No Fast Travel period. I've only broken that rule like twice and it was between districts in the IC.

Good ideas in this thread. Provides a new perspective to me based on how other players take on the world of Tamriel...

My rules are simple, not that sophisticated:
1) I choose blade or blunt. Never both, mostly blade( has cooler weapons, and are faster). BUt still I do lots of magic and some marksmanship.
2) I have mods that add a eat/drink/sleep requirement, so I do that regularly.
3) I like to help people, so I usually do all quests. That too with a neutral bent, not trying to good always (e.g., I returned the Honorblade of Chorrol to Fathis Ules, not the City).
4) I am not a good marksman, even though I'd like to be one. I try to get in a sneak shot, but don't run around trying to shoot enemies as they approach...
5) I like to take regular trips to the inns to eat/drink and rest generally.
6) No fast travel, ever. I despise the mages guild teleport added by Frostcrag as well...

What I don't do yet, but would like to someday:
1) Change clothes in the city to civilian.
2) Don't do all quests, especially not necessary to join all guilds.
3) Always walk - that just seems tedious, given the walking speed... while running, it takes forever (as it should) to reach one city from another - but walking is taking it too far...especially with the limited time in RL I get to play Oblivion...
4) Use daggers/shortswords with bows. I guess I never am really good at playing rangers as they just don't do enough damage in an FCOM game...
5) Focus on one school of magic only. I usually end up with Conjuration, restoration and destruction, but in my current game, I am just about an apprentice/journeyman in everything...
6) Bathe. Hygiene has to have some importance, don't you think so?

A cool touch would be to intentionally mix some 'healing potions' with THIS BEAUTY: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naga_Jolokia_pepper

:swear:

There could be some *toilets* in swamps, jungles, dungeons and Ayleid ruins - as a special touch, some characters could place a special sort of 'paper' nearby:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nettle

:chaos:

I have a LOT of realism mods that make me eat, sleep, not swim in heavy armor and stuff, but I personally limit myself with the following:

When I have equipped a shield, I cannot cast touch or range spells, only self spells

I cannot carry 3 staves, two bows, 4 sets of armor, etc. WITHOUT my bag of holding

I have to make sure my companions eat and sleep when I do.

When my companions adventure with me they get an EQUAL share in all the loot, magic items and everything. I can't get them gold, of course, but I can give them the equivilent in items.

I don't mix companion classes. An assassin will not travel with a Paladin, and vise versa.

I did the Et in Arkay mod where my current character helped and felt compassion for the goddess of life, Mara, so now she does not use soul gems at all.

My characters do not use necromancy unless they are necromancers.

My characters only wear armor and use weapons appropriate to their classes.

i forgot one important - realism-wise... so my pretty, fragile, lascivious, deadly Breton chick has 30 str & end...

how much can she carry? well, i thought for sth like a dozen seconds and concluded that it could not be more than 30-35 kgs (would be around 70 pounds).

I actually do that...

I knew I'd forget one of my rules. That's one I've put in place for my current playthrough, since Amarel's much more of a noble soul than my last character. I can be a little flexible about it, though--Amarel might pass by a gate on her way to someplace, if she doesn't have time to stop and close it, but then she'll come back and close the gate the next day. Likewise, if it's a gate that's opened in the absolute middle of nowhere, it's up to whether I personally feel like closing another gate or not.

A couple of things in addition to many wonderful postings above, that I also follow:

You cannot repair your items in the wild.
If a weapon breaks, drop it, it's done.
If you are a mage, you cannot create custom spells until you are at least Expert Level in all magical schools involved in that spell.

One of my characters I allow to be as Uber and Epic as I want.
The other one, I aim not to get his fame above 5, Otreb just wants to be a regular civillian. I also aim to have No armour or running in cities, eat at regular intervals, will run away if his HP gets less than 50% and Fast Travel as little as possible.

Whenever I get around to starting them, my roleplay characters must obey the following rules...

