You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'characters' category.
[Backstory notes for the Falmer/Nord conflict. Discuss.]
In Aldmora
Nords, as their name implies, come from the north. As a people, they originated in the northern-most place in the known world, a continent known as Atmora. Little is known of the geography and history of Atmora, as at the time of the migration from there, humanity did not possess a written language. What little is known comes from old Elvish records which are not open to Imperial scholars, but which are known to refer to the continent as ‘Aldmora’, meaning “Elder Wood”. It is likely Atmora is a human corruption of this word. In a historical sense, the humans who live there are called Nedes, as are those humans living in Tamriel before King Harald, thirteenth of the Ysgramor line, seceded from Atmoran rulership, after which they are historically annotated as Cyro-Nordics, to illustrate that the Cyrodiil people had not yet gone separate from the original trunk of human population.
Even in ancient times, Atmora must have been extremely cold, at least as much so as modern day Skyrim, because the men who lived there are very well suited to live in cold climates. UESPWiki on Nords
From Aldmora to Falmora
Pre-literate humans, the so-called “Nedic Peoples”, from the continent of Atmora (also ‘Altmora’ or ‘the Elder Wood’ in Aldmeris) migrate and settle in northern Tamriel. “The Nedic peoples were a minority in a land of Elves, and had no choice but to live peacefully with the Elder Race. In High Rock, Hammerfell, Cyrodiil, and possibly Morrowind, they did just that, and the Nedic peoples flourished and expanded over the last centuries of the Merethic Era.” (from FRONTIER, CONQUEST, AND ACCOMODATION: A SOCIAL HISTORY OF CYRODIIL) Nordic hero Ysgramor, leader of a great colonizing fleet to Tamriel, develops a runic transcription of Nordic speech based on Elvish principles, and is the first human historian. Ysgramor’s fleet lands at Hsaarik Head at the extreme northern tip of Skyrim’s Broken Cape. The Nords build there the legendary city of Saarthal. Merethic Era timeline and notes from the Imperial Library
It is said that during the time of the migration, a protracted and bloody civil war had gripped Atmora, and, as the story goes, a man named Ysgramor rallied those people from all sides who desired to live in peace, and set sail to the south, eventually arriving in Skyrim; the extreme northern tip of the continent of Tamriel, at a place known as Hsaarik Head. They named the new land “Mereth” in tribute to the many Elves which lived in the forests there (Elves having arrived in Tamriel several millennia prior). UESPWiki on Nords
As it goes, Elves and men lived in relative peace and prosperity for a great deal of time, however, the Elves, upon observing the staggering birthrate of the human populace, quickly realized that men would overtake the wild places and become the first major threat to Elvish civilization in the known world. Of course, this would not have happened for many centuries, and it would have occurred unnoticeably slowly from the human point of view; however, in the Elvish mind, this would be the equivalent of the statement “The day after tomorrow, we will be overtaken.” UESPWiki on Nords
Ysgramor’s provocations and blasphemies have, of course, been long forgotten. PGE: Skyrim
Falmer taught Ysgramor, sons, and Saarthal of Lorkhan in terms of overcoming His works to regain divine nature and rebirth through baptism in the waters of Oblivion (normal water transformed with a philosopher’s stone, which actually did work, turning aedric souls into daedric through Lorkhan’s favor). Ysgramor, sons, and Saarthal, less biased against their true creator, interpreted this power as a gift from Lorkhan as the One True God, creating a great religious awakening (Ysgramor’s “provocations and blasphemies”). Falmer saw that they had created a city and a people of heretics which would only grow, and so put them to the stake.
