How common is really roleplaying?

I have been thinking about this a bit since I am still trying to find my own identity a bit when it comes to these games. That is, if I am a regular "gamer" in these games or if I would like it better with roleplaying. How common is really the roleplaying approach to these games? From reading in the forum you get the impression that it is the vast majority who are roleplayers, but I also get the impression that it could be because the community might be made up of a special kind of fans. I don't know if say the general Steam user is a hardcoe roleplayer or not?

I am still trying to figure out if roleplaying is for me, but I have still felt some resistance because it does feel a bit alien compared to how games are usually played. I mean how common is it really when playing any other games to restart from scratch and do everything "over again" when there are 100:s of hours left of totally unexplored content that you have not even touched yet? I think that is very rare. Still this seem to be a part of roleplaying and keeping things undone (saying no to many quests and factions etc). Do you guys ever feel a tension there?

I have grown up with video games, and as a real serious "gamer" you always wanted to explore and consume every drop of content in a game. To do everything there is to offer. I have always tried to do everything, and explore every opportunity, when talking to NPC:s I have always explored every single dialogue line with every character I can find and do all the sidequests in games etc (Final Fantasy etc). To not do this, feels a bit "strange" and unusual... Is it just something you have to get used to?

I still don't know if I am just unused to i and have not fully "got it", or if it actually is not for me. In some ways I almost think I had more fun in Skyrim and other ES games when I just played them as any other games, going from closest quest location to the next closest quest location, shooting magic in the meantime to raise the skills and trying to max out and just "game" (learning to fly in Morrowind and jump over buildings in Oblivion). When I have tried to roleplay I often feel like I have to "think" to much, like "would this character really do this?", "Should I do this quest? Could that be appropriate? Yes I think it would.. or no wait.. maybe not". "Why would anyone ever go on these stupid fetch quests? It does not make any logical sense"

"Oh yes look at that shelf with all that great loot in this NPC:s house! Oh wait.. maybe I should not pick up that, that would be considered rude in the real world?". "Oh god that cave looks really interesting! lets run and explore it! But wait.. do my character really have a reason to go down there?".

Also often I feel the game is not really designed around roleplaying, like how in Skyrim the only way to open locked chests is with lockpicking, but is it really realistic that any other character than a thief would really know how to pick locks? So does that mean you just have to leave tons stuff behind because the game does not support any other way to go around this when playing a pure mage or a clumsy stupid barbarian?

Maybe I am just overanolyzing everything and that is why I can't really make it work. But I have come to a point where I always have this nagging feeling no matter how I play. When I just play as a "gamer" doing everything and joining every faction and just maxin my character (like how you would play Diablo or any other "normal" game etc) I feel like maybe I am "abusing" the game and just plowing through content and treating the game as just a way to get to "completion". And when I am trying to roleplay I often feel a nagging feeling like "Is this really fun? Is this really how I enjoy playing?", "Here I am offered a new quest line I have never experienced before and should say No to it now?" and I feel like I often have to think about everything so much instead of just relaxing and having fun.

Maybe there is possible to play both styles in parallel? Anyone do both? A character that does everything and becomes "god" and goofs out in every trade and in whatever "you" want, and at the same time having characters that in a stricter role and roleplaying?

Am I crazy or do anyone know what I am talking about haha

The important thing is to have fun and having a good time playing a game. Whatever works for you is the right way for you.

I roll play diablo games as well but it becomes more difficult as soon as normal is done, But still manage to do it up to Hell.

I really do not think about the character in a game. It is more of the character just comes alive and over time the character just comes out with the good, bad, and ugly characteristics and anything in between.

I try to role play as best I can. The problem for me is that as I'm playing I will see things (like armor/clothing or weapons) and I'll get an idea for a new character and then I have to go try the concept. I lose focus with characters easily. Role playing does make the game more enjoyable to me, so I try to keep as much metagaming out of my characters as possible, which is hard sometimes when you've played a game through a few times.

I role play sometimes while playing Morrowind/Oblivion but sometimes I just forget to.

Don't you ever feel it is hard to say no to quests though when roleplaying? Like if you stumble upon a questline line that you have never seen before that sounds very intriguing, but it just does not "fit" with what you had in mind for the character? I think that is my hardest part for me, to say no to content and not do something, or not use some really cool object or weapon, it is so against what is engrained in you as a player and from playing other games. I also find it often hard to really find quests that fit very well with any one character. To be honest, often npc:s work as walking sign boards that ask you for some very personal help or be an errand boy and fetch something without any real reason or logic to it. They are just put there to provide content for the player.

I have noticed I that see all the flaws so much clearer when I try to roleplay vs just "game" and not think or notice the logic behind things so much.

Sometimes I even question if these games are even designed to actually facillitate and support proper roleplay outside bending things with ones own head (besides choosing if you want to be a class that swing a sword or cast magic, even though you can of course even be great at doing both).

Here is a suggestion for you: Have 2 characters one could be your "main character where you do all the quest lines and try to beat the game and stuff. then the secound one could be your "role play" character where you role play as a specific person kind of thing. Let me know if this helped!

