I've been thinking lately about character motivation, with particular regard to "dungeons" - these often underground locations of risk and reward.

The dungeon is an awfully artificial concept (but hey, maybe all concepts are artificial), and from what I can tell it's pretty much unique to fantasy RPGs. There's a lot of reasons a character might want to walk into a perfectly dangerous dungeon, but on the other hand, sometimes your character concept just doesn't seem to allow for dungeon delving at all. A wilderness explorer type, for example, might have no reason to go into a cave or a ruined fort or any other sinkhole of evil.

Whenever I come up with such a character concept, I pause. "Damn," I think. "What am I going to do for dungeons with this character?" And often times, if I can't think of a reason for dungeon-delving, that character idea gets scrapped.

Dungeons are where it's at in these games, I think. I've tried "surface" characters, but I can only do so much roving around before getting bored. Because TES games draw so much from the fantasy RPG tradition, their landscapes will always be peppered with dungeons, and a lot of the game seems designed to get you to explore these places.

So I'd like to hear how other roleplayers approach this question. Why do your characters dungeon-delve, and if they don't, what do they do? Do you find the "surface game" of TES just as engaging as the underground?

I voted "I just wanted to see what it looked like inside" although the reality is a bit different; in all honesty coming across a dungeon I've never visited before is just so exciting! Who knows what could be in there? Some sort of a unique enemy? A powerful weapon or trinket? Or perhaps this particular dungeon is where some sort of intriguing story or event took place, of which I might be able to detect some traces of? Maybe it's a book I've never read before, or the layout of the dungeon itself could be extremely interesting.

For me, there are infinite reasons to enter a dungeon.

As always, it depends on the character, and depending on the type of "dungeon" it could be for one of the three reasons for the same character. An unexplored ruin or barrow? Treasure! Secrets! An Ancient Evil!...? Makeshift Bandit Camp? Let's kick their asses! There's a rare book at the back of this dangerous fort in the middle of a swamp best explored by a full team? Gimme the book, I don't care! Or the fort might have a story of its own. I mean, it's an Imperial Fort in the middle of the swamp in Black Marsh. The entrance alone is also gorgeous. Some are just curious as hell and break into others' homes and the like just to see what it's like inside, so why not dungeons? Think of the sights! Sure, there might be things that will get in your way, but who cares?

Though I'll admit that sometimes I'll have a character who doesn't seem like the dungeon-delving type for any reason and so it'll feel a bit OOC popping into one on occasion (barring quest delves of course). IMO that's usually the fun part, cause I get to come up with an excuse reason.

I'm not bothered by the artificiality of dungeons at all. I'm not one of the "realism" brigade who demand that fantasy games have to mirror what we see and know on earth. I play fantasy games to get away from the everyday conditions I see around me. I want to step into a different world, where the armor and weapons look different, where etiquette is different, where even the laws of gravity can be different. I enjoying spending time in a game world that does not resemble the world I live in. And that includes dungeons. I like the fact that dungeons are so omnipresent in fantasy landscapes. It is an important signifier that I am no longer in the real world.

I have an easier time playing "surface" characters in vanilla Skyrim than in the earlier games. A couple of my Skyrim characters have been miners, for instance. They have spent their entire games traveling from node to node and then selling the materials to Smiths in various towns. Another couple of characters were bodyguards for caravans. They traveled alongside caravans, guarding them from attacks.

Several of my characters in all the games have been hunters. These characters hunt wild animals and sell the meat to Innkeeprs and pelts to merchants who sell armor and clothing. They never see the inside of a dungeon. One or two of them never even go into a town.

With mods, I've been play a few characters who never left cities. This is especially fun to do with the Better Cities mod in Oblivion. There's so much to do in the Imperial City with that mod that one of my thief characters was easily able to spend an entire game there. Another of my Oblivion characters spent nearly her entire game in the Bloodworks, as an Arena gladiatrix.

Then again, I've played characters who did almost nothing but dungeon dive. Most of these were adventurers in pursuit of artifacts. I especially like to do this in Oblivion. We even have a nifty quest ("The Collector") to support this concept. I have turned this quest on it's head a couple of times by playing a rival collector who is determined to find the Ayleid artifacts before Umbacano.

As monkeyemoness says, it all depends on the character.

All 3 of the above plus other reasons like thats where the Maguffin or the hostage is.

Be the place above ground like a fort or below like a dungeon or mine its just an excuse for your character to go loot and kill.

Still its nice if the game gives you more convincing reasons than because its there and gives you a variety of places with different environments to explore.

I usually just explore dungeons for the quests. It's pretty rare for me to go, "Oh, hey, I haven't been in that one before. I wonder what's inside." I just don't care for dungeons all that much. Part of it is that it's so hard to find a small dungeon, something I could quickly knock out for some entertainment while I travel from one side of the province to another. Most of the caves and ruins tend to be these massive, multi-zoned things that are just fighting the same few enemies over and over again in the same small number of tilesets with no interesting reward for completing the ordeal, just some generic leveled loot. Oblivion was particularly bad about that. Morrowind probably had the best variety in dungeon sizes and styles, and hand-placed loot made things a bit more interesting, but even then I never felt much incentive to explore.