Outside of a mine (not in a town), I dropped a pick axe, and the Guard got all nasty with me, telling me that I could hurt someone and that I should watch out or there would be trouble.

It was a mine entrance next to a smelter you dumb a$$!

R

Dropped a tankard by the roadside once, triggered a fight to the death between two Thalmor Justiciars

Or use it as an opportunity for some amazingly badass lines.

"Here, I think you dropped this."
"Oh, no, consider it a gift."

*stab*

Dropped a sword once and an NPC came to me and asked if he can have it. I said no and he was upset and angry at the same time and said something like "Oh, OK. Then don't drop your items on the floor" and continued to talk to himself: "Made me excited for nothing". I was like

I dropped a battleaxe in Jarl Elisif's bedroom and then a guard rushed in and threatened to arrest me because someone could get hurt. I picked the axe up, but it took me a while to realize that the guard actually reacted to such a casual thing.

I dropped myself once, dead, and my killer the bandit remarked dryly: "They call me a savage, but at least I don't leave my garbage lying around!" Thanks pal.

On-topic again, I'll have to try this a lot with my thalmor character. Should be fun. Is it also possible to make the Dark Brotherhood members fight each other like this?

I'm wondering if this might not be effective for distracting two enemies - have them fight each other and just let me keep walking...

Ah, so that's how we get rid of them. Everybody start dropping tankards! We can thin out their numbers and force them to pull back to Summerset Isles!

Hrmmmm, so far ive only got the reaction from the gaurd not to drop weapons or someone could get hurt. But something i've seen that seemed really messed up , and considering all the "mod" concerns over killing children on the mod's thread sticky, i was in solitude, in the tavern right next to where you enter the city and there was a kid in there drinkin it up and clappin to the minstrel. It just hit me as a bit messed up,,,cant post mods dealing with fixing the invunerable children that keep attackin yah if somethin goes down, but its all cool to portray a kid gettin smashed in the tavern????