You got to invest a piece of yourself into your character to make it special and not just another character.

I been playing the same exact character since Arena, male Breton mage, so i'm invested and would never think about playing anything else.
Just pick which race fits you best, whats your inner Elder Scrolls Race? Who are you really?

If you had to live out a life time in the Elder Scrolls universe as just some guy or girl, or cat... or lizard... not being the dragonborn of the choosen one, but just a normal man or woman.. or other.. What would you really be?

I restart often.

I do this too, I'm forcing myself to my current character though

I do the exact same thing; which is why I get into deep roleplays with my characters. I find that putting my mind into the mindset of my character, I am more concerned with how to act in situation x and how I'll approach/talk to/handle person y. When I do that, I rarely worry about weither or not I built the character properly.

Same with me ... though not just with Skyrim.

Always find the earlier "building" parts of the type of games I play more fun.

I made a new character about 5 days ago. I thought "YES! A fresh new character, first Imperial, first Vampire. Im gonna play this for ages!"
Just re loaded my Helgen save to make a new one -__-
I'll probably just make a pretty character then reload a previous save.
I think its just the fact that ive tried every possible play style. Mage, warrior, theif, assasin, battlemage, barbarian, archer, and more.
I need to find a new and fresh style. Any suggestions?

See, this is me exactly with Nocturne, my Dunmer Assassin. He's in every Elder Scrolls I've ever played, and every time a new TES comes out, he's the first character I roll. I have so much invested in him, his personality, and his favored skill and mindset, I don't play many characters for very long before I go back to him.

He's just as much my Avatar as he is my character in the game.

I've RP'd more with Nocturne than I have with D&D characters.

I do it as well. I currently have 16 active characters.

yeah i do this alot too. the farthest i ever got was with my breton conjurer mage dude at level 25ish. but i've never been able to come close to it sense, and that was in november in december. but i think got one now who i can stick with for the long haul. He's a breton board and sword light armor warrior. i had to create a really interesting back story for him and i have a plan as to what to what quests and guilds he'll join with which will hopefully bring me to high level with him. but yeah, i've done countless characters never really exceeding level 14

This is what I've started doing, much more fun.

Once I reach level 20, the game starts feeling boring, tasteless (at least for my way of playing).

At that level, I spend most of the time inside Breezehome, sitting by the fire, looking at my quests, mumbling about what quest I should complete next, if there are items I need to sell (not because I need money), or something that would be cool to enchant, so that I can use it to become more powerful... or just to look at the cool magical effect on my weapon in dark areas. Then I decide to take everything I don't need with me and sell it to Belethor or the Elsweyr fellows (when they are present outside the gates). then I start wandering around Whiterun, staring at the beautiful clouds around the Throat of the World.

The main problem for me is that around level 15/20, there's almost nothing local (in the Whiterun hold) to do. You know that feeling, when you are in Riften and that nice fisherman asks you to bring a contract to that poor man in... Markarth. Markarth? I'm in Riften! And I never ever go to that rocky-blocky town, for no reason, because the Reach is so hard to travel to, so dangerous, so hostile and its capital is too corrupted.

After all this I find myself browsing that amazing wiki about The Elder Scrolls known as UESP, en reaching myself with a fantastic world of adventures and treasures I yet have to find, and then I think I still need to finish the game, that I never saw Odahviing, and never shouted YOL TOR SHUL (but only YOL). So I start the game again, willing to taste as much as I can, but there's so much to do!

Doing this worked best for me. I also made a character on oblivion with a last name then a skyrim character with the same last name, like an ancestor.
For the back ground strory, using the great war helps like if you faught along side the aldmeri as a wood/high elf or the other races for empire. Or an argonian who helped invade Morrowind or a dark elf who helped defend it who then retreated to skyrim.

Wow - I'm doing better than a lot of people and I thought I restarted too much. I usually get to level 35 ish, have a massive array of tasks on the go, more stuff than I can keep track of and am beginning to feel super powered - then it seems a bit tedious and I want to go back to the early game where my character is much more vulnerable, has less on the go, cool stuff means something and it seems like more fun. I'm getting rather bored of the game (particularly given the repetitious nature of the questlines and lack of ways to do them differently with different characters), but at the same time feel compelled to take a character to a higher level and finish the damn MQ - which I don't want to do until a character is fully finished as that to me is the end of the story. Gahhhhhhhh! I'm caught in a trap! Curse you Bethesda!

Doesn't anybody just play and figure out who the character is as you go along?

How I've avoided this is that I will either not do certain questlines, and make sure that when I do make a character, I don't do the same quests in the same order.

I hear some people say "Well, I always do Civil War first, or College, or whatever". My last character was my Altmer Spellshield, and she started at the College before even doing anything in the MQ. My current character is a Nord who is starting out as a light armor, 1hand sword empty left hand character. She hasn't even been to Winterhold.

