Hey guys

Just hanging around the Oblivion forums again, and i've always wondered how do you players who create long-term characters actually start off?

Do you have a story in mind? Do you just create a random race? Did you have a specific class in mind (E.G: Assassin, Warrior, Mage etc)?

I'm trying to create a character to roleplay myself, but I seem to be in a 'repeating' phase, where I play the character for about 10 hours, with the idea of roleplaying in my mind, and then suddenly I get bored with them and they've risen to the top of one of the guilds, which I never intended. Please gimme tips ^.^

Undeaddragon

I varies with me. Each character starts a little (sometimes a lot) differently. I never make a long, detailed story before creating my characters...just a few facts and a simple backstory will do. "She was a simple gatherer from Morrowind who got accused of Necromancy once she found herself in Cyrodiil" is an example. I'd rather get to know my character as time rolls on, actually.

Some of my characters start off as generic and as bland as can be. With http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad208/xenaclone/Photo-0062.jpg, for instance, I wanted to create the typical "Hollywood" wizard whom we often see in medieval B-movies, who winds up with lots of power but tends to be absent-minded and goofy. His roleplay didn't wind up as deep as some of my other characters. I just liked wielding TGW's sort of power. He was fun for me to roleplay, but not a lot of depth there in the long run.

If you think of it in Earth terms, not all humans have a lot of depth either. Quite a lot of us live shallow, meaningless lives, so I have no problem with some of my characters being simpler than others.

Ann Thraxx (in my profile pic) is turning out to be quite the opposite. I created her face, gave her a name, and started an alternate "pretend" mod with her (so that her game started off at Chestnut Handy Stables instead of a prison cell). All I knew about her at first play was that she had just arrived at CHS after a ride on a horsecart. It was raining and dark, and Ann was sad and stressed. Long story short, I've eventually learned that she is from Kvatch, and has just witnessed all of the madness that has gone down there, that is why she's so stressed. Her entire game has a much slower pace, so far. Every little detail, every little thing an NPC says to her means something. It's hard to explain.

To answer your questions more succinctly, I tend to choose race, and spend a little (or a LOT) of time making the face as perfect as I can make it (I spend way more time with females here), and also name. The name usually is something I'll need to think of before-hand. It svcks getting stuck in the middle of CharGen without a good name. The Grey Wizard is a rare example here. I used to have a DnD character years ago called The Blue Wizard, so it was easy to rip this name out and be done with it.

HTH.

I’ve only had one such ‘perma character’ and like any special relationship, I don’t believe I could plug things into any sort of formula to replicate the experience. I know it is of basically no help, but it just . . . happened.

Some things that may have helped me:
-The spirit of my character has a strong connection to my own past.
-I do not ‘become’ my character; rather, I travel with her.
-By writing detailed accounts of our travels from her perspective, I have found the exercise dramatically increases the sense of her that I get in game.
-In the actual build of my character, I incorporated some of limitations that she would have to deal with and was forced to select her race, gender and appearance. By spending lots of time in the tutorial with her and paying close attention, she spoke pretty clearly on subsequent choices such as birthsign and skills.
-Most importantly, I have tremendous respect for my character and listen carefully to her. Perhaps not so odd as it sounds, for I believe that is the foundation of any strong relationship.

Best wishes and I’m sure some of our other roleplayers will join Renee in offering their good advice.

Don't be yourself. You have to try to "see" the world through someone else's eyes. Perhaps it's repetitive because you have an inkling of your next idea?
My previous redguard mage:

Did not use Destruction at all. This prejudice harkened back to his days listening to grandfather. Yet, his father was more progressive, and convinced him to join the Mages' Guild. So he joins, at his father's wish, yet does not feel a part of the Mage's guild.... and...... GO!

One key is listening to your character, and what he/she wants to do, not the other characters who want you to do their quest NOW!! That lets you join the Mages' Guild, get your recommendations, but not feel obliged to collect your staff and continue the quest-line further. None of the other guilds has such a clear divide, so your pause point is likely to be different in those. The Main quest is the worst offender for everything being urgent, as it really seems like you're saving the world. But since things don't get worse if you ignore the pressure, feel free to do so. (That applies to the Oblivion Main Quest, and the Shivering Isles one equally)

I make a lot of characters. Some of them don't work out, and the "relationship" is very short. Some of them take on huge lives of their own, and I stay with them for a long time.

Sometimes I set out to create a "type," or to try out some kind of game playing challenge. I find that I have to have a compelling "back-story" for those characters, or else I don't "believe in them." Etta was like that; she was created to be my first Dark Brotherhood character, and I gave her a very dark and tortured "history" to allow myself to sympathize with her, and to "believe" that she was acting in a way that was realistic for her to act. (In a way, I've gotten closer to her than to any of my other characters, as a result.)

A lot of my characters started just because a strange name occurred to me. Desdaemone (note the "daemon" embedded in her name) inspired the idea of a pure Conjurer character. Humperdincus just had to be an oafish knight. Reebok gro-Letis (one of my current characters) is a Vegetarian Orc, for whom any sort of magic is an impossible mystery.

