This was suggested by The Great Goblin in another thread, and I thought it was such a great idea that I ran with it, and I want to share the results and hopefully inspire some other re-re-re-restarters.

Rather than dreaming up and planning out a new character, just assign numbers to all of the choices in chargen and then "roll" a completely random character.

I started with the http://linklost.com/occ/ and a http://www.mathgoodies.com/calculators/random_no_custom.html. The generator allows you to set any range for the numbers, so I just set the range to whatever was necessary (1-2 for gender, 1-10 for race, 1-13 for sign and so on) and moved down the list. When I got to favored attributes, I just generated 2 numbers from 1-8, and for majors, I generated 7 numbers from 1-21 (8, actually, since I got one duplicate).

And this is what I ended up with:

Race/Gender: Imperial / Male
Birthsign: The Serpent
Specialization: Magic
Attributes: Intelligence, Strength
Major Skills: Mercantile, Security, Sneak, Acrobatics, Light Armor, Hand to Hand, Armorer

Really not bad at all. It's odd, certainly, but I'm sure it's playable.

So then, carrying out the notion of randomness, I used http://www.silgrad.com/oblivion/rangen/ to come up with his name-- Arlowe Clanler.

Then, still pursuing randomness, I started his game with http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=25591, an alternative start mod that lets you start the game in any of 45 locations, and includes a choice of "I don't know," which randomly starts you in any of those locations. And, luckily enough, he started in the house in Bruma, which means that he already owns it.

So that's it-- that's my newest character. Arlowe Clanler the Imperial..... something or another (I named him a "Wanderer," since I didn't know where he was going to start or what he was going to do). He puttered around Bruma for a while, doing this and that but not quite sure what his plans were, but as soon as he got out of jail from Arnora's quest and got the Mysterious Note, he dashed headlong to the IC. He definitely wants to join the TG. It's just a natural fit for his purely random skills.

Not a horrible way of doing things... i know a few people do something similiar, and I'm planning on trying it soon.

Bookmarked this page for later use :clap:

gpstr, what you ought to do is keep an http://amito.freehostia.com/Oblivion/OB.htm recording how this experiment plays out. It might be fascinating.

Wow, I could never just do a totally random character in Oblivion. I would get lost, not sure what direction to go, etc. But its sounds like a great idea.

It's cool you decided to try this out! Also, thanks for that Journal link Pseron, I think I'll have to try that out. It's got to be a great way to keep your character's story recorded.

I'm trying this to. This is what I got:

Race: Redguard
six: Male
Major Attributes: Strength,Speed
Major Skills: Heavy Armour, Mysticism, Mercantile, Speechcraft, Marksman, Armourer, Alchemy.
Specialization: Combat.

Sounds pretty good too me.

After posting here and reading this thread I got inspired to make another random character.
Here's what I got:

Name: Rummil
Race/Gender: High Elf (Altmer) / Male
Birthsign: The Tower
Specialization: Magic
Attributes: Intelligence, Endurance
Major Skills: Athletics, Destruction, Alteration, Speechcraft,
Security, Acrobatics, Hand to Hand

It was great getting Magic specialization and the Intelligence atrribute, but the skills? Not so great.

Very nice idea, :tops: .

I would suggest fracturing the race / specialisation / skill set each time due to groupings that may repeat with such a fixed small list.
I.e 7 skills in each specialty randomized into a single list of 21 before random generation of which to pick.

Or even fudging all choices apart from six into the list, randomizing and rolling 9 times. Best yet use a hat / cup and just tombola it.

As anyone who's read the diceman can see that placement in / of the list, will favour personal choice over randomness.
Oh and this is my personnal dislike, but I find random number generators fluke out same patterns more often than just rolling a true dice.
That just may be may opinion though.

IDK I like creating unique stories and characters, like Argonian Witch-Doctors or khajiit Skooma smuggling pirates. The first build shows the problem with rolling your skills etc. You have Magic and Intelligence but no skills governed by them. Im guessing you would do this for a challange? I've made challanging builds before but they wuld be like Daedric archaeologists and Paranoid Nervous Politicians/Nobles. IMO

Thanks again for the idea. :foodndrink:

I dunno-- that character seems okay to me. I'm not totally sold on an Alteration major with a magic spec, since alteration tends to increase a bit too quickly for my tastes anyway, and I've never been a big fan of Speechcraft as a major, but beyond that, it seems fine-- nimble and fast moving destruction-oriented mage who can fall back on his surprising hand-to-hand skills, and who has an odd facility for picking locks (so maybe a side trip into the TG, which would be interesting for an Altmer mostly-mage).

That's just the way my mind works with this game though-- I start with a build, then go on to figure out the details of who the person actually is and why and so on.....


No-- actually, you're right, and I considered that at the time. I went with the random number generator because I have no idea where my D&D dice are. But yeah-- it's actually impossible to generate truly random numbers with any sort of computer program. One can approximate randomization, but true randomization just can't happen with an ultimately ordered system like a computer program.


