'Hold' is sometimes used for Prison. I know because in RuneScape, there was a quest where you are put in a Prison Cell in a place that was known as a Hold.

I tend to think of it more as a tradition in TES, but that doesn't mean traditions can't be broken.

IIRC someone said pre release, that the whole "begin as a prisoner" thing was that it made it a whole lot easier on the player to create his/her own back story...a clean slate if you will. Starting as a prisoner does that job pretty good.

Can't they be a bit more creative with the intros?

Although I agree that it seems to be tradition I don't know how well it works for the "clean slate" idea. I mean, if you were playing a goody goody character or whatever it makes it more difficult to fill in a backstory of how you are a prisoner if you do no wrong. Not that it is too difficult, but it does limit RP backstories a bit. Skyrim handles it ok, I guess, as unlike MW and OB you are actually caught crossing the boarder by an "over zealous" Legion scooping up anyone they perceive as siding against the Empire. So you could just be someone at the wrong place, wrong time. MW and OB you were just a prisoner.

What if you were just entering Helgen as whoever and, because of the civil war, had to register with the Guards before being allowed to enter as they have just caught Ulfric and want to try and keep Stormcloak supporters out of Helgen while they carry out the execution. You then go thru the character creation, the dragon attacks, you escape Helgen as it is now.

But I have no problems as it is now, just wish the tutorial was shorter or we could save (with option to remake our character race/looks) just before leaving the cave at the end of the tutorial.

Afaik a hold simply refers to a fortified position, not to a prison specificly. So Privateer's Hold would refer to a privateer's fortress.

I love starting as a prisoner, I hope they never change it.

The only limit of RP and backstory is the limit of the writer themselves. And if someone cannot think beyond the limits given in the game, then that isn't a fail of the introduction.

Although I agree that it seems to be tradition I don't know how well it works for the "clean slate" idea. I mean, if you were playing a goody goody character or whatever it makes it more difficult to fill in a backstory of how you are a prisoner if you do no wrong. Not that it is too difficult, but it does limit RP backstories a bit. Skyrim handles it ok, I guess, as unlike MW and OB you are actually caught crossing the boarder by an "over zealous" Legion scooping up anyone they perceive as siding against the Empire. So you could just be someone at the wrong place, wrong time. MW and OB you were just a prisoner.

While this is a very good point, and the options available to the writer are near limitless, it would still be nice to have a little more variety than what we see in the games.

Privateer's Hold. I don't know what a privateer is, but the first thing I think of is pirate...

There isn't much you can start off. Many fantasy stories are about going from the lowest common denominator to the highest common denominator. A prisoner gives so much options when it comes to story.

Kinda agree with Ravenius. You're more of a husk for the gods in a sense. When the time comes you are awoken in a sense. IDK.. lol. That did kinda bug me but it's Bethesda's "thing" so w/e. Doesn't bug me that much. I like Skyrim's beginning.

I gave a small list. Lowest common denominator doesn't necessarily mean prisoner. To say that there isn't much you can start off with just shows a lack of imagination both on your part and that of the devs at Bethesda.

What I want to know is what our character was doing before the intros.

Why are we always a convict? I don't understand that. In Skyrim we were trying to cross the border, but I don't get why it was illegal for my Nord to cross into Nord homeland. I reckon they thought I was Stormcloak.

Eh hem

-Fable 2 you're an orphan and then you find your destiny as a hero that the lowest common denominator, but that limits my backstory because the story filled it in. You were the son of a hero and your family home was burned, so much for roleplaying a character the way I want

-Dragon Age Origins you start off in your respective camps as a human noble or a dealish elf. It was again very hard for a roleplay perspective to fill in my own backstory because they were already giving it to you. So you couldn't create your own character.

-Fallout 3 again your origins and backstory are somewhat filled in and given to you along the way

Some of these are lowest common denominator origins, however, they already fill in your backstory. I don't want to start off as a homeless or an orphan in the TES series because that's a lot harder to pass away. You cannot rewrite your character not an orphan or not a homeless. But as a prisoner you can change it as you like. And there many twist you can take. Being homeless fills in to much of your own backstory by the devs and not yourself.

Your arguments about other games are not relevent, they are not TES. TES doesn't typicaly fill in much of your backstory, leaving it wide open for you to fill in yourself.

Orphan:
- What was you family like?
- How did you become orphaned?
- How have you coped with being alone?
- Do you have any siblings?
- What have you done since?
- How did you come to being in this land or were you born here?
- etc

Homeless:
- See above but replace orphan with homeless.

Any more ideas you want me to shoot down?

Aren't those a little more restrictive than being a prisoner?
Prisoner: What if I want to be a good guy? I can roleplay my way out of it rather easily.
Orphan: What if I want to have a family and don't be a orphan? Oh yeah, I can't.