For genocide to happen, there must be certain preconditions. Foremost among them is a national culture that does not place a high value on human life. A totalitarian society, with its assumed superior ideology, is also a precondition for genocidal acts. In addition, members of the dominant society must perceive their potential victims as less than fully human: as “pagans,” “savages,” “uncouth barbarians,” “unbelievers,” “effete degenerates,” “ritual outlaws,” “racial inferiors,” “class antagonists,” “counterrevolutionaries,” and so on. In themselves, these conditions are not enough for the perpetrators to commit genocide. To do that—that is, to commit genocide—the perpetrators need a strong, centralized authority and bureaucratic organization as well as pathological individuals and criminals. Also required is a campaign of vilification and dehumanization of the victims by the perpetrators, who are usually new states or new regimes attempting to impose conformity to a new ideology and its model of society. Wikipedia on genocide in history
Soon thereafter, the Aldmer launched a series of pogroms against the settlements of humanity, and in what was to become known as the Night of Tears, an Elven militia razed the capital city of Saarthal to the ground, killing the defenders and everyone unable to flee, well over a thousand people. The Nedic men were scattered to the coast and systematically hunted down in an act of unmitigated cleansing, and only Ysgramor and his two sons survived, fleeing in the last available longship while the port they launched from was burned. UESPWiki on Nords
According to the ancient writings and oral traditions of the Nords, the Nordic god Shor creates Sovngarde, the place that is built to honor those Nords who have proven their mettle in war. (For more information: Sovngarde, a Reexamination.) Merethic Era timeline and notes from the Imperial Library
The Philosophers’ Stones Shattered
Ysgramor and sons returned to Aldmora for support, but only got it by appealing to Aldmorans in terms of the gods all the Aldmorans worshipped. Privately, Ysgramor and his sons continued to believe in the One, creating the ancient Nordic cult that Tiber Septim glorified with the Temple of the One. (Akatosh summoned in the temple to preserve the plan of dead Lorkhan, whom She killed to enact the plan.)
After the Night of Tears, some Aldmorans were holy warriors on a crusade of vengeance rooted deep in their culture, and some weren’t (ironically, those more sympathetic to the idea of the One, who worshipped Mara).
Arriving in Atmora, and observing the tumultuous peace which had developed, they quickly propagated their tale of a vicious and deceitful alien race, the Elves, bent on scouring men from the face of the world. Rallying the various factions to their cause, they conscripted an army composed of the heroes of the war, which history would know as the “Five Hundred Companions”. Upon their return to Tamriel, they expediently slaughtered the Elves living there and laid the foundations for the ascendancy of Men to the power they now hold, and thusly sparked a long fuming hatred and prejudice between the two races which exists, by degree, even today. UESPWiki on Nords
[Atmoran tactics: see Wikipedia on Viking arms and armor, weapons and warfare.]
In Falmora the Age of Men began dramatically in the late Merethic Era when the Five Hundred Companions destroyed the temple complex in Dawnstar, a center of learning famous across the continent. Monks were killed in the abbey, thrown into the sea to drown or carried away as slaves along with the church treasures. The devastation of Altumbria’s calm city shocked and alerted the royal Courts of Mereth. Never before has such an atrocity been seen, declared the Altumbrian Scholar, Alcuin of Lainalten. [Polarizing opinion and redirecting internal criticism away from the Falmer pogroms and the Night of Tears.] More than any other single event, the attack on Dawnstar cast a shadow on merish perception of Aldmorans for the next milennia. Adapted Viking Age historical consideration of Lindisfarne
Alcuin of Lainalten declares: In this year fierce, foreboding omens came over the land of Altumbria. There were excessive whirlwinds, lightning storms, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the sky. These signs were followed by great famine, and on the Day of Blood Eagle the ravaging of heathen men destroyed the Gnostic Study of Lorkhan at Dawnstar. The heathens poured out the blood of the students on the stones of the Garden of Celestial Pattern, and trampled in the meditation rooms on the drained and mutilated bodies of the enlightened. Adapted Lindisfarne history
Land of Rape and Honey
Strategically, the ideal was to swiftly effect an adversary’s collapse through a short campaign fought by a small, professional army. Operationally, its goal was to use indirect means, such as mobility and shock, to render an adversary’s plans irrelevant or impractical. Wikipedia on blitzkrieg
The battlefront was lost, and with it the illusion that there had ever been a battlefront. For this was no war of occupation, but a shocking, awful war of quick penetration and obliteration. Swift columns of tongues and cavalry plunged through Falmora while gale-force winds bearing lightning and driving, immobilizing rain from an allied sky heralded their coming. They sawed off communications, destroyed animals, scattered civilians, spread terror. Working sometimes 30 miles (50 km) ahead of infantry and battle mages, they broke down Falmoran defenses before they had time to organize. Then, while the infantry mopped up, they moved on, to strike again far behind what had been called the front. Adapted TIME magazine account of the fall of Poland in WWII
Collective and arbitrary murder, systematic abduction of children to raise them away from their parent’s culture, active and degrading religious propaganda, forced work, expulsion from the homeland or compulsory abandonment of cultural habits and social structure, all these practices, described by Robert Jaulin, have in common a deep despise for the other man and woman as representatives of a different cultural world. Wikipedia on ethnocide
[Falmer reaction: see Wikipedia on the strategy of Fabian, thirty-six strategems, and the hashshashin.]