Other names that have recently occurred to me...

Pernice Brickles (I see her as a grumpy elderly Breton, living a middle-class life in Bravil.)
Sings-With-Frogs (an Argonian rogue.)
Methias Cornbroth (I haven't a clue, but he sounds odd, doesn't he?)

You never know where inspiration is going to come from.

Another thing you can try is make a character who doesn't get involved in any quests at all. Or maybe doesn't get involved in any larger quests, especially not right away. Some of my strongest roleplays were with characters who did absolutely zero quests. One such game was http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad208/xenaclone/Photo-0002.jpg. She was supposed to be a slave of some sort who was so illiterate, she couldn't even read the labels on potion & poison bottles. Her only skill was lockpicking, and she actually liked spending time in jail occasionally, since she always had a bounty, and jail time meant finally getting some relaxation..

Despite the fact that she attracted the attention of the TG, Wanda didn't like the idea of her activities being "structured" into "do this" and "do that", so she initially joined, but never completed the first quest. Why should she? If she's completely content being independent. Her entire game took place in the Imperial City area. Despite this, it forced me to learn this city in such great detail, including those sewers! Wanda spent a lot of time in those sewers. If she had just done the TG quests, my roleplay with Wanda would nave been nowhere near as unique. But she just wasn't the one to do TG. Another character of mine (a male) is on that.

There was also http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad208/xenaclone/Photo-0051.jpg. Again, she never started, or attempted, any questlines whatsoever. But my time with her (she eventually died) was more precious than my time with either Igodah Go^Pe or The Grey Wizard. My daughter is terrified of The Wizard of Oz. I tried watching it with her once. Nope! Never again! She's very senstive to scary movies like this. It eventually gave me the idea to create a character based on the Wicked Witch of the West: a typical storybook sort of witch, who lives in the woods and has a storybook house.

Luci eventually wound up in Weatherleah, and lived in the Great Forest area pretty much exclusively (except when she was terrorizing the occupants of Chorrol or Skingrad). She hated sunlight. During her Tutorial phase, I was SHOCKED when Luci encountered her first rat. She killed it, yes, but then she ate it. Matter of fact, she spent 3 game days living in this Tutorial dungeon, eating and cooking rats, eating wisp stalks, making foul potions, etc. Again, despite the fact that she never attempted any quests, her roleplay was one of the stronger ones.

bottom line: OP, it comes down to imagination. In my case, lowered lights also come into play, phone off the hook, and child at someone else's house. No interruptions. I can't game TES if it's sunny outside, or if there are too many electric lights in my room as I game. Put yourself in the "mood", whatever that is. Sometimes I'll have a glass of wine, or whatever, to get myself into roleplay mode.

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Yes, absolutely. One of my most fun characters is Wild Elf, who just basically runs around being wild. She has never done a quest, never even entered a city.

hmm well this is for Skyrim, but i like the idea of not doing any quests to start off with Thanks, i'll try this out ^.^ i'll also try writing down their life in 'journals'

I never made any special plans for my dark elf. Everything in his life has just happened, more or less. He has his quirks and moral opinions, but that didn′t come right away but rather became more and more clear to me as time went by.

One thing for your character, he can collect things, that′s always fun Like different kinds of staffs (or staves ), magical scrolls perhaps or just various enchanted gear he happens to come across. Or you can make him an expert in Alchemy, travelling around Cyrodiil gathering ingredients and alchemical equipment.

Whatever you decide, good luck and remember to have fun!

I just don't play TES enough, i'll probably forget what my character wants or his moral stand points. You ever find that?

It comes to me as I play. If you play casually, chances are that you′ll never "hear" what your character wants so to speak, what suits his ways.

I typically start out with a general idea of what 'type' of character I want to play: i.e. A sword and board fighter, an archer who summons daedra, a pure mage who only uses frost, etc... I try to pick a name that somehow reflects that. For example one of my archers was Artemisia. A pure mage of mine was Aradia (the Queen of the Witches). Then I play the character, the rest gradually comes to me over time. Sometimes I know some of it before I start, but usually only a very basic outline. For example, I stared Artemisia knowing that she was a High Elf exiled from Summerset Isle because she was racially impure. She had been kidnapped by a wizard doing magical experiments on his victims, transplanting traits between races. Artemisia got a pair of Khajiit eyes, which also gave her the Khajiit Night Eye power. She was rescued by the authorities, but after what had happened to her, she was considered too impure to be allowed to live in Summerset. Hence her arrival in Cyrodiil.

When I really click with a character, their whole life story coalesces for me, and I know them inside and out. Sometimes I do not click with a character, and put them aside.

