I focus on character knowledge and doing what the character would do to stay alive. Bringing the character to life in the world, so to speak. I almost never touch the difficulty slider, although I do turn off portions of the HUD, especially the crosshair and the icons for locations I have not yet found in the compass. The difficulty slider in an elder scrolls game just affects the damage done and received by the player, which makes battles longer, but for the most part, not that much harder and in my view it makes them less realistic for opponents to be able to survive too many arrows or fireballs or whatever. If I want a more challenging game, I use mods that increase challenge in more meaningful ways by improving AI and making resources harder to acquire. Those types of challenges I find more realistic and immersive than fighting big health sponges.

Like Turija, I like to roleplay. Roleplaying prevents me from engaging in this type of behavior

But, that said, if you have fun experimenting with how far you can push the system, I say, "Go for it." There is no right way to play an Elder Scrolls games.

In my humble opinion, I don't think you should bother touching the difficulty slider. In TES games, the difficulty slider is just a lame damage multiplier. It doesn't affect creatures resistances, enemy casters spell repertoire, the amount of gold you find in random chests or even the prices of items in shops. None of that. It's just fake difficulty and tedium (imo). You're better off using house rules or mods (if available) to add more meaningful challenge and tactical considerations.

Yes I agree that the difficulty slider is not very good in TES. But this is how I normally always do in a game, I always start on the hardest difficulty, since I really like challange and it often brings out so much more depth and tactics in any game. But I don't know any other game besides TES that are not built to be balanced? But yes I agree about that in TES this is flawed. In fact when I can I use mods now to go around it. For Skyrim I use harcore fighting and dualcombat. As far as I understand it It basically multiplies the damage done by both the enemies and you by very much. So enemies die fast, but you also die fast. For Morrowind I used some mod that makes your attacks always hit, but also makes it so the enemies attack always hit.

I also like immersion mods that add needs like sleep and food. Also for Skyrim I found a really amazing mod that makes you see your own body and shadow, it ads so much to the immersion. Also on top of that I use a animation mod that ads animation to things like looting bodies, this combined with the real first person view makes it so it takes a little while to loot a body, so you cant just fight an enemy and then loot his body in the middle of a fight because you will be killed while you loot him then. And I have some self imposed restrictions:

1. Never wait

2. Never fast travel

3. Never use instant potions in battle (I found a mod though I use now that lets you drink potions in battle but they are not instant, it take about 10 seconds for a health potion to give all of its health boost and you can not stack it)

4. Never save in battle.

So I have some self imposed rules, it is just harder when it comes to what rules to use to not break the game.

I want to try the roleplay route, I have still not got the hang of that though and not completely understood what is involved. I still find it hard to see how to completely be able to roleplay in a videogame, apart from choosing a "class".

About experimenting, yes that is actually something I want to continue with also. Even though you can get OP, actually doing the "experiments" and bending the game as far as you can is probably one of the most enjoyable things I know. It becomes like an epic quest in itself, to figure out the system, to get the "ingredients", to hone your skills etc to get to that point where you can create a weapon that are more powerful then anything else in the game or where you can fly like superman in Morrowind. It was a blast so I want to do that to. Actually when I started playing Morrowind I made a custom class with my fast character called "Experimentor"

I am thinking I will continue to do like that with my first main vanilla character. After all you are some kind of demi-god hero in most ES games. Maybe that is the answer, to go crazy and do everyting with one character and then when you know the system and how far you can push it you can play a bit more restrictive later.

I want to try roleplaying again and give that another go also. I am thinking about having some different character types that I can reuse in the different games. I am really thinking about doing a mage/necromancer who want to build himself a library with all the different books found in the game. So his main quest will be to find all the books. Any suggestions on how to roleplay that? Also do you guys use any self imposed rules?

I have only one self-imposed rule when I roleplay: take only those actions that are appropriate to the character.

I remember reading that article three years ago. Having skimmed it again, I would take issue with some of its basic premises. For instance, the author conflates the terms "roleplay" and "immersion". Although the two go hand in hand, they are decidedly distinct concepts, like penut butter and jelly.

The term "roleplay" is difficult to define because so many people have their own definition, but "immersion" is not "roleplay." You can be a pure power gamer and still be "immersed" in the game.

Mods that add survival elements, like eating, sleeping and drink requirements, are often considered "immersive" but may appeal to power gameers and roleplayers alike, although perhaps for different reasons. For example, the roleplayer may appreciate the reminder from the game that it is time to eat, sleep or drink. A roleplayer can do such things without a mod, but without a reminder from the game or any consequence to not taking such action, the eating, drinking and sleeping can feel hollow. For the power gamer or min/maxer, the resourse management provided by survival mods, can ceate a gaming challenge of its own.

It's not to say the article is not without valid points (such as the argument that in general "balance" is more important to a min/maxer than a roleplayer), but on the whole, I think it takes an overly simplistic viewpoint on some fairly complex issues.

What do you do when there is no action that really is appropriate? I can see this scenario often since in a videogame there are only so many "options" especially when it comes to interacting with NPC:s and dialogue.

How do people here roleplay btw?

I have found some different examples when trying to see how it may look like in video.

For example Gopher seems to have a bit more laid back style where he has a backstory, but still stick to the game and its mechanics. You can still see how he have to "fight" the game a bit though, for example in these videos he is playing a wimpy librarian, but the NPC:s still refer him as "strong looking warrior" and he kills a couple of dragons very early on in the adventure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNeKPdwpAnM&index=1&list=PLE7DlYarj-DeANe-GZofJetcjAhl718NP%C2%A0

Which of these types are you guys?

Yes, while I really like the article I agree with this. I think you can achieve immersion in most games (removing HUD is one way that always improves it) but roleplay is still something I have a hard time seeing how many games support. The only game in fact I can see it really possible is in Elder Scrolls and Fallout.