Alright, I gave it some thaught, I don't really have an alternative main plotline yet, just a different start up until now. Damn you Nerevarine1138, because of you I had my head revolving around the Thieves Guild, while I was just trying to get some sleep...

So, instead of Brynjolf walking up to the player, we would have a scripted event, in which the player is seeing someone sneaking into a house (in DnD you would get the possibility to call the guards and the option now laid out) and if he decides to follow him the thief attacks (owners are not there at the moment). Once the player overwhelms him, we go into a forced conversation, in which the thief wants to strike a deal. Now you could strike the deal or simply kill the guy. Either way (once you loot the body) you find out about his contract, in which details of the heist are drawn out (item to steal as well as the location of transfer). Now you could steal the item yourself and go to the point of transfer or you could go the guards and find out about their problems with thieves (get the quest to wipe out the guild). If you go to the point of transfer with the item in hand, the representative will be baffled, but you got the job done and he will offer you another smaller job (he doesn't even reveal to you up until now, that he is with the guild). And here you could get one of the smaller jobs Brynjolf assigns to you at the beginning.

Alternatively, the start could be, that when you break into a home yourself you get the scripted event.

The main plot would have two rival business owners backing two different guilds which are kind of in a full fledged guild war and therefore desperately recruiting. You could decide which one you would want to join and the one that contacts you first would be dependend on the location of the scripted event. (I would guess honor among thieves and the ensuing investigation by the guards would be reason enough for the guilds not to rat one another out.)

Opinions, since I might really want to use this for a DnD-group? ^^

Skyrim guilds throw you an epic!!!1! quest as soon as you join them and that. makes. no. sense. I don't get why guild quests should be about saving the world everytime. Doing mundane tasks(like hoarding rare artifacs for the mages guild), climbing the ranks, gaining power and influence etc. For that thieves guild of Skyrim is much more better than the rest. It's main plot is fits with the theme and guild quest makes you feel like, well, thief. I can even say it's the only guild questline in whole game.

There is always a world saving cliche which is called MQ. There are tons of dungeons as well and if i wanted to crawl in them i would. Guilds suppose to be here for pure role playing however they're nothing but pseudo main quests in Skyrim. Beth realy should stop to underestimate the intelligence of the players. We realy can enjoy well writen but somehow mundane, predictable quests. God that's the point of the guilds.

There's only one Guild in Skyrim that has a quest even remotely tied to saving the world. But I agree to a point. I'd like to have a certain level of mundanity to the quests I'm doing in the Guilds, but I would also like them to have a story. If it's just hanging out with these NPCs and doing fetch quests or kill that guy (like the radiant quests) that's really bad and boring. I think that the Guilds should be slower paced though. They should make you do the little mundane things a lot early on when you're new, but as you rise up the ranks you become more involved in that faction's storyline and as such are doing bigger, better, more exciting quests. And I'd like to add that if I'm roleplaying a thief and I can't become Guildmaster at the end of things I feel a little robbed (no pun intended). There needs to be some sort of storyline that allows you to become the head of the guild in my opinion. I don't care if it takes a long time (actually, I prefer it does), but I want to become the head of the faction(s) I join, since I'm the one doing all the work anyway.

I feel the same way and this is not my first RPG.

I'm a writer myself and I don't think it's reasonable to compare the Skyrim plotlines to e.g. a Bioware game where the story and character building is the most important element of the game. That and considering the fact that so many aspects of Skyrim are really well done (smithing, combat, buying and selling, hunting, enchantment, choosing perks, etc.), that the game can combine quantity and quality in a satisfying way, makes me less hard on the story lines. In which open world game do you find a story in every tiny cave? It does not always have to be this big epic story line...

This is such an awesome game. Why do so many people fail to see it? Is it the nostalgia goggles blinding you?

When i said saving the world i tried to simplify it.

. You want to be guild master fine but it should be possible only if your character intents do so by using normal ways (assasination, politics, persuasion, challenging etc). Skyrim just forces you to be the leader and kills or villainize the old guild master in the progress. Trying to be leader of a guild is fine but doing it so without some plot twist would be welcome.

On a slightly different note, one thing that has annoyed me since after Morrowind is why there only seems to be one base for any of the guilds. Once we establish links to another city, there should be another guild club opened up, with separate quests there. They may well be radiant or mundane, but it would help make the guild seem a little "bigger".

There were guild halls in almost all cities in Cyrodil in Oblivion. Well, I guess, not thieves guild or dark brotherhood, but the fighters and mage guilds had them.

Exactly this. I strongly disagree with the idea that each guild should have this "epic story" ready to throw at our faces the second we show the slightest of interest in them. Okay in morrowind for the mages guild, the first few quests involves gathering flowers and mushrooms for an apprentice, someone who herself is extremely low in the ranks. This helped feeling as if you'd actually made friends on a more personal level with a guildmate (granted all the npcs in morrowind were just standing there looking at you), and helps feel as if you're doing guild business. In skyrim, after getting a tour of the university (which is a fine start) you are thrown STRAIGHT into the epic plot, which is just annoying

Indeed, Bethesda's game's focus is on the world, not on the story.

However comparing it to their earlier games it seems that in Skyrim they only focused on the world and left everything else half-finished. Especially the guilds. And the Civil War.

Still, i think Thieves Guild in Skyrim is the best one. For better or worse

Eh eh...brief and straight to the point.

I second that. Also that article is being unfair mostly, okay recruitment part was weak but rest are ignorable and understandable things. Also when i read: "Someone is engaged in a plot to reduce the margins on mead production for the local crime-lord?!? This is not exactly a tale of intrigue worthy of this sort of guild." ...Yeah it's not intrigue worthy because we're not robbing the Hermaeus Mora blind!

It's an awesome game and for example Daedric quests are perfectly done, i can even say they were better than almost every Daedric quest that previous TES games had. However Skyrim's approach to guild quests is just awkward: starting a minor plot and an adventure? Also Oblivion DB and thieves guild had great quests(gameplay wise) something Skyrim lacks.

The Thieves Guild quest is basically a down-up-down type story. Only problem: The first "down" beginning part of the story kind of svcks. The Thieves Guild guy who talks to you after you go into Riften isn't exactly subtle of...Thievery. As much as I hated the independent thieving quests in Oblivion, at least the beginning made sense.

But the up...man was the middle part of the story good. After you discover the Nightingale symbol in Goldenglow, everything becomes slowly better until you meet Karliah. That's when it becomes really good. It becomes sort of a thief epic.

Until finally, the story ends and you have to do the god awful radiant quests. At least help me out and let me choose which city to hit!

Im playing my orc warrior as an adventurer/treasure hunter turned Hero upon discovering his DragonBorn ability. So in addition to his treasure hunting he is now newly discovering some sense of do-goodery. But he had been amassing these odd gems and upon entering Riften discovered he could get these things appraised. He had to do a couple of favors for these unsavory characters which didnt sit well with Dispater. Now they keep asking him to do job after job and wont buy these gems off of him, so thats the last job I do for them. They can finish their own quests. Now if only I could get rid of these gems from my inventory.

(PS I dont like being forced into doing unsavory things - being a thief - if only to make some room in my inventory. You should be able to drop quest items or they should weigh nothing.)

It makes sense for the Companions and College to have only one base of operations, but it would have been nice to establish new hideouts for the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood outside of the default ones. Especially if it allowed you to get away from a certain person's influence with your guilds.