I'm about to create a new character, and I would like to be fully immersed in the world of Skyrim with this character. The most prominent reason i'm creating a new character is because I power leveled on my last one, and realized this is a mistake. I power-leveled since I wanted the best gear at it's highest potential, including artifacts. On this character, I would like to play more realistically, and feel "weaker" and more of a part of the world, as opposed to an ultimate hero who no one stands a chance against. Since i am embarking on this new adventure, I would like tips on becoming more immersed in the world, and I will add those tips to post. Thanks in advance!

Forget about leveling and quests and make it your sole purpose to be drunk all the time.

decorate your living room with backwards flying dragons and with real life replicas of adventures with an arrow in the knee.

If you're talking about immersion in the role-playing sense, some of the classics are:

1. Stop to eat food and drink here and there along your journeys.
2. Sleep when appropriate, and when your character is tired.
3. Stop at local taverns while in town for the conversation and take a load off.
4. Move through dungeons and ruins slower (walking part of the time versus always running). Take in the sights.
5. Avoid treacherous environments like the harsh tundra or rocky cliff faces unless absolutely necessary or a quest takes you there.

etc. etc. etc.

I'd suggest having your character's traits already in mind before you start the game and have a general idea of what kind of person you want to be (perhaps only do things that you would do in real life, or set moral standards for your character) and heres another idea; play on master and with only one combat style. my nest playthrough i plan on using heavy weapons as ive barely even touched them this 1st playthrough lol

Role-play. Make up your character's backstory, with companions pretend they are a lot more indepth and make up personalities for them. Imagination is your friend.

Just live like a normal adventurer would. Eat about 2-4 meals a day, sleep, and don't try to help everyone. Also, don't do every guild and stufd, that's unrealistic.

Lets get tight with a sturdy pitcher of mead!

1. Ignore bodily functions and hunger in real life.
2. Rig your keyboard/controller so that when you die ingame, you get fatally electrocuted IRL.
3. Get someone to shoot you in the knee with a bow and arrow.

Seriously! If bad weather screw up my summer vacation I plan on playing a drunkard khajiit again. It was great fun in Oblivion, and excotic because I can't stand the taste of alcohol in rl.

Maybe OP, you should just try and forget about the storyline. Imagine yourself being lost in the woods from the beginning, kill some
bandits and take their camp, and start your quest for survival the next day by following above posters advices. When you are immersed in your character it is time to pay attention to less mundane objectives.

Go with everyone else's alcoholic advice, don't fast travel, feel real joy when you finally get a pint in the next town. Go to UESP, don't worry, it's the type of information your character could find out, write down a list of every tavern, and just do the big northern pub crawl. Who knows what trouble you will find on the way?

Disable the compass and no fast travel.

dont fast travel
dont buy ingredients for smithing, u can powerlvl smithing BUT only use the ingrediaents U PICKED out in the wild
eat and sleep at least once a day, sit down in ur house or at a tavern when u do it
have a playset in mind before u start, a background story if u will about ur charector and what he excells and what he dosent in at beginning
dotn help everyone, if ur planning on imperial in future dont help the greymanes for example
have fun and take ur time and take in the sights explore!

Also awesoem thing happened today was exploring and came across tree that was fallen and it went across a waterfall to another side of mountain. It was HIGH up there and im taking in the sights and lo and behold theres a bandit there sitting on it. I bring out my bow....then im like screw that gonna go in meleeing. i charge in on this tree with hardly any room to manuver and im going toe to toe with this bandit ,he aint no slouch bout killed me>. we both get down to low health and i do a power atk and cut off his head, mind u paned out and it was awesome looking! Bandit body slide down and fell down the waterfall and i just stood there like.............that was freakign cool. moral of this story, look at each situation and dotn always go the easy way out, step up soemtimes and challenge urself and pay attention to whats going on around. 160 hours in and im still seeing new stuff happening traveling the roads and wilderness..........................i gotta go find that tree again on my new playthru.





top killa----how do u disable the compass? i knew hwo to in FO but dotn knwo if its the same in this game. if u knwo the commands be mighty preciated.

Definitely this. Adding: Also try to go eveywhere on foot (or horseback). If you're into developing stealth skills, try sneaking everywhere (at a run) while traveling. This builds skill development and increases your reaction time to enemies like bandits/wild animals on the road. Also avoid fast traveling as it will cause you to miss out on the random world occurences. When traveling/adventuring on the road, try to establish a routine.

6. If on the road, try setting up camp an hour or so after sunset---say around 7-8pm or so. Try to find and clear out a bandit camp or find a deserted campsite to make camp each night. Then spend 1hr doing some foraging around for herbs/hunting/fishing for dinner before making camp. Then bring the food back to camp and cook dinner for that night and the following day. Nothing beats having several horker loaves or venison chops handy to restore your health while getting mauled by a bear or saber cat during combat! Also keep 8-10 stews handy for post battles like those. The beef/venison/Eider cheese fondue and venison stews come in real handy in slowly regenerating your health--especially if you're out of healing potions and/or have low magicka.

7. Inclement weather: In case of blizzards and rain, try seeking shelter in whatever caves you might encounter. Make camp near the inside entrace of the cave--but try to avoid exploring the cave area. Doing so could end up breaking a quest. Just hang out near the mouth of the cave and wait the 7-8 hrs or so until morning. Also note if you've already explored a cave, it's possible the enemy NPCs/animals may not have respawned. So this might give you an opportunity to sleep in any vacant beds there and wake up well rested.

