20 replies to this topic

[Mercer Meka]

Hello,

 

I enjoy dungeon crawling but sometimes it can get a little repetitive and one reason for this is that I often can't think of anything to do in cities (other than selling loot and resupplying for next dungeon crawl). 

Does anyone have some good ideas what to do in cities and preferably from a roleplay perspective? Feel free to recommend mods if you have some which helps in this regard.

 

 

[Pseron Wyrd]

Well, obviously, Better Cities is the mod to recommend if you want more things to do in cities. 

 

As far as roleplay ideas, the sky's the limit. I find that thieves are great characters to play in cities. Never allowing your character to be seen by any guard can be a kind of mini-game. Better Cities is great for this because it adds more buildings to break into and devious ways to get into them. 

 

On the flip side, you can roleplay a detective. You can pick an NPC and follow them around, noting their schedule, who they speak to, what kind of shenanigans they might be up to. I have gone so far as to pick an "employer." When my sleuth character feels she has gotten all the dirt on someone it is possible to get, she reports back to her employer. I console in a "fee" afterwards.

 

A few of my characters spend entire in-game days just walking around, living normal lives. Again, Better Cities helps. It adds a public bath to the Market District your character can spend hours in. They will spend some time in an Inn, some time visiting friends, some time at home, ect. I find this to be extremely relaxing at times. 

 

I have played characters who were employed by merchants to gather merchandise for them to sell. Usually this involves going out into the world, but it can also be done inside cities too. I once played a character who scrounged for clothes for Palonirya at Divine Elegance (not all of the apparel sold in that shop is new, or even divine - you heard it here first). I played another character who brought books back to Phintias at First Edition.

 

There are plenty of other ideas. Renee has one of the coolest ones: an Argonian who lives in the sewers underneath the Imperial City. You could mod in your own bedroll and play a beggar.  You could give your character guard armor and play a guard. The possibilities are endless. 

[Renee Gade III]

> OP, try  Oblivion Jobs. You can roleplay all sorts of ordinary things that aren't violent. I've got a cook who works in Two Sisters Lodge, for instance. But you can also choose to be a smith, a farmer, all sorts of other jobs. You'll need a couple other mods with this one including Better Mining. Read the page's description to learn more.

 

 

Wyrd: Yes, and you also had an idea, Pseron, in which you had a gladiator / slave who was forced to fight for her freedom out of the Arena. That's a violent roleplay obviously, so not something the OP would do if he/she's looking for something more 'positive', but it's another example of an in-town RP.

 

> I had a Redguard long ago on PS3 whose goal it was to break into every establishment in the Imperial City. She lived in a quest-related house that I found by accident. This house had a free bed she could sleep in, as well as plenty of space to store her stolen items. When she would get caught, she would sometimes flee into the sewers. She really knew how the sewers connected, and was fast enough through them that she could actually evade the guards!  They'd get lost down there, while she could make it all the way to the sewer's exit.

 

Her roleplay was so immmmersive for me, that when the Thieves Guild contacted her, she had no desire to join them. Truly a freelance thief, she was.

Edited by Renee Gade III, 27 March 2016 - 12:03 AM.

[FreeWitch]

I had a character once similar to Renee's ... she mapped the sewers.  I even used GIMP I think it was to create the maps for real and had them in a folder.  If you can install mods, TIE adds a bunch of stuff under the other cities and you can map those out too.

[mirocu]

My character Lothran is an honorary guard in Bruma during the winters which means he sometimes helps out guarding the North gate as well as making patrols around town. He also spends time in the barracks and makes sure Bruma´s only prisoner has food 

[tmar]

My character likes to climb to the top of things using only her acrobatic skills, spells, and potions - no cheating allowed. She has climbed to the roof of all the chapels and city walls except for Kvatch. Cheydinhal has the hardest chapel roof to get to. They also occasionally kill some time waiting for morning by tossing their empty wine bottles at the guards from the rooftops of Talos Plaza.

[Mercer Meka]

All good ideas. Thanks.

