Do you reload if NPCs get killed?

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Do you reload if NPCs get killed?

  • Nah. Let them stay dead and carry on playing!

    Votes: 2 25.0%
  • Yes. I don't like it when innocent villagers and animals get killed on my watch :(

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Yes, but only if useful NPCs die (i.e. shopkeepers and followers)

    Votes: 6 75.0%
  • I kill everyone myself because I'm a cold hearted murdering bastard ;)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • They're only video game characters, stop whinging.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    8

sticky runes

Well-Known Member
It does kind of kill the immersion when you heroically slay a dragon attacking the town, only to reload and try entering the town again because you've realized the blacksmith didn't survive the attack. I reloaded 4 times yesterday because Alvor kept running up to an elder dragon and getting himself killed instantly. And then the final time I reloaded, the dragon didn't appear at all, and all was well in Riverwood.

It would probably be better to allow Alvor to stay dead, because it would heighten the drama and give my character more of a personal reason to want to join the Blades and avenge the death of a kind blacksmith who took him in after escaping Helgen. But my greedy side who has been investing in speech perks doesn't want to lose one of my sources of income.

And every time there is a dragon attack on a town, it's almost always the blacksmith that gets killed. In the very same game, I have reloaded at Dawnstar because the blacksmith couple there got killed by a dragon, and in Windhelm both the blacksmith and his apprentice were the only people to get killed by the damn dragon, even though everyone in town including the beggers and gossiper were attacking it with their knives.

I don't mind if its a random farmer or miner getting killed, but the blacksmiths are among the most useful NPCs in the game. It also frustrates me that the towns have guards there to protect them from danger, and the villagers always say they are worried about dragons attacking, yet everyone in town turns suicidal the moment a dragon comes swooping down.
 
Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. It's just that the Skyrim world is already so thinly populated, every character that dies creates a noticeable void. Especially when important characters die, though not only them. Recently I kept reloading the incident in Winterhold where magical anomalies swarm onto the town and attack it, because Ranmir kept coming out of the inn and getting himself killed every time. Winterhold in particular is already so tiny and sparsely populated. Of course, then I later discovered that Ranmir disappears from the game anyway after you tell him what happened to his missing lover. Ah well.

But yeah sometimes I don't reload because, as you say, it's a bit immersion-breaking and makes it feel like there isn't much at stake. In a previous game, Madesi and Edda got killed by a dragon in Riften (and, later in the same game, Aerin got killed in a second dragon attack on Riften) and I left them dead, even though Madesi is a great character for unloading jewelry on. I probably would always reload if a blacksmith gets killed though, because they're really very important to gameplay.

If the population of Skyrim wasn't already so very sparse (and even more so when you're playing as a Dark Brotherhood character), I probably wouldn't bother. But yeah there just simply aren't enough NPCs in the game. I hope the next Elder Scrolls game will have a much larger NPC population.
 

sticky runes

Well-Known Member
But yeah there just simply aren't enough NPCs in the game. I hope the next Elder Scrolls game will have a much larger NPC population.
And hopefully the townspeople will run from the danger not towards it, and allow the nameless re-spawning guards to fight and die in their place.

I would also like to stop seeing these re-spawning enemies in mines, where you clear the place out so that the miners can go back to work, only for them to be killed off later. It makes me wish for a dialogue option that says something like "quit your jobs. The monsters will only come back if I slay them anyway."

I guess another fix would be if more NPCs were made unkillable.
 

Cydramech

New Member
It depends on which NPCs were killed - whether I find them important or not. Otherwise, I try to not reload when an NPC is killed.
 

Pete

Well-Known Member
The run for your lives mod fixes that problem. They go inside until it is safe.
 

Wintermute

Orsinium Rising
As most have said, it depends on the NPC and how it fits in with my RP. If I can make sense of or justify their death for a meaningful RP moment, I’ll leave it. But if I feel their death detracts from my personal story, I’ll reload.


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