After checking out the "Roleplaying #2" thread, I became curious as to why some people roleplay with Oblivion. Whats the purpose of it exactly? How do you decide what your character likes/doesn't like? (I seen that some people get 'hints' from their characters about what they do, and don't like.) I guess I kind of want to know everything about it, and about how you do it. I RP with my friends now and again on messenger services, like YIM, or AIM, or MSN, so I know what RPing is about, and I have a blast doing it. None of my current characters are high level (I used to have a...23? I think it was, but I did something stupid and power leveled a new character. Some of you may say "You can't power level in Oblivion." But when you pick Alchemy as a Major, and max it out in 20 minutes and go up 15 levels in that time...Yeah, that's power leveling. The result was that it crashed my game, and I had to restart all over again.) due to having a high level character in the past, with all but perhaps 3-4 quests in the game done, I know my way around quite well. I also know what I do, and don't like for skills.

I've made characters before with a specific intent in mind. "This one is going to be just a mage." or "This one is going to be just a warrior." or "This is just an assassin/thief." Things like that. But my issue is that, after a little while of playing "Just this" I get tired with it. Since I once had a higher level character with maxed out Destruction, and all types of fun weapons and stuff, I know what a blast it is to throw on the Grey Cowl and slaughter an entire town. Or just be out running around and blow everything away with a single spell. Its hard for me to stick with just one path, when I have the options to be come an "All around" type. The type of character that can Arch, and use spells, and is good with a sword and shield.

Any advice for someone who's new to this type of Roleplaying, but wants to get into it?

Roleplay is basically you play the role of yourself in the other world. I act like myself, make my character look like myself, and make decisions as if I were actually in the game world. It's just one way to play.

It's not really that at all. Quite the opposite, actually. It's playing the role of someone else, i.e. your character. You can't "play as yourself," you ARE yourself.

Some people take it from the perspective of roleplaying as the character themselves, others view it as kind of watching a movie and that their character is completely separate from themselves. I prefer the latter. I am simply watching and observing my character as he/she lives her life in Cyrodiil.

Ask ten different people about role playing and you'll likely get ten different responses. In my case, I apply different rules to different character for RP purposes.

For instance, I have a Bosmer Recon Sniper (custom class) named Elberond. Obviously, a bow is his primary weapon (otherwise he wouldn't be much of a sniper ). He is a master of alchemy and has some skill in magic. He can't use Restoration or Alteration at all. He can only use touch based destruction spells (which doesn't happen often). He is a master of Illusion (very helpful for a sniper). He can cast conjuration spells, but won't summon undead (skeletons, zombies, etc.) because he has a particular hatred of necromancers and their undead minions.

You can come up with all sorts of rules and/or restrictions for your character to make him/her more interesting to play. It's also fun to come up with a background story to explain their restrictions, rules, likes/dislikes, etc.

Uesp has some ideas.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Roleplaying

Role playing is where you ask yourself, "what would my character do in this situation? not what would I do?"
We all know what the player would do- power level, use powerful spells, destroy an entire town etc
The character would care about the small things- chatting to NPC's, visting a tavern and having a meal, grooming a horse, washing their clothes, praying at the chapel.
Only do the quests that make sense for the character, not the ones that get the best quest items.

Slow down, explore the world and rarely use fast travel.

So far there are some interesting and fun comments here. I have to agree with Vel, for me, the point of making an RP character would be to play someone other then my self. :tongue: How do you go about making what your character does/doesn't like exactly? Take people for example, or places even. How do you say that your character likes one place over all the other's, or that he/she hates one specific person? What do you consider the little "hints" that you get, that tell you what they do, or don't like?

That is something you need to decide by making up a background story for the character. Work out why they ended up in the jail.
Come up with personality traits and racial motivations. Things like that.

I seem to adopt the morals and attitude of my character while roleplaying and go places, do things on what they would do. I don't really think about what I'm doing, I just do it. Like it seems natural.

That sounds sorta weird. I find it hard to explain, I don't get into my characters head, nor do I plan things out beforehand. I let my characters develop themselves from the background they've come from, the demeanour I've given them and their job/interests.

Let me break down a personal roleplaying experience that I had to help explain roleplaying:

-Make a deformed thief. Name him "Skooma Steve"

-After being caught stealing from Slash N' Smash, Skooma Steve is sent to prison.

-On release, he gets a letter from the thieves guild and joins.

-Rewarded for stealing, he spends the money he's fenced on skooma.

-He becomes heavily addicted to skooma. He stops caring about everything.

-Skooma Steve hits rock bottom. He attempts suicide but can't follow through with it. Later that day, he goes to the nearest inn and starts a fist fight.

-Charged with assault, Skooma Steve is arrested once again.

-With knowledge from the thieves guild, Skooma Steve escapes prison.

