Just exploring, killing, and looting. Ever tried it? If so, what kind of build did you use? What level did you get to?

I'm currently playing a no guilds RP but I am taking followers because it suits the RP and I am doing quests that my character comes across because certain locations she visits will have quests. I don't see the harm in that.

As for a build. Hard to say. I like a mix of melee and archery. little to no magic. Light armor, smithing, speech, sneak and maybe a little alchemy to mix potions from stuff I found and then sell.

My current PR is a khajiit and she is about lv 26 right now. She has done as I mentioned, quests. Most of them dungeon quests. She has joined the thieves guild so I can get access to a fencer (she has a habit of stealing things) but I am not going to do Goldenglow Estate or anything else that relates to the main quest for the guild. She won't touch the civil war so no dragons. Word walls she comes across are just weird ancient Nordic culture as far as she is concerned.

I think it could be extremely hard to no a no quest play through.. your bound to pick up some of those automatic ones. Or intentionally avoid certain places.

I think it would depend on what one considers a quest. You walk by a group of soldiers, and you get a "quest" to Join the Legion. Walk by a different group, and you've got Join the Stormcloaks. So now you've got two "quests" in your journal, but you don't have to do them (and you can't do both anyway.)

I would say that it's still a no-quest game as long as your character doesn't follow up on quests offered, and doesn't return for rewards in those cases where she stumbles onto a quest object.

Sometimes we have to make up our own "rules" about how this works.

This is mainly the way I play these games. I usually do most of Bethesda's quests once to experience the stories and find out more about the characters, see areas that might be accessible only through quests, ect. After that, I tend to play a lot of characters without Bethesda's quests.

But I do sometimes incorporate little bits and pieces of Bethesda's quests into some of my character's stories. Once I learn a game I can begin to fashion my own stories around the stories and characters in the games. I fill in gaps with my own stories.

I don't do "builds," I roleplay characters. So I can't answer your question about builds. As far as levels go, I finish my stories anywhere from level 2 to level 50+. But I really don't think in terms of "levels" either. I think in terms of stories. When a character's story "feels" finished to me that character gets retired.

I did it once when I made my Wood Elf. It was an RP of a gnome named Grimble Gromble. They say he had a big adventure...amidst the grass...fresh air at last.

It was alot of fun, especially knowing that no matter where you decided to go, you weren't going to break any quests. I wasn't planing on doing them anyway, so let them break.

and yeah, getting those automatic quests which magically appear in your journal, and actually doing those quests are two entirely different things.

I don't like the guilds in Skyrim. I do this almost every game.. Love it..

I do the occasional quest. I do have Marcurio sometimes. Have mods that

stop people from giving me quests because they walked past me and said something.

Another mod allows me to remove some quests from the log.. Really rewarding to have an empty quest log.

Wood elf sneak got to level 41 or something before I got bored.. -s- Did Dragonborn.. Guess that does

count as a questline but I like Solstheim.

I have a sneaking ( ) suspicion that a lot of no-quest characters are bosmers. They're just the perfect antisocial hunter types.

I'm new to Skyrim and I have to say one of my pet peeves is that there is just TOO MUCH. I mean it's great to have all this great content, but it's like they overwhelm you with bumping into this guy, that girl, this giant etc and it begins a quest, and if you pick up a quest item but don't have the quest yet, good luck in getting rid of it, or even deciphering what quest the item is for.

But the bigger pet peeve is how a simple conversation starts a questline like, Talk to XYZ about joining the ABC faction in a conflict you know nothing about so far, but pick a side right now anyway. I'm just saying it's overwhelming.

It would be nice to have an option to just shut off any new quest triggers until I clear out the 30 odd ones I already have started.

I know this seems like it's unrelated to your post but it isn't. I like the idea of an open world like this, and what you're describing I have attempted. Just hunt randomly, kill stuff, sell items, build up skills and avoid quests until later. But the game almost doesn't let you, or you're going to have 500 quests started.

I know I can just ignore them and untick the quests individually as they get triggered. But it would be nice to just shut off the triggers for a while.

I do this with my thief character. I did the starter thiefs guild quests so i can get a player made house and that was it. =)

I've had quite a few characters that didn't join guilds or do quests. My two favorite were my Skooma addicted Bosmer and my Vampiric Argonian.

I played a ton of Morrowind (no Oblivion) and what I enjoyed the most was going off road and just discovering caves and mines and crypts then just exploring them.

I haven't completed much in Skyrim but it seems some places aren't accessible unless you are doing a quest or if you explore an area without getting the quest first you essentially break the quest. For an open world game if seems awefully linear at times.

Or Khajiit. My last Skyrim character was a no HUD, no music, no quest Khajiit archer who spent countless hours hunting game along the Whiterun plains.