Has anyone actually avoided finishing the before the storm quest where you're supposed to speak to jarl of whiterun and initiate the dragons appearing and going through skyrim dragonless? I started doing that on a third character and tbh i feels pretty nice playing normal without having to worry about dragons popping up or doing the mainquest for blades/greybeards Also some places that has dragons will be replaced with snow bears or frost trolls and what not. Pretty cool

Sorry if there's a topic like this already i just didn't see it while searching for one.

I hardly ever do the main quest anymore, as there's so many other characters I can make with a better story.

Very often do I find myself not initiating the dragons, avoiding the MQ all together.

I've done quite a few play through's with out dragons....

.... basically this ^^ .....

..... a http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/9557/?tab=3&navtag=%2Fajax%2Fmodimages%2F%3Fuser%3D0%26id%3D9557 imo for starting new characters

Good for Rping.

But mostly I do that quest. Because I sometimes get bored of the 1 hit one kill enemies i face.

I either avoid triggering the dragons, or I use a mod that removes the random dragons from the game (it changes the spawn timer to a large value)

Exploring skyrim without dragons=Yes I have.

There are three things you can do to make sure dragons don’t appear:

1. Don’t go to Bleak Falls Barrow.

2. If you go there don’t pick up Dragon Stone.

3. If you pick up the dragon stone, then avoid the wizard in Whiterun.

And you will have a Dragon Free game.

Happy Halloween.

I'm not sure why people avoid the dragons. I enjoy slaying random dragons. But on my current play through I am avoiding it. Right now I'm running quests for the Thieves Guild & the Companions.

As far as I can tell - my character doesn't feel the necessity to give a [censored] about dragons - she's trying to get paid and get rich and become powerful.

Sometime, I just dont want to be Dragonborn.

Re-Read what I put. I said you can

Avoid bleak falls barrow.

If you dont, dont pick up the dragon stone.

If you pick it up then dont give it to the wizard.

=Dragon Free Game.

Now if you go to bleak falls barrow, pick up the dragon stone and give it to the wizard. Then yes you have to avoid the Watch tower, but if you dont or forget then you are going to be SOL do to if the dragon fight starts at the watch tower, you will have Dragons in the game.

So to avoid having to avoid a peice of the main map all you need to do is again.

Avoid Bleak falls barrow, dont pick up the dragon stone or even if you do 1 and 2 dont turn it in and you will avoid having to avoid a peice of the main map.

Any questions?

Dragon attacks can happen without your character being present. While generic guards named "Guard" will respawn, any named npcs will not. The same issue exists with vampire attacks. Alvor in Riverwood insists on running out and fighting dragons. Without armor. Usually doesn't end well for Alvor if the player isn't around to take down the dragon before Alvor gets killed. In Whiterun its usually War-Bear who gets killed by vampires, sooner or later. Random dragon attacks can really thin out the not-overly-populated Skyrim.

^ This

Finishing "Dragon Rising" is what triggers dragon related world encounters and allows dragons to make the various "dragon lairs" throughout Skyrim their home.

Even if you trigger Mirmulnir, you don't have to kill him. I play with Dragon mods that make them outright terrors. You essentially have no chance of killing him with a character below level 20. I triggered him with a level 17 character and left him flying around the Watchtower until that character reached level 40. Dragons will not spawn unless he is defeated.

Listing everything you can do up until that point is arbitrarily trivial.

Out of 38 characters and almost 4k hrs, only 15 or so have triggered dragons.

Your argument is trivial. I can point out a ton of reasons why, but the fact is we all play with different mods, so one persons experience might be different from another persons. Maybe some people want to do bleak falls but don't want dragons, maybe some people don't want to enter draugr ruins at all, etc. etc. it's good to give people lots of options, we're all single player rpg gamers, but we're on the same team

Well I'm on PS3 so no mods and I find that not giving Dragon Stone to the wizard is the only sure way to not trigger the Dragons. So that would also include not going there or not getting the stone in the first place.

Even if you trigger Mirmulnir, you don't have to kill him. Yes I know, but I had done this once and even though I did not go to the watch tower at around level 20 to 25 I still had Dragons Appear in my game.

Could have been a Glich or some how the Guards at the Watchtower killed the Dragon even though I was not there.

I hardly do the MQ anymore either and with Alternate Start mod, Live Another Life its mostly avoidable. It is nice exploring without dragons. I just RP the word walls do nothing. I don't mind having shouts. I find them over powered. I mean if I hate the weather I can change it with a shout. Its better for RP to be forced to accept the weather as it is lol

I always just play up to Dragon Rising, first thing. Even when I'm not Dragonborn; and 9 times out of 10 I'm not. Skyrim without dragons doesn't feel right to me.

Nope i always go through with the game and fight tons of dragons, get bored without fighting them in my game.

I would be willing to hear just a few pounds of those.

The mods have absolutely nothing to do with when the trigger executes. It's still the same thing. I just mentioned the mod to emphasize the difficulty increase. One must be a responsible user and fully understand what the mod does and conflicts it may have.

The mod used is irrelevant, as it's still the same scenario with the vanilla game.

I fail to see the logic behind this. There is no reason to list every single event that leads up to the trigger, which is to kill the Dragon to start with and thus completing stage 90 of Dragon Rising. The only option to really worry about is the Dragon event.

• Don't go to riverwood
• Don't talk to the Jarl
• Don't talk to Farengar
• Don't go to BFB
• Don't get the Dragonstone
• Don't return to Dragonsreach
• Don't give the DS to Farengar
• Don't go to the watchtower
• Don't kill Mirmulnir

These aren't options as in what to do because you can do them all if you want, aside from the last one.

Again, forget about the mods. they have nothing to do with the point in case. I play on the Xbox as well. The case in point is the same. If you say you experienced something different then that's all you. I'm just pointing out what the actual trigger is for them to start spawning.

Chances are the guards killed it, pending your difficulty. The main reason I stated the mod was to give reason for having them beefed up to 10k HPs and playing on Master. The guards have no chance in doing so at that level.

I'm just saying there is no harm in laying out all of the different ways to avoid dragons. Maybe they want to help the dude in Riverwood get his dragon claw back but they don't want to have dragons in game yet, that could lead to them completing Bleak Falls, and they would need to know not to return the dragon stone to Whiterun.

you can give the stone to him though, still will not trigger random Dragon attacks. They only start spawning after you kill Mirmulnir and finish Dragon Rising. That is the ONLY thing that triggers the start of Dragon attacks,

They can do all of that, if they want. That's my point. Why have the player worrying about a bunch of different things when the Dragon fight is the only one of importance?

There is an activation box that is set about halfway up the ramp to the Watchtower. The player MUST enter the plane of that box to trigger Mirmulnir. Other than that they are free to do everything else, should they so choose. They get the rewards and they aren't limited to not having access to any part of the map.

To tell players that .. 'you can do this or you can do that, just don't do this if you do that.." It's too confusing.

Simply don't fight the Dragon.

Yes but then if you give him the stone and decide to use that road - a dragon will spawn - and depending on the difficulty of that dragon, it might die to guards, and if it dies to guards, dragons will now be spawning.

By giving him the dragonstone that dragon specifically is resurrected and the quest line begins. By not giving him the dragonstone that dragon is never resurrected and the quest line never begins.

Some people like to roleplay their characters, and just walking past while a dragon is attacking a watch tower is probably not in character for a large group of gamers.