Y'know, it's funny, I'm the same way. I honest cannot remember EVER making a female character, in either Oblivion or Morowind. They've always been guys. Hm.

Usually I don't worry much about his appearance, just as long as he isn't repulsive. Only time I've ever worked to make a Prince Charming kinda guy was when I decided to try the MQ for the first time. I'd played several characters without ever doing it, and figured a handsome Sir Galahad would be appropriate. To be honest, the whole experience was quite unforgettable :laugh:



Aw, poor Bogmok

This is what I do as well. Like, I'll know I want to play a Khajiit thief, but that's about it -- I've found I really enjoy using the prison section for observing the new character in action. By the time he leaves, I have a better idea of who he is, and what he's liable to do. My usual playstyle is a mix of playing in the character's head, and just following the character, because I try to think like him, but now and then he goes off and does something that surprises me.

Best example of that was when I tried the playable dremora mod. I had no idea who Kyraz was or what he'd do, but when he ended up in Anvil, the whole mess in the chapel really hit him hard -- he didn't like mortals or know much about them, but this figure who embodied Love and Beauty had been defiled, and to him, that was inexcusable.

I once roleplayed myself too, because I tend to play as the character in RPG's, and just inject myself a little here and there. One day though, I thought, "What if *I* woke up one day in that cell? What would *I* do in that situation?" Turned out really interesting, because it was like I saw Cyrodiil again for the first time. Normally my characters will just barge into any ol' dungeon and have their way with the occupants, but me? Oh hell no. I'm not going in there, too dark, and no telling what'll want to kill me, everything else I've met has wanted to kill me, what makes you think I won't run into more thugs and monsters that just want to rip out my guts? No thank you, I'll just stick to the road and follow this guard for a while.

After I joined the Mages Guild, I toughened up real quick :laugh:

But, having said that, I like to slow down the timescale, add mods that affect hunger and fatigue and such, and do stuff like wash my clothes in a lake or duck out of a bad storm. For me, it's not so much trying to imitate real life, as it is reacting to a lifelike environment.

There are five talks on doomstones that you can listen in on. I believe that the talks are at 10am and 4pm.

I've created a new character (a pure mage High-Elf) that is pretty much a mix of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orochimaru_%28Naruto%29, and your typical Telvanni mage: he's kinda the isolicionist researcher, looking to learn all (interesting) spells avaliable in Tamriel, and he's not hesitant to use whatever measures he has to achieve it, including advanced alchemy experiments, and necromancy. He's also looking for a way to obtain inmortality as well.

Spiced with mods, this type of char is hell of fun ^^ I'm currently using Deepscorn Hollow as my laboratory, and two pocket-portable dimensional spaces (accesible both via spells) as my home and warehouse, respectively.

Im so over the top with my RPing..lol

My char. is supposed to be a Hlaalu Coucilman's son (My character in Morrowind). Thats how my OB character is capable of saving Cyrodil from the Daedra horde. His father was the reincarnate of Neravrar (sp?). His father sent him off somewhere before the trouble with all the Great Houses. Before he made it though, he was enjoying his birthday at The House of Earthly Delights in Suran (Father's territory), couldnt keep his hands off the ladies, and when the guards were called he used his (Father's) influence to be taken off to Cyrodil instead of being Jailed there. (My reason to celebrate every 1 year after leaving jail for my birthday). He arrived there and was just going to go to sleep when some King came in his cell saying a bunch of jargan about he dreams of me.

So I like to make Chorrol my main home. So I need to be related to Countess Chorrol. Either I marry her non-existant second daughter, or I make the countess my mother. My father had some relations with Countess Chorrol. That makes Countess Leyawiin my sister. The only three characters that know me as The Coucilman's son are the only three people related to House Hlaalu. The nec-romantic in Skingrad, Count Cheydinhall, and Farwill. So they are my friends/subjects.

