At Your Own Pace

Skyrim's quests tends to force you into them, especially the main quest. If you use the vanilla start there is no reasonable place to stop and go and do something else, despite the game being go anywhere do anything. Alternate Start helps, but you tend to run out of reasons to avoid Helgen.  There is always a Dragon to fight, a quest to do, never time to steal every sweetroll in Skyrim. And no matter what character you are playing, you are always expected to be a hero, in a game with three evil questlines. So this mod should hopefully fix this, by giving the player breaks at various stages. This works with all alt start mods.

Main Quest

Firstly, after telling the Jarl about the Dragon, you are paid, and that's it. No epic quest, no quest marker, just play the game how you want. If you choose to offer help to Farengar, he will send you to Bleak Falls Barrow.

If you take the Imperial side of the Civil War you are not required to be Dragonborn the progress to the siege of Whiterun, so long as the Dragon isn't attacking the city while you talk to Jarl Balgruuf. Stormcloak players need to become Dragonborn, as Jarl Greymane doesn't have dialogue for the Dragon attack.

After returning to Farengar, he pays you and that is it. No immediate fight to the death between a brand new character and a Dragon. To spawn the Dragon attack on the Watchtower, ask him if he has seen any Dragons. After he tells you he would love to see a Dragon, a Dragon immediately turns up, and he isn't allowed to see it.

The main quest continues unchanged until you get to Ustengrav. The horn is still there, allowing you to return it, gain the third word of Fus Ro Da, and then ignore Delphine for as long as you like. Again, talking to Farengar progresses the main quest. Ask him if anyone else knows more about the Dragons. He will tell you no, he will ask Delphine about you, and a letter will be sent shorty.

When you are tasked with finding Esbern, the marker now points to the Ratway, never to Brynjolf, so no forced Thieves Guild interaction.

An Attunement Sphere has been given to Sulla, in Afltand. This is to allow players to explore Blackreach, without doing the main quest, or roleplaying a reason to explore every iceberg in the Sea of Ghosts.

Finally, passing Jarl Balgruuf's speech check now skips Season Unending completely.

• Compatible with Skyrim Unbound. Load it after this.
• Compatible with Realm of Lorkhan.
• Compatible with Alternate Start.
• Compatible with Alternate Perspective.
• Compatible with all Paarthurnax mods.
  

College of Winterhold

After joining the College and listening to Tolfdir, nothing happens. Only if you ask him about more lessons will Saarthal start. On ending Saarthal, the Archmage rewards you, and that's all.

If you choose to tell Urag that you wish to look into it he will send you to Fellglow Keep. Returning the books finishes the quest, without any prompt to continue.

Tolfdir now spends his days starring at the Eye. If you ask him about it the questline will continue, this time until it's end.

Bards College

On entering the Bards College, Viarmo will ignore the player. Only if you speak to him will the quest start. All the items gathered for the College are no longer quest items, so you can do Dead Men's Respite without joining the College, without the book being stuck in your inventory forever.


Brynjolf will now only talk to players that have stolen ten or more items. Otherwise he just ignores you. If you choose to talk to him, the questline will start. After collecting the debts for the guild the first break occurs. Delvin and Vex will give you radiant quests and you can trade with Tonilia, but the guild proper doesn't open up until you have proved yourself.

Radiant quests are now independent of each other, so you can now take up to seven at once. Once you have done ten, the Whiterun special job will unlock, and another special job for each ten after that. The number of jobs done per city now doesn't matter, just the total.

Each special job you do unlocks another stage of the main quest. After Whiterun, Brynjolf will let you in to the guild to see Mercer, and Goldenglow will be available. Each of the next three quests follows the same pattern, do a special job, then speak to Brynjolf or Mercer to progress. If you don't want to do radiant quests, and instead prefer to just do the main quests, then type into the console "set AYOPTGCityInfluenceQuestsDone to 4". This will unlock all main quest missions.

When you are asked to become a Nightingale, you can now say no. Brynjolf will follow your lead. You can also refuse to become the Guildmaster. If you don't become a Nightingale, the Karliah will return the skeleton key off screen.

The Thieves Guild dialogue fix has been implemented, but changed so only after Dampened Spirts will members of the guild tell you their life stories.

• Load this after Requiem.
• Load this after More Dialogue Options.
• Incompatible with most other Thieves Guild mods. If they have any features you want to see in this then let me know.