hi everybody,

i created a thread like this a while ago on he OB forums, and decided to make another one out of personal interest....

does anybody do what i call "normal roleplaying"

NP is basically playing an avatar who lives a "normal" life, they will not be heros or warriors or mages- more like farmers and miners and tradesmen- though you can actually roleplay any job in skyrims economy - right from a barmaid to a jarls advisor, its very variad and fun.

to really get maximum fun out of it you need the counsle commands, so you can add money after a "shift" at work,

you choose a lot about your chracter, like what there like, what they want in life, if they have any family and where they will live.

because of marriage in the game, you can actually get practically any house or property you want, (councole commands ) , and if you dont like the person you can simply kill them, and pretend you have always owned the property, or you rent it or you inherited it.

sometimes you have to black out certain bits for the story to fit ( like if you killed the npc you married just to get the property you ignore oyu did that) - and also the beggining aswell sometimes.

at the moment im doing an interesting normal playthrough, im RP an male redguard, i killed falandil ( his name?) and now pretend i own his stall in whiterun, i placed basckets around the stall and on it, and removed all the meats, hes is a weaver who makes and sells basckets for a liveing at his whiterun stall, he has to pay tax to the jarl, and its a hard life-he has his eyes on ysolda.

there is another added bit i have never done before, im pretending carolina valentina (or the lady who sells vegetables on the next stall) is my redguards divorced wife, mia is there child, he gives 100 septims a week to he upbringing,

he earns 700 septims a weak, 500 septims goes to the jarl, 100 to mia upbringing, as his personality skill incrases, he will earn more ( so if i got the 10% perk my income goes up by 70 septims)

thats it really, it can be quite difficult at times, but in the end its really satisfying and fun as oyu chracter develpoes

if you do this or something similar, please share you stories, im really interested to know if im the only person who does this- ow and please dont scoff at this topic

fisher

Sounds a lot like meta-gaming to me.

My RP's generally have my character follow one focused path, be it warrior, rogue or mage. Never joins factions or takes on quests that wouldn't make sense for that path. Never randomly kills NPC's as the character considered them people too. Marriage only if certain as it is a lifetime commitment.

i see, well i play roughly 50:50 on the normal role play vs normal roleplay

Eh, I know people who do that, but it never sounded like fun to me. Too much like RL, which is NOT why I play CRPGs after all.

oww, its great to know other people who do that!

I do it all the time, and in answer to above I suppose it is meta-gaming, but I like to be both player and GM since I don't feel the game can fully support a 'normal' character without mods and player intervention.

The moment the CS is out, I plan to make a Bard character to join the Bards Col. She will be a pretty normal person, though still Dragonborn eventually perhaps. But it will be a product of the roleplay, if it happens, rather than any sort of attempt to follow the MQ. As a 'normal' person, she may never actually finish it - some of the things you end up doing will be too scary or 'impossible'.

the problem as i see it is that no matter how hard your character tries they are still the only hope of the world.

they can mine, smelt, farm etc but the reality is that their destiny remains.


my character mines ore all the time....only to better her blacksmithing.

I did the complete MQ on one toon. That's it. It was okay.... not NEARLY as cool as Arena or Daggerfall MQs though. The rest of my toons from now through the end of my time playing this sort of game will RP whatever floats my boat at the moment of a toon's "birth". They have no destiny.... and they never will.

If it was possible to have some quests to go along with this kind of playing I would do it, but really, what do you even do while playing this kind of character?

Stand behind your stall for 12minutes or whatever a day is in real time, re-arrange some baskets? console in some money, give a lot of money away (I don't get how you even do that apart from reverse pickpocket or console again) go home and eat/sleep. Start again the next day.. Wow that sounds like fun

Can you describe a few days of what your basket case character does?

EDIT: I'm not completely writing off the idea of a normal working character but the baskets thing especially makes no sense at all. Why not be a hunter and sell meat/pelts. Or a blacksmith and go mining, and craft weapons/armor or an apothecary and collect and sell ingredients and make potions etc.

At least that way you could actually sell the stuff to the other traders to simulate stock rotation and give yourself a real income to work with, rather than an over-inflated console salary..

When mods come around it will be easier, because admittedly I struggle with vanila games.

The requirement to eat and drink (or hardcoe mode, as New Vegas tagged it) is a big part. It gives food a purpose. It also gives your normal character a REASON to do the 'normal' jobs. Generally I walk each place, running only when in danger, and just... 'live'. Its not a good idea to build outside what the game can handle, such as stall-keeping as you note how dull that would be, but there are avenues that a 'normal' person can follow that the game does accomidate - and encourage you to do more than sit in a single town bored stupid.

Alchemy; it encourages travel to gather things, and to earn gold to buy what you can't find. Hunting; a normal lifestyle, that gives plenty of opertunity to fall into excitement. And being an actual Imperial Soldier or Stormcloak works too; hire a follower or two and equip them in Imperial/Stomcloak armor and patrol the province. Roleplaying doesn't always mean doing everything in the most boring way possible; it's generally approaching the game in as if the player character were a deep and developed character, and building a story for them as things progress. Giving your character a semi-normal lifestyle as far as that goes in Skyrim. I make boring characters that chop wood and take care of a farm, but what I want to do, and will when the CS comes out, is to make a travelling Bard.

first of all, very sorry for not getting back to you, ill try and exsplain this as best as i can....

the thing is, you have to think as if there real, this means that some local minor quests that normal person will do, sorta like helping somebody irl....also, he has a sort of weekly schedule, when he can earn enough money he will have weekends off, he can do whatever he likes then.

marriage is another nice thing you can sow into there lives, my chracter has a real eye for ysolda, it was litrally love at first sight, ive never really noticed how pretty she was until he came along.

he has the mammoth tusk- he has 3 in fact , since his spot of mammoth bairting got a bit out of hand...

basically, its a lot more than just eating sleeping, working- you invent new things to keep it interesting, like he may do stuff to his enimies, or do something nice to a friend, he may go away for a weekend, have holidays, do some minor quests...even visit his sister!

just because they are "normal people" dosent mean they cant pick up a sword, show a bit of courage, or be the towns celbrity- it just means that there lives arnt focused on fame or glory.

also you have to take things into account, like what there hobbies are, if there relgious, do they want to do a bit of travelling....

from you post, i have a sense that you may be interested in the concept of it, i strongly reccomend to anybody to give it a go- its actually really fun and it shows you a differant side to skyrim.

fisher

PS. if your on the pc, its a lot better with a few console commands, if you need any at all private message me or ask on this thread