So here's the thing:

My current character is a Dunmer Sorcerer called Alvar Dren, born under the Atronach. And I'll be honest, I started him because for ages I've wanted to have a Divayth Fyr style character. So it was a case of trying to build a character around how I wanted to play, or at least one of the setups I have in mind.

Problem is, I pretty much svck at roleplaying. So Alvar Dren isn't really there, even when I'm trying to roleplay. Maybe it's because it's too much about how I want to play, maybe I'm just not connecting with the character, hel, maybe it's just because I've too many character concepts kicking around my head (I think there's like 4 or 5 up there at the moment) I don't know.

Maybe the guy's just too new, or it's my general dislike of the Atronach sign.

Anyway, what I want to ask is; How do you guys get around this sort of thing?

And now I'm typing this I've got the impression I've started a topic like this before at some point.

This is simular:

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1471980-rp-character-vs-story/

For some reason the thread title made me think of having to get into a fist fight with my RP characters.

But yea Callidus, check that link Run put, it's very similar and has a lot of goods points in it.

That must have been the one I was thinking of, thanks. And only a few months old no less.

I'm literally running in circles when it comes to Oblivion.

It would seem to me that the biggest problem is that "a Divayth Fyr style" character is an impossible starting point in the game. What is such a character doing in the Imperial Prison with a measly set of weak spells and mediocre-at-best magic skills?

After a great deal of time and experience, he might end up a "Divayth Fyr style" character, or he might not, but I can't see him starting out that way. And it's significant that he might end up that way or he might not.

I would say that the closest you can legitimately come to playing a character like that is to try to sort out what Divayth Tyr would've been like at that age, and with that limited set of skills, and in that situation, then create that character. But even then, you have no guarantee that he's going to end up anything like Divayth Fyr.

I never focus on end points for the characters. I honestly would think that doing that would make bringing the character to life completely impossible. For me, the entire process of bringing characters to life is getting to know them - fleshing them out as I come to understand little bits and pieces of their personalities. I just travel with them and pay attention to them and try to figure out what they would be thinking and feeling in various situations and piece it together that way. If I went into it with a goal in mind, then I'd be "blind" to who and what they really are and would instead just spend all my time going through the motions with them - working them like puppets. I don't see how they could ever come to life that way.

If it was me (and I might just do this - it's sort of appealing), I'd create a Dunmer with a very aristocratic face and give him a powerful mage build, then just go and see what happened. I occasionally have some idea of some details of the character's imprisonment, but I'd say that's more the exception than the rule. Nothing's really coming to me with this yet, but I'd have to see the character to really know. Maybe he's angry - maybe he feels like he was wronged. Maybe he's apprehensive. Maybe... nothing. Whichever the case, just keep going. Maybe it'll sort itself out and maybe it won't.

I'd probably take him up to the Market District, just because I start from a sewer exit save with a full inventory of junky loot, and since he's pretty much broke, he's going to want to sell that stuff (I've had a couple of characters who dropped it instead of selling it, but I can't see a somewhat aristocratic Dunmer doing that). It's night on my sewer exit save, so he'd probably kill time in the same way that most of my characters do - by exploring the city and rifling through crates and barrels for whatever might be useful. That provides a few opportunities to get some early insight into the character. I have to try to figure out what they think about rifling through the crates and barrels, and what they think about the city at night, and the guards, and maybe the few people who are out and about. Most of that's just rote though - they just cruise through the city and pick stuff up, though I might get a bit of insight if they run across something sort of novel and interesting and I can test their reaction to it. But I usually don't start to get anything meaningful about them until the next day, when they sell their loot, buy stuff and maybe get to know the locals.

He'd sell off the loot he doesn't need, buy some spells and maybe some other gear, maybe talk to some of the locals (with me keenly paying attention to see if I get a hint of some emotional reaction to one or another of them), then I'd have to figure out what he was going to do next. Sometimes that's clear, but usually it isn't. If it's not, then I just go with a really basic concept of it - would he want to hang around the city some more? Explore the island? Get moving? If the last, where to? What's important to him?

And so on.

Somewhere along the way, I might check and see how he's stacking up against this notion of "Divayth Fyr style" (still asking myself what that really means), and it's possible once I start getting the character figured out that that would provide some workable insight to some other aspects of his personality and/or history, but that all comes later really. I fit stuff like that in IF it fits, rather than trying to use it as a framework, since, again, I think that frameworks just get in the way of bringing the character to life.

And that's all I've got, really.

Well... that, and now I'm thinking about creating a sort of aristocratic looking Dunmer mage. Maybe I'll get some insight once I see his face...