Morrowind had house politics and Skyrim just gave us Jarls

[EbonyWarrior]

Been replaying Morrowind again after like a decade and man, I forgot how much the Great Houses actually mattered. You couldn't just waltz into House Hlaalu and become Hortator without stepping on toes, making enemies, doing favors that actually had weight. The house questlines had real consequences - you'd lock yourself out of other factions, NPCs would remember, it felt like you were navigating actual politics instead of just collecting questmarkers.

Skyrim's holds are... fine? But they're basically just scenery with a questgiver attached. Maven Black-Briar runs Riften but she's just there. The Jarls have no real conflict with each other beyond the Civil War (which is its own thing). You can become Thane in every hold and nobody cares. There's no sense of competing power structures or actual consequences to your choices within a hold's hierarchy.

I get it - Morrowind was weirder and smaller and had time to make house politics intricate. Skyrim had to do a lot more with a lot bigger map. But I miss that feeling of actually joining a faction within a faction, you know? Where your allegiances meant something beyond "I did their quests now I get a free room."

Anyone else think Skyrim could've leaned harder into hold politics instead of just... Jarls existing?

 

[DragonbornVet]

I get the nostalgia, but I think you're kind of conflating two different design goals. Morrowind's Great Houses worked because the whole game was built around faction depth - you had like three joinable factions total, so they could afford to make each one sprawling and political. Skyrim gave you Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, Companions, College of Winterhold, Dawnguard, Volkihar, plus the Civil War, plus Daedric quests, plus radiant jobs everywhere. If they'd made hold politics as intricate as Morrowind's house system, half the playerbase would never see it because they'd be buried in other content.

That said, you're not entirely wrong that the holds feel kind of hollow. Maven's a good example - she's got actual power and history with the Thieves Guild, but the game never really lets you interact with that as part of hold politics. You just do the Riften quests and she's... there. A few of the holds do have more going on (Markarth with the Forsworn stuff, Windhelm with the Blood on the Ice questline and the whole racial tension thing), but yeah, mostly it's surface-level.

I think the real issue is that Skyrim's holds aren't really factions the way the Great Houses were. They're just locations with a quest chain attached. You become Thane and get a free room, which is basically just a fast travel point. There's no actual power fantasy or consequence to it. Morrowind made you feel like you were actually climbing a hierarchy and pissing people off along the way.

Could it have been better? Sure. But I'm not sure it would've fit the game Skyrim was trying to be.