The Courts of Mereth did not react with unity to the lightning war and following purge, partly because they did not realize that these men had such power—they figured that the gods were on their side—and partly because they weren’t too fond of a merish culture that delved so deeply into the study of Lorkhan. The common mer called them worshippers, and derided them for communing with mannish ancestors, both not true. The Falmer felt that the path of transcendence lay through self-effacing study (gnosis, experiential knowledge) of their divine spark from Lorkhan, since they believed they were in the deadric plane of Dawn’s Beauty. The Courts decided that the Ayleids had the right idea, enslaving men to suppress their will to power, but the Falmer could not effectively break the Aldmorans.
It may be that the exploits of the near-mythical Ysgramor conflate the reigns of several early Nord Kings, as the Elves were not finally driven from the present boundaries of Skyrim until the reign of King Harald, the thirteenth of Ysgramor’s line, at the dawn of recorded history. King Harald is also remembered for being the first King to relinquish all holdings in Atmora; the Nords of Skyrim were now a separate people, whose faces were turned firmly toward their destiny, the conquest of the vast new land of Tamriel. Indeed, the history of the Nords is the history of humans in Tamriel; all the human races, with the exception of the Redguards, are descended from Nordic stock, although in some the ancient blood admittedly runs thin.
King Vrage the Gifted began the expansion that led to the First Empire of the Nords. Within a span of fifty years, Skyrim ruled all of northern Tamriel, including most of present-day High Rock, a deep stretch of the Nibenay Valley, and the whole of Morrowind. The Conquest of Morrowind was one of the epic clashes of the First Era, when ensued many a desperate contest between Nord and Dark Elf in the hills and glades of that dire kingdom, still recalled by the songs of the minstrels in the alehouses of Skyrim. The system of succession in the First Empire is worthy of note, as it proved in the end to be the Empire’s undoing. By the early years of the First Empire, Skyrim was already divided into Holds, then ruled by a patchwork of clan-heads, kings, and councils (or moots), all of which paid fealty to the King of Skyrim. During the exceptionally long reign of King Harald, who died at 108 years of age and outlived all but three of his sons, a Moot was created, made up of representatives from each Hold, to choose the next King from qualified members of the royal family. Over the years, the Moot became permanent and acquired an increasing amount of power; by the reign of King Borgas, the last of the Ysgramor dynasty, the Moot had become partisan and ineffective. Upon the murder of King Borgas by the Wild Hunt (see Aldmeri Dominion – Valenwood), the Moot’s failure to appoint the obvious and capable Jarl Hanse of Winterhold sparked the disastrous Skyrim War of Succession, during which Skyrim lost control of its territories in High Rock, Morrowind, and Cyrodiil, never to regain them. The war was finally concluded in 1E420 with the Pact of Chieftans; henceforth, the Moot was convened only when a King died without direct heirs, and it has fulfilled this more limited role admirably. It has only been called upon three times in the intervening millenia, and the Skyrim succession has never again been disputed on the field of battle. PGE: Skyrim
For at that time the Elves were as damned and near death as ever they had been during the great skirmishes of Solstheim. The Battle of the Moesring was to be the final stand between Nord and Elf on our fair island. Led by Ysgramor, we had driven the Elven scourge from Skyrim, and were intent on cleansing Solstheim of their kind as well. Our warriors, armed with the finest axes and swords Nord craftsmen could forge, cut great swaths through the enemy ranks. The slopes of the Moesring ran red with Elf blood. … It is common practice to burn the corpses of our fallen foes. This is as much a necessity as it is custom, for death brings with it disease and dread. Our chieftains wished to cleanse Solstheim of the Elven horde, in death as well as life. Fall of the Snow Prince
Children of Saarthal
Some victors and veterans of the campaign against the Falmer, after crushing their spine in Solstheim, banded together to continue to hunt them down individually, and in their small refugee groups. Continuing to search and destroy, they became a tacitly endorsed military order (mentioned in the holy canticle), making the lands safe for the ancient Nordic cult of the One.
