I've been playing Skyrim pretty much since it's release, and I've been enjoying it quite a bit.

I'm still on my first character, and I've been playing pretty much without spoilers or guides, which is quite fun too.

But one irritating part of the game is that there are some quests I can't complete unless I go out of character. My first character is a Good Warrior type.

So I ran across some "Unusual Gems" and made the mistake of picking them up. Obviously the start of a quest. Which I thought "Great I've find a quest!", but now I see that to continue that quest I have to join the thieves guild. My Good Warrior character doesn't want to join the thieves guild - I'll have another character for that.

So not only can't I continue the quest, but I now have three undroppable Unusual Gems in my inventory. And they have weight! I don't remember anything like that in Oblivion, Morrowind, or Fallout 3. Yes in Oblivion you couldn't drop the amulet without doing the main quest, but at least that had zero weight.

And then again, separately I discovered an amulet fragment dungeon. Great another quest! And this one is clearer, just go to two other dungeons. So I go to the second dungeon just fine, very interesting dungeon. Then I go to the third dungeon, Saarthal. But it needs a key, so I figure there is some puzzle I need to figure out to get the key. Wrong. waste of time, I have to join the mages college and do a quest! To complete this amulet quest.

Again this character does not want to enter the College of Winterhold. He doesn't have anything to do with magic except for basic restoration. I know that sadly you don't need magic for the college, but still I don't want to enter until my next character (which will be a mage).

So now I have another set of items that I can't drop and are taking up inventory weight and are just generally annoying.

I'm guessing that there are other cases where this might happen. Now this is actually making exploring less enjoyable. Because I'm wondering if I'm making a mistake in picking up unique items.

Comments? Does this type of thing bother anyone else?

1.You have to find 24 Unsusual gems...or Stone of brenizah in order to give them to the Guild.
2.I finished the mages quests as a battlemage.And there's nothing about "Magic" that your character needs to perform in those quests.
2.All the quest items in the game that can't be dropped needs to be gived to some npc.Then they will Reward you with Gold:
Eye of the Falmer:Thieves Guild guy
Elder Scroll: The librarian Orc in the College.
Hope i helped.

That's not the point they are making, anyone can look that up in the UESP.

I agree, the game forcing quests onto you without allowing you to say no or remove them from the Quest Tracker is a real annoyance, I know most casual gamers probably don't care and that's fine, but it's common sense for Developers, especially in a game like this to GIVE us the ability to drop/ignore these quests.

The most annoying one I found I think was the Brynjolf incident during the MQ it pretty much railroad's you into Joining the Thieves guild because you can't persuade him to tell you where Esbern is without starting his quests, you can however talk to the Argonian Bartender in Riften to get the same outcome without triggering the Thieves guild, but the game doesn't tell you that, it simply tells you to talk to Brynjolf.

Quest items still have no weight, despite what's being displayed. Just drop everything you can drop and you're at 0 encumbrance.

It can be annoying to have your inventory cluttered with undroppable items, but apparently gamers need to be protected from their own stupidity, there are already people that complain that they can't upgrade their thieves guild armor when they sold it, so the next game will have all faction-armor as quest items.

I agree that there should be a way to get rid of quests you don't want to finish. My character walked away from the Companions the moment they proposed to turn him into a Werewolf, actually, I never talked to them again after the first generic job, since I would be stuck with the Silver Hand quest infinitely if my character actually walked away for a reason.

I don't really like the thought that my fun is being hindered because alot of people who don't understand these kind of games are stupid, It couldn't hurt to have made that NPC be like "Hang on to that armor" or something so they were warned, or let the players suffer, you sold your TG armor? So what, that was a stupid idea.

Personally I find it to be one of the handiest sets in the game.

I dread to think what "Child-proofing" will take place in the next TES.

Really that is useful info. Thanks!

Still annoying that I can't get them out of inventory. And more annoying that I can't complete the quests I've started working on without going out of character.


Yes, that's my main point. You are kind of forced into doing things your don't want your character to do.

Yes I know I could enter the College of Winterhold and advance with using no magic. (That is unfortunate by the way, there should be skill requirements, etc, like in Morrowind.) But I don't even want to see the inside with this character. This character has no interest in the college. My next character will be a Breton who crossed the border specifically to learn about Magic in the College.

Even the Companion, which seem made for this character turned out to be frustrating. "The first people I do any real work for in the town want to turn me into a Ware-wolf, that's not normal!" My character doesn't want to be a filthy warewolf, one of my future characters likely will but not this one. But at least in that case I could just walk away from the offer, even if I can't advance in that questline.

