By Alec Meer on December 9th, 2011 at 5:47 pm.
Recently, I maxed out pickpocketing in Sykrim. The top perk for doing this is that you can even rob items that people have equipped. This includes, for some reason, their clothes. Yep: they do not notice you removing their clothes. It’s a handy way of making heavily-protected enemies a little less tough before you go in for the kill, which is about the only reason I can think it was included.
It’s also a way of humiliating an NPC populace that has absolutely no idea it’s being humiliated, and would continue to treat me politely even though I could see their nipples. My cause was clear: every single citizen of Whiterun must be stripped to their underpants. It took me one long, strange evening, but I did it. Welcome to the naked city. And they had no idea of their own nudity. Or did they? Talking to them, I started to get the funny sense they knew what was going on after all…
(Important notes before we begin:
1) I let everyone keep their hats and shoes. Only polite, really.
2) Yeah, I have a few visual mods running here, most notably Xenius Character Enhancement and Skyrim Enhanced Shaders.
3) Some quest-centric characters have bespoke rather than generic clothes that can’t be removed.)
And here’s what they had to say about it:
“What’s the matter, you can’t stand the sight of a strong Nord woman?”
“You know what’s wrong with Skyrim these days?” I think I just might.
“Let me show you the power of Talos!” That’s close enough, thanks.
“Got to keep my eyes open.” Bit late for that, chum.
“Everything’s for sale, my friend. Everything.” So I can see.
“You should try the venison, it’s delicious.” I’ve never heard it called that before.
“I’m sure we’ve got something you need.” But where do you keep it?
“Got some good pieces out here if you’re looking to buy.” No comment.
“We got plenty of steel for fighting men.” Mmm-hmm.
“Don’t think for a moment I don’t take my duties as seriously as the Jarl takes his.” There’s absolutely no way I could get that idea, ma’am.
“Sleazy little man, but he has good stock.”
“Ain’t nobody high and mighty in these halls.” Evidently.
“Don’t even think about it.” Too late.
“Well, hello.” Er, hi.
“Come to chat with an old woman, hmm?” Um.
“Come to do your good deed for the day?” NO. NO. NO. And don’t think leaning provocatively on those leeks will change my mind.
“Don’t suppose you’d enchant my sword?” Snigger.
And then I got caught trying to lift some guard’s armour. Which didn’t go down too well:
As a lifelong crook, I wasn’t going to give up easily. Bounty? Prison? Nuh-uh, matey. Fisticuffs for the lot of you!
Well, they weren’t very heavily armoured.
09/12/2011 at 17:50 Hoaxfish says:
Can you put the clothes back on that old woman?
10/12/2011 at 11:32 Ed123 says:
Considering how many times he posts her, I get the feeling that Mr. Meer knew exactly what he was doing :S
10/12/2011 at 19:09 IDtenT says:
She still has pretty perky breasts.
09/12/2011 at 17:51 Captchist says:
You’re doing it wrong.
Step 1: Steal their clothes.
Step 2: Plant a paralysis poison.
09/12/2011 at 18:11 Urthman says:
Will NPC’s use / equip stuff you plant on them with pickpocketing in Skyrim?
There was a quest in Oblivion where an NPC used a magic ring to commit suicide — it would do huge amounts of ongoing fire damage when worn. I was so disappointed that NPC’s wouldn’t wear it when I used pickpocketing to plant it on their person.
I wanted to imagine an NPC, like Frodo at the inn in Bree, putting a hand in his pocket and saying, “Hullo! What’s this ring in my…AAAAAGHH IT BURNS AAAAAAGH!”
09/12/2011 at 18:21 Brun says:
You could do it with the poison apples from the Dark Brotherhood – they caused instant death when eaten and the AI recognized them as food. So you could either plant them on an NPC’s person via pickpocketing or deposit them on tables where the target NPC went to eat – either way, when it was time in that NPC’s Radiant AI schedule to get food, there was a chance he/she would eat the apple and die.
Unless there is poisoned food like that in Skyrim, or items that do damage to their wearers, that sort of thing is probably not possible. Poisons are item enhancements and can’t be “drunk” by NPCs or players.
