MORROWIND
About the Game
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is a first-person role-playing game published by Bethesda Softworks in 2002. The player character, released from prison under mysterious circumstances, is tasked with investigating and eventually overthrowing the Sixth House cult. The game world is incredibly rich and open, offering diverse environments and hundreds of hours of gameplay in optional quests alone. Unlike many RPGs with rigid class systems, any Morrowind character may develop any skill, allowing for a great deal of flexibility in character build and role-playing. Many quests are designed to take advantage of this flexibility by including multiple solutions for different playstyles. As of January 2017, Morrowind has received Overwhelmingly Positive reviews from 6,000 Steam users.
Busted: Pacifist Run
Much of the quest content in Morrowind is designed to have both lethal and non-lethal solutions. The constraint I tested was whether or not it is possible to complete the entire main quest without dealing any damage whatsoever -- no weapons, no hand-to-hand combat, no damaging spells, no summoned creatures. Speedrunners have found ways to thoroughly break the game engine, but to focus on the game's balance rather than its coding, I added two other constraints: no out-of-bounds glitches and no "super potions".
There are two aspects of the game that, while relatively simple in a standard run, become significantly more challenging in a pacifist run: random encounters when travelling between towns, and quests which require lethal solutions. The nature of these difficulties and the tools to solve them are discussed below in the collapsible content boxes.
Random Encounters
Early in the pacifist run, any creature encountered in the wilderness can be a serious threat, simply because the player has no options for avoiding damage. The player character is too slow to outrun enemies and has no spells to sneak past undetected. Healing spells help, but mana only regenerates when resting, which can only happen in safe areas. This catch-22 strongly encourages the use of rapid travel services until certain tools are accessed.
The first of these tools is improved speed and endurance, easily achieved through deliberate power-leveling. This allows the player to outrun most enemies, and to tank damage when necessary. The main obstacle that still remains is the Cliff Racer, a flying enemy with a very high movement speed and an attack speed that can often stun-lock the player.
There are two additional tools that may first appear to be more cumbersome than useful, but offer a substantial advantage when used simultaneously:
The first of these tools is improved speed and endurance, easily achieved through deliberate power-leveling. This allows the player to outrun most enemies, and to tank damage when necessary. The main obstacle that still remains is the Cliff Racer, a flying enemy with a very high movement speed and an attack speed that can often stun-lock the player.
There are two additional tools that may first appear to be more cumbersome than useful, but offer a substantial advantage when used simultaneously:
- The Boots of Blinding Speed. When equipped, these dramatically increase the player's movement speed, but also blind the player, blackening the entire field of view. Even with the minimap showing an overhead view of the surrounding area, it can be difficult to navigate and avoid enemies.
- The Shrine of Daring. When activated, this grants the player levitation for 24 minutes. Movement speed while levitating is generally slower than running, but this can be amplified with the Boots of Blinding Speed.
Lethal Quests
During the main quest, there are a few assignments that require the player to kill a particular enemy in order to make progress. How is it possible to cause an enemy to take lethal damage without the player dealing any of the damage? One option is to cast a levitation spell on the enemy, lure them over a cliff or pit of lava, wait for the spell to expire, and allow them to fall to their death. While certainly amusing, this is too situational to be applied consistently.
The more reliable solution is a family of spells called Command, which forces an enemy to fight as an ally for a fixed length of time. This inherently powerful effect is counterbalanced by the spell's mana cost, which scales exponentially with both spell duration and enemy level. As the player encounters stronger enemies, the mana cost quickly grows to exceed the player's entire mana reserve.
Fortunately, there are two faction quests whose rewards include unique Command abilities:
With these tools assembled, two simple tactics emerge for eliminating quest targets. If the target has a low enough level to be affected by the quest rewards listed above, it can be Commanded into engaging all nearby enemies. If the target level is too high, the player can instead Command a nearby low-level enemy, then tank damage while the Commandee slowly chips away at the target's health. These methods ended up being sufficient for completing not only the main quest, but also several of the game's faction quest lines.
The more reliable solution is a family of spells called Command, which forces an enemy to fight as an ally for a fixed length of time. This inherently powerful effect is counterbalanced by the spell's mana cost, which scales exponentially with both spell duration and enemy level. As the player encounters stronger enemies, the mana cost quickly grows to exceed the player's entire mana reserve.
Fortunately, there are two faction quests whose rewards include unique Command abilities:
- The "Erroneous Documents" quest for House Hlaalu rewards the player with the Amulet of Domination, which is enchanted to cast Command on creatures up to level 10 for 30 seconds.
- The "Pilgrimage of the Four Corners" quest for the Tribunal Temple rewards the player with Command of the Third Corner, a low-cost spell that Commands humans up to level 25 for 30 seconds.
With these tools assembled, two simple tactics emerge for eliminating quest targets. If the target has a low enough level to be affected by the quest rewards listed above, it can be Commanded into engaging all nearby enemies. If the target level is too high, the player can instead Command a nearby low-level enemy, then tank damage while the Commandee slowly chips away at the target's health. These methods ended up being sufficient for completing not only the main quest, but also several of the game's faction quest lines.
Design Analysis: Variety Mismatch
Morrowind has an impressive variety of non-damaging spells for manipulating enemy and NPC behavior: Blind, Calm, Charm, Command, Demoralize, Frenzy, Rally and Silence. These are fun to tinker with in casual play, but the pacifist run highlighted how infrequently and inconsistently quest solutions actually make use of these options.
For example, a common quest archetype sends the player to dispatch a necromancer, witch, or otherwise undesirable individual on the orders of a nearby guild leader. Without even knowing the effects of the spells listed above, one might assume that it would be possible to use Silence and Demoralize to force the quest target to surrender, enabling a non-lethal solution. While the enemy AI can choose to flee rather than fight, the game does not recognize this state in any meaningful way; the quest can only be completed when the target is dead. As such, these spells are useless for much of Morrowind's quest content.
There are a few instances in which quests encourage the use of very specific non-lethal spells. During the main quest, the player can give a scroll of Intervention to an imprisoned NPC, allowing them to teleport to safety. In a casual playthrough, this might evoke a positive response along the lines of "That was an interesting change of pace from the usual brute force methods." However, in a strictly pacifist challenge, it instead causes the player to think "If I can use this power for this quest, why wasn't it an option for the dozens of other rescue quests I've done?"
Overall, the pacifist run highlighted an important design concept in the RPG space: when non-lethal spell effects are not consistently incorporated into quest solutions, this serves only to highlight the low utility of these spells. As such, this system exhibits an inverse relationship between the variety of spells and the perception of player agency. In other words, as the number of underimplemented spells increases, the player's sense of freedom actually decreases. This mismatch can be addressed either by deliberately implementing obscure quest solutions, or resisting the urge to include fringe utility spells in the first place.