So, this is a problem I often have with creating characters. So, here are three character ideas currently fermenting in my head:

Breton Spellsword: A mercenary with an odd sense of honour, who has only minimal aptitude in the "higher magicks" of conjuration, mysticism, and illusion, and no skill in alchemy.

Altmer Enchanter: Arrogant, convinced of Altmer superiority, and that of magic users in general. Disdainful of the Mages Guild because he believes the restructuring reflects too much the weaknesses of the shorter lived races.

Imperial Fighter/Thief: Will be my first attempt at a non-casting character (I'd say non-magic but he uses alchemy) Sent to kill the Gray Fox. He's a fighter/thief who kills people for money, but he's not an assassin. I read a short story a while back about a character named Artemis Entreri, who was described as such in the intro to it, and loved the idea. Cold, clinical, and oozes professionalism.

The problem I have is that I don't feel that any of these three are ready to start, but any attempts to refine them rapidly devolves into planning what they're going to do. So they end up with more story than personality, which just isn't as much fun, as I found out with one or two previous characters.

Any of you ever have this problem? Any tips, advice, or suggestions?

Maybe I just need to stop writing about my character in the updates threads.

I used to spend ages and ages planning my characters. Seriously, I spent well over two months creating some of them. I think the problem with some of these over-meticulously-planned characters was that I invested all my creativity into the planning stage. Some of them got as far as the sewer exit and just stood there looking across the Niben toward Vilverin with no motivation to continue any further. I had already experienced everything the character was going to do in my imagination: there was no point in doing it a second time.

Lately I've been reducing the amount of time and energy I spend creating my characters. Nowadays I tend to invent a few dominant traits that define the character, plan the beginnings of a story and jump into the game before I think any further about it.

Once I get my character into the game all bets are off. I try to remain open to chance, to accidents, to the waywardness of the characters themselves. Nowadays I see my games as something akin to a wind-up toy car: I pick the toy, I wind the spring, I choose a direction, and then I set the car on the floor and let go. That is the end of my planning. What happens after that is as much of a surprise to me as to my characters. If the car bumps into a table leg and turns over, so be it.

So, perhaps, you might want to consider the possibility that you have done enough planning already. Choose a quest or two (or no quests at all!) to begin the journey and just "wing it" from there. If your character continues on the path you laid out for him, fine. But if your character suddenly changes direction, abandons magic for a claymore, abandons stealth for magic, or wants to join some guild you never would have expected, you can choose to see that as fine, too.

Maybe this won't help you. But embracing the idiosyncrasies my characters develop over the course of a game and incorporating them right into the character's stories as they appear has greatly revitalized my roleplaying.