Thanks again for all the help guys. I think I am going to sit down this morning and come up with a nice back story. Here are the basic rules I will use:

-No fast Travel
-No crafting whatsoever (should i at least do arcane so i can improve my magical items? then i worry that i dont have the max percentage in plus to smithing and stuff though)
-2 quests per day
-must drink 1 bottle of skooma per day
- Wars in Skyrim IV and Deadly Dragons Mod, on expert


Thoughts? Concerns?

P.S. I spent some time on some Elven name websites, and I think I Am going to go with the name Fimion (Slender, Son of)

One way to solve restartitus which has worked for me so far is to not level, ever. Try to play the entire game at level one. Use whatever skills you want, whenever you want.

The big advantage of this is that you can switch between playstyles and remain viable. 2h warrior, pure mage, thief, 1h warrior etc - without perks none of them are too powerful, and without leveling none of them become worthless (destruction remains deadly). Without perks smithing, enchanting etc dont get overpowered. Because you're level one, when you find a really good item it's genuinely worth something. Because you can use any style at any time the level of strategy available for hard fights increases. I'd recomend playing on master to encourage that, but that may be personal taste.

If you change your mind you can just level up, allocate your points and perks into whatever character you want.

You kind of have two different problems. One is getting addicted to the little rewards the game gets you for accomplishing things, the other is not identifying with your character as a character.

My thief is now like this:
Sneak 100
Archery 100
Light Armor 100
Smithing 100
Lockpicking 99
Alchemy 92
Block 90
One-handed 90
Speech 82
180K gold

So for most of the stuff he does, there is no reward from the game at all. However, it doesn't matter because the playstyle is fun to me. I don't have to think about raising skills any more, I can just do whatever I want. Just the fact of not having Enchanting means he is not particularly overpowered on Master. Think of the character as a machine for a particular playstyle, the actual way you play the game, not as racking up numbers.

For the other problem, in TES you have to use your imagination a lot to RP, because there is hardly any branching dialog. So a lot of it comes down to who you love and who you hate, how much crime you commit, what your attitude to magic is, stuff like that. Although there is not that much branching dialog choices, there are quest endings that are honorable or dishonorable sometimes. You find one personality that sums all that up. So e.g. my three characters are:
1. Glory-seeking professional treasure hunter who never uses magic
2. Extremely nice and helpful seeker of hidden knowledge who never breaks the law
3. Self-interested ruthless Orc partisan who hates factions that cause chaos

Ok, here we go, you guys tell me what you think.

Fimion was born in Valenwood, in the town of Arenthia. At age 7 his parents were murdered by a Thalmor Assassin for their part in helping Tiber Septim conquer Valenwood. He then was split up from his sister, and moved to the imperial city as an oprhan. He was taken in by a middle class merchant (and former dark brotherhood assassin.) Up until recently, life was pretty normal for Fimion. 6 months ago, a stormcloak raiding party snuck into the Imperial City and 30 civilians were massacred, including Fimions adoptive father. So FImion traveled north to the town of Bruma, then went up into the Jerall mountains to reflect and practice his archery. Its here that he not only learned the name of the Thalmor that murdered his birthparents, but was scooped up by an imperial prison transport and stuck in the back of the carriage with the man responsible for the death of his guardian in Cyrodill.

ROLL INTRO TO SKYRIM!!!!

Fimion is loyal to Arkay, one of the Bosmer gods worshipped in Valenwood. He wants revenge mainly, but money helps to accomplish that, so nothing will stand in his way.



What do you guys think?

I'd consider just not caring about what other people say and do. I bet some of those people aren't being completely honest, for one thing. I'm sure there are a few people that play on Master and find it too easy that AREN'T abusing mechaincs to make themselves OP, but I'd be willing to bet that they are very much the exception, rather than the rule. I started a character on Master (a destruction mage), and it wasn't too difficult at first (but it wasn't easy, either), until I got to the first mini-boss, and no matter what I tried, I couldn't beat it without lowering the difficulty. On my level 65, it's easy to play on master, but that character over-levels all the content.

Personally, I enjoy the game the most playing it on adept, pretty much through all levels.

Playing on master difficulty is a lot of fun. It's hard unless you optimize your character, or play as an assassin, but it's a lot of fun. I wouldn't play Skyrim on any other difficulty.

playing on master just requires more patience and caution. In 99.9% of fights you're able to attack, run away, heal/recharge, attack again, run away etc. There are very few enemies who can run as fast as you, or who will chase you for more than 20 seconds or so. Sabre cats are one exception, but in dungeons there are very few times you can't run away repeatedly and win a battle of attrition if all else fails.