I've been loving Skyrim and, minus its crippling bugs which will soon be fixed with a few more patches hopefully, it is without a doubt the greatest video game I have ever played. Never have I found a game world to be so immersive, so realistic and just so open. I have played open world games before, but none quite to a scale such as this. After the failure of my first character, which involved me making stupid decisions in quests to the point that I bugged the game out and took that as a sign to start afresh, I'm currently level 22 with a "jack of all trades" Nord. I'm a fan of RP and went for a Stormcloak based playthrough. After returning to Skyrim after many years, my character got captured during a confrontation between the Stormcloaks and Imperials. He was sent to the block, where luck would have it that a dragon would swoop out of the sky and trash the place. Escaping with one of the captured Stormcloaks, my character had not a penny to his name. After reaching a stables and scraping together a few Septims, he took a carriage to Riften where the Thieves' Guilds unhonest, but profitable, work earned him the necessary funds to travel to Falkreath. There, after helping out a cursed man suffering with the curse of the werewolf, he joined the Dark Brotherhood and returned them to their former glory. After all of this work, my character finally had the funds required to settle down in Whiterun where he planned to send word for his family to make the journey to Skyrim. However, after purchasing his house, he remembered a promise he had made to the man whom had helped him escape Helgen and ultimately was lead down a path to the discovery that he was Dragonborn. Helping Whiterun with its dragon problem, and completing the Greybeards' training regime, he sought out training in the magical arts at the College of Winterhold where he has since become the Arch Mage of. Now, with the dragon threat looming upon his homeland, he has reluctantly sided with the Stormcloaks to help end the war once and for all so that the people of his land will realize the dragon threat (he could hardly side with the Imperials after assassinating their Emperor for the Dark Brotherhood, after all). Although there is still much to do in this game, I am highly tempted to start a new character. I'd like to know which would be the best race for a) a Mage character focusing on magic and a hunter based character focusing on bows and daggers.

uh, I think you mean you restored the thieves guild to its former glory, not the DB, because in fact, the DB get worse when you completed the main questline (as they are the last remnants of the DB in all of Tamriel).

If it is for pure roleplay, I normally use the race that has the traits of the skills im after....Eg: I normally go with bretons or high/dark elves for mage classes and the bosmer for my rangers due to their racial traits and what they are 'known' for in the land of tamriel. I think how you roleplay a character is going to determine your decision in the end.

Personally, there's no need to select a race solely on racial bonuses. True, a wood elf starts out with some advantages as a ranger type (most notably archery) but you can quickly catch up with whatever race you choose. My first playthrough (which I abandoned for reasons similar to yours) was a Nord ranger type (dual-wield, archery, sneak) and he worked out just fine.

Yes this^. Though for some roleplayers it is a bit of a consideration depending on how you roleplay. Ive had a nord archer and imperial mage on some playthroughs with no difficulties since the racial perks are but a very small part of the character build IMO.

Ugh, spoiler. I know the game is 2 months old now, but not all of us played assassins on the first (two) playthroughs. /endwhine

Yep, could have easily said the same thing without the spoiler.