a skill-line if you so wished either. I do think some options are very specific (such as this one) and more options is always better.

What I strongly disagree with is asking ZOS to not make mentions like these. I believe for many people, not just me, it's always incredibly exciting to have different dialogue based on class, vampire status race, etc... It's something ESO has very little of and I definitely wish there was more of it. It makes the dialogue so much more interesting and adds a lot of immersion for me. I want to feel like my choices matter, like it's actually my character being spoken to.

In the end, the game can't have known the elaborate story you came up with. All of the extra flavor you added to your character already comes from you -- it's just as much in your power to decide this one tiny piece of dialogue didn't happen. That said, if it made you 'depressed' as you said, you need to take a break from the game.

Danikat

It's unlikely ZOS will fix this given the actual mistakes in dialogue which have been ignored, like NPCs referring to your character losing their soul even if they haven't done the main quest or saying you're not a vampire even if you are.

So how about this:

The Dark Brotherhood does not allow it's members to leave, except when they die. If you try to leave in any other way they will find and kill you (I'm not making that up, it's part of the lore). Therefore if your character managed to get out absolutely the last thing they would want to do is alert a member of the Brotherhood to that fact that they've left, they'd be lucky if they weren't killed on the spot and would be a target for the entire organisation from that point on.

Therefore the only sensible thing to do in that situation is to reply as if you are still a member.

Your character is not still a member of the Dark Brotherhood, they were just acting the part to save their own life and avoid any suspicion.

Danikat

max_only wrote: »

This specific detail doesn’t bother me however I support your request for more dialogue choices.

In previous games I always tried to choose the snide, sarcastic, or neutral dialogue.

I agree, that would be nice.

When Elseweyr came out I had an idea for an altmer necromancer whose attitude is very much 'the ends will justify the means' and believes she's justified in whatever she does if it helps her become a famous hero who saves the world. I love the idea of the character and had a whole background worked out for her but gave up on it because there's just no way for her personality to actually come across in the game and without that she's just another generic necromancer. I made the character in a different game instead, which does give dialogue options.

I've had similar problems with other ideas for alts. Like my nord dragonknight who is supposed to be wildly impulsive and over confident. The nearest I can get in this game is skipping optional dialogue and going straight to the accept option, which is ok but not ideal by any means. Sometimes I can sort-of make it work, but other times I think up an interesting character, realise there's no way to implement them in this game and go and play something else instead because it does give me those choices.

CMDR_Un1k0rn

It's an MMO. RP does not work the same way as the singleplayer games, not when it comes to official lore anyway.

Sorry, that's just the cold reality.

Parasaurolophus

CMDR_Un1k0rn wrote: »

It's an MMO. RP does not work the same way as the singleplayer games, not when it comes to official lore anyway.

Sorry, that's just the cold reality.

Yes, but as I already wrote, the membership of the dark brotherhood is too important a decision that cannot simply be ignored. In fact, this means dedicating your life to the cause of the dark brotherhood. I can close my eyes to the fact that we often have to confront our alliance in the storylines of other alliances. In the end, they echo very bad and cruel things. But you can’t ignore the dark brotherhood, especially when we are reminded of this.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

CMDR_Un1k0rn wrote: »

It's an MMO. RP does not work the same way as the singleplayer games, not when it comes to official lore anyway.

Sorry, that's just the cold reality.

SWTOR wants to have a word with you.

MEBengalsFan2001

Danikat wrote: »

max_only wrote: »

This specific detail doesn’t bother me however I support your request for more dialogue choices.

In previous games I always tried to choose the snide, sarcastic, or neutral dialogue.

I agree, that would be nice.

When Elseweyr came out I had an idea for an altmer necromancer whose attitude is very much 'the ends will justify the means' and believes she's justified in whatever she does if it helps her become a famous hero who saves the world. I love the idea of the character and had a whole background worked out for her but gave up on it because there's just no way for her personality to actually come across in the game and without that she's just another generic necromancer. I made the character in a different game instead, which does give dialogue options.

I've had similar problems with other ideas for alts. Like my nord dragonknight who is supposed to be wildly impulsive and over confident. The nearest I can get in this game is skipping optional dialogue and going straight to the accept option, which is ok but not ideal by any means. Sometimes I can sort-of make it work, but other times I think up an interesting character, realise there's no way to implement them in this game and go and play something else instead because it does give me those choices.

