Playing Elder Scrolls at the Tabletop?

[RedMage125]

Now, races. We're going to need to refer to the similar races by their meric names. Orcs are Orsimer. We do not want to mix them... though thematically...

gah.

Okay, how about this, Orsimer are considered orcs for all intents and purposes, but are considered a variant, like how midgard dwarves are effectively dwarves whilst being outsiders.

Don't forget that Tamriel "dwarves" are actually a subrace of Elves. Tamriel has no "dwarves" as D&D knows them.

Honestly, some 5e stuff may work, just completely re-fluff the races. 5e tieflings might work for Tamriel Dunmer. Lizardfolk for Argonian and Tabaxi for Khajit are already great parallels. High Elves and Wood Elves likewise work for those races.

[Celestia]

Don't forget that Tamriel "dwarves" are actually a subrace of Elves. Tamriel has no "dwarves" as D&D knows them.

The Khajiit are also elves. And the argonians are non-sapient automatons controlled by the hist.

[Morty]

The Khajiit are also elves.

And they can take shapes from a housecat, through the "elves with cat tails" and cat-folk forms we see in the games, all the way to bear-sized cats. Elder Scrolls gets weird once we leave the confines of the games.

[Luccan]

Depends what you're looking to duplicate. Skyrim is pretty different from previous games in the franchise, both in terms of lacking a class system entirely and significantly reducing racial bonuses (and removing any penalties entirely). What you can do with magic in any game is generally not the full scope of magic in lore. Then there's all the not-magic various people can do (The Voice, the Redguard magic-sword-thing, probably more). CHIM can probably be left out (since it turns you into a god or erases you from existence, it probably isn't in the scope of most games).

I'm not familiar with any game that can reproduce it exactly, though I'd like to see one. At a basic level, though, if you just stick to what players can do in the games, it's probably fairly easy to reproduce with a lot of systems.

The real trouble is how you handle leveling skills, especially since if you go with the older games your skills level at different rates depending on if they're Major, Minor, or not part of you class.

Edit: Also, I don't think it's confirmed anywhere that Khajiit are elves. They have a group that resemble elves, but no one recognizes them as mer. And Argonians... are weird. Orcs are definitely elves, though.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

And they can take shapes from a housecat, through the "elves with cat tails" and cat-folk forms we see in the games, all the way to bear-sized cats. Elder Scrolls gets weird once we leave the confines of the games.

I wholeheartedly agree, and that's part of what inspired me to try importing it to the tabletop, to get into those aspects that the games themselves don't touch on.

[exelsisxax]

I'd use pathfinder. Spheres of Power replicates the magic behavior of TES better than anything except a thorough GURPS addon selection. You can also replicate some of the more bizarre pseudo-magic like sword-singing, dragonspeak, and CHIM with path of war, psionics, or akashic magic. There's plenty of support for weird races like sea elves and the 28 kinds of khajit or making human subraces with alternate traits even without homebrew. And there's also a bunch of existing homebrew floating around for ideas and starting points.

[Milo v3]

I'd just use a non-simulationist system like Cortex+, Fate, or Chuubos Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine.

[Celestia]

Edit: Also, I don't think it's confirmed anywhere that Khajiit are elves. They have a group that resemble elves, but no one recognizes them as mer. And Argonians... are weird. Orcs are definitely elves, though.

The Khajiit and Bosmer were once one race of shifter-elves who could change between elf and beast forms in a method similar to but distinct from lycanthropy. However, like most things in the TES world, a split was formed due to religious differences. One faction of the elves worshipped Azura who tied their transformation to the Lunar Lattice, stabilizing them and creating the Khajiit and their many forms. The others were taken by Y'ffre who sealed their transformation away, creating the Bosmer. This is revealed in the in-game book Words of Clan Mother Ahnissi.

Also, Pelinel Whitestrake recognized them as elves and slaughtered a whole city of them due to his absolute hate boner for all things elven, and he can't be wrong because he was a cyborg from the future.

[Luccan]

The Khajiit and Bosmer were once one race of shifter-elves who could change between elf and beast forms in a method similar to but distinct from lycanthropy. However, like most things in the TES world, a split was formed due to religious differences. One faction of the elves worshipped Azura who tied their transformation to the Lunar Lattice, stabilizing them and creating the Khajiit and their many forms. The others were taken by Y'ffre who sealed their transformation away, creating the Bosmer. This is revealed in the in-game book Words of Clan Mother Ahnissi.

Also, Pelinel Whitestrake recognized them as elves and slaughtered a whole city of them due to his absolute hate boner for all things elven, and he can't be wrong because he was a cyborg from the future.

I'm not sure the loose threads of a single creation myth make an airtight case. First of all, Bosmer can still change their forms in times of great need, which this seems to claim they can't do at all. Secondly, this kind of contradicts other creation myths (all elves being descended from Aldmer who were themselves once ehlnofey) and other claims within the world (such as the beast races populating Tamriel before the arrival of men and mer). Topal the Pilot saw a catlike race that may have been the khajiit or their ancestors and he was an Aldmer, from well before the elven people divided themselves.

