No bathrooms in Skyrim (or: the treatment of bathrooms in games?)

[DuX1112]

Okay, so I know it's silly, but after... well, many hours playing of Skyrim today, I took a break and went to the bathroom, and this thought came to me - why are there no bathrooms in the houses of Skyrim?? Mind you this is not only the houses... There are also no bathrooms in inns, forts, castles, palaces, shops... Nowhere really. Caves?

So what's the deal with this? Now when I remember there are also no bathrooms in Dragon Age too. No bathrooms in ANY medieval/fantasy game I've played so far, not even Fable! The last bathroom I remember in an RPG game was the one in Shepard's captain quarters aboard the Normandy 2... If I'm not mistaken. Also, now I remembered more, there were bathrooms in Deus Ex: HR, Dead Space 2, Duken Nukem Forever, Crysis 1 & 2... In all entirety I'm not serious, but this really gave me an itch!

So riddle me this fellow gamers, what's the thing with bathrooms and RPGs? :/ Don't the people of Skyrim have bodily needs they need to take care of, or personal hygiene to keep up? Why not steal some soaps for example, or sell soaps, or produce soap, or steal towels, perhaps toilet paper and so on (so many rolls of paper and woodcutting industry in Skyrim)? I haven't seen a single faucet in the game (Skyrim), let alone a toilet seat... I'm curious as to what the toilet seats in Skyrim look like, and what are the differences between them, for example: Nord, Dwarven, Elven, Orcish toilet seats? And I can guess about dragons not needing a device to poop in, but where do giants go for... their large ones, right? Or Hagravens? :/ I also found a Spriggan Sap ingredient in game... I wonder how this "sap" was obtained... Any ideas?

 

[Andrew Mitchell]

look for a bucket in the bedrooms.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

You see that tree, just outside of Whiterun?

 

[Domehammer]

I found a bathroom in a bandit cave. It was one grotto up north with a captain Hagar 'excuse me if I misspell' in there somewhere. Well off in a corner was a bunch of wood planks for floor but in center of circular area there were no wood plants just a bucket. There is your bathroom a glorified bucket.

 

[mpjama]

I thought the same thing when I was playing Diablo

 

[Dorian6]

have you never seen those little alcoves in the caves with a hole in the ground or a bucket?

You see, there was no sophisticated plumbing system at the time, people used chamberpots and then dumped the contents into the streets.

Next time, look around for a bucket or a pot. there's your bathroom

 

[PunkyMcGee]

plumbing hasn't been invented.

 

[CD-R]

Indoor plumbing wasn't around in Medieval times. They used chamber pots.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamber_pot

As for bathing. Yeah they didn't really do that all that much back then.

Although I imagine the Khajiit use some form of liter box.

 

[EHKOS]

Yeah I found a bunch of bathroom stalls with books in them in a fortress. And come to think of it Fallout 3 had some bathrooms too. I remember tlc ing out of a vault for some reason and found a toilet that a designer forgot to delete outside the wall. Had a good laugh about that.

 

[ArcadianTrance]

Earth bound 2 (Mother 3) had a maze of restrooms near the end one can only assume they acquired these restrooms by stealing them from other games even games that hadn't been made yet!

 

[Zack1501]

I found a bathroom in a bandit cave. It was one grotto up north with a captain Hagar 'excuse me if I misspell' in there somewhere. Well off in a corner was a bunch of wood planks for floor but in center of circular area there were no wood plants just a bucket. There is your bathroom a glorified bucket.

I was about to say that. I found that too. It was very obviously a bathroom.

 

[WolfThomas]

Many of the military forts have a room filled with benches and buckets underneath. Solitude appears to have sewers, and White Run has flowing water outside. I think most people go in a bucket and throw it in the street or off the battlements.

 

[DuX1112]

Yeah everyone, "not being invented" is a good... idea, I mean. But still, in the real world and real world history (us as humans on planet Earth) we didn't have magic. But, the races in TES (at least!) all have magic. So a mage can conjure a fireball, or raise a zombie, or magically heal, but can't, like, create a plumbing system?

