Wouldn't it be great if you could interact more within the taverns ?

I mean after all it's supposed to be a place to relax after a hard day of killing chickens and I was thinking that it would be good if you could take part in drinking contests with the NPC's or even with a follower. The taverns have always had a decent atmosphere but I would like it to be a more enjoyable experience. I'm sure that it could be introduced in a patch.

Would anyone else agree this could be a decent idea ? Or do you have any other ideas for tavern interaction besides the drink contests ?

I would like that idea. Just as long as I get to see my character doing these things though.

It wouldn't be too hard to mod in a certain Sam Gwynne's drinking contest sequence into a separate dialogue, maybe some classic TES tavern games like shells and patron entertainment...

I could think of buying everyone a drink and start a big party .

And...uh... hoeing.

Perhaps the gamemakers thought that after the one drinking contest in his/her life, the Dragonborn will never want another one

On topic - not necessarily games strictly speaking, but here goes:
- how about brawls, like those you already have at certain points, only as random encounters; you could win money or a small valuable
- conversations with alchemist and mage characters where you would have to persuade them to teach you a potion recipe, some enchantment or spell
- a Skyrim equivalent of some dice game, for cash or valuables
- using services of a travelling fortune teller to get to know your future (they could use, for example, small stones with runes on them)
- knife-throwing contest? as a mini-game where you have to aim
- for mage characters - an animation where using spells, you do something like a mini indoor firework display
- or acting as a bard and doing something guitar-hero-like; depending on how well or bad you do people start booing your or dancing (ok, I admit... this one would be a MAJOR copyrights issue)

The idea came to me when I was sitting in Lakeview Manor and I thought, even though I've now got a massive house it's kind of boring. Why can't I have a drinking contest with my wife and Faendal my steward. Or decide to take a walk from my manor to riverwoods tavern for a night of drinking with one of them. Yeah buy everyone a round and just have a bit of fun etc. I think it would be pretty cool and I don't think it would hard to add in the animation of your character taking a drink during the contest. More recreational fun would add quite a lot to the role playing aspect. You can chat to everyone in the tavern but once the dialogue has been used up you should have the option to invite to drinking contest. Maybe gamble 20 gold on who's going to win.

Yeah I like your thinking, even just two or three of these ideas would be a nice change to add a bit more fun to skyrim. I don't really feel that connected to my wife or steward because of the lack of things you can do with them. Obviously I'm not expecting there to be lots of options considering the amount of content already in skyrim. Add a great tavern experience and I would be delighted