Hey everyone. I just bought this amazing game with all the DLC and I've modded it up very nicely. I've been on a serious, oh so serious, Bethesda binge as of late so I can't wait to truly delve into this one. I'm about 1 hours in (hardly anything) and a friend of mines tells me to just ignore the main quest and just go exploring. He says "The main quest is not that long" and that "It's better to explore, it's more immersive" and though I agree with this sentiment I wanted to make sure I would never screw up any questline by getting ahead of myself. Let me elaborate- For example the Fallout series exploration is a little more linear, and even less in New Vegas. I always felt like in New Vegas there was less of a sense of where to go and what to do when compared to Fallout 3. In Fallout 3, if you just went and explored, sometimes you'd kill an NPC that was part of a quest and you'd end up failing the quest or making some sort of irreversible mistake. This happened to me a few times, like when I killed Zimmer or when I went to tepid sewers and killed all the mole rats BEFORE doing the wasteland guide quest line. This kind of stuff happened less in New Vegas, and I wanted to make sure it was more or less the same concept in design for Skyrim? Because honestly, with all these mods, I just want to explore and play the game freely, but without fear of potentially screwing anything up.

Any advice? What do you think? Holla back, no spoilers please!

its your call, but because its a bethesda game you're not forced to do any storyline. i never really do it until im running out of new stuff to do.

I can't recall anything breakable. All quest npcs are immortal and most dungeons respawn after a month of ingame time, or so.

I'd just relax, explore and enjoy. It's quite unlikely you'll screw up a quest - and if you do, there are only 999 more of them you can do. And nothing says you can't start again and take a different path in a new playthrough.

Sorry to be less optimistic than the other responders, but there are in fact a number of npc's who are not 'immortal' and if you kill them you will not be able to do their side quests. The game is very flexible and for the most part the npc's involved with the main quest lines are made essential and un kill able. But if you, for example kill off shop keepers or Quartermaster's then you can't trade with them and that is a real hindrance.

With the Dawnguard dlc some of the useful minor quest givers can wind up dead before giving their quest or before you've completed it, in which case a message pops up saying quest failed.

Save often, and keep at least three rolling saves a day or two apart, then it won't matter too much.