I guess I'm mainly looking for things to do in between dungeons crawls but maybe that's an error on my part since the character who would be dungeon crawling all the time probably wouldn't spend much time in cities and such. Maybe the answer is to roleplay a character who naturally spends a lot of time in cities and only occasionally goes into dungeons. Hmm.

[Crackomint]

If you've got a character who's got fighting skills, but still want an excuse to hang out more in cities, Setsuna's Dummy Training Modified is neat. You can do some training with the dummies and practice targets in the guilds, or the Arena, etc, along with your fellow faction members. I had a character going whose skills were all very low, and so couldn't handle the dangerous (especially with OOO) wilderness of Cyrodiil yet. So she'd practice with bow and arrow in a safe environment, and then spend her evenings chatting with her guildmates. That kind of roleplay isn't everyone's cup of tea, but if you want something with a slower pace it can be fun. I felt like I could actually appreciate the town NPCs more when I interacted with them for longer than it took to sell off my loot and resupply for the next dungeon raid.

[Erlendur]

Cure, clothe, feed, and provide drinks for the homeless in every town.  I use the Active Inventory mod to be able to directly stick things in NPC inventories.  NPCs will wear the best clothes they have, and will occasionally change outfits if you give them several of the same value.  Eyja looks particularly radiant in my games, having a number of fine dresses and jewelry to wear.

 

Every beggar has a disease, which you can really only determine via checking their stats by using the console (sdt 8 and then click the beggar).  Cure Disease works on them.  Again, without checking via the console you can't tell, but you can do it.

 

Feed NPCs who are scripted to eat but have no food they can get to.  The entire Skingrad Mage's Guild is a good example.  So are several of the people of Bravil.  You can either set food out that they can get to (works fine for the Skingrad mages) or directly stick stuff in their inventories.  If they have both food and drink they will randomly choose one for each meal, so sometimes they will raise a mug instead of eating the gray food-substance.

 

You can start an open-air market.  There is a cart near the bridge in Bravil in front of the Mage's Guild there.  It makes an excellent setting for food, wines, clothing and other goods.  There is an Argonian named Reenum who pretty much just hangs around right there.  I hired him to run the market for me.  You can get as elaborate with it as you want.  In one game I have areas set up for clothes, I brought in baskets to use for potatoes, flour, other foods.  The empty barrel nearby is full of pumpkins and watermelons.

 

You can run for political office.  My character with the open air market is the Mayor of Bravil.  Seems the Count's son sneeringly suggests that you should run for office.  I chose to take him at his word.  The "campaign" was accomplished by using Speechcraft and bribes to bring the disposition of every single inhabitant up to 100.  At which point I declared the election to be unanimous.  I also greased the palms of every shopkeeper in town by investing in their shops, and giving them all fancy new upper-class duds to wear.

 

I also like to equip all of the stable-hands with top of the line armor and weapons, so they can protect the horses.  The one near Leyawiin really needs it since there is a spawn point close enough to the stables there where she is at risk of getting killed.  Again, using the Active Inventory mod to load them up with the weapons and armor they are best suited to use.

 

Same with any little peaceful village that is at risk from nearby spawns or things following me into town.  Pell's Gate citizens are well protected in some of my games, as are the various sheep herders in Aleswell and near Skingrad.

 

This occurs later in game usually when I have no need for money so there's no real reason to collect dropped loot.  I'd rather distribute it to where it can serve a purpose.

 

Something kind of fun to do is to determine the eating schedules of NPCs in towns and villages and go to the pubs at those times, and hang out with them while they all chat with each other and eat.   They will have rather lively conversations among themselves sometimes.

 

Another little quest is to buy every "expensive" unique item each vendor has - usually only one per vendor.  Sometimes worth owning, sometimes not, but when you are rolling in drakes not much else to do with it.

 

You can decorate your house, inside and out.  For some of the poorer houses, I do landscaping work outside using various planters to create gardens, and the SetScale console command to make bigger potted plants.

Edited by Erlendur, 29 March 2016 - 01:22 AM.

