The Elder Scrolls: The XVII Princes of Oblivion

[Fyraltari]

I guess once you become head of the guild, you could have an office filled with paperwork with a unique interaction "work" instead of "seat" and when you do that the screen goes black and it cuts to five hours later or something. You should probably get some minor reward out of it.

Really, while you being "the leader" of the guild was always borked I think it got so much worse in Skyrim because it removed all the little ranks there were so instead of a meteor-quick but still gradual progression you're just catapulted guildmaster out of the blue.

[Rater202]

I guess once you become head of the guild, you could have an office filled with paperwork with a unique interaction "work" instead of "seat" and when you do that the screen goes black and it cuts to five hours later or something. You should probably get some minor reward out of it.

Really, while you being "the leader" of the guild was always borked I think it got so much worse in Skyrim because it removed all the little ranks there were so instead of a meteor-quick but still gradual progression you're just catapulted guildmaster out of the blue.

I think the only one where it works in Skyrim is the Brotherhood.

You get declared the destined Grand Head Poobah not even halfway in, most of the cast doesn't give a crap except for two people, one who is a religious fanatic and the other immediately sees you as a threat even though, while you're nominally the leader, traditionally you'd just listen for targets and tell them to the other leaders.

The entire rest of the plotline is caused by those two people overrecacting.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Really, while you being "the leader" of the guild was always borked I think it got so much worse in Skyrim because it removed all the little ranks there were so instead of a meteor-quick but still gradual progression you're just catapulted guildmaster out of the blue.

Yeah, in Oblivion at least the traipsing between towns gave you some exposure to the other guild members and their magical specialties, and the speed of your rise to power can at least be partially explained by half the guild defecting/getting killed. In contrast the College still has most of its senior staff by the end of the story.

[Spore]

I dunno about backstory, but the Dragonborn is pretty consistently portrayed as a bit of a snarker, the Nerevarine is thorough but disorganized (*cough*quest journal*cough*), and the Vestige is a bit clueless.

What do you base your obervations on? Dialogue options? Journal entries?

Because to me, Nerevarine felt like a grifter (let's try these 15+ organizations until SOMEONE let's me in). The Dragonborn always felt like a knucklehead brute ever since I realize the typical hero is a weapon swinging brute, and while this naturally works for the Civil War and Companions, it always feels very much brutish when playing something more delicate like College, Dark Brotherhood or Thieves' Guild. They reiterate several times on murder/carnage in DB and Thieves', and our thread knows you need minimal magic ability for the College.

I can't speak for the MMO hero, but generally they don't even feel like an RPG character, but more like an avatar of murder.

[Vinyadan]

For the first time, I tried using Morrowind's trainers. They're nice for alchemy. However, I was very disappointed when I found out you cannot train your skills beyond their controlling attributes; it doesn't make much sense, when you can just grind spellcasting skills.

[Keltest]

I think the only one where it works in Skyrim is the Brotherhood.

You get declared the destined Grand Head Poobah not even halfway in, most of the cast doesn't give a crap except for two people, one who is a religious fanatic and the other immediately sees you as a threat even though, while you're nominally the leader, traditionally you'd just listen for targets and tell them to the other leaders.

The entire rest of the plotline is caused by those two people overrecacting.

The Companions kind of works too due to them being more a literal group of friends and companions who happen to all be mercenaries, rather than an actual formal guild with structure and rank. Although theres still a whole bunch of "youre in charge because Destiny said so" rather than being promoted on your merits.

[Grim Portent]

The Companions kind of works too due to them being more a literal group of friends and companions who happen to all be mercenaries, rather than an actual formal guild with structure and rank. Although theres still a whole bunch of "youre in charge because Destiny said so" rather than being promoted on your merits.

To be fair, none of the other inner circle want to be Harbinger, even if you're only in the inner circle because of Kodlak's favoritism and Farkas revealing that he was a werewolf at an early date making you privy to the big secret of the Companions.

Though to be honest I wouldn't say anyone else would make a good Harbinger anyway, the basic members are largely unpleasant in one way or another, Farkas is uninterested in complicated thought, Vilkas is heavily conflicted with himself, and Aela is a daedric cultist.



I did much prefer the guilds in the older games, Skyrim seems to have leaned really hard into all of them being fractured, broken and down on their luck, with the exception of the Companions who just aren't really a guild, as opposed to them being mostly healthy but with something important going on that leads to you working with the guild leader and becoming their designated heir.

