Now, I haven't written current story narrative for toons for a VERY long time - since release when I did it for my first few toons. Backstory's a whole other animal.

I didn't want to clutter up the Stories topic with a question like this so a new topic is the deal. And the question is: HOW do you wipe out of your consciousness all the things you know about the world from a gazillion previous playthroughs? I'm having some trouble with Verinne - because my playthrough narrative is still back at Riverwood after looking over a dragon-decimated Helgen - but in actual gameplay, she's levels far beyond that.

I can't seem to just stop play on any given toon at a "limping pace" as if it were 2011 at release again. I can't wrap my mind around how to do that.... Right now, I'm "playing" Verinne's Character Story as though she's still probably level 2, just because I remember how things go back that far, but still....

It's not so much wiping the world out of your head as letting the character take you where they will.

My Witchhunter, for example, wasn't too perturbed by his narrow escape of the headman's axe by a dragon. The times are what they are - he's more interested in getting to the Hall of the Vigilant and offering his services...of course, a situation in Morthal has gotten his attention.

I don't wait to play the game for the story. I am far ahead in the writing of her story than what I have posted so far, but she is far more ahead of that in the game. She doesn't do things that won't fit her rp, but I also don't write up every bandit camp, miscellaneous attacks, or even every single thing she explores. I put in the story those that fit her, and that seem to be 'milestones' in her life, however large or small. Some artistic license is a given, in that most of us know the major and minor events. For me, that is the difficult part, how to convey the importance of a given event in her life/story without dragging the reader through details they don't wan't to read or hear about for the umpteenth time! Some things come easily, and some I struggle with. When I have to struggle, I leave it for a while or a day, then go back and read. That often helps, or something occurs to me in game. As to keeping the player's knowledge out of mind, I think it's actually better, (at least for me) as I know the things she would not do, the places she would not go. She may surprise me, but so far it's working out well. I try to let the story lead her, and her lead me, but often, she leads both! I just jump in with both feet and go with it. Don't know if any of this made sense, it's hard to explain....

Yes, but the issue is that unless I don't play her at all until later in the day - she's always going to be WAY ahead of her story if you see what I mean. Oh sure, I could write the whole thing at one gulp (yeah, I could....) but that's defeating the purpose. I can't figure out how to "not know" stuff. It's like you can't unsee some really ugly things, y'know?

Yes, I do get what you mean. I guess the problem for me is that I'm having an issue with keeping Veri as she is for the story posting, apart from Veri where she is if I'm playing her.

Hmm. Since I pretty much know the game backward and forward.... maybe I shouldn't actually play her. I can patch in the things that might happen due to her backstory.... I suppose that might be a "cheat"?

Maybe make note of things that happen with her when playing, to be written up later, that would explain the what and why of who she is now, as opposed to earlier. I would still play her, and her story can be written however YOU wish. There's no cheating to be worried about. If that were so, I'd be cheating by not writing every single thing Ake does....and that would be ridiculous. (not to mention boring) Who wants to hear about when she goes to the privy! LOL

ROFLOLOL!!! I'm reminded of the privy thing in one of the WoW areas.... seriously....

But you're right of course. I've not done this sort of thing in so long, I got wrapped up in "you need to tell the details" as opposed to "you need to tell the story". Thanks!

Well if you saw the links I posted for Zyne's story... I leave "out-lines" as my characters hit each miles-stone... or if I want to convey a specific event. I generally do my "out-line" right after I finish playing, this is not always on the blog or pc, but is often on paper. My out-lines are text-book out-lines they are more or less notes in an order that makes sense for me when I get the time to actually write up the story.

So I may be "writing" up chapter 5....but I have note's all the way to chapter 8 or 9... I do try not to get that far ahead, as I often forget important detail's if I do. The game is only the world in which my characters reside, their....ummm internal story is more important. I do not even think about the "level" they are in game, sometimes not even the skill at which they are.

A good game mechanic, to slow "skill leveling" is to drop down in difficulty...the higher the difficulty the faster you lvl. Thus if I want a character to stay "weak" I drop down a couple difficulties. ...then when I need to bump it back up ( one at a time.)

