I'm not new to the game, but I'm new to RPing, what i mean is like, giving my character a back story and stuff. (Other than what the game tells me)


Never tried it before. I want to, but I'm not sure how to go about it. I'm not very creative either.. :[


Any help would be great, thanks guys n gals. :]

In tabletop games, for new players who have never RPd before, I always tell 'em to pick a favorite character from a book, movie, whatever, and "be that guy" (or gal).

You've already got the character in your head with tons of details... so it makes it a lot easier.

To Role Play, you have create a set of rules for your character and you follow them as you play the game. The game cannot enforce these rules, it is up to you. If your character is a pure mage, then you force yourself to use only magic instead of swords.

All you have to do is just be your self, listen to your parents and eat your vegetables! :tops:

Anyway (ignore that stuff above ).
The best way to create background story is to do it while playing.
I do it like that.
That way you don't force yourself to think everything all at once and there might be some stuff in the game that could give you an idea or two.

Or pick two favorite characters from wherever and merge their traits to form a brand new character. It offers the delusion of creativity and originality:P

P/S I love to play a tabletop but I live in rural area so i have no one to play with

Wouldn't hurt to have a few ground rules though.

I always come up with the basic outline of my character's backstory before playing, but Lithary is right, things in the game can give you ideas, that's why I come up with the complete backtstory after playing the game a little.

Hm, thanks for the input so far. I was definitely going about it wrong

This is what I do, but with a general idea of what I want before i start playing

If you do SPRPGs, you usually have to rely on what the game gives you to develop your character, try something from BioWare and you'll get to see what I'm talking about.

For MMORPGs, you can usually find a bio section for writing your story, or, you can go on a monolog about how the bad guy wronged you.

For TTRPGs, I don't know because I've never done table top. My guess is the same as MMOs, just write out your story.

For Forums, make a continious number of threads whining about how some random, inconspicious element of the game ruined immersion and was completely game-breaking because of it. (yes, I just have to poke fun...)

Always make sure that your characters bio fits in with the game's Lore, or be ready to do litiary backflips to make it still work.

Just let your imagination go!

Make a character that's afraid of the opposite six due to being rejected early in life for a date to the town party. Whenever the opposite six comes around, the player must activate stealth mode.

or

One day, while out fishing with your dad, a monster slaughterfish killed him. Now you must atttack every fish on sight in order to avange your father's death!

etc....

Well since this is a Tes game you ll start off in prison. A good way to start your rp is to think of why your there? Were you caught doing a crime? Were you framed? Does your character have loved ones waighting for them? Things like that can often lead to a very in depth rp background.

Personally, just create a character, or several that have a certain back story, strengths and weakness and a personality. the choices and things you do shouldn't be chosen by you, but your character. I usually make one of each of the big three: Mage, Thief and Warrior, then I go for more unique builds etc. I choose equipment and combat tactics that fit my build, you dont switch up mid play through and say: I want to be a warrior now! You just make another character. You can also do things like eat appropriate meals, sleep, even wash your clothes, have another job moonlighting etc. The most important thing to know is that every character doesnt have to be "The Chosen One". You dont even have to go through the main quest, or play by the games limitations. Just because the game may start you off in X place, or say your destined to be X player, doesnt mean you have to.

I personally think of characters like little scale models that you can put together and then play with in this medium. Sure you can make one character that does everything, then you'll be bored within a few hundred hours, or you could make many that cover all gameplay styles through several characters. This adds replay value and once your done, you'll have a character to play with in any style you choose, on that particular day.

Thanks. Great post

I'll work on it when the game comes out, seeing as how i don't want to buy oblivion for the 360 again, i already have had like 4 copies lol

Jump into it. Embrace the universe and its lore.

As I understood it (drawing on past experience), you only need a role, to role play. It can be defined by the player, or assigned by the game. All that really matters is "What would that character do in that situation".

Consider if you were Role Playing as Gandalf in Moria and the game played out a slightly different situation that the books tell. What would Gandalf do if the hobbits were attacked? Would he hide in the shadows and try not to be seen ~leaving the hobbits to fend for themselves? What if you were Role Playing as Golem ~is that what Golem would have done?

If you are role playing your own custom character they can sometimes have some partially defined history from the game ~though they don't in TES. If you were writing a story, you would invent a main character, and over time, you would basically begin to know them, and could anticipate how they would act; and what motivates them. Its not so different with Role players. In the PNP games, people might play the same PC (or couple PC's) for years, and years. CRPG's are not advanced enough to handle regular role playing IMO, but they can come close, if they have good writers. The RPG Planescape:Torment immediately comes to mind.