The purpose of ethnic cleansing is to remove the conditions for potential and actual opposition, whether political, terrorist, guerrilla or military, by physically removing any potentially or actually hostile ethnic communities. Wikipedia
The Children of Saarthal is now a group of pure-blooded Nords descended from Aldmoran stock whose mission (greatly reduced since ancient times) is to hunt down all Falmer and destroy their works, and sustain belief in the One. They’ve had long enough, been granted enough resources (especially under the First Empire of Man based in Windhelm), and were thorough enough that no pureblood Falmer lives above ground, no Falmer ruin stands above ground, no obviously Falmer ruin entrance is visible in any reasonably accessible location, and the Temple of the One (partly) stands in the Imperial City. The Falmer Boundary Runes mentioned in the PGE annotation records a confession of the Night of Tears from the Falmer, dictated by the Children of Saarthal, so it’s actually a monument to their success.
Fallout Across Three Ages
Spreading out from the north, Ysgramor’s clan stretched its arms, proving that no ancient force was more fearsome than the Nords. In the 113th year of the First Era, the entirety of modern Skyrim was under the reign of King Harald, and still, it continued to expand. Leaving their snowy valleys and mountains, the Nords attacked the Dwemer of neighbouring Resdayn, the Altmer and Bretons of High Rock and lent aid to the rising slave rebellion in Cyrodiil which was to end the Ayleid rule of the south.
Ayleid to Alessian rule in Cyrodiil: The Last King of the Ayleids.
In the centuries that followed, Skyrim expanded and contracted as battles were won and lost. Though Cyrodiil was considered a separate domain, the Nords and the early Imperials formed a loose alliance against their elven opponents, their cultures mixing together, creating the foundations of modern day Aedric worship. Yet Skyrim remained the dominant human nation in Tamriel until it was torn apart by rivalries within the Ysgramor clan. As individual chieftains fought each other, Skyrim gradually lost her holdings in present day Morrowind and High Rock, and certain localities in Skyrim became independent kingdoms. For brief periods, one ruler has managed to unite all of Skyrim, but the Nord character is one essentially of conflict, and the confederacies never last. The Cyrodilic Empire and later the Septim Empire was able to take advantage of this tendency and recruit the warlike Nords to their side before they became a force of the opposition.
Not until the Third Era did merish scholars outside Skyrim begin seriously to reassess the achievements of the Aldmorans, recognizing the artistry, the technological skills and the seamanship. Until Tiber Septim’s reign in White-Gold Tower, Aldmorans were portrayed as the most violent and bloodthirsty of men: the chronicles of the Aldmeri Dominion had always portrayed them as rapacious ‘wolves among sheep’, compared to the compromised races of men who interbred with mer. Adapted Viking Age historical consideration of Lindisfarne
In the third era, if Cyrodiil has been the heart of the Empire, Skyrim has been its strong arm. The greatest threat to the Empire’s unity occured in the 120th year, when the so-called Wolf Queen of Solitude, Potema, aunt of the Empress Kintyra, launched a rebellion that became a blood civil war. Though it was eventually quelled, the repercussions are evident to this day. There is a strong underground movement called the Horme that believes Potema and her deposed son of Uriel III to be the last of Tiber Septim’s true blood and under that principle lead raids against Imperial interests in the province.
Under the Imperial Simulacrum of Jagar Tharn, cold animosities between the kingdoms of Skyrim and their neighbors in High Rock and Hammerfell were fanned into the fire of war. Upon the true Emperor’s return to his throne, this war ended, but not before Skyrim had reasserted itself on territory it had not held since the 1st Era.
The War of Bend’r-Mahk increased the territory that is considered Skyrim considerably, allowing the Nordic counts to swallow up many miles of eastern High Rock and Hammerfell. Resistance by the Bretons and the Redguards is feeble in the cities of Jehenna and Elinhir, and more active in the border zones of the countryside. The city-state of Dragonstar continues to be divided into western and eastern sections, walled off from one another, each with its own government, and each with an atmosphere of mistrust and fear. There are few days without an act of terror from one resistance group or another, though, so far little territory has changed hands since the days of the Imperial Simulacrum. PGE3: Skyrim
Each citizen belongs to a faction, and has a reputation. When that citizen dies, the corresponding faction blames your presence, and your reputation with that faction suffers by the reputation of the deceased.
