Ways to roleplay in skyrim

[NiaticLabs]

What are storys you make up for your characters ? Are they just a normal trader going from town to town ? Or are they a bandit living in the woods? Im just looking for some ideas to roleplay as. Anyone got suggestions ?

[Vivi]

I made an Imperial Solitude city guard not long ago, I usually do some patrols around town or on the road between Solitude and Dragon Bridge. Doing prison guard duty is a bit boring tho, but she has an affair with another guard so usually they can pass the time XD

 

And yes, obviously this was inspired by Cops of Skyrim ^^ so I try to use my imagination a lot for encounters.

[Guest Vendayn]

I'm roleplaying a hunter, a survivalist. Who is trying to survive the zombie and alien apocalypse. Typical zombies, slow moving but extremely deadly with a disease that can kill in seconds. A second infection is also taking place, a more sinister one. It starts with one infected person in Markath (makes most sense to choose that city)...these zombies (not really zombies) however are more like monsters that you'd see in Dead Space. Very vicious, big, strong and scary as hell. They also attack the zombies that are similar to The Diseased ones (who carry a deadly disease that even effects the Dead Space ones, but both tend to be on even ground even with that huge advantage of The Diseased. The dead space ones are way faster though and can one-two hit The Diseased). Two different zombies competing each other.

 

On top of even that...there is strange new monsters everywhere in Skyrim. Things long thought dead or never known they existed. They too prove a threat to the land of Skyrim (and beyond time).

 

In the mean time, my character is cursed by the Daedra. If she stays in darkness...she starts getting hallucinations that eventually attack her (but really she is attacking herself) if she stays too long away from civilization or light at night.

 

She begins in a farm house. She soon is driven away by the creatures of the apocalypse. Rumors have also passed by the farm house from various couriers and refuges of Markath, that evil is spreading from there. She takes what she can carry, and travels east. She takes a device given to her by a stranger, a Well that is rumored to be the beginning of a new civilization. She does not know more than that and thinks whoever gave it her is crazy or attempting to scam her in some way. She was also given a boring "guild" stone said to attract people to it and obey all her commands. She kept it because it weighs nothing and feels incredibly fake to hold...but hey, who knows.

 

Her destination she does not know, except eastward. Past whiterun, possibly somewhere in the safety of the mountains. It may be, that the grey beards are the last hope (or life!) of Skyrim...high on a mountain where little life goes. But, is it safe? It at least gives her the safety of the grey beards and their temple.

However, because its the apocalypse...there is also TONS of bandits all over the place. They are also deadlier than they used to be. Bandits of course try to secure their little forts from zombies, but sometimes doesn't work too well

 

On top of that (for aesthetics), a strange fog/mist has taken the land and most days you can't really see too far (it is sorta like a silent hill fog, but there is a view distance so it isn't an annoyingly short view lol)

 

Rules (might seem like a lot, but tons of stuff to do and its a lot of fun)-

 

Only (one handed) swords, daggers, (one handed) axes, bows, guns or grenades (yup you heard me).

 

No shields, no maces, no two handed weapons, no crossbows (it takes someone really strong to use a crossbow, and personally don't like crossbows )

 

Light armor or no armor (heh heh ) (but in some cases no armor is probably better for sneaking, no noise or distractions of the armor at all, except the noise you make)

 

No magic at all. No shouts, no spells of any kind.

 

Alchemy is fine because that is more "science"

Enchanting I haven't decided on yet...seems too "magic" like, but I dunno.

 

No companions (the followers) (mostly because they attack too many zombies and run off, or/and get in the way.)

Fast travel is off

 

Only console commands is to spawn in some basic crafting stuff (a leather rack, blacksmith stuff like a forge and anvil, alchemy stuff etc) at the grey beard temple (unless there is too many zombies and the grey beards are all dead, then she'll have to move on and choose a different location)

Saving wherever is fine, simply because its super easy to die from the infected zombies. I don't really feel like losing hours of progress cause I got infected in one hit Hard enough to survive, if I have to worry about safe points to save at...that would make it too annoying and tedious. I usually forget to save anyway lol

 

And as far as joining the civil war. Doesn't really seem like it makes sense to choose a side and worry about warring over cities in an apocalypse. So its probably completely out...I don't like either imperials or stormcloaks anyway.

 

[Guffel]

Wow. That´s some hardcore roleply. Are you just pretending that there´re zombies or are you using a mod for that?

[Corpus Vile]

I normally imagine a vague backstory for my characters, some sort of indication of what they'd do, a general idea of what their moral values are, but nothing too specific, at the start.

People are malleable, their ideas aren't set in stone, and I can't buy into a character if he's too idealised.

