The Elder Scrolls: How to approach for a beginner?!

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

The way I play these games is to pick my character before hand, and then make goals for what I want that character to do by the end...

For instance my latest character that I am playing now in Skyrim is a pirate. His personality is that he is charismatic, but lives only for gaining treasure. He duel wields Scimitars and focuses on speed, so light armour. He also conjours a pet (Polly the flame atronach at the mo.) So I am working on One-Handed, Conjuration, Speechcraft, Lockpicking, Light Armour and Smithing (So I can upgrade my armours.)

I then looked at the ultimate gear I could get for this set up for my character, and then work my way to it. So I have Dragon Born and want to get the Deathbrand set, so I am working through missions that will get me to the correct level and set up for that... He also uses his rebellious nature to join the Stormcloaks, his quest for riches and glory made him join the companions, and all his decisions are based on getting the most treasure/wealth... even if it involves taking the evil option (However he will get revenge on the evil as soon as he has been paid!) He also has an unhealthy obsession with hating other rival pirates, and does any quest relating to killing pirates or raiding ships!

That's pretty cool, I tend to play RPGs like that as well--only with Oblivion I didn't really have a clue about the mechanics, so i kinda just.. started.

And yeah, leveling system is pretty confusing. Think I have mostly figured it out by now, though.

Hmmm... Good point! I think the stat system is a bit easier to understand in Skyrim! It removes the attributes and replaces it with just increasing Stamina, Health and Magic, and then you level up your skills! Oblivion was kinda like the original Fallout games in a way... you have to completely make a character without any idea on how you would like to play, and you can quite easily make the game quite hard for yourself if you choose a bad set up early on!

 

[kingthrall]

The best way to play TES games in my mind is really to get in touch with your character, as cheesy and I expect a lot of lols from people saying this. You just got to say to yourself Oh my Character is an enchanter or a blacksmith so Ill develop and play the game like a semi-real character would and perform morale choices based upon your career/friendlyness.

One of the most fun characters I had with in Oblivion was the soilder character, just simply sword and shield and would be totally against any form of magic. Which kind of suited oblivion since they went down a poor choice of hateplaying on the necromancy.

Anyway you either love or hate TES series but you got to put the time into it, or its not worth it.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

The fact that everyone says, "Use a mod! It'll be better that way!" seems to indicate to me that the core games are uniformly boring. Experience has also led me to this conclusion, but it does make me wonder why Bethesda doesn't do more to adapt the popular mods into core gameplay for future installments....

They do that all the time.

Usually in [bold]DLC[/bold]. Dawngaurd, Hearthfire and Dragonborn were all heavily mod influenced.

If it's DLC, it's not part of the core game then. That's my only gripe about it. I shouldn't have to pay extra or go hunting for the mods (if they're free). Just implement them in the game please, Mr. Developer. This is especially frustrating when they see cool mods from Oblivion, but then don't apply any of the gameplay features in Skyrim. What's the point of getting community feedback then?

OT: My favorite way to play TES games is to turn off my PC or console and play some D&D or Pathfinder with friends. Way more fun.