Very small detail, but choose your birth sign at the start, or better yet decide randomly; you don't realise it's worth until you find that stone.

Basically by making character builds that are interesting to play but suboptimal in terms of combat effiiciency.
Current one is a Breton Fire Spellsword with the priorities:
Alteration
Two Handed Weapons
Destruction
Illusion
Restoration
Conjuration
Health
Magicka
Stamina
No Armor
Birthsign: The Lady

Difficulty: Expert this time, Master if it gets to easy again. That may actually happen because Alteration and 2H are better then I thought they were.
Smithing: Only upgrade to Superior for the Sword and making Jewelry to get there.
Enhcanting: Only to make stuff that I think looks better with stats of stuff I already have.
Fast Travel: Okay if I already discovered lots of places along the way, Taxi allowed.
Followers: Never used them, to annoying.
Potions: No Restrictions but probably wont use it much.
Loot: No Restrictions, but I dont loot most of the Urns etc. and just take few random things among the way.
Saving: As much as I want because the game crashes every couple of hours and I hate to replay things.

I'll share few I'm doing with my oldish Argonian warrior:
- He isn't in top physical condition anymore so I lowered his movement speed to 80% (player.forceav SpeedMult 80).
- I don't use armors that my character wouldn't want to wear. Especially those helmets that don't change shape to fit an Argonian's snout.

- No magic of any kind (only shouts)
- No enchanting of any kind
- No smithing improving potions (or items)
- Fast travel only with carriages (costs money and not every place has them)
- If a companion dies, he's dead
- Eat some food every day. After long waiting or sleeping eating and drinking is required

- In a blizzard wear warm clothes or drink a frost resistance potion
- No swimming in an icy lake

One of my Bosmer characters refused to eat anything but meat. Also wouldn't gather any growing plants for alchemy, so that highly restricted what potions could be made.

Heh, this is actually a pretty cool thing to implement, didn't know about that possibility. I always felt that my character was moving too fast. Thanks a lot my friend. Speaking of the console: any other commands that you guys would think help gameplay variations that could make a playthrough more interesting (according to your taste, of course)?

You can set your max carry weight with:

player.forceav carryweight number

Hey Free Skyrim,

I love your idea of increasing difficulty when fighting dragons. I was hoping for a mod that would make dragons much more special, in other words way less of them and way tougher fights. But in the meantime this idea from you sounds like a reasonable alternative. Love the idea of smithing/crafting too, will try that myself.

I self gimp by roleplaying a particular character type. For example I'm playing a wildsman type character so don't use spells, wouldn't for a knight type either.

For potions I limit myself to carrying only 5, or 10 if I'm a magic wielding character, side effect of this is food becomes useful. Poisons I count seperate, though I haven't played a thief or assassin type yet, I'd probably limit 5 too.

For inventory I keep it realistic, imagine I'm carrying a small satchel and don't carry more than I would be able to hold in real life. This is a severe gimping because I wouldn't be carrying around a heavy suit of armour while already wearing one, so it gimps your income massively.

I have disabled automatic health regeneration in the HUD via the console but I can't remember the command now. I have disabled all quest markers completely, removed the compass and have considered not allowing ymself to open the map because its a silly 3D thing, if it was a paper map I'd be happy. At the moment I'm still using the map, but am thinking of using only the paper one that game with the game instead.

If I die i take out the disc and break it in half.

Now that is awesome! I really need to get up to speed in terms of console usage, I only use codes to free myself and NPCs out of merging with the enviroment and getting stuck in it. Thanks buddy, removing automatic health regen is a very nice addition.

My rules:

Companion DiD
Can only change companion if the current one dies (Lydia still going strong)
After reaching Riverwood the first time can only use self-crafted items (potions/weapons/armour). Given or found items must be sold, dis-enchanted or stored without use. (Don't feel comfortable running around in someone else's trousers!)
Crafting materials, ingredients, lockpicks and spells can be bought as well as used if found
No fast travel (I'm more than happy wandering around, sunsets and the night sky are worth seeing!)
Autosaves only
Three meals a day
Sleep in owned bed at least once every 24 hours

Hey look, it s another MMORPG term that crept its way into a single player game, like "unbalanced" or "OP"

Hey look, it's another player who actually takes the time to enter a thread and write something that has absolutely nothing to do with the subject.

You contribute nothing other than showing the color of your own pointless, unimaginative, adolescent bile and expect to be regarded as a typical single-player game type? Yours is the attitude that stinks of sad, lonely MMO players.

I have one for you, it doesn't have anything to do with the mechanics of the game though, more of a HC mode from NV thing.
Make sure you eat 3 meals a day with mead of course

lol I actually ported this method from HC F:NV and it works great. I just wish we could have different types of beverages in terms of effects. Something like a strong nord drink that knocks you out of your feet would be awesome, lot of RP possibilities with the drunk motiff.

