Thats needed though



That and lets face it , skyrims overly superstitious, events such as this would be spread about as gossip.

OP, all you have to do is show the chick you are Dragonborn and she lets you in the college then you talk to the guy without having to do any mage things. The thieve's guild thing, you don't have to do that either. Just don't tell Brynjolf you are ready for him to do start the distraction, simple as that.

Edit: You can also just do the Daedric Quest that will earn you the Elder Scroll, so you can go around becoming a mage.

But you aren't forced to join. You can just say with a Joey voice "how you doing?" and get let right into the place. Even if you do take the magic test way, you don't actually have to join the college, all you need to do is to show you are interested in some aspect of magic and there you go. Of course an uncharismatic warrior who says 'hell no' to spells might have a problem getting in, unless shouts count as one of the ways to test your ability?

I'm aware of that. You seem to have missed the point of my post. You can circumvent joining them at that instance indeed, but I'd like to know how you're supposed to complete your quest for Words as a dragonborn without joining them (or any other guild you don't want to be affiliated with) later. So it doesn't really matter if you avoid joining guilds during those particular quests or not, you'll have to.

That's the kicker for me. Anything that makes me have to go online to check something ruins immersion.

The Thieves guild thing is classic. I only find out online that I can avoid the whole matter of that quest. I had to go in with prior knowledge from outside the game.

Breaks immersion. Not as badly as oblivion leveling but still not good. Oblivion leveling meant you needed to research playing the game rather than learning from playing.

Along the same kind of issue are the worthless perks. If the only perks available were all good based on play style, great! But there are many universally seen as worthless and you wouldn't know except for reading forums and meta-gaming.

You need to join the Winterhold College to do the quest for the Elder Scrolls. YOU SHOULDN'T NEED TO DO THAT! On my pure magic class, that would be fine...even on my Battlemage class, that would be fine. But I play as an Illusionist Rogue. Why should I join the Mages Guild at all? I'm already Listener of the Dark Brotherhood and Guild Master of the Thieves Guild.

You should've been able to enter the Guild without starting the script to say you're a member of the College if you were at the Elder Scrolls part of the quest. Heck, was it so hard to just have a quest NPC in the town of Winterhold?

To be fair, I did the entire Winterhold College questline and became what it makes you become at the end (really weak spoiler avoidance there) and narely used any magic just Magelight for getting in and then some restoration for some of the combat, I basically tanked all the missions with my sword and shield heavy armour beast. Its a fun questline, and magic isnt absolutely essential for it

My first character didn't join the mages guild to do the Elder Scroll quest. At least I'm pretty sure I didn't- I tabbed out of that dialogue where you take the tour and join the guild.

I'm sure I'm just echoing previous replies, but it makes some sense to me to "force" players through bottleneck that may or may not be in line with their character's personality. That's a pretty fair approximation of life. We all find ourselves in this type of situation from time to time. And if we insist on standing on principle, our path is blocked. I appreciate the desire to be able to accomplish anything in Skyrim via a strictly virtuous or a strictly devious approach, but that is far from realistic. Of course, it would be nice to have the option of dragging the NPC standing in your way into a nearby cave and beating the information of him, or possibly making amends and reversing the fortunes of those who you have wronged in your quest for whatever (for all I know something like that may be possible; I didn't try).

So, the more options, the better, but throwing up a roadblock like the one discussed above from time to time seems a perfectly reasonable RP element, and could enhance the experience if it is understood as a natural consequence of living in a world that isn't black and white.

Or you figure it out for yourself.

Are people so content to just follow the arrows that they completely ignore their common sense?

That's in my experience the only option in the majority of quests.
I don't feel quite encouraged to think out of the box so far. Perhaps this may change as I progress, but my impression hasn't changed since week one, so I'm not confident about it.

What bothers me more than Bethesda trying to push me to be Archmage, Archthief and Archassassin, Daedra servant as well as a dragonslayer all at once - is not being able to remove the quests I don't want to. I end up with having a bunch of quests that spam my quest list, and they appear on the quest list even when I decline! For example, Jaree-Ra will invite me to do some dirty work, I decline, but I still get the quest right up there.



You're a dragonBORN not TABLETborn. Whether you recover dragon tablet or not doesn't change a fact that your character is a dragonborn whether you know it or not. After the tablet you just know it.


Why can't I choose to have someone else be a Dovahkid, one of the boss-like characters, and I kill him? That would be very satisfying for me personally.

The worst part is i didn't even have enough magic for the spell i was given, so had to fishing around for some rubbish fortify potion which was a hassle.