09/12/2011 at 18:45 Abundant_Suede says:
There’s a high level pickpicket perk that lets you reverse pickpocket poisons onto NPCs, who take damage from it. It’s a cheesy, low risk, and not very believable way to assassinate someone. Not that killing anyone ever entails much risk, with stealth being as ridiculous as it is.
Obviously companion NPCs will use the gear you give them.
Unfortunately, once you pickpocket someones clothes, I haven’t found a way to dress them again. I pickpocketed my wife’s clothing because…well, just because. I’m not proud. Afterward, no matter what clothing I pickpocketed into her inventory, she just walked around the house naked and filthy. It was really depressing.
09/12/2011 at 18:47 Heliocentric says:
In oblivion people will equip weightless items they don’t have versions of when they wake up . A weightless hood with a fire damage on self enchantment (I dubbed it the warm hat) allowed me to murder nearly everyone… Oh, and you can pick pocket clothes off sleeping people in oblivion.
Morrowind was even more generous, people wore their most valuable items, sell a set of of clothing with a reduce trade skill enchantment to a trader and then buy all their most valuable goods for a steal.
But the warm hat is a thing of legend.
09/12/2011 at 17:51 SilverSilence says:
I have the weirdest boner right now.
09/12/2011 at 18:01 LintMan says:
I just imagined this comment being in the pigeon dating sim comment thread instead. Hilarious! This definitely needs to be a meme.
09/12/2011 at 18:12 Gnoupi says:
@lintman – oh, but it is. And not from RPS: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-have-the-weirdest-boner
09/12/2011 at 18:15 hymnharmonia says:
Maybe is IS a meme, and it just doesn’t know it yet.
09/12/2011 at 19:07 LintMan says:
I guess I should just assume everything is a meme from now on…
09/12/2011 at 19:28 meatshit says:
Huh, I thought it was a reference to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDXjlILLFHA
09/12/2011 at 22:01 Caleb367 says:
I had the weirdest boner, but then I took an arrow to my knee.
09/12/2011 at 17:53 CaspianRoach says:
Now that I think about it it’s surprising how everybody in Skyrim are well fit and not a single person is obese or at least overweight. I wonder why that might be…
09/12/2011 at 17:58 Chris D says:
None of them have cars or desk jobs, junk food hasn’t been invented and anyone who can’t run fast enough is eaten by wolves, bandits or dragons?
09/12/2011 at 18:04 LintMan says:
It’s more like “We only have one 3D model because we didn’t want to create new textures for different size models.”
09/12/2011 at 18:05 Boothie says:
@CHRIS D but the jarl spends all day leaning on a chair and yet hes not grossly obese as he ought to be
09/12/2011 at 18:05 Coins says:
Also, perhaps, back-breaking labour and no abundance food?
09/12/2011 at 18:05 Felixader says:
Not much more than a hundred years ago a a bit overweigth man (in todays world) joined a circus as the fatest man on the world.
09/12/2011 at 18:13 Inglourious Badger says:
“I wonder why that might be…”
because it’s basically set in Sweden
09/12/2011 at 18:15 CaspianRoach says:
Okay let’s assume all the normal people are working /working out or something (though it’s hard to think that a jarl’s advisor would spend a minute of his day plowing or shoveling stuff). That still leaves the mages who are not known for their love of physical labour and yet they aren’t super skinny or super fat. Oh well, at least Bethesda has some room for improval for the next games (ha-ha, i know, right, they have a stadium for improval, get it, because it’s so big… I need to get out and talk more.)
09/12/2011 at 18:18 Chris D says:
@Boothie
A Jarl is presumably expected to lead his men in battle when required and needs to keep himself in shape. Or possibly he just got lucky with his metabolism.
09/12/2011 at 18:47 Tyshalle says:
It’s next to impossible to get overweight (let alone obese) on a diet of fruits and vegetables, which are in far larger supply than meats in the game. Though they do have a lot of cheese, which is probably the worst thing they could eat. Still, you have to figure that without the internet or phones, they pretty much have to walk across town to get a message to someone, and even the mages are going to be getting an enormous amount of exercise by modern American standards.