Money.. When it comes to money, I dont want to OD on money and have no reason for it. So I took it apon myself to give myself a 1000 a week in allowance from either my Chorrol "Mother" or from my "Father" from Vvardenfell. If it stacks then it just stacks.

Armor.. The Escutchen of Chorrol is a must-have shield. All of weapons and armor is Ebony because of the Ebony mines on my Father's property. But I do have to wait until lvl 20 like everyone else, so I just wear Elven armor until I can get Ebony.

Clothes.. I never buy expensive clothes until I visit Countess Chorrol and she realizes who I am and starts the allowence. Even then, I still dont wear expensive clothes until my fame is high enough.

Schooling.. Only the best for a Hlaalu Councilman's son!! I go to the Arcane University and just sit in on the speeches and stand to the side in the practice rooms as the mages practice, then I go out and try what I learned from watching and listening to make my skills advance. I go to the Temple of Ancestral Moths just to pratice my restoration skill. Gottlesfont (sp?) Priory to practice Alteration. My KotN plug-in is for my weapons training and horse riding practice. All paid for by "Mother" or "Father".

Food and Drink.. What I did was follow a couple of NPC's around on my free time just to see how they do these things. I eat at times NPC's eat and same with drinks. Take the same amount of time to eat and drink too. Before allowences I steal from gardens, and after allowences I buy food. My drinks before allowence are purchased from Vendors, and after allowence I can afford to go find my fav. type of wine. (Shadowbanish). After allowences I always drink Shadowbanish wine and both 399's just because their the most expensive.

After all quests are complete, thats when I get lost in my RP's. I turn the 360 on just to walk around my house, eat and drink, ask about Rumors, and sleep. I get lost in decorating too. I decorate houses that arent even buyable. I decorated peoples houses to make it look like their sleeping with somebody else or to seem like they are working for me. (Ex. I enchant Ebony boots and just name them Elagabalus' (my chars. name) Ebony Boots and put them buy a womans bed to make it seem like I took them off before I layed down with her *just left barefooted*).. I have the Weatherley house decorated because the Jemaine brothers work for me. After I slaughtered all the Black Hand, I take their robes and put them in peoples houses that are MY NEW Black Hand. I take a section of Chorrol Chapel Undercofts and make it My Families burial chamber and deco it with Gems, Ebony Armor, Blue Silks, and other little things. (I was going to use the one in the IC after The Copious Coinpurse quest, but the guy robbing the graves wont dissapear. Just in there laying on the floor). You get the idea.

Houses.. Rosethorn Hall is my Castle after I have stop taking Allowence from Countess Chorrol and can afford to make it on my own. Then I fill it with Chorrol and Hlaalu named things. I enchant things just to change the name of them. All the guards in Rosethorn are wearing Bound Daedric armor and all the helpers have Bound Daedric Daggers. IC shack is my first home I always buy because it plays with my role. (Nobody knows I'm a Councilman's son, so why should I have a huge house when I'm a nobody? Yet!). Anvil's house and The Spire, I get for storage. All other houses I just decorate for activities. I make alot of my houses into houses like The Riverview in Cheydinhall. Just a big party inside. I once made my Bruma house into a [censored]house.

I think a big part of RPing is decoration. (I never am, but..) If I was a Monk character, I wouldnt have nice clothes in my drawers, expensive weapons laying about, or own nice big houses. Me being a Noble means I can do or have it all, so thats why I always make Elagabalus a Noble.

Whew, thats alot! ::Arthritis::

I never intend to RP but I always find myself doing it at least a little. I'm not hardcoe about it, I mean I never eat unless I want the wortcraft affects and I only sleep or rest when I need to but every once in a while I'll catch myself thinking something like: "Hey, I think Valiri wants to go swimming!" So Valiri goes swimming. Or sometimes I'll notice that I try to find somewhere private, away from prying NPC eyes to change her clothes. Little things that are of no real importance but make the game that much more fun. It would be much more immersive though if I could get the face to look like the idea in my head.

I like that list, one thing I tend to do now is find water or open ground to graze on when I travel with a horse, and leave her there to graze while I explore the region.