Roleplaying is harder in a MMO or even on a CRPG as you have the limitation set forth within the game. I find the best way to truly enjoy a role playing experience to sit down and play with a group of friends using the old style of pencil and paper games.

Mik195

I just decided that joining the Dark Brotherhood was something that Meridia via Caldwell asked me to do. And because my brain likes having a full story, I decided that Sir Caldwell was going to do it if I couldn't, so my character had to "save" him from that.

Danikat

MEBengalsFan2001 wrote: »

Danikat wrote: »

max_only wrote: »

This specific detail doesn’t bother me however I support your request for more dialogue choices.

In previous games I always tried to choose the snide, sarcastic, or neutral dialogue.

I agree, that would be nice.

When Elseweyr came out I had an idea for an altmer necromancer whose attitude is very much 'the ends will justify the means' and believes she's justified in whatever she does if it helps her become a famous hero who saves the world. I love the idea of the character and had a whole background worked out for her but gave up on it because there's just no way for her personality to actually come across in the game and without that she's just another generic necromancer. I made the character in a different game instead, which does give dialogue options.

I've had similar problems with other ideas for alts. Like my nord dragonknight who is supposed to be wildly impulsive and over confident. The nearest I can get in this game is skipping optional dialogue and going straight to the accept option, which is ok but not ideal by any means. Sometimes I can sort-of make it work, but other times I think up an interesting character, realise there's no way to implement them in this game and go and play something else instead because it does give me those choices.

Roleplaying is harder in a MMO or even on a CRPG as you have the limitation set forth within the game. I find the best way to truly enjoy a role playing experience to sit down and play with a group of friends using the old style of pencil and paper games.

That's true. But when I have a character concept specifically for an Elder Scrolls character it seems like it should be more sensible to play it in the Elder Scrolls MMORPG I'm already playing than to try to find a group that does pen and paper Elder Scrolls RP somewhere near me.

Tandor

I'm not personally bothered if I do a particular part of the content and it gets referred to later. What does bother me is when a character with whom I have chosen not to do the Thieves Guild/Dark Brotherhood content because he's a lawful good Templar gets partway through a quest in zone that was released after those DLCs and is then supposed to steal or trespass with no alternative way of proceeding. I appreciate that ZOS want to promote the DLCs and the skill sets that come with them, but there should always be options!

max_only

Tandor wrote: »

I'm not personally bothered if I do a particular part of the content and it gets referred to later. What does bother me is when a character with whom I have chosen not to do the Thieves Guild/Dark Brotherhood content because he's a lawful good Templar gets partway through a quest in zone that was released after those DLCs and is then supposed to steal or trespass with no alternative way of proceeding. I appreciate that ZOS want to promote the DLCs and the skill sets that come with them, but there should always be options!

Yes I hate forced stealing on my characters, they are wood elves not Khajiit, they aren’t known for thievery.

edit: this is sarcasm

VaranisArano

I'm in favor of having dialogue that acknowledges previous player choices, such as joining certain guilds. Little things like that help players feel like their choices matter and make a difference in the game world. More choices would be good, like the ability to abandon certain guilds and their skill lines.

I'm not convinced that ZOS needs to give alternate dialogue to players who did make that choice but want to pretend that they didn't for RP reasons. You can roleplay however you like, but all TES games work based off of what you do in game, not what you pretend you did/didn't do.

For example, we're about to get a fair bit of vampire related content. I'd very much like to see ZOS give dialogue that acknowledges something as obvious as when a player has vampirism. Should they also give alternate options for players who only took vampirism for the stats and roleplay that their character isn't actually a vampire?

There comes a point when you have to use your imagination when you start roleplaying counter to what's happened in the game. Asking ZOS to cater to headcanons that run contrary to what you actually did in game isn't likely to go far.

ArchangelIsraphel

In the end, the game can't have known the elaborate story you came up with. All of the extra flavor you added to your character already comes from you -- it's just as much in your power to decide this one tiny piece of dialogue didn't happen.