09/12/2011 at 19:07 CaspianRoach says:
I would settle for 1 (one) man with a slightly-larger-than-average tummy. Alas, my wishes are thwarted by a Bethesda’s modeler beating me by the hands and screaming “No! Bad player! Return to your clone world right now so I wouldn’t have to do more work and optimize everything even more to allow outdated playboxes to run our game!” :-(
09/12/2011 at 19:32 Jumwa says:
“It’s next to impossible to get overweight (let alone obese) on a diet of fruits and vegetables, which are in far larger supply than meats in the game.”
Haven’t met a lot of vegans, have you?
But seriously, it’s really no harder to get fat with vegetables and fruits than meat.
Gaining weight is really a function of quantity of food and little else (there are a few exceptions of course, mostly heavily processed stuff stuff), despite what others say. Meat tends to be denser and more filling, but because of that it can also be easier to fool yourself into thinking you haven’t eaten that much of it and woof down way more than you should since our stomachs are slow to tell our brains we’re full.
We eat with our eyes first, and all that.
09/12/2011 at 19:53 pilouuuu says:
Well, probably mages have some enchantment to make themselves fit. After all they are mages, why not take some advantage of it?!? And seriously I can understand Bethesda would have a really hard time, not making different characters, but making the armours and clothes fitting the different sized bodies. But now we have another reason for them to create a new engine from scratch. I mean a REAL new engine.
09/12/2011 at 21:17 engion3 says:
CUZ I EAT ALL THE SWEET ROLLS
09/12/2011 at 22:42 gwathdring says:
Obesity comes from abundance. Period. Modern food processing that gives us things like Oreos and Fruit Rollups is only possible because certain parts of the world (especially the US) have absurd abundances of certain types of food. Farm subsidies are such a mess over here … our corn surplus especially is shameful. All of this perfectly good cropland being spent to make calories we don’t need in some of it’s least valuable forms–such as the classic, brown potato and yellow corn. The US produces, as a very rough estimate, 3000 excess calories per person per day. It has to go somewhere, so it’s further subsidized to convince companies to buy it up and make it into something with a longer shelf life. They then have to sell these products somehow and thus we get the ridiculous snack food industry we have today.
Now, there are certainly cultures in Earth’s history where obesity occurs well before the onset of processed foods. In European history, most of the overweight folks in history were wealthy simply because the poor folks couldn’t afford enough food to gain 500 pounds by the age of 25. Or 30. Or 40. Let’s be exceedingly careful though. Were these populations more fit? Probably not. Because guess what else requires abundance of food to generate? Musculature. Levels of fitness seen on many sports teams today would have also been difficult to come across in, say, 13th century Germany because it requires an enormous amount of food to get there.
What we could possibly say is that in many past ages of human history, having abundant food was more likely to lead to fitness over fatness than it is in modern day America or France or whatnot because physical motion was essential to a larger portion of society than one sees today. On the other hand, a king with servants to dress him and wipe his bottom and so forth could quite easily find himself less than fit, and their is some artistic and anecdotal evidence for this.
Which brings us right back to the problem: everyone is both well-muscled and lean in Skyrim. No one appears either to have a pot-belly or a skeletal frame. Everyone looks like they run several miles a day and eat a balanced diet. That’s a bit weird.
09/12/2011 at 23:03 alundra says:
@gwathdring
That you can put “food”, “oreos” and “fruit rolls” in the same sentence is amusing on it’s own.
Overweight comes from over-eating food, that’s why you see come vegan people on the fat side, but Obesity comes from Over-eating trash like “oreos” and “fruit rolls”, and whatever other trash you can find in an snack store.
09/12/2011 at 23:50 pipman3000 says:
obesity comes from poor people being too dumb and lazy to eat better because they have no will-power it’s what fox news told me they said poor people are dumb with zero will-powers not because garbage food like spam and mcasssburgers are cheap and plentiful they just walk into a mall and see SLIGHTLY expensive healthy food and ground up pig assholes formed into “hamburger” patties and choose the sewer-food every single time because no will-powers some people say because they have l i t t l e m o n e y or something? i don’t know i’m just a dog
10/12/2011 at 03:20 Orija says:
Let’s not apply human standards to the Nords, aye?
