I enjoyed Skyrim, I've logged many hours. But I still felt something was missing. So I decided to see if I could capture the feel of a classic RPG in this user-friendly land. So I came up with a few ideas.

No UI

The game works hard to give you the info you need without the compass. Once you begin paying attention, you can find caves and dungeons and ruins pretty easily. There's always a path. You can still use your map, old RPGs had maps. The only real downside is keeping track of your health. You really have to pay attention to what your fighting and how much damage it is likely doing to you.

Fast travel

Fast travel is acceptable, but not carriage rides.

Classes

Perks are already divided into three groups. Choose mage, warrior or thief and only put perks in those trees. You can still use the other skills, you just can't put perk points in them.

Leveling

When you gain a level, you must sleep 8 hours somewhere. My favorite RPGs required you to pay for training, so I recommend dropping gold every level (maybe the new level x 100?)

Questing

Sweep and clear*. Try to finish all of a city's quests before moving on. If the city has a guild, try to finish it, too. I'd also keep it down to three quests at one time, max. The recommended city order is ... Riverwood, Whiterun, Riften, Windhelm, Markath, Morthal, Solitude. (Finish the smaller villages as you wish).

*The main quest and civil war are problematic. Just do whatever order feels right to you.

That's all I have so far. Add your thoughts.

You mean Fast Travel isn't allowed but carriages are acceptable.

I've already disabled the compass in the .ini and the game experience improved a lot from it. Also disabled fast travel via modding. Carriages still feel alright to use.

The quests don't give you any essential location information.

They don't, but you can still refer to the map if you really need to know where something is. Not having the game turn into "follow the giant arrow" is such a relief. Also Clarvoiance.

what I dont get is why would you need mods to disable fast travel you could just not use it

and there is an easy way to make Skyrim old school, get arena, go to Skyrim

Needs spell making; and many many more skills

But really, turn on subtitles and turn off voice .

Because if you have the ability to access it and your in Riften....and now you need to go to Solitude to say ''Yo'' and go back to Riften to say ''I said Yo in solitude''....I bet when you get that quest or whatever you'll be like ''Ah f*** this **** !'' *fast travel*

Simple example would be get mara amulet from riften, go to solitude to get ya woman and go back to riften to wedding and then go back to solitude to check your womans house. No good Sir, I will NOT walk that jurney

This is what I usually do. I just don't use it, or I use carriages. I don't think I would ever completely disable it, though. There are times when it's just too important. Like for recovering lost companions and horses (when I decide to use the beasts).

Compass aside, rest of the stuff really has nothing to do with old school.

Except - Fast-travel is Old-School. Carriages are new.