Fine, fine, I'm an old school elitist coming from a Planescape:Torment-meets-Morrowind background. So shoot me.

Here is how you get your best mileage from Skyrim then:

- pick a story and theme for your character; stick to it (e.g. Dwemer scholar; will only wear Dwemer Armor and Weapons etc.)

- no powergame tricks; just live your character: e.g. no repeat tasks for skill development (you don't make 400 iron daggers and suddenly learn how to make daedric enclave power armor)

- sensible limits for crafting use:
- no recursive enhancement tricks like "I make enchanting potion to craft smithing gear and then smith Ubersword of Potionslaying" etc.
- enchant only ONE item with each effect (no zero cost spells because you double enchanted reduce-cost gear)

- no fast travel (it's like fasting; you will thank me when Azura descends to save your soul)

- install "Realistic Lighting" mod; carry torch or light spell (Oooooh, very eary to be in dank depths of dimly lit Dwemer/Falmer ruins! If you won't watch your step, you can fall to your death!)

(- speaking of mods: if mage, it is reasonable to have a modest destruction-scaling mod, such as giving 1% damage increase per skill point: comes to a reasonable balance with other damage skills.)

- most importantly: NO RELOADS! - Even Adept difficulty will have the hair at the back of your neck stand with fear as you have a close shave with death, out of potions near the bottom of a dungeon, trying to decide if you press on toward an unknown Boss that could be the end of you, or return to town to re-supply with your tail between your legs to live another day.

You missed out the most important thing - no HUD. I cant describe how much more awesome my game got after deactivating the HUD. Also only carry what you yourself would realistically be able to carry.

wasn't there already this thread? http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1351903-how-to-make-sklyrim-difficulty-hard-as-possible-but-not-impossible/

I would most likely do this if the core elements of the game were actually good.When all is said and done its still the same average content,simply making the game harder does not fix what is ultimately wrong with it.

Oops, right, I forgot:

- no HUD (just disable it; very important as Earthlinger said!); relatedly, no subtitles

- read books: READ THEM! (Lore matters; some are pretty well written actually; some use "unreliable narrator" tricks for conflicting stories)

- don't skip conversations: it's rude... or somethin'

- you don't need to every freaking quest: choose according your background: Some daedra are not very nice if you are role playing a paladin. If you are role playing an elf assassin, you probably don't wanna join an ancient order descendent from a famous elf-killer etc.

I am a proud Munchkin!

Also, do visit Mages College, or Legion Barracks in Solitude. And witness mage apprentices/soldiers performing repeated tasks a.k.a. practicing their skills. Grinding even, if you will.

From another Planescape:Torment- meets-Morrowind-fanatic-yet-somehow-not-so-elitist, with love.

http://www.marcofolio.net/images/stories/fun/imagedump/demotivational_posters/powerleveling.jpg

Hmmm how come you're not aware of the age old syaing "Pactice makes perfect" So if I study making perfect Iron daggers, no I won't go straight onto Daedric, that's just a silly controversial thing to influence your point. After Iron, comes steel. So yes, crafting 200 Iron Daggers is going to improve my smithing abilites, what do you think smithies do IRL? Make one steel helmet then move onto the next level up? They repeatedly ply their craft, it's the same as levelling.

Don't get me wrong I am all for adding any restrictions to gameplay to make it enjoyable for you, just that I don't like stupid arguments backed up with non-sensical examples.

I'd love to see how you're going to level up one handed or whatever you choose, seeing as repeated use of a skill is a no go for you!

This is pretty much how I play and it does make the game a lot better. I don't do the no reloads though... I don't think I could deal with that on my main

Well that's just poor construction and design, should have made your walls stronger if you didn't mean for that to happen...

Hey I am making a killing on these Dragonborn made Daggers selling everywhere in Skyrim like hot cakes.

