Dervish

Do people read role plays that they are not in?

I've been told by a few people the read the games I GM who aren't participating, and I've glanced at a couple from time to time, partially because the concept was interesting, partially because I tend to prowl for players who seem like they'd fit in well in my games if I'm looking for recruits.

The Empire or The Stormcloaks? Skyrim. Which Are You? and Why?

Blitzkrieg said
Oblivion made me fall in love with the Empire. Even without the Septims, my allegiance still lies with there.I would usually like just ignoring the war so it felt like Skyrim was a land of constant conflict while I explored. It explained all the hostile people running around.In reality, I am quite fond of the Thalmor and have theories about their rise to power.

I'm curious as to why you're fond of the Thalmor. They're kind of dicks haha.

Kenway has to kill two of these to make a pistol holster

Andae said
What're you guys talking about...He's not making a pistol holster, it's a Condom for the Jackdaw.

Of course. That giant ram on the front need protection from those filthy English vessels.

Hey Drago

Blitzkrieg said
What's sad is there is a fetish for this.I bet at least one guy in the guild would start getting hot and bothered if he opened this thread.

I saw someone in the 1x1 section who had nothing but amputee and disability interest checks not long ago.

Kenway has to kill two of these to make a pistol holster

I think he really just enjoys murdering aquatic wildlife, the Far Cry 3 crafting is just a convenient afterthought.

The Empire or The Stormcloaks? Skyrim. Which Are You? and Why?

mbl said
I really needed to? I like altmer/bosmer and thus prefer the dominion and thalmor out of all the current factions, if I personally had to take a side in the rebellion (which was the main question of the thread), I would go with the empire as that seems to me to be the better outcome for the thalmor. The rebellion has served its purpose and damaged the empire, but stormcloak rule would do more harm than good for the thalmor cause.

Technically, a Stormcloak victory is a bit more ideal for the Thalmor, since it further diminishes the Empire's strength, and isolates Skyrim for a later time. Sure, the Stormcloaks will probably kick the Thalmor out of Skyrim, but when the time comes to go to war with the Empire again, the Imperials will only be able to call upon the strength of High Rock and Cyrodiil (which saw the bulk of the fighting in the war where as the Dominion is largely untouched) without the manpower or resources from Skyrim. The Empire technically still has control over Morrowind, but it also was occupied by the argonians and has suffered a massive natural disaster, so it's not exactly reliable at the moment, whereas the Dominion can call upon the Summerset Isles, Valenwood, and Elsweyr to go to war at any time, and I do need to stress that as the invading party that had the truce signed heavily in their favour, they're sitting at a huge advantage. If they win that war against the Empire, then chances are, Skyrim will fall in due time when the subsequent war breaks out.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised in Elder Scrolls VI if the Aldmeri Dominion was dominating most of Tamriel.

The Empire or The Stormcloaks? Skyrim. Which Are You? and Why?

Basically, there's an armistice between the Empire and the 2nd Aldmeri Dominion, who had ended the war conditionally after crippling loses on both sides, although the Empire fared worse than the Dominion since the terms they agreed to were almost identical to the ones that they had went to war over in the first place, including disavowing Talos worship and allowing Thalmor Justicars to basically do an inquisition in search of Talos worshipers, as well as having observers in place to make sure the Empire followed the terms. This was called the White-Gold Concordat, which is also a reason Hammerfell broke off in independence from the Empire, and they were at war with the Dominion for quite some time after that, although they managed to repel the Thalmor from Hammerfell. Talos is kind of the patron diety to the Nords, so being told they can't worship him is kind of like someone occupying Israel and telling them they can't worship Moses any longer. It's part of the reason the Civil War broke out, since the Stormcloaks largely view the Empire as elf stooges without a spine to stick up for what's right and that to preserve their way of life and not find themselves under the Thalmor's heel, they need to take their home from the Empire that is a shadow of its former self that clearly no longer has Nord interests at heart.