[Golden Sinner]

In addition to Erlendur's excellent advice about caring for beggars, my recent character has a spell to fortify the Mercantile and Speechcraft skills of beggars for 120 seconds. That way they can be more successful at their "profession". Also, I have a potion that fortifies Personality and Luck, although it causes 1 point of damage. I RP that they can use the minor injury as part of their routine. I make large batches for all of the beggars and leave some next to their bedrolls. Its made from bonemeal, imp gall, primrose and troll fat and I call it "Beggar's Boon".

 

My character is somewhat the lady's man, so I divide up any jewelry he collects and leave it with any female he takes a liking to.

 

Your character can convert magicka into money. Some of the creatures that you can summon carry drawn weapons that you can use Disintegrate on until they are ruined. The creature then throws them away. When the spell expires, the creature's gone, but their weapon remains. If the creature gets angry and starts to attack, just summon another. At higher level, some of the weapons are quite good. If you try this indoors, then the item gets marked as stolen. This may help if you are a thief in need of stolen items to fence for guild standing.  Otherwise, outdoors this works normally. You can even get in some armorer skill and fix the item before you sell it. Good luck!

[Renee Gade III]

Lots of great ideas in this thread. It's amazing. If somebody came along who didn't know anything about ES games, he/she might think we're all playing different base games, you know?

Edited by Renee Gade III, 29 March 2016 - 08:40 AM.

[Crackomint]

Lots of great ideas in this thread. It's amazing. If somebody came along who didn't know anything about ES games, he/she might think we're all playing different base games, you know?

That's the best part of these games, to me!

 

I agree that there are a lot of really neat ideas in this thread- it's great that this series attracts such creative fans

[Erlendur]

One of my failures in my adopted town of Bravil was trying to save the Skooma addicts.  I had removed every source of Skooma from their inventories and chests.  They actually came outside and wandered around and talked to other people, which seemed to be great progress.  However, the demon sugar had them too tightly in its grip.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, there is a local Skooma dealer in Bravil.  So at least one of them hits up their source.  One of the others tries to steal it from the first one.  Violence ensues.  The next day, I discover all of this from the corpses floating in the river near the bridge.  I had to reconstruct the crime using forensics (i.e. reloading and following them to see what on earth had killed them).

 

So if anyone wants to try to rehabilitate the addicts, go for it.  That was my one campaign promise I never fulfilled.

Edited by Erlendur, 29 March 2016 - 11:40 PM.

[Golden Sinner]

What if you individually Command each den member to follow your character to the Bravil Dungeon? If they are locked up, then they shouldn't be able to kill each other. It might be an ironic new home for the Count's addict son.

[DarNoor]

There are a lot of good ideas here.

[Bazz22]

Sometimes you just gotta use your imagination. One character I had "started" off in Skingrad, working in the Vineyards to save up septims and "pay" the entrance fee to join the Mage's guild, and then eventually earn my way to the Arcane University. Of course, that's with no mods, and I'm sure there are some out there that add more stuff to do in the cities. 

 

 

 

 

> OP, try  Oblivion Jobs. You can roleplay all sorts of ordinary things that aren't violent. I've got a cook who works in Two Sisters Lodge, for instance. But you can also choose to be a smith, a farmer, all sorts of other jobs. You'll need a couple other mods with this one including Better Mining. Read the page's description to learn more.

 

 

Oh awesome, I've been thinking about downloading something like this for a while. 

Edited by Bazz22, 30 March 2016 - 02:53 PM.

[Renee Gade III]

One of my failures in my adopted town of Bravil was trying to save the Skooma addicts.  I had removed every source of Skooma from their inventories and chests.  They actually came outside and wandered around and talked to other people, which seemed to be great progress.  However, the demon sugar had them too tightly in its grip.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, there is a local Skooma dealer in Bravil.  So at least one of them hits up their source.  One of the others tries to steal it from the first one.  Violence ensues.  The next day, I discover all of this from the corpses floating in the river near the bridge.  I had to reconstruct the crime using forensics (i.e. reloading and following them to see what on earth had killed them).

 

So if anyone wants to try to rehabilitate the addicts, go for it.  That was my one campaign promise I never fulfilled.

