I agree with there being a need for more responsibility as the master of a guild instead of just perks, but I do enjoy the feeling of accomplishment it provides. This is one of the main reasons I believe the Elder Scrolls games are so great. You have the ability to do anything. You don't just work for someone, but progress through the ranks until they work for you.

I always dreaded reaching the end of the Dark Brotherhood questline because there's... well there's *nothing* to do afterwards. I was actually a little offended when they left me with that "we'll give you a pathetic 200 gold if you talk to a statue" deal.

No, but those ranks should be only attainable once you've almost maxed out the related skills for that faction. Ex: you shouldn't be archmage if you have no skill in any magic areas (at least 75 in 3 or 4 skills)

I'd be fine with this, as long as we'll say I'm like Champion of the Fighters' Guild or Master-Wizard of the Mages' Guild. But I don't want to be limited to mid-ranks. But I doubt they'll make it so we can't be leader of at least one guild.

I think this is a great idea as well, if you are going to take a leadership role within a faction then your in-game behavior should reflect so. I do not think that many players would want to play-out the rest of their character's game doing administrative work. What would make more sense is a leadership scenario which logically does not require the player's constant supervision and/or allows for frequent excursions, a la House Telvanni from Morrowind. Barring that, being lower on the food chain would give a player more freedom to move around due to less responsibility, so long as this is implemented properly mind you (being a lowly guard could/should have drastic consequences in the event you leave your post).

There are plenty of problems with the MW/OB system:
1) The game fails to live up to the expectation, rather than setting a reasonable, plausible expectation of the guild experience and then competently executing it.

2) Leaders might delegate some of their duties, but they do not wholesale up and walk away from their jobs. Guild leaders in the real world were traditionally elected by the masters of the guild. If you flake out and go dungeon diving for three months, you can bet that some ambitious would-be guildmaster is going to be campaigning the other masters for your position.

3) Your "rank" in terms of the guild is substantially different from your "rank" in terms of competency, although they are related. One represents a paradigm shift in your relation to the guild and the scope of your responsibilities, the other simply represents the difficulty of jobs you can get. The only meaningful political ranks for players are Apprentice, Journeyman, and Master. However, any number of competence levels could be added -- presumably passage to the next political rank would require a minimum competence level.

4) It also hurts the plot, since every guild "storyline" has to create some excuse for the old leader to step down, die, or be deposed in some other fashion. And considering their role in the universe, guild-based storylines are kinda crap anyway. The "one plotline per guild" concept of Oblivion was terrible, even if a couple of the questlines themselves were ok in a vacuum (e.g. Dark Brotherhood, Thieves' Guild). It makes much more sense to me to use the guilds as vehicle to get the player involved in storylines that are not necessarily tied to the political future of the guild itself -- however, the player might have a different role in each subplot depending on the guild that got them involved.

I feel like they would be much better off with a system of three ranks:
1) Apprentice: Since you're not a kid, there will be a little bit of a quest in finding a master willing to take you on -- you'll work solely with the master in learning the ropes. The purpose of this is more of a tutorial on combat, magic, or stealth (as appropriate), and perhaps setting the tone of any guild politics. Once your master approves you, can move on to the next phase. Unlike the higher ranks, apprenticeships shouldn't be exclusive -- the guild is just teaching you the basics (and getting work out of you in return), not any particularly closely guarded secrets.

2) Journeyman: Similar to the Associate phase of the MG questline in Oblivion (which came the closest to properly modeling a guild). The guild has decided you are trustworthy and reliable, but you still aren't a full member -- you cannot participate in guild politics, nor can you accept contracts from the general public (you must subcontract for a master instead). To become a full member (master), you must travel to various guild masters and perform work for them (unlike the MG, there would likely be multiple masters in a single town). You have several objectives in this rank -- learn from the experience of these masters (getting new spells, training, etc), gain some gold and skill, gain a reputation for competence, and build a base of political support for your eventual bid to become accepted as a full member.