And plus, they have sewers, i.e. sewage systems present in the game (at least in Riften right, and there are sewer outlets in Solitude, as well as suspicious drains in Whiterun, Markath and so on), but lo behold, no traces of anything remotely bathroom-like. Or at least toilet-seatish. The Imperial City had extensive sewer network too, but again: no toilets!

And how can the Dwemer dwarfs create their automatons (robots) and not have toilets? Now that I think harder... I may have seen something like an outhouse, or a small toilet house out in the countryside near farms... or I have not, not clear...

So, I think the "it wasn't invented" argument doesn't hold, because: magic, dwemer technology, and widespread sewage systems. Don't get me wrong, now all the buckets make much more sense... And the "bucket on head" maneuver, makes total sense... xD

 

[DuX1112]

I found a bathroom in a bandit cave. It was one grotto up north with a captain Hagar 'excuse me if I misspell' in there somewhere. Well off in a corner was a bunch of wood planks for floor but in center of circular area there were no wood plants just a bucket. There is your bathroom a glorified bucket.

I was about to say that. I found that too. It was very obviously a bathroom.

Can someone tell me where exactly is this located? Got me intrigued...

 

[DuX1112]

Yeah I found a bunch of bathroom stalls with books in them in a fortress...

This too. Can you remember where it is, exactly?

 

[anANGRYkangaroo]

Okay, so I know it's silly, but after... well, many hours playing of Skyrim today, I took a break and went to the bathroom, and this thought came to me - why are there no bathrooms in the houses of Skyrim?? Mind you this is not only the houses... There are also no bathrooms in inns, forts, castles, palaces, shops... Nowhere really. Caves?

So what's the deal with this? Now when I remember there are also no bathrooms in Dragon Age too. No bathrooms in ANY medieval/fantasy game I've played so far, not even Fable! The last bathroom I remember in an RPG game was the one in Shepard's captain quarters aboard the Normandy 2... If I'm not mistaken. Also, now I remembered more, there were bathrooms in Deus Ex: HR, Dead Space 2, Duken Nukem Forever, Crysis 1 & 2... In all entirety I'm not serious, but this really gave me an itch!

So riddle me this fellow gamers, what's the thing with bathrooms and RPGs? :/ Don't the people of Skyrim have bodily needs they need to take care of, or personal hygiene to keep up? Why not steal some soaps for example, or sell soaps, or produce soap, or steal towels, perhaps toilet paper and so on (so many rolls of paper and woodcutting industry in Skyrim)? I haven't seen a single faucet in the game (Skyrim), let alone a toilet seat... I'm curious as to what the toilet seats in Skyrim look like, and what are the differences between them, for example: Nord, Dwarven, Elven, Orcish toilet seats? And I can guess about dragons not needing a device to poop in, but where do giants go for... their large ones, right? Or Hagravens? :/ I also found a Spriggan Sap ingredient in game... I wonder how this "sap" was obtained... Any ideas?

The medieval tech at the time were just buckets. No toilets or showers. You wanted to crap, you shat in a bucket and tossed it out the window. From what I hear sometimes it would land in the street, and hope rain would wash it away. However, the Imperial CIty has a sewer system, but no actual "toilet" (forgot the name of the ones forts used, its a french word meaning "to forget") to speak of.

The french word for forget is "perdre" if that helps at all.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

Yeah everyone, "not being invented" is a good... idea, I mean. But still, in the real world and real world history (us as humans on planet Earth) we didn't have magic. But, the races in TES (at least!) all have magic. So a mage can conjure a fireball, or raise a zombie, or magically heal, but can't, like, create a plumbing system?

[sub]Because magic and plumbing aren't related. I don't think being a mage automatically makes you an architect either.[/sub]
Its because Mages don't give a shit.

 

[Drake the Dragonheart]

The Original Deus Ex had bathrooms, you could even use the lady's room, and you would get reprimanded for it.

Heck, Crimson Skies: High Road To Revenge had a level with an outhouse that Nathan could relieve himself in.

 

[Handbag1992]

Snip

I'm fairly sure that sewer systems were implemented to prevent flooding, before they were used to carry waste.
Still, it doesn't really make sense for the Imperial city to have one, considering how far above sea-level it is.