Well the only other way I could see them doing it would be to pick a class(with they confirmed are not in the game) and you get boosts to related skills.
They start you off with low skills so you can pick your path, and so that you have to earn it.

This has been covered before and it's a good point.

its hard to see either side of the line here. I can tell Todd Howard clearly thinks the new system is a good fresh idea, but as with the previous system it does have problems with it.

I wish they'd compromise and give an "optional" character creation system to let those more hardy individuals (such as myself ) let us shape our characters before we start.


I suppose if you want an explanation you could say that your character has been rotting away in prison for years and has basically turned into an amorphous blob of an individual, but I always preferred *making* a unique individual who has a minor history and background that actually effects gameplay right off the bat. it's not really enough for me to "pretend" that my character has a background, its far preferable if that actually changes gameplay. An optional "advanced" creation system would be best.

That is exacly where people need to accept limits to their roleplaying. Though I do believe if someone was to complain about not being able to do that, they would (hopefully) not be taken seriously.

Edit to avoid double post: @ Hypno Toad: Lol, I honestly never thought about rotting in prison. Who knows how long one can sit in death row in skyrim? Is there a court of appeals? Habeas Corpus? Right to a trial by jury?

I'd like to, but they dont offer that option in Skyrim, silly. They are forcing you to start this way.

The new system is fine, but so is the old one, why can't they have both to satisfy everybody?

Right. My problem is that I love role playing elements, but I find it hard to force myself to role play without anything in the game "helping" me to.

Choosing a class helps me mentally get in the mood to play that type of character, and it rewards me if I keep on that path, and it punishes me for going off of that path.

Races will give you that inherent strength and weakness, but last time I checked, we start in prison, andwe have no idea how long he's been in there, so maybe you character can cook, Cuz he developed that skill... But does that mean every character had to have been proficient with a weapon before they were locked up? And those skills didn't deteriorate at all throughout his sentence? For all we know this kid coulda been locked up at 6 for arson. The beauty of TES is that you decide why, but bgs can't give you a character with developed skills and have the same amount of rpability than if they were a blank Slate. Yeah, some will rp a master swordsman who got locked up, but there are a lot if players that will rp a beggar with no prior fighting skill. So it goes both ways. I prefer developing my character from scratch, you do not. To each their own I suppose.

No one is getting what I wrote (or just ignoring it): "You start the game as an advlt . . . with NO inherent strengths and weaknesses whatsoever."

In previous TES games, you did NOT start out with a "fully developed character" or "start the game with one handed skill 100" [or any other skill] . . . your skills are all still relatively low at the beginning.

But when you design the character you what to play, you have to make some decisions as to what their strengths and weakness will be . . . which generally reflects the character's background.

[And nothing that I've seen has shown that you will start out Skyrim with less skills than you started with in Oblivion . . . and I'm guessing your start out with a major advantage over the average NPC.]

I agree. I dont really see any major issues with the new system, I understand it's internal logic, but then again the old system (character creation and custom classes) also made sense to me.

I really cant see why they don't jsut have a "Quick Start" option (IE: the new system "play into" your character) AND a "Advanced Character Creation" option (the "old" system where you modify your starting stats)


I'd imagine that nobody from bethesda would actually take note of this, but when I was working on a mod team a while back, a new ironsight system was implemented that many people didnt like, there was a massive heated debate, but in the end the coders just provided an option to use the "new" system or the "old" system, and everybody was happy. You shouldn't be forcing people to play a certain way, the irony of this is that Bethesda wants to do the new system because they dont want to force people to play a certain way, and yet by doing so they are forcing the "traditional" fans to play the new way that they don't like.

How are you accusing me of not developing my characters from scratch? That is exactly what this thread is about. The fact that the only logical explanation (which doesn't even make sense) is that I have been in a coma, or maybe locked up since a very very very young age. I am being forced to choose a path. That is not role-playing, that is not developing a character. A character is NOT going to have a tabula rasa chargen, that's just fact. Your beggar with no fighting skill... well, he has the exact same amount of fighting skill as any other skill, as even speaking! A beggar can fight as well as he can speak. Not realistic. Not role-playing.

But I have to go to work. Darn Chick-fil-A.

Also, mega dittos to everything Arwen says.

The fact that your character knows how to fire an arrow from a bow properly, swing two swords at once without falling, and roast a draugr overlord with a flame spell all from the very beginning should imply that they've already learned quite a bit from their past life, don't you think?

The entire point of this thread is that it's a problem, not that your character knows too much or too little, BUT...

--- PAY ATTENTION TO THIS PART ---

... That all of your skills start out equal, and that you have no customization, WHATSOEVER, in the beginning. The game forces your character to be a "tabula rasa", a blank slate.

Yes, we all are aware that you "shape" your character through playing the game and using skills.

The POINT OF THIS THREAD is that you should be able to choose what skills your character is good at, and what skills your character is bad at, IN THE BEGINNING.

This is probably the most fundamental tenant of any REAL RPG.