8. For the ultimate experience (and if you enjoy wasting energy), turn on the AC when you're in the colder regions of Skyrim. Try doing this in the Skyrim regions where it typically snows like in Windhelm and Morthal. I'm in N. California and it's currently winter here. So I just open the windows sometimes and let the 35F cold air into my game for free !

note: I typically forage and live off the land as I go, so becoming unnecessarily encumbered is an ongoing challenge. The more encumbered you get, the harder it is for you to maneuver in a fight. And this really blows if you're trying to escape being killed in a fight. So try minimizing the amount of loot you acquire as much as possible. For example, don't tan any animal pelts you skin from hunting into leather because these weigh more. Same thing for converting reagents into potions with random crafting stations you encounter in the wilderness. Don't make potions unless they're directly useful in combat (like health, magkica, stamina and invisibility potions. The only other things you should be making that have weight is food.

The exception to this is if you're reasonably close to a village/town/hold within a 2-3 hr walk before sunset. If you know for a fact that the nearest settlement doesn't have a specific crafting station (like a grindstone or tanning rack), but has a forge, then you might want to consider using the crafting equipment you encounter en route to that settlement. This will increase your production efficiency in crafting weapons and armor when you arrive at that settlement. Finally, don't forget to use your smithing skill at every opportunity you get. Just remember that improving items when smithing are not cumulative--but they DO stack with enchantments. So on your travels, always improve your weapons and armor BEFORE enchanting them and practice this often.

turn off the music

Turn up difficulty, turn off the HUD.

Don't buy or make ANYTHING... except maybe a house.

Everything you wear, all weapons, all potions, jewelry... everything must be found while exploring or stolen.

-Don't fast travel for the most part
-Eat at least once a day
-Rent a room at a tavern and spend the night when you get to a town or city
-When using the 'wait' mechanic, I try to make sure I'm in a place where it's plausible to wait, like a tavern - as opposed to waiting in the middle of the street for hours on end.
-Most importantly, for me, is to decide my character's traits, abilities and who I will and will not deal with from the start. I also tweak characters using the console; for example my current character is very short and stocky for a Nord, but has enhanced skills in certain areas and can use Berserker rage. Yeah, technically it's cheating, but who cares? if it helps with immersion and, just as importantly, fun, then it's all good in my book.

if you on pc download the no fast travel mod. If you want to take it a step furher search for skyrim immersive HUD where you have options to remove the compass and waypoints.

I have a different style to get myself immersed in the game.

Every day after work I get home, take off my shirt and smear jelly all over my chest, turn on the computer after washing my hands, chant Fus-Do-Rah as I smash my fists on the computer desk then start the game.

Yea get yourself a horse as others pointed out. Just make sure you set yourself up with Horse AI mods.

Search for cowardly horses which makes them run off a distance and sit tight if you take aggro. Also look for the Horse whistle mod, part of the script extender which allows you to call your horse to you (it actually walks towards you) or whistle your last ridden horse to warp at your locale which is the better work around than fast travelling to find where your vanished horse went.

Turn off the music. Trust me.

I did a similar thing and my new character is 41 and still a challenge and overall blast to play.

First off, create a sort of personality of your character. Your don't have to go deep into Rp by creating a back story or whatever if you don't want. Just a basic framework, is your character a [censored] bag? Will they steal? Kill anyone who insults them? Will they do all they can to help others?

Then stick to your characters personality and set some appropriate rules.

First rules I set was no crafting my own gear. I still level smithing but only got the two perks required to improve magic items. This restricts me to finding gear and improving it myself, but no perks means I can't do it to god like levels.

Since alchemy and enchanting fit my character I did the same with them. Level them but no perks. Gives me extra power and tools without being too much. Added benefit is it levels me which scales up the world without making me more powerful, so more challenge.

I also chose to be reasonable on my equipment, glass armor is better then the forsworn armor ink wearing but it looks ridiculous and doesn't fit my character. So I stick to the leather and animal fur stuff as it's more appropriate, also means if I [censored] up I usually die in a hurry.

I only loot appropriate items, no heavy armors or two handers since I would never use them. Really just stick to gems, gold and the extremely valuable.

Lastly I waited until 35 to start the Mq. My character was well established and it seemed more appropriate to become three reluctant hero then, rather then at level 5. The game did well scaling the first dragon up as it destroyed me several times before I took it down. The first wild dragon I saw was an elder dragon, skipped the weak ones entirely. I've also seen much less random spawns. Waiting combined with my Rp playing a more realistic character has made every dragon battle an epic engagement, and the first time I killed a dragon and saw a dragon priest pop out of a coffin was a most memorable experience with this character. When even wild bears could kill you if you're caught off guard an encounter with a dragon is much more meaningful.

Its rather difficult to immerse oneself in two inches of lard.

Lots of good suggestions here.

One thing I decided with both my characters is how much they would 'know' about what has gone on and is going on in the world around them. I the player know a heck of lot of 'lore and history' from other games and how it all fits together in the big story. What parts would my characters know though. What do they care about in life. Did they live a fairly sheltered life before appearing in Skyrim or are they more worldly. So for example my Nord comes from a more peasant like village situation. Hadn't travelled tons etc. Then suddenly she's thrown into this 'bigger' story. So she reacts and does things with this in mind. In the Whiterun quests she reluctently followed the guards out to tower and fighting the dragon freaked her out. She utterly stank at fighting it and when the whole Dragonborn thing came up she thought 'screw this I'm not going to the Greymanes' and using this shout thing. She just wants to live without a whole lot of fuss but durn it all these things keep being thrown at her. So right now if she meets
up with a Dragon she tries to run. lol

My other character comes from a more worldly back ground. Already has some basic skills in combat and is more accepting and excited that she might be this 'special' person. She more apt to try to do things beyond her abilities. So visit the Greymanes? Yeah lets get on with it. This is exciting.