Happy 2nd anniversary!

I want to know more about Role-Playing in Skyrim. Will you tell me your thought process that goes into making a role-playing character? Here are some questions I have.

1. Do you create a back story for your character, or do you kind of "feel" your character and learn as you go?

2. Do you have a predetermined race/gender picked out, or do you just flip a coin (or some other way of generating a random character)?

3. How do you develop/apply your character's personality?

4. Do you have any tips/advice for me to use while role-playing your character?

5. Any ways of better immersing yourself into the game?

6. Anything else you'd like for me to know about role-playing?

I play on PS3, so I don't have any access to mods.

Most of the time. Depending on how I set up my character, I then need to determine why I ended up on my way to Helgen.

I only play female characters, and I've yet to choose any but Khajiit and Nord. If I go with the Nord: brunette with green eyes.

This one's a bit tough, because the game doesn't really give you much in return for your choice. Thus, my actions speak for me. If I don't like someone, I'll be less likely to help them, and will be generally open to having them... Dark Brotherhooded. Yes, I turned it into a verb.


Stick with it. The game makes it easy to "wander" from a core design. If you play as an alchemist, for example, there's no reason for you to touch a blacksmith hammer. Perks, if taken, should be severely limited based on your style of play. If you're not a merchant, no perks in Speech. Definitely no perks in Armor, either, if you're not a smith. You should have more unspent perk points in a well balanced game.

Pick specific goals of what your character would really do. Playing without dragons may not be as fun for people, but you have to find yourself a good reason to go fetch a rock from a dank cave. As you level, things to get tougher, but sadly, this also means they're pretty static in terms of play. Dragons are the only real, random threat, so if you want to "start" your game after you get the Dragonstone, then do so for the extra challenge.

Remember to focus on what your character may do, not what you want to do. That's a tough thing for many people to do, because true role-playing game is going to get boring real quick if you're not killing things. But stick with it, and the rewards can pay off through testing yourself.

As an example, in my last game, I played as a merchant who wanted to live in Skyrim. I couldn't enter caves and my limitations where basically making soups and selling them at the inns, cutting wood (for money), and when selling/buying from merchants, what I sold had to equal what I bought (fair trade, as close as I could get it).

Then, I'd speak to characters I knew were merchant based, such as finding an amulet for a Khajiit friend or a mammoth tusk for another. Another friend in Riften needed some stuff to craft jewelry.

This play was boring, and I won't lie, but slowly building my house at Lakeview Manor was pure enjoyment. I still have the save file, and she's been working on the house for nearly one in-game year, and she's not even put the roof on the house yet.

Dull, but rewarding.

Good luck and keep us posted on what you decide.

1. I try to feel in some way while I played but never wrote a story about it

2. I get races by their preferred habilities, in fact I hate the Thalmor and don't like Imperials and Nords too.

3. No idea haha!!

4. Someday I had a great great thought about the Skyrim glitches: "If you have access to ilimited power, would you use it and cause your and Skyrim's desgrace?" Like

5. It depends on your type of character: do you like to live as an adventurer, go to far places? Or be on your local pub getting some brawls and 'easy money' on the street? If you hate someone would you kill him? Get arrested? Or even try to bribe the guard??? (that possibilities would be a WOWOW on a table RPG I think because I have never player it).

6. Some guidelines: why your character went to Skyrim would be a good startpoint to solve the Imperial's x Ulfric's problem. Which gods you pray on? Your relation as Dragonborn, gets your interest? If you question yourself about what you may be mechanic doing you'll get some true answers from yourself. Sorry for bad english.

I think pure-RPG is too much boring for the time we spent playing. If you play it one in a week, then it'd get more interesting.

@ Mesonoxian Eve,

I like your idea about the merchant. Have you discovered any ways on making a profit with only resorting to wood cutting as a last resort? The only idea I could think of is buying apothecary supplies and turning them into high-priced potions by means of guessing and experimenting. Have you discovered any others?

@ stenny4rd,

I like your idea about choosing god(s) to worship, but I don't know much about them to be honest. Is there a website where I can learn more about them?

1. Do you create a back story for your character, or do you kind of "feel" your character and learn as you go?

A little bit of both. Sometimes a character will surprise me and not do what's expected. Example: my illusionist/assassin Khajiit told Astrid to go to Oblivion (and then sent her there). My far more honorable Imperial killed one of the three captives instead.

2. Do you have a predetermined race/gender picked out, or do you just flip a coin (or some other way of generating a random character)?

My character's gender rarely comes as a surprise, though I will sometimes have two or three possibilities right up to when I start the new game. Then, one is chosen.

3. How do you develop/apply your character's personality?

I have a vague idea who they are at the start. It becomes clearer over time. They all have a lot of me in them.

4. Do you have any tips/advice for me to use while role-playing your character?

A lot of RPing is "what would I do if I wasn't afraid?" or "what would I do if the opportunity came to be a hero/villain/monster"?

5. Any ways of better immersing yourself into the game?

Have your character do what you would. No better way to unimmerse than play a character you can't identify with.

6. Anything else you'd like for me to know about role-playing?

If you start stashing yourself with a knife every time your character gets cut, or burning yourself every time you get burned, et cetera. Any of that, you've probably taken it too far.

The Gods: http://www.imperial-library.info/content/nine-divines

or you could choose to worship a Daedric Prince who are godlike but less benign than the Nine

As for the questions:

1. A character concept and a brief backstory (a paragraph usually). They develop and sometimes change (the backstory won't change but the character might as a result of events) as I play them though.

2. Usually female, race depends on the character concept. Sometimes I play the stereotype (orc barbarian), sometimes against it (orc mage).

3. Just try to make the decisions the character would, not those I would. If they're a curious type they are going in that cave even if I know its a bad idea.