[Triaxx]

Aela's just a furry, not a cultist.

[Rynjin]

Aela's just a furry, not a cultist.

Most of the Circle, besides Kodlak, actively worship Hircine and want to go to his afterlife.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

What do you base your obervations on? Dialogue options? Journal entries?

Dialog for the Dragonborn and Vestige, journal entries for the Nerevarine.

[Grim Portent]

Most of the Circle, besides Kodlak, actively worship Hircine and want to go to his afterlife.

2/5 really. Skjor and Aela worship Hircine, Vilkas has been talked around to rejecting him and lycanthropy by Kodlak when you join the Companions and Farkas follows Vilkas' lead on the matter but doesn't seem to understand or care about why it matters.

I suppose the player could bump it to 3/6 depending on how you play them. After all you can readily embrace lycanthropy through the werewolf totem quests with Aela and Hircine's daedric quest, cure it, or wander off and become a vampire instead.

EDIT: Y'know, it occurs to me that it's a shame we don't see more of Skjor, either before his death or after it. It would be nice to have someone serve as a dissenting voice to Kodlak when it comes to the beastblood and the perception of Sovngarde vs Hircine's Hunting Grounds.

[Rynjin]

Well, either way, Aela is a cultist lol.

[Fyraltari]

I did much prefer the guilds in the older games, Skyrim seems to have leaned really hard into all of them being fractured, broken and down on their luck, with the exception of the Companions who just aren't really a guild, as opposed to them being mostly healthy but with something important going on that leads to you working with the guild leader and becoming their designated heir.

That's a general theme in Skyrim, every faction but the Thalmor took a beating: the Empire's fractured, the blades are down to a couple members, The Drak Brotherhood doesn't even have a Listener anymore, the Thieves' Guild is cursed and the Mages' Guild straight-up disbanded.

EDIT: Y'know, it occurs to me that it's a shame we don't see more of Skjor, either before his death or after it. It would be nice to have someone serve as a dissenting voice to Kodlak when it comes to the beastblood and the perception of Sovngarde vs Hircine's Hunting Grounds.

Also, this would have been great.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

EDIT: Y'know, it occurs to me that it's a shame we don't see more of Skjor, either before his death or after it. It would be nice to have someone serve as a dissenting voice to Kodlak when it comes to the beastblood and the perception of Sovngarde vs Hircine's Hunting Grounds.

Quasi-related, in one playthrough I ended up with a glitch where Skjor miraculously reappeared after his death. I was Harbinger and he still called me ‘whelp.’ No, Aela, I’m pretty sure Skjor’s spirit is not with us, it’s back in Jorvaskr where we left him!

[Rater202]

Quasi-related, in one playthrough I ended up with a glitch where Skjor miraculously reappeared after his death. I was Harbinger and he still called me ‘whelp.’ No, Aela, I’m pretty sure Skjor’s spirit is not with us, it’s back in Jorvaskr where we left him!

To go off topic for a moment, in Quinn/Introspective Spy's Mass Effect let' play(on the StreamFourStar channel), he pretty much let Miranda die because he didn't like how she asked for help in Mass Effect 3.

Then she showed up during the Citadel DLC. And from that point onward the game treated her as alive.

That kind of glitch, as long as it doesn't break anything, is always a bit funny.

[Rynjin]

Man, I cannot get into any of their new gaming content for the most part. Kirran and Grant are always great but that Famicom Detective playthrough annoyed me since they kinda just talked over everything. I...don't really care about any of the new randoms, either.

It's sad to see how much their content has fallen over the past couple of years.

[Rater202]

Man, I cannot get into any of their new gaming content for the most part. Kirran and Grant are always great but that Famicom Detective playthrough annoyed me since they kinda just talked over everything. I...don't really care about any of the new randoms, either.

It's sad to see how much their content has fallen over the past couple of years.

They've always talked over everything. Sometimes they flat out ignore the cutscenes—see their Fallout Four playthrough where their ultimate characterization of Captain Ravager was born in part from their complete inability to pay attention to cutscenes and ignoring/contradicting every explanation of, for example, what Synthes actually are.

Though I admit that I have trouble with videos that are just those two.

