No, in fact it helps my immersion. I don't play my "test character" long enough to really do much, just a few hours. The idea is to get familiar with the interface, the character-creation system, etc. Then when I get into my "real" character, my mind isn't distracted by things like "how do I open my journal...how do I level up...how do I make potions...?"

Nords are tall and muscular. I love playing the heroic warrior so it seemed like the best choice.

I′m the opposite here. Finding out how it all works is to me just as much fun as discovering the game world

Breton.

I had played almost exclusively Dunmer in Morrowind and I wanted a change. I briefly considered an Imperial for the same reason that I mostly played Dunmer in Morrowind - because it's their home province - but I didn't want to lock myself into that concept again. I didn't (and still don't) care for the beast races in Oblivion much, since they actually don't look beastly enough IMO. They look too much like what they actually are mechanically - recolored humans with tails and different heads. I played with the face generator for a bit (one of the things I was most excited for in Oblivion) and decided that Bretons had the best faces, so that's what I went with. And I was already planning to just play a general-purpose tankish melee character, and was amused by the notion of using a Breton for that. I only later figured out what a great choice that is.

I always play an Argonian Nightblade whenever I start a new Elder Scrolls game.

(I either join the Morag Tong or the Dark Brotherhood as well.)

I always played as Argonian in Oblivion, loved them a lot, good stealthers, immune to disease and resistant to poison and unlimited underwater breath comes in handy too

I can vividly remember my first three characters. They were, in order, a Bosmer Witchhunter, a Dunmer Nightblade, and a Breton Spellsword. I abandoned the Bosmer somewhere in an Oblivion gate at about level 20. The Dunmer ended up finishing several of the quest lines before I retired him. With the Breton I logged several hundred hours, before I discovered mods in earnest, and he retired after a fashion, spending most of his hours gardening at his house in Chorrol.

My very first character was a Khajiit because I've never seen this race before and OB was my first TES game. I've played as humans / Elves / Orcs in other RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale and at first I associated Argonians with Lizard Men from these games but Khajiits were something new, something unique. Khajiits are also one of my favorite NPC races.

Brenton.

Because not being familiar with these types of games at the time (I bought Oblivion right after it's release) I figured the magic resistance would be good.

But I still kept getting killed by fireballs from stunted scamps around Belda!

I basically recreated my Dunmer from Morrowind, making him the longest lasting character I've had so far.

But you know, Oblivion's events take place only a few years after Morrowind.

I know, it's like four years or something right? I meant longest as in time played or hours put into.

Dunmer. Don't know why, don't know what I played as, I just remember that the first Oblivion character I made was a Dunmer.

My first play around was with a Bosmer. I didn't play her through to the end, just about a quarter through the MQ and enough to get familiar with the system. I remember she had a really weird face because I wasn't any good at facegen fu yet.

First character that I can recall and still have his final game save is Jandaga a wild elf (Ayleid), looks amazingly like a Bosmer.

Altmer mage - My one and only COC

A poll where Redguard isn't last wow.

Wood elf

I wanted to play archer with illusions. I always though that it is my best playthrouh skill wise, so i though it was perfect for game testing. Now i know it is not. My best skill wise are timing based skills so either guys that relly on agile movement to evade or perfect short lasting skill/spells to defend, while having stable damage output. So basically agile melee fighters that use either shield-like spells that last short time or use shields.

My very first character was a wood elf, which I dismissed 15 minutes into the game since I couldn't see a thing. Yeah, a freakin' rat chewed me up. Twice.

I then picked a Khajiit for its night vision, and what a world of difference the game play was. Didn't even really need a weapon, thanks to its claws, but I still mastered archery.

It wasn't until my second play through I realized the game's brightness was way off for my television.

Ever since I invented the main protagonist of my story, every RPG I ever played I 'had to' play as him.

In Morrowind it was an Argonian, as it was coming closest to my little dragon in appearance and I couldn't do much to make it closer myself, yet.

In Oblivion I was immediately turned away from using an Argonian by Bethesda's cheap costumed-human approach they took this time around.

As I still had to play as Drake, I decided to go for his 'human' shape this time instead, and 'Breton' came closest in appearance.

Thus a sword-wielding young Breton it was for my first play-through in Oblivion... and for obvious reasons I leveled up this fire magic thing infinitely.

Later I learned how to fix the Argonians to my liking, and after I learned to create my own meshes, Drake's 'race', as a shape shifter, became a lot more 'indefinite' all of a sudden.

Apart from running around in full-dragon shape all the time, you can't scare those poor Cyrodilians with a big red winged fire-breathing lizard everytime you enter a city,

http://imageshack.us/a/img25/9465/calloftheskies1ey2.jpg

What 'race' that is? No idea. Probably something halfway from Breton to dragon (It was inofficial development stage #17, if I recall correctly, but I'm not going to count them all now).

But this is Drake, and this was the first "real" race I was playing the game as. Everything else was just 'testing' so far.

So yeah... still voting for 'Breton' though, due to a lack of modded races.