Oh that's simple. When entering a city, when using an inn, when entering a dungeon/cave, etc.

I honestly hope Skyrim will be a pure singleplayer, but there is one thing from multiplayer games I have never experienced in Oblivion - to be fear of death.

Once on one (RP focused) persistent server of Neverwinter Nights, I undertook a hazardous voyage to one of dungeons far from a city. I have got seriously wounded and was sneaking back. I had no healing potions left and all my applicable spells were used up. It was night, the city was far away and I didn't know the region well. I heard howling of werewolves from near forest, I found a clawed tree... Damn that was horrifying. And mostly because I knew that I can not save the game, I can not even pause it. I just had to continue playing or log out (but it would tell me that I died after logging in).

When you die, it is not over of course, you will respawn. But you will loose some valuable amount of experience and all money. I know it can not be implemented in that way in a singleplayer game. It would be also pretty lame if you were not able to stop the game whenever you want to. But if there were some way how to evoke that fear, it would be great.

There were sometimes public events on that server - lots of PCs and NPCs on one place and everyone played quite responsible - more realistic. In Oblivion it would be like: "Hey, save it and try what happen if you shoot that king to the head!" (Almost) no one would ever try it if it was irreversible.

The ability to save-and-load makes everything possible - you can break any lock or beat any creature - just by trying it again and again and again... Sure you do not have to do that - it is your singleplayer game and it is just up to you how you play it. But, at least for me, it is sometimes hard to resist. And what can you do if you die? You have to load and try it again.

I just want, you know; "Do or do not. There is no try."

That still doesn't solve the problem of people (like myself) that have an unpredictable schedule. I am in no way a casual gamer but I have a 6 week old son to take care of now. I need to be able to save the game where I am on the spot if my son needs something and come back and pick up. Trying to find my way into a dungeon or to a bed when I'm out adventuring is way too much hassle for those of us that have more responsibilities.

let him control the mouse. i was playing doom 3 once when i was babysitting a friends toddler and i let her handle the mouse while i did the keyboard. she had a blast.

That still doesn't solve the problem of people (like myself) that have an unpredictable schedule. I am in no way a casual gamer but I have a 6 week old son to take care of now. I need to be able to save the game where I am on the spot if my son needs something and come back and pick up. Trying to find my way into a dungeon or to a bed when I'm out adventuring is way too much hassle for those of us that have more responsibilities.

Well, there could of course be a save fle for exiting the game. Evertime you quit, you save, so you can't cheat death but still can leave when you wish to.

If you want to fear dying so much then just only have one save of when you first save and another save for right after you have to stop. After you start playing again delete that second save so you will have to start all over. Sounds like i would be fearful of dying then.

This will be a repost, but...

"Well, there could of course be a save fle for exiting the game. Evertime you quit, you save, so you can't cheat death but still can leave when you wish to. "

My son isn't yet a toddler. He's 6 weeks old and can barely hold his own head up. That isn't an option for me. Yet. And even when it is, I'm not letting him play, or watch me play any M rated games.

At least not until I'm confident that he completely understands the difference between fantasy, and reality.

Great point. A lot of games have basically become trial and error affairs nowadays. I guess that is what happens when you are allowed to save anywhere. I myself have always been more a fan of realistic games with less save opportunities. Not that saving a game is realistic, but even playing FO3:NV, I found that I was saving constantly, because I didn't want to lose my items, and it was just easier. Like you said, that way I can try to mess with that Frost Atronach and see if I can take him. If not, no big loss, just reboot and keep all my stuff.

I remember playing an old PC game called Operation Flashpoint (before Codies ruined the series with the latest crapfest). I remember one mission in particular where I had to assault a large town filled with troops. It was a very long and drawn out battle(with no save points), and I lost all but one of my men, but I managed to survive. Just as we were heading to the extraction point, an enemy tank came along and blew my legs off and killed my ally. I hid behind a building until it left and ended up having to crawl like 2 miles (literally) to the extraction point, but I did it because I didn't want to have restart the entire mission. That is the kind of tension I want to see in games again. Where you are actually nervous about being killed because it can have some consequence. Not just "oh well, let me reload and try it again in 5 seconds".

I think it should display from whatever view you're using at the time.

I enjoyed in Oblivion that it switched to third person so I could see my character limply flop over, but the novelty of that has passed and now I would just like it to keep me in whatever view I'm in.

All right, I guess the best compromise would be:
Leave the game without respawns, without checkpoints and with ability to pause it. But make quick and regular save and load work only when you are in a safe place (not in combat, when enemies nearby etc). Similarly to the wait button.
If you need to leave PC quickly - just pause the game. If you need to turn it off, get to the safe place or loose game until last save from safe place, no big deal.

This could be certainly done by a mod. But I would prefer then the "dangerous" zones were little larger than in Oblivion - I was sometimes able to sleep e.g. in a tunnel between two caves full of enemies... That is not safe spot, do not want to make saves there.

All this would do is force people to go to the main menu or quit the game entirely to save. They could still save by quitting, open the game again and then if they die or screw up a lock just force quit and try again. The whole problem with this idea is it is entirely unnecessary and it doesn't fix any problems, while managing to create several new ones.