As others have said, one of the main things to remember when roleplaying is that you are playing the role of someone else. I liken it to being a character in a movie or play. But instead of watching it happen, you are there, the one making the character do what they do. The second thing to remember, is that the character is not you. It is someone else. That is the liberating part of roleplaying. You are putting yourself in someone else's shoes, living their life instead of yours. My characters will do things I never would, think things I never would, dream things I never would.

I only play one character at a time. I typically use a favorite character from a movie or tv show.

Severus Snape was awesome with over 700 hours of playing before he died. I play dead-is-dead which means if my character dies, I will never load them again.

My Jean-Luc Picard character lasted about 10 hours before I decided he was too rigid and dropped him. I know within a few sessions whether I really like the new character or not.

I based Sarrah (the girl-next-door) on the character from the movie Labyrinth. I saw her as a bit of a drama queen with small town dreams of celebrity and at the same time wanting all the mundane pleasures of domestic bliss like love and family relations. These conflicting desires made her a very complex and fascinating character. Over the course of our time together, she suffered severe manic/depressive mood swings even once considering http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1307078-what-is-the-most-immersive-moment-youve-had-in-oblivion/page__view__findpost__p__19777078. Sarrah was a true breakthrough in relating to a game character because as the game progressed, I saw her as becoming more and more aware of my presence. She not only had her own purposes but she was able to tell me about them and would listen as I offered suggestions about what she might try. When she became bored with her life at level 25, I asked her what would get her excited. Sarrah, the standard class Mage born under the sign of the Mage, said that she wanted to wear Daedric armor and fight like a warrior. What followed was hundreds of hours of epic gameplay.

Angel was almost an accident. After Sarrah, I read a thread about the lack of children in the game. I rolled Angel, resized her to child size using the PC console, took a screenshot and started a thread titled 'Found; a child in Oblivion'. On a whim I started her into the game and quickly discovered that I adored her.

I’ve learned that creating a character with expectations of what is going to happen in their game doesn’t work for me. I think up a character and try to make them as much of a person as I can. Then I put them in the game, and we see what happens.

This means that I come up with their past and interpret that to generate their starting characteristics. (In Oblivion. For Skyrim you don’t have to do the starting characteristics part.) Then I play them as a character more than as a “role.” This allows them to grow and change through the game. I’m not a gamer so I may be using terms incorrectly, but I’m sure it makes some sense. As far as role-playing rules, I do what the character would do. That frees me from making a bunch of rules.

My first ever khajiit character, R'isa the First, was aware of my presence almost as soon as I joined her, more than any of my other characters ever have. It depressed her and she couldn't handle not knowing whose world was real. She immediately attempted to murder a woman in Chorrol under the great oak in broad daylight, using only her bare hands, knowing she would fail and the guards would come after. She resisted arrest and they killed her. I was so shocked at the sudden turn of events I respected her wishes and let her stay dead.

The art to roleplaying is to almost let your character take the driving seat, even though you are playing the game. I haven't said, "I did this and then I did that in Oblivion the other day" for a good long time now, because I'm not my character, I'm just along for the ride. I always talk in terms of what my characters have done, not what I have done.

If you find it hard to let them take the lead, then try and put yourself in their shoes. You're a nord warrior standing on the imperial isle with some rusty armour and a sword, what are you going to do? Head to the nearest tavern or walk over to the hills over there and see if you can hunt something? Once you've got into the habit of doing things inkeeping with what your character wants to do and not doing things because you want to do them, you'll find roleplay a lot easier.

I'm sure I'm not the only person here who will be looking forwards to hearing all about your character's tales when you get into the roleplay experience.

Thanks! But I was only posting here because this is where the mature posters live, i'll be roleplaying on Skyrim so I cannot post my stories here ^.^

I see! Well then you've come to the right place, the Oblivion section is full of seasoned roleplayers. I think there was a thread in the Skyrim forums for posting short tales, it might have died out now though, you know how fast it can move.

Edit #2- There is a thread already. http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1360584-so-what-are-you-doing-in-skyrim-2/

I think that magic is the easiest style to roleplay as. Ive played two Conjurers who obviously mostly relied on Conjuration, but one exclusively summoned Undead (Necromancer) while the other did Daedra (Daedra Worshipper). Both were similar yet different, as they both had a completely different set of summons available. I found undead to be more melee orientated, as only the ethereal undead cast spells, while all types of Daedra except the Clannfear have some spellcasting ability, so it made for a very different experience even though both were Conjurers.

It may sound silly but, preferably when your alone so people don't think you've lost your mind, try voicing your characters aloud. If your not used to roleplaying skyrim is a great place to start with this method as you are given a choice of lines to say so you don't have to put much thought into exactly what to say, just what type of response your character would give.

Also try turning off as much of the hud (compass, especially the crosshair) as you can live with. Doing that, along with some suggestions others have made such as dimming the lights and creating a basic outline for the character (they are from here, this happened so they left and came here, that sort of thing) really helps me become immersed in the world and in my character.


EDIT: You don't need to put on a voice, just speak the lines as if you are really in a conversation. Pretend you are in a movie!