And nothing Mary Sue-ish, if possible, but that's just me.

 

Conceiving a plot in advance doesn't really work, not for me at least.

 

It's more like a priority system, f.ex., "this character likes warhammers, violence and strife, doesn't care about magic, isn't scholarly, although he received a decent education. Where would he go from here?".

 

Likely > Companions

Plausible > Dark Brotherhood, Main quest

Neutral > Thieves Guild, wander aimlessly

Negative > Winterhold

 

Then there's proximity and chance, which may influence the decision of "what to do" in favour of a less predictable course of action instead of a more likely one.

Say I'm travelling to Whiterun to join the Companions, but I hear the rumour from a guard about the kid in Windhelm doing weird stuff, I'll have a look into it and maybe accept his request. I'm getting paid to kill an old woman in Riften, so why not.

 

 

Oh, and maybe ignore the consequences of your actions, every now and then, and you'll find yourself forced to adapt to relatively unpredicted situations.

That's a good thing.

 

Example: the other day my character was in Jorrvaskr, she had finished the Companions' questline, just got back from her third trip to Ysgramor's tomb because Farkas wanted to cleanse himself of lycanthropy, as Vilkas before.

In the eyes of my character lycanthropy is a great blessing, since it grants power beyond what's normally allowed to humans. So she regarded theirs as betrayal and cowardice. On top of that, the rest of the guild turned into a bunch of subservient shits as soon as she became the harbinger.

Njada went from being an insufferable cunt (but at least that's her nature) to being an even more insufferable, servile lapdog. The dark elf declined in a similar fashion.

The other guy's a drunk and he's never done anything, anyway. Then there is that old servant, constantly getting in the way and acting relevant, implying, in her constant nagging, that you should be grateful that she's keeping her mouth shut and that she "knows" stuff.

At least, that's how she saw it.

 

So she just came back from a journey to a freezing, remote hole in the middle of nowhere to witness yet another one of her fellow soldiers give in to cowardice, she's tired, angry and considering leaving the place to its newfound misery, when she opens the doors to her quarters and there she sees this decrepit maid, rambling about seeing everything, hearing everything and so on, and so she just caved her skull in with her warhammer.

She quickly hid the body behind her bed, waited until it was late and everyone was sleeping, dragged the corpse all the way through the hallway and placed it so that it looked like the hag just died of natural causes.

A few days later I grabbed Aela - the only one who wasn't sucking - as a follower and GTFO to Falkreath, because my character liked the place.

 

None of this is needed in this case, clearly, in fact I think your guildmates wouldn't even object if you killed a person right in front of their eyes. But if you're into RPing, you kinda care about this stuff, I guess.

 

I digress, and I'm not sure I'm getting my point across. Just consider not forcing yourself on tedious rails.

 

tl;dr: your parents were killed when orcs raided your village and you were raised by the wolves that found you when you were but a baby and now you fight evil.

[Sarathis]

...and so she just caved her skull in with her warhammer.

She quickly hid the body behind her bed, waited until it was late and everyone was sleeping, dragged the corpse all the way through the hallway and placed it so that it looked like the hag just died of natural causes.

 

Because getting your head caved in will kill you, naturally?

[pinky6225]

What are storys you make up for your characters ? Are they just a normal trader going from town to town ? Or are they a bandit living in the woods? Im just looking for some ideas to roleplay as. Anyone got suggestions ?

 

Current male character (spoiled on the off chance anybody hasnt done the quests mentioned)

 

 

 

Tah had always dreamed of joining the companions, each night he would sneak into the inn and hide at the back where the light was poor and listen to the locals tell stories of the times they'd seen the companions on the practise grounds and the few occasions were the companions had been fighting within sight of the city walls.

 

Each day Tah practised long and hard to develop the muscles to be a shield brother and eventually his hard work was noticed by one of the junior companions who let Tah practise with her some times and he was put up for membership

 

Through blood and pain Tahs reputation was established within the companions and he soon brought into the inner circle were he learned their dark secret and while that's a story for another time Tah was never quite the same after wiping out the silver hand and soon took to wandering great lengths

 

Driven perhaps by guilt at kiiling off a sort of protector of the innocent Tah joined the Dawnguard as they didn't seem to have any issue with werewolves and the vampire problem was becoming out of hand and then in the classical cliche of werewolve boy meets vampire girl Tah ended up with Serana and saved the world from blood sucking leechs

 

Somehow Tah managed to get Serana off the blood sucking although she now insists in sucking something else very regularly so she, Tah and their current toy travel Skyrim in search of adventure

 

 

[Guest Vendayn]

Wow. That´s some hardcore roleply. Are you just pretending that there´re zombies or are you using a mod for that?