No truer words have ever been spoken. You are your characters creator- not the game. It is your heart and mind that dictates what actions you think of as a part of their story, and which you have decided to edit because the idea no longer holds any appeal for you.

If the character has been cleansed in the story you created, then an NPC's dialogue has no more meaning than a button with a bit of text on it you had to push to end the quest. It has no power to alter who your character is to you, or who they will become. This can only be dictated by you, not a bit of coding and text in a dialogue box. They are cleansed.

Perhaps you can invent an RP reason as to why this type of dialogue may crop up now and again, so that it bothers you less. Something that helps remind you of who your character is to you now, and what they have gone through in their story to get to this point. Sometimes the best way to deal with something in a characters past is to invent a story that involves them overcoming it.

I understand that playing a character and inventing its story can evoke some very powerful emotions, and it can feel very unpleasant when it seems that something else- a game, or even another roleplayer, is attempting to dictate their fate. But remember, that above all things, you are the characters creator, the ultimate authority.

Stay strong, keep going with your character. The more you focus on who you want them to be now, the more you will find that this type of thing will no longer phase you.

(And I think it's perfectly fine that you invented RP reasons for why your character went through the DB. Every time I go through the DB in order to unlock certain skills, I personally skip all of the dialogue and ignore the story itself, creating my own story instead. I don't particularly like the DB, even if I'm into things like Assassins Creed, so I invent something for myself from scratch. )

I also support your request for more dialogue choices as well, it would be nice, especially where extremely difficult decisions are concerned, or when your character would choose a more clever solution than the games coding allows.

VaranisArano

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

I also support your request for more dialogue choices as well, it would be nice, especially where extremely difficult decisions are concerned, or when your character would choose a more clever solution than the games coding allows.

This. So much this. I'm playing through Elsweyr's main quest on my AD Eye of the Queen right now, and she's constantly muttering behind Abnur Tharn's back about the stupidity of his plans. But she goes along with it anyway because quest railroading he's too bullheaded to listen even when she's been proved right half a dozen times.

That being said, when I really want alternate questlines, I turn to fanfiction. There's a lot more freedom in writing the story of a character and their choices than there ever can be in a game that has to appeal to loads of players and meet tight deadlines to boot.

barney2525

Ummm... so .... as an RP point .... your character never lied in the best interests of the character?

Why this would depress you eludes me. It's role-play. There are dozens of reasons you can rationalize to makes sense of the situation for the character.

IMHO

Dark_Lord_Kuro

max_only wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

I'm not personally bothered if I do a particular part of the content and it gets referred to later. What does bother me is when a character with whom I have chosen not to do the Thieves Guild/Dark Brotherhood content because he's a lawful good Templar gets partway through a quest in zone that was released after those DLCs and is then supposed to steal or trespass with no alternative way of proceeding. I appreciate that ZOS want to promote the DLCs and the skill sets that come with them, but there should always be options!

Yes I hate forced stealing on my characters, they are wood elves not Khajiit, they aren’t known for thievery.

-_-

Racist🙄

max_only

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

max_only wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

I'm not personally bothered if I do a particular part of the content and it gets referred to later. What does bother me is when a character with whom I have chosen not to do the Thieves Guild/Dark Brotherhood content because he's a lawful good Templar gets partway through a quest in zone that was released after those DLCs and is then supposed to steal or trespass with no alternative way of proceeding. I appreciate that ZOS want to promote the DLCs and the skill sets that come with them, but there should always be options!

Yes I hate forced stealing on my characters, they are wood elves not Khajiit, they aren’t known for thievery.

-_-

Racist🙄

Whoosh!

Or am I getting Uno reverse card whoosh?

Raisin

max_only wrote: »

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

max_only wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

I'm not personally bothered if I do a particular part of the content and it gets referred to later. What does bother me is when a character with whom I have chosen not to do the Thieves Guild/Dark Brotherhood content because he's a lawful good Templar gets partway through a quest in zone that was released after those DLCs and is then supposed to steal or trespass with no alternative way of proceeding. I appreciate that ZOS want to promote the DLCs and the skill sets that come with them, but there should always be options!

Yes I hate forced stealing on my characters, they are wood elves not Khajiit, they aren’t known for thievery.

