becauseIhadto

Clear problems with the game for RPing: -Lack of follower depth (loved my companions in Dragon Age) -Lack of NPCs in general -Lack of dialogue options Great aspects of the game that support RPing: -The leveling system and skills -Overlapping function of skills -Flexibility of the quest system -- even if it is really buggy Things a person can do to enhance their RPing experience: ----Run multiple characters. This is important: Skyrim is huge. There is no believable individual who will become the leader of every guild faction, explore every dungeon, and finish every job available. RPing means making choices, and sometimes, that means turning down a quest or not dealing with a character. Metagaming reasoning: This also allows you to experience as much of Skyrim as possible, especially in regards to skills, quests, and races. e.g., I'm currently running: Tornus (Redguard, m, knight/cleric) Wrognar (Orsimer, m, mercenary and weapons master) Sonja (Nord, f, ranger) Justine (Imperial, f, pure wizard) Dar'Sinyat (Khajit, m, rogue/assassin) --Will likely have a several more by the time I'm onto a different RPG. This list is also missing the five characters I've already retired. ----Create a back story for your character. Prejudices, motivations, family history, philosophy, and so on. Determine their worldview and knowledge: are they well-versed in history, a child who grew up on the legends of their people, or an ignorant mercenary with no concern for such things? e.g., My newest character is Justine. Her mother, an Imperial Legate, met her father, a noble of High Rock, during the Great War. Despite the peace brought by the White-Gold Concordat, her mother's actions during the war had earned the attention of Thalmor agents. As a child, she was swept to the Imperial City by her nursemaid -- her parents usurped and their lands stolen by distant relatives, puppets of the Aldmeri Dominion. Justine spent her youth as a student of the Synod, her nursemaid -- now godmother -- working in Leyawin to raise the money for her tuition. Justine was a shrewd student whose poor background was a development from affluence. She has a keen understanding of social situations and is a talented magic user with a knack for picking locks. Though honouring a basic sense of morality instilled by her parents and godmother, her exposure to the harshness of life has bred a willingness to explore extreme solutions. Her godmother, however, had worked long and hard -- time had caught up, and she too died before Justine's tutelage was complete. Unable to afford to continue her studies in the Imperial City, Justine set off for Skyrim after a former classmate told her about a college in the north that was accepting talented students with no charge. Her course clear, the daughter of slain parents set off to finally gain the power necessary to retake the legacy that had been stolen more than twenty years ago. ----Based on your character's history, choose quests and explore in that mindset. You can also extend this to every choice you make in the game: what loot do you keep? How do you approach combat? Which *order* are you going to do some quests in? Do you pick locks? Do you sneak? e.g., In terms of gameplay, with this character I'll be playing all the way through the main quest, Civil War, Mage's College, Dark Brotherhood, as well as make a point of dungeon exploration in terms of "scholarly pursuits" and magical artifacts. She will join the Imperial side during the Civil War, but not before becoming the Thane of the Holds that are already friendly to the Imperials. Her political acumen suggests it is better to wait until the Holds loyal to Ulfric have been conquered to curry their favour so as to avoid developing a duplicitous reputation. In order to find a suitable long-term follower and develop an initial connection to organized crime -- a necessity for any politician -- she will join the Thieves' Guild and put in some minor work for them. Once developed initially in the Thieves' Guild, Justine's exposure to the underworld will lead her to seek contact with the Dark Brotherhood, and her morality will motivate her to control their activity by becoming the Listener. ----Download mods designed with realism and immersion in mind. Put either one of these words in the search field on the Nexus and you'll get some interesting hits. I use several mods geared towards this purpose, such as: Enhanced Dynamic Weather System, More Snow, More Rain, Immersive Skyrim Thunder v5 Every City has Various Guards TS Edition Lost Art of the Blacksmith, Val's Crafting Meltdown, Maker's Mark Ingots Lore Friendly Armor Pack, Scout Armor, Lord Armor, Bucklers, Fur Hoods Weapons of the Third Era, JaySus Swords Equipable Map Combat Realism Balanced Magic, Midas Magic Imperials Wear Heavy Armor, Dark Elven Equipment - Thalmor Standalone Edition, Stormcloaks - Tartan and Chainmail Sounds of Skyrim, audio replacements by john129pats, Malukah instead of the "female even toned" bard, and Lore-friendly Irish Flute Music --I'm missing a bunch here, just take a gander on the Nexus and you'll find some amazing contributions.

Someone linked to this thread from the comments section of that mod. Hell, I thought this was a change request to nockcha's work.

