My Imperial Paladin is Level 38. I've become the Archmage of Winterhold, the Harbinger of the Companions, and the thane of multiple Holds. I've brought peace to the civil war (MQ necessary) and I refused to kill Paarthurnax. The Blades can sod off, and so can most of the Daedric princes. I refused to do the Thieves Guild missions and I killed the child abuser Grelod only so I could then slaughter the entire DB like dogs. There are a lot of missions I couldn't do with my Lawful Good (in my mind) Paladin of Akatosh. Now I'm heading through the MQ (already at Skuldafn) so I can finish out the playthrough at only level 38. Is anyone else this strict with themselves? I'd like to hear stories.

PS- Have no fear, I've already got a second playthrough planned to experience the massive amount of this game that I know I'm missing on the first one.

Strict enough, I guess. I don't do missions or join guilds I wouldn't see the character do. As for more simulatory aspects (I don't call them rp'ing per se), like eating, sleeping.. I'm more liberal.

well, to each chracter there will be certain amounts of RP, but im pretty strict, sleep every night, food at least twice a day, i also do somethign i call "normal roleplay" which means you play a normal person doing a normal job, and you dont get more RP than that!

I call that "The Sims." (just messin with ya)

lol, yeah the differance is we can kill and maim and do quests

Eat, sleep. No fast travel and such.

Probably not at all or very strictly depending upon how you look at it.

Basically, I behave the way I would in RL if faced with the same scenarios (except when prevented by Bethesda (ie child 'disciplining' )). I don't sleep or eat regularly - in fact, I've never eaten anything except to test Alchemy properties; however, I will drink a mead at a bar before "waiting" until morning.

Fairly strict. My first two characters have been similar in terms of lawfulness - mostly good boys but will break the law if needed. Neutral good, I suppose. Didn't join TG on either; killed Grelod and slaughtered the DB on both. The first character was more of a fierce type and did the Companions quests (though opted for a cure) and joined the Stormcloaks. The second was also a Nord but didn't like the racism he was seeing in Windhelm and joined the Legion. I took the Daedric quests that had nicer outcomes (helped the priest in the Meridia quest; opted for the uncorrupted star in the Azura quest, reunited Barbas with his master, etc). Avoided the evil ones (Mephala, Molag Bal, Namira).

I quite like the cooking recipes so my characters do eat. They also sleep, but not to a strict schedule. I'm more casual about using fast travel. If I want to squeeze in an hour of Skyrim before work, I'll use it so I can get something done before I turn my PC off. If I'm slumming in front of my PC on the weekend I'm more likely to explore. In fact, I don't generally use fast travel if I'm going somewhere new but once I've explored the map, then I will, though I'll go for the horse and cart option if I can.

I do want to try the thief and DB quests so I'll need to make another character for that. However, I'm one of those people who always feels guilty about doing nasty things to characters who don't deserve it. I had one character in Oblivion who did all the Daedric quests and some of them made me feel really uncomfortable. I felt bad enough about killing the Whiterun town guards and unseating Baalgruf when I did the Stormcloaks in this game. But I am absolutely ruthless when it comes to killing bad guys.

I've never played a pnp game with eating and sleeping either (I'm sure they're out there). Roleplaying to me has always been about concieving of a personality and some motivations, and just sticking to it. It's centered more on the story aspects, not the simulation of life aspects.

Staying true to your character is one of the parts of the game I enjoy most. I wont do any of the TG or DB quests because it would require my character to change everything about himself. Keeping your efforts real in a Unreal world may sound nuts. But I couldnt play any other way. Level 33 Orc Berseker Badass.

I'm very strict with my RPing. Here's a few rules I stick to:

- Ignore my character's capacity and carry only what a person would realistically carry.
- When chopping wood, wait 1 hour for every 2 Firewood I collect for sale (reflects a more realistic pay for labor and goods, especially when wood is so abundant).
- When Smithing items, wait at a minimum of 8 hours to create it. More complex items, such as weapons and armor, require at least a week from the time I've gathered the necessary materials. Must wait 1 hour when improving items.
- Able to collect pelts, but cannot process them into leather. Instead, leather must be bought through vendors.
- Sleep/wait at least 8 hours per day for rest.
- Pay followers 50% of all treasure gathered on an excursion.
- Cannot take items from places (except dungeons, etc.), even if they're not labeled as someone else's property.
- Cannot use 'run' when swimming. Furthermore, cannot swim in the Sea of Ghosts more anymore than a few seconds.

I find these rules balance Skyrim's economy much more fairly and adds more strategy and depth to the game. For instance, when I started my character penniless in Dawnstar, I spent about a week or two of chopping wood and waiting for the Khajiit caravan to come before selling my goods. At that point, I had enough gold to make a briastplate of armor and a weapon for basic combat. Since then, I've slowly been building my character's wealth and skills. One month in, I'm only at level 5, but having a great time!

Not too strictly. I'm playing an assassin/thief, but I do anything and everything I come across. I don't have the time to invest in multiple characters and purposely avoiding content because it does 't fit my role play. I'm looking to experience most everything I can and maximize my levels/skills/damage/amor.

i do that, however i do use fast travel...from the Horse coaches only there pretty realistic after all.


i have not used smithing yet but when i do i am only going to mine my own materials also i think i will try your 8hour thing seems pretty cool to me.

what i do is the following;

- Sleep/wait at least 8 hours per day for rest.
- Listen to the conversations, generally take my time
- make sure i eat atleast once per day and drink about 3times minimum, generally like m personally
- dont kill without a purpose
- run from dragons in an open field, i wouldnt face one head-on my character literally couldnt anyway not withou something to kite him around (only 40hp enduring daytime 100hp at night)

Generally the most important one is to stay true to YOUR characters personality.

if i feel like i break my RP in anyway i always find myself re-loading if i cant deam it as a ''mistake'' or if its really bad and i just cant play his personality anymore and i cant reload i will re-roll.

