We all know that in Oblivion the guards are like gods and can know your evil deed as soon as you have done it. Even though it sounds ridiculous, I'm sure there's reason to it: if the guard doesn't have this power, then you can kill as many people as you want, as long as you do it quietly. This is somewhat game-breaking. Before long, the Imperial City would be a ghost town except a few essential NPC's, and the guard still happily greets you all along...

I think a delayed bounty system can solve the problem:

1. when you have done a minor crime, such as stealing, as long as you did it quietly no one will know (that's the way it is in Oblivion)
2. when you have done any crime outside a major city limit, as long as the guards aren't present during patrols and such, you are bounty free.
3. when you have killed someone in the city, as long as you did it quietly, you can walk away like you walked in without any trouble. However, the guards will start investigating the crime, they will find witnesses who have seen you around the area at the time of the crime, but since they didn't have Mac Taylor helping them, there's a chance that they won't ever catch you for the crime (granted, there is a probability that the guard will one day recognize you as the killer. just roll the dice).
4. If you have killed someone before and you kill another person again, the probability of being caught multiplies, because more evidence now points at you. And for each major crime you have committed, you are more and more likely to get caught.

How do you think about this idea?

With my brain. *Ba-dum Tiss*

I like the 4th one.

you should be able to drag a body and hide it too, so you can throw it in a lake or something.

If nobody sees you people will just be like "what ever happened to (dead guy), he left town without telling anyone" or something along those lines, and you'll know you got away with it..

of course thats rather unrealistic considering all the voice acting required to say everyone's name in that sentence.

There is a mod for morrowind called regionally known criminals, and imo that would be a great system to have in skyrim (have it much improved of course)

There should be a messenger for the Guards that is scheduled to move between cities on certain days of the week. This way, if you commit a crime in City A, the guards of City B wouldn't know until the messenger arrived, giving you time to walk around as a murderer and no one knowing a thing. Messengers need to be dispatched, Merchants need to travel and adventurers need to adventure for gossip to travel.

OR you could just kill the messenger en route. ;D

i like this idea, and its pretty much just an extension of RAI

this is what should be in skyrim, period

This too. I actually meant to type this. =]

Regionally controlled bounties that spread via messenger as people have said sounds good.
No body would ever know I killed all of anvil because I killed all of the messengers too!

I really like this system, especially the multipliers thats really clever. Maybe if guards are suspicious of you after a murder in the region they will have someone follow you or if it was a fellow guard you killed, they wont give you the privilege of innocent until proven guilty and just send someone out to kill you

Im sure if the devs dont have time to implement this, mods can be made for it. The essence is the probability system for being caught rather than 100% for sure to get caught. I would say the level of your stealth skill should determine the probability.

I think the city guard should only know about your crimes if they either see you, or the evidence you leave behind.

Having guards go looking for "missing persons" would be a great way to deal with it. They check out all the person's known haunts, and then start spreading out until they find them.

It'd also be cool if some NPCs (randomly) returned as ghosts, and were like, "Youuuu killlledddd meeeee~! WOOOOOoooo!" Just in case the guards don't find evidence. Mages could leave behind wraiths, perhaps more often than the average person leaves a ghost.

Bounty hunters who follow the descriptions given by witnesses, who search the land for the killer, would be cool, too. And if a witness doesn't give a good description (if you bribe or intimidate them, or if they just like you, or didn't see your face), then you could walk right up to a bounty hunter, and he'd never even know you did it.

thats way too complicated

.

Holy crap, I misread it. Shame on me.

EDIT: Agreed with the OP.

I would prefer a system where there is a regional bounty (only in the city) where the crime was commited for small things like theaft and trespassing but a national bounty for larger crimes like Murder. The national bounty would be known by all guards everywhere where as the reagional bounty would only be known in the city where the crimes were committed.
I would also like to see a system of comunity service implemented for small crimes. if you are caught stealing you are given an option of joing to jail, paying the fine, or doing a small random quest for the town to have your crime forgiven. this would only be for regional crimes not for things like murder since theyare national

I like the fourth option for things like murder, especially if it was persistent. If you do kill half the population of Anvil, then you're forever KoS to Guards who should increase in power and numbers until you are killed. This would mean the only way to go about your business would be through use of disguise or illusion spells from that point onward.

As for as stealing goes though, if you steal an item, they need to do away with the "stolen" flag unless you were witnessed taking it or it is a very uncommon item. Even if it's fairly uncommon, the stolen flag should go away after a certain amount of time, depending on item value.

I agree with the concept - it always bothered me that the guards (like Star Wars Stormtroopers with 2-way radios in their helmets) would instantly know my criminal status.

I think that if your caught committing a crime and get away, that the information about that crime should disseminate more slowly. Perhaps it should take half a day for news of a new crime to travel around the city where the crime occurred, and perhaps 2-7 game days for it to spread to other cities. That would be more realistic to how fast news might travel around in a horse-driven world.

Great idea OP!

Oh yes, this would work quite well. As far as bounties are concerned, I don't think guards should instantly run up to you and attempt to arrest you when your bounty is 5 gold. Instead, it should be like Morrowind where you can "come clean" and pay off fines and compensation whenever you want, but only when your bounty reaches an infamous level will guards (and perhaps other shopkeepers) be going out of their way to catch you.

Perhaps if you've been on the run for a while, your bounty will increase slightly (something like, perhaps, 5% per week). This would really only apply to major crimes, though. If anything, I think that nobody in the town will really care much about your pickpocketing antics after a few months. At least not to the scale they would in Oblivion.

If you do something while no-one sees you, it should remain undetected.
If you kill someone who doesnt see you in one hit, so they have no time to alert anyone, you should get no bounty.

If you choose to break the game by going on a killing spree, then this is your choice.
This is an RPG not a shooter.
There should be no game mechanics that prevent you choosing this style of play, should you so desire.

The fact that it's an RPG, to me, should mean there are more consequences rather than fewer. If you kill a bunch of people, then the Guards should want to see you dead, and there most certainly should be enough Guards or powerful individuals in a town that you will not survive unless you run and hide.

I think the idea is pretty cool... could be implemented as a mod if not in the game from the beginning. One minor correction - probabilities for multiple crimes should add, not multiply.

For example, if there's a 5% probability for getting caught for one murder and 5% for another murder, multiplying those will give you: (5/100)*(5/100) = 25/10000 = 0.0025 or 0.25%! Adding the probabilities will increase the chance of getting caught to 10%, which is probably what you want to happen.

Not that I mind becoming safer from the guards by murdering more and more people!

Sounds like a plan.

Not bad. And not hard to implement. Chances of the investigation uncovering you = your Infamy.

yea that's a good one too, combined with your stealth level.