I was thinking, what if we started having 'rivals'? They were identical to our character (albeit a different race, name, and profession) and roamed the map. They would dungeon dive, collect loot, sell it, buy better equipment, and leveled up just like we do. It's like a non-playable player's character... You could occasionally run across him in dungeons and in the wild, barter with him, hire him, talk with him - or even duel him to the near death. It'd be neat if they always chose the opposite of what you chose (they joined Stormcloaks if you joined Imperials).

I know there are random NPC's throughout the game who can be found wearing leveled armor and such, but it'd be cool if you ran across the same named NPC and he acted as I described above. Just make it feel like there are other adventurers.