BUUUF.Like JOG said,it's to protect the players agaisn't their own stupid.I heard of people that found the Elder Scroll before starting the main quest.Imagine if you could drop it anywhere just because the weight of 20 makes you Over-cumberd?

I'm not really talking about Items, We've always had "Quest Items" as far as I remember.

By the way you can sell the Elder Scroll to the Libarian at College of Winterhold once the MQ involving it is over. That scroll is quite heavy and I felt a lot lighter after that. Gee I wish I could say the same for all the quest items for side quests.

It's not really about "casual gamers" but rather "people who like action-adventure games but don't role-play" or "people who are used to the more common RPG-on-rails where one character (developer-invented and not player-invented) is expected to do all sidequests" (I actually enjoy these types of games as well, but it's a different sort of enjoyment). These sorts of people just want to do everything without regard to whether or not "their character" would do such a thing, and just want to do everything there is to do. Unfortunately for those who just want to play in the sandbox, those other sorts of people (the ones who want the game to supply everything because their imagination can't) are far more numerous and make for nice big sales numbers.

The clutter in my inventory annoys me sometimes but i like things to be orderly and am quite obsessive. Having two or three quests in the same place/dungeon, i think, is quite lazy. Also being 'forced' to join guilds. The MQ should be the MQ, but it practically throws you towards the Mages and Thieve's Guild.

Maybe I qualify as the "casual gamer" mentioned above, but just because someone asks me to do something and it shows up in my quest log doesn't mean I have to do it. If I don't have to, I don't. I really don't understand why people feel forced to do a quest just because it shows up in their log. I mean, if I sent you a message asking you to send me $10, would you feel compelled to do so?

I agree it clutters up the quest log sometimes, just like undroppable quest items clutters my inventory. Both are annoying. But as long as the quest item has no actual weight, it really isn't afftecting the game at all. So I don't think it's a big deal.

The problem is that some Quest Items in this game have WEIGHT.....unlike Oblivion, where quest items have ZERO weight. I do not like to carry extra weight.

guys, there is like 1000 threads about quest items, they all weigh 0 even if they display a weight, try do some maths

Quest items and essential characters both exist for the same reason- to protect people from themselves. Can you imagine how many whiny threads there'd be here by people who broke their game by either selling all their quest stuff, or killing random passersby and offing someone important? The occasional item stuck in inventory is a small price to pay to not have to deal with it.

not sure I can be much help for a "good warrior" type... not sure what that is, to tell the truth, so I'm inserting "lawful good" in it's place.

you can get into the ratway beneath Riften without being a thief and you can speak to Vex in the Ragged Flaggon whether you're a thieves guild member or not. you might have to do some sort of less "good" things to get there... figure this... they're thieves and living like rats under the city, if you have to kill a couple in self defence, just say something nice over their corpses and move along. I believe Vex sends you to someone else or gives you the quest for the unusual gems... but I'll warn you... you'll have to steal about 99% of them so... maybe less "good" than you'd be happy with.

again, there's a mage going back and forth between the college and saarthal doing a "very secret special project" there... if you're the sneaky type Alvor the blacksmith has some lighter leather gear for you and well... you have the option of killing that man OUTSIDE the college and he'll have a key on him. Otherwise, I'm thinking you'll have to bite it and go to the college and do the first two steps of the quest chain, you're not being bad in any way and even get introduced to a new way to be really good, like save the whole world good... if you like that sort of thing. Every warrior benefits from knowing some kick-A wards, right? You don't have to be primarily a caster to do the mages line quest, you'll just be sort of incongruous at the end... do it to figure out why. LOL

I've never seen one of those gems have the red Steal or be marked Stolen in my inventory. They always just say Take and never had the stolen flag for me.

@Vermilion Sparrow

"Take" it from the bedside where it's spinning in it's pretty gold box next to where Balgruuf is sleeping and a guard will inform you that you're stealing if you're not stealthy... same thing in Arch Mage Aren's chambers and a number of other locations. You're on the quest line so there's pretty white letters on your screen that tell you to take the item and the people in the rooms with them are still quite possessive of them. Beth knew not all of us would want to steal so mostly the gems are in places that are fairly unprotected and often empty... they didn't put them in empty rooms and abandoned houses because the item itself is important enough not to be treated that way.

white letters or red, you're stealing them. perhaps "reallocating" would be a better word? a good guy would make sure to tell himself that he's reassembling the crown.

Never had anybody say anything about me taking them...

There's also a bit laziness on the developer's part that nowadays can be explained with costs for voice out. Where is that Radiant AI feature we heard so much about? Remember? The game was supposed to create an alternative way to finish the quest on the fly should "something happen" to an important NPC. The only new thing I found about quests is the modern adaption of Dagerfall's generic quests.