"The Rotwood Enigma" book. How do NPC view Player characters.

Aigym_Hlervu · October 2019

Hello, guys. In my pursuit to find traces of Yagrum Bagarn in ESO I've found another interesting book to discuss. Too few links on the Internet regarding the Rotwood Enigma discussion - a book found in Mzeneldt Dwemeri ruin. Some say the warrior mentioned in the book is Ebonarm, others think he is Pelinal himself. But I think this book shows us how do random generic NPC see us, player characters.

There are neither quests in Bangkorai similar to the situation shown in the book nor any characters and their groups whose names are mentioned there. Well, that Scattered-Leaves' name and story still resembles the one of Riles-the-Leaves at some point, but it is definitively not him. This makes me think those book characters are all generic. They do not have names in the game and also we cannot speak to them (that is why that warrior is always silent), but that doesn't matter they do not have names and cannot speak to each other in the lore.

Regarding that silent warrior - we do share those features with him! We take our food alone, mostly off away from the camps of those NPC, and from their perspective we never seem to sleep. We just prop ourselves up against a tree or a rock at night the same way that warrior did, never once taking off a piece of our armor which none of those NPC had seen the like of before. We come to them from nowhere and disappear leaving no signs or tracks.

We all can recognize and distinguish an NPC from a PC in the game due to certain visible reasons. It turns out the same way do those NPC recognize us, but they do not understand they are all fictional to realize what exactly a PC is! Well, Sotha Sil's been the only one to realize. What an interesting thing it is: all those mindless NPC have souls, everyday cares, unique dialogues and features, but those who are sentient are called Soulless Ones

. Ok, I'd rather go. Too many NPC IRL left to meet today. If only I'm not one of them

. What's up to you - are you a role-playing PC or an NPC? Oh, I've forgotten.. NPC never confess they are or they just say what a PC expects to hear

..

D0PAMINE · October 2019

That was a good read OP

Aigym_Hlervu · October 2019

Thank you, @D0PAMINE

.

starkerealm · October 2019

Cygemai_Hlervu wrote: »

Some say the warrior mentioned in the book is Ebonarm, others think he is Pelinal himself.

In the context of how players actually approach the game? Not so much. If the Enigma was a psychopathic magpie, with a habit of ripping every butterfly he saw out of the sky, then sure. I mean, would you follow a group of slow moving NPCs for months in game?

In the context of a player character-like individual within the world, sure. Kinda. But, that is exactly what Pelinal is.

Ebonarm is a little more complicated. He comes from the Daggerfall lorebooks, and it's entirely possible that he's a work of fiction (within the context of TES, obviously all of the characters and gods are fictional from our perspective.)

There is an outlier. The Ebony Warrior in Skyrim is theorized to be Ebonarm. This is based on a lot of peculiarities about him. Though it's also possible that The Ebony Warrior is simply another Dragonborn.

Aigym_Hlervu · October 2019

starkerealm wrote: »

If the Enigma was a psychopathic magpie, with a habit of ripping every butterfly he saw out of the sky, then sure. I mean, would you follow a group of slow moving NPCs for months in game?

I guess those generic NPC have some sort of different time flow perspective. Several real time hours we spend a play session takes several in-game days. The Ebonheart Pact campaign takes, say, a couple of dozens hours to complete but regarding the in-game perspective it might take several months. I think this is what they've meant in the book and how could it be possible for a player to follow them such a period of time.

logarifmik · October 2019

An interesting view on the roleplay, OP. Thank you.

bmnoble · October 2019

You might enjoy the anime Log Horizon, it explores that concept quite well.

Aigym_Hlervu · October 2019

logarifmik wrote: »

An interesting view on the roleplay, OP. Thank you.

Thanks to you, @logarifmik!

bmnoble wrote: »

You might enjoy the anime Log Horizon, it explores that concept quite well.

I fall so short of any anime, it's so far away from my cultural basis, but I'll read about it and maybe even watch it a bit

. Thanks!

starkerealm · October 2019

Cygemai_Hlervu wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

If the Enigma was a psychopathic magpie, with a habit of ripping every butterfly he saw out of the sky, then sure. I mean, would you follow a group of slow moving NPCs for months in game?

I guess those generic NPC have some sort of different time flow perspective. Several real time hours we spend a play session takes several in-game days. The Ebonheart Pact campaign takes, say, a couple of dozens hours to complete but regarding the in-game perspective it might take several months. I think this is what they've meant in the book and how could it be possible for a player to follow them such a period of time.

NPC perceptions of time is one of those places where The Elder Scrolls' setting goes off the rails into some weird territory.

On paper, time progresses at roughly 1:4 to the real world. Except, that's not quite right, because there's no time dilation in the moment.

Note: This number isn't consistent between games. For example, Skyrim's default timescale is 1:20. So each day, in game, lasts 1h12m. Days in ESO are 5h:40m, if I remember correctly. (I might be remembering that incorrectly, by the way. ESO doesn't allow us to check the timescale, so 1:4 is close enough for our purposes.)

That means the events we participate in last roughly 4 times as long as what we experience. Except, that doesn't seem to happen for the NPCs, exactly. Obviously, everyone isn't moving at ridiculous speeds, and characters seem to consider the day/night cycle to be a normal length. From clocks in the single player games, we know that Tamriel experiences 24h days (like, Earth.)

Also, months are a bit weird. In Arena and Daggerfall, Tamriel had a 360 day year (with 12 30 day months), with Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim this was adjusted to match the Gregorian calendar. (Minor note: The Tamrielic orbital cycle appears to be exactly 365 days, instead of 365.25, as a result Sun's Dawn is always 28 days.) (Another note: Morrowind technically only had 11 months. A bug meant that Morning Star (January) was skipped.) I'm not too inclined to read into any of this, but here we are.

The Calendar itself is the Gregorian calendar with the serial numbers filed off. End of story.

So, this still results in a situation where the player would be following around the same batch of NPCs for, literally, months of gameplay.

Even if we step back and assume we're talking about a player character from a single player game, They're still spending 36 hours actively following these NPCs around, for each month the events occur. Again, that's spending a day and a half of your life following around one party of NPCs, without ever getting bored and wandering off.

The behavior would be consistent with an RPG like Baldur's Gate or Pillars of Eternity, where a mercenary might travel with a party for months (with extreme time dilation in the fast travel systems), but it doesn't really mesh with how TES games work.

Aigym_Hlervu · October 2019

Very insightful , @starkerealm. I recall my Ebonheart Pact campaign when I joined those generic NPC to fight off those Daggerfall and Aldmeri invaders. It took much time to complete it. Especially regarding the frequency of my erstwhile play sessions. It took months..