1. No waiting unless they are in a secure location, such as their own home.
2. No reloads, not matter what crappy thing happens. Unless... my finger slips, the game glitches/lags, or an outside source distracts me. Then reloading is okay. Also, I generally give my characters an assignment, such as completing a certain guild questline. If they die before finishing their assignment, I will reload. If they die afterward... oh darn.
3. Only use blue arrows.
4. No fast travel. I use flawless gems to get to dungeons and other out of the way spots, and regular gems to get to cities.
5. No local maps, or whatever they're called. The big map is fine to use. I can only use local maps if another npc gives me information on that location- I imagine they give me a map at that point.
6. Eat and sleep. Three normal food items a day and an hour of sleep each night will suffice; I don't have the patience for anything more. No sleeping outside.
7. No using the console, except to correct glitches and help with setting up nice screenshots.
8. No opening their inventory (or doing anything else that would pause the game) during battles. The exception is if something in real life demands my attention, then I can pause the game.
9. Difficulty must be no lower than 25. Ideally, this will soon by raised to 30, then 35...

What rules the individual characters will follow remains to be seen. I have some ideas for how they will behave, but who knows.

So many great answers in this thread. One of the ones I forgot earlier was with maps. I tend to look at maps when I'm in town, or if I'm already in a civilized location (like Pell's Gate). I'll give myself a good look at where I'm going, study any local features, but once I'm on the road, there's no more looking at the map, especially once I'm off in the wilderness somewhere.

Must not kill any NPC, except if a quest says something else.

May not pickpocket other, than people who are not fair to others.

Never get involved in any crime.

Do quests as it says, etc. don't kill anyone not necessary.

Buffy is quite the cartographer. Odd, considering if she spins around three times inside her house she gets lost. Well, perhaps that is exactly why she is fascinated with maps. She loves marking new things on her map and even updating the University's map maintained in the Mystic Archives with her discoveries. Tar-Meena quite appreciates that, actually. Buffy uses her map a lot, else she would surely get lost and probably get eaten by Argonians in the Black Marsh. Her map is doeskin, not parchment, so it will hold up under the harsh conditions of adventuring. Before she unrolls it however, she does indeed make sure conditions nearby are safe. If it is dark, naturally she either lights a torch or slips on a ring so she can see. :dance:

I love the answers in this thread, I may try more out sometime.

Also I forgot about no FT.
I limit spells to the character type, if they use any that is.
I use console commands to tweak my character into shape for the role*, or glitches but never use tgm or cheat vias it, and then touch it for screenshots only. *custom spells, items.
If a character breaks a rule by accident I find a way to penalise them, even if it's just to teach me a lesson.
Don't effecient level so combined with only using majors* my stats are always unique, some strong, others weak the rest mid ranged. *Mostly I have to add, as some level practically on their own.
.

I recently added a mod which gives me a really cool colored map in a much better resolution than the vanilla map. Since I'm quite infatuated with maps IRL, Camarilla has taken to hanging a large map of Cyrodiil on the wall of her shack and marking down her travels. Since she's also fascinated by nature and hot farm boys she also marks down nice lakes and warm beds =)

Revised RoflLizard general character rules:
1.No fast travel except in one case. Within the IC, to other districts, or the stables.
2.Eat if I can remember.
3.Sleep if not dungeon crawling at 11pm.
4.Alignment rules:
4a.Kill randomly, only if Completely evil.
4b.Assassinate, as a more controlled evil character.
4c.Never kill without reason for a Neutral Character.
4d.Never Kill anyone, unless in self defense.
5.Armor is decided by character Image: No holy knights in evil looking Daedric, non-evil rangers don't use Dark brotherhood wear, etc.
6.When swimming, I will try my best to remember to remove their gear, but this one I usually avoid, due to my family being in the room an awful lot.
7.Dead is dead. Unless it was a completely idiotic way to die.(A friendly NPC somehow pushes me into a trap or something lame like that)
8.If they have to get naked, unless the character states otherwise, they would do their best to avoid other people and creatures.
9.Alcohol, if a character drinks 3 or 4 bottles of beer, or any alcoholi cbeverage for that matter, If i remember, they will act stranger than usual. For some characters, this is good strange, such as, singing songs, and having fun, while others will kill anyone they see for fun.
10.Never reload because I made a mistake,even a quest line shattering one.
11.Console is fine, for common uses. Renaming Horses, TCL, TLB(Helps with some fps lag in combat in Oblivion gates with MMMs increased spawns). TFC and others that do not detract from the character, but rather enhance.

