Just what the title says.

Do you put yourself in your characters shoes? Give them a backstory and play the game based on it? RP based on their main skills?
I've never really roleplayed, only had good/evil characters.
SO, roleplaying: how do you do it? I'd be willing to give it a try, even though it seems a bit much to me ATM.

Just make it up as you go along

It seems like alot but trust me its ridicualsy fun and immersive. I plan to role play as a farmer next living a peaceful quaint life in a village near a fortest.

It's easier for me to create a backstory first. This is why, I personally, don't mind the spoilers- it helps me map my character out according the the prior knowledge of the game. You create a backstory to 'flesh' your character out, giving them depth and even making a connection to them in some way or another. Once you've done that, you can use that 'spoiler- prior knowledge' to create the path you wish your character to take. Be sure to leave that path vague- room for improvising along the way.

BTW: I'm a PS3 player (or simply profit in Bethesda's eyes) so I don't have any of those insane PC mods, just main game for RP'ing.

I created my characters backstory before I played him and it gave me a good direction for how he's going to be. A few things have changed but it has been nearly a calendar year in game for him so that's ok.

A couple of things that helped me role play, NO FAST TRAVEL. Seriously it's made me appreciate the game so much more. I admittedly will fast travel on the cart. But that's it. Another thing is I try and make my character eat and rest as well. The little things are what can really give life to a character. Mine has apparently started to go vegan alcoholic on me.

One thing that really helped that I don't suggest for everyone, dead is dead + increased difficulty. It'll create a lot more tension and make you be far more careful with your character. It will also EP develop your attachment to them.

You don't need mods to roleplay. You just need your imagination.

Think of yourself as a writer. You are a writer who is creating a character for a work of fiction. The primary difference between a fictional character and a roleplaying character is that your roleplaying character interacts with someone else's imagination.

I love making up not only huge background stories for my characters, where they grew up, who their parents were (or are), what their lives have looked like so far, their personality, interests, and so on. But I realize not everyone likes that. To RP you should know at least something about what your character's like, though. Easiest way to find out (imo) is to make up a background. This makes them more like a person with focus on personal abilities, not a game character with focus on skills and levelling.

I put myself in the character's shoes and imagine what he/she would doin different situations based on the information he/she has, what he/she likes/dislikes and what goals he/she has. But I also keep a distance to the person, I'm well aware it's not "me" and that they often act in a complete different way than I would.

I also like to have an outline for the things I plan to do with the character, both quests and other things, but that's just me

There is no textbook definition on how to roleplay. It's pretty much based on your own imagination and the type of character you make and how closely you tie your characters skills to the type of character you want.

To proper roleplay you have the game to provide a definitie infrastructure and adequate response to your line of action.

As such Skyrim is not a roleplaying game. It's stat based, mostly for combat action, but that's all.

You cannot roleplay in Skyrim, at best you can LARP (meaning you can impose your own self restrictions, perform certain optional acrions but these won't prompt any reactions from the game)

your opinion? I'm pretty sure I can role-play

I don't know about all that.

I don't get into serious roleplaying, like where I make my character eat at certain times, bathe in the lakes every week and all that junk. Sometimes I go all out and spend the 10 gold to rent a room to stay in at night and maybe some other minor roleplaying aspects, but that's about as far as I go.

Boy, I didn't either. Wow. And to think! All these years I've had the wrong idea about roleplaying! I'm so embarrassed! Thank you, thank you, msxyz, for setting us straight with incontrovertible "facts" about roleplaying! How ever can we repay you for your infinite wisdom in this matter?

The way I roleplay my characters are pretty much straight forward.I start with creating a background story, this pretty much defines what they did upto the point of the start of the game. It also defines the morale of the character, is he good/neutral/evil? How will he solve specific situations, specific quests? Wjat motivates him? Why should he join factions and which one should he join? Does he kill for the fun or because it is needed? What side will he take in the civil war?

All of these questions when answered allows me to play the character within the game limits, sure I cannot roleplay my character 100% due to engine limitations, but that is how it is with all games. On the PC I can however use mods to help that situation a lot. Throughout the game I will use the basics of my character as how he or she will react to different quests.

At its core, roleplaying is bringing the character to life. Decisions made in the game aren't your own - the character decides, and you guide them along the way. It's the character who chooses the Empire over the Stormcloaks, or to join the Dark Brotherhood rather than destroy them.

