I feel the Redguards are also pretty human? Unless of course black people aren't classified as such lol

But yea I agree with Skeloton. Try them both out and make a decision based on that. I personally would choose the Nord just because I am a warrior style player, and I enjoy playing "big brute" characters.

Haha, I want to get it right though without revisiting it again straight away though

Well in Oblivion there the only humans with an english accent.. As far as I remember at least.

The Bretons are the race which is modeled after the English.

Imperials are modeled more after Romans.

I vote Nord, however.

Because developers ruined Imperials and Cyrodiil in TES4
Bretons and Redguards in TES2 had classical Western/Central European architecture and culture
Cyrodiil was supposed to be a mix of Southern Europe, North Africa and Middle East set in tropical rain forest (basically territories around Mediterranean sea)
Instead it was made into random medieval european setting

Bretons: British, and French. Besides their name which could be both a reference to both Britian, and the region of Bretony in nothern France their home region of Highrock greatly resembles Britian in climate.Many Bretons also have celtic and Norman esk names.

Imperials: Based on Italian, and Spanish Europeans. This is due to their olive complexion as well as their names. Many Imperials have Latin names that appear similar to those from classical Rome. (Such as "Curio" and "Septim") Also, The imperial armor (especially the ones in Morrowind) are extremely roman in design.

Nords: Based on Scandinavians, such as Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Norway. In addition to their Nordic psychical traits, and Skyrim's similarities to Scandinavia much of the lore we have learned recently parallels Norse mythology.

Redguard: A mixture of mamalukan Egypt, and north African corsairs. Keep in mind the Redguards migrated to Hammerfall from a lost landmass which we know little about.

Also keep in mind many of the mer also have connections to real world cultures. =D

Why i ask ye would you even want to play the "common" hero or anti hero i wonder?

Did you enjoy playing yourself in Oblivion, as an Imeperial?

Sounds like you want an Imperial.

I don't like playing the "standard" races. I am not saying this as a knock towards you, or anyone else, just my personal preference, but I feel like playing a Nord in Skyrim doesn't take enough imagination for me. The indigenous race of people is typically the first checked off my list in Elder Scrolls games (although it DOES help that I already have a pre-existing disinterest in Nords [Skyrim] and Imperials [Oblivion], and when it comes to Elf-folk, Dark Elves [Morrowind] lose out to Wood Elves everytime), followed instantly by Khajiit and Argonians.

From your post, I'd say Imperial. I think you'd get better RP out of your character that way.

The british are saxons who are basically similar to the pre roman north european tribes, making british most similar to the nords. You are way off on the imperial bit, they are the ancient romans, who thought of the saxons as just another barbarian tribe. Clearly the mercantile era british concept has clouded your vision, since that era has nothing to do with nirn. Be a nord if you are a fighter, a breton if you are a mage. Ifyou want something similar to the 19th centuryenglish culture, go for altmer.

Why don't you just RP a character who is half Nord and half Imperial? Say his or her mother is Imperial and father is Nord or something like that. They learned Nord-like combat skills from their father and sophistication and merchant skills from their mother or vise versa. I don't know....just a thought. Remember, this is an RPG; you can make any character you want. Just remember, according to lore, people generally acquire the physical look of their mother.

It always seemed to me that the Imperials were more Roman than English....

Nords are badarse. Plain and simple. I will be playing one as my first character.

Oh this is a sweet topic, cause character creation is a pretty big deal to me too. I pretty much agree with the "playing as me" aspect, though what I do is make a character with a personality like mine and a slightly altered appearance and name. But I always play as a human the first time; I like the race of men, because its what I relate to and as I like to imagine myself within the fantasy world I do that best as my own race. LOTR is a big reason for this too; the race of men is like the rugged mediator between all the mythical species. We're practical, we're normal, maybe even boring at first glance, easily corruptible, but we can do great things. So I plot out my character quite a bit, even going so far as to develop back-stories and whatnot, cause I'm a big story person and in my opinion epic games like this are all about making it your own story-- I even do sketches of my characters (I've been planning my Skyrim guy since the reveal trailer) and that's a lot of fun. In Oblivion I made an Imperial. And to comments about how its not like your stuck with the same character forever, that's certainly true, but for me personally I just had to stick with my main guy mostly. I like to develop my main character and truly make him a part of the world and so I do everything I can playing as him. In Oblivion (which I got in 2009 because that's when I finally acquired a PS3) I still haven't even come close to finishing EVERYTHING. However I got most of the important things over with to the point I was satisfied and then I got Fallout 3 and Demon's Souls... etc. Recently though, I returned to Oblivion to replay at least the main quest, and I am doing so as a Wood Elf (Bosmer) female, my second favorite race/gender type, and apart from a brief excursion as an Orc, that is the only other race I've even played as. As for whether you should be a Nord or Imperial, I can certainly see that Nord would be an appealing choice as it is the native race of the game's region. I know I'm going to play as an Imperial because my intended origin for him is to be a descendant of the Champion of Cyrodiil (my Oblivion main and the Wood Elf girl =D). So I know its not for everyone to get into that much depth in character creation, and I'm probably gonna get a few "Cool story bro!"s for this, but its my opinion that having a strong connection to your character really draws me into the game, so if it helps, when deciding whether to be a Nord or Imperial (or whatever else) definitely think about what you really want out of your selection and what you want the experience to be like, even if that means using your imagination to the point where your art teacher keeps asking who this recurring drawing of a dude in armor and a ranger cloak is! !!/!!/!! Can't wait!!

Play Imperial.You know you want too.

That would be a 1st considering that any offspring is the same race as the mother according to lore, meaning theres no hybrids. Though it never stopped me using that Tabaxi mod or whatever that Imp/Khaj mods called

I suggest Imperials! They get to pick coins out of their enemies' flesh, and any combatskill setbacks are always easily caught-up-with later.

But the hometeam is the Nords, obviously, and you want to play the hometeam.

Nord all the way fletch, there is a lot of role playing you can do with them. I seen your comment today. Yeah I know who you are lol.

ARGONIANS PWN ALL BUTTHOLE :flamethrower: :flamethrower:

Yu are a breton in real life so...play a breton. Sure, they turned french in Morrowind, but who cares?

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Notes_on_Racial_Phylogeny It's not so black and white. There is enough flexibility within the lore to create a mixed race. And that's if you really want to be strict in terms of following lore to create your character.

Or you could simply decide to RP a Nord who was raised by Imperials or vise versa. That's what makes TES so great; we can create whatever background we want.