12/12/2011 at 02:16 Big Daddy Dugger says:
People get fat in modern societies due to an overabundance of carbs and this explains why: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNYlIcXynwE
12/12/2011 at 16:53 MarloBrandon says:
The courier who brings me letters from my friend is fairly skinny. I guess that’s because he runs around all day and has no time work his upper body or something.
09/12/2011 at 17:54 bleeters says:
Genius. Utterly disturbing genius, but genius nonetheless.
09/12/2011 at 17:54 yandexx says:
This just made my day, thank you!
09/12/2011 at 17:55 ahluka says:
For some reason I hope he punched them all to death; I can’t see any arrows or decapitations in the last picture.
I’m a strange kind of grown-up.
09/12/2011 at 17:55 Alec Meer says:
This is correct.
09/12/2011 at 18:37 Steven Hutton says:
My character has the heavy armour perks.
I do SIGNIFICANTLY more damage bare handed than I do when dual wielding swords.
09/12/2011 at 17:55 Buttless Boy says:
I love this perk, it’s something I’ve wanted since Morrowind.
Also:
“What’s the matter, you can’t stand the sight of a strong Nord woman?”
Does anyone else find this and the similar lines incredibly creepy? Like they were written by a guy who just found out about feminism five minutes ago, and has never actually met a woman?
09/12/2011 at 20:25 pipman3000 says:
you mean like a writer at bethesda?
09/12/2011 at 21:39 Josh W says:
I love the idea of a 1-dimensional character who’s one dimension is in claiming she is well constructed.
09/12/2011 at 21:40 Buttless Boy says:
Bethesda has writers?
09/12/2011 at 23:34 DaFishes says:
Probably the same dudebro who thought it would be cool to have a daedra prince of domination *and rape*
10/12/2011 at 00:19 Rinox says:
Well…most of the daedra lords are evil. What did you expect? There’s daedric lords of murder too.
12/12/2011 at 02:22 Big Daddy Dugger says:
@DaFishes The daedric lord of rape huh? I must have missed that one. I don’t recall any references to rape during the Molag Bal quests in Skyrim or Oblivion, he just sends you out to trick/kill some guy.
09/12/2011 at 17:58 KauhuK says:
It’s my wife in the first picture. Why do you have a picture of my wife in underwear? I’ll have your head for this, Alec. Then I’ll put it in a spike outside my house in Whiterun.
09/12/2011 at 18:03 Ross Angus says:
What’s the name of that Source-powered FPS with cavement and weirdness? Well, that.
10/12/2011 at 08:19 sebmojo says:
Zeno Clash.
09/12/2011 at 18:04 chokoladenudlen says:
Pfft. You call that pickpocketing?
http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2257
09/12/2011 at 18:10 roryok says:
and about three over from that, this
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2261#comic
I now have tears in my eyes
09/12/2011 at 18:06 caddyB says:
ahahahahahaahaha.
09/12/2011 at 18:07 roryok says:
LOL is a term we throw around all too often on the internet. In reality, few sites make me actually LOL. I can happily report that RPS is still one of them.
LAUGHING OUT LOUD. Which is of course, the best kind of laughing.
I think, as a little easter egg, it would be nice if one guy in whiterun was wearing a bra underneath his clothes.
09/12/2011 at 18:09 Squirrelly says:
What about the Jarl?
09/12/2011 at 18:10 Blackcompany says:
Well, thanks for exposing the, um, Naked Truth of Whiterun’s populace. Interesting effort, this.
09/12/2011 at 18:10 Gaytard Fondue says:
That’s my wife in the first picture. Dirty thief!
09/12/2011 at 18:10 smi1ey says:
I think someone needs to install the nude female/male mods…
http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=70
http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1947
Or don’t. Whatever.
09/12/2011 at 18:22 CaspianRoach says:
Until modders get access to editing meshes, all the nude mods will have these horrible unrealistic bra-shaped boobs that defy the laws of gravity.
09/12/2011 at 21:07 smi1ey says:
Eh? I don’t think it looks too bad. Especially impressed that the one modder was able to create man-junk without Bethesda releasing the dev tools!
09/12/2011 at 18:11 thebwt says:
strip guards in solitude, wait for dragon to attack…
enjoy the show as the guards try to punch dragon to death.
