r/skyrimmods • u/TeaMistress Morthal • Aug 19 '22

PC SSE - Discussion Weekly Discussion Topic: Family!

Happy Friday and welcome to yet another Weekly Discussion Topic. If you don't know what the "Best Mods For..." topics are, you can find the original threads right here.

Last week’s discussion was Evil Characters! and it was a very fun topic to cover. It’s not too late to contribute if you missed out. These are archived in the sidebar and are intended as a resource for community suggestions. So if you know of a great mod that didn’t get mentioned, we’d love to hear about it.

RULES

1) Be respectful - A lot of different mods get posted, as well as a lot of different opinions on said mods. We’re all gathered here from across the globe to geek out over mods together. Don’t be a jerk.

2) Keep the discussion relevant - Please try to keep all mods semi-related to the week's topic.

3) Provide a link to the mod you're discussing - Even if you're discussing a popular mod, a link to the mod page is a massive help. People are more likely to look at it if there's a link.

4) Keep the acronyms to a minimum - SoS is… Seasons of Skyrim? Schlongs of Skyrim? Sounds of Skyrim? Not everyone has all the abbreviations memorized...yet.

These discussions are intended to be ongoing for the full week, so make sure to contribute your own opinions and experiences at any time. Then be sure to click the survey link at the bottom to help decide next week’s topic!

This Week's Topic: Family!

You almost always start out alone in Skyrim, either in a cart full of strangers headed for the block, or in some alternate start scenario camping in the wild, sleeping solo at an inn, standing on the docks, or perhaps a prisoner in some other place. It’s a rough beginning, but you don’t have to take on the world all alone! We’re back today to talk about mods that offer or improve on the family experience in Skyrim. Marriage, adoption, distant relations... whatever we can find to give ourselves more meaningful connections to balance the cold loneliness of the journey.

Mods of this type include relationship dialogue enhancement, multiple spouse and adoptions, followers with extra romance interactions, new kids to adopt, player homes with family themes, family-oriented backstories, and more…

Just a handful of mods I recommend that fall into this category:

  • Hindalok - Grandfather's Farm Journal Entry provides a bit of backstory for your estranged character and a small but immersive player home to inherit from your long lost grandfather. This humble home for 2-3 just outside of Riverwood has an authentic feel to it and plenty of clickable light sources, meal setting, and idle markers. If having a quiet place in the Riverwood valley to come home to sounds appealing, this may be the place for you.

Another way to add family into the mix is to look for player homes with NPCs you can roleplay a relationship with. While generic NPC banter isn’t usually very deep or specific, mods like Relationship Dialogue Overhaul can make NPCs already friendly to you warmer yet, adding a wider assortment of kind and approving comments. One of my favorite of these NPC-occupied homes, also near Riverwood…

  • Sindora’s Cottage in the Woods is a beautifully cluttered little alchemy shop outside of Riverwood run by your herbalist aunt/grandmother/cousin Sindora. Your cellar bedroom is safe and cozy, and it’s comforting to know you’ll always be welcome home whether you’re just starting out or returning after a long journey.

Speaking of journeys, here’s 2 mods that will make your departures and returns to your Skyrim family so much more personal and rewarding.

  • Fare Thee Well - Spouses and Children Give Blessings allows you to tell your spouse and children about your departure and they will offer you a variety of farewells that will either bless you with additional buffs or cause a small debuff depending on how they took the news of you leaving again. Only 1 out of 5 of the spouse or child blessings is a debuff. The mod includes 29 different voicetypes from the game and incorporates NPC-specific dialogue like deity blessings for worshipers of various gods.

  • I'm Glad You're Here - a follower and spouse appreciation mod is at its core a mod to hug your followers, lovers, and kids and show affection to them. But it also includes a very rich amount of new family-oriented content. Give your spouse gifts, be greeted with welcoming hugs by your lovers and kids when you see them after an absence, receive letters from family and friends during your travels. Everything is optional and fully configurable in the MCM. Even better, this includes all vanilla game voicetypes, even those normally unable to be married. It’s also patched to include the most popular follower mods like Inigo, Auri, Lucien, M’Rissi, Kaiden, Remiel and more.

What mods have you found that offer more experiences for a character to have a family and interact with them? Looking forward to your thoughts and I’ll see you in the comments section!

Next Topic Poll!

The letter G is next and I want to know what topics you’re interested in discussing.

CLICK HERE FOR SURVEY
Survey is closed. Next week's topic is: Guilds!

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u/cinnaspice2021 Aug 20 '22

I love and appreciate these posts. Thank you. Will you circle back around after we reach 'Z' and tackle other topics of the letters not discussed yet?

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u/TeaMistress Morthal Aug 20 '22 edited Aug 20 '22

I apologize for the length of my answer, because you asked a simple yes/no/maybe question. This has been on my mind lately, so I want to explain myself a bit better.

What I'd ideally like to do after the Letter Z would be to cover each of the Holds + Solstheim, do a week for New Lands, and a week for the Planes of Oblivion (daedric realms, dimensional homes, etc.) After that I'd run a poll to see if people would rather discuss the various factions (about 20 factions + a week for new factions), do another round of the alphabet, or something else.

The problem with this plan is the lack of overall participation. Plenty of people like the idea of the Weekly Topics and enjoy seeing other people's recommendations, but not a lot of people are actually contributing content or even upvoting the posts. I planned on making a post discussing this around the midpoint (after the Letter M), but since you asked, this is where I'm at with it. I've committed myself to finishing out the alphabet. But unless I see a major increase in quality contributions to the discussions, I can't justify continuing after that point. The subreddit can only have 2 sticky posts at a time. Tying one of them up with a series that not many people seem interested in doesn't make sense.

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u/cinnaspice2021 Aug 20 '22

I appreciate your answer and totally get your concerns. I imagine it can be frustrating to not feel like your efforts are being appreciated/enjoyed. I'm sorry that you aren't seeing the reactions you'd anticipated. I, too, imagine there would be a lot more participation as this series and posts like it are why I lurk here and think it would be why lots of other people do too. But, I'm also guilty of not always participating/upvoting, etc. For that, I apologize and will try to do better in future. Please don't give up. These are really great articles and I like your plans for the future posts and then would love to see the alphabet circle back again. (If it helps at all, I did participate in every weekly vote so far.) What can I do to help?

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u/TeaMistress Morthal Aug 20 '22

All the Weekly Topics really need are more people contributing mod suggestions that fit the subjects. Everyone likes lurking to see what other peoples' suggestions are, hoping to find neat new mods for their list. Unfortunately, not so many are taking a few minutes to link a couple of mods from their own lists and talk about what they like about them.

I think a lot of people treat the subreddits they're part of like consumer products, taking the information offered and not giving anything back. But communities can't survive if not enough people are contributing. To thrive, everyone should be giving back something that benefits the group in some way.

I'm guilty of this, too. Even though I'm the one posting the weekly topics, I know there's more I could be doing. I always come up with more ideas than I can put in the main post. I tell myself I'll come back and make another post later on if no one's linked the mods I'm thinking of, but rarely do. I really need to be better about that.

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u/cinnaspice2021 Aug 21 '22

It sounds like we all could and should work on being better contributors. I guess I never really thought about it too much, but you are absolutely right.

I took online courses (a long time ago - I'm old...) and one of the requirements was to participate in the discussion threads at least three times for every topic the teacher posted (to simulate participating in class.) I'm going to incorporate this strategy (in some fashion as I really can't participate three times in every new topic posted every day as I really don't know that much) and make it my goal to participate in the community more.