Before I begin, a quick preface: If the CK were out, I'd be working on this right now. The only reason I'm marking it as [IDEA] and not [WIPz] is that I don't know how busy I'll be come January, and I don't want these ideas to go to waste if I don't have time to implement this myself.

Also, not all of these are my own. A big thanks goes to everyone in the thread for throwing in their 2 cents!

The Big Idea

This mod aims to address a common complaint in Skyrim: The game doesn't seem to react to many of the world-changing actions the player takes. That this is the case is baffling to me, as Skyrim introduces the fantastic Radiant Story system, in which many of the random events the player encounters are direct results of previous actions (Steal from that shopkeeper? Maybe they'll hire someone to rough you up!). What I'd like to do here is to make Skyrim just a little bit real by adding more Radiant events that are triggered by your actions in the various questlines.

This isn't intended to be a major overhaul project, as I simply don't have the time. I think more random world events will be relatively easy to implement and give us the most bang for our buck, so to speak. For a list of the random encounters in vanilla Skyrim, check out the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:World_Interactions.

Below is a list of encounter ideas, grouped by category. I've put each section in spoiler tags, in case you haven't done that content yet--I haven't finished the Thieves Guild, Bards College, or Imperial Legion quests myself, so I won't be including them at this time. This is an open discussion, so if you have any random encounters you'd love to see in-game, please post them here!

(Note that in all the examples, I use the masculine pronoun; in implementation, any radiant character could be male or female.)

Skills

Encounters based on your character's current skills:

Vampire

Encounters that only occur as a vampire:

Civil War

Encounters related to the Civil War quests:

Dark Brotherhood

Encounters related to the Dark Brotherhood quests:

Companions/Werewolves

Encounters related to the Companions quests:

Main Quest

Encounters related to the Main Quest:

College of Winterhold

Encounters related to the College of Winterhold:


Thieves Guild

Encounters related to the Thieves Guild:

Miscellaneous

Encounters related to the various side quests:


There's more to add, but I my train of thought was interrupted and I can't remember all of the encounters I had planned. Also, I couldn't think of anything related to the College of Winterhold that makes sense. I'm curious to see what else anyone has to add!

Along with Vigilants, Silverhand should attack weres.

I was going to add them, but according to the UESP (Companions spoiler):

Perhaps they could hunt you up until that point, though. And the UESP could be mistaken; I can't remember myself, and frankly, the other guild quests I've done completely overshadowed the Companions to the point that it's a distant memory.

[Edited for clarity]

I guess you do. I haven't actually gotten that far yet.

Overall I like the ideas. Just one quick thought:


Just because you "destroy" a faction doesn't mean every single person belonging to that faction is dead, it just means you destroyed the central leadership that was holding it together. So you can still logically get random encounters, just no more quests to kill Leaders, as they're all dead or missing. We could even change their name to "Former Member of [Faction]" or "[Faction] Survivor", etc.

That reasoning works for me. Added.

What about "Remnant" has a better ring to me.

We have these in the real world btw.

You just spoiled the real world for me!

Funny, a goodly number of these I was actually planning out for post CK work along with something else I'm working on... and a few things I hadn't thought of.

Great minds and all that.

If not you, me, if not me, then someone else... most likely it'll be a ton of people doing something along these lines... I hope! The more the merrier!

This is exactly what skyrim needs; especially when traveling on foot. I fast travel because foot travel is often so uneventful and dull. I'd love to see the world with more substance and react more to what you've done. Very excited about the prospect of this mod!

I definitely like this idea. I'd like to suggest encounters that depend on you having a leadership position, such as for the Mages College, etc. Novice mages could approach you with gifts in exchange for some pointers, or perhaps some cocky mages could challenge your leadership. This should also require high skills in the relevant area, otherwise it would only serve to break down immersion even more.

Yes! There was a request for giving different members of the Companions advice (and assigning shield siblings) once you've finished that questline.

These are all awesome ideas!

Good ideas!

Perhaps new members for the blades are recruited every now and then and they hunt dragons without you.

Agreed. I would love to have any/all of these added to the game.

