Ok its a nice sunny day in the Imperial city... you walk into a weapon shop, just looking around at all the amazing weapons. While you go back to exit the store your arm brushes a sword. It falls. Being the nice hero you are, you decide to pick it up and put it back on the shelf. Before you know it! STOP THERE YOU CRIMINAL SCUM! The Imperial Legion is the only police force in the history of reality or fiction to use brutality as their primary method of solving crimes. Get caught trying to kill the leader of the Elder Council? Swords up the butt. Get caught stealing a worthless piece of cloth? Swords up the butt. Pick a lock on a cabin 20 miles away from civilisation? We think you can guess what'll happen, but here's a hint: it has something to do with their swords and your butt (That totally came out wrong).
Sure, when they rush at you with that terrifying, laws of physics defying sprint, they'll yell "pay the fine, or it's off to jail!". There are three options, you can pay the fine if you have adequate funds, go to jail and risk losing some skill points, or resist arrest and hope it all blows over. There doesn't seem to be a 'urinate uncontrollably and beg for mercy' option, but there's probably a mod for that somewhere.
You know the worst part? When you pay the fine, the guardsman will say "That's too bad. I was hoping you'd resist arrest."
Just let that sink in for a moment. Dont you think Skyrim needs to fix how the guard works! For real if you stole something from a cabin in the middle of nowhere and then you go into a city, the guard would not known you stole! Its [censored]! Leave a comment on what you think

Perhaps in Skyrim we'll get a dragon up the butt instead?

On Skyrim it will be worse they can zoom out real time and see the whole map so if you are on a lonely island picking a lock you will hear :swear: !STOP THERE YOU CRIMINAL SCUM! then the guard will come to you and do the sword ritual :turtle:

Yes! besides how the Guards shouldn't be omniscient...
there just needs to be http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1174290-justice-system-in-skyrim/ IMO

OP made me have to blow my nose. lol. This is one of the things that Todd Howard said he will be revealing later on with the good stuff. But i agree entirely, the imperial guards are somewhat similar to the geth's universal consious in Mass Effect 2. And they had x-ray vision. And they could hear through house walls. They couldnt have made them any more socially encroaching either. It'd be all like: *picks up a bowl, turns around to imperial guard 2 inches from your face shouting at you like your a mile off*

:rofl: Yeah whenever I reminisce back to when I played Oblivion non-stop I always remember this frightened feeling of anticipation I used to have if I was in someone's house or even just exploring interiors of public buildings. It was so easy to get in trouble and just as the OP says no matter what crime you commit they always want to kill you! This definitely should be fixed for Skyrim, but I have to admit I found it very amusing in Oblivion.

Oblivion's guards were a real step up from previous guards (minus the ESP) and with another large jump in AI quality, it's sort've a given they will be more reasonable.

This. I have no doubt.

First off the way Skyrim is right now I'd like to see rules enforced differently. In some cities, they'll be strict as hell due to a dictator ruler. In others, the ruler doesn't care about the people as much as military so you stealing from a citizen will lead to them freaking out but no guard reaction.

There's no central ruler in this game, but rather separate factions fighting a civil war. I hope they cash out on the opportunities here.

I hope the guards in Skyrim will be able to arrest npcs as well. It's unsettling to see people killed in the streets for all sorts of infractions. They should have an ability to knock people unconscious and then tie them up and arrest them.

Yes I agree thats step up but it horribly implemented into game, Oblivion has much of such flawed implementations when awesome features was added they was overweighted by flaws.
Just why not make guard less psychic, remove stolen mark from all miserable clutter, regional known bounty and bounty reduction overtime, don't make incriminate decisions just by dragging an clutter from floor to table, make NPC react on hostile actions and suspicious behavior and events?
Thats strange since some of such features was in even older then Morrowind or Oblivion games like Thief: The Dark Project (1998) and Arx Fatalis (2001)
Radiant AI capable to do such things just enchant it with some additional scripting and some hardcoded functions like it was done with mods and OBSE

Reneers Guard Overhaul
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5977

Put it in its Place - Enhanced Grabbing
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=19847

Duke Patricks - Near Miss Magic And Arrows Alert The Target
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16150

Duke Patricks Fresh Kills Now Alert The NPCs
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18065

ACTORS CARE
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=32651