Amnesia??

Why would it matter if you're not going to implement those skills anyway? Just pretend they're lower than the ones you want to raise. Use your *imagination*:sorcerer:

:rofl:

Why even play the game then? Why not just play pen and paper, or lay in the grass and imagine you're slaying dragons.

I wish I had an imagination as powerful as that.

For the rest of us, there are video games. :thumbsup:

I'm sorry, didn't you say in your I P that you would rather a character that already has skills? LIke the oblivion or morrowind systems? Rather than the 'tabula rasa chargen' or whatever you phrased it as in order to get me read the thread? I get you want to rp. I would rather play as a character with no skill background, because I can build them from the ground up. You would rather play as a character that is already semi-developed (is that better put for you?). Rping has nothing to do with this. I can rp a blank Slate... If you can't, thats not my problem, and I sympathize for you.

And btw, how exactly does a beggar learn the way of words any better than he learns the ways of the blade? That awesome schooling they got as a child? Or was it all the reading they prolly can't do? Or maybe the guards in prison have them lessons? Last time I checked poverty is directly correlated to illiteracy, which means you prolly wont find a lot of poor prisoners in skyrim with silver tongues, or even the ability to write. No, I think my point still stands here.

How is my character a blank slate? I can think of several reasons: coma, amnesia, jailed in isolation from their teenage years... any others? He hasn't been a farmer, he hasn't been a beggar, he hasn't been a student, he hasn't been... well, anything else. I must constrict my character's backstory to these medical (or criminal) reasons, not imagine anything new. How can you roleplay a blank slate? A character who is a blank slate at 20 doesn't even make sense. My character IS semi-developed - he's had twenty years of experience! - and through a major/minor skill system (or allotted a specific number of skill points) I can place my character's backstory into the game mechanics and really begin to role-play.

How many beggars have you run into? Most are pretty good at getting people to give them money. Those in New York can make over $100,000 a year. They know their craft, it just is a different style than others. By the way, the ability to write in no way affects your ability to convince people of what you want or to bargain.

Regardless - the way OB character generation is set up, I am severely limited in what kind of backstory I develop for my character. They CANNOT be a recently arrested and tried banker, for instance, or scholarly mage - they must have had a coma (or other such device) that prevents them from gaining life experience, or they must be a beggar or some other inexperienced person. Either way, I can't roleplay a swath of characters I'd love to play.

And I expect more out of TES.

I'm saying it's not a big deal but if you want to moan about something so insignificant, that's your prerogative.

This.
You shape your character by playing if you don't use a skill then you don't become good at it. What difference does it make if you have a number next to that stat. You're picking flaws when there are none.

its no different that previous levelling systems where you started off as a pathetic noob and withing a span of a few in game weeks you become the most powerful person in all of tamriel. after my first playthroughs i generally premake my characters anyways and then slow levelling down to be almost nonexistant.

So why wasn't the character shaped (in any way) by his first twenty years of life?

Because it's a video game and the want you to play into your role by interacting with it. I know what you're saying, but the only thing that worries me on this topic is difficulty. No matter what I became in Morrowind, I got my ass whooped pretty good and had to crawl around in ditches until I was strong enough to do very much. Will it be easier since all skills will be generally low? But then again how do we know we can't play with skills?

Anyway as for the main topic, it's obvious you're not very skilled because it's the beginning of the game. That's it. As a player of RPGs since Phantasy Star I, Might & Magic, etc.. I have hopes for this one. Hey it might not work, but sounds good to me.

I'm not sure I understand where all of the excitement is coming from. I mean, they haven't shown us exactly how CharGen works; how do we know for certain that all of our skills are set at... what's the number? Five?

I'm working under the impression that we still get minor racial bonuses to skills, as well. So that's something. And who knows, maybe we get bonus points to distribute, questions to add minor points (like Daggerfall, spend time training w/ sword, get +3% to one-hand), or a Tag system like Fallout. Anything said about leveling skills as we go is what I take to mean "you will get better if you use them", which is no different from past games, other than the fact that the classification for deciding whether or not they contribute to level has been changed. Nowhere does that imply that "you don't get bonuses from your background", but it doesn't confirm it either.

Besides... my character's Driving and Calculus skills could be 100 now, but there's no real in-game representation for said skills. We've always started off as relatively weak in this series, in a majority of RPGs, even; it gives our characters the opportunity to grow and develop BEYOND what we decide at the beginning. I find that a challenge and overcoming it (and sometimes, critically failing) is far more entertaining than consoling myself to 60 or whatever in Destruction, turning myself into a giant rolling fireball, and incinerating everything in my path. Although, that's fun too, if I've earned it.

Uh arena the heart and soul of elder scrolls had no skills so um NO its not important.

The argument isn't about skills specifically.

It's about beginning character customization. - http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Arena:Character_Creation

In Skyrim, however, skills seem to be the only thing you can do this with.

Arena isn't the "heart and soul" of ES, that would be Daggerfall.