-_-

Racist🙄

Whoosh!

Or am I getting Uno reverse card whoosh?

You are indeed the one with the whoosh now.

Parasaurolophus

Well ... Thanks to everyone who supported me. I will try to send a ticket to the support service with a request to remove the trigger of a member of the DB from me so that in the future this situation does not happen again. But this is hardly possible, I think.
Now, if there would be a DB release a few DLCs later, then I would just close it on one of my alts and would not worry about 6 skill points and 800 achievement points.
It is very difficult for me to accept this all as just another convention of the game.

VaranisArano

zadrotscrolls wrote: »

Well ... Thanks to everyone who supported me. I will try to send a ticket to the support service with a request to remove the trigger of a member of the DB from me so that in the future this situation does not happen again. But this is hardly possible, I think.
Now, if there would be a DB release a few DLCs later, then I would just close it on one of my alts and would not worry about 6 skill points and 800 achievement points.
It is very difficult for me to accept this all as just another convention of the game.

I don't believe that ZOS can remove membership in a guild once you've joined. Hopefully I'm wrong for your sake.

If they can't, you might have better luck asking them to enable the "non-Dark Brotherhood" answer as an option for that particular dialogue in addition to the Dark Brotherhood option. If it would make sense in context with the already recorded NPC voice-over, they might be willing to consider it. Mind you, customer support won't be able to do that - that sort of high level request would have to get passed onto the devs and the writers.

As the game currently is, you are correct that the only way to completely avoid your character not being recognized by the game as having joined a particular guild, gotten a certain achievement, or done a certain notable deed is to skip that content entirely. Which has always been the case in previous games.

Olauron

max_only wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

I'm not personally bothered if I do a particular part of the content and it gets referred to later. What does bother me is when a character with whom I have chosen not to do the Thieves Guild/Dark Brotherhood content because he's a lawful good Templar gets partway through a quest in zone that was released after those DLCs and is then supposed to steal or trespass with no alternative way of proceeding. I appreciate that ZOS want to promote the DLCs and the skill sets that come with them, but there should always be options!

Yes I hate forced stealing on my characters, they are wood elves not Khajiit, they aren’t known for thievery.

-_-

Four words: the Rite of Theft.

Edit: if you are not referring to the infamous bosmer racial passives.

MellowMagic

I cant even tell you how annoying it is that no npcs ever can recognize I'm imperial, several quests when you're disguised NPCs will be like oh you're no imperial. There should be more dialogue options, when you make a necro you get alot of different dialogue options in elsywer. I wanna see more of that for the races and vampires / werewolves.

ArchangelIsraphel

zadrotscrolls wrote: »

Well ... Thanks to everyone who supported me. I will try to send a ticket to the support service with a request to remove the trigger of a member of the DB from me so that in the future this situation does not happen again. But this is hardly possible, I think.
Now, if there would be a DB release a few DLCs later, then I would just close it on one of my alts and would not worry about 6 skill points and 800 achievement points.
It is very difficult for me to accept this all as just another convention of the game.

I understand how difficult such things can be to accept when a character has meaning for you. But I want you to understand that you have the power of choice in this situation. The game, and a few words on a screen, has no power to dictate how you choose to proceed. You have the free will to think what you like about your character, and do what you like with them.

The only person who can ever hold you to that story line is you not anyone else. If you no longer like that path, you do not have to make rules in your own head that say "Because the game says this, I can no longer have the freedom within myself to think of my character any other way." This simply isn't true. The beautiful thing about characters, stories, and imagination, is that they are flexible. They are not set in stone. Words on a screen don't have to stop you from using your imagination to create whatever pleases you. If you do not want it to be part of your character, then it doesn't have to have any more meaning to you than a cloud passing overhead.

This is what writers and authors do all the time. They can write something one moment, and decide that it no longer fits the story or the character the next, and set it aside. Even though they have already written it, it is not set in stone, because they retain the freedom to continue on with their characters as they please. Many years later, they may find what they wrote, and remember a path they once thought they might take. Yet because they don't like it, they don't hold themselves to it, and allow themselves to continue on. This is similar to you seeing the text in a dialogue box reminding you of your past choices. Feel free to set it aside and continue on.

