Works in many Bethesda games, inc FO3, FNV, FO4, presumably Oblivion & Skyrim, maybe Starfield...

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I know this information is available elsewhere but adding my own help page so next time I try to help a newbie I can refer them here instead of repeating myself and taking up acres of some innocent mod's precious comments space.

Anyway, if one is able to go into console mode (which is via the tilda ~ key on US keyboards, @' key on my UK one, and ñ key on Spanish - sorry, I don't know any others) then one could be skilled enough to use setstage commands to advance a quest if for some reason the quest is bugged and/or you are otherwise hopelessly stuck and just wnat to end your misery.

The main hurdles with using setstage commands is you would need to find out the numbers that your game allots to both the quest and the stages of it. Fortunately, for the base game and DLC it should be readily findable on the game's wiki page for that quest. For mod-added quests you'd need to refer to the author's notes or mod page comments (or maybe via using xEdit).

However, you've one more small hurdle, navigating the black magic box that is the Gamebryo C++ hexadecimal (8-digit) system which all Creation engine games use. Now don't run off - it's easy, I promise! Bethesda's Creation Engine allots the first two of those 8 digits for the game plugin which the quest belongs to, and the other 6 are for the quest itself (this 2 & 6 concept is the basis of all things added into the game, not just quests but NPCs and models, textures etc - and is called the "Form ID" - this fact will help us later). For the base game you'll notice all these numbers will likely start with the two-digit prefix of 00, but for any DLC it will be different and based on your own installation's load order rather than simply the official DLC's release number (a worked example is given below). And for any mod quest it will also depend on load order too.


Worked Example - Fallout 3, Anchorage DLC Quest

Let's say we're stuck (again) in everyone's favourite buggy quest, Operation Anchorage! You can find both the quest number and stage number on it's Fallout wiki page here (for other game quests just search the internet). First scan down the right side of the page to find the quest number - what Bethesda calls the quest's Form ID. You'll notice that for this DLC the first two prefix digits are not numbers at all but "xx" - because the wiki doesn't know if you've got all the DLC or what order you bought/loaded them in, so for example say DLC 04 might be loaded as DLC 02 in your load order. However, don't fear, because to find this prefix number you can fairly easily in console mode right click on say the Outcast guard outside the lift taking you down to their base, or any other npc or item/object added by the DLC (in fact do a couple anyway as a double-check to make sure you got the right number) and note the first two digits of these numbers are always the same. That's where these Form IDs help us - everything loaded into the game by the DLC will use the same two-digit Form ID prefix (the wiki itself explains it all more here). Now, just in case you get something wrong, make a game save before doing anything. Then type the following line, noting where I twice used a single space:

setstage xx0014f6 50

...except replace the xx with the actual number you discovered that your game allots to the DLC. The 0014f6 is the rest of the individual quest number you found on the wiki page. And the last number, 50, is a stage number seen in the ones from lower down the wiki page. You can use another number for other stages, and use this whole process on other quests too - just look up their quest Form IDs & stage numbers on their respective wiki pages. Now hit return and (I hope) you'll see your intrepid hero magically advanced to the moment you've inputted.

As the system is based on the gamebryo C++ system used by all Creation Engine games it should work for FO3, FNV & FO4, presumably Oblivion & Skyrim, and I assume Starfield too...

Enjoy, my fellow gamers, for you are now all somewhat accomplished Creation Engine programmers! And two gold stars to each of you who read this explainer to the end.