I'm curious as to what the long time roleplayers have to say about this. Do you ever feel like roleplaying a character limits what you can do in the game? I mean, do you ever have quests and just don't do them, because it doesn't suit who that character is, perhaps never do the main quest? Also, before this did you have a character that did everything in the game, little roleplaying or not, then made a new character for real who only did what made sense, and didn't feel like you had to do everything in the game?

I guess I'm saying this because as I play I'm getting a better idea of what kind of oblivion persona I like, and of course it wouldn't make sense to be able to do everything and see everything. But then I'm also curious enough to see all the game has to offer. I've never completed the fighter's guild questline, if anything because the fighter's guild doesn't sound very interesting, but I'm sure it's worth doing at least once. I just completed the main quest for the first time, and I suppose if I made a new character I could just never go to kvatch and ignore the amulet of kings? Haven't really done anything on the shivering isles, so what if I run into a quest that I haven't done yet, but might not make sense for the character? Seeing the whole game is great, but starts to feel unrealistic if my character can solve every quest I run into and do everything in oblivion, there's got to be some limitations.

K I've rambled enough, just curious as to what people have done to balance roleplaying and realism vs. seeing and playing the whole game.

With my first few characters I did pretty much everything the game had to offer.
Now I have seen it all and started to roleplay I can happily ignore any quests that don't suit my character.

Roleplaying, by its very nature, limits our choices. When we roleplay we are limiting ourselves to only those actions our characters would take. It is very hard for me to imagine a scenario in which a roleplayer would do both the Dark Brotherhood questline and the Knights of the Nine questline with the same character. I usually cannot justify joining both the Fighter's Guild and the Mages Guild on the same character. My woodland-loving Ranger-type characters would never think of fighting in the Arena.

As far as I'm concerned a player whose character does everything in Oblivion, solely because the player wanted to do everything in Oblivion, is not roleplaying. I also believe that a player who "plays as himself" is not roleplaying.

With my very first character ever I did everything even though it didn't suit her playing style. I was a mage/ stealth type but I battled through the fighters guild and the arena anyway because I wanted to see what it was all about.

Now I focus more on roleplaying, I have a few characters so I can choose what suits them best.
I have a Breton stealth/mage who's fairly moral and good, but not in a traditional way. She's in the Mages Guild, but she's also in the Thieves Guild. She only robs from the rich. She will never be doing the Dark Brotherhood- she is no murderer, and to date she has not a single murder to her name... ...but, she is a vampire hunter with the Order of the Virtuous Blood. She does not view this as murder, since the vampires always attack her first. She isn't really a fighter outright- she mostly uses spells to attack from a distance, then if things get a bit hairy she will draw 'Shield-Breaker', her trusty enchanted shortsword. She will not join the Fighter's Guild. She refused Jauffre's offer to join the Blades, but if she sees an oblivion gate in the wilderness, she'll close it. She's perhaps the most interesting character I've ever had.

Another character is a redguard fighter type. He's a murderer. He's in the Dark Brotherhood, but sometimes this sits a little uncomfortably with him, so he's trying to 'mainstream' with the Fighter's Guild. Yesterday he joined the Arena and advanced twice in rank in just a couple of hours. I see great things for him ahead. I think the Arena and Dark Brotherhood go well together, since they both involve slaughtering people. He won't be joining the Mages Guild, there's no point.

Kinda. But I have several characters so eventually one of them wants to do something another one turned down.



Yes. I've had over 10 characters so far, only a couple of them attempted the MQ.



Renee Gade I was a jack-of-all-trades. She was my 2nd char. and took every quest thrown at her. After awhile, I found her game was way too distorted and distracting for me personally. I wasn't really "roleplaying" her because I was so new to the game at the time. Long story. One day I got sick of her game because of they way Oblivion levels out of control and I stopped playing Oblivion for months. Then I came back with Renee Gade II, with a bunch of fresh ideas (no magic except Restoration, only Fighter's Guild stuff, Minors for Majors, dead is dead, etc) and since then I've been totally in love with this game with few issues..



Sure, I've also had several characters who just pocket the Amulet (ooooh so shiny!) and never go to Weynon Priory at all



Hey, that's up to you. You may be over-anolyzing all this just a tad. Maybe roleplaying isn't for you! It's not for everyone, ya know.



Yup. :goodjob:

Like Lizarious, my first few characters focused more on doing everything in the game than roleplaying. I found that to a good thing and am grateful for the experience, because now that I am roleplaying and my character wrinkles her nose at quite a few quests, I don't mind a bit.

The mental gymnastics that some players apply to fitting one character into disparate quest lines are not really my cup of Tamikas. Dropped on their head as a child so they joined the DB, then Sheogorath showed them the light and now they are the Divine Crusader (and Gray Fox, Grand Champion, Arch Mage, Champion of Cyrodiil, Head of the FG and kill Unicorns . . . Lol).

That's what my "Glargg" character (such as it is) is all about. "Glargg" is my "game-tester," and has little to do with role-playing. He will do anything the game permits, and will sometimes even reload and take a different path. I still see "Glargg" as a character of sorts, simply because he has been with me for so long (beginning with Might & Magic games in the 80s.) "Glargg" is not "me," because in real life I am anything but a sword-waving, wise-cracking barbarian in fur and iron. In my mind, he's a kind of Demented Conan who will take on just about anything somebody suggests to him, just for the fun of it. But he's not really about "role playing." Once Glargg has tested a game, if it proves worthy of replay (as TES games do), I create characters and begin to actually role play.