EDIT: MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD


You go to Whiterun to kick off "Dragon Rising" and there's a big [censored] Giant stomping on Pelagia and his Elven girl, cue the Companion's bashing it's face in along with an offer to join their guild of mercenaries. If by chance you miss this encounter fret not because everybody and their grandmother (literally, ask Fralia Gray-Mane) knows and will proclaim that the companions are looking for new blood.

Fast forward to "A Cornered Rat" which takes place in the very Rat Way where the Thieves Guild resides. To make matters worse Delphine particularly singles Byrnjolf out as a contact. And even if you bypass him by speaking to Keerava at the Bee & Barb he'll hunt you down like you owe him rent money just so he could give you his little "business proposition".

And finally after discovering your destiny plastered on Alduin's Wall and speaking to the leader of the Greybeards you're sent on a sojourn, called "Elder Knowledge", to the College of Winterhold in which entrance conveniently requires you be a member. The only way to bypass this is to utterly break immersion and role play inertia and get the info directly from the horse's mouth in an outpost in the middle of nowhere.

You maybe thinking "wait a second, where does the Dark Brotherhood fit into all of this?". Well it's plain as day that this would be the very first quest line you'd pick up after the Main Quest and the Civil War. For some reason every barkeep from Markarth to Riften knows about a boy named Aventus Aratino in Windhelm. In a country where the main forms of travel and communication are carriage and courier respectively I find this surprising to say the least.

So I've come to the conclusion that the player character like so many avatars of Akatosh and Shor before him/her is a demigod savant that can do and canonically will do EVERYTHING. They will have mastered all 18 skills and have maxed out perks in all of them. They will be a Master Werewolf and Vampire Lord at the same time. They will kill both Tullius and Ulfric after defeating both their armies while fighting for them at the same time. And they will have become leader of every guild in Skyrim.

So, does this bother anyone else? Is anybody with me in not wanting to be "force fed" in game content?

TL;DR: stop being lazy and read if you decided to open the thread

It is really annoying. They railroad you quite a bit if you do a lot of high level quests. i've been avoiding a lot of quests on my NPC hardcoe character and they still pile up from passing conversations as you walk through town.

I think they wanted to make it "easy" for everyone to get into the factions of their choice. To this day whenever I visit Riften with a character NOT going to join the Thieve's Guild I avoid a Brynjolf like it's no one's business lol. In them trying to make it easy they kind of made it annoying... "I'm the Dovahkiin I need to find this old guy.." "Well lad, why dontcha join my group of thugs....." "I'm the Dovahkiin, I'm busy trying to save the world." "Well Lad, Why dont you go punk these people for me?"
"FUS RO DAH!!!!"

Indeed I find it annoying. On my thief character I forever have the Misc quest objects to join the Companions because I walked by somebody who happened to mention it to me. Thankfully, I've learned what speech topics not to talk about to avoid also having the College objective also forever sitting there.

It feels very force fed at times.

Take Hearthfire for example. If you want to adopt a child from Honorhall you first need to have that old [censored] out of the way. And the only way to do that is to kill her. Thats even IF by some chance you never heard about the kid in Windhelm performing the black sacrement. So you kill her. How do you know your suppose to? Don't know. Either way Constance is the only one to allow you to adopt so the old [censored] has to die. The problem is Constance will run around screaming "Someone help!" until you go to Windhelm, visit the kid and get that over with. Oh and then be prepared to be kidnapped in your sleep by the brotherhood.

If your RPing as a decient character who just doesn't kill because he/she wants to... you'll never be able to adopt a kid. In fact you can't even destroy the brotherhood unless you pretend to be one and help the kid in windhelm? Why?

And the thieves guild. Its stuffed into your mouth the moment you enter Riften. my character goes in there with HONEST pay in her pockets intent on selling stuff to the merchants and he walks up with his whole "I can see you haven't worked an honest day's work in your life by all the coin you carry."

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE Skyrim and find ways to RP around all this stuff... but I still have to break immersion from time to time.