For example:
The faction of Uriel is Haafinheim Partisan. The reputation of Uriel is 1. [These two sentences are actually code for the game. I love Inform 7.]
9:18 am >help rep
unemployed 0, mage 0, fighter 0, rogue 0, merchant 0, craftsman 0, undead 0, ruler 0, army guard 0, farmer 0.unaligned 0, Eastmarch 0, Falkreath 0, Haafinheim 0, High Rock 0, Imperial 0, Northshore 0, Pale 0, Reach 0, Redoran 0, Rift 0, White Hold 0, Winter Hold 0.
Uriel just bleeds.
…
9:23 am >z
Time passes.Uriel just bleeds.
Uriel dies.
9:24 am >help rep
unemployed 0, mage 0, fighter 0, rogue 0, merchant 0, craftsman 0, undead 0, ruler 0, army guard 0, farmer 0.unaligned 0, Eastmarch 0, Falkreath 0, Haafinheim -1, High Rock 0, Imperial 0, Northshore 0, Pale 0, Reach 0, Redoran 0, Rift 0, White Hold 0, Winter Hold 0.
Added a repute command to report your reputation. In this example, I backstabbed, looted, bound, and killed someone in a faction, and shouted myself from a city to a village.
9:22 am >repute
Army guard.
Assassin.
Rogue.
Tongue.Disliked in Haafinheim.
You have a reputation with each skill, group, or faction.
The 14 skills are unemployed [beggars], alchemist, army guard, assassin, craftsman, fighter, healer, mage, merchant, reader, rogue, ruler, tongue, and undead.
The 13 factions are unaligned [mediators], Eastmarch Partisan, Falkreath Partisan, Haafinheim Partisan, High Rock Partisan, Imperial Partisan, Northshore Partisan, Pale Partisan, Reach Partisan, Redoran Partisan, Rift Partisan, White Hold Partisan, and Winter Hold Partisan.
The 13 groups are ungrouped [negotiators], Mage’s Guild, Necromancers, Imperial Legion, Bandits, Dark Brotherhood, Morag Tong, Fighter’s Guild, Divine Clerics, Elder Council, College Faculty, Thieves’ Guild, and Greybeards.
Gothic 3 bandit/mage and orc/druid playthroughs by Absinthe82, which accomplish both of two opposing quests.
Nonlinear faction start, player evolution main quest, and faction agenda side quests by Tyrion1.
Supply and demand economy, crime, merchant characters by Rhekarid.
A definite step towards roleplaying.
9:17 am >help me
You can seek help about status, fame and infamy, chaos and order, good and evil, which directions to go, combat, commands, and tone in conversation.For more information about the game, see http://spearthane.wordpress.com/
9:18 am >help tone
act … sets a tone to your part of conversations. The tones are dominant, actively submissive, passively submissive, angry, fearful, defensive, aggressive, suspicious, relaxed, tense, happy, hunting, and playful. Some people respond differently to certain tones, or only respond to a specific tone.9:19 am >help act
act … sets a tone to your part of conversations. The tones are dominant, actively submissive, passively submissive, angry, fearful, defensive, aggressive, suspicious, relaxed, tense, happy, hunting, and playful. Some people respond differently to certain tones, or only respond to a specific tone.9:20 am >act stupid
That’s not a tone you can put across to an animal. You’re currently relaxed.9:21 am >ask jocien about me
The census-taker requests, “Please tell me your name, usual whereabouts, age, race, and trade.”9:22 am >act fearful
Your tone is now fearful.9:23 am >ask jocien about me
The census-taker explains, “Look, I’m not trying to draft you. I just need your name, usual whereabouts, age, race, and trade for the tally.”
I’m pretty proud of this: I feel it’s a definite step towards roleplaying, since you can set a general mood for your character, and people (that are coded to) will respond differently.
This is one of those features that takes a lot of work (to write out different responses to the same topics), but adds a lot of depth and replayability to the game. For example, if you ask someone about the same thing in a different ways they might offer to help you, kill you, send you on a quest, offer you membership in their faction, or ignore you completely.
Each of these options may preclude the others, so this is another mechanism for branching storylines and (ir)revocable acts that help change how people perceive you, along with faction rep, alignment, and general fame and infamy.
From a thread on the Bethesda boards.
