Or otherwise, just imagine it's 2010 and you're in charge of designing races for Skyrim. What would it be like?

I think we can all agree that skill bonuses make few impact in the long run, powers are easily forgotten, and the extra starter spells for dunmer, altmer and bretons are negligible too. The only thing that really matters are the good passives, like +50 magicka, frost/fire/magic resist, cause poison/disease resist/waterbreathing aren't impressive.

But are passive bonuses really the way to go? While the resists can be brought to the cap anyways by other means, +50 magicka makes you feel kinda cheated as a non-altmer mage in my experience. Should redguards have more stamina? Should orcs have more health or a built-in armor rating of 50 or so? Maybe some classes could have a bit of both, with nords having a bit more stamina and health?

Or should only headstarts be given, but possibly better? For example, giving dunmer firebolt by default instead of sparks, and giving imperials fast healing. Orcs could have orcish smithing unlocked by default.

I don't have many thoughts on the subject, besides that race choice in Skyrim doesn't influence much(which might be for the better) except for the OP altmer.

Your thoughts are greatly appreciated.

As for the characters themselves? Not much. Race was never a "X can only do Y well" issue in the series, and I love it for that reason. The best I see is race having a better (Well, marginal) impact in dialogue and character disposition, but beyond that, the way its been handled in the series thus far as been pretty well done. Playing whoever and however you want is this series motto after all, and making it detrimental to doing different builds (Nordic mage, Bosmer barbarian) goes against it.

Should attributes be added in, there should be some differences in that, but I think distribution in that aspect should mostly be left to the player. Giving a few extra modifiers (Orcs have a better resistance to injuries, ect) here and there could work as well, but that's about as far as I'd take it. Beyond that, having "sub-race" (They're more like classes) to differentiate what cultural quirk of what race you're playing as could also help.

Please use the Beyond Skyrim thread: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1517016-official-beyond-skyrim-tes-vi-55/