*High Five!* Yep. I've played TES since Arena, and the major draw is the simple ability to do anything you want to in the games (assuming play on PC of course). There's NOTHING better!

I've had at it since Morrowind, tried a Daggerfell rom and wasn't thrilled, but still, TES is near and dear to my heart and creativity parts. <3

Arena and Daggerfall are really hard for people fairly new to the series to handle, just seriously graphically antiquated (though the storylines are EXCELLENT if you can get past the blocks.... um.... pixels....)

Right now, I'm not playing anything ("real" machine had to go back to mfr for repair - free thank GODDESS! - and my truly antique 8 year old laptop simply won't run anything well.... it's the lack of decent graphics card, it's a chip with no RAM of its own.... At least it lets me do most other stuff without issue, for which I AM truly thankful.... Hope my real machine gets back to me this week.... *sigh*)

There are good things to do as the Dragonborn. You can help people in the nine Holds, and be rewarded with the title of Thane in each region. You get rewarded for helping people finding stolen or missing items, or resolving disputes. You can give money to random encounter farmers who have lost everything. You can stop threats in Skyrim. You can be proactive and investigate a murder, stop an attempted murder, and help one side in a civil war between two factions that are lead by flawed (but well-meaning) leaders who are both trying to do what they think is best for Skyrim.

Some quests do make you question if it's good or not, and it depends on your own morality: you can meet an old Orc who wants to die an "honorable death." Is it good to grant him what he wants, or is it good to leave him be, even though he wants to die as tradition demands? While some Daedric Quests can be seen as evil or good, some do leave it up to you to determine their outcome: Is it good to return the Star to Azura to create Azura's Star, or to help Nelacar construct the Black Star because of his arguments about the nature of the Daedric Princes? There's also the demand made of you by the Blades, which is another dilemma that focuses on your own morality, and whether it's right or wrong.

I think the College of Winterhold is fairly good, although the narrative is geared towards a mage-centric character. I never really felt like an evil character would fit the narrative, given who you encounter at certain times. The Companions is geared towards a warrior, especially in terms of the negative view some of the Companions hold towards magic and mages, as well as the negative view against stealth combat, but I think it's another good faction; the members of the Circle in the Companions are also made up of people who are divided on a "particular issue," but overall they help people and are highly regarded by the people of Skyrim.

As for some quests focusing on being a "bad guy," you aren't forced to engage them if you don't want to. A good character can leave the Thieves Guild in disarray, destroy the Dark Brotherhood, refuse to engage the Daedric Princes he (or she) thinks are vile (like Molag Bal), helping end the civil war, and stopping Alduin.

I like that Skyrim allows me to have a proactive character, which was an issue I had with Dragon Age II, where I felt very railroaded by the plot and unable to do a lot of things I wanted to. In Skyrim, I have a Tribunal mage who tried to do what was right: my Dunmer defied Azura (as he shared Nelacar's views), helped the people of the nine Holds, helped his fellow mages (and even some random ones that sought him out), stopped the Thalmor, and never engaged in the "dark" quests, while I have another character who became a member of the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood. My point is that there's room to do both, with seperate characters, or stick to one type of style if you would prefer. Simply because there are quests that can be viewed as "bad" doesn't negate the fact that there are also "good" quests that reward you as well.