I don't want any NPC's to die from dragon attacks or vampire attacks and I never fast travel because it doesn't feel like an adventure.

Is not fast travelling good enough to avoid npc's dieing? I heard something like that. Thanks.

I stopped fast traveling some time ago and havn't had any problems with vampire attacks ever since.

Dragon Attacks seem to happen less frequently for a character that does not use Fast Travel.

Vampire Attacks are controlled by the Time of Day a character enters and leaves a City. Sleeping in the Woods away from a Settlement and entering during Daytime does stop Random Vampires from Spawning in the City or Town being visited.

If I really want to get from one side of Skyrim to the other quickly I take a carriage. The carriage driver will drop me at the stables outside my chosen city, I then walk to the gates and always save the game before entering the city. This technique is a pretty much fool proof way of avoiding loosing useful NPC's like blacksmiths and shopkeepers.

Why not just fast travel to the stables?

I actually noticed that in-town vamp attacks stop happening altogether as the DG quest progresses (assuming you're doing Dawnguard). They still happen outside of towns though.

I'm not sure what happens if the player never starts Dawnguard; whether or not the in-town vamp attacks continue or eventually stop.

The vampire attacks do indeed start at about level 8 even if you don't start Dawnguard. You can avoid this obviously if you disable the DLC before you start a new game.

I personally don't use fast travel because of the reasons I mentioned above together with the fact that TES games are only released every 5 or 6 years so I'm really not in any great rush. You can fast travel to the stables but you may incur dragon attacks by doing so. I have known these dragon attacks to wipe out the carriage driver together with useful NPC's who happen to be in the area, so I avoid even fast travelling to stables for that reason also.

Even if you fast travel to the stables, the attack can happen once you're inside the city gates. This has happened to me several times, mostly in Whiterun but also in Windhelm. And even if no one attacks at first, if you go straight to an inn, you might find the vamps waiting for you when you step out the door the next morning - for some reason this always seem to happen to me in Dawnstar.

But frankly, if you always make a save first you can always revert to it if someone gets killed. And despite having had lots of attacks in my current game, so far the only named npcs I've lost have been Adrienne Avenicci (once, reloaded and saved her), Idolaf Battle-Born (no big loss imo) and one of the Khajiits from the caravans (not Kharjo and not one of the traders, so I let him stay dead). And a number of guards, but they will respawn anyway.

I fast travel a lot with my main and never had trouble with dragons/vampires honestly... Dragons tend to attack only a few towns and only those ones. (One being Raven Rock actually but the Dunmer always **** up those dragons on their own).

I've never fast traveled and have lost several NPCs to Vampire attacks. So no, avoiding fast travel is not good enough to avoid NPCs dying. (These days I use a batch file to turn all named NPCs essential). But on the other hand, I have never lost an NPC to a Dragon (even before I started using the batch file). Ive never even had a Dragon attack a town at all in my games.

So I suppose it's best to complete the DLC storyline ASAP after level 10 as it supposedly reduces the vampire attacks considerably?

Also is it obvious when a vampire attacks or when someone dies? Obviously I wouldn't want to go around the whole city every time I'm entering and leaving.

I think I've found a dead npc only once without seeing the actual attack (I just realized I was wrong in my last update, I've lost the woman who works at the inn in Dawnstar as well, Abelone or what she's called - that makes four named npcs on I don't know how many attacks). Usually, the vampires will attack YOU, and everyone else in the vicinity of you.

But as I say. Just make sure you have a save frombefore entering the city, then you can always reload if someone important to you dies.

Btw, did you say what platform you're on? If you're on PC, I highly recommend http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/28235/? (that,come to think of it might be the reason why I've lost so few, but OTOH, I've hardly lost any npcs to dragons either, without mods) and http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/38151/?. The first will make non-aggressive npcs flee indoors when vampires attack, the second makes it possible to customize when several quests and questlines will start - if you don't want to do Dawnguard right away, you can set it to start on a much higher level than 10, so that you don't have the attacks until you're ready to deal with them.