I′d like to see guilds have two kinds of quests, main quests which would allow you to rank up, and off quests which would allow you to consider yourself a part of the guild but they would be easy and require none of the skills the guild is about. Let′s take some examples with Oblivion guilds.

Fighters Guild: A main quest could be to go and clear a cave of a goblin infestion, but to take that quest the leader would require you to have a certain amount of skill. But a offquest may be to deliver a package or a letter from place A to B, or to clean the guild hall or cook meals for the fighters and such (some offquests could even need skills like if you could cook then you could take a cooking quest but else not).

Mages guild: A main quest could be to go to some ruin and decipher some runes (you would maybe need X amount of intelligence for that) or to add enchants to the guard captains armor. When a offside quest may be to go and collect plants for the alchemists or to prepare the guild house for rituals and such.

Thieves guild: A main quest could be to steal some artifact while a offquest may just be to deliver a note to a certain place at a certain time.

Dark Brotherhood: A faction like this one may be a bit tricky... they don′t mind you dying but they don′t want you to potentially screw up on a mission and to uncover their hideout, the Dark Brotherhood could only require loyalty to join and then hand out different assignments based on skills, but you should be able to rise up in ranks in it, be it that you are a figther type, a sneaky agile type or a magi.

And I can go on and on and on for different guilds but I will just stick to the 4 main guilds in Oblivion.

I do not think being able to join all guilds is a problem.In Morrowind the storyline made it problematic between the fighters and thieves but not impossible.

As far as skill checks they should be organic to the storyline.

An example.

The wizard Otto has the widget of awesomeness.Otto is very protective of the widget.He has designed a series of wards that detect magic that is not his in his keep.This would stop the invisibility/chameleon crowd.You would NEED to have a high skill in sneak.

He has commmisioned a series of the most complex locks ever designed and then had all involved killed.You would NEED to be very skillled at lock picking.

If you are not skilled enough at lockpicking there could be an alternate path that would require a high acrobatics.

That being said just because you cant pull off the grand theft of Otto should not mean you cant join the thieves guild and punch a Bosmer and take his lunch money.

That being said arbitrary skill checks are fine if used.I would just prefer a better method.

I actually agree with this. Don't need any scrubs in there noobing up the guild. I think it would make sense to have a small skill requirement to get in, not a huge one. Just one that says "I kinda know what I'm talkin' about, and I'm totally interesting in learning more."

Mnay people never understood the solid rp reason guilds didnt have skill reqs in oblivion.. It was the imperials and thier obsession with politics and such. It was a part of the story that people in guilds even running guild chapters had no skill at all... its why the empire was crumbling.

But this is skyrim so god knows what they would require. skill likely but prolly even more.

Is than canon?

This is just the kind of thing I'd like to see, where the tests are in the field and not some number check the quest giver conducts.

Sounds like conjecture, was the Empire so badly crumbling before the Mythic Dawn. My guess is some were useless as a plot device to explain you becoming master ( FG ). And Traven wasn't that useless. Mannimarco boasts how many Mage's souls he's taken over the years. No one but your character could stand up to him.

I was like this :confused: when i realised i didn't have to do squat to join the mages guild-

Yes I would like to see skills play a part like in Morrowind. It made more sense to have a to actually be good at Magic before becoming the Arch Mage or able to swing a sword before becoming head of the fighters Guild

If the random quest generator can have parameters put on it(a quest for the thieves guild could have a no magic no detected tag)It could make grinding a skill less annoying.

Even better if you fail a random quest maybe that will give you access to a trainer that can raise your skill to a point or perhaps access to a skill book.

I believe one of the goals of the early TES games was to have failing a quest not be the reason to reload.Something along these lines may work.

On the point of not doing squat to join the Mages Guild.You had to want to learn magic and you had to perform tasks for the branch heads to show dedication (if not ability) for admittance.

im pretty sure that the head of the democratic national committee wouldnt be allowed to become the head of the republican national committee. they are opposing factions just like the thieves guild and dark brotherhood and the mages guild and the fighters guild had competition going on.......at least in morrowind. oblivion svcked at guilds big time.