Hey folks--just coming back to Oblivion after spending some time on work projects and other games, and in deciding to redo my mod setup I've also decided to start anew with a couple of my characters. In the spirit of keeping things fresh, I'm aiming to let the characters do more of the driving, so to speak. Which is running me headfirst into a roadblock in starting out my mage's story. I thought perhaps I'd toss this little dilemma out and see if anyone has run into the same, maybe has a few thoughts on how to approach it

Here's the sitch: Ellanne is a Breton atronach-birthsigned mage starting out in Anvil, with intentions of sticking around that guildhall until she's ready to go after Arcane U recommendations. This time around I've got Maskar's overhaul running and Oblivion XP handling the leveling (I've used and enjoyed nGCD/Progress in the past, but could never quiiite get the leveling rates tweaked to where they felt "right"). Probably worth noting that Fizzle is also part of the mod lineup, which means spells are free of level requirements but can potentially cause some nasty backlash.

Where I'm drawing a blank is that very first stretch of the game, and getting the character to the point where she's ready to tackle all the recommends (which in this case translates to a healthy stash of magicka potions and at least serviceable magical skills).

In the past my approach was to just do loops around the areas where restore magicka ingredients grow, and hope that a few unimposing enemies make themselves available for target practice. Which works, more or less, but it just doesn't feel very roleplay-ish (not to mention the roads are not the safest place for a rookie mage under current conditions). If I were to consider my character's first impulse, it would be to hang around one guildhall for a while, get to know the locals, study magic under safer conditions where getting mauled by a bear/disemboweled by a band of thugs is relatively unlikely.

But while one can "go through the motions" of all that in the game and let imagination fill the gaps as to what's actually happening, it doesn't feel very engaging. Or give the poor lil' newbie mage much "real" preparation to go out and face the big bad world.

So, I am wondering: any thoughts on how one might get over this first little bump in the road?

And I guess a broader question might be--do you ever run into a situation where you've got a good idea of what your character would do next, but run into trouble trying to play that out in-game? Is it mostly a matter of letting imagination do the work, or are there other little tricks to weave in game mechanics?

Thanks in advance!

My suggestion is to use the Skill Rates part of http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/41005/? for this. One of the neat little benefits of using Fundament with a Mage character is that you get a small portion of XP for missed spells. This will allow you to roleplay "practicing" in the Anvil Mages guild by casting spells at a wall (and actually get better doing it). You could even take it a step further and mod a straw Marksman target into the guild hall to shoot your spells at, for greater verisimilitude.

I don't know how Fundament interacts with OblivionXP, though. I have never used that mod.

Myself, I don't have any problem letting my imagination do the work. Nine times out of ten I prefer to handle roleplaying/immersion situations in my imagination. For instance, I rarely use so-called "realism" mods. I usually prefer to control when my character eats, sleeps, drinks, bathes myself.

Some folks seem to need a lot of feedback from a game when they roleplay and others don't. I'm one who doesn't.

It depends on whether your character thinks she's ready or not. If she thinks she is she'd go for it, even though you know she's a low level character.

But I just do what it takes, and let the imagination do the real work...

I'm one of those peope who say don't let roleplaying get in the way of fun. Roleplaying is supposed to be fun, if it's not why are you doing it?! So in this case, I'd say do what sounds like a fun, engaging experience to you. Maybe your mage suddenly gets the urge to try out her skills in the real world- you may know she's not ready, but she doesn't! It could be fun to see her get the hard realization that she's not all that and a bag of chips. Or (if you've got CM Partners or something of the like installed), maybe she could at least tag along with another more tanky adventurer or two. Seeing as how Anvil's specialization is Restoration magic, she could get some good practice as a healer. It could be interesting to essentially be the supporting role in someone else's adventure for a change. Or since she's pretty much bottom of the totem pole in the MG right now, perhaps her expeditions into the wilds could be in the form of some menial drudgery task shoved onto her by the higher-ups. Collecting ingredients, observing the effects of Enemies Explode on different species of unsuspecting wildlife, etc.

But those are just ideas that I think sound fun. Get creative! And (in my opinion) when it comes down to a question of more in-character or more fun, compromise in favor of more fun. Maybe it'd be more true to your character's personality to diligently cast spells at a wall for hours on end, but if that's not enjoyable gameplay for you, you'll get tired and want to quit. So think of what makes sense for your character, but sometimes doing what you want and letting the IC justifications write themselves can be cool too!

Well, this is just my opinion, so take it for what it's worth...

If you've got your game modded so that it's impossible for your character to do what the character needs to do, haven't you defeated the purpose?

What I would do is decide. Do I dial back the difficulty so that I can actually play the character, or do I abandon the character concept in favor of accepting the game challenge?

But that's just me (and I know which choice I'd make.)