[Rynjin]

They've always talked over everything. Sometimes they flat out ignore the cutscenes—see their Fallout Four playthrough where their ultimate characterization of Captain Ravager was born in part from their complete inability to pay attention to cutscenes and ignoring/contradicting every explanation of, for example, what Synthes actually are.

Though I admit that I have trouble with videos that are just those two.

They've never really done it to that extent for the adventure games before, like Contradiction, Telltale Batman, etc. Hell, they didn't even really do it for Dark Side of the Moon as much. Like, who gives a **** about FO4's plot? But games like Famicom Detective all the fun is found in the actual game.

I think it's because they lost the footage for the entire first chapter or some such. I didn't watch far enough to see where they hadn't played up to yet, maybe it gets better.

[Lord Raziere]

Man, I cannot get into any of their new gaming content for the most part. Kirran and Grant are always great but that Famicom Detective playthrough annoyed me since they kinda just talked over everything. I...don't really care about any of the new randoms, either.

It's sad to see how much their content has fallen over the past couple of years.

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the Grant and Kirran show no matter what form it takes. TFS works best when their humor is mixed in certain ways. you put Grant and Kirran together without anyone else, all your going to get is nonstop lighter nonsense without any of Lani's versatility to balance them out. Takahata without anyone else shifts between between energetic and chill and just all over the place without anyone else to bounce off of. Kaiser is chill and good snark but has a tendency drift into more serious topics without anyone to keep him focused. Lani is probably the most well-rounded and consistent because he can shift between drama, comedy, chill, rage and so on smoothly without being unbelievable or jarring and has one of the more consistent schedules. Zito is chiller than people think but can be angrier than he claims. You put Zito and Taka together and you have something because they fill a classic comedy duo of Taka being the wise guy and a Zito being an angry straight man which plays off real well with each other.

Quinn actually works well on his own because he is just a chill snarker who doesn't have Kaiserneko's flaw of getting too ranty and serious. so while not the most exciting your guaranteed to have a chill time with him. and his dry humor works well with everyone else whenever its with others.

But I can point to where their quality declined and I'm going to be 100% honest with you: its when hbi2k left. when he was there, TFS kept to a much more consistent and defined, organized schedule. I remember him commenting on stream where he described working at his job like working at an IT Tech thing where everyone else was a bunch of introverts and people needed to be kept on task, and when the next TFS at the Table had Zito announcing what was essentially a near rock falls everybody dies scenario to hbi2k and thus his character leaving, I knew that a terrible mistake had been made somewhere. like you could tell their streaming schedule just suddenly became a lot more fluid, they spend more time on individual streams than when together, if you were there at the time you just felt the shift in content. that and hbi2k when he was on stream fulfilled a similar chillsnark role as Quinn.

Tyler though, yeah, I never liked him or his humor. I don't get why anyone likes him. he is just annoying to me.

anyone else doesn't really much of a presence, are pretty much nonentities who don't know what to do with the rapid fire jokes being thrown at them. you can tell because I remember their faces but not their names.

it is sad that their quality has declined, because they work better together than alone.

[Rynjin]

Yeah when Ben left things really did take a turn. The most annoying part is, the thing he left over (not announcing the end of DBZA and a focus on transitioning to other content) is the thing they ended up doing anyway...after another year or so of waffling over it.

[Rater202]

Raz, you're a little backward: The Rocks Fall Everyone Dies came because HBI2K left.

Ben had some ideas for creative projects he liked, but Lani and Kaiser werren't sure it was the right direction for the company, so he stepped down from his position and sold his shares in the company back to them so that there wouldn't be a conflict of interest if he went and worked on the projects on his own.

All involved parties insist that it was an amicable split and that they're still friends.

Ben considered staying on for the D&D campaign but ultimately did not in part for a number of reasons, and Zito... basically had to go with the bad end of that chapter and move on to the next becuase he couldn't come up with a way to write around Eloy.

The new D&D game they're doing is good so far though.

[Lord Raziere]

Raz, you're a little backward: The Rocks Fall Everyone Dies came because HBI2K left.

I know Rater.

I was describing my experience at the time, that TFS at the trouble announcement was when I was informed of it. I was describing my feeling that a mistake had been made and this was the result that you just said.

But whatever, its years over and done with.

[Rater202]

Also gonna be honest I think the pandemic had something to do with the eratic scheduling too.

Apparently, there was an extended period of time where they literally weren't allowed to go into their office becuase of shutdowns.

