So I've only very recently actually got into the RPG Genre with Skyrim having most of the last few years on a particular MMO.

I was wondering are there any "unwritten" rules the player should follow to enhance their experience? Its just an RPG often has very few restrictions since you ain't competing with anyone else but yourself.

So you can often lower the difficulty of the game to suit your needs would be one of the examples. Even exploiting certain resources like gold and stealing from NPCs.

So feel free to list them down.

Role play! It makes the game so much better! And I know your are thinking, it's an RPG, it has role playing in the title, but you'd be surprised how many people don't. And just explore and stay off the wikis and forums. Save yourself from spoilers.

Use your imagination. It will make the game 10x more enjoyable.

I disagree with the part about roleplaying, other than using your imagination to make your character's life into a coherent story. But I certainly agree with staying off of wikis and forums unless you need something very specific (if you think you've hit a glitch or something).

Give your character a backstory, habits and quirks. I think the game works best if you avoid grinding any one skill in ways that don't make sense for a given character. I do a little crafting here and there as I go along, repairing the gear I loot to sell- not massive sessions designed to get me to the next level, and I find this provides for balanced gameplay.

I remember a list back a few months ago. No fast travelling, sleep at night unless your a vampire, eat food 3 times a day, some say do not use the followers, unless they are quest related. that is just the basics then there was someone who said do not use the map while outside in the weather, the map could get damaged if you play the game with RL factored in. Don't travel in bad weather. Sometimes that is not possible I think. There might be more but that is just a few I try to go by the map one I break.

Live with your mistakes or revert to an earlier save. Don't gripe because you screwed up.

Well, that should be the rule for any game, really.

I played a hunter for a while. Just used a bow and went out killing animals. I only killed monsters or people if they attacked me. Then I'd make a trip into town to sell my wares. It was actually a lot of fun. Did next to no actual quests.

I had that problem just recently and I think I had to live with it because the save was just far back.. Can't remember the details though.

Those days are over. Most games now have a means to revert your entire skills or reset and entire Skill set. Dragonborn you will be able to reset perks. Just another hand holding device for the generation entitlement and no consequences for actions.

I like not fast traveling. Unfortunately though, the game is designed for you to fast travel, so a lot of the time it will give you stupidly tedious objectives (go from one end of the map to the other multiple times) assuming that you're going to fast travel. But it's still not really a bad idea if you enjoy traveling and fighting the random threats along the way.

I disagree with just about everything else you said, though (eating, sleeping, etc). That's not adding to the experience, that's just "grinding" activities that have literally no benefit whatsoever, not even virtual benefits to your character. Theonly difference between sleeping every in-game day, and just pretending that your character sleeps every day, is that one robs you of your time. I don't think you're ever gonna say "I wish my character would have slept last night. The immersion has been broken!"

I remember games from the 80's with no maps or journals. You had to take copious notes and map out the game on graph paper...games like the Wizardry series. If you screwed something up it was Start Over.

And then I get to get up and walk 5 miles to and from school...in the snow...uphill both ways.

Why do you disagree with role playing? I didn't originally, but when I came back to Skyrim I did and enjoyed it much more.