[A Skyrim quest spoiler follows]
We join our heroine after she has awoken to find herself having been drugged and transported from her bedroom to an abandoned shack in the middle of a Skyrim swamp. The leader of the Dark Brotherhood stands before her, and tells our heroine that the organisation is interested in recruiting her, having followed her impressive progress in the world to date. But first, a test…
Three people kneel before our heroine, their hands bound, hoods over their heads. There is a contract on the life of one of these villains, and –the leader of the Dark Brotherhood informs her– our heroine must decide for herself which one it is. And then she must execute that person.
An entry is added to our heroine’s quest log in this regard.
Our heroine tries to leave the shack, but the way is barred to her; so she speaks to each of the three captives in turn, determining their crimes and judging the reasons for their being here in this place. She makes her decision.
Unfortunately for the leader of the Dark Brotherhood, our heroine has decided to take a path through life which falls not in the shadows. She is a servant of light. No specific deity commands this respect or offers guidance along this path. It is a path she forges of her own accord, a hard path, overgrown with the moral intricacies and complexities of a harsh and unforgiving world. Nevertheless, she follows the light as best she may.
She kills the leader of the Dark Brotherhood and releases the prisoners.
A message appears to the player of our heroine, ‘Failed: Join the Dark Brotherhood’. “Ah well”, thinks he, “I did what I felt was right for my character”. More importantly he felt that he had the choice to do what was right, and that nobody had told him to do so. No quest compelled him to do what he did, it was his decision, and he is therefore happy to live with the consequences, as well as the mild disappointment of having failed the quest.
Suddenly a new message appears to the player ‘New quest: Destroy the Dark Brotherhood!’
A smile appears on the faces of player and character alike.
Time to bring a little light to the shadows.
Of course the choice was less free than it at first appeared. Not being able to leave the shack, I could only kill a prisoner or kill the leader, so I was restricted by game mechanics in the end (other than reloading from a previous save and avoiding the event that triggered the midnight abduction altogether).
However, the illusion of freedom was strong, as the quest line indicated that I should kill a prisoner, and made no hint at the fact that I could kill the leader. The fact that my character would not kill the prisoners led me to try to kill the leader, which worked (and in most cases in an MMO would not have worked). This failed the original quest and started a new quest line, brought about purely by my decision, a decision not even hinted at by the game.
I think this nicely highlights the difference between on-rails MMO questing, and more open RPG questing mechanics. It certainly highlights another reason why Skyrim feels so open and free.
In fact there wasn’t any player freedom in the Skyrim example, I either joined the Dark Brotherhood or set out to destroy it, but the illusion of choice was presented, and thus it felt as though it was entirely my decision to pursue the latter choice. It *felt* like freedom, even though the whole event was well defined within the game’s mechanical framework.
Usually, in this kind of situation, the simple fact that the quest-giver CAN be attacked is a very very big hint at the fact that it’s indeed possible to do something else.
BTW this kind of thing in a MMO would be a nightmare: you’d end up with half players enemies/killers of a faction, the other half friends. What do they do when they meet? World PvP?
Now add that there are 30-40 factions in a game, and it ends up that everyone is an enemy of everyone, since there will probably be a faction where we’re on opposite sides. And should we decide to group no matter what our allegiances are, as soon as we step in an area controlled by the faction where we are on opposing sides, chaos will ensue, with half the NPC wanting to kill one and help the other.
Of course the game could provide a method to change your status vs a faction, but this would turn to the ridiculous pretty soon:
“Hi dear , I’ve killed countless of your members, but now I want to be a friend of yours! No hard feelings, and, anyway, all I killed have repopped, so can we just be friends?”
I mean, it doesn’t cut it. Especially after the 10th change of side….
“Usually, in this kind of situation, the simple fact that the quest-giver CAN be attacked is a very very big hint at the fact that it’s indeed possible to do something else.”
Thankfully, in Skyrim (almost) everyone is attackable at all times.
“I mean, it doesn’t cut it. Especially after the 10th change of side….”
Novel thought, but how about letting decisions have consequences that must be stuck with?
I guess we’ll find out if that works, since SWTOR will be experimenting with exactly that in its storytelling system.
Beautiful.
and that reminded me of myself hehe, I have a hard time with moral decisions in RPGs. I know it’s rather silly and that I should just go for the most advantageous option for myself, but I keep sticking to the righteous side most of the time (I do steal from the rich though – robin hood ftw!).
“I have a hard time with moral decisions in RPGs”
Indeed so! Which is funny in this instance, because to unlock the Dark Brotherhood event you have to perform a morally dubious act, although at the time it seemed the best option to me.
I’m always playing the paladin-style character in games, but I have no idea why. Once again though, I find my character focussed on a sword, shield, heavy armour and the Restoration school of magic.
I do plan to reroll a thief in Skyrim at some point, just to experience the game from that side. if I can do it, anyway.
Fable 3 was particularly bad for me in this regard: when you’ve played through the main storyline and get to make that humbug-decision between “disappoint your people and maybe save the world” or “be true to your people and doom everyone….possibly”, I was staring at the screen like a monkey unable to make any decisions. to be fair, I found that particular cesura in F3 horribly ill-conceived. I did also not play it anymore after that.
Leaving aside a possible implementation with phasing or a branching dynamic event chain, permanent decisions that may be there at the beginning of an MMOs life end up getting patched out subsequently or some way to do both alternatives is introduced or all the rewards can be obtained in some way, or players will go and check online to see which pathway will benefit them the most. The more I think about it, the more it seems the terms MMO and RPG don’t really fit that well together.
I’m running two roughly concurrent characters. One a “paladin approximation” (Nord sword/shield with restoration magic) and one a cold-blooded assassin (best case an “end-justifies-the-means robin hood”…she won’t kill or rob farmers or kind merchants…anybody else is fair game tho). The paladin hasn’t seen the dark brotherhood yet (though somebody unknown sent them to try and kill me) but the assassin of course joined them. I did it right after finishing the thieve’s guild quests (and thus she’s a priestess of Nocturne…so awesome) so assassinations were tactical stealth missions where I killed only the target. Well, except the one time I killed a very high profile target in a high profile way to “send a message”. Guards chased me out of that city for literally half the continent. It was awesome.
Time for the Paladin to address the Brotherhood in his own way. :) This game is awesome.
On behalf of Paladins everywhere, I salute you.
“Why did you do that? Are you trying to curry favor with some goody twoshoes god?”
“No… it was the right thing to do.”
“Who told you that was the right thing to do?”
“The only voice that matters in such situations… my conscience.”
Dammit.
Dammitdammitdammit.
Now I have to buy the stupid game, terrible UI and all…
Seriously, that’s pretty cool. I hope that level of attention to – what? self-determination? – whatever it is, I hope it’s all through the damn game I have to damn buy now.
I thought it was interesting too that even the choice in this quest is not as binary as it first appears… :)
BTW this kind of thing in a MMO would be a nightmare: you’d end up with half players enemies/killers of a faction, the other half friends. What do they do when they meet? World PvP?
Everyone vs Everyone?
EvE? :)
“Usually, in this kind of situation, the simple fact that the quest-giver CAN be attacked is a very very big hint at the fact that it’s indeed possible to do something else.”
I once tried making a barbarian murderer character in Skyrim, sworn to kill everyone in the country, and most of the people I tried to kill refused to die. I could attack them and beat them within an inch of their life, but if they had a quest to give me later, they’d just kneel there until my sword finger got tired.
After a while, I got bored and stopped trying. The possibility of killing the Dark Brotherhood leader never even occurred to me because of this.