-Guards are after him, Skooma Steve hides in a cave he finds.

-After killing all the monsters inside, he hears a voice.

-The voice tells him to serve his time and turn his life around.

-Scared and confused by the voice, he turns himself into the guards and is arrested.

-In jail, Skooma Steve finds religion as his guidance.

-Upon release, Skooma Steve got all of his belongings and buys robes to teach at the nearest chapel.

-Many months go by with Skooma Steve proving to be a brilliant preacher.

-However, the voice returns to him.

-"Good, good." the voice says. "Now you need to do one more thing"....

-"Kill those who oppose you."

-Skooma steve slips into the night once again, killing non-believers and wicked sinners.

-A guard hears the noise. He attempts to arrest Skooma Steve but he refuses.

-Skooma Steve pays with his blood.

The end.

I am in the group that plays by traveling with my character. In my case, our spirits have gradually become hopelessly intertwined together. There is no script, for her future is not written. Rather, like herself, it develops over time in a direction that is largely determined by her. I cannot tell you which guilds she will join or which quest lines will draw her attention or even which skills she will gravitate to for sure. I can only tell you what she has actually done, and what she tells me her hopes and dreams for the future are. Specifically, she does not live her life by marching through some predetermined script.

As her creator, I gave her some things to deal with. I grew tired of all rounder uber master of everything characters. They are fine for roleplaying however and there is certainly some thinking involved in determining which of seventeen ways they will kill their foes. For Buffy however, I wanted a vulnerable character. She is a Bosmer born under the sign of the mage and trained as a bow hunter since the age of eight. She discovered very early that no matter what she does, she will always be weak and frail (permastuck at base endurance and strength) but she does have some natural talent for the bow and magic. That is where she started. What developed from there was all determined by her. So much of her nature is driven by the fact that she is physically small, weak and vulnerable. She is very cautious, skittish and must strike from the shadows like a coward, but after 600 hours of play, she is still alive and has never been killed.

Too weak to effectively use melee. Too frail to ever stand up to melee fighting. She quickly learned that she needed to back up her bow with magic. Setting her sights on the Arcane University, she was eventually trained as a mystic archer. If there is a theme in her life, it is that she 'collects' friends. Indeed, she has wonderful friends spread all over Cyrodiil. It is these friendships that motivate her to both selfless acts and terrible vengeance.

Our relationship, like all solid friendships is built on trust, respect and built over time. I want her to determine her own destiny and trust in her nature that she will make the right choices for her when it comes to big things. She has learned to trust completely in the rare recommendations that I make based on an in-depth knowledge of her world. The relationship is hard to characterize, for there are elements of host/parasite, granddaughter/grandfather, best friends and a history between us that spans back over many previous games. Physically, emotionally and spiritually intertwined is a pretty good description I guess.

She also maintains a detailed journal that we have found very helpful at adding loads of rich detail to her life and world. Like any writer who spends an inordinate amount of time with their character, the character really does come alive and develop a distinctive voice and personality. I make it my business to understand her well enough that her actions and reactions and attitudes make perfect sense to me.

Many people list 'actions' that their characters do to roleplay like eating and sleeping etc. I have found that Buffy does those things very naturally without us forcing or thinking about them. They seem to happen quite naturally by simply understanding, feeling and listening to the needs of your character.

Now, as the wise Winter Wolf mentioned, there are as many ways to role play as there are role players. This is simply my way. If you note much in common here with the philosphy of bobg, it is not by coincidence - for his characters of Sarrah and Angel have had a distinct effect upon us.

I think there are two basic "types" of role play; there is "first-person role play," where the game character acts as a puppet or avatar for the player, and there's "third-person role play," where the player sees the character as being a "person" apart from himself.

Most RPGs have historically promoted the latter type. Games like Might & Magic and Baldur's Gate not only put the character into 3rd person view, but they promote the concept of "parties," where the player is actually "role playing" several characters at once.

Other games, like the early Elder Scrolls games, are automatically in 1st person view, in a 3D world, and tend to promote the view that the player is the character.

Morrowind and Oblivion do both; there's not only the option of 1st Person and 3rd Person viewpoints, but there's the ability to customize a character in any way one might choose.

There's no "wrong" choice between these two play styles; both are "role playing." (There's still a fictitious interaction with a fictitious world going on, and player choices affect the outcome.)

I tend to play the "3rd Person" style. I create lots of different characters, and they are people who are nothing like me. I see myself ("player") as a background figure; in some playthroughs, I have pretended to be a god or daedra who is (fairly or unfairly) influencing my character. My fun comes from this opportunity to interact with the world in ways that are quite different from my own life.

In Oblivion I would like to play in third person as my character has "grown out of me", so to speak. But as I′ve always played in first in every other game I still prefer that