And I usually break some of these, but I still use most of them. And dead is dead is infuriatingly hard with OOO. Lost a fair share of my characters to it. But now I'm getting more used to it, It isn't as bad.

I love these RoflLizard, I allways wonder how many players also follow alignment paths.
I can't understand why many would swim clothed, even without a body mod you still would not weigh yorself down like that, with one it's just like rl when I skinny dip in the wilds.
Alchohol's a good one, spending a night as a drunken sneak roaming round Chorrol screaming shh as she picked peoples pockets was one of my favourite role moments.

I tend to work with a few limitations. Firstly, the equipment I use must be realistically carried, so it's a sword/shield or sword/bow, maybe even just a sword if I'm playing a spellsword type character. The armour has to fit the type of view I have for a character. A paladin might use steel or even ebony. Most of my characters tend to be Ranger types so I mostly run with Leather Armour, and a green hood. I just enchant it with shield to make it useful at higher levels.

Magic wise I'm extremely strict. If it's not a major skill I must pay for it to be levelled to 25 (thus a heavy investment to learn). The same goes other specialist skills like Sneak, Marksman, etc. The only ones I don't apply this to is Mercantile and Speechcraft as they're just so useful and very natural to learn anyway.

The other restriction is loot. I only take small items like gems, gold, sometimes arrows. It makes no sense to pick up 10 sets of armour and sell them off. How do I carry it?

I had good fun with the alcohol rule. One character ran around naked, and he would punch a guard, yield, punch him again, yield, and this went on until the guard died.
Conversation went like this.
"STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM!"
"wasn't mee, *hic*"
"JUST PAY THE FINE"
and it repeated for a good 15 minutes. He eventually tried to kill a lot of guards like this, but after the second one, he got bored and went to jail.

Agree with much of what has been said. I much prefer to have the game engine restrict me though. I'm at heart a sleazy slacker so if I don't have the game preventing me from using the console to up my stats and such, it is too hard to rationalize that (well if I just sat here and kept clicking it would be the same end result as if I just hit Wait for 2 hours in game and then advskill 2 pts.

My current character is a Bosmer Recon Sniper (custom class) named Elberond. His primary weapon is, of course, a bow. He also has a shortsword and a dagger in case his bow doesn't drop his foe before they get too close. He uses Alchemy rather frequently and is a master of it. He also uses magic, but with the following limitations:

Alteration: He can't use this school at all. He must rely on potions, where applicable, for alteration effects.

Conjuration: Elberond has a grudge against Necromancers, so he will not summon any Undead at all. He will occasionally summon Daedra, but only up to Journeyman level skill. He will not progress further than that in Conjuration.

Destruction: Ha can cast Touch spells up to Master level all day long (or until his Magicka runs out), but Target spells are beyond his abilities.

Illusion: His greatest magic skill, and one quite useful to a Recon Sniper. He uses a wide range of Illusion spells to aid him in combat (or retreat).

Mysticism: He can only use Detect Life, Soul Trap & Telekinesis.

Restoration: Even the simplest restorative spell is beyond him. Elberond relies on potions for these effects.

Im an Altmer. The kind of arrogant megolomaniac that becomes a vampire just to experiment and learn more about magicka.
Ruthless and not above fighting unfairly.
But, he will not personally murder an innocent. During Mephala's quest he will use poison apples to get rid of the village elders. He reasons its a) their choice to eat the apple. b ) unwise to refuse a Daedric prince by simply not finishing the quest. c) a good reward he will get, something he will most likely need.

