The TES series has never been that great at providing opportunities to fail quests, in the same way that they've never been that good at offering complex choices and consequences. I'm ok with that because the TES series has other strengths, but could this aspect be improved?

How do you see quest failure working in Skyrim? Should it be black and white, or with degrees of success? Should a player be encouraged to continue to play regardless of how well he has completed a quest? How do you stop players from reloading every time they fail to complete a quest perfectly?

Personally I like the idea that you can play the game, and can feel that you can fail quests without missing out on something good. That perhaps it leads to something interesting (in the same way that failing to cure vampirism, leads to interesting possibilities). The ability to have a character fail or partially fail would make you character path feel more unique, and encourage replayability. But is it feasible?

I like how they did it in that one fighter's guild quest from Oblivion where you had to protect that Deadric scholar in that ruin. She could actually die. Now granted, instead of running away when a fight came and letting the person she paid to fight for her just fight, she'd join in and die, which was super annoying. But the premise was better - she could die, and if she did the quest was over and you went back to the quest giver for a regular ass chewing and no reward. If people want to reload, let them. I'd be happier if I got to see something new for failing a quest (like the chew out). That said, you shouldn't get promoted if you repeatedly fail quests, so I'm not sure how they'd work out enough quests to get you to the top of the ranks (like they like to do) if you could fail them. Maybe the radiant quests will help?

good poll.

failure should often open new quests. I made a whole topic about it a while ago:
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1175342-what-if-quest-failed-doesnt-really-mean-the-end-of-your-quest/

Yeah, the radiant quests could fill a gap.

I guess the way I imagine the guild promotion quests working, is that if you screw up, they might say chew you out, and only get promoted when you hit a certain set of stats, or succeed in a random radiant quest given by the appropriate guild.

i said hidden/long term consequences. only if failing a quest is very hard. i remember in oblivion i kept waitingt for glatthir/ whatver behind the church and he never showed up. long story short he murdered all the people he wanted me to spy on. sooo basically as long as there are no glitches/ time limits im all for it

Well, I remember one quest in Oblivion, Zero Visibility, that you could fail.