Never really liked becoming the master of a guild due circumstances, because even if there is an end-game to this, it's never done right.
Those titles are merely symbolic and don't come with 'real' responsibility, because the actual management is done by other people.

I don't really want to become the 'leader' anyway, from roleplaying perspective this means your character is "retired" from adventuring and is supposed to be focussed on his new job.

I think it's a lot better to focus on stories and career-paths that are less dependable.
Leading a mercenary group, or becoming an entrepreneur or a pirate/thief etc... that's all good because you can quit doing those things whenever you want and it's still believable.

As far as some other established guilds go, it doesn't make any sense that a young adventurer takes over after saving the guilds ass a few times over the course of a month or two.

I would be perfectly happy to receive a highly respected status with some additional benefits while not being at the top of the ladder. Preferably still being able to do some (randomly generated) shores.
Being able to become the leader of every organisation you join is just ridiculous and unnecessary, especially when you don't have a choice.

I agree with you. It's disrespectful to the game world to let the player be the leader of every guild they join, and it never makes any sense. Being a high ranking member free of paperwork is the best thing.

I think this is a brilliant idea actually

It would be nice if final guild quests at least gave you the choice of taking the leadership role or appointing someone else that you deemed worthy of the title, etc.

I doubt we will get another "head of every guild" situation in Skyrim. Advancing in one guild should create conflicts to your advancement (or membership at all) in opposing guilds. And with the civil war setting, this kind of predicament is likely. So even if we do become head of a guild, at least it will be a little less absurd than in Oblivion.

Perhaps it'd be a good idea if you couldn't actually join most organisations, but just did jobs for them as an outsider (perhaps with the excuse of "we need someone from the outside so we can deny our involvement if you muck up"). This would still give you perks within the organisation as would a membership, but it would also explain how you can just break loose when the quest line is over. Perhaps some organisations should require you to actually join (such as political or religious factions), but also just give you an honorary title that doesn't need you to actually do work for them when their quest line is done.

I think it fine to be able to become head of every guild in a very long game but only if you meet requirements (skill) to do so and only if you are able to work through some conflicts that arise in belonging to different ones.

I like being the leader though, but hopefully I feel more like a leader rather than just nothing to do afterwards. You don't have to rank up in the guild if you don't want to though. It would make sense to be leader of every guild. Even in the real world if you strive hard enough you can be in the lead of everything. It's much easier to do it in a RPG. I'm tired in many rpg's of not having authority, and being the one taking it. TES did it right and I just hope that when we are leader in a certain guild in Skyrim that there is actual chores we have to do and such.

It that doesn't adress the issue that it feels extrememly empty to become the archmage and then just be free to go on your merry way. The archmage should be someone constantly tied up in guild policies ect ect. I do hope some guilds will eliminate eachother as possibilities though, I loved that with the great houses, having to pick a side and remain loyal to your choice.

I don't think that any of the main Guild you should ever have to choose. If they throw in a guild similar to the great houses that should be acceptable. I'm sure being archmage won't feel empty in Skyrim.

Lacking an "other" option, I voted no, mostly because there will likely be many who do want to reach the highest guild rank in one or more guilds, and roleplayers (or anyone with a liking for quasi-realism within the world's lore) will always be left the option of simply not gaining the ranks they'd feel were inappropriate.

In the same vein though, I'd much rather the highest guild rank for each guild was much more challenging to acquire, or at least required a far more specific sequence of events to take place. Elsewise, I agree with the OP. My characters, when they've joined guilds at all, have always stayed a few ranks below the top for roleplay and/or lore reasons, and gaining the highest rank seemed more like an out-of-character achievement than a convincing progression of character or change in the game world.

I like the idea of having a choice. I would take it a step further though. I say if you decide to become the leader of a guild you should be forced to cut your ties with the other guilds (conflit of interest). Now if you choose to be just a highly respected member, you should be free to join or stay in any other guild you want.

They could do what they did with Morrowind and allow you to choose a guild but you wouldn't be able to be in the other guild. If they do that then I want a place outside the Mages Guild where you can enchant items instead of being required to join the mages guild in order to do so.

I do really feel that personal consquences to your choices also means a greater feeling of impact. I do however agree that a lot of factions (hoping there will be a lot) shouldn't exclude eachother. Personally I'm hoping for various clans to allow yout o join in their battle for dominance

I always felt like this was the weakest aspect of the TES games. Its very anti-climactic and makes the game fizzle out towards the end.

I would like some end game content for these guilds. In the fighters guild I would like to lead groups of fighters into battle. In the thief’s guild I want to send people out thieving, and maybe go out with other thief’s through a large castle or mansion. You could advance to a high rank in each guild where you continued to have multiple quests you can do.

It should also feel as though the guild is continuing to change during this content. It would tear me out of my immersion if once you reached this high rank the guild stopped feeling like a real guild and you Plateau’d along these quests.

Well, I'm not so sure. I've lived a long life and have been a member and in charge of a number of different organizations in my lifetime. There comes a time when you hand over the reins to someone else or delegate duties to someone else which then give you time to join another organization and climb up the ladder in that one. Donating time and energy and adding to ones list of achievements for their lifetime. As we live we wander a bit and fine new causes. Sometimes we just pile them up and give to/volunteer for/work for/research for different ones. Sometimes we change directions and drop out of one organization to join another with opposing views because we learned a bit more.
Our choices change in life and in a game that can last hundreds of hours (a lifetime for our character) I'm not sure why our character can't change and bend and move on thoughout their life as well.

