There's a lot more to encounter randomly on the road than just dragons. I've encountered all kinds of things wandering the same roads back and fourth.

1. Play according to the personality of your character. If he is a rowdy Nord warrior, you won't want to spend much time sneaking and picking locks, but you'll rather charge forward and bash anything that moves, until they stop moving. If he is a cold and efficient assassin, don't spend much time brawling in taverns, unless it fulfills a purpose that you can't achieve otherwise. If he is honest, don't steal. In general - don't try to be everything at once. If you are a fighter, play as a fighter would. If you are a mage, play as a mage.

2. Play according to the context. If you are in a quest that has a sense of urgency to it, drop other quests until it's done. Do not take hundreds of quests at the same time, but just follow one or two of them, and start new ones only when you've completed the others. If you are running away from a city under a dragon attack, and enemies might be behind every corner - don't stop picking every damn cabbage and basket.

3. Carry only what you could realistically carry. Ok, you can stretch this rule a bit, but not by much. Carry one main weapon, and one backup weapon - say, a bow and a dagger, or a bow and a sword. Do not carry several sets of armor with you. A hood and a robe are acceptable "loot" from a dead body; a full set of iron armor isn't. Set a maximum number - say 10 - of potions you can carry with you during your adventures, and keep the rest at home. After every adventure, go back home or to a shop to restock and drop your loot. Again, only carry the essential with you. If you find a particularly good set of armor and you want it as loot, drop the armor you're currently use it and wear the new set. The ideal loot is gold, gems, small precious items... Weapons are not good loot, because you can't (or shouldn't be able to) carry dozens of them. Limit your arrows to 24, and make every one of them count.

4. Even if you are not starting a new game every time you die, be afraid of dying. This means not charging into a battle just because you know you can reload if something goes wrong. Be afraid of your enemies, and be prepared for fights. If you are observing your enemies from far away and you haven't attacked yet, make a plan in your mind - maybe you could single one enemy out and kill him before dealing with the others? Or maybe there are some traps you can make your enemies fall into? Take on enemies only if you are confident you can handle them, and if you are losing, run! A good method to be "afraid" of death without being too hardcoe is to save sparingly - maybe only save in cities, between adventures. If you die, you'll be forced to replay a huge chunk of the game - a good reason to avoid being too cavalier with danger and not taking enemies too lightly.

5. This should go without saying, but DO NOT GAME THE SYSTEM. You are a human being, with billions of presumably working neurons. You will be able to outsmart a computer game. Do not cheat, and do not take unfair advantage of glitches. If you are doing something that gives you an unfair advantage which you shouldn't have, stop. You are only cheating yourself. The AI of a game and its mechanics are never perfect, and they require "cooperation" from the player in order to work. Work with them, not against them.

My Argonian wife must wear a maid outfit at all times.

I never let my followers die. If they do, then I reload and try again, regardless of my last save time. I did the same in Oblivion but it's actually a lot easier in Skyrim, since the only person that can kill them seems to be me.

I have no problem fast traveling, but I do have house rules about eating and sleeping.

I also artificially restrict my carrying capacity. I usually leave it right a a pair of swords and a "bag" full of smalls or something close to that. If I can't imagine getting it into a backpack, then I probably won't take it.

Like some others, I also prefer to stay in character. My main character right now won't steal, and stays as helpful as I can be in a dialogue setting.

You make a new character when you die? Unless you're playing on Novice, you must re-roll an awful lot.

I try to restrict myself to reloading -only- when I die. It doesn't sound like much, but it makes it so that the mistakes I make definitely have consequences.

• Role-Play your character
  
• Play on Hard
  
• No Wikis
  
• No Fast-Travel

That's it I think !

There are no rules.

1. Always play on master difficulty
2. Only fast travel if I own a house in the city I'm traveling to
3. Turn off auto save and only save when I am within city limits

I only used console commands once in the 28 hours I've put in so far.... I ressurected Lydia because the glitchy AI kept causing her to get stuck in a flame trap, and it killed over and over and over.... I have no problem "cheating" if it fixes what I see to be an unfair game bug.

