Firstly, Bethesda. Great Job! Thank you for your enlightened approach to companion relationships and family-life in the world that you have created. You have started something here. Keep running with it.

In RPG mode:

I have been surprised by how much the option to have a spouse and adopt children in Skyrim has affected my gameplay.

To give you an example and I am not asking anyone to fix this.

Although I initiated membership with that Windhelm quest, I have not progressed a single Dark Brotherhood quest and feel no desire to. A completely different attitude to the one that I undertook in Morrowind ,and with that particular example Oblivion. Then it was just my character taking on the world with only an empty house to come home to.

Just having the presence of a spouse and children in the game is challenging my characters values (and I suppose in turn my vales) at a core level. I play like there are real consequences that have the potential to place my character and their family life in moral jeopardy.

Please note that morality is relative to the 'good' or 'bad' character you decide to create and play with.

Has anyone else had a similar experience to a greater or lesser degree?

The kids act like drones, but they were a nice addition with HF.

Marriage....adoption.....the home life in an action RPG.....meh!
All horrible additions which should have never been added. I swear if they try to pull that crap with Fallout I swear I'm gonna freak.

Next their gonna add all this castle defender crap and farm builder ninsense I keep seeing people asking for.

Honestly I could deal with the marriage as people tend to like to have a spouse, even the ones out killing things all day. The adoption was simply too far and ridiculous IMO. Who the hell would ever let someone who kills for a living adopt not one... But MULTIPLE children??? They must have been smokin crack.
The child thing is just a huge step in the wrong direction and honestly doesn't fit in TES at all.

/rant

You don't have to marry or adopt kids if you don't want, but plenty of people like it and it won't hurt your personal game. I happen to like the option. That's the key word, it's an Option only.

In my RP, I have chosen to marry, chosen to marry and adopt, and chosen not to do either. I agree with the OP though, and my RP changes with those family values for the character that has a family.

Edit: Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and playstyle.

I dont care about family and adoption a lot. but its not like they forced you to do it, its even in an add-on, which you can not download at all.

I come on the skyrim forums ... and somebody is talking about smoking crack ?

Personally , Uthred has a fiancé , and he had a maternal ( that is to say , not adopted ((roleplayed)) ) son , Alesan , unfortunately Alesan died on the eve of his 13th birthday , a generated giant in front of my lovely winstad manor , in front of Uthreds eyes ...that was...a very emotional , heart-breaking moment , one that he will never truly get over I don't think.

Its my hope he will one day marry his fiancé and maybe they will have another maternal ( although in - game adopted) child , which will bring joy to all our hearts.

I used to feel it was stupid , but now I feel very different , having my own home , my followers , its a Nordic way of life , and its helped to enhance my roleplay experience , and the short time Alesan and Uthred had together was a very beautiful time for his proud father.

So if they added a completely option quest where your transformed into a fairy that sprinkles magic love dust and sends unicorns all over Tamriel in order to deliver flowers to all the good boys and girls it wouldn't bother you because hey "it's optional"?

Obviously an extreme case of over kill but the pint remains the same.... If it don't fit it don't fit. It really makes no sense at all to have a child unless you rp a strict set if rules which basically rule out any killing and at which point you should just play the sims.

It's not so much that the child nonsense mad me mad but the fact that by doing so BGS opened a door which in later installments could mean the general acceptance of other nonsense. Kinda like how (in Fallout forums as well) people keep asking to be able to build their own town, become leader of it, upgrade its defenses, and protect it from EVUHHL!
Would and could it be a fun feature..... sure. Does it have any place in a game such as TES(or Fallout)? NO......HELL NO!

This is my grime with the adoption and home life "option" in Skyrim, it's a nice feature but given the overall setting, style, genre, play style, and overall type of game that Skyrim is it really does NOT fit.
HF was a great addition and I personally love it but they simply went too far. They shiuld have used the time invested into adding adoption and put it towards enhancing the other features of the dlc. Like perhaps having all your homes not be carbon copies of one another.

You have no idea what you're talking about. HF options is nothing like what you're saying. and i still dont see why youre mad. Hearthfire was a simple add on, it probably started as an idea of building your own house then the creators decided to put marriage and kids into it to spice things up, since skyrim had kids and marriage for the first time in a TES game.

I dont see how that would open the road or encourage TES to be like Sims. after all the decision is to Bethesda, but i dont think they're gonna waste their resources creating a silly DLC just because some fans want to be jarl or king over a city or castle.

Now I think about it, how horrible it is for me to bring reanimated zombies into my home where the kids are

Just make sure they while their feet before coming in. Ma's been cleanin all day and would cry if they started dropping rotting flesh all over the place.

@Over-kill,
What don't I have a clue about exactly?
Am I wrong? Is adopting children an addition I imagined?

As for not knowing why I'm mad..... did you read my previous post?? I thought I laid out why it made me mad to have adiption added as a feature. Further more if you took the time to read my post you would have seen what my CORE issue is with HF and would have read that the children aren't really the issue for me(don't get me wrong I still don't like it) but rather an other issue which I'm not going to re type.

And why wouldn't BGS create a dlc which cators to what fans want when in essence thats what HF is. Especially the marriage and adoption thing.

Please read before saying such things.

I read through all that....rant, and barely could tell what your problem was either. From what I could make out, you don't like it because it doesn't fit (in your opinion) and because it apparently could open the devs to making more nonsense, like ruling a castle or whatever. You mean like this?

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Battlehorn_Castle_%28place%29

And how does having a family not fit because we adventure and kill? My character makes sure to come home at certain times so he's not gone for too long. If you care about rping, its not hard to do. It fits perfectly and I personally hope they expand upon it some. As far as interactions go and such. I don't care what silly game comparison you make, its fun. Don't like it, don't buy it or any of the "silly nonsense" that doesn't belong in the future.

I can't say Hearthfire, marriage, and adoption have made me less evil, since I have no evil characters anyway. My characters range from Boy Scout to fairly neutral.

I think I already did it myself. In one F3 playthrough, I didn't find a home for that kid in Grayditch. So, I had my character "adopt" him. He moved into the house across the street (since he never did "Power of the Atom" either way, he had no assigned home), and brought the boy all sorts of food, toys, drinks, and medicine.

I RP beating my children with a daedric mace when they talk back to me.

Nah. It breaks the immersion when they don't die. Unless you're using sicko mods.

For corporal punishment of annoying children (Braith, Britte, Kayd) I prefer the Naughty Stick, a wooden sword with a 1-hp shock enchantment. Not designed to kill, just sting.

I was actually joking, but your naughty stick sounds cool