I have minimum HUD, no armour, no fast travel, only used smithing as the Ghostblade is 'my' weapon and I am keeping it, no fast travel, eat, sleep, drink, take the occasional day off shopping and drinking, only joined Bards and Mages, put perks in speechcraft, give money to beggars, don't do quests I think are wrong for the character (few pissed of Daedric Princes out there), read every book and journal, got married but never ask for the cash or cooking, and have a full back story.

If, however, I stand in the Hall of Attainment and cast fifty alteration spells as practice, I think that is perfectly in character. I came here to role play, sometimes that makes the game harder, but I didn't come here to make the game harder or gimp my character just for the sake of it.

All the profit is in merchandising these days!

Sounds tedious. I prefer to play by the game's own rules, not by rules I just made up. Guess some people are just different.

Oh and in regards to smithing, there's no way to get better at it without grinding it by making hundreds of daggers/leather bracers. It's not like you're gonna create better armor every once in a while if you don't have the relevant skill level and perks. If you refuse to grind smithing, you'll basically be stuck with the iron/leather armor you make early on or anything you can buy or find.

An yeah I know grinding is also tedious, but I've just come to accept that smithing is an altogether flawed skill from a game design perspective.

I suppose playing by my own made-up rules comes naturally to me; I approach Skyrim like D&D. Your character is what YOU make it and trying to game the system just seems to cheapen the whole experience, the purpose of RPGs for me is to construct a character and a narrative; you cannot win at D&D.

So when I make a character I spend far more time designing their personality than their physical appearance. I then play to that personality. It's the limits that the personality imposes upon me that make each character distinct and interesting.

Nicely put. I try to do this with all my characters with the exception of the no reloads part because that is a very tough restriction to place on anything like this because S**t happens. I come from a long past of roleplaying started with D&D and went on from there to warhammer( the fantasy pen and paper game not the miniatures game) Vampire(whitewolf) and some others as well. I can't quite get the same feel for my characters in a Computer game that I get from the Pen and Paper but the Elder Scrolls games let me get darn close, I still think that Morrowind is a much better game than the last two but Skyrim is much better than Oblivion in terms of quality.

Currently I am looking for a mod that would add a campsite setup that can be packed up and then set down in another place, I know there was one for morrowind but I haven't found one for Skyrim yet. The reasons are because my next character is going to be a Ranger type and will only be entering the cities on rare occasions.

Playing like this really improves the game and makes for a more entertaining experience, and anyone who has yet to try it should give it a go really.

Elaborate!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=12982

See the video in my sig for a review of the mod <3

OH Yes!!!!!! thank you for posting this!! I spent a good hour scanning through mods yesterday. You sir just made my day.!

Alchemy exp. increases with the value/rarity of the potions you make. Smithing and Enchanting give a flat exp. bonus. If they progressed like alchemy, you would get little exp. from iron daggers and petty soul gems, and more from repairing better quality items, or enchanting with larger gems. You can still spam them if it is done like this, but it either becomes very expensive, or encourages you to mine or go mage hunting.

I have an idea on the blacksmithy skill grind thing, to maybe balance it out a bit better. If you are taking perks in smithing to get different suits of material, just move onto whatever type you perked up to. Don't just sit and make 1,000 iron daggers; when you take the Dwarven perk, concentrate on dwarven items. Then Make only Orcish, Ebony, etc. The inflated cost and limited availability of materials alone should help slow down this skill and make it less "grindy."

No HUD means that you have no way to know your health/stamina/magicka status doesn't it? I suppose you mean "no compass".

My Altmer made jewelry, mostly, and only improving the weapons she used, until Elven and then Arcane were available. Just doing what makes sense for that character.

That's how I levelled my smithing. Out of, as it later turned out, silly assumption that the higher in smithing I get, the higher grade items I'm supposed to create/improve. I didn't know about the iron daggers trick until my smithing was well over 80.

As for alchemy, it's the number of effects on one potion that determines skill xp amount per potion, or so I've observed. Thus, mixing meaningless half-potion-half-poison with like 3 effects gives most skill xp.