Do you always start the same character in each tes game? I always start with a male dunmer. Light armour daggers sneaky and stabby. Thief and assassin. Later I try different races but I don't think I've ever played as any of the other elves. I've never gone full mage. I played my first two hand heavy armour character in skyrim. What about you?

Don't think so but I can't remember for sure

Theres certain character types I play in each game almost without fail and I think sneaky Bosmer archer is probably my most played character.

Only constant is that it's a magic user, as for races that varies between titles, I'd rank them in the following order, Altmer, Nord, Dunmer and Imperial. Skyrim made me pro Nord compared to earlier titles, but Altmer superiority is legit and I like the art direction.

I came up through the old "hardcoe" cRPGs like Might&Magic, so my usual practice in those games was to create whatever was the toughest brute-force-barbarian "Fighter," generically named "Glargg," and use that character (or groups of similar characters, in "party" games) to "test-run" the game.

"Glargg" was my first character in the first three Elder Scrolls games (and was a Nord in those games), but I dropped the practice after Morrowind. I think my first characters in Oblivion and Skyrim were both female, a Breton and a Nord respectively.

But "Glargg" has rarely been the character that I have played through games, in fact, I don't ever recall finishing any game with that character. He's purely a test character that I use to learn the controls and get a feel for the game. Once I'm comfortable with a game (usually after a couple of hours of playing), I restart with my "real" first character.

I usually finish my first character, however flawed. New Vegas was a real chore by the end with so many failed quests and wasted perks. I really hope that they make failure an option in future titles. It makes succeeding so much better.

So far, I tend to always do my first playthrough with a battlemage character.

In Oblivion, my first character (I had about 5) was a dark elf battlemage who had become corrupted by power.

In Skyrim, my first character (I only had 2 in Skyrim) was a breton battlemage that had a much higher moral compass and wanted to make the world a better place.

Merrigrin. A Nord Jack-of-all-Trades. He was my pioneer, checking out everything in the game

He was Harbinger of The Companions, Archmage, Guildmaster, Dovahkin, and Ulfric's biotch!

I'm like glargg in this respect. My first character is always a "test" character. I may even make more than one. In Skyrim I made two or three, to go through all of the guilds and main quest. Once I get a feel for the game, for the stories, the NPCs - once I feel I know a game well, in other words - then I begin to roleplay.

My first Morrowind character was a Redguard Warrior who wielded Claymores. I didn't have a clue about armor types back then so she just wore whatever she looted. On a walking tour around the coastline of Vvardenfell she found a set or Ordinator armor on a dead Ordinator somewhere up north and wore that for most of her game.

My first Oblivion character was a Breton Warrior. By that time I had discovered that my Warriors' Achilles heels were magic attacks. So by the time of Oblivion I was playing Breton Warriors almost exclusively. She wore Light Armor (I love the look of Leather Armor in Oblivion) and wielded a Claymore.

My first Skyrim character was Nord. She wore Hide Armor and wielded a Nord Hero Greatsword. This character was unusual in that I played her for over 200 hours. My test characters usually don't last that long. But I got involved in the game right off the bat and before I knew it my "test" character had turned into a "real" character.

@Pseron Wyrd

You're very heroic . Someone even wrote a book on the subject: http://uesp.net/wiki/Online:A_Hero%27s_Weapon

I'm also using my first char to learn the game. Not just in TES, always picked the default sheploo soldier as my first character in every Mass Effect game.

My very first character was some kind of really weird build that I came up with when I got into the Elder Scrolls. I wanted someone who never had to worry about encumbrance or repairing weapons, so I made a fist-fighting, spell-slinging Breton in regular clothing and no shoes with high Athletics/Acrobatics. It was interesting to say the least. Don't even remember the name but I'm sure it was something stupid. I eventually brought him back as a "legit" character. Still a weird build, but interesting nonetheless.

I also noticed that I tend to gravitate towards spellswords (almost always Breton) when first starting out the games. It was unintentional in Skyrim, since I planned on going full-mage but was forced to fall back on a sword since Destruction magic was pitiful. Now THAT character is one of my favorites and he's been retooled as a Spellsword from the beginning. (Though to keep in the original's spirit, he starts out with virtually no armor, moves on to light and eventually heavy).

ESO was a strange beast. Not sure how, but I ended up with a fighter (Daggerfall Covenant) a mage (Aldemri Dominion) and a thief (Ebonheart Pact).

The fighter was originally a Nightblade spellsword but I changed him into a Templar because it fit my playstyle better. He eventually dropped the "mage" side of it and became mostly a melee build/tank.

The mage was based on my main Skyrim character (not the one I mentioned earlier) that eventually became his own character but with similar abilities.

The thief was my second attempt at a Nightblade, but with the intention of doing a "cute monster magical girl." She's what I consider my "main" character and was originally going to be a Dunmer Dragonknight, so it could have been VERY different. Luckily, my desire to play a magical girl won. Best thing about it is that near the end of the Main Questline

As for the others, I also started a type of spellsword to test the waters, but they eventually became a rogue (Daggerfall) and full fighter (Morrowind) with only Arena's protagonist remaining a Spellsword.

A Redguard female with my name. I then found out about RPing and swapped her for a Breton called Kate.