Well-- first, I actually consider magic specialization and no magic majors to be an advantage-- not a challenge. That means that he can easily increase his magic skills pretty much any time AND he can use his majors without them flying up at the 45% experience rate of spec majors. Almost all of my characters have a spec that goes more with their minors than with their majors anyway. That's just the way I prefer to put most builds together, unless they're true specialists.

And no-- I didn't really do it for a challenge. Mostly I did it just because I thought it was an intriguing idea and I wanted to see what I ended up with, and partly because it actually fits in with the way I play characters. I almost never plan out any sort of details of their lives-- I just start with a very broad idea (Orc mage or female Bosmer with a battle axe or Redguard swordsman or what-have-you), and the challenge is implicit in the idea (like Orc mage or female Bosmer with a battle axe). Then I just follow along as they go through the world and over time, I get to "know" their personalities and come to understand who they really are. And I figured I could do that just as easily, and a bit more realistically to boot (considering how real life actually works) with a completely random character. Like a person, he just arrived at advlthood with whatever set of skills and talents and interests he had, even if they don't make any sense to anyone else. Now it's up to me to figure out who he is and what he's going to want to do next, and that, to me, is the real fun of this game anyway.

I like it, and have tried similar thing. I'll give this a more specific try like you did.

This'll be interesting.

And did you bother to customize Arlowe's appearance, or just cover your eyes and click Random a few times?

I really want to try this out sometime, be an interesting change to get stuck with some complete stranger.

I've made a few random characters. The one that lasted longest was Randolfus, a male Imperial with Mage birthsign and Magic spec and Majors: Armorer, Athletics, Blade, H2H, Restoration, Marksman, Security. He made it to lvl 28 before I moved on. He became a sort of all-round armor-wearing battlemage.

I made his appearance random, too. Random face, assigned numbers to hair styles/color and eyes and rolled those. Got a bit lucky in that I got something I could live with but not something I'd have chosen!

Mara

When I do that low flying sweep around the IC listening to Uriel Septim, I don't know what I'm going to get. I would generally prefer a sturdy ranger or paladin, but once I fold my wings and start transitioning to white energy to join with whomever I may find inside that dungeon cell, its a done deal. Imagine my dismay, when last time I entered that cell, I found myself sharing the swirling mind of an adolescent she-elf with horrible strength and endurance. Oh well, it actually hasn't worked out badly.

Frankly I don't understand re-re-(sic)-restartitis. I suffer from pretty much the opposite....I tend to stand with my chars forever, or at least until I lose my backups (which happened to me 2 times already...ouch).

LOL Fun stuff! This is what I came up with. Oddly enough, it's darned close to the thief Ohmes-Raht character I already play.




Name/Class: Jane Doe / Heroic Ex-con
Race/Gender: Khajiit / Female
Birthsign: The Mage
Specialization: Magic
Attributes: Intelligence, Agility
Major Skills: Restoration, Illusion, Mercantile, Sneak, Marksman, Athletics, Blade

That makes me recognize-- I didn't even consider generating his face randomly. Seriously-- I was so hung up on randomization, but when it came time to make his face, I didn't even think about it. Reflecting on it now, I guess I treated the face as a result of the randomization instead of as just another part of it, and just gave him a face that seemed to go with an Imperial with a wholly unpracticed talent for magic and an assortment of thieving and rough fighting skills. He's balding, scruffy and middle-aged, with a flattened nose, puffy eyes and a weak chin.


You know.... it's easy enough and common enough for a player to develop a character of whom s/he is fond, but it's rare indeed for one to develop a character of whom other people are fond.

Yes-- I'd say it hasn't worked out badly at all. :foodndrink:

Oh, I stand with my characters forever too-- I just keep adding new ones. Lately, I've been continuing with one of my very first characters-- Tim the Enchanter. I hadn't played him in a long time (he was level 23 and pretty much god-like, striding through the plains of Oblivion, blasting everything that came at him, ho-humming his way up to the sigil stone leaving a trail of fitfully sparking Dremora Valkynaz behind him...) Working on an idea I got from bobg and the wonderful Angel, I had decided to move him into the AU (he's Arch-mage anyway) and "retire" him and just use him to test spells and enchantments, but there were a few loose ends I decided I wanted to clean up first, and here I am, a week later, still playing him. He finished the main quest and had quite a crisis of identity at the end of it. He found himself feeling more and more respect for the Dremora and less for the helpless rabble in the cities who were desperately depending on him to save their worthless butts for them. It peaked when he met Kathutet in Paradise and felt more respect for him than he had for pretty much any of the humans with whom he'd been involved, other than maybe Martin.

So when the whole thing wrapped up (spoiler free), he just turned his back, put away all of his heavily enchanted mage gear, put on a suit of Daedric armor, took up a blade, and hit the road. He's now out testing himself in real, sweaty, bloody, honorable, face-to-face combat with whatever crosses his path-- creature, beast, man or mer.