I have a little problem.

I like powergaming, playing on max difficulty, constant training, and abusing the related mechanics. The problem is, this is hardly interesting or, where the diff slider is concerned, realistic from a roleplay standpoint, so I wanted to dream up an unusual person that might fit in here to make it more immersive.

The idea of playable children smacked me in the face with Emma's "Children of Morrowind" mod. I figured that a sort of mischievous, mildly sociopathic, star-marked kid would have great ambition, but also great difficulty coping with a dangerous world. Thus he'd need to acquire all sorts of more subtle skills. And unlike a blameless knight of the realm or a teenage beauty queen, his carelessness would also give ample reason to start the game in jail (and end up back in jail over and over again!).

From this point, my character a boy of maybe 10-13 years of age, I was able to have a lot of fun doing tweaky things alongside the powergaming bit. He never fast travels. He spends weeks in the wilderness, moving from camp to camp. To the extent that he joins guilds, he'll never rise more than one or two ranks, being underage. When he does get into a city, he gets into trouble. Usually summoning mad things all over town and trespassing.

He has a habit of failing to use magic with maximum effectiveness. Once he made a huge pile of paralyzed guards in the Elven Gardens district. He's mastered the difficult Summon Lich spell, but its main application seems to be on Dive Rock, where he summons them in order to practice his Knockdown attack :whistling: He (well... I) makes a sport of casting buffs on animals for dark humor. Rallies deer against rangers. Fortifies speed to make stuff whiz around. Kvatch was a particularly botched operation, where half the daedra seemed to be fighting for him at one point, but most of his comrades still managed to get themselves killed. Hero of Kvatch indeed.

An odd little musing.

I don't walk, when I RP.
I sometimes do on Morrowind because, well, there's a toggle and it's easier. But I play OB on the Xbox and keeping the thumbstick in a walking position is just a chore for more than a few steps.

My style of RP involves exploring. Even within cities, I'll just run around, in houses, talking (or stealing) to (from) people.

Then ... just a note in response.

Okay, Buffy, perhaps, and maybe that's why I don't watch the show. But I wouldn't consider River Tam a teenage beauty queen. Rather quite the opposite. (Not seen her running around in a prom dress with perfect make-up). A disturbed teenage girl killing men right and left? That last shot in Serenity, where she's standing among the dead (mostly male) bodies with the dripping bloody axe .... I'm sorry, that just doesn't scream teen beauty queen to me. In fact, the only measurable difference between River Tam's character and Stephen King's Carrie (who is arguably the complete antithesis of the teen beauty queen) is the social acceptability of their killings. (On another note, there's a very real connection between the crazy, murderous reavers in Serenity and the "mean" kids who set Carrie up for humiliation ... ).

River Tam is an excellent example of what I do consider a playable character and not a teen beauty queen. Like Lisbeth Salander, the young female protaganist in Stieg Larsson's brilliant novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, River is a social misfit. One look and you realize this one is dangerous - and not because for her ability to kill but because she is different. She doesn't make you excited, she makes you nervous. She's strange. What Malcolm Gladwell might refer to as an "Outlier". Unaccepted and, often, unwanted.

I'm in the last year of a creative writing program (this is my last year of undergrad) and in all those years of writing, almost every single woman protaganist I've created has been an outsider. Gothic, to me - American Gothic, Industrial Gothic, Modern Gothic, call it what you want - has little to do with vampires and lacy lingerie. It has everything to do with being a social alien. River Tam, Lisbeth Salander, Carrie, even Elisabeth Bennet, were (are?) all social aliens. What makes them fascinating as characters is watching them come to terms with that alienage...and how they succeed or fail.. at finding acceptance.

Looking back, I knew when I wrote the words "teenage beauty queen" that I might be misunderstood. I'm sorry if offended anyone. People can play the game however they want. Whenever I see those pictures in the Oblivion mods forum of half-naked teenage women, lounging before a fire in almost nothing, I'll try to remember I'm looking at the Savior of Cyrodill. She likes to relax after a hard day of killing daedra ...