Crni Vuk: No fighting Zombies anymore PLEASE! We got enough of them … seriously. If they are just with you to give fire support I will not care about them. Give Characters – Voice *Dont let them sound all the same. Boring – Comments *They should have opinions about your actions and express them! – Personality *Good characters might not like and follow you if youre doing bad things. – Realistic movement *Why should females walk/act like males … – Optic *If it is possible to give them weapons and armor they should use it and it should be possible to see that as player. (- Maybe own quests you can do with them)More inteligent, more comments, own oppinions, own unique apearance and personalities. People should remember them. No one says that you (the player) has to fall in love to them even when I would think it is a nice adition but at least they should start conversations with you when something happens they either really like or disslike. Maybe a comment from time to time like the first time you use a Power Armor or when they blow up some head from hard enemies.)
bronzepoem: I won’t hear the funny argument between teammates… Most importment, they should be interactive with whale the environment. Talking with other teammates,with NPCs, have their opinion on a quest or a affair. A benemoth may be discriminated by some unfair NPC, of course he have his approach to deal with such things. A native teammate will be surpirised on high-tech item. Also a hooligans teammate must like some corruption citys, and he won’t like protagonists behave too honourous. That is fallout style, which ten year old game could give us.
Vainglorious: I agree. The vast majority of characters in Morrowind and Oblivion simply regurgitated the same generic topics, although quest-givers usually had interesting stuff to say. The number of truly unique and memorable characters was fairly small, though, compared to the original Fallout games… or at least, that’s the way it seemed from my point of view. Sure, in F1 and F2, there were generic townspeople. But of those NPCs you could talk to, almost all of them had memorable, distinct, and unique personalities, and they didn’t share any generic dialog with each other. Even bartenders and mechanics had interesting personalities. Also significantly, the companions had personalities and back stories. Sulik was my favorite… he had a funky accent, a gnarly ‘tude, a cool back story, and a unique way of phrasing sentences. That is for me one of the biggest indicators that Fallout had more memorable characters than Morrowind/Oblivion: I can easily remember Sulik, the village Elder, Tandy, Myron, Marcus, Cassidy, First Citizen Lynette… but I can barely remember any NPCs from Oblivion, or even Morrowind, which I am playing as we speak. I really hope they give a lot of the NPCs in F3 unique and memorable dialog and personalities. No more foot-long dialog menus with the same thirty topics, to which fifty other NPCs will give you the exact same response.
Daigoro: Not only is this the loss of multiple, intruiging party members, and the depth that their interection added, but it also nerfs Charisma in a major way. Eliminating the limitation for NPCs based on CH is reducing the potence of CH. That’s neutering it.
Since I’m not doing stats yet, number of teammates depends on whether you’ve earned them, whether they’ll work together (a new unpopular one could make all the old ones leave, eg Adoring Fan), whether you keep them happy (eg, some might have care or feeding requirements), whether you avoid attacking them or getting into situations where they become (or are forced to become) aggressive to you, whether they stay alive against the enemies you fight (need to make enemies with multiple attacks target friends too, and all enemies target you if you attack in around, otherwise your buddies), and whether they accept your alignment (this will do the most to limit powerful sentient friends). With all these limitations, why use a stat roll against a number that only reflects min-maxing at the start of the game, or grinding up skill levels with boring repetition of non-plot-advancing actions? Anything that changes the game from role-playing to stat management should be avoided. I’ve been able to do a lot by linking health to stealth, that avoids having to program in levels, dexterity, and thief-skill percentage tables.
Maia: I really hope that there is on-the-fly Hold/follow me command for the NPCs. Every game that lacked it just drove me up the wall. I still have nightmares
about (temporary) followers in MW, the Gothics and even Fallouts that would attack something totally out of our league or annihilate my PC with area spells/weapons.
Done.
dagoth jeff: There should be no limit to companions. In such a trashed world, we’ll need something to make us feel less alone. Of course, having such an option early on would ruin the overall gaming experience, and mood settings.
The hunting buddy is in there early now just for testing. Once I write his intro, he’ll move somewhere else.
But money talks LOUDLY. Anyone physically able, and fit for the position would surely offer themselves up for hire (if asked.) Perhaps you saved someone’s life, and he feels the need to offer himself up as your bodyguard in return.