 

I'm using 2 different zombie mods

 

(28 days for more monster-like ones. They are really strong)

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/5604/?

 

and

 

(Skyrim Lore Friendly Zombie mod. They are slow, but if they hit you, high chance of getting poisoned and dying in seconds )

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/34293/?

 

Plus I'm using frostfall, camping mod (same author as frostfall), hunterborn (epic mod), iNeeds, OBIS and Skyrim immersive creatures. Those are the main ones. I won't be able to add any additional script intensive mod though. It is already stable as it is, and don't want to break things

[NNS10]

 

Wow. That´s some hardcore roleply. Are you just pretending that there´re zombies or are you using a mod for that?

 

I'm using 2 different zombie mods

 

(28 days for more monster-like ones. They are really strong)

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/5604/?

 

and

 

(Skyrim Lore Friendly Zombie mod. They are slow, but if they hit you, high chance of getting poisoned and dying in seconds )

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/34293/?

 

Plus I'm using frostfall, camping mod (same author as frostfall), hunterborn (epic mod), iNeeds, OBIS and Skyrim immersive creatures. Those are the main ones. I won't be able to add any additional script intensive mod though. It is already stable as it is, and don't want to break things

 

 

Have you tried Draugnarok? Not well known, but it's way better implemented than the other zombie mods in terms of spawning and invasions. Only difference is it's a draugr apocalypse.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/51695/?

 

Here for screenshots of the craziness:

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/users/7146872/?tb=images&pUp=1

 

 

[Guest Vendayn]

 

 

Wow. That´s some hardcore roleply. Are you just pretending that there´re zombies or are you using a mod for that?

 

I'm using 2 different zombie mods

 

(28 days for more monster-like ones. They are really strong)

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/5604/?

 

and

 

(Skyrim Lore Friendly Zombie mod. They are slow, but if they hit you, high chance of getting poisoned and dying in seconds )

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/34293/?

 

Plus I'm using frostfall, camping mod (same author as frostfall), hunterborn (epic mod), iNeeds, OBIS and Skyrim immersive creatures. Those are the main ones. I won't be able to add any additional script intensive mod though. It is already stable as it is, and don't want to break things

 

 

Have you tried Draugnarok? Not well known, but it's way better implemented than the other zombie mods in terms of spawning and invasions. Only difference is it's a draugr apocalypse.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/51695/?

 

Here for screenshots of the craziness:

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/users/7146872/?tb=images&pUp=1

 

 

 

That looks WAY better than the lore friendly zombies one.

 

Now I have to decide which zombie mod(s) I want to use and keep

 

I might try playing Draugnarok with 28 days later, and remove that lore immersive zombies or whatever its called. The lore immersive zombies tends to add just random zombies spawning anyway and it would overload my game with too many zombies on top of Draugnarok

 

Dunno how 28 days later will work alongside Draugnarok though. It might be too much still.

 

(edit: After looking at the scripts and what not. I'll just use Draugnarok. Looks less intensive than 28 days later, and removing both 28 days and that immersive zombies should actually improve stability even with Draugnarok added. Immersive zombies just adds random spawns anyway all over, so rather intensive on my PC. And 28 days later is good, but lots of scripts)

[Guest endgameaddiction]

The only suggestion I can give is really this...

 

You have to put a lot of emphasis in your character. Not just creating it, but give it a depth background. When you have an idea of what and how you want your character to be, the rest usually falls in. Ideas start to pour in. So take notes and let loose on yoru imagination. RPing is a wonderful thing

[NNS10]

 

That looks WAY better than the lore friendly zombies one.

 

Now I have to decide which zombie mod(s) I want to use and keep

 

I might try playing Draugnarok with 28 days later, and remove that lore immersive zombies or whatever its called. The lore immersive zombies tends to add just random zombies spawning anyway and it would overload my game with too many zombies on top of Draugnarok

 

Dunno how 28 days later will work alongside Draugnarok though. It might be too much still.

 

(edit: After looking at the scripts and what not. I'll just use Draugnarok. Looks less intensive than 28 days later, and removing both 28 days and that immersive zombies should actually improve stability even with Draugnarok added. Immersive zombies just adds random spawns anyway all over, so rather intensive on my PC. And 28 days later is good, but lots of scripts)

 

 

Only thing to note is if you want it as crazy as my screenshots, there's an option you have to disable. I can't remember the name of it, but it has to do with capping spawns in cities. If you disable the limit, draugr in cities just keep accumulating over time (if you don't clean them out). If you let too many accumulate in smaller cities (e.g. Whiterun), it can cause your game to absolutely choke (e.g. 0.5 FPS).

