History VideoGame / TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall

*** Molag Bal is the Prince of Schemes and associated with bribery, extortion, and blackmail. This would later be made into Boethiah's shtick, while Bal got
RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil and SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil.

** The original release of the game contained a GameBreakingBug that made ''the entire main plotline impossible to complete''. Not ''sometimes'' unwinnable -- it was impossible to ever win the original retail release, fullstop. And this in an era when fewer people had internet connections, so it couldn't be easily patched! The fact that the game was still critically acclaimed shows how its WideOpenSandbox nature rendered the main quest almost irrelevant.

** The idea of "elves" as a very distinct race of people with very different ideas on how the world works and a long history of conflict with Men, even with the High Elves, does begin to get established here, and they begin to pick up a distinct set of names for elf subtypes... but these are ''not'' Altmer, Dunmer and Bosmer (for High, Dark and Wood Elf), but instead ''Salache, Moriche, and Boiche'', with ''-che'' being the apparent denominator for elf, not ''-mer''[[note]]something that may be a nod to this ''does'' show up in ''Oblivion'' -- an obscure and in-universe ancient book refers to the imperatum saliache, with the context suggesting saliache refers to the Ayleids, also known as the Heartland ''High Elves''[[/note]].

*** Azura has what is perhaps the greatest change; her ''Daggerfall'' incarnation is the petty Prince of vanity and egotism who appears as a topless woman with brown skin and blue hair, and she asks you to kill a healer for preaching humility and insulting her- a far cry from her ''Morrowind'' appearance, where she resembles a Dark Elf, is fully clothed, is much more serious and reasonable, and is associated with fate, prophecy, and mystery.

*** Vaermina is called the Prince of Corruption and Decay. The former sphere would later be given to Molag Bal (whose spheres aren't mentioned; he's instead said to be "the most power-mad of all Daedra," a statement that ''has'' remained consistent) and the latter to Namira, while Vaermina would instead be associated with Nightmares, though her staff would still be called the Skull of Corruption despite the domain change.

** The Night Mother is the living head of the Dark Brotherhood, and her DummiedOut appearance shows her to have dark skin and black hair. In ''Morrowind'', she's the Imperial Severa Magia (who looks nothing like the ''Daggerfall'' Night Mother), and in ''Oblivion'' onwards, the Night Mother is the spirit of a woman who died in the 1st or 2nd eras, or possibly Mephala in disguise. Severa Magia is retconned as merely a local leader of the Brotherhood, but ''Daggerfall'''s version isn't.

* CatFolk: The Khajiit race.

* CoversAlwaysLie: [[spoiler:The cover shows what looks like a sinister Lich - the Underking, in the game itself - menacing the player with claws. In fact, the Underking is one of the game's more sympathetic factions, only wants to die peacefully, and cannot be fought.]]

** Although one of their creations does feature, the "dwarves" of ''Arena'' don't get mentioned much, and as one might glean from the above, they are not yet called Dwemer.

** Khajiit are on the way to becoming the cat-people so familiar to modern fans - while the playable ones still look more humanoid, they do now have very distinct ''tails'', which ''Arena'' lacked.
** In terms of the real meat of the gameplay, ''Daggerfall'' is basically a sandbox roguelike with a ton of other features and a main quest thrown in. Guilds are mainly focused on benefits & training, though unlike ''Arena'' they ''can'' be joined, and some of them have mini-arcs of two or three quests that follow on one another interspersed in the mainly random quests. Later games, beginning with ''Morrowind'', would focus more on pre-written content and have a dedicated questline for each major joinable organization.

** ''Daggerfall'' is also the only game in the main series where the player character does not start as a prisoner: instead, they're one of the Emperor's close friends sent there as his agent. It isn't completely gone, however, as the dungeon-and-release story still appears in the background of four of the optional classes.

* EvilPaysBetter: Played with - the highest paying quests in the game are the shadier ones for corrupt nobles while the lowest paying come from the Knightly Orders, ''however'' the ''real'' reward for doing those quests are that once you're higher rank in the guild you get to stay at any inn and travel via ship for free, saving you a good amount of travel expenses in the long run, as well as ultimately quest for artifacts, the most powerful items in the game, which you're allowed to keep. At higher levels those artifacts can be worth a lot more than [[MoneyForNothing mere money]].

