Do you suppose its possible to do a playthrough of Skyrim where you are 100% a "Good Guy"?

[Gnoekeos]

I've decided to re-write this opening post for the sake of clarifying a few things before people fly off the handle and just to make the whole thing way more coherent.

First of all I want to make it clear that I think Skyrim is a fine game and this is by no means meant to be an attack on some sort of flaw so please don't get all upset thinking I'm putting down on your favorite game cause that's not what this is about.

Second of all I'm well aware that "Good" and "Evil" are really subjective so for the purposes of "can you play through being a good guy" what I mean is can you go through the game with out stealing on purpose and without killing anyone who wasn't supposed to be attacking you. On top of that you actually have to at least deal with Alduin for it to be considered "complete".

And thirdly I both know and respect that some people just play in the world and don't much care for the prefabricated story that the games creators threw into this sandbox for some reason. My friend how ever loves his structure and will be sticking to it as much as possible.

Anyway here is the rewrite.

A friend of mine is currently waiting to play Skyrim, the obstacle in the way of him getting to play is his wife. The game is hers and she doesn't want him playing it until she's "beaten it" and yes I realize how crazy that sounds given the shear amount of content and the game not technically having an end but there it is. To make matters worse she has also recently set aside her character and started a new one so its any ones guess when my buddy's actually going to get to play.

The reason I made this thread is because recently while I was discussing the game with his wife and we were talking about what we were doing with our characters (she was doing some thieving stuff and I was talking about how much I love having Cicero as a companion after doing the Dark brother hood stuff) and my friend spoke down to us from his ivory tower saying he can't believe we were playing the game in such an evil way. He claims that when he eventually gets to make his play through he intends to only be noble and good and never do anything that's even a little underhanded.

Both his wife and I agree that him trying to do this sounds pretty crazy since for one thing a lot of stuff is really REALLY gray as far as good or bad in Skyrim, (Do you kill the orphanage lady or let her live and go on torturing children?) and for another getting most of the Daedric artifacts requires you to be at least a little underhanded. You can get the star of Azura and the Wobajack and Sanguine Rose without doing anything really nasty but for the really good stuff like the Mace of Molag Bol or the really nice armor that does damage to nearby hostiles you've gotta do some pretty wicked stuff.
And so I put this question out there.

Can you do everything necessary to reach and defeat Alduin with out doing wrong by anyone, would that take a long time and if so do you think that it would that actually be fun to do or would it be pretty tedious and boring?

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Absolutely, my main character is a total goody two shoes and has finished the main quest without much trouble.

I have a sneaky Khajiit for all my Dark Brotherhood, Daedric and Thieves Guild stuff, who never fights a dragon or even finds out he's a Dovahkiin. I pretend they both exist in the same universe

 

[thememan]

A friend of mine is patiently waiting his turn to play through Skyrim, his wife for some reason won't let him play until she's "beaten it" and when that will be is uncertain since she stopped playing her first character without accomplishing anything really important and started a second. The thing is that after having seen the way both his wife and I have played the game he's criticized us and spoken down from his ivory tower saying that he can't believe we're doing all this "evil" stuff on our play throughs and when he finally has his go he's going to do a straight up "good guy" run where he doesn't do wrong by anyone. I'm wondering if its even going to be possible to complete any of the major missions without breaking his code of honor. I can't imagine playing it that way is going to be much fun unless he plays it like the hardcore Role playing people constantly make up their own story but if he does that he'll never beat the game. I guess for the purposes of answering the main question of the thread, can you reach and defeat Alduin without doing wrong by anyone, that means no stealing, no killing the people who aren't trying to kill you first and most likely not getting any of the really Good Daedric artifacts (I'm pretty sure you can get the Wobajack and Sanguine Rose and perhaps Azuras star without wronging anyone but I'm almost certain you can't get the Mace of Molag bol or any of the strong weapons while playing the goody two shoes) and depending how deeply you want to think about the morality of it no using enchanted weapons because how morally right will it be to use the souls of animals as batteries to make your weapons stronger. Also if it is possible to do it how long do you think it would take and would it even be any fun to play that way?

First: One does not simply beat the Elder Scrolls. One quits them. Major difference.

Second, I don't see why not. You don't *need* the Daedric weapons to do so, and one can make a hefty profit simply by selling loot and the like.

 

[Dandark]

His wife wants to beat elder scrolls? As in complete every last bit of it? She also has the same problem people like me have where you constantly make new characters?

He isn't going to be able to play that for a long long time.

OT: You could make a completely good character quite easily. Morality is subjective after all. You view stealing someones new silver ring as a horrible crime, the player could view it as making nessacary sacrifices for the war aginst the dragons. This ring could go towards buying the sword that will be used to slay Alduin.
And that's only if you don't get involved in the war.

 

[Rawne1980]

I'm pretty sure you can get the Wobajack and Sanguine Rose

Aye, those you can get as a "good" guy.

Your friend will miss out on a lot of quests though. No Dark Brotherhood, no Thieves Guild and various other quests that pop up to steal/kill random folks.

In fact you lose out on a sizeable chunk of the game. I'm pretty sure the main quest has a few dodgy sections to be a bad boy/girl as well.

There is no "morality" meter in Skyrim, it's all shades of grey.

If he does want to stick with the good guy only route he may struggle finding it enjoyable.

 

[PLightstar]

As good and bad are very relative, it is possible, depending on your point of view. I haven't done any DB quests yet and the Thieves guild, don't like you killing people. So in that sense I haven't done anything that would be considered bad in terms of murder. Just been killing people in self defense. Heck if you wanted to, you could just mine and chop wood all day and sell it off and never get involved in the war or dragonborn storyline.