 

 

The only suggestion I can give is really this...

 

You have to put a lot of emphasis in your character. Not just creating it, but give it a depth background. When you have an idea of what and how you want your character to be, the rest usually falls in. Ideas start to pour in. So take notes and let loose on yoru imagination. RPing is a wonderful thing

 

I think the hardest part of roleplaying in Skyrim is the limitations of the game. For example, roleplaying an evil character seems really hard. The world just isn't very interactive.

[Corpus Vile]

 

...and so she just caved her skull in with her warhammer.

She quickly hid the body behind her bed, waited until it was late and everyone was sleeping, dragged the corpse all the way through the hallway and placed it so that it looked like the hag just died of natural causes.

 

Because getting your head caved in will kill you, naturally?

 

Myes, I just concluded that she's extremely old, so it's plausible to think that she fainted while stalking the hallway and cracked her head open on the edge of a table or something there.

I'm not sure if a human body even weighs enough, but I couldn't be bothered to find a more likely excuse. Plus, she's what, 120yo? Her bones have to be somewhat brittle.

[NiaticLabs]

That dragur mod looks legitly awesome; too bad it needs DB expasion and i only have DG

[Guest endgameaddiction]

 

 

That looks WAY better than the lore friendly zombies one.

 

Now I have to decide which zombie mod(s) I want to use and keep

 

I might try playing Draugnarok with 28 days later, and remove that lore immersive zombies or whatever its called. The lore immersive zombies tends to add just random zombies spawning anyway and it would overload my game with too many zombies on top of Draugnarok

 

Dunno how 28 days later will work alongside Draugnarok though. It might be too much still.

 

(edit: After looking at the scripts and what not. I'll just use Draugnarok. Looks less intensive than 28 days later, and removing both 28 days and that immersive zombies should actually improve stability even with Draugnarok added. Immersive zombies just adds random spawns anyway all over, so rather intensive on my PC. And 28 days later is good, but lots of scripts)

 

 

Only thing to note is if you want it as crazy as my screenshots, there's an option you have to disable. I can't remember the name of it, but it has to do with capping spawns in cities. If you disable the limit, draugr in cities just keep accumulating over time (if you don't clean them out). If you let too many accumulate in smaller cities (e.g. Whiterun), it can cause your game to absolutely choke (e.g. 0.5 FPS).

 

 

The only suggestion I can give is really this...

 

You have to put a lot of emphasis in your character. Not just creating it, but give it a depth background. When you have an idea of what and how you want your character to be, the rest usually falls in. Ideas start to pour in. So take notes and let loose on yoru imagination. RPing is a wonderful thing

 

I think the hardest part of roleplaying in Skyrim is the limitations of the game. For example, roleplaying an evil character seems really hard. The world just isn't very interactive.

 

 

The major reason why I find Skyrim to be cheesy. There are no limitations to the player of what they can be. There are no hard decisions to make at all. None of the choices you make truly affect from the other. Like being a dishonerable thief and being an honorable companion both at the same time.

It's be all you can be. But this is also a bad system for Fallout as well. Except the faction system for Fallout is different and not an option. You can't join any factions like NCR or raiders. You basically just aid them. You're just this one true person out to save the wasteland. Another cheesy system.

[pinky6225]

 

 

 

That looks WAY better than the lore friendly zombies one.

 

Now I have to decide which zombie mod(s) I want to use and keep

 

I might try playing Draugnarok with 28 days later, and remove that lore immersive zombies or whatever its called. The lore immersive zombies tends to add just random zombies spawning anyway and it would overload my game with too many zombies on top of Draugnarok

 

Dunno how 28 days later will work alongside Draugnarok though. It might be too much still.

 

(edit: After looking at the scripts and what not. I'll just use Draugnarok. Looks less intensive than 28 days later, and removing both 28 days and that immersive zombies should actually improve stability even with Draugnarok added. Immersive zombies just adds random spawns anyway all over, so rather intensive on my PC. And 28 days later is good, but lots of scripts)

 

 

Only thing to note is if you want it as crazy as my screenshots, there's an option you have to disable. I can't remember the name of it, but it has to do with capping spawns in cities. If you disable the limit, draugr in cities just keep accumulating over time (if you don't clean them out). If you let too many accumulate in smaller cities (e.g. Whiterun), it can cause your game to absolutely choke (e.g. 0.5 FPS).

 

 

The only suggestion I can give is really this...

