I am trying to play as a good vampire and was wondering a few things. Are all vampires evil? Would you be considered evil for joining the Volkihar clan? and are all vampires in skyrim spellcasters?

no, not all vampires are evil or spellcasters. And yes i think you could enter the Volkihar Clan and then side with the good ones and save the world

My own opinion, is that the good side is the Dawnguard, and the bad side is the Vampire side. You can join the Dawnguard, play the good side, and when all is said and done, have Serena turn you into a vampire lord. Or you can play in the vampire side, be evil, and then after all is said and done, turn good. You do not have to be a spellcaster to be a vampire. My opinion.

But by joining the Dawnguard, you'll be forced to get cured if you want to do their quests, so you're better off joining the vampires.

Hmm. If you join the Dawnguard, Serana gives you an opportunity to become a vampire lord before entering the Soul Cairn. That would be perfect for roleplaying a good vampire.

And then, after the quest, Isran will force you to cure yourself before continuing.

If you join the Dawnguard, you can join as a vampire. You have to get cured before he sends you out to "collect" 2 more people. Then you wait until you beat Harkon and have Serena turn you back. Or, you wait to become a vampire until after Harkon is dead. That is how I once role-played a good vampire. But everyone plays differently.

Are you sure that's the case? You might be muddling that up with a different part of the questline.

Anyhow, Serana will convert you after the questline if you ask her.

From the Dawnguard (Faction)'s page on the UESP:

You were saying?

Did some digging on UESP and I found this.

I could have sworn that I saw Robbaz doing the Dawnguard questline as a vampire.

Honestly, I think accepting vampirism is an inherantly evil act because of its source. Only way to be a good vampire would be not be able to get cured and contract the condition unwillingly, which isn't really possible in-game since cure disease potions are available in all alchemy shops and on khajiit caravans, plus there are shrines in the wilderness so you'd have to be an extreme naytheistic hermit to have that.

RPing does wonders. It can turn you into a vampire, throw you into a pit and leave you there for 3 days without any potions or shrines to cure yourself.

But yes, joining the Volkihars is evil. It's hard to RP a good vampire with game mechanics. I did it by "faking" vampirism, that is I added all the pluses and minuses that the vampires had and enabled the vampire eyes for the race I played it with, but game-wise I wasn't actually a vampire, I couldn't feed on NPCs and so on. Though that way I was able to join the Dawnguard. But not sure how plasuible is that for you.

Even so you've got every innkeeper chatting about Falion.

Play an anti hero, don't feed on the general population and generally act for the betterment of all Skyrim - doing all the right things in all the wrong ways.

One way to do that, is to go into a cave / dungeon that has vampires in it, like Hammers Shame, and contract it. Then make like you do not know, and when you find out you have it, then go to Serena and have her turn you into the vampire lord. Then just do the right thing from there.

When I played as a good vampire, I waited until after the Dawnguard quest was over, and Harken was dead. Then I became a vampire lord. In the meantime, she was the only gal that did not have any bounties anywhere. I ran her backstory, as "when she discovered she was a vampire, she figured there was no cure, and decided to become the best vampire there was, so she chose to become a vampire lord."

Then she continued to search, discover and eliminate other vampires and bandits, while still staying on the right side of the law. Hope that made sense.

Still nothing RPing can't handle if you really want your character to stay a vampire, or stick hard to any other scenario. I don't even take all the NPC lines seriously, they're all designed so that any moron can find what he needs without searching on his own even a bit, the game hits you on the back of your head with everything anyway, like totally unrelated people in the god knows which pit of a village telling you where to become a bard or "learn more about magic", and often telling you those things without you asking them about it.

Morons check on rumors. Real players use UESP.

Sadly, everyone check on rumors because the whole game was designed that way. Bethesda probably thinks we're all [censored] or something.

UESP is nice to use when you know the game well and you need details and numbers, but personally, finding information in the internet sites before you've played the game for the 1st couple of times completely ruins the experience.

I thought we fed you to the Death Hounds in the coven thread. I laughed at the guy who ran up to me asking if I knew where a shrine was so he could be cured after being bitten by a vampire. It just so happened I had a potion of cure disease at the time but I just kept it in my backpack and let nature take its course.

Seems like you're using roleplay as an excuse to ignore everything, even Isran directs you to Falion at multiple points when you're a DG vampire. And even if you are already a vampire, accepting vampire "lordship" is an incredibly evil act to me.

I kept getting turned while doing the Dawnguard side (and wanted it that way). Isran doesn't always force you to get a cure to continue, but he did do so at two critical junctures for me, one of them being right after getting Auriel's bow IIRC.

Then again, Falion wants you to bring him a filled Black Soul Gem, which struck me as a bit evil in itself. Murder aside, benefitting from someone else's eternal damnation seems a little "iffy" morality-wise...

Falion also sells filled Black Soul Gems so you could choose just to use one of those, or trap a dremora. Or trap Harkon's soul for funzies.

If you're a member of the DG, you can be a vampire inside FT Dawnguard. But no one will give you any quests until you get cured.

I dunno -- curing vampirism is a very evil act, considering you doom a soul to the Soul Cairn for eternity for your own selfish gain. And in my opinion, it's no better to use a black soul gem you find in loot rather than murder someone yourself, because the end result's the same.

That said, evil is as evil does. The one Volkihar side quest that's really impossible to rationalize is "Deceiving the Herd," but it's possible to lure an enemy NPC close enough to the city to have it count for the kill.

Some good points. If one were to be afflicted with Vampirism, yet wanted to remain aligned with moral good they would have to suffer with the disease. The alternative is to doom a soul to an eternity in the Soul Cairn.