Well, hmmm. I'm on.... (wait, have to go look...) ah.... Expert. So that's already not all that "difficult"....

That's very true, it's pretty easy...but you still lvl faster then what you would on say Adept or Apprentice. I don't use the mechanic to often, but... I have on characters that I felt should learn very slowly. A Farmer who joins the Dawnguard because his family are killed by vampires. I figured he should learn pretty slow at "new" skills, so bumped it down to apprentice for a couple of "jobs" ( he did not go after Serana right away.)..he needed some experience...so did some "patrols"...which meant following the Sentries around and fighting random vampires and bandits and such for a little bit before "getting the job to check Dim-hollow". ( Immersive creatures, plus Deadly Dragons , You are not the Dragonborn , Enhanced Enemies and Dawnguard Sentries plus)

Even on Adept, that combo makes the game harder, but my characters lvl slow... down a difficulty and it's still hard, but the character lvl's even slower. Master is almost suicide unless I take out one of those mods. On 360... I only used that mechanic on unarmed characters, because the slower he/she lvl'd the slower the enemies lvl'd and the longer the character was viable.

I agree, not so much for the story, but for the slower leveling. I play on adept, and don't 'grind' the character skills. For me it makes for a more natural progression, though depending on the character, once they get to higher levels I may bump it up. I play them for a very long time. Even on adept, they level quickly for a while.

Pretty much this... I start on Adept for most of my characters... if I feel they need to lvl more slowly, I lower...if it seem's to be to easy, I bump it up. I don't grind and very very rarely on RP characters have more than one craft... and even more rarely get it to 100, enchanting is the one that get's their the most.

When I’m writing something for a character that is not closely connected to where they are in a game, I tend to look at them as almost a different character. For example I am writing about Oblivion events for a character who also has games in Skyrim and ESO. It takes some adjustment, but I have to set aside who he has become since the story’s events while I’m writing about him in his past almost as if it’s a different person. It helps that I have mental images of this person and their appearance has changed as they have aged. I just picture him as he is in whatever time I'm writing about.

With character updates that are not a separate complete story (like Jensa’s journal updates) I tend to skip a lot of what happens in the game and just write what it meant to her. I’ve pretty much skipped over writing about entire questlines. That helps me play as much as I want to and not feel like I’m falling behind.

Very much this!

All of you have given me very valuable insights. The odd thing is that I'm finding that the Verinne Ravenwing I'm writing about here is really an amalgam of two characters I'm currently playing. So really - I have three girls, two of whom are named Verinne Ravenwing, and the third one is named Jareel Ventarla. Amazingly enough, I'm not confuzzled....

Any writing of mine concerning my Skyrim characters tend to be something written to give a bit more backstory for them, at least a bit more than Live Another Life gives. Sometimes going way beyond what the game even allows for, although hopefully being at least close to lore-friendly. But even so, I might do this after I've played a fair bit, and I'm focusing on events that happen before or at the start of the game. Such as, with Juene, I simply used the Vampire Start offered by Live Another Life(starting in Mara's Eye Pond, this being before the random vampire dungeon feature), and I later created the story. I'm not sure at what point I was at before I created the story bit...eh, actually this may be one where I started coming up with the story while I was playing, or at least right after, since one of my first ideas concerned the two Vampires that spawn in the Pond - with other characters that started there, the only reason I had to kill those two Vampires was to get their armor(with that version of LAL, you did not spawn in the Vampire armor), but here I thought the reason would be that Juene had heard those two Vampires planning on killing her and going to hide somewhere esle. So Juene kills them first, and decides to test the validity of the Dawnguard for herself. I think a bit later I came up with the rest.

I have in mind something for Jayce, which mostly concerns a bit of her backstory, a bit of her joining the Companions, and her experience as she became a Werewolf. Note that she is way past even that last part, on the quests to take out some of the Silver Hand leaders(and due to ESF: Companions, I'll need to do more than one quest before the story quest progresses).