Very good idea. I'd love to see this in-game.

If I can throw a suggestion, specifically to the Deserters section of the civil war.

I don't think it should be limited to post war.

My brain-wave for the day: at some point during the war (after the Battle of Whiterun maybe?) you have a chance to encounter the deserters (on either side). If they're on your side, you have the opportunity to convince them to stay, kill them, or let them escape. If they're on the other side, you can let them go, convince them to outright betray their faction, and/or kill them. No need to make them all hostile. Just a thought!

This...this I like

I like these, but I'm going to think on them to flesh out the details (or you can suggest the details, either way) before I add it to the first post. However, I personally think it's better for there to be no skill check in this case. In vanilla Skyrim, it's possible to become Arch-Mage with only the most basic understanding of magic; this is akin to faking it to the top, so to speak. If you're an Arch-Mage with no talent, why shouldn't cocky mages challenge your leadership, and maybe humiliate you in public? Bonus points if there's an option for persuasive characters to talk their way out of it without losing face.

Added this one to the first post. After you complete the quest Alduin's Wall, you may encounter this.

Modified the Deserters section based on your input. They start appearing after Battle of Whiterun for both sides, and you can try reasoning with them. After the final battle, though, deserters from your own side stop spawning or become very rare.

Hmm. I wonder how silent dialogue is handled in the CK...

These ideas are fantastic! Maybe encounters like these will finally make it seem like the choices your character makes have an actual impact on the game world.

Good point! There should be separate dialog for a skilled and unskilled Arch-mage. Probably fewer students and more challengers that way. And of course, having Speech options to bluff is always good.

Man, I like this a lot! In fact I'd thought of some of these ideas, but some of them hadn't occured to me, mostly because I need to finish the quests first.
At OP: If you find the time to do this, drop me a PM if you need help with scripting and whatnot. If you don't have the time, I mighrt be tempted to do it myself.
Btw, you've motivated me to go and do the Thieves guild quests, haha.


Oh, and another thing, if you win the Civil War as Stormcloak, Thalmor should become really rare, as well as increased Stormcloak patrols on the roads, and maybe some Imperial\Thalmor incursions at the border?

I've already seen Legion/Stormcloak skirmishes.

I've also seen Thalmor/Stormcloak skirmishes.

If you refuse to kill Paarthurnax, how about random encounters where you could find him sitting about in the world, taking a rest. I'm sure even dragons need to rest sometimes, especially when they're trying to start a new movement within dragonkind. You could talk to him to change your shout buff, and/or have him offer to take you somewhere (eg, the Throat of the World, various places in the different holds away from people).

Another idea: after being inducted into the Circle, you'll occasionally run into skirmishes between one or two werewolves and Silver Hand members. While you still have lycanthropy, there'd be a chance for the werewolves to be passive to you. Maybe you could also sometimes run into Aela hunting in beast form.

Also, personally, I don't think you should need to cure yourself to get requests to help cure random people. As long as you've already cured Farkas and Vilkas, I wouldn't see an issue with rumors spreading that you know of a cure. Though I think the cure should probably be changed, because running out to the middle of nowhere to get to Ysgramor's Tomb and fight a ghost wolf* will get old fast. This is also backed up in game, because using Ysgramor's Tomb was supposed to be a last-ditch effort in case Kodlak was dead before getting cured. For living people, the cure was supposed to be different.

Maybe after curing Farkas and Vilkas, you get an anonymous letter mentioning another way to cure lycanthropy, and after you check it out to see it's true (without having to cure yourself), then you start getting random requests for help.

* I also have to wonder why it's a ghost wolf you fight, and not a ghost werewolf. A werewolf is a daedra unto itself, which you take the form of during your transformation.

Man, this all sounds awesome. I hope we get to see it made down the road, as Skyrim definitely could use more of these types of things.

Oh and I had another idea. How about Blade and Thalmor skirmishes? Or Thalmor attacking Sky Haven? Hmm, there's so much that could be done with the Blades, that it should be a seperate mod. Which maybe could be integrated into this.