~ Dani ~

Edit: "A disturbed teenage girl killing men right and left?" I came back to reread this later and realized just Freudian that sounded ...

You have a fair point, I am a man myself but have allways viewed women in media as I do in real life.
Mostly due to comming from a family with a heavy xx dna mix.
And that is as no more or less than any male character, the best example I know of is the character in alien.
A part written for a man but played as written by a woman.
Rivers character was a good example due to the fact her problems were not a typical female crisis, rather that of a seriously tormented child with no idea how to react in society.
Which could have had a man or woman to portray the role equaly as the only romance was done in a manner of the unrequited sense, that again could have switched gender roles easily.
So which brings me to the point roleplaying should not just be about simple stereotypes, rather think personality / ideals / dreams then add a gender.

I can relate to this! As a female gamer 48 years old, I get really ticked when my only choice to play a game is playing some guy. Planescape Torment is one and yes, The Witcher another one, Assassins Creed, the list goes on . I just can't role play males very well and when I start a game, I like to role play. If I'm just going through the motions, it's not fun for me.

I can understand Dani's comment though. I tend to play elves, and come from a DnD perspective and background. To me they are hauntingly beautiful and aloof. I try to portray that in my character creation (not always successfully but I try.) They are also small framed, lithe, etc. This is what I try to achieve. I also try to achieve some reality into all that which is to say, my elves don't have "DD" cups and don't go dungeon crawling in high heels! Now I might put some of that stuff on for screen shot fun, but when it comes down to actually role playing and gaming, they aren't in my game.

So for me, role play starts at character creation. Who is nagging at the back of my mind? What am I trying to convey when I make her face. Most importantly what is in the eyes? When I achieve what I want with my minor char. gen. skills, things start to snowball from there. What does she do and do well? What can't she? All of this starts at the character generation screen for me. All the other stuff, eat, sleep quests etc are pretty much secondary

I have very strong and defined feelings about male/female roles in society and how those roles get depicted in literature, film and video games. I like Madocmayhem's reference to Alien, a movie I love for so many reasons, but one of which is Ripley's character was originally written for a guy. And along comes Weaver plays it perfectly.

One "issue" I have with SOME video games - and SOME movies and books, including SOME Japanese movies, magna, hentai, anime and so on - is the depiction of woman as nothing more than six objects. Even in Dragon Age Origins, the female character produced comments from NPCs suggesting she was acting out of her social role. This may be a good thing, forcing gamers to consider the possibility that women can be something other than incubators or objects of male sixual satisfaction, but the fact that the dialog is in the game at all is evidence that someone considered that women might have unequal social standing - even in video games.

One backlash to this social emphasis on women as six objects is many women intentionally and deliberately move away from the norm. We purposely make ourselves aliens because being "normal' means being "an object" ... sixual or otherwise. In effort not to be come someone's "toy", we alienate ourselves and purposely set ourselves apart. It can be, at times, lonely (not that you'd ever catch me in a dress, in or out of Oblivion) but the alternative is simply unacceptable.

Your screenshot point is illuminating. Do you feel you have to do that to get "noticed"? I've not posted many screenshots so I'm kind of curious ...

~ Dani ~

Come closer and see
See into the trees

These. I also don't wear shoes if I make a religious character.

I actually don't RP that much, I like it, I just haven't really gotten to it.

Just a nudge to get this thread back on topic of "How do you roleplay in Oblivion", since I am enjoying it and would rather not have to close it for getting a bit too off topic. Discussion and debate of gender politics and depictions in other games, screenshooting, and other entertainment mediums are better off conducted by PM, as they tend to get political, which isn't allowed on these forums.

Sorry. You can delete my posts if you wish.