 

 

WOW this sounds amazing. My gosh. I mean, none of my current characters would do this, but it's amazing that such a thing can happen. Wow, they all start getting desperate, huh?  Is that influenced by any mod? .. their ability to seek out dealers?  I'm asking because I've got a few skooma mods, but I haven't dabbled with them much. It would be wild if that's vanilla behavior though.

 

Bazz: yeah that idea with the vineyards is exactly what I'm doing with one character right now, except she's a cook instead of a vineyard worker.  I mean, it is a very tedious mod too. My gal barely scrapes by, making 5 gold pieces per 10 meals cooked. And I like to think that those meals take time to cook, so she only makes maybe 15 gold per day.

Edited by Renee Gade III, 01 April 2016 - 07:31 PM.

[mirocu]

I agree with Renee, that does sounded amazing. Really cool that you did that, Erlendur, even though it didn´t pan out in the long run

[Erlendur]

The Skooma dealer has one of those "invisible chests" where he keeps the Skooma.  The addicts are scripted to look for Skooma anywhere.  As soon as he shows up for his normal lunch routine at the pub, one of them walks over to him and retrieves a bottle from the invisible chest, just like patrons of the pubs get their food from the barkeepers invisible chest.

 

This is all based on the vanilla PC game with the official plugins, official patches, and unofficial patches.  The only mods I have are little quality of life things - OSBE, Better Benirus Manor, Maigret's House Cats, Active Inventory, and Auto-Update Leveled Quest Rewards.  Nothing that affects NPC behavior that I know of.

 

Up until they found the dealer I thought it was going to work.  Since they do have wander, converse, and eat scripts I figured if they couldn't access Skooma then they might live normal NPC lives.  The vendor is essential and restocks, so unless I were to stay on it at all times and keep him bought out, they'd eventually find a bottle.

 

I don't know why the others don't get their own bottles from the dealer, but as soon as one of them gets his, the others go into sneak mode and try to pickpocket it from him.  They fight to the death and then the guards usually kill the survivor.

 

At one point I had put the collected Skooma stash in the chest on the second-floor ledge over the Alchemy shop there in town, right across from their den.  They all just stood under it silently (though they couldn't reach it).

 

I was just tossing that out as an unfinished experiment.  In my little world-altering behaviors, I try to draw the line at outright console-code usage, and I don't have the skill to actually use the Construction Set to create my own minor mods.   I do, however, allow myself the one cheat of the Active Inventory mod.  I never use it for personal gain, only for improving the lots of the poor NPCs.

Edited by Erlendur, 02 April 2016 - 03:23 AM.

[deano19892012]

One thing I like to do is sneak into houses and try not to get caught.  To make things more interesting, I try to pickpocket people in their own homes.  It's my own little mini-game I like to play when I don't feel like dungeon crawling or doing any quests.

[Fus-R4mbo-Dah]

I find Oblivion a great game to role play with. If I fancy a break form questing, making up a little routine is always fun:

- Going to a tavern in the morning for some breakfast (or in your house if you own one) and speak with the townsfolk. As a knight, I like to keep up with what is going on in the city.

- If you are running low on supplies or food at your home, go shopping to the local stores to stock up, or grab your bow and go hunting.

- Peruse the local raiment shops to get the finest garments (if your character is of wealthy stock) or get some better conditioned outfits for your character if not so wealthy as clothing may become worn from everyday graft.

- Go dungeon delving. Loot the place, but only take what makes sense to your character! My knight isn't going to be walking out of Fort St Alessia with a load of calipers! He will be however with the Marauder chief's wonderfully crafted and enchanted Fine Steel Mace... this can be sold or kept as a trophy. Other findings can then be sold to up your coin purse.

- if delving is your thing, your gear is going to take the brunt of it. In my view, weapons and armour would only be able to be repaired and tempered so many times. So go and visit your local blacksmith and replace or upgrade your weapon. Go and look at the armour plates on sale to see what strikes your fancy.

These are just a few things I like to do to fully emmerse myself into Cyrodiil. May not be everyone's cup of tea, but if anyone takes anything with them from this then I hope you enjoy what can be a fullfilling way to play such a great game.