Well, I've already done my warrior character, for my next one I'm going with a sneaky mage. I will wear robes and not craft anything, with the exception of improving weapons and armour to the degree my base smithing skill will allow.

ooops, sorry wrong thread...



as for contribution...

Nord
Farmer
wears only clothes / hide armor
does only jobs on farms, harvesting, chopping wood, picking ingredients, mixing potions, cooking... and selling all of these, speech tree
no fast travelling, if so , only by carriage
weapons are Woodcutters axe and pickaxe, 1h skill tree
some archery for the elk and deer
alchemy
light armor
restoration (you d expect a man of the land to be able to cast this)

I'm fairly certain this is the first time I have played a game where the community as a whole has to come up with creative ways to make the game more challenging within the first month of release. This is something I might expect to see on the forums of a game that has been out for 1 year+ but 1 month? This game really needs a overhaul. Even on master difficulty its a joke.

Damn! In this case, totally my bad for going snapy-snaperson on you.

As for your Farmer motiff, I actually like this idea a lot. Hummm, maybe will try rolling one and see how it goes.

Not in my opinion, but a open world RPG is meant to be played creatively, hence Role Playing Game.....a lot of people do it to add to the immersion as well.

I think bigcrazewolf have a point there Benny. Granted, I can agree on some issues that I think are "broken" in the vanilla version. The thing is I recognise that what may seem broken for me is maybe what others will call 'awesome'. Despite the subjective nature of taste, I still like threads like this, regardless of how well-designed the system is/isn't. For me it's a way to spice things up, it keeps the pace varied and prevents me from burning out. Like I said in the OP, it's less about making it more challenging and much more about finding what turn other players on and help them enjoy the game in unique ways.

i don t think it s the challenge, rather than not having distinguishable classes anymore, so we come up with some of our own...

That's cool you ported it, and yes a wider range of drinks would be sweet......I'll go out on a limb an say we will get them at some point, with mods that is

Here's how I play, and I don't feel overpowered AT ALL. I'm currently at lvl 23, about 55 hours in, and I frequently have to bow out of boss fights and come back later.

Difficulty: Adept.
Playstyle: All out warrior using no spells at all.
Weapons: I love 2 handers and bows, and I love unique weapons, so I'm sporting an un-enchanted Skyforge Steel Greatsword I made myself. I also carry a Dwarven bow with Soul Trap that I found. I won't keep it, tho, I don't like the look of Dwarven gear so hopefully I'll be able to make myself an Ebony one soon when my Smithing is up to par.
Armor: Steel Plate, again, homemade. Best looking armor in the game for my character, and I doubt i'll wear anything else just to bump my armor rating.
Skills: Two Handed, Block, Archery, Smithing, (Sneak, just because I snipe with my bow and Sneak levels unintentionally), and then I might start to get into Alchemy or possibly even Enchanting soon as I'm running low on potions and I want to be able to name my weapons.

I've played the way I want to play, exploring with no end goal in mind, taken perks here and there when they seemed relevant. For instance, if I felt like I was starting to have troubles in fights, I'd start picking a few Two-Handed perks to boost my combat. If I'm doing good in combat, I'll work on my smithing perks etc. I don't train skills, I only get what comes naturally, and I don't power-boost skills like Smithing either. When I have enough ingredients I make some cool stuff that I may keep, may give to a follower, or in some cases I sell it if I need gold for something specific. My guy loves to Smith, and whenever he's in Whiterun, he'll hang out at the Skyforge and chat it up, smith some cool stuff etc.

I don't power-loot either. I only take nice stuff that can fetch a good price, or that I want to give to a follower or possibly use myself. I don't travel back and forth between dungeons and cities to sell every bit of loot I find. If I'm at my max capacity, I'll be even more selective in my looting. I don't just head to the nearest city and sell it all off and go back for more.

I don't fast travel, ever. Twice have I used the carriage service because I role played my character. He had traveled around the mountains fighting all kinds of critters for about a week, and he was tired, so he took the carriage home.

Everything I do I do from a role playing perspective. The key is not overpowering myself for Adept skill level. That lets me put perks in non-combat skills, and as a result I've developed a real and whole personality for my character. He's a self sufficient guy who lives off the land, only takes what he needs, and always give a few coins to the poor. I have a humble abode in Whiterun with a few nice looking swords on the walls, and about 2000 gold in the chest.

That's it. Nothing fancy, and I'm enjoying the hell out of it! I don't know that it's self-gimping, but it surely has balanced the game out nicely for me, and I feel real good about being able to use various skills without thinking about under-leveling or over-leveling.

no potions
no training
dead is DEAD (damn you, Frost Troll of High Hrothgar!)

signed