While I have had a lot of fun exploring Skyrim, and trying most all of the quest lines available, I find that I am left with little to do on my latest play through as a 'good' character.

By 'good', I try not to attack humans/orcs/elves unless attacked first, I don't steal or murder, and try not to cause harm.

This means that I can't do the Thieves guild or DB quest line, and most all of the Daedric quests are off limits except for Meridia and Azura. I also don't want to do the Companions quest, as the benefit gained there doesn't quite fit this type of character. I am also staying out of the civil war line as neither side is 'good'. Both sides are out for themselves and perform despicable acts to achieve their ends.

So, whats left, Main quest, College of Winterhold, and Bards college. Guess this will be my last play through....it WAS fun though, I just wish there was more to do....

You can do the Companions and find a "cure" for their affliction. They'll even thank you for it. Also, most of the quests invovling becoming Thane of a region seem to be good, or at worst nuetral. Even though they're not true questlines, there's enough of them to make a playthrough worthwhile.

But I agree... pickings are slim for true good players.

I disagree. It's about the same as a bad character if you play them as truely bad. My bad character doesn't care about the petty squabbles between the Empire and the Stormcloaks so there goes that entire quest line. He also could care less about the Graybeards or what the Dragons are doing so there goes the main quest line. He can't do the Companions guild or help any of the towns people with their stupid problems. I actually find it more limited than my good characters who can pretty much do everything except TG, DB, and a handful of quests that are geared towards an evil character like the cannibalism one. I guess it's all in how you play the character.

Are you on PC? whether or not you are how do you feel about doing some Light missions, and having RS missions for the divines? like for instance Arkay would give blessings to you for every black soulgem you bring to the shrines to be destroyed, and even more bonuses for Gems with souls in them, so long as you weren't the one who filled them.

just an example

I actually think it would be kind of silly if there were too many purely "good" quests. It's more fun if there are quests that force you to make tough decisions about your character's morals. If all the quests were good, you wouldn't really feel good. Not murdering people doesn't make you good. I like it when there's quests that make you stop and think: "Is this really worth it, or am I in over my head?"

Not sure if that made any sense... I'm not doing very a very good job of putting this into words.

But I get what you mean, There isn't a lot of stuff that's all good. The only thing I can think of is do more exploring, there's a ton of interesting stuff to do and see outside of quests!

I think that depends on your own view of morality. I have subjective morality which I usually pass on to all my characters, so I don't see the thieves guild necessarily as "evil" or "bad" because normally we end up robbing from the rich. It would be nice if there was an option to create a charity with them so that the money would be put to good use, but I don't see stealing from the rich as being wrong.
It just really depends, because sometimes I see certain evil things as misunderstood and certain good things as wrong sometimes. like when you have to torture a priest for a Dedra. The priest follows a god that condones murder- in fact she encourages her followers to kill so I don't see torturing him as the "wrong" thing to do.
it would be nice if you could talk your way out of things like if you start a quest that's considered "evil" you can turn it around so you can have some sort of "good" option. the first time I played I accidentally accepted the cannibal quest and got to the part where I had to kill the priest. I thought there would be some option to turn it around or something but there wasn't. I never really saw TES morality as black and white in the end it almost always comes down to killing someone when it comes to quests.

Watch this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2d2KRIUYCM

Maybe your character's soul could be mortally wounded by the evil in the world, so you slowly turn bad because there's no other choice...

When playing a good character I try to avoid stealing from anyone. I still view it as wrong whether the person looks rich, or like a beggar. When playing a more ruthless character, I don't care who I steal from. If I need something, I am going to take it.

Definitely harder to play a "good" character in Skyrim. Oblivion had the mage guild, fighters guild, and Knights of the Nine to keep you busy along with the many sidequests which were often nuetral of good in nature.

I don't want to tell you what to do, OP, but I have one issue with your list of quests you can or can't do:

The Companions quests. You say you can't do them, because "the benefit gained there doesn't quite fit this type of character". Now, I understand you're trying to play a good character, who doesn't do evil - or perhaps even morally questionable - things. And that's fine. But to make that decision on the ultimate benefit to your character? I think that's what I have a problem with.

To me, "good" characters make choices based on helping others - not the payoff to themselves. If you can do something that will help 20 people, and results in a reward you may not feel appropriate to your character, well, first, your character wouldn't know about the reward until done, no? Second, your character could simply give away/sell/not use the reward if they feel it doesn't suit them - and still help 20 people.

As example, since it's the only companions quest I've completed thus far, look at Proving Honor. You are asked to recover an hitorical artifact of great significance. Why would a good character feel that this quest is not for them? Seems like something a good character would be fine with doing.

I'd think you're good character should look more to the benefit to others of doing certain quests, than in what the payout to him is, when deciding to do it or not.

even a lot of the mini quests end poorly, "find my sister", dead at the bottom of a river, "find my husband", crushed in a mine. very few happy ending here.

I'm playing through as a good character right now but my roleplay now is that he was accidentally mixed up in the db, and now he's under contract or they will kill his family.

Aye, and there's the rub. Skyrim quests, as well as a few of them may be written, tend to be very linear. You only stop and think "Is this really worth it?" when the quest is offered to you. Once you accept it, much more often than not, you have to either complete it the way that the quest's author envisioned (however "good" or "evil" that way might be) or just don't complete it at all. Offhand, I can think of three daedric quests (Azura, Namira, and Vaermina), the Riverwood love letter quest, the "find the Redguard woman" quest, and the "steal Frost" quest which give you two options for how to complete them, but that's it. Everything else pretty much just offers one possible ending and one route to get there.

Most misc quest and those required to ascend to thanehood are of benign nature.

I can agree to a certain extent that the big plotlines are more or less about selfish accomplishments; this coupled to the lack of option to resolve a certain situation in two or more ways, certainly reduce the option for characters who are not intended to complete every quest at every cost.

Wait, isn't like the first mission for the Companions that you have to beat up that nice priestess lady of Whiterun because she refused to pay protection money? My good character ditched the companions after that, I didn't see a way around it. There was no option to pay Vilkas yourself, for instance. Also made them look like jerks.

I had to beat a big Nord guy in Windhelm on this quest, so the dice are rolling.

well you should be able to do moste side and misc quest as a good character. if you get a quest to get a sword from a cave with bandits you character can go there with the mindset of trading something for the sword. than when the bandits attack you kill them in self defense then press forward to find someone "reasonable" untill you find the sword.

and ta da you compleet the quest buy trying to be good

I hate the fact that the Dark Brotherhood got a whole unique storyline when other Good factions didn't.

I would've liked the option in some of the Daedric quests to make the Prince's power in Skyrim even weaker than it was. Molag Bal and Clavius Vile come to mind. However , OP, you can do most of them to a point and then choose not to help the Daedric Prince, teh Razor quest.

As others have pointed out, the Companions quest line starts with you beating up a woman. LoL, way to go DragonBorn!

The other thing that quest line has you do is slaughter the Silver Hand group. The people in that group are pretty despicable, with their torture and dismemberment of werewolves and suspected werewolves, but would a 'good' person participate in their slaughter, just because they oppose the Companions?

Thanks Tuckley! You've inspired me to try this! It certainly looks like fun!

You know when someone is killing an innocent person and everyone else is standing around watching them and not do anything about it? Those people are pacifists. And they svck.

I'm the Skyrim equivalent of William Munny (Film Unforgiven)

"That's right. I've killed women and children. I've killed just about everything that walks or crawled at one time or another. And I'm here to kill you"!

Mwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah it pretty much feels like being a human on earth.

Explore more. You wont get quest "lines" but there are a lot of quests scattered around the world.