^This

More tedious to you, more entertaining to others. That's the beauty of TES games, you play as you want to.

Agreed.

Doesn't mean I can't find your idea of "fun" hysterically funny.

Funny maybe, but not tedious as I wouldn't call having the risk of loosing all your progress in every corner tedious.

I'm not calling your constant fear of death tedious. I'm calling the constant need to monitor eating, sleeping, writing in your journal, learning fictional star patterns, starting over every time that a character dies, and pretty much everything else about that playstyle tedious.

That is pretty much how I will be playing as well, except I will remove perma-death completely. I will however ( if I die ) make the dice-rolls to see how many days I need to rest, that's a great idea. Otherwise you pretty much summed up how I will roleplayin Skyrim as well.




I am going to use a map; I am going to draw a map of my own- and I can only use what my character sees to make it. So it will be slightly inaccurate ( just as maps were back in the days of lacking technology and science ) but still be very helpful.


There is a thing called falling unconscious. The dices will simply tell wether he actually dies or just faints from injuries- the more he falls the weaker his body becomes. Eventually it is most likely he has already died after 6 defeats.
And that is how it's realistic.

Won't comment on what I think of the idea in general, but....



...you do realize that Skyrim isn't entirely a caveman-level uncivilized wasteland, right? Even if you decide to do this hand-drawn-map-only thing at the beginning, once you reach a town of any decent size (above village... anywhere with a bookshop/etc), you could buy a paper map of the province.

Oblivion (with both the Black Horse Courier, and the amazing number of books people had on shelves) taught us that printing, as a craft, is well developed in Tamriel. It's not monks carefully hand-writing and illuminating two manuscripts a year, for only the ultra-rich to afford a couple volumes. They were handing out newspapers in the streets - paper, ink, and printing are relatively cheap and widespread. There is no reason, none whatsoever, for your "realism" to include the inability to use a map.

(Now, the in-game 3D map, on the other hand....)

I actually understand where the OP is coming from, though I usually save the extreme restrictions for when I'm replaying the game to spice things up. Still, even on the first run I'll be restricting certain things for my own immersion such as immediately turning off the compass (hope we won't have to wait for a mod for that) and what I'm able to carry at once. Also, from what I've seen, the map in Skyrim looks like a 'Godlike' ability to scan the landscape that I won't be using unless I'm wrong about that. I'll be happy using the included cloth map; it is entirely believable the character would have a map like that as opposed to a 3D representation.

I have to say though, even my most hardcoe restrictions never accounted for bathing! I do agree on not entering random houses and such that would be out of character; I always replay as a rogue for that. Like others have said I'm a little concerned that it's too easy to make a stealthy fighter mage in this game so I'm thinking I might restrict myself such as forbidding everything on the rogue path for my Nord, etc.

Those are very good arguments right there. I'll reconsider the use of physical maps, not the 3D bird view one.

Also I'll change rule #1 to only loose all my equipment if I roll the minimum value required to survive.

I definitely recommend bathing at least once a week. You should consider three meals a day too, but since you're probably eating Doritos and Mountain Dew along with your worms, maybe two will do you just fine. Make sure it's not snowing before you sleep outside.

I did something like this in Morrowind. I played a character who entered the game off Azura's Coast in a shipwreck. The idea was to avoid looking at the map until we hit civilization. Once we reached a town, I figured that my character would be able to buy a map and would know where he was from then on. So any time after we reached our first town we were free to look at the map.

I found this to be very fun, actually. I like exploring and I like to feel that I'm lost in a huge world. Azura's Coast (for those who haven't played Morrowind) lacks very many landmarks so when I say lost I mean I was really, genuinely, totally lost. I didn't even know what direction I was traveling. One time we traveled west all the way across the Ashlands and wound up in Suran, of all places; another time, Dagon Fel. Most of the time we found Sadrith Mora or Tel Fyr first.

I still remember those hours of being wonderfully lost without a map. It probably sounds weird to some people but they're some of my favorite Elder Scrolls memories.

Nice story. That's exactly the kind of feelling I'm looking for here.

Im playing hardcoe but not at that level. Mine just consist of no fast travel, except carriages. Also stuff like no marker and wait only when I absolutley need to for like a quest. To me your style is like a chore, but its your choice. Im also going to have a set of normal clothes and armor to wear lol.

No way I would impose permadeath on my character, but I do impose rules on myself too.

First, no fast travel. I hoof it. A long journey should feel like a long journey. I also walk in towns rather than running everywhere like Forrest Gump.

Second, I always make a save when my character sleeps. If he dies, I have to go back to his last sleep save, even if that wasn't my most recent save. This way, death has some sting to it and I have incentive to avoid it and if I do die I can write it off as a foreshadowing dream my character just woke up from. Of course, I go to my most recent save in the event of a game crash or something.

