I am seriously afflicted. I've made about 30 characters, about 30 hours on one of them was my longest playtime.

It's incredibly annoying. I try to make a background for my characters etc. but either the game doesn't support it, or it's a massive pain to be roleplaying with.

Additionally it's hard to get my characters to look right, and even if they do, there's always something like floating quivers that put me off.

Basically, does anyone have any tips to alleviate this?

self control

i am also affected and fighting it. i keep wanting to start new characters, since i oversaved my main by mistake.


but not this time... i will play this character till he has nothing more to do

I suffered from this. Then I got Morrowind and I seem to be cured.

I guess my first question would be: what roleplay are you attempting that isn't supported by the game? In my opinion, out of all the TES games, Skyrim gives us the most options for roleplay- there are more clothing options, more 'jobs', more items in-game, etc. Is it something to do with guild questlines or something?

I think we've all gone through this at one point or another.

Oh man I'm the complete opposite. I usually only make one character. I don't have the attention span in any capacity to do all the work over again. I tried another Skyrim character. Tried to make a bad guy sort of. I got 9 hours in and haven't touched it since!

But on the other end of the scope, I'll take that one character and play it forever. I think I'm approaching 200 hours and haven't finished either the dragon or civil war story lines.

Well, sure, for one. There is no "good" guild (DLC doesn't count), like a paladin guild or something. If I want to be a sneaky good character, I have extremely few things I can reasonably do guild wise. Evil characters aren't a problem, the could do anything with the justification of payment, but I rarely play those sorts of characters. It doesn't help that the guilds are pretty shallow (thieves' has the best radiant quests though).

Additionally, the game feels very odd playing as anything but a Nord or an Imperial, especially due to the lack of unique dialogue for different races.

Then, other playstyles can't be reasonably done, eg. I'm forced to use enchanting and heavy armour to make a half-decent monk, which ends up being adverse to the actual role.

Apparently the game is best played as some amoral JoAT, preferably a human race, that's also a Vampire or Werewolf that does everything possible.

I've gone through that. Solution? Delete ALL the characters.
And start over. Try to play as much with this new character, give him/her a developed background, morals and traits, try to make the character as unique and fun as possible. And for a start, do not make any more characters (after that first one). Later, just play as many characters as you wish, but still try to be devoted to them all.

I suffer from this, but only after hitting lvl 50. My highest character was a lvl 59 vampiric high elf.

You know what. I might just. It worked in Fallout, maybe it will work here.

My newest character is an elemental Paladin-sort that goes around smiting evil-doers regardless of laws and vanquishing undead. He hunts down the Werewolves and Vamps that are a danger but will tolerate those that aren't. He isn't tied to a particular divine or anything but rather just judges his actions, not for whom, eg. he would kill a murderer even if that is what a Daedra wanted.

I suppose names are also a problem, he was supposed to have amnesia and could only remember a name "Zodiark" (FF12 ftw) which he used to call himself. But it's hard getting a name which is cool, but believable as well as unique.

Any RP ideas?

Restartitis? LOL. I get this sometimes.

Really? I find I can never start a character, I've made two ever since the beginning of the game, and have not been able to make more.

Again, this is just my opinion, but...TES has never had a 'good' guild. The mages' guild in Morrowind sent you to bully people and sometimes kill them. Their idea of guild quests was sending you to steal or trick someone. Same with the Thieves' guild. Oblivion had many of the same traits. I'm not sure what is different in Skyrim, unless this is your first TES game. There is the Vigilants of Stendarr (sp?) whom you can help to fight evil. I think most people who play 'good' characters in TES games don't join guilds, as they are always too murky morality-wise to justify in their roleplays.

You could always roleplay this type of character infiltrating a guild with the intent of cleaning it up once you become guild master, if that helps.

I don't agree about clothes, in Skyrim only few different clothings are available because each one is considered a full set, not like in previous games, where you could combine different clothes. Sadly, some cool-looking clothes (red robes, red hooded robes, green robes,...) can only be obtained via console on PC, it's a shame they aren't available in any store.
However, I agree about jobs, especially wood chopping - I really like that one.

And I suffered from restartitis too but got over it and managed to create few characters that I enjoyed for quite some time. Unfortunately, I haven't finished MQ with any of them yet.

Take time when planning a character then. Pick a race and make a backstory actually playable within the game.

I had the same issue as the OP. My first character was on Xbox and this was my first RPG so he was poorly planned so I started over a few times. I just didn't feel immersed in the world and didn't like the lack of realism (I loved hardcoe mode in NV). I have a pretty good PC so I grabbed Skyrim for PC so I could use some mods. It took forever to get it tweaked, modded, and running properly but I'm finally done with all that.

Recently, I've started over a few times as a nord warrior but didn't like one choice or another, but I just restarted for the last time. I've finally realized how much time I've wasted by starting over again and again. I made an archer/1H wood elf with a good backstory and morals.

Some advice:

Realize how much time you waste by constantly starting over
Pick one character you haven't really tried before
Give them a backstory with morals, habits, motives (basically some self-imposed rules to follow)
Download some mods you think are interesting if you're on PC

I'm a recovering restarter myself so feel free to ask any questions. Good luck!