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Discussion: Unplanned Changes in Direction

Tags: #RP:Discussion  #Zonnonn 
  • January 10, 2018

    Recently I was playing my Thor character and I was doing a bounty quest for the Riften Jarl Whats-her-face and I met her son (the one that is an Imperial sympathizer) and I listen to what he had to say and suddenly just thought... Here is a man stripped of his honor for speaking out his opinion in his mother's court/presence. Loyalt be damned but in my mind at that moment and hearing all the monster comments throughout the various towns and keeps I traveled of Jarl 'Ulfdick' as Paws so generously put it; I had changed my mind on the rebellion... I'd visited Windhelm and everything, even chose to land there in Alternate Start on a boat, but I just couldn't bring myself to go to him after that. I'm STILL torn whether or not I embrace being a "true Nord" or embracing Thor's morales (or what I think they are) ;_;

  • Member
    January 10, 2018

    FlamezSword said:

    Recently I was playing my Thor character and I was doing a bounty quest for the Riften Jarl Whats-her-face and I met her son (the one that is an Imperial sympathizer) and I listen to what he had to say and suddenly just thought... Here is a man stripped of his honor for speaking out his opinion in his mother's court/presence. Loyalt be damned but in my mind at that moment and hearing all the monster comments throughout the various towns and keeps I traveled of Jarl 'Ulfdick' as Paws so generously put it; I had changed my mind on the rebellion... I'd visited Windhelm and everything, even chose to land there in Alternate Start on a boat, but I just couldn't bring myself to go to him after that. I'm STILL torn whether or not I embrace being a "true Nord" or embracing Thor's morales (or what I think they are) ;_;

    That sounds realistic to me, a youth with visions of glory and honour and what's 'right' gets their world shattered by the harsh reality of the situation - life isn't how it is in the songs and stories. I like where you're heading as well, arhe Stormcloaks and Talos' morals the same thing? Is it right to follow a cause you only half believe in, or follow your own path even if it isn't what's expected or the most obvious choise. A young man questioning his path in life is mundane in a way, but very powerful.

  • Member
    January 11, 2018

    Just thought I'd let folks know, this discussion is currently being featured on the TV Twitter and Facebook pages ;D

  • Member
    January 12, 2018

    ShinJin said:

    Just thought I'd let folks know, this discussion is currently being featured on the TV Twitter and Facebook pages ;D

    Thanks Shin!

  • January 13, 2018

    Truly "unplanned" is difficult to get, considering how many full playthroughs have been done.

    But a few years back, I had a Dunmer assassion/thief who was filled with rage and hatred.  Stayed out of towns as much as possible, would kill randomly a couple of times a day, or just because some odd comment was made to him, yada, yada, yada.  I had no intention of him playing the main quest at all.  But then he ran into Meresine (from Interesting NPC's mod), and found a truly kindred spirit.  She has the exact same attitude, though targeted primarily at dragons.  So I had to see how those two would develop, which meant I had to play the main quest far enough to get dragons to appear.  It also widened his targets for his rage from man/mer to include dragons.

    I actually hadn't seen that shift coming.

    But it brings up another topic.  To follow through with play through, I had to have my character do some things completely out of character (i.e. main quest through Dragon Rising).  Barrow diving, fighting alongside a Jarl's men --  stuff like that was totally out of character for him.  It felt very strange having him do those things.  But in this case, it was worth it.  Having the dragons around for Meresine and him to fight together made for quite a bit of play that wouldn't have occurred if I hadn't pushed him through the out of character quests.

    So how far off character are you willing to go at times?

  • Member
    January 14, 2018

    gdgrimm said:

    But it brings up another topic.  To follow through with play through, I had to have my character do some things completely out of character (i.e. main quest through Dragon Rising).  Barrow diving, fighting alongside a Jarl's men --  stuff like that was totally out of character for him.  It felt very strange having him do those things.  But in this case, it was worth it.  Having the dragons around for Meresine and him to fight together made for quite a bit of play that wouldn't have occurred if I hadn't pushed him through the out of character quests.