I played hardcoe in the Fallouts (well, with F3 it was FWE), but that's a game where scrounging for survival is a part of the setting. The Elder Scrolls though doesn't present a setting where food and clean water is particularly scarce, though, so I doubt I'll use a similar mod in Skyrim. My motivation to get plenty of sleep will be to update my save.

Here's a thought, to make it even more realistic, don't choose your character's race or six, determine it with the roll of a D10 (race), and the flip of a coin (six). Then, use Tamriel Rebuilt's name generator on the resulting combination to get your character's name. Actually, I think I might try that myself on my second playthrough.

That's a very good idea, I might do that.

Perhaps even do things such as: Lose 30% of your money you're currently carrying. Or just all... there are many options.


Sounds really nice; I think I did something similar in Oblivion, I roleplayed an escaped (ordinary) prisoner who got jailed for murder and theft, who needed to make his way down to Leyawiin. So to avoid guards all i did was run through the wilderness with sack clothes and I believe I was unarmed ( perhaps an iron dagger ) and I couldn't use the map, it was really fun.

I'll only drop the money I'm carrying. If I have money (and I will have) stashed somewhere it will remain there. That's why I won't be carrying too much money with me when questing.

I'm getting some very good ideas from you guys. Keep'em coming

Too hardcoe for me, although I understand where you come from. Why anyone would want to do a DiD on first playthrough is beyond me. We come into the world and we know nothing about our foes/wildlife? That doesn't make much sense to me (in dice we can lookup stats, or ask around), so OPs use of dice at least seems much "fairer". Typically in dice when things go wrong, GM tends to open up some possibilities to get around the problem, and then rely on the players to see these and take advantage of them - reward good roleplaying. I.e. he knows that someone can resurrect, and modifies his dice in favor (but rarely nullify it) of that character so he can save the day. That doesn't mean that horrible fumbles can't mess up everything (trust me on that one). Another thing in dice RPG is that when you die and roll up a new character, the adventure continues from where it was, it doesn't restart like it does here.

Besides, the idea doesn't work for me, because I always forget. I want the need to eat and sleep, but I need them as game mechanics, with not too harsh consequences for not doing it. Just like FONV hardcoe in other words. So I may wait until mods come around to give me the gameplay experience I so much desire. Tedious? Not to me. Makes sense? Yes.

Well seems many thing can be made with mods from your list like thats was before in Morrowind and Oblivion thats will allow you have good hardcoe roleplay and still have comfortable gameplay.

Cpt_Calavera, I salute you...

That's the fun part for me. Going into the unknown and being afraid of it. I don't expect to finish the main quest in the first play through. I actually think this first character will die in the first or second week, then I'll roll something different but abide to the same rules. It will make the game feel epic and thrilling every time.


I would love to see this turned into a mod. Being a programmer myself I could give it a shot tho I had never dabbled in game modding before.

In Morrowind, I could agree, because you came in as an outlander with really no much understanding of the world, which kinda made the alien approach work for so many I guess (not me though; Morrowind was to Fantasy game genre what http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yysbbPStfWw was to the Action movie genre - way over the top ).

But here, it appears we have been around long enough to end up in jail and sentenced to death, which means the character should already have some knowledge about the world. Having to fight it before figuring out its strengths and weaknesses doesn't make sense, there should be means to learn about creatures without fighting them.

But, each to his own I guess Good luck. I won't be needing the same amount

That's the first step. Soon you'll be rolling a die for a chance of revival in no time!

I'm not sure how intense I will get on my first playthrough, but I love Dead is Dead. It's funny that being afraid of dying makes you die less.

<----- Dark Souls forums are that way guys

Haha just kidding. Really though, ouch. I could never bring myself to play like that. Power to you guys if you actually have fun with this sort of thing. I wouldn't but different strokes for different folks right? And what better series to do whatever the hell you want than The Elder Scrolls?

Aelwulf, I bookmarked your blog. Actually really interested to see how your little adventure plays out

This sounds like a good idea to me. Even the idea i saw to just rely on autosaves might be ok for my purposes, how regular are autosaves? Any other ideas around for less harsh ways to discourage reckless death lol?

I want to fear death enough that i actually take care and prepare for combat (scouting, buffs, potions, escape route, avoiding foes I'm not strong enough for etc) yet DID i think would be to harsh for me personally.

I'll consider DID some more though before i decide, It would give me an excuse to roll new characters... I suppose DID for me would depend if i want to focus on one charcter till "finished" or branch out more, mabye have a couple... decisions...



- Evan -