I keep a few 'main' saves for each toon that have distinct head shots.

Definitely keeps me from overwriting them.

I have 7 pretty unique characters now. Since 1.4/5 I can play them all again and I do with some frequency. Whoever is getting the most attention has about 10-20 saves + all the autosaves.

I trim down the others to 5 or so saves with roughly exponential time deltas in case I ever have to back up to recover from a bug.

I don't get into the God -type builds, so pretty much one for different RP here.

Well, in the OP of my thread 'The way you play the game', I stated I only have one character. When I'm ready to restart, I had originally deleted the character (did that in Oblivion as well). I can't play with multiple characters, so I simply don't.

I saved over my most recent save for one of my other characters one time and lost a lot of progress. Got on Nexus though and downloaded a save profile utility that keeps my character save separate so I have about 8 character's with saves in different folders and can switch profiles when I want. They should've implemented something like that in the vanilla game, it's ridiculous to think we'd all only have one character.

It would be nice if there was a *career* feature per character - so you never had to worry about overwriting.

i kept backups of my main character on a flash drive for xbox, i wish that every charcter had a separate section so couldn't overwrite them

awwww man why didn't someone make this earlier. lost mine months ago and hoped that there would be some way to get him back

None of my character are over level 40 ): but that's because I hate doing everything on one character. Each of my characters have strict rules, where my Ranger character doesn't use swords (or daggers, ect.) at all. just bows, and eventually, crossbows!
Ever since I started being more stricter and limiting my characters to one combat skill in Oblivion, I've kept the tradition.

I only have 2 saves for my Main Characters. The rest I can cope with accidentally deleting or something. although, I do play on ALL the accounts I've made, and not just that I've made them for the fun of making them. Each of my characters have done something another hasn't, if that makes sense?

It's all cool.

Yeah, I totally agree.
I play the game on the Xbox 360, so I have no quicksave or anything. It would be a brilliant addition if they added one of those Mods into the 360 version. It would make alot of people's lives more easier.

This is what I do with my other characters, I wish they would utilize a system like assassins creed where you have several character files on the main menu and when you start a new one it doesn't save over the old.

A bit OT, but it makes little sense to me that your ranger would jump to cross bows.

Weren't crossbows basically regarded as ranged weapons for dummies?

Skilled bowmen had better accuracy, precision and range with a good bow than crossbow bolts. The great advantage that crossbows provided were impact power and a massive improvement in accessibility.

I'm the same way about characters. Very few have repeated the quests of another. There is some minor overlap but I have:

(1) Nord - MQ and Civil war(Stormcloak), might bring him around to the companions

(2) Orc - Companions, Civil war(empire)

(3) Dunmer - college of winterhold, MQ*

(4) Khajiit - dark brotherhood, thieves guild just to radiant quests

(5) Bosmer - thieves guild

(6) Argonian - daedric quests, began MQ

(7) Breton - no faction quests, eventually will do CoW and DB

Eventually I will make an omnipotent character but it took me a LONG time to get around to it with OB and I expect it will be just as long with Skyrim (if ever). My ill-fated destruction archmage is stuck at level 10 and doesn't get much playtime anymore, but otherwise I've played each toon quite a bit and revisit each periodically.

Given playstyles (Combat, magic, stealth) and factions (Empire and Stormcloak), as well as races...

3 x 2 x 10

You could have good reason to have 60 characters. So yeh.

Just make multiple saves for each character so accidentally deleting one isn't a huge deal.

I tend to do so, but it's annoying when you save over a character who hasn't got 2 saves. I made this Breton Mage for the upcommong DLC yesterday, and I accidentally saved over him with my Wood Elf Ranger. I only had one save for that Breton, he was quite a low level, being around Level 12 or so, but it was rather frustrating.

If you're on a console I can see this being an annoying issue, but if like me you are on the PC then may I suggest using the console to name your saves. Rather than opening the console to save, everytime I want to I just open the console and time Savegame x, this means I can have my saves labelled making them easy to load. It also means I never accidently save over other files.

If you're on PC, the mod utility Wrye Bash has a nifty save profile manager for multiple characters, allowing you to choose which profile you want to use before you load up the game.

Concerning multiple characters, I've never had more than one at the same time, although I am in the belief that playing different parts of the game with different characters (evil stealth-focused character for the DB, warrior for the Companions, etc) enhances the experience. I just never do this simultaneously; I always focus on one character. Although, I now have the urge to start a second before I'm "finished" with my current...

after awhile i move my old chars to an ext hard drive...or start erasing them. 5 or 6 chars down the road i don't much remember the older ones anyway...

I have like 6 characters above level 40. I start alot of dudes, and usually keep them all, and when I accidentaly overwrite one, I console myself with the fact that I probably wasn't going to play that character ever again because realistically, I wasnt.

'postcard save' love it. Yep, I've been doing this for a while now too and it does help.

Although I have to say that I've never overwritten another save accidentally. Perhaps the OP should try reading before saving?

It's a habbit for me to just press 'Start', click the 'Left Trigger', press 'A', press 'Down' on the anologue stick, then just tap 'A' again.
Not realising that i saved on another character before hand, and their save profile is at the top...