My characters who loot (and not all of them do) carry whatever their encumbrance allows. We need to keep in mind that this is not earth and earth measurements do not apply. If the game tells us a cuirass weighs 50 units that does not mean it weighs 50 pounds.

For people that say they don't like running, do you mean not SPRINTING or literally, walking... really slow. I tried going somewhere like that once for immersion purposes, but after walking 15 feet, i was like, pfffff f this.

I think it would take 16 hrs just to finish a quest walking everywhere.

Surely not, but it takes up the same amount of space regardless, no?

Or do some of you imagine your backpack is Hermione style and can magically hold anything you need?

i role play somewhat but not really to this extent. I try to sleep and eat and what not.

I basically try to make my story around what i want to do. basically here is my story so far (kinda lame i know lol):


thats basically my RP story so far

So, back in the days of AD&D, there was this thing called a "Bag of Holding" that was an enchanted sack or satchel that you could store things in that would raise your carrying capacity. There were often arguments about how much they could carry, as well as the dimensions something could be to actually fit in the bag, but I digress. When I'm playing Skyrim I just imagine I have one of these and that way I can loot all I want.

I think there is a difference between a game being immersive and being a simulation. Skyrim is an rpg, not a life sim.

Why ponder whether it's more "realistic" or "immersive" to restrict your character's inventory when you're playing in a world filled with mythical and supernatural creatures and you slay dragons, singlehandedly, no less?

Why does rping have to be about stats? Math is less important than story, setting, your experience of these, your choices, I would say.

I have a magic bag.

I'm in agreement with these posts. I like to RP my characters, but simulating eating habits, sleep schedules, what I can or can't carry, specific stats, etc.none of this has ever been very important when role playing a character to me. Not that those interests aren't valid. Not at all...if that's how you enjoy your RP, more power to you.

For me, though, role playing in these games is more about motivations and decisions, why my character does certain things and when he does them, how his personality fits, and how all of this comes togetSorting the game world. Sort of like acting a role in a play or movie, and less of a simulation. The "bag of holding" idea is a good one.

Haha I pick up anything I like. o_O I can't RP hardcoe like that.

If I'm some sort of desert cat who happens to be able to speak the language of dragons...well, magic bag, yo.

Depends, sometimes I do other times I just act like my horse has some storage on it.

Right on Llamaskull, I should have added that stats enhance the RP experience in my perspective, wasn't trying to set a rule or tell how it should be played. My bad.

The thing is, for me, it's not even about stats / no stats, but how implementing one of those two extremes can provide a more rich RP experience. I think the problem here is that we would disagree into what RP in a computer game would mean. For me, stats are a vital part in the sense of fleshing out multiple ways of interacting with the world.

You could argue that Skyrim does that in a lot of ways, and you'd be right. What I was "criticising" is how we're sort of forced to start from the same spot, sort of like a ground zero for every single character we create. For me that's almost a dealbreaker, even with the RP aspect being somewhat present in the choices we can make and how we want to explore the world.

The OP was talking about carrying equipment and weight, for example. For me it seems too bland to make it so that every type of character will start with the same strength, in the sense of how much they can carry. I preffer an experience where you can have a squishy, frail little mage and a bullstrong of a warrior being able to play the same game, in their own different ways, dealing with their weakness to overcome challenges.

Not to sound overly critical - I'm here after all, which means I care about this game - but I think the challenge factor is somewhat missing from the game, just seems too watered-down, or better yet, limited to how hard it is to win a battle.

Anyway, cheers my friend, hope it clarified a bit of what I was trying to say.

Absolutely ... or reasonably close . One set of armor (the one that I am wearing). Two "large" weapons. 5 daggers. As for the rest, I try to keep total weight under 150.

Good point by those who comment that eating/sleeping/carrying really has nothing to do with RP. IMHO RP is more about staying in character. I do try to eat/sleep/carry because it makes the game more fun for me. For RP I try to make my character behave how he should behave.

Realism aside, you guys who loot everything don't you find it makes getting gold just too easy and thus makes expensive items too easy to come by. I have no problem in carrying vast amounts of loot but I do have a problem with obtaining vast amounts of gold too easily.

I definitely understand what you mean. A lot of the mechanics of the game are obscured to the player, even though I'm sure they're in operation "under the hood." I also agree that the concept of character creation has been pretty drastically shifted as it appears in skyrim.
In the past, from playing old tabletop ad&d, through baldur's gate, morrowind, etc, there was always the act of making a character- rolling, allocating stats, picking a class, an alignment, etc- really fleshing out who you would be in the world, before starting a campaign. In skyrim, the entire game is the act of character creation. In that sense, everyone starting out more or less the same makes sense, in that you begin as an average, if direly fated, person, and playing the game and building your character is the acting out of the story of how you become the character you want to make.
I'm getting a bit philosophical with this next bit, but it's as though playing skyrim is the prequel, telling the story of your character's coming to power.
That said, depending on how you play the game, you won't get to experience your fully fleshed out character until late in the game, whereas in earlier games that process would occur before you even started playing.

