I have this thing about not saving. I do actually save the game at certain points, but I do my best not to save the game regularly. I only allow Auto-Save on rest.

But sometimes I will dare the game to try and kill me again before I reach a certain point... I get bloody-minded, especially if the game keeps killing me at the same spot! For example.

I was marching to some place near Whiterun from Windhelm. I usually Save just after leaving a city and just before anything interesting. Well this time I forgot. Got south of the Pale after many incidents and killing random creatures with Lydia and my pet dog when I saw a Sabretooth tiger up ahead... the Tiger was relaxed and didn`t seem to have noticed me. I wanted to attack, but when I looked behind me, Lydia was still far away (as usual) struggling to get up the Mountain slopes...

While I was looking at her meandering up, I heard a `thum-thum-thum` and turned around to see the sabretooth Tiger leap at my face and instantly kill me! It actually made me jump almost out of my chair!

I had to Reload all the way back to Windhelm. I went all the way to the same spot and REFUSED to Save all the way. The game wasn`t going to beat me.

Hmm.. No sabretooth Tiger this time...

Dragon pops up. i`m caught in the open, i try to run to safety- I`m NOT Saving! Dragon burns me to a crisp.

Reload. Went to the same spot but this time, skirted all the way around really carefully until I made Whiterun- then Saved.

Just me I guess.

I might save less often if I didn't have to worry about the game freezing, or possible bugs triggering.

After lv 30 or so, death wasn't as much as a concern. I'll let the game autosave during area transition only, and then I'll manually save every 10 levels and prior to entering dungeons. I'll also manually save if I've done something significant outdoors and the game hasn't autosaved in a while, as I'd hate to have the game freeze after slaying a dragon, getting a new shout, and etc.