You initially won’t have any money, and tagalongs will either require: (1) coins for food, gear maintenance, and hazard pay; or vice versa, for the player to get coins as a mercenary, and handle it when he gets stiffed because of payer death or hate or dishonesty; (2) interest in where you’re going or a sense of duty or obligation, or (3) happens to be going there too, met either by coincidence or from talking to other NPCs. There should be a big pilgrimage to Windhelm for the Feast of the Dead for weeks before the appropriate day, and then a return back, both of which flood the roads with travelers. (A person can be a pilgrim to the Feast of the Dead.)
My point is, ONE isn’t very satisfactory. Two or three wouldn’t be. Why not cook up randomly generated no-name mercs-for-hire in infinite supply? We all know that when someone is rich, they’re powerful. If you got the cash, you should be able to surround yourself with hired guns. If you’re saving the world, that should make you “important.”
To preserve any sense of game balance (leads to challenge leads to accomplishment leads to fun), quantity of follower must be inverse to quality (eg, conscripts have few HP, and no silver or magical weapons to hit undead or magical creatures).
At least in Morrowind (and I fear I’d use that phrase often) you can Command any NPC into following you. If you’re powerful enough, you could have many NPC’s under your spell. As far as hiring goes, there’s only one merc. And you can find a little tagalong help here and there on quests. As far as pets go, it’s useless in vanilla Morrowind. Little critters.
Dungeons & Dragons based your maximum number of henchmen on your Charisma. This was always acceptable to me. And their henchmen didn’t stop at just ONE. I think at 25 (god-like) you could have up to 50. Sure, 50’s a lot – but let’s put it in terms of average mortal man – ten to twenty. Isn’t that better than one? And pets in D&D were a dime a dozen. If you had the cash, you could buy guard dogs, war horses, anything. Buy a dozen chickens if you want to. (But ask your DM first if he’ll give you XP for killing those.)
No XP, no leveling. With appropriate buffs, not sure its needed. We’ll see how long this lasts.
Pets in Fallout would CERTAINLY add to the atmosphere. You’re creeping up a dark alley with your faithful dog, and suddenly he growls at something. You don’t know what’s up ahead, but now you’re ready for anything. He charges up ahead for the attack, and surprise! You’re attacked from behind, by another creepy something. Pets would mean a lot in a world like this. Without pets, there really is no one else you can really trust.
I like this. 
princess_stomper: Each has to have a script on them to give specific instructions – first of all to stop them getting stuck behind the furniture (Grumpy’s “warping”), then to tell them to copy the player in any of their actions (e.g. levitating, water breathing), or whether to move aside if they’re in the way, and then to give options on combat style.
Most of this is abstracted away by text, which only occasionally reports what companions are doing.
Then you get to what you really need from a companion. To really make it worthwhile, you need personality as well as functionality. Oblivion touched on this with Mazoga the Orc but that was quite a brief if memorable encounter. The really good companions – of the likes of the aforementioned Emma ‘n’ Grumpy/Qarl/Kateri mods – have a simply staggering amount of work behind them, requiring far more resources than Bethesda are likely to allocate to something like this. Example: Kateri’s Julan companion mod for Morrowind had two thousand lines of dialogue. That’s just one companion. Now start talking about six, and you see why they might not be so willing to incorporate such a feature.
dagoth jeff: You don’t need thousands of lines to present a player with a viable party member. Who cares that he/she doesn’t comment on the weather? If you can give out a few commands (stay/follow/fight with melee/fight with missiles) and access their inventory, isn’t that enough?
princess_stomper: The more scripts that you throw in, the more processing power is required, which restricts the number of people who can enjoy the game. In order to please you, they’d have to pee off everyone else, effectively speaking. Plus, even though you might want to have half a dozen meat shields in tow, in practice they get in the way, get stuck behind the furniture, get lost, and all sorts … really and honestly you’re better off with just one detailed companion who is actually any use.
The trouble is that we’re not agreeing here on what good companions are. Let’s think about two mods here that I’ve played: (1) One had dozens of companions, each of which had various point-and-click options in which to increase that companion’s disposition towards you and move the relationship up to the next level. It was all fiddling with menus, with just information about classes and types – there was no reaction, no individualisation and no personality. This mod was one person’s idea of a role-playing style that left me absolutely cold. I had zero interest in playing anything like this, because all I was doing was pushing buttons. There was no sense of engaging properly in a conversation. This is exactly what a lot of people are looking for. (2) Then there is another mod, in which there is one companion for your character to build a relationship with. It took one person one full year to write. The mods with companions of that type are mods where the companion is the centre and focus of that mod – not just casual strangers with whom the player may or may not approach to join their party. As far as I know, most games only have one companion of this type. I know my friend goes on about KOTOR, but she only ever mentions one character. I don’t know of any adventure RPGs that have multitudes of fully fledged companions – only of the depth-free variety that left me cold with the other mod.