He is highly prescient and would opt to run away during when he is with the Blackwood company at Water's Edge, sensing something is wrong.

Anyone that attacks him first is fair game however, and he does have a cruel streak. An Imperial legion soldier attacked him once over a complete misunderstanding about a horse, (he thought it was his one, honest), and he led the man into a cave infested with undead and turned invisible.

A very interesting character personality, indeed.

I agree he's interesting:)

He once helped some traders expose a corrupt imperial watchman by the name of Audens Avidius.
The man was put to jail, only one night Merari dreamed he would escape and hunt him down.

He was quite annoyed at this dream as he had better things to do, oblivion gates were popping up all over the place and he wanted a sigil stone that granted him spell absorbtion. He travelled to Cheydinhal and waited by a certain well, and sure enough, Avidius turned up in a berserker rage.

Avidius went after Merari when he fled into the well shouting: 'Let me be, and Ill leave you alone in kind!'.. as Avidius drowned Merari told him he should have invested in a basic spell of waterbreathing.

On topic, I really dont understand this thing against fast travel. Sure, I wouldve liked a more Morrowind kind of sytem with the different types of travel and fixed points, but I always just imagine me galloping along the roads during the loading screen. Lol, sometimes I even make a sound like two coconut halves banging together;) Quests were made with fast travel in mind, and I dont want to gallop in real game across the entire map, dismounting every 30 sec. for a troll or bandit.

Tweakable game mechanics are a must for me on elder scrolls, not a let-down.
I think everything gameplay allows me to do is fair game, and it all enhances the immersion for me. Im this great destined hero, right? Why cant I use powers unheard of? The mages guild lectures about doomstones pretty much say so, as they state that doomstones have no discernible magic power. They hint that for certain people, under certain circumstances, they might, and lo and behold, our character can summon weapons or gain eldritch powers.

Some people say that Morrowind was too allowing in 'cheating the game', I say my ability to play with the mechanics of the game as well as the freedom of questlines only enhanced my immersion. The days when I was at work and suddenly realised I could put, for instance, restore fatigue constant on a very minor item I was enthralled. And it made perfect sense roleplaying wise, I was the Nerevarine. On par with Vivec and Divayth Fyr in potential.

This is why I love elder scrolls, the ability to not only be a freeform character, but also have a freeform world.

I recently bought mass effect 1, and while I like it, it has depth and story, the gameplay is very restricted compared to elder scrolls. A game like that, another that comes to mind is fable 1, is only fun the first two playthroughs. After that, you only play to find out what fun things you can do you havent yet, and they are solerly lacking in that respect. Sure, I can be a different person stat-wise, but the game still feels like a pre-ordained path. Some things vary, but they all veer towards the same.

What I love about elder scrolls is that it has so much allowance for a player to work with the machine, instead of along it, to tweak and alter. It took me a very long time on Morrowind to play it to death. Literally 5-6 years. I love it still like no game ever, because of the freedom it gave me to play with its mechanics. It is something that enhances my roleplay, not restricts it.

Well I don't know that I would call it a rule, but I if it's hostile, I'll attack.

Level 1 character vs. MMM Balrog? Yeah I'm going to go for it.

Beyond that, no rules to speak of...never pass a dungeon that I've yet to clear or has respawned?

I'm currently trying to do the "pure" mage thing and not use armor or weapons. Just for grins, also trying to use Restoration as an offense, mainly Absorb Health. I'll probably have to start using "summon and hide" using Conjuration and Illusion, too, but I want to avoid the use of Destruction spells, as they're just too obvious.

I'm also still running a character (the Elegant Orc Blossom) who wields a War-axe, but doesn't wear armor. She gets all her defense magically, either from shield enchantments or reflect damage. She's an Atronach with enough enchanted jewels to give her 100% Spell Absorption, and using up those slots limits her defense a bit. A shield counts as armor, so I won't let her use the Escutcheon of Chorrol, or its lesser cousins. Now that she's maxed out Personality and Speechcraft (and getting close in Mercantile, too) she's finding it harder to get into fights with anyone.