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I was just curious how you roleplayers go about various quests. I just did Paranoia for Glarthir, and "iced" his three targets. I did not even do it for the 1000 gold. I usually kill Glarthir, or finish the quest with the guards killing him. I recall having a Mage once that had to do the Bravil Recommendation quest. I used Frenzy on the wife of Soris Arenim, killing her because she would not move and detected me as I wanted to sneak into the cellar to steal the staff. I felt sort of guilty after that. I could have returned at night, or showed some patience, or even cast Fear and scare her off instead.

I often feel regret after my character did something of questionable nature. I don't really get that with the DB. Nor the TG. Mostly, because I rarely bother with them. There are more efficient ways of making money than thieving. Necromancer dungeon raiding.

I usually am Lawful Neutral. Maybe I am not correct. I often kill the Orum gang, and may kill Mythic Dawn sleeper agents before even getting far enough into the MQ. I tend to hunt those down.
I wonder if any of this made any sense. I am especially curious how other players regard beggars. My current character has 75+ Speechcraft, and spoke to each encountered beggar, so when he meets Tandilwe, he might max out his Speechcraft. But I often sneak kill them, or frenzy them if they keep bothering me with their only one coin thing. XD

I usually give a coin to a beggar-- unless I've grown tired of doing that, in which case I'll just ignore them, or just talk to them without giving them a coin. Sometimes I feel like they should be able to go make money the way I do-- kill a few low-level beasts and cash in their pelts or meat or whatever, or go around checking the crates and barrels that are all over the cities to see what's in them, etc. But then I realized that they might have some moral objections to killing (even animals) and thieving (even though the contents of the crates and barrels do not show up as "stolen goods"). In any case, I figure that tossing them a coin every so often isn't going to kill me, although I do sometimes get annoyed with their constant begging.

I've tried to play completely-lawful characters before, in all of the Elder Scrolls games, but I invariably reach a point where I start thieving-- and it's always downhill from there. Even taking loot from the people you kill (even if they were trying to kill you first) seems borderline lawless behavior, given that the Thoronir quest makes it clear that goods taken from the recently dead are deemed "dirty" or "ill-gotten." You could argue that this doesn't apply to loot taken from outlaws and non-humanoid enemies, but where do you draw the line? For example, if you enter a cave and are then attacked by a group of people who have made the cave their "home" (or "hideout," whatever), isn't that sort of like breaking into someone's house and then trying to justify killing them on the fact that they attacked you first?

There are very few ways to make money through completely-lawful means, such as buying or finding alchemical ingredients, making potions (preferably not poisons), and selling them. Even making money by doing some quest and being rewarded by the quest-giver can be a gray area, since the quest might require that you kill someone/something, or trespass, or steal, etc.

Closing gates can be very lucrative, and is about the most lawful good thing there is - literally descending into hell to fight evil on its own turf.

When I enter a cave/fort/etc. I basically consider the occupants bandits/lawless/free targets.
Me/my characters are VERY Word Of The Law oriented, and near indifferent to the Spirit Of The Law. (unless it is making videos about Age Of Empires 2 )
I fluctuate between Lawful Neutral and Lawful Evil, and sometimes Neutral Evil. But I never do things out of a Good or Chaotic disposition. So you can imagine my disdain for Chaotic Goods.
My characters have a very "Exacting" mentality. Ie, if it says, don't break the law? Loophole. Cast Frenzy, or make the lawbreaking undetectable as sneaking. My characters are distinctly two faced. Often resorting to Personality skills to get done what needs to get done. Appearing friendly and cordial to the citizens of Cyrodiil. But don't encounter them in the shadow.
I generally do not go thieving however. It is not really lucrative mostly.

My characters are probably chaotic good. If they must steal something for a quest, then replace it with a like item of greater value.

If you summon a lich or skeleton champion indoors and disintegrate their weapon until it is ruined, then they cast it aside. It remains after they vanish, so you can pick it up. It's still marked as stolen, so you can fence it for credit in the TG.