You dont neccessarily need to have a different MQ for each race, but different stroy routes would be great. If an item is in a “Dunmer Only” Night club and you’re an orc, you might have to go in swinging an axe or sneak in.Not being allowed to stay the night in an Inn owned by an Anti-Argonian person might force you to ask for room and board at someone’s house, and they might require a favor like vandalizing a neighbor’s property which forces you down yet another path. Or you might opt to camp in the surrounding woods, at which point you meet a small band of fellow outcast beastfolk who want you to help them terrorize the town.
Being whisked away to start the game in a slave camp isnt a terrible idea, infact all the above ar ok ideas, as long as eventually you end up on the same MQ, in the same yet unique story line.
The whole point of this type of “dynamic plot” is REPLAYABILITY. If you ever play Arcanum (an awesome RPG) you will understand the value of REPLAYABILITY. Going through a game and having the anticipation of different experiences depending on who you are and the choices you make each time is a huge advantage.
I understand that a lot of people like to RP and so, playing through the same Oblivion over and over is ok with them, but not everyone loves RPing. AND even for RPers, the garuntee of different experiences should be something to look forward to.
Every time I play through the game, I would love the experience to be unique. Objectively unique.
I can remember when I played arcanum the 3rd time, as soon as I got to Tarant I went straight to my favorite pub, and I was screamed at and told to get the [censored] out. you know what was different? that 3rd time I decided to be a half-orc. I thought that was the coolest thing I had ever experienced in a video game. (although this could (and should) be avoidable/negotialbe by simply working hard to have high charisma and personality traits.
Also, dragon, the Oblivion construction set and the “plugin” concept proved that differing plot lines doesnt take up lots of space on a CD. You’re not really creating NEW material. just different story lnes, different dialogue, etc.
For there to be different tracks, each track must in some way advance the main plot, close the scene in one of several different ways. Scene ends when thing restored or thing destroyed or thing given or thing tossed in the sea or thing kept; however it got there, stolen from living person, looted from corpse, stolen from nightstand, bought, bartered, given as reward for favor; but how it was retrieved and how it was disposed of determines some thing about the environment, politics, factions rep, quests available. Similar considerations for non-fetch quests.
Some things you do should be relatively fatal to the main or many side quests: for example, if you kill a child of a certain race, no-one of that race will talk with you to give you a quest, instead they’ll actively hunt you down you until you’re dead. Even attacking a child of a certain race should make everyone in that race aggressive towards you.
There’s something Dickensian about Fallout 3. The saddest parts in Dickens’ portrayal of Victorian London concerned the depths that people would sink to in order to survive. The rag and bone man, the pickpockets, the workhouse slaves; all survived on the detritus of an extreme society where resources were scarce and endlessly repurposed.
In Fallout 3, mankind is once again reduced to scavenging off the leftovers of its betters – except that this time around, the betters are the dead of the past as the world has been obliterated by nuclear war. Mutants roam the planet’s surface and the few remaining normal people scratch a living from the sterile soil…
The rag-pickers of Dickens’ time had the possibility of escape; through hard work and luck they might land another job, escape the city, join the establishment even. Your character in Fallout 3, when he’s left that cosy vault, and his compadres scraping a living from the remnants of the world, will never know easy-living again.
The names of the Five Hundred Companions are still recited, every Thirteenth of Sun’s Dawn at the Feast of the Dead in Windhelm, as the Nords link their current people to their ancestors.
This rite is a pale shadow of the Falmer “Naming the Passed”, which channels their ancestor’s wight-magic (no soul-gems) into objects of their finest craftsmanship: you have to know the name of the dead, what magicka imbued the body of the dead, and match the magic to an appropriate item. Falmer started regularly recycling their spirits for the Night of Tears, when they needed strength to commit genocide. The Falmer fell because these ancestor spirits were no longer available to guide them as a race. The Falmer queen who made this decision became a banshee, who protects the secrets and story.
