Beginning note:
I know there are many on the forum that’ll probably disagree with me and view this topic differently than me. As with all clashes of opinion, this topic has a chance to burst into a massive flame-war, which is definitely unwanted. Thus, it would be much appreciated if everyone discussing this topic would take extra care to weed-out their posts from any unnecessary comments of personal nature. Now, on to the topic:

Elder Scrolls is an RPG series, where the player can choose quite a lot of things their character can do and specialize in. Such is the case with Skyrim. However, no matter how grand the games are, they will never be able to allow everything players can come up with. Some things could've been added, but simply weren't. That these features do not exist, but are still played as if they do exist (by some, not all), is the point of this thread.
This topic explained in one sentence:
"When does Roleplaying become pretending?"

A couple of things are instantly unclear with this sentence, so allow me to expand upon this a bit.
Roleplaying is an easy enough word to explain, but it does have a few different meanings, depending who you ask. The very basic of it is that you take on the role of something, and play your game according to that role. Such a Roleplaying could, for example, be an assassin. You are roleplaying an assassin, who works for the dark brotherhood and sneaks around in the shadows, stabbing people in the back. But what I quite often read on the forums is a different use of the word Roleplaying. For example, "I Roleplay that my character must eat, drink and sleep, otherwise he/she'll die." or "I Roleplay that my character doesn't know dragon-language and is unable to draw knowledge from word-walls."

In both of these cases, the word "Roleplay" can be swapped out to "Pretend", without the meaning behind the sentence changing (much at all?). "I pretend that my character must eat, drink and sleep, otherwise he/she'll die." and "I pretend that my character doesn't know dragon-language and is unable to draw knowledge from word-walls."
In my opinion, it doesn't matter which way you say them, it means the same thing: You play your game in a way that adds un-addable features to it, or removes un-removable features from it. For example, the game will never force the player to feed or drink in order to survive. Adding a non-existing need to do so is to add something un-addable to the game, for it wasn't truly added. Or in the case of word-walls and the dragonborn issue, you remove something that cannot be removed. The game will always make you drain knowledge from the word-walls, but you can remove this un-removable feature by roleplaying / pretending your way past it. I'm not sure if I'm clear here, or if you need to be on a skooma-high to understand my train-of-thought here, but that's as good as I can explain it right now. Before you say, "Mods add that, remove that", keep in mind that they aren't part of the main game and thus have no true value in this discussion.

What I'm trying to say is this: The word "Roleplaying" is thrown about quite a lot it seems, usually when it comes to adding or removing un-addable or un-removable features to or from the game. For example, the game doesn't force me to carry just one weapon, but I can Roleplay that I can carry just one weapon. It does, after all, add some realism to the game, right? But isn't, once again, the word "Roleplaying" used as a fancy way of saying "Pretend"?
So, in your opinion, when does Roleplaying become pretending? And more importantly, is such pretending (roleplaying) part of RPG's? Do these invisible Roleplaying-rules help make the game better? How much "Roleplaying" modifications to a player's game can an RPG allow, before it loses the RPG status?

To me, RPG's should by themselves allow us to do these things. We shouldn't have to "Roleplay" (pretend) something we want to be or see, it should be a clear part of the game. For example, I want to be a guard. But oh... I... can't? Well, no worries, I'll just "Roleplay" (pretend) that I'm a guard by wearing their armor!
Such a solution is, imo, not an RPG solution. I'd barely call that a solution at all. But as I said earlier, games cannot possibly allow the players to do and be everything, meaning there will always be the need for some pretending and adding un-addable features to the games. That's just the way it is. But, just how huge features should the player have to pretend?

End note:
I'm trying to talk about the fine line between Roleplaying and Pretending, and just how much pretending you can accept before feeling a bit silly, or perhaps confused. Pretending that I had to eat, drink and sleep was one of the hardest things I've ever tried, which I tried in Oblivion and Skyrim. Neither times did it work well for me. It doesn't stop at the eating and drinking for me though. Luckily, there are mods that add eating and drinking to Skyrim. With these mods, I can play with the need to eat/drink/sleep without feeling strange! But, those aren't part of the main-game, nor are they part of the Roleplaying / Pretending discussion.




What features do you add to your game through Roleplaying/Pretending? How huge things do you feel comfortable to add to your game? Your opinions and views on the topic as a whole?

I'll try one more example. I'm roleplaying a Nord warrior. I am standing beside the carriage outside of Whiterun. I drop a gem on the road. Then I fast travel to Riverwood. What happened? I dropped a gem on the road and walked to Riverwood, or at least that is what the gameplay tells us.

Now here is what I wanted to happen. I wanted to pay the carriage driver to take me to Riverwood, but the carriage doesn't go there. To get around the fact that the game does not provide carriage rides to Riverwood, I pretend that the carriage does have a Riverwood route. To get around the fact that the game won't let me pay the driver to take me to Riverwood, I drop a gem on the road and pretend that I am paying the driver. To get around the fact that I walked to Riverwood, I pretend that my fast travel was a carriage ride.

From my point of view, I just roleplayed hiring a carriage ride from Whiterun to Riverwood. To do so, I had to do a little extra pretending to get around the facts the game was showing me.

The extra bit of pretending beyond the normal to achieve roleplay contradictory to the game's facts is, I think, the kind of pretending the OP and some of the others are talking about. Related ideas are probably being argued too, but I think I've reached my limit for now.