I've never completed the FG in Morrowind, though I've started it a few times. Something about it... bugs me. It's not the quests or the rewards, per se.

The other guilds/factions all seem to have a pretty reasonable 'in-universe' explanation for their existence. It seems perfectly sensible that thieves would want to get together in some sort of gang, and the Thieves' Guild is a well-established trope in fantasy literature. The Morag Tong is a fantastic take on an assassins' guild, and again, it makes sense to me that people in that trade would form an organized group, especially given its legal standing in Morrowind. Then you've got the Mages' Guild - great, it's a bunch of people who gather, share/steal each others' knowledge - I can get behind that.

But the Fighters' Guild... it just seems so generic & bland. I've played far enough along to know there's some kind of power struggle going on (no spoilers, please!), but still, the purpose of the guild seems just kind of vague. "We're... fighters!"

I understand the need for mercenaries in a dangerous place like Vvardenfell, but setting up this guild seems like a strange way to go about it. I mean, you've got the Legion stationed there, tons of guards, adventurers doing their thing.

More importantly, I don't see a lot of, for lack of a better term, "flavor" in the FG. The Morag Tong has a great local flavor to it, but the FG...

I'm sure I'm just looking at it wrong. How do you guys play the FG, and what sort of characters do you use for those quests? How do you fit your characters into what seems a very generic faction?

I actually share some of your feelings about this. The Fighters Guilds in Morrowind and Oblivion and the Companions in Skyrim too often feel a bit "thuggish" to me, almost a toned-down version of the Mafia. They even do "contracts."

I've managed to resolve this for myself by mainly doing Fighters Guilds with meaner, darker, more mercenary characters. The kind of characters who would not bat an eye if they were asked to rough up someone who has fallen behind on a payment. Once I adopted this approach the Fighters Guilds in all these games made more sense in my roleplaying.

Yes, they are thuggish! It's thuggery without any clear aim. If it were a guild devoted to, say, collecting bounties on all the smugglers on the island, that would be one thing. But they'll do just *anything*, so there's no personality apart from an interest in coin.

As a side note, I find Oblivion's FG suffers from a similar generic-ness. But Skyrimi's Companions have a bit of ties with some interesting lore, at least - even if most of the members themselves don't really reflect that history and flavor.

Making a 'mean' character is undoubtedly a good way to get into those quests. I could go that route, but another difficulty for me is that, when I play warrior types, they tend to be fairly individualistic. Joining a 'guild' doesn't seem to work for most of them.

For example, I love playing a Nord 'stranger in a strange land' in Morrowind, for whom everything - culture, food, religion - is alien and suspect. Often these are 'barbarian' types - your typical adventurer who wanders the land getting into trouble. With such a character, no obvious factions spring to mind. The closest thing is the Fighters' Guild - but that's just a bit too structured, too regimented, too urban. Why bother joining a gang and checking in with corrupt jerks for advancement when I can just travel the world on my own terms?

Maybe it's a problem with TES games in general: not enough support for barbarian playstyles, unless you make your own quests. But I've been wanting to give it another shot, hoping I can find some way to make the FG work.

I belive in either Morrowind or Oblivion they introduced a book that explains the reason for why Fighters guild exits ( or at least the reasons why it was formed in first place) that is actually kind of smart.

As you mentioned figthers guilds seems a bit thugish and in Morrowind straight up Mob at times. Apperently ( if I remeber it right) the guild was created so that all the fighters in there wouldn't turn in to straight up bandits.

Rather then being created to protecte the intrestes of members , or to spread magic. Fighters guild was created so that all ex-soldiers from dissolved local armies would have something to do, instead of turning to highwayman becase swinging sword was the only trade they knew.

My take on the FG is that there is already an over-abundance of thugs, wandering "adventurers", and other people with no other skills besides violence. Rather than allow them to rampage across the countryside and form gangs or even a small army to threaten the authorities and the stability of the realm, or waste Legion resources to try to hunt them down for disturbing the peace and various other misdemeanors, it's a lot simpler and less expensive to "sanction" their activities as members of a regulated Guild. It's not so much a case of creating a Guild to produce and train Fighters as it is a way of keeping the more skilled and dangerous ones out of trouble, and possibly even making them useful to some degree. Seen in that light, the actions of the FG and the personalities make a fair amount more sense.

[Beaten to the "Post" button by Cryticus.]

Ah, thanks for that - I do vaguely recall that book.

OK, so maybe the FG isn't a bad option for some of my characters, if I can think of it in those terms. Sort of a rough-and-tumble group of barely-civilized adventurers.

Like one of those night time basketball programs for at risk youth.

Bear in mind that, in Morrowind, the Fighters Guild is squarely in the pocket of the Camonna Tong (hence its rivalry with the Thieves Guild), thus the Mafia angle. I think if you reach a high enough rank you're given the option to clean up the Fighters Guild. Since I don't really play warriors, though, I'm not entirely sure on that.

It does make one wonder, who managed to get such a rough bunch of thugs together to explain this whole 'guild' idea in the first place?

Yes, there's a "good" path through the FG. What you do is consult with Percius Mercius, in Ald'ruhn. You ask his opinion about the quests that other FG leaders give you, and he'll give you good advice about how to handle things.

The role of the FG is essentially mercs for hire. Yes, you can go to the Legion (and hope that your issue is important enough for a dispatch), or hire a wandering adventurer (and pray they aren't actually a bandit). But if you go to the FG, and can pay, you'll get someone to solve your problem and won't stab you in the back.

From the other side, the FG is, as others mentioned, essentially a means to stay out of trouble. It's also a guaranteed place to rest, get your equipment repaired, or buy new ones at a discount. And, of course, good training for any combat-focused adventurer.

Their "genericness" is largely because... Well, a band of fighters is pretty damn generic to begin with. Not many variants you can do with it that doesn't break the core concept... At least, not many variants that aren't *also* generic.