Riften questions *spoilers*

I have for the most part ignored Riften. Not doing thieves guild quests or joining them (with current PC that is), did a few jarl quests such as clearing out bandits and addressing skooma issue at the docks. Most significant thing however was during the imperial quest (which I joined them) had me blackmail the jarls court adviser. Ok fair enough after that quest left for some time. I come back to discover jarl law giver and her court has been replaced by the entire black briar family. I am unsure what I did (or didn't do) to cause this. Any insight appreciated.

Its part of the imperial legion's questline, if you take the Rift area for them, Maven black briar becomes the new Jarl.

I've read that the civil war can continue without you, leading to some cities switching sides, which includes a change in rulers. I've not actually noticed it happening, but I've never spent much time in court.

Yes, it's the result of your blackmailing the adviser in the course of the civil war questline. If you're helping the Imperials, you'll later find all the replaced jarls and their courts in the Windhelm castle, bemoaning their fate and cursing you .

I haven't seen any cities switch sides without myhelp, but the civil war questline was the first I finished. Perhaps my char No. 2, Rolff Sauer-Gurke, will see some of this as he has no intention to dabble in the main questlines (yet).

Originally Posted by Menigal
I've read that the civil war can continue without you, leading to some cities switching sides, which includes a change in rulers.

It doesn´t. the change is always tied to a quest you complete.

Originally Posted by Jaz
If you're helping the Imperials, you'll later find all the replaced jarls and their courts in the Windhelm castle, bemoaning their fate and cursing you .

Yeah, that´s a fun touch.

Some of the reactivity stuff should be ironed out in patches though.
In my game some people still acted as if nothing changed and, perhaps more strikingly, after the questline´s over, player is sorta tasked to clear any remaining opposition (without a quest entry), but doing so is impossible, because these opposition places always feature one unkillable character.

Originally Posted by DeepO
It doesn´t.

Spoiler

You take over a fort -> ruler in respective hold changes.
There´s one or two exceptions when fort action isn´t included, but

the change is always tied to a quest you complete.

Good to know. I kinda wondered if that was someone just missing that a quest had changed it.

Originally Posted by Jaz
Yes, it's the result of your blackmailing the adviser in the course of the civil war questline. If you're helping the Imperials, you'll later find all the replaced jarls and their courts in the Windhelm castle, bemoaning their fate and cursing you .

I haven't seen any cities switch sides without myhelp, but the civil war questline was the first I finished. Perhaps my char No. 2, Rolff Sauer-Gurke, will see some of this as he has no intention to dabble in the main questlines (yet).

ahhh I see thanks for the insight everyone. On a side note I was going to join the rebels but then my PC listened to ulfric and he is racist bastard. Wanted to toss all non-nords out of skyrim. My PC could relate to wanting to free itself from the empire. Independence and all that she could respect. But when she overheard how much of a prick he was to other races that was a bit to much for her to stomach. Shes not a goody paladin type but she understands reality. Other races live here (and help skyrim flourish) its silly to think the nords are going to ask all the other races to leave once the empire is gone and they will. From a RP level she simply felt it will go from one war to another (with prob a lot of atrocities) and felt the lesser of the 2 evils will be the empire. Far from perfect but at least they do not advocate the mass slaughter/expulsion of another race.

From a OOC POV after hearing that it was hard for me to feel sympathy for the NPC, he seemed VERY extreme in his views. Sort of reminded me of Hitler almost in the 'race cleansing' he was implying when I heard him speak. I don't know if that was a misstep by the devs or they purposely wanted to give him a major flaw like that so it really was a which evil is lesser to you choice when decided who to join.

Thoughts?

Well, my PC went through thought process very similar to yours. Imperials wanted to chop off his head AND he tends to side with underdog so, early on, Stormcloaks seemed like a natural choice. But, the more he learned about rebel's aims, the less he liked them. He is also a Breton so, in the end, Imperials seemed like a lesser evil for him.

In regards to the conflict, there´s also a sorta hidden, IIRC not quest logged option to

which is what I did (and was quite pleasantly surprised it worked).

Sorry DeepO, could you run it by me again? I can't make heads or tails from what you just wrote.

Originally Posted by zahratustra
Sorry DeepO, could you run it by me again? I can't make heads or tails from what you just wrote.

Quite early into the Stormcloaks´ questline I was tasked to

Doing this is likely possible during the Imperials´ questline as well.
Dunno if something like this is possible further into their questlines, but given their development probably not.

Got you now

Originally Posted by DeepO
Dunno if something like this is possible further into their questlines, but given their development probably not.

Might be … there's this . But actually you can decide to not do it - and there's an actual dialog option for this. So I think it might be possible.

Originally Posted by Jaz
Might be … there's this

Spoiler

axe you're supposed to bring to Ulfric and then back again

. But actually you can decide to not do it - and there's an actual dialog option for this. So I think it might be possible.

Maybe, though I think this probably just halts the quest progression.

Of course, it´s also likely the last chance to achieve the peaceful resolution to the whole conflict -

You know folks, I put spoiler in the title and my OP was full of them, no need to clutter the thread up with redundant spoiler tags. Makes it hard to read whole point I labeled the entire thread a spoiler.

I've completely avoided the civil war quests for now. Can't decide which side to support, and don't want to muck up the world and quest givers.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
I've completely avoided the civil war quests for now. Can't decide which side to support, and don't want to muck up the world and quest givers.

I just finished the civil war on the empires side. Very rewarding feeling of impaling ulfric and putting that dog down (from my chars point of view). Even when the legion was amassing at ulfrics capitol it did not seem to change quests at all. (except those handed out by jarls that were deposed as they supported ulfric, they became unable to finish and grayed out)

Yea, I've got a few outstanding jarl/housecarl/resident mage quests I don't want messed up.

Originally Posted by Harlequin
Very rewarding feeling of impaling ulfric and putting that dog down (from my chars point of view).

Yes, Ulfric is a real asshole. He (or his henchman) send you also on a totaly pointless quests to kill some inoffensive giants. I wonder if Bethesda really meant him to be so shallowly bad or their character creation stinks.

Originally Posted by zahratustra
Yes, Ulfric is a real asshole. He (or his henchman) send you also on a totaly pointless quests to kill some inoffensive giants. I wonder if Bethesda really meant him to be so shallowly bad or their character creation stinks.

I think you missed the point of him. Hes racist. Any non-nord he wants out of Skyrim. From giants to brentons.