I am going to start a Vampire character, however. For a Vampire to stay alive he/she would have to do things people would look at as evil without a doubt. Especially since I play on ps3, so I can't use Dawnguard.

Do you have any ideas how my character could have good morales and still be viable?

My vampire adopts children and protects them, only feeds on corpses or 'villainous' NPCs (i.e bandits, etc) and hoards sweet rolls.

She doesn't really do anything remotely evil...

Serana is a good Vampire, that's Dawnguard though. Sybille Stentore (I hope I spelled that right) the Court Mage in Solitude is also a "good" vampire. Well, good if you're not in the Castle Dour dungeon.

The disease doesn't have to define you, just feed on malcontents or people who give you "Permission" (IE a sleeping follower).

only feed on bad people?

watch the show Angel for tips on how to be a good vamp

Guess so, thanks for the idea for that. I am also going to join the mage college, I heard they don't attack you even if you are on the last stage, any truth to that?

You could easily just use your vampire seduction on bandits and only drink their blood.

I would, but I believe you can only do that in Dawnguard, or am I mistaking? I might be.

You should read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interview_with_the_Vampire by Anne Rice. If you've got the time /desire to read, that is. The main characters are Lestat (a very evil vampire who relished in torturing his subjects) and Louis. Lestat is the one who infected Louis, and throughout the book Louis happens to struggle with his conscience a lot. He is more of a "good" vampire, in the sense that he doesn't enjoy making people suffer, and attempts to choose victims which are lame, or sick, or not enjoying life. Vagabonds and losers are who Louis tends to drink from. Lestat (on the other hand) would bring a person to near-death as he drank ... revive this person somehow, bring him or her to near-death again. Etc.

Oh, my bad. Are you a ps3 player, or do you just not want dawnguard? (Other members please don't turn my comment into a ps3 conversation) Nevermind, you acknowledged that you played on PS3 already.

OP says he's on PS3/can't get Dawnguard in the opening post.

PS3 player.

I'm not 100% sure on that. I do know that both the Thieves Guild & the Dark Brotherhood will not care about you being a stage 4 vampire. I would make a save before trying though just in case.

I've never done a vampire character before. With Dawnguard, is there only one kind of vampire? If you get infected by a vampire just adventuring (I don't think my character could ever choose to become one, it would have to be a chance infection) do you become the same kind of vampire/vampire lord that you become if you accept the vampires offers in Dawnguard?

I overlooked that bit. No one's perfect.

Ya I know. I wasn't being mean. It's just very obviously pointed out in the opening post, that's all.

The only way to become a Vampire Lord is by doing the vampire quests in Dawnguard. You can become a regular vampire by contracting from other "wild" vampires in your travels.

As far as I know, you can only become a Vampire Lord type vampire by being bitten by one of 2 characters of the Volkihar line in the Dawnguard expansion. Since the Dawnguard expansion most people don't even care if you are a vampire, unless you are in vampire lord form they will rarely attack you, though they do sometimes say things like "Burn the vampire" without seeming to know you are one.

Bummer. That means that the only way to be a vampire lord is to play a character that made the deliberate choice to become one. There should have been a path that would have allowed infection against the characters will. Having to deal with becoming something you didn't choose makes an interesting story. I don't play the kinds of characters who would choose it, though.