There are many other things to consider to. Will you have a backstory? These can be time consuming, but can heavily influence a character's actions. Will you follow a set of 'rules'? Forcing your character to eat and sleep can add a lot to the game, but can also be heavily inconvenient. But at the end of the day, no one can tell you how to roleplay. It's a very personal experience, and it can take a while until it 'clicks' with you. But when it does click, it's an amazing experience.

Welcome to roleplay!

A bit like patch-fixing, really...

Debateable.

In my experience I've seen two types of roleplayers frequent these kinds of forums. One I suppose would be called traditionalist and they actively name the people who roleplay in Skyrim Live-Action Roleplayers.

The difference? In Skyrim, you can't really roleplay decisions. For example there's a thread on the front page complaining you can't be a Companion without being a werewolf for a time. While a traditionalist RPGer would ask himself if his character would agree with being a werewolf and respond based on that character's personality, morals or honor code, Skyrim doesn't even give you this choice. Infact Skyrim seldomly gives you any choice at all, and it's even more rare that the choice is truly meaningful or has some form of influence on the world around you. In that sense, you can't really take each step of each quest in and ask yourself "what would my character do" because Skyrim doesn't give a [censored] and forces you to complete the quest it's way or don't complete the quest at all.
Thus, the roleplaying in Skyrim is rarely about how your character -actually- interacts with the world, but how you use your imagination when playing him. Maybe you've decided your character loves beer and thus you constantly buy bottles of it and drink it almost nonstop, maybe you've decided your character is a farmer so you spend a lot of time harvesting crops and selling them for gold. That's great and all, but again that has little to do with you interacting with the world (or in this case, the NPCs) but rather you're just imagining purposes to items and locations. Your beer-guzzling warrior and your fruit-eating warrior will still solve the quests the same exact way and they'll still leave the same exact marks on the worlds, you're just pretending small differences that really leave no noticeable marks on the world.



So yeah, for a good percent of the population, the roleplaying possibilities aren't considered good enough because you can LARP in literally almost any game you buy, but Skyrim offers little choice or meaningful interaction amongst NPCs.

This guy is awesome.

That is why I can roleplaying more immesily and deeply in New Vegas, then Skyrim. I just know the reason why it is a bit harder roleplaying in Skyrim. Because the game doesn't provide a "definitie infrastructure and adequate response" to my line of action.
Dear, master msxyz.. thank you for your amazing words of wisdom.

Heh, I was kinda taken back by that as well so I decided to not question but just ignore all that nonsense. The part saying "Skyrim is not a roleplaying game" does require a unique explanation though.

It's not exactly an all or nothing type deal. You are already role playing at least to some extent, any time you play an RPG and you have at least some basic concept of the character you're playing and simply consider what your character would want to do next. For example, where your character would want to go, how your character would respond to some NPC dialogue, which NPCs your character would join up with, which NPCs your character would hate, etc.

It can be helpful for role playing in Skyrim to reflect on your character's race and background, maybe consider how he or she ended up being led to execution in Helgen. Then once you have at least a simple character concept it's easier to make choices you think your character would make, and the story unfolds as your character explores the world and interacts with its inhabitants.

Playing a role just requires two things:

1. That you have a role (i.e., a concept of the character you are playing, which can be as simple or detailed as you want to go); and
2. That you play it, by taking actions you think your character would want to do.

I'm no expert by any means and there are plenty of folks on this thread with loads more know-how on RP but, I would say: The only thing that prevents roleplay is lack of imagination!
If you find the game is "railroading" your character into a situation that does not suit them, either avoid that situation or(an this is more fun!) find a way to alter it!

Haha! It's laughable how some people try to dismiss Skyrim as an RPG.

There are many ways in which you can roleplay, and all the tools you need are in the game to make your roleplays distinct from one another. It's a very existentialist game - there are no gods under the hood or hiding behind the statistics, to tell you if you are good or evil, weak or powerful. The responsibility is given to the player to decide how to roleplay, and evn to decide what roleplaying is.

You don't find it the least bit immersion-breaking when your character's personality would lead them to do one thing but at the same time your knowledge of how the quest works would lead you to do the opposite?

Again a basic and extremely common example, a "true nord" warrior would likely seek to join the Companions but would turn down their gift, but doing so is impossible. So either you have to compromise the entire character concept or not do the Companions questline entirely.
Almost every quest railroads you, so unless you're extremely careful about which quests you take on or you literally create your character concept based on quests you know to exist, you'll compromise your character, which is bad roleplaying.

I made a word document that broke down my characters life up until the point of being captured by the empire in the beginning of skyrim
its quite fun

Well, you are right but I see it as limitation of scripted quest based gameplay. It would be very time consuming and difficult to do quests that have special branches for every possible character.