 

[RJ 17]

Really shouldn't be that hard to play as an honorable and 100% good character. Just means you can't do the Companions, Dark Brotherhood, or Thieve's Guild quests. It's been a while since I've played through the main questline, but I don't recall any particular point where you're forced to murder or steal from innocents.

When you get to the Throat of the World and meet the dragon who tells you about going to get the Elder Scroll and yadda yadda yadda and then the Blades tell you "What the fuck, Dovakin? That's a fucking dragon...STAB IT IN THE FACE!!!" I'd consider it a bad-guy thing to kill the dragon who seems to be the only peaceful dragon in the world and who is actively helping you to defeat the evil dragon.

 

[GonzoGamer]

I haven't gotten very far but it seems that you have to take part in some sort of political struggle at some point so I'm guessing no.

 

[Gnoekeos]

I guess for the purposes of answering the main question of the thread, can you reach and defeat Alduin without doing wrong by anyone, that means no stealing, no killing the people who aren't trying to kill you first and most likely not getting any of the really Good Daedric artifacts \. Also if it is possible to do it how long do you think it would take and would it even be any fun to play that way?

First: One does not simply beat the Elder Scrolls. One quits them. Major difference.

Second, I don't see why not. You don't *need* the Daedric weapons to do so, and one can make a hefty profit simply by selling loot and the like.

Yeah realizing that was the case is why I put in a particular goal of defeating Alduin since coming full circle with Alduin is arguably the main "goal" of the game. I'm not trying to make arguments about the quality of the game or anything like that. Also in regards to not simply beating the game Yes you do! You totally do! You just need an army of Ninjas or Wizards. Ninja Wizards!

 

[Zenn3k]

Sure!

Start a character, name them...go to the first main town and get the quest to get the golden claw back.

Go to the claws location and let the bandits kill you. Game Over, 100% Good Guy play-through complete.

Since a "100% good guy" would never kill anyone.

 

[Ascarus]

Your friend will miss out on a lot of quests though. No Dark Brotherhood, no Thieves Guild and various other quests that pop up to steal/kill random folks.

In fact you lose out on a sizeable chunk of the game. I'm pretty sure the main quest has a few dodgy sections to be a bad boy/girl as well.

i thought this was pretty shitty too. felt like lazy story telling that i could only access some of the best parts of the game if i "chose" to roll play as a, well lets just say, less than than morally driven individual.

 

[Folji]

You can play the game and have a sense of morality, good or bad, but you're gonna be skipping out on hell of a lot of content. Not that content would matter when you've already completed the game in the past. Giving yourself a set of morals to play by is a pretty interesting way to approach an Elder Scrolls game, since playing the game normally more or less makes you the most morally ambiguous person ever to venture across Tamriel.

 

[ThePenguinKnight]

It's possible, I think, but you'd have to tip-toe through a lot of the game.

 

[VonKlaw]

1. Get gloves with +unarmed damage
2. Pretend you are knocking everyone out like a Shaolin badass rather than killing them, and choosing to do the right thing by selling their weapons to donate the money to charity.
3. Profit.

Oh yeaaah.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Wait, the guy isn't allowed to play until his wife completes it? And we aren't talking a paultry 6 hour COD singleplayer, this is an Elder Scrolls game. I've played 200 hours in 3 characters and haven't even managed to finish the civil war questline (I only finished the main one by forcing myself along.)

I did a stereotypical good guy on my first playthrough, but he just seemed so wooden and boring.

Now I'm trying to play a chaotic good Wood Elf archer/stealth type, but through her experiences in the game she has pretty much accidentally turned Chaotic Evil: She joined a reputable mercenary club to get some quick coin, ended up a werewolf on a murder spree against the Silver Hand gangs whereever she found them. Then she tried to help out in Markarth and ended up shanking people in prison and allying with Daedra-worshipping barbarians to survive. The Imperials have only ever pushed her around, tried to execute and imprison her, and the Stormcloaks have only ever been racist pricks. Add to that she accidentally got the Thalmor to release 'kill on sight' hunting parties after she stayed too long trying to loot a dead corpse while one of their patrols was walking past and they aggroed, so she is pretty much has been shunned by all authority figures. Her moralities are pretty much shot to pieces, I don't think she can be redeemed at this point, but hey, The game will decide that. She's only level 20, and I still haven't met my first dragon yet!

So at the moment my Skyrim story has turned into a "Dr. Horrible" style Supervillian origin story, but maybe it will end up an epic tale of fall and redemption, there's still time. Right now it'll take nothing less than some massive work of altruism to break her out of her rut before she goes too far, so we'll see what happens.

 

[Torrasque]

Hmmm...
It depends on whether you consider killing undead a "bad guy" thing or not, but all Elder Scrolls games have been made really well so you can do whatever you want and still complete the game.

 

[SEXTON HALE]

I really dont think you could finish skyrim without pissing someone one off accidents do happen and quite often to people around my character(big clumsy orc warrior)Do you think he would reload a savetwo or three quests ago to spare the life of a begger?

 

[evilneko]

I don't see why it wouldn't be. The only difficult thing would be to avoid accidentally stealing something (seriously Beth, Y U NO SEPARATE GRAB AND TAKE?!). Being good doesn't really limit you in any way except for no murdering, no stealing, no punching that guy in the Bannered Mare in the face.

That's really all I can think of. Everything "evil" is optional.

I wouldn't even consider killing/not killing Papa to be evil no matter which you choose--it's just a matter of do you believe he's redeemed himself or not.

Finally, paragraphs man, paragraphs. I stopped reading half way through.