4. Like Mesonoxian Eve said stick with it. If you're a mage don't join the Companions etc. Don't try and do every task the game throws at you, select the ones that suit your character.

5. Whatever works for you. Sleep every night, eat regular meals, wear clothes around town. Or don't if it seems a chore to you rather than a help.

I've done the adventuring/faction thing to death.

I want to try something different, and a merchant or something seems like a step in the right direction. With that said, is there anywhere I can purchase clothing since I cannot make them and only seem to find them in dangerous places?

1. I always create a back story for any RPG character. Some are just sketches; some are detailed stories. For instance, my first Skyrim character was based on a character from a book I wrote, but since the book world doesn't have much to do with the game world (other than they're both fantasy settings), I could only use some very basic details: female wood elf driven from her home by wanderlust-inducing dreams. I haven't finished RPing her yet (her story is turning out far too interesting for me to even think about ending it), but I have come up with a very detailed history for my next character once I get around to playing him.

The most important thing is to have fun. If some aspect of RPing is too much of a chore for you, don't do it. It's a single-player game, so the only person you have to please is you.

@ Selyra,

Thank you so much you offered some incredible insight to role-playing for me that I never would have thought of myself.

1. I'd like to do a backstory for my main someday but my only backstory is the battleaxe on my back that I use to tell my tale

Amnesia roleplay is cool because then you can figure out who your character is by what feels natural to them (if that makes any sense ha).

2. I usually create a new character with a rough idea in mind but really just feel it out in character creation...there's been times I started making a decent looking character that sparked an idea for a better one as a different race.

3. As I've said I usually start out with a rough idea of who they are so then I play them as what comes natural to their character and they tend to unfold naturally that way throughout the game.

4. Make them relatable to you in some way so you can get more in character and therefore more out of them. Play them as you would if you were in their shoes.

5. see 4, it works for me but then again I'm naturally drawn to the old ways of the world

6. Don't take it too serious or you'll take the fun out of it, the extent of my roleplay involves giving my guy character and then sticking with it to make them feel more real. I never break role when things get hard and doing so would make it easy as the real world doesn't have such luxuries and I want my characters to feel real in a sense as an actor makes their character real when they play them on screen.

They patched the book glitch exploit and I don't think you're stealing it back from Ysgramor, Eorlund gives it to you and says something about you've earned the right to carry it in battle (or something along those lines, been awhile).

I COMPLETELY agree with Mesonoxian Eve! She broke it down beautifully. One thing I would like to add though, would be to play the game starting at Helgen with ONLY the knowledge of your character's story. With my current character, an Altmer named Seitan Ayrren, I did not go straight to windhelm to start innocence lost and I did not go straight to the college of winterhold to start first lessons, because Seitan Ayrren DID NOT KNOW WHAT THOSE THINGS WERE! It's really fun to jump into the game and pretend you don't know everything you already do.

Seitan didn't go to the college until he was suggested to, he didn't investigate windhelm until he heard the rumor about the arentino boy, he did not help Brinyolf because he didn't beilive in thievery! I give my characters a set of morals and interests.

And of course play styles are a key component. If you role play a companion then you might (should) use heavy armor, one handed, and blocking. As for my current Altmer, Seitan Ayrren, he is a descendent of queen Ayrren and he seeks to show the humans that all Altmers are not like the Thalmor in Skyrim. He also was a prisoner because he was caught in Cyrodil during a contract. When he was on his way to Helgen the Night Mother contacted him telepathically and told him of Astrid, the imposter, the non-listener of the last Sanctuary in Skyrim. He has decided to kill astrid once and for all and hopes to someday rebuild a new brotherhood in Skyrim. His ancestors had been great mages, as are most Altmer, but Seitan had never learned magic, he only knew how to sneak, shoot arrows, and use daggers and swords. He seeks the college of winterhold to learn the ways of the... force?

Well, anyways, you should go have a great role-playing time and immerse yourself to the greatest extent that you can. Have fun n_n

Thank you for asking!

1. Do you create a back story for your character, or do you kind of "feel" your character and learn as you go?

I gave up on creating a back story to my characters. M'Basha, the Khajiit I'm playing right now began his life in Skyrim stealing because it's the only thing he knew about but completely changed after discovering that he was very special. He somehow believes in destiny, so he's just following his.

His twin brother, J'Basha, on the other hand, doesn't care a bit about him being "special" and will begin a life of thieving...

2. Do you have a predetermined race/gender picked out, or do you just flip a coin (or some other way of generating a random character)?

Neither. I just wonder "what race would be the most unlikely to be a "hero"?" and I generally end up creating Orcs, Argonians and Khajiits.

3. How do you develop/apply your character's personality?

I have no idea how I do that, sorry.

4. Do you have any tips/advice for me to use while role-playing your character?

Be careful not to do things that you might regret after a while because they don't "belong" to your character. Make saves that have numbers and take notes related to them (where was my character, what quests did he had to do, etc.) so that you can get back to them in case you make mistakes.

5. Any ways of better immersing yourself into the game?

Shut down the HUD (you know how to do that, don't you?).

6. Anything else you'd like for me to know about role-playing?

This games lack thing like restrictions, for example your character can wear any type of armour. Just do your own choices and stick to them.

Good luck and come back here if you have difficulties!

1. I write a WHOLE story of my character... And continue writing as that character's adventures move onward... I can normally end up with around 20-25 pages of one character but never really bothered to write it all up... Just in my mind.

2. I pick whatever suits the character I wish to roleplay... Though if gender doesn't matter, I'll always pick male. Otherwise, if I have to be female for the character then so be it.

3. Imagination.

4. Be creative and use the power of imagination.

5. Imagination.

6. Don't do it if it bores you.