PS: I forgot this was about the whole series, not just Skyrim

Morrowind was a Kahjiit stealth specialist named Sha'Do. He, too explored much of the game as a Jack-of-all-trades.

Oblivion had a Nord J-o-t exploring the world of Oblivion. By this time, Nords had become my favorite race in Tamriel He got through Kvatch and not much further...

My first characters are always a little different in each game of the series, but up until Skyrim when they got rid of classes they were Scouts of some sort, who usually wound up getting Lost. My first in Skyrim was a Nord, but her skillset was still similar to a scout, Melee fighter with some alchemy skills, a bow for backup when those pesky dragons just wont land and a flame spell for starting campfires on a wet morning. Maybe I've gotten too predictable, for the next game I think I'll be a Recon Specialist

I don't have a policy of creating 'test' characters for these games. I can see the advantages for RP, but to me it seems like you'd lose a lot of the surprise that comes along with those first few playthroughs if you 'only' regard those characters as tests.

My first TES game really was Oblivion. I had tried Morrowind briefly in 2002, but didn't get it. When OB came out, I installed it, thinking it would be a game that my wife would play. But I played through the tutorial and got hooked.

Anyway, the first OB character was a Scout, the pre-made class. I created an Imperial because I wanted a character whom I could easily identify with, and Imperials seemed like a pretty generic race. And Baurus suggested the Scout class, which I was happy to go with. That character played through the whole main quest and then retired, since after finishing that questline everything else seems considerably less epic.

For Skyrim, my first character was again an Imperial, this time a thief. He ignored the MQ apart from the Dragonstone, and pursued the Thieves' Guild questline. I think he completed the main part of the questline (but not all the side jobs). Then he too retired. He didn't play around with shouts or magic at all; just sneak, a bit of one handed, archery, light armor... basic thief stuff.

The first character I seriously played in Morrowind (this was after I'd played Skyrim for a bit) was, again, an Imperial. I think he answered the questions from the census guy and got the Acrobat class, which I went with. Loved it, actually. He did the main quest and the thieves' guild, and it was one of my most satisfying/interesting playthroughs in any TES game.

Huh. Seems I've got an Imperial bias... in fact, Nord has been my favorite race recently.

My first Morrowind character--way too long ago to remember. I think it was an Imperial thief; if so, then he's the only Imperial I've ever played. Thanks to Morrowind, I have a tendency to play Dunmer and to be anti-Imperial. I've had numerous Morrowind characters, but my most successful Morrowind characters were Marid, a Redguard holy warrior who made it almost to the assault of Dagoth Ur's citadel before being lost to save game corruption, and Mehra Tabni, a Dunmer thief-turned-priestess who brought down Dagoth Ur and started the Tribunal quest before giving up on it and settling down in the Ashlands.

My first Oblivion character was not a Dunmer, because Oblivion's Dunmer look more like Chiss. I think it was a Breton mage named Deirdre of the Sorrows, but she didn't get very far...My next Oblivion character was a Breton thief named Gerard de Hautecourt, who beat the main quest by level 12 after becoming Gray Fox.

I think my first Skyrim character was a Dunmer thief. I've had dozens of Skyrim characters and few of them have gotten very far before I lose interest.

It's impossible for me to lose myself in roleplaying until I feel I know a game inside and out. The more distracted I am by learning game mechanics and second-guessing developer decisions, ect, the less able I am to concentrate on my characters and telling their stories.

When I roleplay I am "writing" my own stories. Instead of using words to create these stories I use the game assets provided by Bethesda. I weave my own stories around what I find in the games. But in order to do this I need to know what's in the games first.

Surprise isn't an issue with me. I'm no longer surprised when I see that famous last shot at the end of Citizen Kane. But that lack of surprise doesn't prevent me from enjoying the movie more the second time around than the first time and even enjoying it more the third time around than the second.

Very first (MW) was Ko Teth, a Redguard Paladin (remember I didn't understand TES lore at the time). Played everything with him.

Now I always determine race by the Province (nod to MW) and usually start as a Battlemage-y character. In OB and Sk I played a lot of stealth characters because its just super fun especially with Dawnguard.

If you're curious:

MW: Ko Teth, Redguard Paladin (make your own class)

OB: Marcus Octavius, Imperial Paladin (make your own class)

Sk: Sigurd Snowhame, Nord Battlemage

Agreed. When I get an RPG, I try to research the lore ahead of time if possible so I can choose a lore-accurate name and backstory, and I always probe into the game a bit before plunging in with a proper roleplay. If what happens is the most interesting thing about a story (regardless of medium), it's not a terribly great story; once you accept that, spoilers become a lot less concerning.

Maybe "test character" is a bit of a misnomer for me. I'll just say that I do not play my first characters as "seriously" as I do for any subsequent ones. I still think of them as character's and try to roleplay as I go along, but until I know how the game responds to my activities, I can not be too serious about them. I do enjoy the "surprises" yet there is so much content in each game, I have no worries of ever doing everything on one character

I hope that clarifies it a bit

My first character in any game is always a test character, usually a human mage with my name/looks. In TES case it's always a Breton with my name. He's basically used to see the whole game, figure out what's what and gameplay mechanics.

I usually either start a new game with a Dunmer with the last name Urvoen, or whatever race is native to the place the game takes place in