I definitely wish there was a little bit of math on the screen, or at least on the character screen if not in-game. For example, certain spells are described as being effective for targets of up to a certain level, but you can't see an enemy's level in-game. Or when attempting persuasions/intimidations- yes, potions of glibness raise the skill 30 points, but what threshold do you need to meet to succeed in a given situation? You won't know if you're wasting a couple-hundred gold potion or not until you try. Yes, you can just save right before you make the attempt, but a couple of numbers on the screen would make that unnecessary and help keep you in the game.

I'm also missing a full stat display on the character screen- I don't need the frontal image showing equipped gear or anything like that, just the breakdown. I'd like to be able to actually track how much effect my actions are having as far as strength, agility, etc.

That all said, the game is just generally so fantastic an experience that I can get by quite happily without those things, but the old-school rpger in me sometimes feels a little ill at ease that I can't quite quantify certain things that I know the game is certainly tracking.

I definitely see some dilution to the game mechanics as you do, and agree that the ui is largely centered around your character's ability to kill things. There is an abbreviation at play, for example, in the truncation and combination of the mercantile and speechcraft skills into one, or the absorption of the mysticism school into the other magic schools. I get, however, that this streamlining is intended to serve the greater good if clarifying the character upgrading process. I also feel like the placement of certain perks was really smartly handled to make certain cross- class skills easy to get for those not specializing in the skill they're part of.

I think Skyrim is really trying to hide so many of the stats and mechanics because they ant you to spend as much time as possible in the game, not in the menus. I just would like it to be possible to get at that information on a console (360).

I find some quest rewards too low, but mostly I'm just too lazy to put in [censored] amounts of time to get that new house or new horse or whatever. Gaming should be a break from depressing reality and that's the fine line we find being discussed here.

Yep. Currently with my Redguard I don't wear any armor at all and if I find some particularly good stuff I'll make Lydia carry it (I've got her in exquisite Orcish armor wielding Volendrung). As for weapons I only carry a long blade for serious fights and a dagger for back up. If I'm hunting I'll bring a bow and a realistic amount of arrows with me (say bout 30-40 max).

I have to cringe when I see my character has multiple sets of armor or multiple greatswords; very strict when it comes to roleplaying with a realistic amount of gear on-hand.

I play perma death, so no I don't limit the weight I can carry for the basic reason that it would make my playthroughs way too tedious. I do try and eat and sleep whenever possible, I also stick to a night time activity cycle (as orcs are supposed to be nocturnal), I raid pretty much everything I see and bring the loot back to my orc stronghold.

How far do you get playing dead is dead? I do that in flight sims but it seems impossible in this game.

immersion rp thingie? Depends on the gold

At a certain point. I don't know. 1000 gold. I stop looting Everything and get on with the game.
No wonder it gets so hard though, sheesh

I made it to level 23 with my last build (on master difficulty). The Dark brotherhood started sending assassins after me on the roads because I murdered so many people, eventually it become very hard to travel anywhere on the roads without running into thalmor patrols or mercenaries because of how much people hated me (I dont use insta travel). I had a bounty running in whiterun that was up to like 200k gold and eventually I wandered too close to town while running from a thalmor patrol and the guards got me. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

Right now im playing an orc raider, proving to be more challenging than my last build who was more of a stealth based murderer. Im only up to level 8 though, its hard for me to risk leveling heavy armor on my orc at this level because getting hit can get me killed.

People always forget this.

I agree, but I still don't carry multiple sets of armor or weapons.

My spellsword has 300 encumbrance and rarely goes over half. One sword, 1 bow, 40 arrows (give or take, but never more then 45), 1 dagger, one set of armor (banded iron, imperial light boots, nordic steel gauntlets), one hood, and one extra shirt for kicking around in the taverns Plus 5 of each type of Health/Magicka/Stamina potions, a few loaves of bread, and 2 torches between me and Lydia.

Sometimes. In the beginning, it's impractical to have that limit because of the lack of storage until I buy the Whiterun house so I just limit my roleplaying until I get settled. After that, I only bring the essentials. The essentials being:

One set of armor and one or two weapons
A few potions against disease and for lightning fast healing in case I can't cast a restoration spell fast enough
Food
A few gems in case I need gold (I keep 80% of my gold at home to prevent myself from overspending on crap I won't need).

Yeah, so I'm pretty light on my feet considering I have Dragonscale Armor and only Dragonbane for my sword...until I find a better one handed sword that is.

Nope.