3) Master: This would be the culmination of the guild political questline. You would need political support, competence, and would have to complete some sort of Masterwork project appropriate for the guild (e.g., creating a staff for the MG). Having done this, you become a full member, the equivalent of getting citizenship in a democracy. You can vote and participate in meetings and politics, you can work independently and run your own shop or practice, you can hire guild journeymen to help out or take on an apprentice. If the tech permits it, you could get random jobs from citizens. Failing that, you could just work like the DB endgame, taking jobs and assigning them to your underlings based on some simple scripting.

in oblivion you attained the rank of captain (i think) for the blades and in morrowind you got some middle rank in the imperials spy thingy.....forgot what it was called. those were far more realistic than the archmage and master of the fighters guild and thieves guild. the only one that was semi believable was becoming listener in the DB because that group was so chaotic and unprofessional it made sense in a twisted way that some upstart would kill everyone in cheydinhal to get the job. and lets face it, thats alot of guards and people to kill and takes awhile so frankly........you earn it.

Yes that's pretty much what I said in the other thread that now seems to have been buried... I don't want a management position I want to be in the action

After mulling it over, I decided I have a better idea. Each guild should be 3-part. The first part would be rising to the rank of an officer, basically filling contracts, gathering herbs, you're a grunt. The second would be your officer position. Semi-political. When something goes wrong internally, guess what, it's your job. Imagine stuff like duties instead of contracts. Third would be fully political, going to meetings, 'silencing' people who speak poorly about the guild, etc.

I think the top position should be optional.

I'm fine with being the boss' right hand man.

Hey you guys remember my charachter from oblivion, right? he was the glorious Champion of Cyrodil! He was also the Archmage of the Mages Guild, the leader of the Fighters Guild, the Grayfox, the listener of the Black Hand and the Grand Champion of the Arena. He also helped out about 90% of the population with thier problems, no matter what they were, one person at a time. I voted yes.

Excatly, thats why I dont get this, people want to take out something you can do simply because it lacks content? Shouldnt we be ADDING not subtracting from our options? Sure there are problems it needs work, doesnt mean we should just remove the option and forget about it!

I think that it should be possible to be the leader of all guilds, but you should have responsibilities to make it 1. like you're a real leader and 2. Extremely difficult to lead multiple guilds.

For example, the PC should need to go to meetings as the head of each guild. When you arrive at the meeting, you may not need to actually sit in as people talk (that would be sooo boring) but time would pass etc. If you arrive you and your guild gets benefits, if you don't, you and the guild becomes worse off and people don't like it as much. If you don't make X amount of meetings, then you are removed of your position. All guilds will have these meetings and be ignorant of other guilds schedules, so you could have two meetings at the same time, and you will need to prioritise, or maybe even send someone in your place, this way it will be neither negative or positive for the guild.

Also you must greet new members to the guild, perform tasks, give out tasks, maybe even offer advice. But you need to be at certain places doing certain things for each guild, and if you can't then the guild will suffer.

This would make it possible for an extremely organised person to be head of all guilds, but difficult and could become tedious. If however, you are only head of one guild, it wouldn't be too hard. It would also imo be more realistic.

I don't mind rising to the top in one Guild, maybe two, if they don't conflict, but any more than that is just overkill. It gratifies my ego, but at the cost of suspension of disbelief. They should do something different, because my first Oblivion character, who did everything, was just way over the top.

I would love to see something along the lines of "Rise of House Telvanni", a Morrowind quest mod that began when you became the Telvanni Archmagister, but then there would have to be a quest line like that for every guild or organization. I doubt it would be feasible, and anyway all quest lines have to end sometime, and then you're still left with nothing to do. It might soften the blow a bit if there were simpler side quests to do along the way, maybe randomly generated or something, just filler, I know, but something to do.

I wouldn't mind having a stronghold to develop, like in Morrowind, but more complex and expanded, that grows as you progress in the game. Build up your own faction, with followers, and the stronghold would be a good money pit for later in the game, as well as a good place to store and display your treasure. They'd have to do it right though... I don't know, just thinking out loud.

Yeah, that was so lame.

*Okay, you're the greatest assasin in the last 100 years or so. As a reward you get to become the mailboy... uh "listener".* ^^

If i'm able to become the leader of the guild I want some resposibilities or some task to take care of from time to time. If I don't have that then not being able to become leader of the guild is a great idea because there is no reason to try and rise to the top rank of the guild.

Ive always limited my characters to their role-play. My Mage isn't going to become the head of the Fighters Guild and vice verse. If you don't want to head a guild, stop progressing through it.

But that's the whole issue. Becoming involved with the guild = becoming the leader of the guild. I don't think it's necessary to become "the leader" at all...