09/12/2011 at 22:06 Caleb367 says:
That sounds like the most badass streakers ever.
09/12/2011 at 18:27 db1331 says:
I finally got around to modding my Skyrim last night. I can’t believe how great it looks now. I need to add that enhanced shader one to my list though.
09/12/2011 at 18:29 Drake Sigar says:
One of my hobbies involves going through children’s movies and seeing how many quotes can be twisted into sexual innuendo, which is why I approve of this article so much.
09/12/2011 at 18:38 Wulf says:
You have no idea of how much of that there is in Skyrim…
Like one merchant asking me to behold his fine jewels. Silly Argonian.
09/12/2011 at 18:35 Wulf says:
I can totally one up that, Mr. Meer.
Or rather, a good friend of mine who got crazy with the console can one-up that.
And SUDDENLY… Whiterun was filled with werewolves.
09/12/2011 at 21:55 Josh W says:
Do they have the appropriate verbs to carry on what they were doing? Or does everyone but the guards have to stop and wish they had the animations to carry on blacksmithing? The best would be some kind of hybrid, with the entire villiage suddenly running off to hunt antelope, then coming back for their day jobs.
09/12/2011 at 18:36 Dana says:
Thats disturbing.
09/12/2011 at 18:39 DickSocrates says:
What’s worse than a zombie hoard? A nude hoard.
09/12/2011 at 18:45 Teddy Leach says:
Nuddy zombies.
09/12/2011 at 18:47 Ushao says:
The enhanced shaders look like a neat addition and I’m pondering adding them, too. I can’t stand XCE, though, because of those creepy too-bright nuclear eyes and various other reasons. Plus the author had the comments locked due to comments about the eyes.
09/12/2011 at 19:56 DrGonzo says:
The enhances eyes mod I have has two versions, one with less glowy eyes
09/12/2011 at 20:20 Ushao says:
Just noticed the author updated with some new “RadAway” eyes and reset the comments thread. I’m glad to see he took some advice and toned them down and provided a comparison. I still felt it a bit childish to ask a mod to lock the thread when there only seemed to be a few instances of hostile comments. Most of the “repped down” comments I saw were fairly constructive if brief and had legitimate complaints/criticisms.
09/12/2011 at 18:54 Dominic White says:
Bah! You’re not a true Disco Bandit until you can sneak up on yourself and remove your pants without alerting yourself to your presence. Taking the clothes from other people is amateur hour.
09/12/2011 at 19:03 merc-ai says:
Thanks, Alec!
09/12/2011 at 19:07 Nemon says:
It’s so irritating you put up these awesome stories and I’m not early enough to comment with the important folks at the top. But I giggled/glogged.
09/12/2011 at 19:25 Viserion says:
I feel you. Great stuff
09/12/2011 at 20:59 FataMorganaPseudonym says:
At least the entire first page isn’t wasted and ruined by a pun thread in this one.
09/12/2011 at 19:23 alm says:
How does one lean on a leek provactively? I have never heard of this adjective.
09/12/2011 at 19:39 Heliocentric says:
Done in a manner intended to provoke. Generally not in a aggressive sense but sexual.
09/12/2011 at 19:43 alm says:
Sorry, I was being an ass. I know what provocative is, just highlighting a spelling mistake which I’m sure noone cares about :/
09/12/2011 at 19:40 tomatojustice says:
Guard could get nervous, a man approaches with his weapon drawn…
09/12/2011 at 19:58 pilouuuu says:
Hilarious! But you didn’t use a nude mod? Oh, yes the old lady! I’m glad you didn’t.
But more seriously you probably showed how we should play this amazing, but flawed game. We should use the imagination to fill the gaps and then we’ll get this kind of hilarious experience from playing it. I would love for the AI be better at detecting what’s going on around the characters and that they could respond and react better to what you do and who you are.
Maybe if Bethesda is serious about doing more consistent DLC they should improve that in the game. Instead of just creating more places to visit and quests to complete, maybe making the world we already have more believable.
09/12/2011 at 20:01 NightKid says:
I used to nick people’s clothes like you, then I took an arrow in the knee…
Knee armour so would’ve saved my clothes-nicking career.