I did the DB once. It's legal in the DB to murder characters, but it's not to my liking. When the DB quest line was done, I finished off the members, for the good of the realm.

Otherwise, some quests just never get taken. If I can't think of a way around the evil parts, then just skip it. As I've posted, my character spends most of his time hunting vampires, necros and conjurers.

Totally evil !




wait, were we talking about the game ?

Chaotic Neutral. It's the only option if you want to complete all content.

I must sheepishly admit that I wasn't familiar with the various alignments and their meanings, since I haven't ever played Dungeons & Dragons and hadn't run into the alignments in the RPG games that I've played-- not necessarily because they weren't relevant to character creation, but certainly because I seldom sit down and carefully memorize the instruction manuals when it comes to the available character races, attributes, skills, classes, and so forth.

Now that I've read up on the nine alignment combinations, I'd have to say that I probably play as a neutral (or "true neutral"), although I generally try to be neutral good, or lawful neutral, and I typically dip into being chaotic neutral or worse in order to play all of a game's content, although I don't exactly immerse myself in it-- for instance, I do the Dark Brotherhood questline, but find any torture-related content to be distasteful, and if I go into a Dark Brotherhood sanctuary or the Vile Lair and see any torture victims then I always want to set them free. Nevertheless, I always purchase any torture-related stuff when rebuilding/outfitting a Dark Brotherhood sanctuary or the Vile Lair, but only so I can say that I completed all of the purchases.

Neutral Good. Whatever is best to advance the welfare of actual people. A devotion to law following or law breaking (Lawful or Chaotic) most often leads to subpar outcomes overall. Though lawfulness is in general more conducive to the general welfare than chaotic behavior.

Chaotic Neutral. Almost always a chaotic neutral. I'm a completionist at heart.

In most RPGs, my favourite characters are always backstabbing rogues/thieves, and I don't mean backstabbing only in the true sense of the word. If I can see an opportunity to betray someone for greater rewards, that's what I'll do. For example, with Paranoia, I did not proceed to kill our favorite's Wood Elf's targets. I told him they were spying on him and I was happy for the extra gold each time. But when he asked me to get rid of them, I went to the guards.

750 gold in my pocket, a dead maniac on the streets and the favors of the city guards. That was perfect.

It can't be done in Oblivion, I think, but in Morrowind I like to steal back items I was tasked to deliver then sell them. A true selfish [&@%!] at heart.

Regarding beggars, I won't give money to them. If I'm seeking information, I'll try to find other ways.

If I play a lawful goodie-two-shoes, which is rare, I will of course help them as much as I can. Like SeaGtGruff mentioned, this character will often turn up evil in the end, such as becoming a vampire.

You can steal Aelwin Merowald's life savings after helping him save up enough to retire and earning his trust.

I killed Mazoga for stealing a cheese wheel.

For some reason, that's where I draw the line. On the flip side, I feel nothing when killing in the name of Sithis. A claw or a fang should have no moral compass beyond what the Beast aims at. And yes, claws and fangs of the Beast is referring to the Longinus Dreizehn Orden of Dies irae. Basically, the Dark Brotherhood to the Schutzstaffel's Morag Tong, led by the Golden Beast, Reinhard Heydrich, the Monarch of Destruction (basically, in the vein of a mortal becoming Sheogorath after leading a crazy life, imagine a mortal becoming Mehrunes Dagon after leading a life of... Well, you know, historical Reinhard Heydrich).

I feel very guilty for doing it, but they put that dialogue prompt there for a reason...

[rimg]Pure evil[/rimg]

Chaotic Evil ig

Lawful Evil but trying really, really hard not have a reason to kill, steal, and destroy any more.

Most of the time I just play the game to kill bad guys and finish quests. Role playing takes too much energy thinking of the proper ways the character should do things. I also feel that a character can evolve (character arch), turning from good to bad, bad to good, good to bad to good etc. It happened all the time on the old soap operas.