Another thing to keep in mind about the racism demonstrated against the Dark Elves is that it's largely due to the massive influx of refugees after the Red Mountain erupted and the invasion from the argonians forced them to flee their homes, and if you look at real-life examples of how hard it is for a country to take on several thousand to hundreds of thousands of refugees, you can see how the local population could grow to start resenting them, especially if they have a history of warfare and mutual hatred between them. The Nords, dark elves, dwemer, and snow elves had all had it out for one another for quite some time for hundreds of years. It doesn't make the racism and shitty treatment of the dunmer that you see in Skyrim any more justified, but if you take a look at the history and consider how hard it is to take in a huge amount of refugees, you can kind of understand where they're coming from. Before you say, "But Dervs! There's only like a dozen dunmer in Windhelm!", keep in mind the entire game is SEVERELY underpopulated on all accounts.

Also, keep in mind that the dunmer (dark elves) are hardly saints themselves. It wasn't long before the beginning of Oblivion there that Morrowind still practiced slavery, especially against the argonians and khajiit. It doesn't surprise me, at all, that the argonians would take advantage of political turmoil to get back at countless generations of oppression.

Also, the Nords were the first men to settle in Tamriel, which was ruled by the elves at the time, from a Northern continent called Atmora. The other men came sometime later, the last being the Redguard. There was actually quite a bit of peace between the Nords and the neighbouring snow elves for quite some time before tensions boiled over. It was hardly a war party that started conquering all the land.

I saw The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Beatrix said
It got to the point to where that I saw that the dwarves were in trouble, I knew Gandalf would save them in one form or another. All the dwarves survived (although they should have died at least 30 times, especially at the stone giant part) and when they came out alive, not a single one was injured. It's like, dafuq? I didn't read the book, but I still found much of it predictable.

Keep with it, it gets better!

Plus, most movies are pretty predictable, although it can be argued that we're talking about a book that's insanely old at this point, so it being predictable is kind of a moot point haha.

I saw The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Beatrix said
lol pretty much. Everything was so predictable. And the fight scenes were boring. In fact, I found the entire movie boring. >.>

The fight scenes were some of my favorite parts of the movie because of just how well choreographed they are. They get even better in the second movie.

I for one dislike the novel because its clearly written for kids (especially compared to how Tolkein wrote The Lord of the Rings), but I really liked how they adapted the novel to the movies. Even the copious amounts of stuff they added to the movies to fill them out that weren't in any way in the novels I thought was fairly tastefully done and entertaining.

While I'm surprised you didn't like much about them, everyone has different tastes, you're just the first one I've seen who wasn't a fan of the movie. o.o

The Empire or The Stormcloaks? Skyrim. Which Are You? and Why?

mbl said
Nord, Redguard, Argonian, and maybe Orsmer could go stormcloak, anyone else just doesn't make sense unless they've got some extreme empire hatred going on.In the best interest of skyrim as a whole, the stormcloak rule is just an obviously bad idea; corrupt, war-loving leadership with questionable claim for the throne and loads of racism. The only reason empire wouldn't be the obvious choice for most players is because they were played as being incredibly torture/execution happy.I personally am pro-thalmor and would side with the empire if suddenly thrown into the TES mythos.

My first play through on the Xbox, my khajiit went Stormcloak because he's somewhat self-serving and holds a grudge, so he signed on to get back at the Imperials before he really understood what the Stormcloaks stood for, and by then it was too late to back out, although he reasoned that if he could be something of an ambassador for his people, he could hopefully change some minds about khajiit, and by extension, non-Nords if he ended up becoming one of the great leaders and heroes of the war.

Second play though on PC, same character, he didn't run to join the war because it didn't concern him. The execution attempt was just botched fate, nothing personal. But after some time of adventuring the land and deciding Skyrim is a place he could potentially call home, he started to become wary of a Stormcloak victory and what it could mean for khajiit across the province, so he reluctantly joined the Legion to bring some semblance of security and peace to his adopted homeland, especially since an Empire without Skyrim is an Empire that is extremely vulnerable to the Thalmor, a group he rather dislikes based off his own back story, which I won't get into haha.