Hi

I just started the TG questline. I see that in the bar, two npcs are offering side jobs like burglary, fishing etc. Are those quests meaningful in any way or are they a generic way of making you earn extra coin?

My plan is to squeeze as much fun story and dialogue as possible from the game, and that is my purpose by completing TG questline. If the side missions won't contribute to that, my plan is to skip them as I don't need gold.

So are they worth doing?

Thanks in advance

They are by no means, generic in terms of content, but they are basically simple ways to make some quick cash. Sometimes you can get a cool reward or a new follower too. DO SIDE QUESTS. They make the game feel real and keep you entertained much longer. Trust me the MQ and Faction Questlines don't last long.

I have only made a few MQ quests (maybe 5-10% progress), and I plan finishing MQ as the last thing, before I take a long break from Skyrim. I almost completed DB, and planning doing TG, MC and Companions afterwards, plus maybe some misc and Daedric and civil quests. This game is insanely huge :/

DB is a siiiiick questline. I have one thing to say that I hope doesn't ruin the game for you, which is that I STRONGLY recommend that you don't save the Main Quests for last. I did a very minimal about of side quests while doing the MQ, and honestly it was a way too easy. If you don't, i can only assume that it will be even more of a letdown. Don't get me wrong, SICK game, but it can get really easy at times.

If you do 3 or 5 side quests in a city other than Riften you are offered an special job, this has three effects, you get an new merchant in thief guild, main fence get more gold and you got an fence in the city.
Also an quest to get an fence in the Khajiit caravans with 4.000 gold same as the main fence in TG fully upgraded.

Even if what the other ppl posted isn't enough to peak your interest in doing ALL the side quest's for Vex and Devlin, do each type at least once. The reason being it's an experience. It's something new, at least the first time.

I'm doing the side quest's now with one of the main quest's in the line on "hold" so to speak. With out giving anything away, I have a good reason for not wanting to go further til I can lvl up some. The side job's are a good way to do this.

they're fresh the first time you do each one, until you start planting stolen ruby's in someones house 10 times. and the funny thing is, that person never gets arrested or anything

Unless people have continued doing them they would not know. Unless they have the game guide of course.

YES!!!! They do get you something later.

At first, as someone stated above, you have to do at least 5 jobs in the 5 major holds to get the "City Influence" jobs. Doing the City Influence jobs gets you a fence in that city to sell your stolen items to and they carry up to 4000 gold pieces. You will also get 3 Thief Caches in each city as well. And on top of that, you also get 4 new vendors who set up shop in the Ragged Flagon. Oh, and a Guild Leader chest in front of the desk in the Cistern that replenishes every so often.

After that, if you continue to do the jobs for Vex and Delvin, you get trophies that will display on the shelves behind Mercers desk in the Cistern along with the 'larceny" items you sold to Delvin.

When these trophies show up depends on how many jobs you've done.

You get one after 5 jobs.
The next after 25 Jobs,
Then another after 50 Jobs, then 75 jobs.
Once you've done 125 jobs, you'll receive a safe filled with gems and other stuff that will appear to the right of the shelves displaying your trophies.

So yes, doing the jobs is worth it.

Check out this link. Most of what I said can be found here with some pics as well.
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Thieves_Guild_(Skyrim)