For me, I'm used to being tied down to a certain class,race and how it evolves from there so finding it hard to pick a class & race


One moment I'm thinking an Orc, using heavy armour then next moment I'm thinking a human for stealth / thieves guild.


Hmm! Any suggestions or some lore advice on how I could set out .


I'm on the Xbox, and can now use the mods, was thinking of using second life mod where you pick your starting life but I do like the normal start


Can any one help explain who is what in regards to stormcloaks and imperials on this. Who I should side with and why?

There is absolutely no reason to pick one race over another. They all have minor advantages and disadvantages. Likewise, there's no gameplay reason to pick stormcloaks over imperials or vice versa; their quest-lines are almost identical; most people just go with whatever feels best to them.

To me, it sounds like you want to do more than one character. There's huge replay value in the game, especially if you don't try to do everything with one character (you can't, anyway.)

Really it's about what you want.. the starting stat's are quickly useless... What I mean is, you can have an Orc mage and a Breton warrior.. and by lvl 10 or so, it really wouldn't matter that Altmer has the best starting stat's for a mage... and Orc or Nord for a warrior. you can read http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Races which will give you the starting stats.

Which side of the CW I pick is completely dependent on the character.. what their reason is. Game wise it make's no difference.

I usually pick races based on their initial skills, which you can find in the wiki.


By the middle of the game, every race will look more or less the same depending on your class and the things you do more often, but at the start of the game, if you pick a race with high stats on the skills you′ll use more often, you′ll level up slowerly.

So I tend to get bretons or altmers for spellswords, Nords or Orcs for battlemages and rangers, dunmers and bosmers for knight, etc....if I′m interested in max/min. Most times, I just pick whatever I feel like, really. Like glargg put, one of the best things about skyrim is replayability.

there are mods that will allow changing of race after the game starts. you get to keep the inventory and most of the stats.

"With the great power of freedom comes responsibility..." or for some it seems they don't know what to do with so much freedom in a game. It puzzles me. Perhaps why I don't respond to character build threads that often. Then again, I may have forgotten the days I was in the same boat and hard for me now to conceive how people struggle to let their imagination shape their own game.

The only should here is play how you want. Why do you want to play by other people's advice. Let your imagination churn and play by your own rules. Though nothing wrong with taking bits and pieces of multiple suggestions and putting together your own play style.

Skyrim is considered Nords' homeland by the Nords. There is conflict between the aged Empire traditionally run by Imperials and how the traditional Nords want to live in their own homeland (Skyrim) which the Stormcloaks are trying to champion. The Empire got itself backed into a corner by the Thalmor requiring the Empire to restrict freedom of religion in Skyrim.

Thank you schomoe, more so for going into the lore of skyrim as that helps how I will play the game... or, live my character


I love elders scroll, it's a shame I couldn't get into the elders scroll online but I love skyrim .

No problem. Apologies if my post came across a little crass. It wasn't specifically directed at you and perhaps I do take it for granted being able to quickly jump into a play style

Do you have a particular play style you want or not fussed?

I do different characters to do different things, eg Bosmer Dark Brotherhood using bow/dual one handed, Nord to aid the Stormcloaks using 2 handed weapons, etc and you'll quickly find out which playthrough you're enjoying more.

I had a Thieves Guild character on the Xbox 360 original version at 127 hours gametime and had hardly touched the main quests.