No matter what character you play, you'll always be someone with an adventurous spirit and guild leaders are retired old farts or pencil pushers; not the type champion/opportunist that you are.

You're not talking about refining an existing system, you're talking about creating a system ex nihilo, and one that would require either a ton of scripting or a completely different style of game to really work in any kind of realistic manner. Becoming guild leader is like having a baby -- your character's entire life will have to be reshaped around that responsibility, or else you're doing it wrong.

The tools for providing any kind of meaningful control of the guild (I'm ignoring the simplistic stuff like we had in Oblivion) just aren't there. If the Imperial Legion was joinable, does that mean you should eventually be able to become the general? Should they implement some kind of "Skyrim: Total War" RTS system, or say "you have the title 'General', but can't actually do anything generalish, since the engine doesn't support it". The gameplay only really supports playing as various types of adventurer, not playing an artisan or author or musician or politician or general or whatever. Not that they should never consider adding some of those things, but they should actually get their main game mechanics polished first.

Stop progressing and role-play.

But there is a fine line between role-playing and LARPing.

Not really, I'm a hardcoe RPer, but I dont act out my character physically.

Well, Todd Howard (interview in Oblivion section) agrees that there are problems that need to be fixed with being the head of a guild. So it will be interesting to see what solutions they try to implement in Skyrim.

I think it should be possible to become guildmaster/archmage/CEO of any guild or faction, in the right circumstances.

In general, I think completing the guild quest line should get the PC to some sort of administrative rank (council member, vice president, etc.). In order to advance along the quest line and receive promotions, the player must also meet other requirements (reputation/disposition within the guild, meeting skill requirements, and maybe completing randomly generated tasks for the guild as well).

So take, for example, the Fighters guild. By the time you resolve the overarching quest line for the guild, you will also necessarily be a strong fighter (e.g. one weapon skill, one armor skill, and one physical skill all at least Expert level) and have a good standing within the guild. Now, you are one of the top five or so people in the guild. However, in order to become guildmaster, even more must happen... The current guildmaster must either retire, die, or be forced to step down. The PC may have a hand in this, but it may also happen independently of the PC's actions.

If the current guildmaster does step down, his position must be filled (obviously). You will be one of the candidates, along with some/all of the other administrative members of the guild. You will have to win a vote and be elected leader of the guild. You may campaign for your cause by talking to each council member and persuading them to vote for you. Some may like being bribed, while others may resent you for trying to bribe them. Some may like your ideas regarding future guild policies, others may not. You may have to lie a bit or manipulate the council members to win the vote. But if you do win, you'll be the true guildmaster.

However, even now, you still do not have "supreme power." You need to make decisions with the council members as a group (this doesn't mean you have to attend meetings or anything; that would svck). You just get to use the office/headquarters of the GM, and maybe get more money and more influence over the guild. You may also have to do some diplomatic outreach to help the guild's public image.

My roleplay experience is defined by the fact that I like to play a nothing-type character. If by some odd act of nature, if you could walk your character through my game, you'd walk right by me and never notice. Because I like to play low-key and get down and dirty. I'm a thief, not a warlord. I don't want to be the Gray Fox. I don't want your guild head - I want your low, petty ranks. Which is where the most work would be, realistically. You could put me somewhere like three ranks up, give me two compadres to work under me ("Hey. We po'. Go steal sumfin." "Okay.") and let me manage that. Add in some guild dues (In the Thieves Guild, one would suppose that a person in charge of thieves would be paying a cut to the guild otherwise it would seem odd that I'm basically a mini-guild of my own) for me to worry about, the occasional blunder on the part of my grunts and have to sneak/pay them out of jail, and stuff like that.

THAT would amuse me more than anything a quest line can give me. Give me something that can stand alone, and last forever. I'd rather spend my Thieves' Guild experience taking repeat missions/boring orders than heading it and doing absolutely nothing.



(Also, I'm gonna go into detail about my dream mod - the two compadres I mentioned earlier. It would be absolutely solid gold in my book, to get a certain rank in the guild and be assigned two novice thieves who work under my authority. You send them out for a night of good honest work, and when they come back they give you a random assortment of generic [censored], and you pay them a small piece up front. You then proceed to find someone to fence that stuff to ((Think, a warehouse owner who sells the goods to unsuspecting merchants.)) so as to make your cut. Yeah. I seriously want that.)