I choose a set of restrictions when I start a character, the only common restriction is hardcoe, but I've also used the console to reduce my starting stats/skills, playing without bows, without sneaking, without blocking...
I have to say, playing with 80 in each stat default instead of 100 is a harsh restriction.

I carry reasonable weight and don't use fast travel, and try and keep myself on a two meals a day/sleep every night program. Im an RP'r at heart

I always try and be as self reliant as possible. No potions, no poisons, no scrolls, mundane items only.

*No spells except for the heal spell I started with
*No helmet, my character looks too good
*No heavy armor
*No two-handed weapons
*No shield
*Don't get involved with politics, If I must then favor the Empire
*Difficulty on Expert
*If there is a quest with children, then choose the option that ends badly for the children
*Poison my enemies
*Never give money to a beggar

Horse rules? I play a Dunmer, so I just eat them...

OH! House rules? Don't cast any dest....well actually, don't cast anything, because you never know when stuff will come flying off the shelves.

EDIT: Oh, game rules in general.

*Don't use fast travel, EVER.
*Eat horses.
*Roleplay
*If my character ingests a sufficient amount of mede, he will proceed to run through the town completely naked, happily casting frenzy as he does.

Good to see so many else who do not use Fast Travel. My girlfriend uses fast travel as much as possible and she doesn't understand what she is missing out on.

No offense, but that's kinda silly... prohibiting yourself from using spells? You're missing out on one of the best parts of Skyrim.

but who am I to judge how people wanna play Skyrim. I just think if you paid 60 freakin dollars for something, you'd want to get the largest amount out of it possible... but I digress.

Here's a question for those of you who don't use fast travel: Why don't you use it? Do you all have the same reason, similar reasons, or different ones?

I use it because I more or less have to. I'm in grad school and exams are approaching. If I'm going to get anything done when I play this game in the evenings, I cut down on my travel times. That doesn't mean I don't do my share of exploration in the wild, but I try to use fast travel when I'm going to places that I always go, like Hrothgar or Whiterun.

Any thoughts?

My house rule would be to not use exploits like what people are currently doing, increase blacksmithing and enchanting to inhuman amounts and then craft grossly powerful gear.

I do use fast travel because I don't feel like trekking through the land to haul stuff. But I play as an alchemist, so after a few days when the herbs respawn, I will roam to collect them.

Get anything done? This isn't a chore, it isn't work... Play for fun, not for productivity. Traveling the roads is a huge part of the fun in Skyrim, when you fast travel not only are you simply skipping out on half of the game, but you're missing all kinds of things that you could come across traveling the roads.

My only rule is to have fun.

I don't see why people despise that so much; essentially it's no different to practising anything else until you develop a level of proficiency. I practice my craft making daggers and such; I just don't do it for hours on end.

That being said, this playthrough I've decided I'll stay true to my character build and use no magic, even when things get tough. No fast travel is also something I'm trying to do this time, with the exclusion of carriage rides, which I find acceptable.

That's my only rule. To increase replay value I'm only doing Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood quests on my Thief, then Companion on my Warrior and finally College of Winterhold on my Mage. And I'm also not doing every single side-quest on my first character. My plan is to make a list of completed quests on each character and not repeat them (where possible) on subsequent characters. That way I should get 3 very unique, distinct play-throughs on 3 very different characters.

Question: Do Imperials and Stormcloaks have their own questlines similar to joining a guild?

Also, I tried avoiding Fast Travel, but when you're going from Riften to Solitude, then back to Riften it makes it really difficult. I could see doing it once, but your 5th time making the 2-hour journey would be exasperating. That being said, I walked to each of the major cities the first time instead of using the carriage system.

Funny my fast travel route is inverse. I use nromal fast travel but no way use carriage. That forces me to manually discover the cities.

Some of these rules are just...weird.

I only have one rule. Don't steal EVERYTHING, it makes the houses so empty.