One of my major beefs with Skyrim is the forced quests that keep being inflicted upon you by the masses. Every single person in Skyrim seems to think you’re some sort of gopher, and you usually don’t get a choice about it.

Especially the Paarthurnax quest. If you knew how much I’ve wanted to slap Delphine silly for all the amazing wonderful bullshit she’s pulled… then goes to tell the Dragonborn, whom the Blades are supposed to serve, to kill their dragon-mentor who means no harm and was instrumental in defeating Alduin?

I was always more inclined to kill her instead.

Well, I’m reviewing a few lesser-known mods (as in, mods that aren’t plastered all over everything) that really bring a new level to questing in Skyrim.

The Choice is Yours

by kryptopyr

This mod, in my opinion, is absolutely essential to any Skyrim install. Ever since I plopped it into my Data folder, I have not been getting a single unwanted quest. In combination with the Thieves Guild Requirements (from the same author) Brynjolf stays where he is and doesn’t chase you all the way across town just to make your paladin warrior character plant that ring on poor Brand-shei.

Some quests, ever since I started playing a couple days it came out, would always sit in my character’s journal. Usually these quests started at the beginning of the game, and when I wind up level 81 and still have those damn quests in there, it’s frustrating trying to find the quests mixed in that I actually want to do. This adds in the options that I feel should have been in the game in the first place. It gives an added depth and focus on tasks to complete in the game, and also lets me feel more free to randomly explore a dungeon I otherwise felt like I couldn’t because X person was waiting for their frilly pink lollipop unicorn poop.

The Paarthurnax Dilemma

By Arthmoor

This, by far, is my favorite vanilla quest enhancer. I say favorite because it lets you tell Delphine and Esbern where to stick it. In my opinion, Skyrim should have had these options in the first place. You’re set up for them, but nothing you say or do except to kill Paarthurnax closed the quest. This remedies that once and for all.

Once you get the quest from Delphine and/or Esbern, you now have the option to talk to Arngeir and Paarthurnax about it. You could before, so it’s not that big of a surprise, HOWEVER! It’s actually a quest option and not just something you could do as a side thing. Telling Arngeir you won’t kill Paarthurnax actually means something. Of course, to close out the quest, you have to go back to Delphine after talking with both Arngeir and Paarthurnax and tell her you won’t kill the dragon. Delphine will argue until you’re almost sick of it, but will eventually back down in fear because, damn it, you’re the DRAGONBORN.

Now, there is a small problem where if you’re past the point of getting the “Kill Paarthurnax” in your quest log, you likely won’t benefit from having this installed. It’s much better to use a save that doesn’t have that in the quest log yet. Unfortunately, Kill Paarthurnax will likely be stuck in your quest log since you can’t get the options to tell Delphine off. There’s not much the mod can do after that. The only other problem I’ve observed is that there should be a better way of scaring Delphine without threatening to kill her with the Thu’um. I think a couple of options there for roleplaying purposes would do the trick, but that may be coming in a future update.

All in all, a very satisfying change in game play.

Quest Eraser

by kryptopyr

By the same author as The Choice is Yours, this small but nifty tool will remove those quests you don’t want from your journal if you’ve already been playing for a while. Now it will take a bit of time and effort to activate the quest again, but hey, that just adds more enjoyment trying to get into solving this thing you totally forgot about but suddenly encountered again.

It’s a small mod, but useful.

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Personally, I think Bethesda sort of tied their hands when they chose their release date. It seems as if the game still needed a lot of bug testing and many things, like quest choices, were left out, but there were so many problems that they felt obligated to release it and just rely on patches. It does a major disservice to the video game industry releasing half working crap and not fully cleaning it up.

Yes, I said Skyrim was half-working crap. It’s an amazing game, and an amazing world, but let’s not delude ourselves. A game is crap when it has a major game breaking bug in not one, but several places in a friggin main questline. When it first came out, hell, I was hit by every single one of the major game breakers and I even helped document a lot of them on UESP. At least one, the Jagged Crown/Season Unending is still a little tricky to work around. Unfortunately, it’s been said that because of the problems associated with getting things to work on PS3, Bethesda won’t do anymore downloadable content for Skyrim, and that probably means no more patches. And the game is still buggy as hell. God forbid a Bethesda game works like it should.

Until I installed the Unofficial patches, there were things in game that I thought were intentional but actually weren’t, and playing with a new character after installing the UOPs shocked me because things were actually working and Skyrim had been so much more lively and richer than I had gotten to see. This is why I’m grateful for the community modders that provide the unofficial patches and fixes. And, to be honest, I can’t understand why Bethesda won’t work with the community to officially release the fixes. It isn’t like they haven’t been documented well and implemented.