[Rynjin]

Also gonna be honest I think the pandemic had something to do with the eratic scheduling too.

Apparently, there was an extended period of time where they literally weren't allowed to go into their office becuase of shutdowns.

This is also the case. It was just depressing that I was rewatching an old stream and they were like "Yeah! 13,000 people in the chat!" and then their last stream had like 300 viewers.

That's less than they were pulling per stream back when they first started (eg. with Drunklstiltskin).

[Lord Raziere]

Also gonna be honest I think the pandemic had something to do with the eratic scheduling too.

Apparently, there was an extended period of time where they literally weren't allowed to go into their office becuase of shutdowns.

Well they were starting to get back on their feet with Unabridged but then the pandemic just shot them in the leg before they can even start walking.

[Rater202]

Well they were starting to get back on their feet with Unabridged but then the pandemic just shot them in the leg before they can even start walking.

They're back in the office now though, and gaming content seems to be picking back up.

Hopefully, they'll be able to finish Unabridged.

Also, not gonna lie... The Beaststars video they did is one of the funniest things I've ever seen and I don't even like Beastars.

We should probably get back o talking about The Elder Scrolls though...

...the more I think about Season unending, the more frustrated I feel that there are no options to just beat the crap out of Ulfrick and or Tullius until they agree to take things seriously instead of trying to use the ceasefire negotiation as a power grab.

I know I've talked about this before but after an entire game of being able to punch your problems, up to and including a mechanic about fist fighting people to solve disputes(which sometimes results in those people liking you) and talk about how, like a dragon soul in a mortal body you have the same urge to destroy and conquer as dragons and nothing comes of it.

[Lord Raziere]

We should probably get back o talking about The Elder Scrolls though...

...the more I think about Season unending, the more frustrated I feel that there are no options to just beat the crap out of Ulfrick and or Tullius until they agree to take things seriously instead of trying to use the ceasefire negotiation as a power grab.

I know I've talked about this before but after an entire game of being able to punch your problems, up to and including a mechanic about fist fighting people to solve disputes(which sometimes results in those people liking you) and talk about how, like a dragon soul in a mortal body you have the same urge to destroy and conquer as dragons and nothing comes of it.

Indeed, I'm sorry for derailing.

Yeah, Elder Scrolls is one of those games where there is so much freedom that when you encounter a limitation its just a bit sad but not surprising because it has to be limited somehow, and you wish they could've done a bit more work on it.

either that or I wish that people would use Elder Scrolls as a roleplaying setting more, because it took DnD and managed to get rid of the sillier elements while not going too dark/Games of Throney like Warhammer or Dragon Age, by replacing them with its own bizarre synthwave drug trip elements instead.

[Rater202]

A friend of mine was going to run a game set in Morrowing during the events of the game but unrelated to them back in high school but it never got off the ground.

I was going to play Nord gentleman who'd come all the way from Skyrim to find and kill the damned witch who stole my finest set of clothes.

...Though now if I was going to play in the setting I'd probably want to play a child infected with a relatively mild strain of either lycanthropy or vampirism. Just a creepy monster kid trying to get by without being found out. It'd depend on the time period and region though, obviously.

Edit: I now have the mental image of a little borderline feral wolf boy or a really tiny vampire lord living out in a cave in the woods, preying on the local wildlife and occasionally delivering pelts to nearby villages in exchange for supplies but having to go to different ones every two or three times becuase people keep getting suspicious.

[veti]

...the more I think about Season unending, the more frustrated I feel that there are no options to just beat the crap out of Ulfrick and or Tullius until they agree to take things seriously instead of trying to use the ceasefire negotiation as a power grab.

Look at it from their point of view. Neither of them can afford to let the other gain a strong strategic advantage, at least not without paying commensurately for it. If Tullius gives away too much, he'd be recalled to Cyrodiil in disgrace and replaced by someone whose first act would be to repudiate the truce.

Ulfric's position is even more precarious: he has the backing of several of the jarls, but some of his supporters are less than wholehearted, and any suggestion of weakness would be fatal to his aspirations (and most likely to him).

Ulfric has to be able to claim to have won the negotiation, and Tullius has to be able to say that he hasn't given away any significant advantage. They're not bluffing, either one of them really would walk away if they can't thread that needle somehow.

[Rynjin]

I ran a Pathfinder campaign set in Hammerfell during the Oblivion crisis for a good bit. That was fun.