The Elder Scrolls RPG

[GMMichael]

No, this isn't about the "official" Elder Scrolls RPG, although I'm not sure there is one, nor why there is not yet one.

I'm looking for ways for myself and others to customize our home games to make them feel more like the awesome titles from Bethesda Softworks. Me, I'm a veteran of Oblivion and Skyrim, but I haven't had the pleasure of playing Elder Scrolls Online, nor even the predecessor of Oblivion, which I think was called Morrowind.

An example of what I'm looking for might be the lockpicking systems. In Oblivion, you'd see a cross-section of the lock and use your picks to tap each tumbler upward, and hit a button to lock it in place. In Skyrim, you just see the outside of the lock, and use your picks to try rotating the locks from certain angles. In both games, the limit to how much lockpicking you could do was the number of lockpicks you had, because if you took a misstep, you'd break a pick.

Another feature was character loadout - you'd fill your character's loadout by choosing pieces to put in each slot: head, chest, legs, boots, shield, weapon...Skyrim allowed the use of two weapons...

What are other features that make the Elder Scrolls feel like Elder Scrolls? What am I missing in Morrowind and ESO?

Here begins The List (for an Elder Scrolls campaign):

• PCs begin as captives. This could be a great running joke, like D&D characters who begin in a tavern.
• Along with some human and elf varieties, characters can be orcs, Khajiit (catfolk), and Argonians (lizardfolk)
• Open world: while there's a main quest, PCs can find side quests literally wherever they go.
• Crafting: whether it's smithing, magic, or alchemy, Elder Scrolls characters can make and improve goods.
• NPC attitudes: serving, attacking, or chatting up an NPC will change its opinion of you. So will your faction.
• Factions: these include organizations, houses, and others. Characters gain standing in these, and factions affect how other characters view them.
• Skill improvement: characters improve skills by using them. Improve the right skills, gain a level.
• Main Quest: each PC gets a main quest. Bonus points if these intersect a bit...
• Combat complexity: fighting in Elder Scrolls is more than Hit or Miss. This was originally imparted by the fact of TES being a real-time first-person game, but there's no reason why the TRPG can't have complexity as well. Some features: staggers, stamina/fatigue, weapon range, blocking, armor encumbrance.
• Birthsigns: not all of a character's features come from race and class. Some come from outside sources as well.
• Leveled loot: it turns out that scaling bad guys is not as universal as scaling loot in TES. Several Thieves' Guild eyes just lit up.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

The Elder Scrolls games are very open world sort of games that allow you to just wander and do what you like, with an occasional nudge toward the overall story. That can be hard to pull off in a tabletop game, though.

Also, the campaign always starts with the PC being a prisoner. I'm not sure that's a thematic element that's vital to the feel or not, but its an interesting little quirk.

 

[Jhaelen]

Well, first you'd need an oversized campaign map with tons of generic locations filled with generic npcs that all tell you about the same half dozen rumors.
Second you need to frequently roll on a single, globally used random monster encounter table that scales with the party's experience level.
Third, you need a magic system that allows players to design their own spells using a point system that will allow them to create vastly unbalanced effects.

I can't think of anything else at the moment. I think these three points are sufficient to recreate the experience of playing 'Elder Scrolls'.

 

[CapnZapp]

Snarking like a champ

 

[GMMichael]

Also, the campaign always starts with the PC being a prisoner. I'm not sure that's a thematic element that's vital to the feel or not, but its an interesting little quirk.

Such a good point! Not vital, but very quirky! I'd use it.

One thing I don't know if I should love or leave: the persuasion compass from Oblivion. Choose when to coerce, joke, compliment, and....??? It was cheesy, but how many games give you a hands-on way to manipulate your reputation with individual characters?

Well, first you'd need an oversized campaign map with tons of generic locations filled with generic npcs that all tell you about the same half dozen rumors.
Second you need to frequently roll on a single, globally used random monster encounter table that scales with the party's experience level.
Third, you need a magic system that allows players to design their own spells using a point system that will allow them to create vastly unbalanced effects.

So, not a fan?

I gotta say, as a GM, I'd be lucky to come up with 3 non-generic NPCs in a session. So it wouldn't be too hard to come up with tons of generic NPCs. And give Skyrim some credit for using different voices; how many voice actors do you use at your game table?

Scaling monsters are actually a common feature of D&D too - just check out most published adventures. Personally, I make my PCs have a harder time meeting their match as they get higher in level. That way, I don't have to explain why all the other high-level creatures aren't already running the world (because there aren't many).

I can't say that I remember creating my own Elder Scrolls spells. Is this an ESO thing?

 

[Jhaelen]

I can't say that I remember creating my own Elder Scrolls spells. Is this an ESO thing?