I think roleplyaing has become less and less common. Back when I joined nearly everyone was heavily involved in roleplaying. Since then each game has brought new players to the series from other genres. Some of these players have no interest in roleplaying, some do. Some come to the series with no knowledge of roleplaying and develop an interest later. But more and more I am encountering players who not only do not roleplay but are hostile to roleplaying and even ridicule those who roleplay.

This was not always the case. The folks who were already a part of this community when I joined were avid roleplayers, almost down to the last man and woman. They had played computer roleplaying games for years and could speak with authority about nearly every roleplaying game that had been released. Most of them came to computer roleplaying games from pen-and-paper roleplaying games. They were so hardcoe they thought Morrowind was "dumbed-down."

Was it better then, or now? I don't know. Much like the changes in the games themselves, I think the changes I have seen in the community have their good points and their bad points.

There is something to be said for being a part of a small group of like-minded folks. But I think there is something to be said for being a part of a large, thriving, dynamic community as well. We were like a small town back then whereas we are like a huge metropolis now. Nowadays we are polyglot, come from diverse backgrounds with diverse interests, often with competing needs and wants. Most of the time I find that exciting. But sometimes I miss the days when we all knew each other and spoke the same language.

To answer your question briefly, it seems to me that with each game in the series roleplaying is less an important part of the mindset of the player base than it was during the "era" of the previous game in the series.

Wow man, that's deep

Roleplaying can be all sorts of different things. It doesn't have to be its typical definition where you have strict guidelines to what your character is, but it can be if that's what you want. It is your character. Many people get great enjoyment of warriors who want absolutely nothing to do with magic, with the thieves who want as little confrontation as posssible, as a hunter out in the wilderness, as a simple mercenary, as the Hero, as an umabiguously evil [censored], etc. Many people try to adhere to old-school style classes and try to be knights, monks, spellswords, warriors, mages, rogues, or whatever and get great fulfillment out of it. Whether you want to do that or not, more power to you.

But what if your character is just someone who does whatever interests them? What if it is somebody who is very much into one role and then decides they want to do something else? Playthroughs like those aren't the typical definitions of roleplaying as most people think of it, but I would argue it can still be roleplaying. Even if it is after the fact, you can imagine whatever reasons the character may have had for doing that.

When I first started playing TES (with Skyrim) I didn't really think a whole lot about roleplaying, but I played as generally good-natured characters. I just liked being the Hero. But I wasn't some goody-two-shoes, and my character actually did some wrong things. I decided then to term my characters as vigilantes, people who did what they thought was right but sometimes their anger or selfishness could get the best of them. It made them much more interesting, complex characters to play as, and it even helped me come up with some general backstory for them.

However, a couple times I did flat-out bad things--like framing Brand-Shei for Brynjolf (piss off, Brynjolf)--but those were times that I didn't really know what I doing as it was early on in my playing of TES games. In the case of Brand-Shei, I tried to make up for it by "paying his bond" (read: access the console) and doing his quest he gives you, along with placing thousands of pieces of gold in his strongbox so I felt like I was at least trying to atone for my wrong-doing. When Lucien Lachance gives you the A Knife in The Dark quest in Oblivion, I wanted to check out what it was about. I didn't really plan on completing the quest because I don't think it fit my particular character. You have to go find a man named Rufio and kill him. I could tell from Rufio's dialogue before you kill him that he was, well, not exactly a good person. So my character reasoned that Rufio did not deserve to live, fulfilling that vigilante role I implemented for him, and acted accordingly. Still, my character still feels some guilt and has tried to atone for it, like my other characters do. (It's a long story explaining my characters' personalities in full, and while some of the things they do may seem contradictory to their role I've rambled on enough...)

Anyways, you don't necessarily have to roleplay before the fact. You can come up with something as you go along, and mold your role that way. It all depends on what you want to be. You make your character's role whatever you want, whether it's more old-school how you role-play or not. That's one of the many great things about this series.

I think that one of the strengths of TES is that the game can replayed multiple times with relatively little overlap. When I play (or rather played) Bioware games, I make my choices and enjoy it. But I don't do it again, because I'm essentially doing the same thing in different ways. Whereas in TES, two player characters can do mostly different quest altogether. Be patient, save that content for another character. You should probably role play curious, proactive characters to make the most of the opportunities they find. Just bear in mind that there's a difference between tracking down somebody's goat as part of getting to know a small farming community and the area around it and joining a death cult to see what it's like.

About lock picking in Skyrim, it's important for some quests, but for a lot of questlines, you're not missing much. I can think of very few times when I've found something interesting behind a lock in Skyrim, aside from when a quest explicitly entails breaking and entering. Most of the time, you'll just find extra loot.

I role play in minor ways, for example I use a mod to have simple pleasing looking light armour that I can wear even at high levels instead of upgrading all the time. I sleep in inns instead of waiting outside, and I never loot shrines, regardless of the deity. And I never really worry about powerleveing my skills.