But somewhere along the way, I'll hit a point at which I don't quite know what he wants to do next, and rather than force it, I'll just set him aside and go back to another of my 20-some saved characters (maybe even Arlowe), or I'll have gotten an idea for another one, and I'll start that one instead. But Tim will still be..... wherever he is, patiently waiting.

I had the same thing happen with Angel. I am starting to look at mods and I asked her to field test a portable camp site. Now she doesn't want to go back to the AU. She is really getting into camping. She already is forming plans regarding certain types of sites she would like to locate and mark on her map. Black soul gem sites are high on her list.

I never know what's going to happen next in this game.

This sounds like it could be fun. I just started a new character this morning, but I think I'll try this approach on my next toon.

I netted:

Name/Class: John Doe / Heroic Ex-con
Race/Gender: Orc / Male
Birthsign: The Tower
Specialization: Combat
Attributes: Personality, Agility
Major Skills: Mysticism, Alteration, Mercantile, Security, Blunt, Block, Heavy Armor

I've been doing something like this for a while (see my topic on http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1113643-an-interesting-new-way-to-play/page__p__16340297&#entry16340297), but I go so far as to randomly change my character's birthsign and race every time she dies and I have to reload a save. The class has to stay the same because it will reset your skills if it changes. Randomizing has created a very fun way to play, especially if you roleplay the behavior of your character according to whatever race, class and birthsign he/she is.

That's the thing I love about that kind of "roleplaying"-- you're really not in charge. All you do is create the beginning outline of the character, then s/he just takes over and all you can do is follow along. I had this clear vision of a well-mannered and much-beloved Arch-mage in flowing robes moving gracefully around the AU, lecturing apprentices and chatting with associates and talking shop with Gaspar and Borissean, and instead he's out in the West Weald in blood-spattered Daedric armor with a nastily enchanted Daedric shortsword, hewing and slashing.

He might've just hit another turning point though. He was heading back to Meridia's shrine and passing a bandit dungeon. He could see a bandit archer up ahead a ways, and actually tried to go around her. After the battle in Howling Cave, he just wasn't much in the mood for another fight. But she saw him anyway and came after him, so he had no choice but to kill her. But he didn't like it. He wished that she had stayed away so that he didn't have to kill her.

I'm not sure what's next. And that's what I love.


I like that one. In the first place, an Orc with a personality bonus just amuses me. And it's a good combination of pretty straightforward Orcish skills and sort of odd and unexpected ones. Between The Tower, Alteration and Security, he'd seem to have quite a knack for opening locks, and Mysticism and Mercantile also fit in with a thiefly sort of character, but then there are those Combat skills and specialization.....

Almost seems like a sort of Rogue, and one with a double life maybe-- charming (at least for an Orc) knightly warrior by day, magic-using sneak thief by night...... Or maybe just a sort of Orc Adventurer gone free agent-- looting dungeons, but just sellng the loot to support his lifestyle instead of keeping it to offer it up to Gortwog.

All kinds of possibilities there......


I remember that thread. I couldn't see doing that with any of my normal characters, just because I grow to like them too much just the way they are. I could definitely see creating a new character and doing that though. I'd have to have an explanation for how that happens, and then the "character" would be the consciousness, and the current body would be essentially just a "host."

Makes me think of Hinduism..... hmm.............

Ok damn it I gave in have rolled a new character, ( pulled it out my hat I should say ).

Name: Lilkrum ( I flicked through to a random page in the dice man, and combined the first two names I saw ? )
six: Male
Race: Ohmes.
Specialization: stealth.
Attributes: Strength, willpower.
Birthsign: Ritual.
Skills: Heavy armour, Illusion, mysticism, alchemy, acrobatics, sneak, speechcraft.

Personality: Unhappy, but smart and charming, Edit: I just rolled his random looks / hair / eyes sooo ugly, good thing he has to have a nice personality.

Combat traits: slow and patient.

So what do you see, a quick death or lasting potential, I think for this build I'll try dead is dead no matter how random a death it will be!

Edit: if you are going to use a hat for a tombola do not pick your walking hat on a cold, wet, windy miserable night and let your dog see you.
Or you will get a sad face from said sleepy dog, who has just woken up to see if you're taking him out.

This sounds like fun! Here's what I got.

Name: Termanara
Gender: Female
Race: Altmer
Birthsign: The Steed
Specialization: Magic
Attributes: Willpower, Strength
Skills: Mysticism, Restoration, Speechcraft, Sneak, Marksman, Light Armor, Armorer.

I think I'll put her in the Dark Brotherhood. Or maybe the Fighter's Guild.

I definitely could have used this a while back but I finally found a character that could hold my interest, a Breton Knight. I haven't been able to stick with one character for more than a week since Thor who I made when I first played Morrowind in 07'.