~ Dani ~

Whoops, sorry greenie

Dani - I'll PM you the answer if you like, just let me know

To add more to my answer. After character generation which is where I get a good feel for what the character is about, I tend to walk around for a bit not heading anywhere in particular. During that time I get a feeling for what that specific character wants to do. Some head straight to the IC, some don't. Some have a burning desire to see Jauffre right away, others could care less. Some get distracted by shiny objects!

Obviously the role play changes with each character but in general, all of my characters take time out to eat, sleep and play after a hard days work. Those that own horses take impeccable care of them by making sure they are always safe. There's always apples, carrots, corn in my inventory to thank them at the end of the day for being a good friend. The world itself will change my characters outlook. Similar to the poster who posted about his Orc. The most fun for me is watching my character develop and grow. Seeing the effects the world around them has had on them. It fascinates me when my basic "good girl" turns bad just due to the events that unfolded by the choices she made and who's she's talked to.

One of my current characters, Pang, was an isolationist basically. She did everything alone and had little use for folks in the city. Being Bosmer, she's not treated so well by most. I downloaded Vilja companion and Pang met her and since then I've watched her grow and come out of that shell. Vilja's constant pvssyr and funny ways have turned Pang into a totally different character than what I started with. It has been a fun ride

Ive had so many different playthroughs i like to mix it up,everytime.So ill go with my recent playthrough

Female Dunmer by the name of Gris le' Yelrysae'
Birthsign:Shadow
Class:Custom(always go custom)
Vampirism:Feeding of course

Journey:This character i played the main quest first.i did some side quest here and there.i just beat the main quest few days ago and i am playing the dark botherhood now,while doing other little side quest.after i finish DBH,im going to be doing a fair amount of little quest before i do the fighters guild.after that some more little quest then im going to be playing the expansion pack:Shivering Isles and after completing that quest ill do whatever side quest there are in that before returning back to Cyrodiil to do and see about unbecoming a vampire.then Knights of the nine.then some more side/little quest.mages guild,then some more side quest and last thieves guild.i like to roam around and find random shrines,forts etc,etc,etc.i dont use fast travel that much unless im doing a important quest

Combat Style:I like to mix it up between marksmen and two handed combat.
i usually use some kind of Claymore and sometimes longsword.ill buy enchanted swords once and a while if i feel like,usually i just pick them up along the way of quest.ill use whatever bow i can get my hands on untell i finally find one i like at the time.so far ive been using the bow you earn from a bonus that comes from a DBH quest
i create/use poisons to apply to arrows for a much quicker kill

Supplies:i buy potions,armor,weapons,food.from time to time.but i usually just pick them up along the way.i steal/trade/sell merchandise so i can accommodate what i need to do at that point in time with whats going on.
i always have at least 20-30 lockpicks,30-40 repair hammers,5 torches,2 sets of armor,three swords,two types of arrows at all times.a few enchanted rings/necklaces/clothes for when they become useful.i try to have 5 health and 5 sorcery potions at all times just incase.ill drop/sell things quickly if i find myself bored of them or just no longer a need to have.

Residents:Manson in Anvil.trying to get enough gold to buy the one in chorrol but thats 20,000 i only have about 5k gold or so.
i have alot of useful weapons,armor,rings,potions,scrolls in upper third room of the manson.its all kept in the chest.i just killed some legion and leaywin soliders for their suits and placed them in the chest,after repairing them of course.i kept interesting books i found on the one desk to read later down the line.any mead,wine ive acquired i put in the first cabinet you see in the second room of the bottom floor

Powers:i use frost,fire,shock and moonshadow alot.just tried vampires seduction not bad pretty funny.

Skills:the ones i use the most are marksmen,armor,blade,sneak,restoration,security and destruction

Random style of playing:If ive been drinking while playing Oblivion.ill have my character drink as well.i know pretty stupid but its what i do.
ill go on rampages once in a while and kill some villagers,soliders and lead them on a decent case untell im able to summon some ancestors/zombies and watch them fight them.i also like to talk to everyone so i can to level speechcraft and learn things of things ive forgotten all about.