First World Skyrim Problems or "Why can't i kill everybody?"

[Bells]

i've been dancing around in Skyrim for a while now with my Argonian Mage Archer, recently i decided to marry Lydia (only companion i had with me all game and she is with me in all missions) and it's been fun to both Roleplay and experiment with the game.

There are a few nagging issues that bother me though... one of them being that quite a few quest lines i come across aren't really open. At least they don't seem to, for me.

Just recently i walked across the map to reach Markarth (Fast Travel is just for Fetch quests or when i get stuck), my character is a good guy, a former thief turned hero and has no problem taking down bad guys by any means necessary... it's been fun roleplaying it like that.

I do draw several comparisosn with Fallout New Vegas though, that's the previous open ended Sandbox RPG i played and it just feels like i had a ton more freedom in that game than in this...

For instance, i just stumbled on the Cannibal quest line from Markarth... my character's rational was simple. "I'll pretend to be curious about them, follow them to their lair and take down as many of these sons of bitches as possible..." simple, right?

Well... i can't. Not without failing the quest and loosing access to a few shops and turning a handful of people aggro on me! I wanted a bit more background on the quest to see if i should give it priority or not, so i checked the Wiki... and it seems, as soon as i started my only option is to kill a innocent priest and become a Cannibal myself, or fail the quest by attacking the cannibals which will turn a bunch of people on me, make me loose access to a few shops and give little to no reward for it!

I remember the Cannibal quest in New Vegas, and man, that was fun! In that game i was playing a "Dexter Like" Lady Gunslinger and i was able to string along and deceit all the cannibals until the very minute where i turned on them when they were the most vulnerable and took them all out. All the while i had the option to join them if i wanted!

a couple of similar things happened in Markarth where 80% of the city wanted to kill me, but i couldn't burn this wretched twisted, corrupt place to the ground... and when i went to talk to the Jarl everybody attacked me because for my surprise there was a Thalmor group next to him! The same bastards that have been hunting me down for weeks... and god knows why, cause i don't!!

And the whole Stormcloaks Vs Imperial? What you mean i HAVE to pick one of the two?

Man, the Imperials are asses who do nothing for Skyrim! And the Stormcloaks are a bunch of bandits playing revolution! Thanks to the Stormcloaks i was almost killed unfairly in the beginning of the game, hell if i want to be associated with these bastards!..i want to take them both out and make Skyrim free... but i can't.

And the Thieves guild quest line? Again, an entire city... corrupt to the bone, and i can't cleanse this place with my Lighting and Arrows... i had to turn my back on the city entirely, cause the game keeps thinking i want to join the Guild, when what i really wanted to do is to take the entire organization down...

Skyrim is great fun, but New Vegas gave me more freedom to progress on my own terms...

[Ryong]

The answer clearly is mods. Mods fix everything.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

See this didn't bother me, my first character was a totally evil corrupt power hungry archmage with designs on global domination, and my alt is a sneaky thief who only cares about money and somehow manages to steal even metaphorical principles such as the plot and future hope for the world.

The only good guy I made was an atypical Nord 2 handed heavy armour warrior and he was boring to play.

[Bells]

Originally Posted by Ryong

The answer clearly is mods. Mods fix everything.

I have 50 Mods installed in my game! Sure, quite a few are cosmetic... But i have goddamn dinosaurs running around skyrim and from time to time i'll walk into an open field to witness a battle between 10 Stormcloaks, 10 Imperials, 5 Vampires Mages, a small band of Forsworn and a Bear while i try to sneak the shit out of their line of sight just to see my Wife rushing towards the battlefield screaming "Skyrim Belongs to the Nords!!" , which prompts me running after her before she gets killed yelling to her myself "You DO realize your Husband, The Dragonborn, is AN ARGONIAN right?!"

...Oh Lydia, my beautifully racist wife...


And i do play a good Guy, and even so i STILL want to turn the whole of Markarth and half of Riften into a pile of ashes... and i would do it if it didn't turned me into a wanted criminal, broke 7000 quests and blocked me with a dozen unkillable NPC's...

[mauve]

Man, I STILL haven't finished Skyrim. I think I'm stuck on some random puzzle in a dwarf-ruin somewhere. I haven't really run into many of those problems you're describing yet; Even though I'm a Thane of, and own a home in, the Thief Guild city, I've been ignoring the Thief Guild quest because I'm trying to play a "good guy" character. Even when I went to go find the Blades dude in the ratway I basically just strolled in the front door and slaughtered everyone who walked by rather than befriending the thief guild leader. And, funnily enough, said leader STILL asks me if I'm ready to join his guild. Oh, you mean the guild who I mowed down with arrows and Marcurio's overpowered lightning spells a few hours ago? I'm glad they're over that little mishap.

