No HUD
No music

No fast travel
Only carry a realistic carry amount. (ie 1 sword, 1 dagger, bow and no more than 50 arrows)
No health/stamina potions allowed. Only use food to heal and no healing mid battle.
No swimming in full suit of armour.
Walk when not in combat.
No carrying more than 200 gold at any one time. Use rings/gems to barter instead.
Camp at night, look for a suitable spot.
No using the local map
No looting enemies it makes no logical sense to loot ie Draughr.
Only pick up logical alchemy ingredients... so no carrying a giants toe in my pocket.
Use the appropriate weapon for enemy types, ie sledgehammers against dwemer bots.
Sheath weapons before actions ie lockpicking.
No 'waiting' to see what time it is. Look at the sky instead.

+1

And absolutely no enjoying yourself. Make Skyrim like an unpaid awful job so that it doesn't resemble an enjoyable computer game in any shape or form. Alternitively fire the game up and enjoy however you wish to play.

These rules have nothing to do with realism, immersion or roleplaying.

When it comes to roleplaying I have only one principle: take only those actions that are appropriate to the character.

'One-size-fits-all' rules, applied to every character, is not roleplaying to me. Forcing every character to eat three meals a day, for instance, is not roleplaying to me. Forcing every character to sleep a set number of hours at a set time of day is not roleplaying to me. Every person in real life is different, and I strive to make every character I roleplay different too. And that means every character I play is going to follow a different set of rules.

I believe good roleplaying should take the idiosyncrasies of individual characters into account. Some of my characters sleep at lot, some sleep very little. Some of my characters eat a lot, some eat very little. My roleplaying rules are tailored to the specific character I am playing right now.

I agree, but I beleive certain fundamentals must apply to common sense/logic, regardless of my character.

No health/stamina potions allowed. Only use food to heal and no healing mid battle.
Walk when not in combat.
No carrying more than 200 gold at any one time. Use rings/gems to barter instead.
No using the local map

Given that I dont run constantly in real life or have a magic map telling me the layout of buildings.. I apply them to my character. Not using health or stamina is more about increasing the tension in my game and thus making it more memorable. Lots of people complain that combat is boring and a mindless slugfest, well these people probably have 200 health potions on hotkey. By removing these crutches, each battle becomes a life or death struggle, and I must use a variety of tactics to stay alive. Dodging, block-bashing and using the terrain become essential.

If you're going for realism in a fantasy game with magic in it.... How does food heal the character.... and why isn't a healing potion allowed...?

I use a "realistic" needs mod that makes all food items have no healing effect.

Exactly... *slathers meat pie on gash*

Mmm, tasty healing.

Sorry OP. Sounds pretty tedious to me.

For me roleplaying is about playing a character with certain motivations and keeping them consistent, not doing menial tasks that take time away from me progressing in the game. I never really get this train of thought in the first place - when you watch a film, or play a game, or read a book you want to see, play or read something that's different from your normal life as a form of escapism; what's so desirable about mimicking the banolity of an ordinary existence?

If Skyrim forced you to either take a dump every 20 minutes of real time or crap yourself and then have to wash before people would speak to you again, would that really enhance the experience for you through realism? I guess ultimately if I wanted a sim game I would be playing a sim game and not Skyrim, it seems strange to me to try and make a game into something it's not.

Its more to do with increasing challenge. Nothing is more tedious in any TES game than walking around the world with no sense of fear because I know I can kill everything.

Only a few of those things you mentioned make combat more difficult though. I'm at the armour cap now with reasonable resistances and I can still die on Legendary (though I don't use potions in combat like you), I'm really not seeing a massive lack of difficulty. The only thing that does bother me is so called end game bosses (Miraak, Alduin) go down easier than critters like Forsworn or the Falmer.

I remember you posting these rules of yours elsewhere, cant remember where, not that it matters, im just saying i remember, anyway if you want immersion, you shouldnt be able to use either map because local allows you to see paths and the main map is 3D.

Huh, i am starting to see how markers have forced things on players...

Then why not crank the difficulty up to legendary, gimp your character to 100 health and play DID. That should give you the sense of fear you desire.

I'm going to argue against the realism stating you can't run. only walk when not in combat. Really?

I've done my fair share of hiking and exploring the country side and I will say I was in combat 0% of the time but I did jog and I did run. It is NOT unheard of for someone to sprint across the lands to travel faster to another location on foot. No one should be restricted to walking.

Mainly because of unavoidable killcams.

I always run the shop and it takes me about 1 minute if I walk. Never been in combat when running the shop. but I did get chased by a dog once...

This rings a bell..... oh, right....

Some people put on normal clothing when entering towns/cities, others remove their helmet/hood. I use a combination of realism mods and house rules in the game - I don't assume they'd suit anybody else.

Indeed - food can't heal a hang nail or a paper cut.