Agreed, but I'm one of the few that always wants to join as much as I can. I don't mind in the least bit, but I understand why others would be bothered.

What I don't understand is why I can't simply beat the information out of him (thieves guild point). There was a period of time in the 4E, roughly 205-207 that the phrase asskicking was literally substituted for a verb-form of my character's name. He is a walking death machine and I'm supposed to believe he couldn't stomp this thief into next week to get what he wanted?

The choice between continuing and not continuing a quest line is not a choice, it's shallow design.

If my car breaks down and Jim the mechanic tells me it'll be six bajillion dollars I don't just go, "Herp derp, guess mah car is broked." I go to Mark, the mechanic down the block.

I saw some people mention NV earlier, that's how choice should be. Did you change some of those factions permanently? Did you have the option of wiping some of them out? Yes, and thank goodness for it. THAT'S choice.

That's the point throughout all TES (and I figure most other fantasy) games: you're destined to do great things, you can only ignore it. Just like you couldn't shrug off being the Nerevarine. Just don't pursue the main quest line if you don't like that prophecy, that's the only option, I'm afraid.


Good point actually. :goodjob:

It's possible to avoid it, but you have to already magically know who to talk to. On my most recent character I just went straight to the place I needed to go to get the Elder Scroll while avoiding the guild. There's also someone you can talk to to avoid the Thieves' Guild for the main quest.

The only annoying thing is getting the Unusual Gem in the Archmange's Quarters. I hate how you have to join the guild to get to it. I just used the console to toggle off collision and bypassed everything, then used the console to unlock his quarters and steal the gem. If you don't have the console, you're out of luck, which is stupid. It wouldn't bug me as much if guards wouldn't say things like, "You're the one from the college. I've heard of you," even if you just made it through the door and haven't done anything else.

You're saying that you'd be more satisfied if Alduin destroyed the world as opposed to you being Dragonborn...
In the Elder Scrolls, the player is the hero of prophecy. This has always been the case.

OT: I didn't join either of the guilds on my first runthrough of the MQ, but I'm one of the people who disable their compass, so I actually run around talking to everybody.

lol you know what's funny?

If you are a thief and not a mage...you can't use the Skeleton key to get in...It won't work on Saarthal's Door or any "Key Specific Story/Quest doors".

WHAT...IS THE [censored] POINT...OF THE SKELETON KEY...IF I CANT OPEN ANY DOOR/LOCK I WANT?
Way to go Bethesda...you just created your Phoenix Down from Final Fantasy. /golfclap

Whats the point of the Phoenix Down you might ask? It Raises the Dead/KO'd party member. What happens when you run out of Health Points in an RPG? You DIE. So before this breaks out into an Argument about Final Fantasy's Logic about KO versus Death, KO And Death mean the same thing, because there is items that have "Negate Death". There is a Summon/Magic move that causes "Death" (Instant KO-SAME...[censored]...THING). So the Phoenix Down wasn't used to revive certain Story Members because it would kill the plot. LOL


Case in Point: Skeleton Key = Not A Skeleton Key.

Good point OP, there's really no excuses anyone can come up with for that. I went into the College Of Winterhold to see a guy about some crap but then i have to become a member to get into the place (i never really use magic).

I almost joined the thieves guild unwillingly (again for the main quest) because the correct dialogue choice i needed wasn't showing up.

Actually you can just demonstrate a shout to get through. Also, regarding the stealing the ring for the thieves guild, you don't HAVE to do that. If you want you can try and seek (spoiler) out by your own without the guys help, I did it so as not to spoil my warriors reputation, It was alot harder but riften is only so big. There is choice for everything, some sacrifices have to be made if you want an easier time, however - just like real life. I felt it added to the immersion.

That didnt disturb me, but something that did was afterwards when a guard said "Oh, youre the one from the collage, heard about you".

I agree. The only viable RP I've been able to do is as an under cover Thalmor agent, he joins every guild that doesn't already have an Thalmor ambassador in order to funnel recources to The Dominion.

i don't know why you guys consider this as doing something bad? i mean yes the first thing you have to do is not really a good thing, but you have not other choice... to the rest, you can just say that you don't want to help and that you want to leave. i know the answer looks quite... weak... but it doesn't end up in you getting to do a certain evil quest

Now I haven't gotten that far into the main quest (I've played somewhere near 80 hours and haven't touched it) but I have On my rogue character, so do you really need to join it for it to work or can you just do what I did and complete it all just the same?