This game encourages you to be so, so dark.
I mean at first, I was going to play the typical good guy character... but I'm also the OCD, explore all options possible first time around character.
Of course during the choices to initiate the darker quest lines, my mind continually recoiled in horror - killing the people that tempted me repeatedly. But of course that goes no where, so in the end, I play through the dark option, which provides long and rewarding questlines. It starts off innocently enough. Hey, how about a little thieving?
Degerates quickly into murder, lycanthropy, genocide, and cannabilism.
Looking back on my original intentions... it's clear the game has done a number on me.
So true. I started off a bit further down the spectrum than you, but went through a similar arc. My play style with Oblivion was good natured, but mischievous. I'd do the occasional non-lethal 'evil' ending to side quests, but outside of my Dark Brotherhood romp, that was about it.
With Skyrim, something about the game makes me want to role play more than any other I've played. I find myself doing things outside of the core game mechanics simply for the pleasure of it. (I'm still not fast traveling, just using the wagon system and my horse, for instance.) Buying a house made me actually use it (self stacking book shelves, armor/weapon trophy displays), archery is joyful (*shoonk*), alchemy useful, game systems not
stupid as in Oblivion (stealth/crime/leveling/loot).
Somewhere in that alchemy, I'm finding more and more pleasure the darker my character becomes. I looted a store in Solitude called (I think) Radiant Raiment, where the owner was a total bitch. And after clearing the place of valuables, I took to tossing all the non-valuable stuff all over the floor. The place wasn't just looted, it was
ransacked. Because the owner was rude to me.
I don't just kill people, I drag their bodies to the side of the road and toss them in the rivers, where the current washes evidence of their existence away. I'll clear our a settlement of bandits/Foresworn/some lonely farmer, and then sleep there because that place is
mine now.
And so on. This probably says something about my psychology I'm reluctant to acknowledge, but boy am I loving the way I can express it in this game.
Well, what fantasy setting DOESN'T feature killing like it's an everyday thing? I don't think Skyrim does particularily well in terms of role-playing, but it does great at exploration and dungeon crawling with some decent story behind it all. There are lots of quests, but they aren't as open ended as an RP game would allow.
That is my main disappointment so far with the game - most quests are very linear in terms of progression and outcome. I seem to remember more quests branching in Oblivion, though that may be memory sugar coating that game over time. The majority of the quests I've done have not had the option for multiple outcomes, and it is perhaps a desire for mischief that was going unfulfilled that led me to become the monster I now am.