But I am planning this character's perks out carefully because I want to go to 81 on this one.

NO!!!! AND THOU SHALL BE BANISHED TO OBLIVION FOR SUGGESTING SUCH FOOLISH THING!!!!!

*BANISH*

Yeah I do that, reason to be in Skyrim and even spend a lot of time eating and sleeping and talking "need something?", "Hmm?" and "Whadda need?" along with reasonings regarding the dragonborn ability... still... new characters, new perspectives and approaches just don't stop popping up in mind. Just started a Wood Elf vampire, but hes not really evil, helps the Jarl and all that... pretty discreet about the "gift", hes also an assassin for the Dark Brotherhood that hopefully will put him in good stance with the dark side. I doubt this will be my last character...

I've run basically two characters, my first I wanted to do a typical male Nord, because the realm just seems to best lend to that. he's a battle mage, and generally does things for noble reasons, and was a stormcloak who believes in an independent skyrim.. forcused on dual wielded Axes, smithing, enchanting, destruction magic, etc.., and followed the more noble story lines, including the main quest. Lives in Solitude and generally high on the hog so to speak.. my nord was definitely into being the Dragonborn... with him I didn't do any Thief or Dark Brotherhood work...

my new character I went the opposite.. she is a female breton.. went with a more dark - reclusive character, who is going the Thief, Assassin route with emphasis on archery, dual wielded daggars, sneak, conjuration, and destruction.. with this character I've been kinda rolling that she is not interested in being the Dragonborn, even though she has been getting these shouts and such.. she's starting as a thief, and will eventually become an assassin.. She lives in Riften.. stays away from people as much as possible and could not care less about the civil war.. and once she is level 50, she is going to be a serial killer terrorizing all of skyrim.. no one will be safe

it's fun to go back and forth playing either character depanding on what story line and combat style I want to play..

Xbox 360 using an HDMI cable - which is 4 times more powerful than the crappy console cable you always get I`ve restarted countless times too,as I constantly come up with new ideas and usually impatient to try them out I`ve got around 40 build ideas now,I really must stop

Awww yes I'm having this problem myself. I know what I want my build to be, but I can never stick with it, and always end up starting over. There's always something that is just slightly off in my mind about it, and I'm rather OCD so it bugs me enough to want to start over.

I've restarted 3 times.

My first character was a Khajiit ''Jack Of All Trades'' character with no specific build type. (Due to being new to the Elder Scrolls series)

My second character was a Nord Assassin named Roggi The Swift. I actually got to level 50 with this guy and had Daedric Daggers and everything, but I got bored and felt that being a Nord Assassin was too far-fetched.. so I decided to delete my save file.

Now on my current playthrough, I chose to create a Bosmer Assassin/Thief/Rogue who I named Glyndwr. I'm having a lot of fun with this guy and after just a few days I'm already level 31. Skyrim never gets old!

I keep restarting for several reasons.

1. I like experiencing the game from different viewpoints. Playing a Dunmer is not like playing a Nord or an Imperial or an Argonian. They'd do different quests differently for different reasons.

2. Sometimes I want to be a good guy and sometimes I don't.

3. Sometimes I want to be a Stormcloak. Someday I may want to be an Imperial. Sometimes I don't want to be either.

4. And this is the important one, when I start a new character I always start from the opening credits instead of loading a save just before the character creation screen. Why? Because I get a little adrenaline rush that reminds me of the first time I started the game up and it's all new again. (Then of course I have to make the same trip through the same starter dungeon, but that's the price I pay for cheap thrills.)

Frankly, I don't see how anyone could only run the same Breton Mage, Nord Warrior, or whatever forever. If you never join the Companions or the College of WInterhold how will could you really be getting the most out of the game? You're missing huge parts of it. There are places you'll never explore, NPCs you'll never talk to, paths you'll never take. Then you come on the boards and explain that you're bored now and have stopped playing.

Personally I'd rather never experience getting to level 50 than miss Septimus Signus or Cicero or Labryinthean or the Twilight Sepulcher.

I find myself restarting the same character again and again and never progressing very far. But with other characters I can. Just not her. My Breton needs to be "perfect". And even when I've deleted her saves a few times (for patches or just because), I always come back to her. Really bizarre and silly. I think the hesitation is just the idea that I could play through all the future dlc with this particular character. (And I refuse to let her touch the main quest.)

I do this sooo much.. Glad to hear that there are several people doing the same. I usually find that I messed up and I have a new idea on how to build my characters. I did this a lot in Oblivion too. I always do the first playthrough on a sneaky archer, then after I've had my temporary fill of that character type I make something else.

You need to get some help what I'd try is find a play style that you like then choose a race you think is fun then just go for it don't nescessarily do the main quest do what your character would do.