Its a maybe for me. I don't think another Dragonborn would be good, because the story revolves around you, the player, being one of the last. But, perhaps other dragon hunters would be kinda cool to encounter. It would interesting, in my opinion, to see another hero slay a dragon. Perhaps that person could teach you techniques for taking them down. Or maybe they would be hostile toward you, thinking that you've come to claim their hard earned prize. I agree, I think other powerful heroes like yourself would be cool, just not someone who is dragonborn.

Yes, they are suppose to have names (some name generator would do the trick), but I forgot to write that in the OP.
Also, only because they are there, it doesn't mean that they will challenge you right away.
Actual challenging from them should only start when you gain some fame (more fame, more challenges) and you should challenge them until them.
Still, I don't like the idea that NPC who challenges me is tailored based on me.
It kinda svck to be honest since it will become boring to fight same type of challenges over and over.
In my version the idea is that you fight some other hero in search for fame and he could use there magic, combat, stealth or combination of them.
Also, if I'm not wrong, other NPC's in game can assassinate you as well, so I don't see a reason why wanderers slaying you is a big deal.
Still, if it is, make it so that they will attack you only if you attack them first or if you accept the duel.
If you don't then they will leave you alone.
Also, this will give more depth to the game and will make your fame actually be fame since it will look that stories of your legendary battles against dragons are told worldwide.
If they plan to do something along these lines, I hope that they will make more variety among those challengers so they are not just copies of you and sometimes you will get challenged by a warrior even though you are a mage.

How does one get caught by already murdered guards?

Something like this I guess would be cool but it may be better just to leave it up to the modders.

The problem the OP states in the FIRST SENTENCE is easily solved with a long post and discussion: BALANCE THE GAME. Thats it.

Sooo, basically "since they won't do real multiplayer, can we get fake bot-simulated multiplayer?"

Meh. :shrug:

The first thing I'd do is to poison him them all, hide their bodies and loot their corpses. hehehee. As long as they don't turn up using "unique" dragonshouts at everything it could add something, like the optionj to co-op with them or kill them

good idea, but screw reading all that.

I'd like it if someone tried to pass themselves of as you! So your deeds would start to become famous but people would not necessarily know what you look like. So there could be someone walking around, taking all your plaudits! telling tales about how he has been slaying all these dragons etc.and getting all the credit and benefits that should be yours!

Yes and no, big yes to other adventurers, but no it should never be based upon your own stats, there should simply be weaker and stronger adventurers.. any kind of heavy handed level scaling is a bad idea

Messes with the lore on heroes. So no, I don't want it.

When I read the topic title, for some reason I don't know why, I immediately thought of http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tribunal:Gaenor from Tribunal. You guys remember him, the most powerful NPC in Morrowind? I think he could of destroyed Oblivion's Umbra 10 times over.

Anyhoo, a rival like Gaenor would be cool in Skyrim, but perhaps not quite as powerful.

Non-player heroic characters is the NUMBER ONE thing that I truly miss in these games. NPCs that a truly your equals and they take some serious effort to take down. Dungeon bosses are sometimes like this, but more often not.

I also disliked the Adventurer random encounter in Oblivion, because all he did was to just kill all the enemies that YOU wanted to kill. I also think I got the DB on me if I killed him. I like the idea of an Adventurer encounter, but there should also be hostile adventurers as well - especially in certain deep dungeons where it makes sense that more than 1 person in the whole of Skyrim would try to loot to get some "easy" riches.

Kinda stupid how everything just lies there waiting for you. What about Radiant AI in the sense of a low level hero finding a special weapon, he fights you and you kill him and acquires that weapon just a tad bit earlier than otherwise.