And my Imperial archer ended up marrying the Imperial mage Marcurio, so you can imagine how much Stormcloak cities love us. Also I joined the Imperial army earlier in the game but STILL haven't done any of their missions because I don't know if it'll make Stormcloak-held cities hate me even more.

And for the record, Marcurio is the greatest character to marry. His "I love you" dialogue is so hilariously out of character from the rest of his lines, so he'll be singing your praises in terribly overacted adoration one second and then grouchily tell you he's not carrying thirty pounds of dragon-scales for you and that you're DAMN LUCKY he sees fit to even give you the time of day in the next.

[Bells]

Mauve you can use the "Fix the Game Spell" also known as the Illusion spell Pacify.

That's the only thing that made me not flee Markarth... i was just finishing One of the main quests in the city that made me go tempering with the Silver Bloods that control all the corrupt guards and at some point the guards ambush me in a temple inside the city, where they just killed the whistle blower that had tipped me off to the quest and they try to arrest me. Knowing better, i fight them off and easily kill them all...

What i didn't knew was that the game WANTED me to go to jail, where i would begin ANOTHER quest that would win me the guards favor... so as soon as i leave the Temple the WHOLE DAMN CITY turns aggro on me... i Pacify my way into a glitch where a Guard tries to arrest me again, and go to Jail, where i pretend to befriend the main enemy of the Silver Bloods Madanach, and then proceed to quietly kill him in his cell (By virtue of a megaton of fireballs that would, in any reasonable universe, collapse the whole damn cave).

I Escape the prison, and now not only does the Silver Bloods don't thank me for ending the Revolution Madanach was leading against them, all the Silver Blood NPC's want me dead AND the guards too... so i flee to the Jarl, thinking i could trigger a dialogue that would make me Thane so people would stop to try murder my face and that scene goes LITERALY like this.

*rushes into the Jarl Temple, with 12 Aggro NPC's on my tail* (that i counted)
"Ah! THERE!! There he is hey Mr Jarl would you Ple---_AAAAAAAAAAAAH THALMOR!! FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!!!"

I ran headfirst into a group of Thalmor that hang by right NEXT to the Jarl and now the Jarl is aggro at me, and the Thalmor, and the Silver Bloods, and the Guards and everybody has their own Mercenaries ALSO on me... no amount of reloading fixes this. And if i Kill ANYBODY i get 1000 Bounty all over this area... each time.

So, y'know what? Thanks to the PC Gods, i Console command God mode, and start spamming Pacify all over the room and one by one the NPC's come at in and finished their quests, give me treasure for helping them and FINALLY i get protection from the guards who stop attacking me. Even the god damn Thalmor who hate my guts stopped attacking me on sight.

Pacify. It fixes the game.

[Aldurin]

You're doing it wrong, Bells, all you need to do is relentlessly slaughter anyone that isn't essential to the main questline. Become the Slasher of Skyrim, burning people alive as you stab them with a hammer.

[Krylo]

I've said many times that Skyrim is great fun, but it'd be a million times better if it was by Obsidian.

[PyrosNine]

I believe any quests that cannot be satisfactorily resolved with an inventive "take a third option" solution are best treated as "dead", in morte de author fashion, and HAX or pseudoquests are the best method of leaving events in a way that pleases.

So, Tenpenny tower, right? Fallout 3, no matter what you do, someone gets screwed over. Peaceful resolution gets all the humans killed. The other option gets a bunch of sentient ghouls killed.

My solution? Climb the tower and assassinate Tenpenny, steal all his crap, (and his nice outfit) and leave. The racist, evil, pointlessly wealthy ass is dead, and in time, and only in time, can the situation be resolved. The quest goes unfinished, and I can even delete it off my quest list just so it's not nagging me.

Someone needs to die that I don't like? Resurrect.

In a game that espouses the idea of freedom and multiple solutions, sometimes they always forget to cater to multiple ideologies of problem solving with each quest!

Also, letting a dragon kill people you don't like is an acceptable means of dealing with mean people in Skyrim. As Baleman said in Begins, "I won't kill you. But that doesn't mean I have to save you from dragons."

And if people are getting upset that you're killing someone in Skyrim, clearly you're doing something wrong, because they shouldn't even know that you happened to be within a mile of the deceased on the day in question.

[Bells]

No, on that regard the game is pretty broken... someone sees me stealing something in one town, and all the guards already know me in the town across the map that i've never been to before... or in Markarth, i kill a couple of corrupt guards inside a temple, and as soon as i step out, the entire town is aggro at me...

Sloppy coding i would suggest...