* FaceHeelTurn: In an official "semi expansion", one of the new Fighters Guild quest involves [[spoiler:major NPC Lord K'avar attempting to betray the Queen of Sentinel and take the throne for himself. You have an option of revealing this to the Queen, siding with Kvar, or going directly after him.]]

* GoWaitOutside: Being a game that is aware of its own internal calendar, and likes to use it, ''Daggerfall'' has the player submit his worn weaponry to a merchant who has skill repairing weapon items and being asked to come back in x days when it's done. In fact, it takes x+1 game days to be repaired as the merchant doesn't even start on it until the next day.
* GrayAndGreyMorality: There's no karma, only a complex reputation system. And almost every character in the plot has multiple skeletons in the closet.

* HideYourChildren: The only ''Elder Scrolls'' game before ''Skyrim'' where this is averted (excluding mods). They're unkillable, though.

* HotterAndSexier: ''Daggerfall'' is, despite the comparatively primitive graphics, easily the most risqué of the ''Elder Scrolls'' games. It includes uncensored nudity on both [=NPCs=] like witches and priestesses and the player character if you removed all their clothing, and is the only game in the series where [[Literature/TheElderScrollsInUniverseBooks 'The Real Barenziah']] isn't censored by the church to remove explicit sex scenes (such as a scene where Barenziah has sex in public with a Khajit thief, including observations made about the shape of his penis). It was [[WhatCouldHaveBeen originally going to be even more mature]], with DummiedOut content that included the ability for the player to have sex with [=NPCs=] and even a [[BandOfBrothels Guild of Prostitutes]] that they would possibly be able to join. As the series gained broader mainstream appeal, it would never dare be this bold again (although [[GameMod players would proceed to pick up the slack themselves]]).

* MultipleEndings: So far, the only game in the series with them. Due to nature of the final McGuffin they are all canon (except the one where the McGuffin destroys all Tamriel, maybe).

** Privateers Hold also averts the NoobCave trope HARD since there are multiple enemies in it that can end your character before it even gets going. In fact, the place actually gets easier after you level a couple of times and various thieves and bears get replaced by rats.

* PixelHunt: If you don't know the name of a dungeon or town and search for it...expect to do this.

* RememberTheNewGuy: Eadwyre, the king of Wayrest. In ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsArena'', the ruler of Wayrest was a man named Tristore. But the ''Biography of Barenziah'' in-game books state that Eadwyre was the ruler of Wayrest during the events of ''Arena'', and not a single mention is made of anyone else ruling the city during that time period. Since Tristore is [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome never mentioned again]] in any game after ''Arena'' (although a dungeon in Betony called the Tristore Laboratory appears in ''Daggerfall''), his connection with Eadwyre is never explained.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: You can't swim properly if you're too encumbered.
** Unlike later games in the series, you should not make your horse run through town. If you do run into a citizen they will get trampled and die getting you in trouble with the guards.

** Notably, the Agent canonically took ''twelve years'' to get around to finishing the main quest, as opposed to the one year of the other Heroes of Franchise/TheElderScrolls.

** The original release of the game contained a GameBreakingBug that made the entire main plotline impossible to complete. Not ''sometimes'' unwinnable -- it was impossible to ever win the original retail release, fullstop. And this in an era when fewer people had internet connections, so it couldn't be easily patched! The fact that the game was still critically acclaimed shows how its WideOpenSandbox nature rendered the main quest almost irrelevant.
** Very rarely, the random dungeons that around the Iliac Bay can spawn their quest location in a module that's impossible to reach without glitches or console commands.

* WideOpenSandbox: You can do the main quest (which has eight different endings, including player death), raid dungeons, explore the wilderness, join one of fifty factions, study magic, ride a horse, buy a boat, invest in real estate, trade, live a life of crime, become a vampire or a were-creature, and go anywhere at any time. And you'll never run out of side quests because they are randomly generated.