09/12/2011 at 21:43 Buttless Boy says:
Oh man, that should be the first DLC! Knee Armour For Guards, only 4.99!
09/12/2011 at 22:48 NightKid says:
Protection from taking one in the knees or your money back, guaranteed!
Why aren’t we millionaires yet?
09/12/2011 at 20:13 LionsPhil says:
Articles like this are why I read RPS. Good show, Alec.
09/12/2011 at 20:26 Skabooga says:
This article is pure gold.
09/12/2011 at 20:50 Zarunil says:
Now I’m all hot and sweaty from that leek. Thanks a lot.
09/12/2011 at 20:58 Davie says:
Oh my oh my oh my.
I assume the Jarl has some sticky unremovable clothing, because there is no way you’d have missed an opportunity to show him lounging on his throne in his skivvies.
Also, please turn your field of view down slightly, Alec, entrepeneur-lady’s elbow in the first screenshot is distinctly unsettling.
09/12/2011 at 21:17 RSeldon says:
This just made a bad day brighter. Thanks for that.
09/12/2011 at 21:31 liaml says:
Bethesda, this needs to be an achievement: “Naked Friday in Whiterun.” Get on it!
09/12/2011 at 21:41 DOLBYdigital says:
This reminds me when I was walking around town and people started saying strange things to me. I forget the exact sayings but they weren’t the normal ones and were slightly suggestive that something was odd about me….
I finally realized after the 10 person said something odd that I wasn’t wearing any clothes. While stocking things in my chest I must’ve stored my active gear without realizing and since I play in 1st person I was running around naked for awhile without noticing It gave me a good laugh!
09/12/2011 at 21:46 dogsolitude_uk says:
In this house, the first Morndas of every month is Nude Day.
09/12/2011 at 22:31 ninjapirate says:
Oh, Alec… don’t ever stop being you!
<3
09/12/2011 at 22:48 DestructibleEnvironments says:
This is a great and creative post, and it renewed my interest in Skyrim. I’m most definitely not a pervy perv.
Thanks for all the well-written articles and laughs.
10/12/2011 at 01:13 nope says:
I’ll tell you what takes talent. In Kingdom of Loathing, there was a class quest to steal your own pants without you noticing.
10/12/2011 at 04:33 TomEllinson says:
I skimmed and didn’t see this posted, a fact that sorely disappointed me, so I figured I’d post it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTccvj0gc58
For shame, RPS. I expect better of you.
10/12/2011 at 06:07 MadMatty says:
“MEER GET BACK TO WOOOOORK!”
lulz
10/12/2011 at 09:28 RegisteredUser says:
So it appears I am not the only one doing this.
I’ve been starting to worry that doing it to guards(imperial friendlies, mostly) may also be an expression of a suppressed homosexuality. But it might just be because of how they are modeled.
Also in the game.
12/12/2011 at 03:08 vagabond says:
I started doing this too, but discovered that whenever they area transitioned (ie went home or to the pub) they got their clothes back, and so I gave up on it.
Now when you go to Whiterun, everyone is clothed, except the one guard in the corner of the market place. The poor bastard never gets a shift change, so he never moves from that spot.
10/12/2011 at 09:37 RegisteredUser says:
P.S. For someone hating on nudity in The Witcher 2 Alec sure seems to enjoy being able to undress people elsewhere.
Not something I understand. Just because YOU can make them nekkid at will it’s artistically more acceptable than the developer “forcing” tits on you, because, well, THAT is a chauvinistic, pointless move?
I get the underlying sentiment, but I still feel there is a secret/subdued “Gosh, I so love nudie-boobies tee hee hee, but must rail against them here to protect some weird moral/integrity/whatever” thing going on. Or something.
10/12/2011 at 10:12 Tei says:
Skyrim will NEVER be the same again. This article is ACE. Weird, but good.
10/12/2011 at 16:01 fenriz says:
what a demented game skyrim
10/12/2011 at 19:02 Tei says:
HE GUYZ.
Adventures of Katia:
http://prequeladventure.com/this/KatiaExcelsior.html
Webcomic
(note: may or not contain slvteness)
14/02/2012 at 04:31 shadowviper1229 says:
And then you got an arrow in the knee after killing everyone in Whiterun.