...or do the roads marked on the printed map linking Riverwood, Helgen and Falkreath (and in other places) not match up with what actually exists in-game? =/ For RP purposes, I like to stick to the roads whenever possible but I can't seem to find either of the west pointing roads that'll take me to Falkreath.

A road overlay on the in-game map would be an absolute Godsend.

Just walk towards rorikstead, and keep an eye to your left. It's the first of two roads leading south which are close to one another; the first has no signpost but will take you to falkreath, the second is signposted and directs you to markarth

Seems like the roads being on only the paper map was an oversight.

The in game map is not actually a "map" per-se though, I found that we could actually navigate very well by sticking the physical map the game with up on the wall and referring to it.
Also:
There is a handy mod - (for PC) - that actually converts the in-game map to a copy of the paper one - (with an alternative texture avialable by yours truly ).
The guy who did it no longer supports it but it is very good and is called "paper height map" on the Nexus.

I'm on PS3. =p But it's fine, I found the road I was after in the end thanks to http://www.uesp.net/maps/srmap/srmap.shtml google maps style one I found on UESP. The way it looks on the paper map, the road is south of Helgen while in actuality it comes out of the west wall of the town. Which is a massive pain considering the rubble and bandits. I have no idea why they didn't have Helgen getting cleaned up after the main quest gets done, partly for all the southern roads linking off it and also because it'd be nice to have some more towny places to ransack for loot.

You beat me to it, and the funny thing is: the only way I figured it out was to head out of Falkreath to see where the road ended.

One of the reasons I ride a horse: so a wall can't stop my progress.

Note: If you go east (or is it west, I forget), you'll get a "Can't go that way" once you pass the last guard bridge.

Unless you have borders turned off in which you just end up walking for aaaages until it suddenly occurs to you that the scenery has all gone to sh*t...

What RP character would only stick to the road, I'm curious to know?

One with a lousy sense of direction and possibly hay fever...

This. Coupled with an irrational fear of trees.

Edit: Also, running up a 90 degree slope to get between places is quite immersion breaking.

Yeah, a human for sure.

I know right?

P.S. Your sig is creepy and I kinda wish I had thought of it. (damn!)

Haha

I thought of it when I played on my archer, who, as I've said, was my only character for a very long time

I just loooooved archering people

Heh... why are they going to Falkreath then?