The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Part three- Adventure plunging

Time to plunge into our adventure!

My character wakes up/spawns in a jail cell, you're given no plot exposition as to how that came to be, now already we're thrust into a situation that I've seen both praise and criticism for. Personally, I like this- it provides the player a lot of wiggle room in terms of role playing, you get to set up your own back story. Why are you in jail? How long have you been in jail? What did your character do that was so bad that you ended up pissing off enough people to end up in the prison of the biggest most important city in the game? Answering these questions yourself and devising your own little back story as to why, can be very time consuming- but at the same time very rewarding. However, if you don't want to role play or aren't a fan of role playing then it can easily seem like lazy writing on Bethesda’s part. Bethesda's could easily be found guilty of being lazy with their writing, but here I feel it would be smarter to accuse them of alienating part of their audience, not being lazy. In their defense though, I can't think of way to please both groups of people with once choice.

I don't want to waste time talking about the extent of the back story I created, but the jist of it is that my character is a mage, and he may of dabbled in some less than legal magick to further his own personal wealth. It doesn't sound terribly interesting as a foot note, but hopefully it'll explain some of the choices I'm going to make.

So, I'm in jail and some prick decides it's high time the entire Breton race got what’s coming to them. I'm not going to quote everything he says to me but apparently we're notorious for our pale skin. I'm not that well versed in the lore of the series, but based on just looks Breton's should be mocked for their striking resemblance to, say a tangerine. After the extreme verbal beat down and death threats, this bastard informs me the guards are coming- for me!

Picard (despite the protests of his guards) loudly states, in what I'm sure is a completely gossip-less prison, that his sons have been killed. Septim steals my camera away from me as I'm told how I've been in this old chaps dreams, the guards and Septim leave via a secret passageway in my cell and leave it open. However, they do tell me not to leave! Totally quelled any escape plans I may have had.