Should The Thieves Guild Be Cool Again?

I'm sick of being in a "Thieves Guild." I want to be part of a real criminal organization, not some nonsensical group that allows you to hawk stolen goods or things for the guild for...some reason. Something that specializes in smuggling, blackmail, "protection," and is not afraid to bloody its hands. Something that's...built from the ground up to make a profit from...legally ambiguous methods. And which is as dangerous and cutthroat as you'd expect, where you're just another scrub among thousands, competition for the lower-ranking, and expendable to the higher-ups.

I don't play evil murderers (There are too few NPCs in Oblivion), so I don't care about the Dark Brotherhood too much, but I'd like the ability to play a DB member that prefers to think of himself somewhat like The Punisher for hire, instead of a Stab-happy murderer. Even if morals do get in the way of promotion (And halting eventually), you should still be able to recieve "Justified" contracts, even if you don't get past a certain low rank in the guild.

I hope there is no Thieves Guild, no Mages Guild and no Fighters' Guild in Skyrim. My guess is that at least there will be no Mage's Guild, but the factions of Synod and the College of Whispers in its place.

The generic "join a guild and get some training" thing is boring. I'm really hoping for lots of different factions, with different names, histories, etc., potentially in conflict with each other. I don't want to hear that "The Fighter's Guild is hiring today" etc. I agree with the OP, the Thieves' Guild was too nice to everybody. I hope there will be some faction that will fence stolen goods without caring whether you killed a guard (who should be an enemy of the Thieves' Guild).

In my view, the Dark Brotherhood was not the "Assassin's Guild," in that generic guild sense. Rather, they were a in interesting faction with a particular group of NPCs, backstory, and one of the most well-written quests of any RPG I have ever played (Whodunit?). I'm hoping for lots more factions in this vein.

As long as there are Sabre-toothed tigers getting into Wealthy Peoples homes, as long as aliens and monsters and brigands roam the countrysides and hassle people who'd pay to make them disappear, as long as rats live in paying people's basemants, and as long as there are people willing to kick ass for money, the Fighter's Guild will be around.

I don't see why there couldn't simply be various mercenary factions, none of them having the name "The Fighter's Guild"?

Should The Thieves Guild Be Cool Again?

No, this time it should be stupid.

... and yes I also wanted to kill Lucian Lachance or whatever his name was...

No, this time it should be stupid.

I can't quite remember all the quests from Morrowind, but unless I'm completely mistaken, they were a pretty badass gang of mobsters there. Only Gentleman Jim Stacey and his Bal Molagmer quests were really Robin Hood style, and you can even choose not to do them if you're not that kind of guy (I specifically remember Jim telling me something like that). Before that, you did actually execute freelancers, you did hire muscle for your base of operations, and you did fight over territory with another criminal organization.
I think you're thinking of the quests involving the Cammona Tong as Robin Hood style. But they only seem like that because the Cammona Tong are racist and not very likable. Other than that, they're no different than the Thieves Guild, and the whole thing is really nothing more but a war on territory.

Anyway. What I didn't like about Oblivion's questline was that it was too personal. The Thieves Guild were simply the lackeys of the Gray Fox, and they were as loyal as any knightly order could have been to their king. But the Gray Fox, he was noone who was worth fighting for. He didn't have a masterplan for the guild. In the end, not only didn't he have a masterplan for the guild, his only masterplan was actually to leave the guild. The Thieves Guild was portrayed as if all they were looking for was the next cool heist, when it should really have been important what comes out of the heist - a whole lot of money, for instance.
At some point, I just really wanted to start a rebellion.
What they should have done was to set it up like the Barksdale organization in The Wire... have the Gray Fox as that mystical man that everyone's longing to get a look at, while Armand Christophe actually seems to be in charge, and is handling the "business". Yes, that should have involved drugs too. There should have been a lot more mistrust, tension, struggle for power. And at the end, when it turns out that the Gray Fox's "big plan" was to steal a bunch of things that have absolutely no street value, completely for his personal gain of being able to get his identity back (while also endangering the Guild with these high-profile heists)... the Guild should have gotten rid of him, and set up a new order.

There are a lot of concepts I can understand in the Thieves Guild in Oblivion. For example, the "no murders" policy. It makes sense because of business reasons. We never hear those, sadly. It would have been so much more awesome if Armande Christophe had lectured us in how murders cost bribe money, and stuff like that. (Seriously guys, watch The Wire to see what I'm talking about here, all the Stringer Bell dialogues are basically how it should have been..)

I didn't see the Dark Brotherhood as a bunch of back stabbers and evil-doers. In fact, I saw them as a devoted cult toward a common goal. Sure, their resolve was carried out via murder, but the members have a very strict hierarchy. They are respectful, organized, and methodical.

Which reminds me of a question in the back of my mind:
Will there be sneak kills? As in backstabs and neck slashes. I think it would be awesome to enhance the stealth path of the game.

Biased poll.

I'm sick of being in a "Thieves Guild." I want to be part of a real criminal organization, not some nonsensical group that allows you to hawk stolen goods or things for the guild for...some reason. Something that specializes in smuggling, blackmail, "protection," and is not afraid to bloody its hands. Something that's...built from the ground up to make a profit from...legally ambiguous methods. And which is as dangerous and cutthroat as you'd expect, where you're just another scrub among thousands, competition for the lower-ranking, and expendable to the higher-ups.

I can't quite remember all the quests from Morrowind, but unless I'm completely mistaken, they were a pretty badass gang of mobsters there. Only Gentleman Jim Stacey and his Bal Molagmer quests were really Robin Hood style, and you can even choose not to do them if you're not that kind of guy (I specifically remember Jim telling me something like that). Before that, you did actually execute freelancers, you did hire muscle for your base of operations, and you did fight over territory with another criminal organization.
I think you're thinking of the quests involving the Cammona Tong as Robin Hood style. But they only seem like that because the Cammona Tong are racist and not very likable. Other than that, they're no different than the Thieves Guild, and the whole thing is really nothing more but a war on territory.

Biased poll.