My current character is not a thief(told Brynlof to bugger off), not an assassin(destroyed them for kidnapping her-all she wanted was do adopt Runa) and not a mage(quest objective still says check in- I went straight to the old orc in the library)

To an extent i agree, it has been dumbed down but you cannot have total free role play, we would still be waiting for the game in 30 years time if that was to be developed so some structure is inevitable, if interest is to be maintained main quest lines are needed but could more choices have been made available within them?probably but again there has to be a trade off with something else.

i think it all just boils down to playstyle, what you want out of that particular character, and the ability to ignore quests in your log that you dont intend to complete or dont fit the role you have designed. i think its entirely plausible to play one character thru all of the questlines if its what you want to do with that character or if you can get creative with role playing ideas. obviously if its your first play thru you are most likely going to just bumble along and take whatever quests are thrown your way regardless of it it breaks immersion. but any character after that you should at least have a small idea of where certain faction quests start and what to do to avoid them. take for instance, the college of winterhold, you dont have to be a mage to get in, you dont have to cast a spell to get in, from the example you gave with the main QL there is an option to use your use your status as dragonborn and a shout to get in. sure that option will still cause the college quests line to appear in your quest log, but so what, if your not a mage and never plan to do those quests eventually it will move down to the bottom of the list and you can just ignore it.

from a roleplayers standpoint tho, there is no need to complete every story line but it does make it interesting to try to fit as many into one character as possible. and its entirely possible to avoid the main quest and most of the faction quests entirely. my most recent character is an exiled imperial, who started her life in skyrim by going straight to riften from helgen to join infamous the thieves guild, from there her ability in the thieves guild drew the attention of the dark brotherhood and sithis. the other deadra being the jealous types decided they wanted a piece of action and decided to tempt her with even more power. the irony of it all is that this merciless killer and chosen of the deadra is also destined to slay alduin save tamriel.... the possibilities from there are (virtually) endless....

this is just one players 2cp

Yeah, I hate this, as well. It's especially annoying because there are some Shouts that are only available via dungeons that only open for members of certain guilds. Same with the stones of Barenziah, Dragon Priest masks, and that Galdur amulet fagment that can only be found in Saarthal, requiring you to join the College. These quests are only completable if you decide to make your character an omnipotent polymath.

Building a specific type of character requires some planning... and a possible first playthrough. It's too easy to get sidetracked into some kind Aedric/Daedric worshipping Jack of All Trades Friend of Orcs, Dibellan seductress, and Chef Assassasin Extradordinaire. edit: not to mention, a Dragonborn.

frustrating yes, but just part of the challenge imo. if you want to access to the best shouts or want the best gear you will have to make sacrifices or important moral plays to make it happen. you have to think outside the box. is ulfric a hero of the people or just another arrogant noble making a power play?

It doesn't really ask you to make tough choices or moral compromises - it just asks you to break character for the sake of completing a quest or gaining a new power. It feels very "gamey" to me.

Say my morally good thief character sets off on a personal quest to collect all the stones of Barenziah. There are some stones that can only be obtained by joining other factions - the one in Astrid's bedroom in the DB sanctuary, for example. Why would my character join the DB just to get that stone? Why would my thief even consider "Hey, if I join the DB maybe I'll find some Barenziah stones along the way!" It's not a natural decision you'd ever make, and it relies on player knowledge over character knowledge to acheive your objective - breaking the roleplaying experience.

Take the Galdur amulet for example, in "Lost Legends". You know the fragment is in Saarthal, but it's locked until you do the College quest to open it up. You don't know why it's locked, and you don't know who to talk to to unlock it. You just have to rely on your knowledge of the game to break character and do what you've gotta do to get it.

Yes, good points ("player" vs "character" thinking). A lot of it wasn't designed for characters, I agree. It was designed for players.. and probably a specific type of player - the "achiever". Specifically the achiever type who wants Xbox achievements. That [censored] has no place in an RPG, imo. Or rather achievements are harmless in and of themselves, but it shouldn't be a focal point, which I think it was in this case.