I've never had occasion to play with arbitrary rules ~like 'No healing, unless in town', or no swords, or no heavy armor... etc... I never really understood that idea. I suppose that I could say that my PC doesn't know how to swim, and would never go more than chest deep into water. :shrug: ~or that... my PC is addicted to gambling, and has a hard time quitting before going broke ~and play that out in the game. That's role playing to me.

It could be that your character is just plain avarice to extreme, and will always take the path that pays money ~even if it means extortion, blackmail, or brazen opportunism, in any and all situations ~regardless of tact, or social consequences.

For me, the easiest way to start a character is to view previous characters I was fond of in the past. From there, you should easily be able to craft what kind of personality you would like your character to have. This could also directly lead in to what your back story is, depending on your race, gender, etc. Once you have a basic foundation of who your character is and what their personality is, then just start playing the game. As you continue to progress, you will eventually build your character's own history and experiences, which will add to your role playing experience. You can always continue to add and refine your character as you continue to progress through the game, and it should only get easier from there. Hope that help!

Just give your character a specific personality and act with that personnality all the time. like making your character someone empathic you will probably not do quests that are only for the sake of other people and only make things that reward you

Reading good fantasy books always helps, like George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire".

You can also "share" your own personality traits into your char, e.g: if you are a righteous person, do the quests always the right way, if you're religious, go to a chapel every Sundas morning, if you're a bad guy (inside ), then be a thief/assasin....you get the point.

The first character I play in all TES games is:
Akbar, The Knight of the Red Dragon (the red armor from morrowind gave him this title)
He is a for the most part good character, kind of neutral good.

My rules are attempt to uphold justice and crap like that, but at the same time, I have to look out for myself. Wherever I see fit I will do what is best for me, or if it calls for it, for others.

some other RP's I do, is a basic thief, who doesn't resort to bloodshed unless cornered, a mage who kills everything (necro), and an assassin, who is good at heart, but does dirty business to make ends meat.

Rping is really easy, honestly, if you want to learn play D&D with some people who have played it before. Best game ever made, dare I say better than TES?

I agree Song of Ice and Fire has some well written characters, but otherwise the books arnt nearly as good as people crack them up to be.

Checkout Malazan Book of the Fallen.

Although I cant really add much to the thread in terms of RP, I always get drawn into games and forget what my character would do and end up doing what I would do

It's fun to come up with your own back story and honestly, all you need in TES is to know what race you are, your homeland etc and then you can just think in your head about it My Argonians assassin in Skyrim has his roots in Cyrodiil, the great great great grand child of the Listener of the Dark Brotherhood back at the days of the ending of the third era. Etc etc etc.

I had a long-time habit in games of simply inserting myself into the game, more or less, and rushing about, not even really thinking about the character and just doing all the stuff there was to be done.

The way that I finally discovered how to roleplay was by playing a female character. That immediately stopped me from just being "me in the game," since that female character couldn't be me and I couldn't be her. She had to be herself and I had to be myself. And that was it - that was what made the difference. I couldn't just rush through the game because I could never be the character. I was always aware that the character was someone separate from me, so I had to figure out who and what she was. I had to come up with details of her personality so that I could figure out what she'd do in a given situation.

Now that's the way I play all characters. I don't bother with a detailed backstory, and I doubt I will. The few times that I've tried to create some sort of backstory, I ran into trouble when something would happen and it would strike me that the character, as I understood him/her, would probably react in some way that conflicted with the backstory I'd already set up. So I almost always just create a basic outline and go and let all the details work themselves out.

So - if you really want to get into roleplaying, that would be my suggestion - create a character who simply cannot be you, and the simplest way to do that is to make the character the opposite six. That will prevent you from just being "you in the game" and force you to be aware that the character is separate from you. And that will make you have to figure out just who and what s/he is. And you don't have to be terribly creative to do that, really. All you have to do is sort of make believe you're watching a movie and trying to figure out who the lead character is. As you play the game, things will just happen and bits will suddenly click into place.

Read a lot [of fantasy].

You've got to love roleplay to be really good at it, and if you love it, you'll be getting a lot of practice as a result of that anyway.

Keep posting short stories, biographies, etc for your character(s) and ask for feedback. If you fall in love with your characters, you've succeeded. If other people fall in love with them, you're getting really good.

This. Except, some of my characters do develop a pretty big backstory as we journey together. They tell me how they came to be in Cyrodiil or Vvardenfell or wherever, etc.