Has anyone got any plans for their characters beyond the vanilla storyline, or is it all a case of restarting the game with new characters? Has anyone got extended character arcs planned beyond the quests Beth hands out, or is it just Groundhog Day, just with new characters going through the motions?

Mercenary work, i heard that my suit me...

Groundhog day oddly enough fits. I run each character I play through whatever factions their role-play will allow, and then I retire them and start another one. Most of it does seem very repetitive.

I'm curious as to how you would play beyond the factions and quests given in the game. Things kind of get boring after you retire the character.

I either don't do the main quest or save it for the end of that character....actually I've never finished the mq....I've retired all my characters before then

I might visit cloud district very often.

I save ( try to anyway ) the side quests, that way once I'm finished all guild quests for that build/character I still have something to do. Once I have completed so many side quests I'll just roam the map exploring and taking care of bandits ( with my good character ), with my werewolf character I went on an extended hunting trip. My werewolf has been in beast form for little over a month ( in-game ) without any sings of turning back to an Orc, it's just toooooo much fun running the map as a werewolf. Use your imagination, I'm sure you'll come up with something to keep your character busy after you've done what ever it is you want to do, you could change to a dragon hunter if you want, a bounty collector by killing the bandits that the Jarls of Skyrim send you out to kill.

Get an arrow in the knee, so that he has a good reason to retire.

No, just the MQ, applicable guild and other sidequests, then start another character. Like i do in every RPG.

And since the only choice Skyrim gives in quests is "my way or the highway", i've returned to other games. But when i'm again in the mood for a fantasy styled dungeon crawler... I'll reinstall Oblivion

My stories are far too unrelated to Skyrim and to it's Lore. ( And even the province it self. )

I took an Ice Spike in the face and ended up fetching mead for the Companions.

To be honest, when i start new builds, the game finishes when i max out their minor/major skills for that build. I have four builds that are my fave archetypes and i have completed the MQ on two of them, the others are just for experimenting with skill combos etc.

Ironically, the biggest weakness of the game, the rather limp open-ended finale is the reason why I didn't give up on Skyrim like a did Oblivion. When I finished the main quest (which had a BIG dramatic build-up), then everyone just went back to treating me like a nobody schmuck, I thought, to paraphrase ST: TMP, "Is this all that there is? Is there nothing more?" At which point I started Googling, and low and behold I came across something called "Nexus"! I'm kinda arty and imaginative by nature, I also have a looooong love of movies, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, the military, legends and history, so the idea of being able to do my own stuff (while still keeping to the spirit of the lore of TES), got me really excited! I just thought, "Man, just think of the possibilities for further adventures!" Themed castles, armies, new characters to meet, and many new stories and quests to go on! As a result I got thinking about everything from Greek myths, British legends, Norse gods, real history like Robin Hood, Spartacus and Spartans, modern myths like Conan, LOTR and D&D, and the idea of being able to take elements from all those places and putting them into the game just blew my mind! Now, rather than simply 'playing' the game I'm again, ironically, looking forward to completing it, because for me that's where the REAL adventure for Chadric will begin! The irony is that, where the game ends for most players, it'll be just beginning for me and Chadric!

And just to give you a bit of an idea of what mindset I'm playing with, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1MuvvS_xSw&feature=related is one example, and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYYfa_rLF9Q&feature=my_favorites&list=FL622Mh4n8kd7Ij0LmRsUgGA is another!