    So how far off character are you willing to go at times?

    I really like this point, gdgrimm. It seems that a lot of the time unplanned changes are thrust upon us by the game, be it an afflcition or finding an item etc. There's rarely a need to do things against character because it changed the character. Having a character do something completely uncharacteristic to get to their change is an interesting concept and one I hadn't thought of before. How do you justify it? Did you just 'forget' it had happened (a valuabe RP tool in my eyes), or were the actions justified as part of a larger change in attitude?

  • January 14, 2018

    Zonnonn said:

    I really like this point, gdgrimm. It seems that a lot of the time unplanned changes are thrust upon us by the game, be it an afflcition or finding an item etc. There's rarely a need to do things against character because it changed the character. Having a character do something completely uncharacteristic to get to their change is an interesting concept and one I hadn't thought of before. How do you justify it? Did you just 'forget' it had happened (a valuabe RP tool in my eyes), or were the actions justified as part of a larger change in attitude?

    In this case, I just held my nose and pushed my character quickly through those few quests.  I even thought about just opening the console (I'm on a PC) or editing a save game file to try to get the dragons active, but was afraid that such direct tweaks might lead to other technical consequences with the game.  So I picked the safer route of making the character play through it.

    The 'selective memory' aspect is pretty important, especially as these ES games become less and less RP friendly.  Saarthal and the College is another one that often requires me to walk my character "out of character" just so I can progress the character's story line.

    "I just want to see the librarian, Faralda.  If I Shout you into the Sea of Ghosts or ask my undead dragon to swing by, is that good enough to let me in?"

  • Member
    January 15, 2018

    gdgrimm said:

    In this case, I just held my nose and pushed my character quickly through those few quests.  I even thought about just opening the console (I'm on a PC) or editing a save game file to try to get the dragons active, but was afraid that such direct tweaks might lead to other technical consequences with the game.  So I picked the safer route of making the character play through it.

    The 'selective memory' aspect is pretty important, especially as these ES games become less and less RP friendly.  Saarthal and the College is another one that often requires me to walk my character "out of character" just so I can progress the character's story line.

    "I just want to see the librarian, Faralda.  If I Shout you into the Sea of Ghosts or ask my undead dragon to swing by, is that good enough to let me in?"

    Fair enough, sometimes you've gotta do what you've gotta do. I know that I've had to go through the Main Quest toget Dragons about even if I'm not playing the Dragonborn. I'm thankful that there are some shortcuts in the game though, like being able to sneak into the College instead of doing a dumb entrance exam.

     

  • January 23, 2018

    Zonnonn said:

    I'm thankful that there are some shortcuts in the game though, like being able to sneak into the College instead of doing a dumb entrance exam.

    I don't think that was actually a shortcut designed in the game.  It feels much more like an exploit.  The alternative entrances to places like Fort Greenwell (and some others) or alternative shortcuts through the Ratway seem to be designed in, though.  From an RP perspective, the use of anexploit seems to break my immerssion at the same level as opening up the console.  I would like games that claim to be RP type games to get back to designing more of that in.

  • Member
    January 24, 2018

    gdgrimm said:

    I don't think that was actually a shortcut designed in the game.  It feels much more like an exploit.  The alternative entrances to places like Fort Greenwell (and some others) or alternative shortcuts through the Ratway seem to be designed in, though.  From an RP perspective, the use of anexploit seems to break my immerssion at the same level as opening up the console.  I would like games that claim to be RP type games to get back to designing more of that in.

    True true, but sometimes I think exploits can be excused if it helps the character's progression as a whole, even if in the moment it's a bit immersion breaking. Like levelling a skill to an artificially high level if you're playing a master at a certain thing. It would be nice for future ES games to have more alternatives that really show how a character would do things, though.