Huh, no. Even the first title (Arena) already had this. Googling found this. So, it's definitely also possible in Oblivion.

 

[bone_naga]

Hmmm, what other things come to mind when I think of the Elder Scrolls series?

Armor and weapons that degrade over time and need to be repaired.

A campaign world rich with history, where characters find books with myths, biographies, poems, etc.

Always starting out as a prisoner.

Being part of an epic storyline.

In my opinion, the real signature of the Elder Scrolls series has been the open world rather than being heavily railroaded. I think that's pretty easy to pull off in a tabletop game as long as you have some minimal prep work done for all the locations available for the PCs to explore (you can always expand on the fly). The hard part is that if you're playing a level-based game, you need a lot of possible quests for the party to take on at any time and any level.

 

[Desh-Rae-Halra]

I think in terms of the game system, you would need a way for skills, magic, armor and weapon proficiencies to improve over time.
Also I think Oblivion only had some starting class templates, but you could make your own ( I always did). The new ESO (for PS4) has 4 classes that determine your combat abilities, and you get racial perks as usual.

In Skyrim, didnt you choose what zodiac sign you were born under as well?

ESO has the abilities for Skills to "morph" at certain levels. So my lightning attack gets up to a certain level, then I can choose a permanent augment for it, which costs a skill point ( more range vs and extra effect ). You also have passive perks open up that you can spend your skill points on: same power tree (Stormcalling), a passive might be that I get a +5% Magica recovery, or do +3% more damage with any spells out of the tree.

You might have to go use something similar to Chaosium's BRP, as that has a system for improving skills based on use, though I think it is more specific in that you get a chance to increase your skill if you rolled a critical for it (percentile based).

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Arena had spells you could design, and magic based off of a spell point system that could be restored upon rest. Arena also had a spell that allowed you to pass through walls, but that was ditched in Daggerfall. Racial tensions are also brought to the fore here, as playing one race might get you liked in your home region but ostracized in another. Also, the Khajit won't look like cat people until later. Argonians also look human in this game.

Daggerfall focused on guilds and factions, with a generic fighters guild, mages guild, and thieves guild; with different guilds giving different advantages as you climb the ranks such as the Fighters Guild providing a free place to rest, Knighthoods giving a house, and the Mages guild providing quick teleportation to other locales. It also had an assassins guild, numerous knighthoods, and numerous temples to various gods. You also could gain or lose faction points with different groups such as the various noble families, and groups working in the shadows against the emperor. Oh, and you could become a werewolf or vampire. You could also make your own magic items and weapons. The levitate spell is really useful in this game and in Morrowind.

Morrowind (the best in my opinion) featured slightly different guilds and factions. The greatest thing about Morrowind is the alien landscape and architecture that you encounter from village to village and city to city. Different regions have different armors, so you might find a lot of suits of armor built from giant insect exoskeletons in one location, and a more Roman legionaire type armor in another. Also, this is the first game where the enemy's equipment matches what you find on his inventory when he's killed. The lore is outstanding, and really gives a lot of depth to a region of Tamriel, from its people to its gods, to whatever happened to the dwarves. One of the expansions focuses on werewolves and it is pretty awesome in that regard.

Unmodded Oblivion is the worst in the series, in my opinion, as it reduced much of the player options from the previous games, and also had a very vanilla Western European look. Still, it did a few things that can be translated into a tabletop CRPG well. First, the vampires you meet now have well defined factions of their own and some quests that flesh them out some. Second, the Daedra are given more attention and the lore built up here is quite interesting. More so than actually travelling the Oblivion gates themselves after closing the first gate. Third, the Assassins Guild (Dark Brotherhood) quest lines are better than any of the others in this game and would give some fun ideas for the DM to run his evil PC protagonists or NPC antagonists.

Skyrim introduces dragons into play, gives the non-class ability of dragon shouts to the player, and also brings a whole lot of new lore.

 

[Jhaelen]

In my opinion, the real signature of the Elder Scrolls series has been the open world rather than being heavily railroaded. I think that's pretty easy to pull off in a tabletop game as long as you have some minimal prep work done for all the locations available for the PCs to explore (you can always expand on the fly).

It's indeed _very_ easy to pull off in a tabletop game, because all you need is the _illusion_ of choice, i.e. no matter where the PCs go to explore they'll find exactly what you've prepared.

And that's pretty close to the 'Elder Scrolls' experience: Yes, you can ignore the global storyline and go off-track, but all you'll find is generic dungeons filled with generic enemies and villages filled with generic npcs. If that is starting to bore you (and eventually it will), you'll have to return to the global storyline.

Having said that, Deuce Traveler's description of the different installments of the game is pretty much spot on. Except I found the lore quite boring - and it's of course completely irrelevant to the game.