I asked the Inn keeper for extra work, and he gave me a couple “kill the bandits at location x” bounties which I did, and turned in to the Chamberlain. Do those count? Or are you talking about other quests?
When you help someone it will pop up a message saying you’ve helped X out of 5 people. When you get them all it will show up as completed and have you go talk to the Jarl. That’s as far as I got (one of the ‘help’ quests was an assassination quests btw…and that counted :p).
-XT
It’s help 3 in the smaller cities (Mothal, Falkreath, Winterhold, Dawnstar). I don’t remember getting that quest in Whiterun but I might’ve forgot (they seem to still give it to you even if you already helped enough, just talk to the Jarl again.
xtisme, Riften house has an enchanter and alchemy bench. Plus a porch and garden upgrade! 
In Whiterun it’s just killing the dragon that puts you over the top with the Jarl. And he gives you a personal female pack mule in the bargain as well! Though that can be a mixed blessing, since she doesn’t put out and is in heavy plate…
(I’ll check out the place in Riften, though it can’t possibly be as convenient as the one in Whiterun…even though it’s a small house it’s perfectly situated for selling stuff and smithing).
-XT
Yeah. The house in Whiterun is right next to the smithy, and a couple vendors willing to buy your loot. It just needs more trophy cases, and an enchanting bench.
Definitely. And a smithy. And more trunks, located near the crafting area. And maybe one of those vending machines that buys and sells everything in the game (from Fallout New Vegas DLC Dead Money)!
This is all for some mod out there trying to figure out what they should do to enhance the game, of course. 
-XT
The house in Riften is also quite close to a smithy, a general goods merchant, an apothecary, and the Thieves Guild fence.
Lydia and I just embarked on a potion-selling world tour. Speaking of potions, I hope there is an opportunity to steal or otherwise obtain for oneself, the White Phail. I have engaged the quest but not completed it yet. I’d fill it up with some major Magica restore..
nm
Two questions:
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Any get rich quick schemes out there? I want the house in Solitude but I’m still 12,000 gold away.
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Does starting the civil war quest affect any other quests? I’m ready to take on the Stormcloaks.
You’ll get a new quest from the assistant after a while. Go back and talk to him a while after completing the first one.
1: Yeah, smithing and enchanting. And alchemy. Grab all ingredients and ore/ingots you find, then make stuff. Doesn’t pay much at first, but soon you’ll be rolling in it.
2: It can affect some stages of the main quest. I’d recommend checking up on what exactly and then deciding which you want to finish first.
I decided to do a certain tree-related quest, and a pilgrim asked me to take him with me. So I agreed, and we set off. On the way, I met an aspiring wizard whose staff could certainly find better hands to wield it. Being evil, I killed him and took the staff… Only the pilgrim decided to report me as a murderer! I killed him which removed 1000 gold from my bounty, but for some reason I was left with a 40 gold bounty. I did not know this at the time, mind you.
So, the next day, I return to Whiterun and all of a sudden the Jarl (Not the original Jarl, mind you… the new one. I’m a Stormcloak, sue me!) charges out from the Companion’s mead hall and attacks me! He was barely doing any damage with his iron sword, but all the companions (Including the Jarl’s own brother!) rushed to my side. I had to reload, attack a guard, yield to him, and pay off my bounty…
I just found it weird that none of the Stormcloak guards attacked me, but the Jarl did.
I made my fortune off of smithing iron daggers (levels up smithing) and enchanting them (levels up enchanting).
Everytime you visit blacksmith, buy all the iron ore/ignots/leather they have. Also buy all the soul gems you can (you can buy the cheap empty ones if you’re low on cash). Make sure you have a weapon to harvest the souls of your foes.
It will probably take awhile to gather enough soul gems, but when you have a good pile go back to town. Smith the iron/leather strips into iron daggers, then enchant them (I found absorb health to be the mosst valued resale). So you get leveling skills for smithing, enchanting, and you can sell the daggers for a few hundred. I actually just finished smithing from 80-100 and have about 170 iron daggers waiting for available soul gems.
Interesting. At 40 bounty, guards only normally seem to get mad if you actually talk to them. I love one of the conversation options: you basically say “I don’t have the time for this. Do you?” and the guard begrudgingly lets you go. I don’t know if that’s level based or fame based (is there a listing? must check stats).
I have a theory (and I’m not sure if it’s actually plausible, but here goes):
Because I killed the Aspiring Mage outside of Whiterun itself, I somehow got a bounty with regard to the OLD Whiterun faction (As in, before I conquered it with the Stormcloaks). I then returned to town and was ignored by the guards, as they were Stormcloaks and members of the NEW Whiterun faction. Because he already existed before the revolution, however, the Jarl saw my bounty from the OLD Whiterun, and therefore attacked me. When I attacked a guard to get a bounty, I received a bounty in the NEW Whiterun faction, and when I paid it off, both the old and the new factions were appeased.
If I still had a save from before I paid off my bounty, I could have gone looked for other members of the OLD Whiterun with arresting powers, and seen what happened.
EDIT: My theory is backed up by this quote from the UESP Wiki: “After the battle, if you have a bounty in Whiterun it will be erased.” This implies that there is indeed some sort change in the bounty-collecting faction.
I have a question on enchanting.
There’s a chance to turn Azura’s star into either a re-fillable white soul gem (captures everything up to human souls), or turn it into a black soul gem (only captures human souls). I can see the advantages in each,. There’s probably more non-human souls to capture in the game, but at less enchanting “value”. I usually carry plenty of regular gems for weapons re-charging and would use the Star for clothing and weapons enchanting, so am sort of leaning to making it dark. Is this a sound plan, or does anyone’s experience differ?
Look at your combat stats in the main menu. If you’re like me, People Killed should be as high or higher than Creatures Killed. The reason for this is that yes, you probably will kill more animals while wandering, but dungeons and forts will have 20, 30, or more humanoids and no creatures. And if you do the civil war quests, you’ll be slaughtering enemy soldiers left and right.
I’d go with black soul gem, unless you have a specific RP reason not to.
Gong with Azura re: the Star is a way to get a follower spellcaster. Also, I found it hard to go with the idiot mage, who was obviously bending his facts to fit his opinions.
Plus, all human souls are Grand, even the weakest bandits, but there’s very few grand soul creatures, and they’re pretty tough.
Still, I have more grand souls than I really need anyway, since I buy any soul gems I find in shops, which is well more than offset by the fact that I also buy all alchemical ingredients I find and brew potions optimized for expensiveness. As I start investing more actual perks in enchanting, I don’t really expect to re-make my set of Dragon armor more than a couple more times. So far, it isn’t looking like you can get effective permanent invisibility as in the previous games, but I’ll keep working at it.