Pelinel Whitestrake was a crazy person, cyborg, seer, or lucky guesser. He probably saw the ones that look like elves and reached his conclusions from there. Given the Khajiit were kind of blameless in that whole affair, it seems safe to assume he was just killing anything with point ears. However, he also stopped killing them when he realized they weren't elves.

Edit: I should say I don't have an airtight case at this point either. But a lot of other things seem to contradict that myth, so I'm not convinced.

[NNescio]

(...)
What you can do with magic in any game is generally not the full scope of magic in lore. Then there's all the not-magic various people can do (The Voice, the Redguard magic-sword-thing, probably more). CHIM can probably be left out (since it turns you into a god or erases you from existence, it probably isn't in the scope of most games).

CHIM = Pun-Pun. Or on a smaller scale, whatever RAW abuse and/or metagaming.

Getting erased from existence would be a DMG to the face an overdeity intervening. Or the Omniscificer.

[Lapak]

Edit: I should say I don't have an airtight case at this point either. But a lot of other things seem to contradict that myth, so I'm not convinced.

One of the things I appreciate about Elder Scrolls lore is that they explicitly leave a large number of answers unknown and/or unknowable, with this being one of them. There are contradictions and conflicting mythologies all over the games, particularly when it comes to creation myths and ancient history.

Heck, even some events you actually PLAY through are explicitly still mysteries. How did the Warp in the West really happen? Did the Tribunal murder Nerevar or not?

[Celestia]

I'm not sure the loose threads of a single creation myth make an airtight case. First of all, Bosmer can still change their forms in times of great need, which this seems to claim they can't do at all. Secondly, this kind of contradicts other creation myths (all elves being descended from Aldmer who were themselves once ehlnofey) and other claims within the world (such as the beast races populating Tamriel before the arrival of men and mer). Topal the Pilot saw a catlike race that may have been the khajiit or their ancestors and he was an Aldmer, from well before the elven people divided themselves.

Pelinel Whitestrake was a crazy person, cyborg, seer, or lucky guesser. He probably saw the ones that look like elves and reached his conclusions from there. Given the Khajiit were kind of blameless in that whole affair, it seems safe to assume he was just killing anything with point ears. However, he also stopped killing them when he realized they weren't elves.

Edit: I should say I don't have an airtight case at this point either. But a lot of other things seem to contradict that myth, so I'm not convinced.

There are two ways to look at the lore. First, there is only one truth, and most of the in-game books are unreliable. In this case, there is a simple test to judge to reliability of the book: look at the author. Specifically, look at the author's race. Generally, the reliability of sources (from least to most reliable) ranks thusly: Imperial, other humans, elves, Khajiit. The Khajiit are, in fact, more correct than every other race. I'm sorry. I don't remember the source for this, but I believe it was Kirkbride.

The other, more correct, interpretation is that all the stories are in some way correct, and the lore, itself, is actually self-contradictory. In either case, Words of Clan Mother Anhissi is a reliable source.

Also, my comment about Pelinal was just a joke.

[LibraryOgre]

I think I need to burnish my Savage Worlds conversion, and update it to SWADE.

Gods, I hate editing.

[Luccan]

There are two ways to look at the lore. First, there is only one truth, and most of the in-game books are unreliable. In this case, there is a simple test to judge to reliability of the book: look at the author. Specifically, look at the author's race. Generally, the reliability of sources (from least to most reliable) ranks thusly: Imperial, other humans, elves, Khajiit. The Khajiit are, in fact, more correct than every other race. I'm sorry. I don't remember the source for this, but I believe it was Kirkbride.

The other, more correct, interpretation is that all the stories are in some way correct, and the lore, itself, is actually self-contradictory. In either case, Words of Clan Mother Anhissi is a reliable source.

Also, my comment about Pelinal was just a joke.

Kirkbride's writings are mostly unofficial these days since he's no longer with Bethesda, so I'm not sure about those rankings.

I'm willing to buy the second one, because time explicitly allows contradictory things on occasion in the Elder Scrolls universe. Which would make the khajiit both elves (or descendants of elves) and not elves

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Yeah, from what little I've read myself (and one of my friend's unmitigated gushing about him) Pelinal Whitestrake was a whole lotta WTF?!

Mark Hall, where do I find SWADE? I checked my local gaming stores, and while I found some Savage Worlds books, none of them were the game's corebook, and further research implies it's because Savage Worlds is going through an edition change or something?

[LibraryOgre]

Yeah, from what little I've read myself (and one of my friend's unmitigated gushing about him) Pelinal Whitestrake was a whole lotta WTF?!

Mark Hall, where do I find SWADE? I checked my local gaming stores, and while I found some Savage Worlds books, none of them were the game's corebook, and further research implies it's because Savage Worlds is going through an edition change or something?

Well, first of all, here's my SWADE hack. A work in progress, but it's a start.

As for Adventure Edition, hardcovers are only for backers, right now... they haven't done a full print run for general consumption. They do have a PDF for it, available from Drivethru RPG.

[Malphegor]

Perhaps oddly, 5e might work well now they're working on a truename system that isn't rubbish- tonal architecture is basically the magical idea of everything having a name that identifies it, and if you know the name you have power over that thing. Be it saying NOPE to reality in your giant brass robot, or saying Fire in Draconic and fire popping out of your mouth.