My characters have a detailed background, they eat, drink, sleep and wash themselves (and they eat cooked food, not raw meat). They have plans, thoughts about the future and the past, they make mistakes, they fall in love. They travel by foot, horse and sometimes carriages (I only use fast travel In special circumstances). And they have restrictions, like my warrior, who can't pick locks above apprentice level.

They marry people who seem to suit them. My Breton warrior had to wait for quite a while before she finally got to marry the man of her dreams - a warrior who shared some of her other interests as well. My Nord warrior isn't likely to marry at all since she's in love with Ulfric Stormcloak (he should take caution, though, he has promised to marry her once he become High King, but she might grow tired of waiting...) I doubt she would marry anyone who isn't a Nord, though. My mage will marry a good-looking woman (or maybe a man) with some style and education, he's not picky when it comes to race.

My Role-Playing goes farther than the edges of Oblivion...

( True Story. )

Relatively close to the TV for better immersion, completely turn off HUD as well for that.

I occasionally have my character eat, but he would've starved to death a few times by now.
I have him sleep every night, usually 8 hours if stayed up for the right amount of time, more if I was out adventuring for too long.
I close my eyes myself when it's counting down the hours of sleeping.
change to proper clothing sometimes, not always running around in Mage robes.
I put offerings for shrines before I pray to them.
Try my best not to fast travel, but at a few points I've turned into mindless gamer form.
My guy's a bit of a pacifist and refuses to kill anything that's not doing harm to him or injustice to others, so I've only actually killed 3 Non-hostile things and those were all accidents out of who knows how many hours, I actually did seek to have redemption for them all too by saving a life, like a Fox from a pack of wolves

I rest


I do most of that except the carriages, I actually travel everywhere in real time on foot or on horse.
I move from hold to hold but only when its logical for my character but try to get to know the residents of each place..
I make stuff at the Alchemy shops ans Blacksmiths ( Using crafting takes time) and sell the results and pretend I'm freelancing for the owner.
I hang out in the taverns at night and "talk" to folks request songs, have a drink etc.
I pray regularly at the shrines and leave donations.
I only train one level at a time.
I only drink a potion in combat if my character gets a break enough to actually run the animation ( mod) to do so.
I change out of armor into proper clothes ( fine clothes, blacksmith clothes etc) in town
As thane I occasionally do bounties because as thane I should help keep the holding safe.
I have detailed backstories based on variants of characters from my long running pen and paper role playing campaign
I manually keep a sparse journal in word.


With one character when I wanted to learn Orcish smithing I traveled to the strongholds and became bloodbrother to the Orcs

I wish i could play the game the way you do, but it takes too much time! and i'm so eager to see the end of story


My dunmer considers no limits for his thirst for gold and power! he's a thief assassin who steals donations from shrines and temples, pickpockets the poor, kills and loots almost every solo traveler on the road and surprises most of his victims with a poisoned multiple damage backstab or sneak attack >:-] ... this is why he is so favored by Prince Boethiah

I always try to wear the clothing or armour associated with a faction if I'm doing a quest for them. And when I did the Daedric quests I tried to wear as much of the Daedric artifacts as possible!

I roleplay so I don't steal from the poor or don't kill npc's when not for a quest for the DB. The only missions that aren't completed are those of the mages guild since I don't find 'restoration' a skill that should allow me in this guild. I also don't want to level up any skills I don't use.
I would never offer one of my friends to that daedric lord and I would never eat human flesh.