Enough. I dont do strict stuff like going to arkays temple at 3:00 pm, But I keep to my guys code of coduct, like Never killing civillians, Though I will kill unarmed and surrending hostiles.

I dont RP as much as I should to give the game its fair doose. I normally sleep and grab a bite to eat when im near a home or pass an inn. I very rarely wait, i normally find somewhere to sleep or come back later. I like to sell to the same shops and shopkeepers and only visit new shops out of desperation. I always use the same workstation e.t.c. I have one main home and the others are purely to show off. I use storage places as I would in real-life e.g. place jewellery in the bedside table and clothes in the wardrobe. I like to play pranks like I would in real-life (as much as possible) e.g. waking people up and running away, bumping in to people and throwing things at them. I stick with the same skills and weapons and patterns all the time (sneaking and archery). I occasionally practice on target boards. I only fast travel via carts or if the distance is over kinda 3rd of the map. I play a slightly sadistic character who always shoots first and asks questions later. I always stick to the shadows.

All in all I have a few set of rules but nothing to strict. So to answer the question i role play half-strictly (if thats a thing!)

I'm not overly strict. I come up with an idea of what I want to do and a story that fit's the char and the quest's I want to do. My warrior doesn't kill anything but undead unless she has to. My thief/assassin does whatever is best for her.

I don't fast travel often, though if I'm moving things from one house to the other I do, because IF I could aford two ( or more ) houses I could afford to hire enough carriages to transpoort everything I wanted at once. I use carriges to go from one large town to another. because that's what I would do in RL if I didn't have my own horse.

I try to find a "safe" sleeping place every night. I eat 2 times a day, I cook the stews as some of them have good perks. If I can't sleep in a given 24 hr period, as I don't think a single person is going to go to sleep in a bandit filled fort, then when I can get to sleep it's for 10 to 12 hr's, I never leave on a quest after noon, so I find other things to do in town or at the inn.

If I get "svcked" into a quest that isn't what that char would do.... I re-load and don't do what ever it is that got me svcked into the quest in the 1st place.

I have three different charecters. they are variously good/bad. for liberation/empire. in favour of magic or not. companions mages or thieves

they have different houses, use different shops (in different cities) and have different companions. they don't tend to cross those lines.

but i usually play them concurrently. in any week I probably play all three at one time or another. most people seem to start a new charecter after finishing a quest but I get bored if I do that.

I will reload. but for instance my warrior character didn't greatly appreciate the 'twist' in in the Companions quest and my thief wasn't expecting to make the deals she did in the last part of the Guild quest.

they could have walked away but in the end they made compromises

lifes a bit like that.

I sleep every night, and don't use fast travel except carriages. That's pretty much it and I feel it's the right level of RP for me.

not much at all. role playing must be balanced with practicality- i dont feel the need to eat or sleep for days at a time. however, i will go out of my way to be a moral player and help citizens and spread love across the land.

I RP that the game mechanics are how the world actually works. Mostly.

My character was strictly good. Then I joined the Thieve's Guild to simply spread my influence a little bit. At which point I got Nightingale Subterfuge. Then I killed Grelod, and killed the Khajiit to join the Brotherhood, because Grelod was hurting the few children in the game that were okay in my book. I took a vow to only assassinate the "guilty." I then found that I got trapped into situations where that wasn't possible, so I used subterfuge to get the target's loved ones to kill them for me. I did that with the Morthal mission where I am sent to Windhelm. The girl's family killed her. I kept doing it, and found that my favorite was the wedding, where both the bride AND the groom were killed by their own family. I then just dropped all pretenses and did the daedric quests. But technically, I only killed one or two "innocent" people for the Dark Brotherhood.

While my rules seem a little tedious, I feel they stretch the game and my character's story over a longer period of time. Something is just unsettling about going from a prisoner to the savior of the world in less than a week. A great story requires a balance of both epic and mundane bits.

Depends what you mean by RP since the term means different things to different people
My characters usually have a background/backstory to me, a pre-thought out personality before I begin playing them
Their actions will fit with that background and personality although it may develop and change as a course of game events
They will dress and behave appropriately to their situation (eg wear clothes rather than armour around town) and sleep and eat regularly (although I'm nnot slavish to these things, if iI can manage 72 hours without sleep or food so can my character0

To each his own, but I'm afraid if I "roleplayed" slow traveling across the map every time someone gives me a quest, I would also have to roleplay being bored to tears! They leave that part out of a good movie, and for me the whole point of roleplaying is creating good stories.

Allie has a couple of peculiarities which I do roleplay. She's simply not that interested in magic, and she's a terrible shot, so she never uses archery or ranged spells. Makes taking on a dragon before you get Dragonrend a whole new ballgame. Kind of ironic because my dad holds a world record for rifle shooting and I used to compete in pistol and archery.

The other thing I do is always jump on my horse before fast traveling. It occured to me at one point that I didn't strictly HAVE to get on my horse at all to fast travel, and sometimes, like coming out the gates of High Hrothgar, it's darned inconvenient. But I like my horsie.

I do have to imagine my motivations and reactions during the story. Which are frankly starting to be that these milk-drinkers deserve to be eaten by dragons, since I'm the only living being capable of doing anything but whining and insulting people on the street. Plus it's shocking that Nords have bought into the whole Cyrodiilic marriage thing and given up their proper plural marriage. I remember when every member of a household knew his or her place, and the hearth-wife didn't mess about with the shield-wife's business.