I think what is most important is that there be skill requirements for each guild and unless they are met...no advancement. When that is the case, one would have to play many, many more hours to achieve the skill requirements to belong to each and every guild. I will say however the houses in MW were interesting and enjoyable and gave a bit of reason to play through the game again to try a different house and it did force one to make a choice and I did quite enjoy that aspect. But for guilds, I had at least one game in both MW and Oblivion that joined every one and it worked just fine with role I was playing at the time. In oblivion however, advancement did not seem like much of a big deal since there were no requirements for advancement and there were no conflicts to work through and nobody seemed to recognize my character's position. I found that part frustrating and it fell flat.

I couldn't agree more about the skill requirement, I'm with you there. But in your examples, you say you moved on to other business/projects. This is not the case as guild leader of a guild in TES. Just remember how many times the guild leader becomes relevant to you as you advance through the guild, now times that with the number of members of the guild and you should now how many responsibilbilty SHOULD rest on the shoulders of a guild leader. The leader of a guild is not just someone who has a project and helps the guild and then moves on. The guild leader is supposed to represent the guild, be what all members strife to be. And even if they added the abillity to "Move on" as you put it, that should relieve you of your guild leader status and makes you an honorable member perhaps.

Yes it would be cool like if your in a army faction you cant become some kinda general but you could be colonel

Those are really good points. Especially from a roleplaying perspective, it's easy to imagine an eccentric or mysterious new Archmage (for example), especially one with an adventurous background, delegating all his guild duties and serving more as a figurehead, retaining a lot of freedom. The guild might be glad to have a powerful (the PC is typically not at all easy to assassinate!), relatively independent leader for the sake of stability and security. Kind of like Ridcully and the Unseen University, for anyone familiar with Discworld...

I agree about the skill ranks, as well. Rather than who the character is, skills deal with what the character can do, which can generally be a much more objective value. In terms of writing and quests, more emphasis should probably be placed on what changes in the guild after the PC advances, than on what is required to do so.

So you don't think a guild leader can delegate, take sole responsibility and still have other interests and causes? You don't think the head honcho in the UN can also be the head honcho in WHO? Or that one would be able to be the head of the Red Cross and also the president of the Lion's Club despite their being many members who can have duties delegated to? And once you are the head of the Mage's guild there might not be a time when you might want to hand over those duties to another in lieu of what your character sees as a more worthy and valiant cause in the Fighter's guild? I can see your point but there are very few people in the world who devote their whole life to one organization or cause. I can't think of very many organizations that force you to keep a lead position for a lifetime and to work only for them.

I find it unrealistic to limit the number of positions/careers/clubs/organizations one can belong to in a lifetime. Having requirements will limit the number you can achieve realistically so if you have a character that can reach those requirements and keep up with their duties I've no problem with it.

I agree with this. Just like characters in Bethesda games are free to explore the world to the limit of their own ability and desire to do so, character development should similarly not be artificially constrained because of "realism". You or I might have trouble holding down more than one job or devoting time to more than one organization, but alot of people do it and we're talking about a Fantassy world here. When I go into TES I don't want to be limited to only what I could do in Real Life - to heck with that, I want to go farther and faster, do more and achieve things I never could in real life. That is Fun. Being told that I'm "too busy" to hold down more than one job in TES is not Fun.

Let the limiting factor on the player be only the amount of time that the player can invest, and let us choose how far to go. Some will limit their experience to just one discipline out of desire, and others will become king of all. I think presenting us with those kinds of options is what Bethesda has become very good at, and I look forward to more of it with Skyrim!

Miax

First off, the time you play the game is the your characters full lifetime. Granted it's the only part of their life we know off and care for, but it still shouldn't be compared to a while lifes possibilities. ANd no I don't think someone can run 3 guilds at the same time, that's not very likely, and it takes away from the dedication to the guild you are leader off. That said it's not thing I actually set very high on my priorities list, I CAN see the games working with "you can rule everything" still intact, aslong as they actually have the leader position feel like a leader position, and actually have advancement require skill in whatever the given faction values. What I do hope for however, is what i mentioned earler, a number of clans where you'd have to pick you.

Yes, lower the ceiling for most guilds but not all. I think it would be better if you could only become master of one guild of your choosing. Other guilds could respond with something like "You would have made an excellent candidate to replace our leader. Unfortunately it seems your responsibilities with X guild are taking up most of your time."

I think the real problem is not that you can or can't become the leader of one or all organizations.

The real problem is that the path to leadership is the one opened for you by default. You haven't even the need to try. You follow orders for a short time and suddenly you are the leader.

The path to leadership should be something achieved by you own (wise) decisions. Not clear instructions, nor quest updates. Maybe a hint at some point that you could do something different to what is expected from you.

I agree that the leadership role is limited in its capabilities in oblivion (never got to the end of the guild quests in morrowind so idk if it is the same case here but i would imagine so), but limiting someone in this type of game isnt good.

As I said before on the same subject, its a great idea, because it leaves room for adding quests later in expansions or mods if the guild leader is there, its really lame to "lead" a guild by doing nothing!! guild leader have a tough job you know