Forgive the thread necromancy, here, but I just had to get this off my chest. I love Skyrim, just like I loved Oblivion. I hate Skyrim, just like I hated Oblivion. Both games have such potential, but are then spoiled by various forms of developer trickery. This issue is a true case in point.
Game developers should never, EVER, force a quest upon the player (except, possibly for the main quest). Bethesda is awful about this. I seldom, if ever, play a "dark" character. It just usually doesn't feel right to me. The developers have chosen to cram most of the "primary" quests down our throats by giving us no choice but to accept them. Whether or not we actually finish them is mostly up to us, of course (with a few exceptions), but this leaves our journal cluttered with entries that we don't even have an option to hide and sometimes even quest items in our inventories that we can't get rid of.
Let's look at some of the worst offenders.
"Join the Imperials" and "Join the Stormcloaks" -- you get these quests just by overhearing conversations and you're going to get one or the other that the outset, depending upon who you follow out of Helgen. Maybe I don't want to get involved in the civil war questline just now. Maybe not ever. But those quests will hang around in my journal, taking up space, forever, if I don't join one of those two factions.
The entire Dark Brotherhood questline is triggered similarly, by either hearing about the Aventino boy in a random conversation or by asking about rumors. I'm not interested in having this quest taking up space in my journal until/if I'm ready to do it, and then I know exactly how to trigger the quest directly. I therefore don't bother clicking on that "Heard any rumors" option in dialogs with innkeepers because I know that's one of the first rumors you'll be told about.
Simnilarly, I pay very close attention to books I read when I'm looting them off shelves, just so I don't accidentally read "Boethiah's Proving", thereby triggering the decidedly evil questline "Boethiah's Calling". Sorry. I'm not going to do that. I refuse to sacrifice a follower just because some developer thought it was clever to force me into accepting this quest by sneaking a book onto a shelf. On the other hand, I know that at some point after I reach level 30 I'm going to be attacked by a Boethiah fanatic and this is going to trigger the questline, anyway. This happened in my last playthough during a quest-related combat that had nothing to do with Boethiah and I had to fight off a pack of Thalmor soldiers AND that cultist at the same time (and he came out of nowhere right in the middle of the fight, completely blowing my cover -- terrible timing and awful game design, if you ask me. Or even if you didn't.
Riften. I've found that I can get in through the back entrance or the Black Briar Meadery (if it's unlocked) and avoid getting confronted by Brynjolf, who will, otherwise, automatically give me the quest "A Chance Arrangement", which will ultimately lead into joining the Thieve's Guild (read that "Thug's Guild" in Skyrim). The developers make it otherwise impossible to get past him without him grabbing your attention and forcing his coversation on you by locking the gates immediately to your right and left after entering the main gate, and his "contact radius" extends completely across the street so there's no way to sneak past him. They knew what they were doing, which makes it even less acceptable. On the other hand, all you have to do is pick up an "Unusual Gem" and you will find yourself having to seek out an appraiser, and the only person in all of Skyrim who can identify them is Vex. She, of course, won't even talk to you about it until you're a full member of the Thieve's Guild -- just another trick by the developers to force you into joining a faction you might not want to join. If you don't, those gems will be stuck in your inventory forever because they're flagged as quest items.
This isn't about reality in journal-keeping, like one person, here, said. It's about developer trickery in getting players to play through all their primary questlines. Not every player is a "completionist", and those of us who are might not be playing as such with any given character. This is not how to structure a game. All it does is annoy the players who actually role-play their characters.
The proper way to do this is to offer the player a choice to decline accepting a quest. It never gets logged into the journal and the player never has to worry about it, again. I should not have to deal with that Boethiah cultist AT ALL. When I approach Falkreath and the guard, there, forces me into a conversation which ends with a quest to talk to Lod, I should be able to refuse it. Maybe I want to talk to Lod, but I'm not interested in anything but buying some smithing supplies from him. The topic of the wandering dog (Barbas) shouldn't be forced upon me when I do. And once I do accept that quest, maybe I'm not ready to face a nest of vampires, even with Barbas as an ally, and, yet, the quest proceeds under the assumption that's what I'm going to do, once I come upon Barbas. My only option is not to use that entrance to Falkreath and steer clear of the road where I know he spawns if I'm in the general vicinity. Yes, I know. I can tell Barbas that I don't have time for it. To be honest, I've never tried that to see what will happen, since this is one of Daedric quests I like to do. Still, the point is that at least parts of this quest are forced upon the player, with NO opportunity at all to back out of them. The more I play Skyrim the more I'm convinced you have to do with wiki in hand (and not just to avoid all the bugs that will inevitably crop up in your game if you don't).
Skyrim is the worst of the two games about this (Oblivion being the only other ES game I've played), but Oblivion had its share, too, just like getting accosted by the refugee from Kvatch if you get near that city, thus triggering a quest that you might not be ready to do (or even ever want to do). Bethesda prided themselves (I think) on creating an open game in Skyrim, where the player is free to do whatever he wants to do, but then locks us into questlines without our permission, or sometimes even our knowledge, until it's too late to back out). You do it one way or the other. Hold our hands exclusively like in Half-Life (in which case I say "goodby" to your games) or let us pick and choose freely. Mixing the two options just does not work for me. Bottom Line -- Do not presume to tell me how to play MY game. When I start a new character I already know what questlines I want to do, and I have a pretty good idea what order I want to do them. I like a clean, uncluttered journal. I don't like having quest objects stuck in my inventory for long periods of time. It's my game ... not the developer's game. Let me play it how I see fit.
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. The choice is not always in dialogue. Knocking somebody out and bashing doors is a choice by action. And you always have one. Not always completely fair. But don't tell me you start a new game each time your character dies!
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