 

You have to put a lot of emphasis in your character. Not just creating it, but give it a depth background. When you have an idea of what and how you want your character to be, the rest usually falls in. Ideas start to pour in. So take notes and let loose on yoru imagination. RPing is a wonderful thing

 

I think the hardest part of roleplaying in Skyrim is the limitations of the game. For example, roleplaying an evil character seems really hard. The world just isn't very interactive.

 

 

The major reason why I find Skyrim to be cheesy. There are no limitations to the player of what they can be. There are no hard decisions to make at all. None of the choices you make truly affect from the other. Like being a dishonerable thief and being an honorable companion both at the same time.

It's be all you can be. But this is also a bad system for Fallout as well. Except the faction system for Fallout is different and not an option. You can't join any factions like NCR or raiders. You basically just aid them. You're just this one true person out to save the wasteland. Another cheesy system.

 

 

Its open world so putting in restrictions would defeat the purpose of it being open world surely?

 

You can play a dishonourable thief and not do the companions quest or do it as your now redeeming your dishonourable thief so i don't understand how a hard restriction would aid this or even enhance role play.

 

If anything i would have thought they would just reduce the chances to role play as you can never advance beyond the one profession that you picked to start with

[Guest endgameaddiction]

 

 

 

 

That looks WAY better than the lore friendly zombies one.

 

Now I have to decide which zombie mod(s) I want to use and keep

 

I might try playing Draugnarok with 28 days later, and remove that lore immersive zombies or whatever its called. The lore immersive zombies tends to add just random zombies spawning anyway and it would overload my game with too many zombies on top of Draugnarok

 

Dunno how 28 days later will work alongside Draugnarok though. It might be too much still.

 

(edit: After looking at the scripts and what not. I'll just use Draugnarok. Looks less intensive than 28 days later, and removing both 28 days and that immersive zombies should actually improve stability even with Draugnarok added. Immersive zombies just adds random spawns anyway all over, so rather intensive on my PC. And 28 days later is good, but lots of scripts)

 

 

Only thing to note is if you want it as crazy as my screenshots, there's an option you have to disable. I can't remember the name of it, but it has to do with capping spawns in cities. If you disable the limit, draugr in cities just keep accumulating over time (if you don't clean them out). If you let too many accumulate in smaller cities (e.g. Whiterun), it can cause your game to absolutely choke (e.g. 0.5 FPS).

 

 

The only suggestion I can give is really this...

 

You have to put a lot of emphasis in your character. Not just creating it, but give it a depth background. When you have an idea of what and how you want your character to be, the rest usually falls in. Ideas start to pour in. So take notes and let loose on yoru imagination. RPing is a wonderful thing

 

I think the hardest part of roleplaying in Skyrim is the limitations of the game. For example, roleplaying an evil character seems really hard. The world just isn't very interactive.

 

 

The major reason why I find Skyrim to be cheesy. There are no limitations to the player of what they can be. There are no hard decisions to make at all. None of the choices you make truly affect from the other. Like being a dishonerable thief and being an honorable companion both at the same time.

It's be all you can be. But this is also a bad system for Fallout as well. Except the faction system for Fallout is different and not an option. You can't join any factions like NCR or raiders. You basically just aid them. You're just this one true person out to save the wasteland. Another cheesy system.

 

 

Its open world so putting in restrictions would defeat the purpose of it being open world surely?

 

You can play a dishonourable thief and not do the companions quest or do it as your now redeeming your dishonourable thief so i don't understand how a hard restriction would aid this or even enhance role play.

 

If anything i would have thought they would just reduce the chances to role play as you can never advance beyond the one profession that you picked to start with

 

 

The option there still doesn't change the fact that interactions between the player and factions are not there. The way I see it is, I don't think Kodlak would want some lowlife thief who steals for a living in his faction when Companions are well respected among Skyrim for their heroism. Not heists and burglary. That's like a Daedric worshiper becoming a priestess who worships Stendarr because it doesn't matter if your good or evil. What you do now matters. Even if you go back to worshipping your Daedric prince we will welcome you with open arms. Always. You're special like that

[Jexsam]

Its open world so putting in restrictions would defeat the purpose of it being open world surely?

Being open world does not preclude consequences for your actions and choices. Such a think would encourage replays, I would think - what did I miss playing an evil warrior that I would get playing a heroic wizard and so on. But, it's open world, go anywhere do anything, so you only lock yourself out of stuff the stuff you choose to lock yourself out of. If you serve Mehrunes Dagon, don't be surprised if no Shrine of the Divines ever gives you a blessing again; if you conjure something in front of a Vigilant of Stendarr, don't be shocked when they attack you; if you joined the Thieves Guild and go around wearing the armor in broad daylight, it shouldn't be a mystery to you as to why some people refuse to associate with you.