Many people within RP communities also like to roleplay alternate universes where they completely discount an old backstory to create an entirely new one, effectively 'rebooting' the whole character- retaining personality aspects and appearances they like, while telling a whole new story. The reason I'm pointing these things out to you, although you may already know of them, is because I want you to realize that there are alternative paths you can take, and that you have the mental freedom to take them.

Don't let a single line of text take months worth of character development and ideas away from you.

If you feel you must hold yourself to what the game says, then you can also create other story lines. For example: Your character replying as if they are still a member of the dark brotherhood could be them attempting to create a deception to protect themselves so that they can perform an act of good. They are cleansed, but the former membership can still be used as a tool to help them along their journey as a hero. All of Tamriel may not know they are cleansed, and so the seeming of a membership serves as a shield in difficult situations.

You could also recreate your character (copy your character creation sliders)- use a name change token on the original so that you can shift the name over to the new character, and start over if you find the reminder too difficult. The old character can serve as an alt.

Aliyavana

max_only wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

I'm not personally bothered if I do a particular part of the content and it gets referred to later. What does bother me is when a character with whom I have chosen not to do the Thieves Guild/Dark Brotherhood content because he's a lawful good Templar gets partway through a quest in zone that was released after those DLCs and is then supposed to steal or trespass with no alternative way of proceeding. I appreciate that ZOS want to promote the DLCs and the skill sets that come with them, but there should always be options!

Yes I hate forced stealing on my characters, they are wood elves not Khajiit, they aren’t known for thievery.

-_-

Right of theft is a huge part of bosmer culture

Raisin

Aliyavana wrote: »

max_only wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

I'm not personally bothered if I do a particular part of the content and it gets referred to later. What does bother me is when a character with whom I have chosen not to do the Thieves Guild/Dark Brotherhood content because he's a lawful good Templar gets partway through a quest in zone that was released after those DLCs and is then supposed to steal or trespass with no alternative way of proceeding. I appreciate that ZOS want to promote the DLCs and the skill sets that come with them, but there should always be options!

Yes I hate forced stealing on my characters, they are wood elves not Khajiit, they aren’t known for thievery.

-_-

Right of theft is a huge part of bosmer culture

It is whoosh heaven in here now

AhPook_Is_Here

BTW the Skyrim dark brotherhood story was one of the best in the game, if you just destroyed them, I would highly recommend going back and playing it out, it's one of the best faction stories in that game.

max_only

Olauron wrote: »

max_only wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

I'm not personally bothered if I do a particular part of the content and it gets referred to later. What does bother me is when a character with whom I have chosen not to do the Thieves Guild/Dark Brotherhood content because he's a lawful good Templar gets partway through a quest in zone that was released after those DLCs and is then supposed to steal or trespass with no alternative way of proceeding. I appreciate that ZOS want to promote the DLCs and the skill sets that come with them, but there should always be options!

Yes I hate forced stealing on my characters, they are wood elves not Khajiit, they aren’t known for thievery.

-_-

Four words: the Rite of Theft.

Edit: if you are not referring to the infamous bosmer racial passives.

Aliyavana wrote: »

max_only wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

I'm not personally bothered if I do a particular part of the content and it gets referred to later. What does bother me is when a character with whom I have chosen not to do the Thieves Guild/Dark Brotherhood content because he's a lawful good Templar gets partway through a quest in zone that was released after those DLCs and is then supposed to steal or trespass with no alternative way of proceeding. I appreciate that ZOS want to promote the DLCs and the skill sets that come with them, but there should always be options!

Yes I hate forced stealing on my characters, they are wood elves not Khajiit, they aren’t known for thievery.

-_-

Right of theft is a huge part of bosmer culture

Just to clear it up. I know that Bosmer are known to be thieves. I’m making a call back to the dumb racial update that removed their lore friendly stealth. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/459007/wood-elf-bosmer-losing-stealth-passive-an-open-letter/p1 It’s in my sig, but you may be on mobile and not able to see.

It is I! The Bosmer that won’t shut up about it!

kargen27

Maybe they need an emote that lets you put your hand behind your back and cross your fingers. Then when you say "Hail Sithis, sister" you don't really mean it because your fingers were crossed.