Exactly this. Once the CK comes out, it would be a really cool idea for an optional quest to make peace with the College or exterminate the mages -- if you make peace, some of the Hold's guards become Battlemages and the dialogue options negative towards the College disappear. If you win, the resources of the College remain, but the mages are driven out. Could even be part of a longer "Winterhold Campaign," in which the town is rebuilt and you hunt down the few wizards who managed to escape the Jarl's wrath . However, in the absence of CK-driven mods, the schism between the people of the Hold -- the only recruits for the Jarl's guards, a critical unit fulfilling both military and law enforcement needs -- and the mages of the College clearly demonstrates a reason for the lack of wizards in the Winterhold Guard. An extra point of support: Enthir is probably only able to keep his line to the black market open because the townspeople fear and distrust him simply as a mage. As such, his comings and goings at the inn are largely ignored -- preoccupied with the fear that he might turn them into frogs or burn down their houses, they wouldn't even consider the fact he might be trading in Black Soul Gems or highly-controlled College alchemy recipes. Also, RE: Imperial guards in Solitude, saw a few people complaining about this one -- makes perfect sense to me. When a ruler of a monarchy -- a totalitarian governinng organization -- dies, the only lasting, peaceful result is dependent on a rare set of conditions: an heir that is of age, holds the unified support of the military, people, and government, and possessive of sufficient military, political, economic, and diplomatic acumen to guide their nation through times of prosperity, famine, and war. The most common result, conversely, is war. Skyrim is a parallel of our own world in many ways: the Septim Empire's presence in Skyrim closely resembles the interventions of many Western nations in the political affairs of smaller nations throughout history, leading back hundreds of years. One could argue that this mod makes this comparison more poignant -- when the forces of America and the UK entered Iraq, they replaced a deposed totalitarian leader with their own combination of military and civilian governors (Tullius and the Thalmor.) When they did so, the law enforcement and military forces were completely disbanded, filling the ranks of the insurgents -- in the game's case, Stormcloaks, in Iraq, the Sunni/Shi'ite factions. Initially, their now empty roles were filled by members of the US military. Later, these Marines and soldiers were assisted by Iraqis, soldiers and police that were the result of an American-lead, all-Iraqi recruitment drive. Baghdad was filled with heavily armoured American soldiers (Cyrodillic Imperial Legates) and their newly-recruited Iraqi counterparts (Nords in the service of the Empire.) I love the feel of this mod, and personally, there is not a bit of it that feels in any way unrealistic or out of lore. It fits with the analysis of Skyrim's economy by the author of the Maker's Mark Ingots mod, and given the reflections from our own world, the mod especially helps to highlight the politics of Skyrim. Note: I also use a version of the Stormcloaks with a blue tartan over a padded cloth cuirasse and a chainmail tunic. I find the Stormcloak mod furthers this comparison with another example from our history -- Rome's military invasion of ancient Britain -- and overall enhances the Gaelic elements of Skyrim over the Scandinavian influences. From an immersion perspective, it also emphasizes the already-present notion that the Stormcloaks are Nord traditionalists: they have abandoned the protection of steel armour and shields in favour of the hides and fearsome weapons of their forebears, heroes who had swept the Nords' enemies from Skyrim in ancient times, besting all manner of foes from great beasts to the armies of the Mer and the hordes of Alduin. This romantic notion -- the idea of being a "Son of Skyrim" -- is the main form of recruitment for the Stormcloaks, and it's supported by Ulfric's demonstration of his ability to use the Thu'um. The reality being, of course, that Windhelm is a depopulated Hold without the resources to properly equip a military for war against the Empire, even as fractured as it is -- their weapons are crude and armour light because Ulfric lacks the support he needs from the Jarls of the larger, richer Holds in the west of Skyrim. Ulfric's victory relies on the ability to consolidate a majority of Skyrim in order to force the compliance of the rest in unification first against the Empire, and then ultimately the Thalmor -- a war that will likely require the combined forces of all free nations of Tamriel. Similarly, the Empire only intervened in the first place because it requires a unified Skyrim in order to achieve victory over the Thalmor in open war. The ill-equipped nature of the Stormcloaks -- even without the extra Stormcloak tartan mod -- when contrasted to the heavily armoured Imperials in Solitude and camps beyond is a wonderful way of visually expressing the many differences between the two factions.

Mods generally come in three flavours: -Textures -Meshes -.esp or .esm files (working code that changes the behaviour of the game) Textures and Meshes are files that can be overwritten. For example, I use Skyrim HD 2K's texture pack, but I've overwritten the flora textures from Skyrim HD 2K and the vanilla meshes (since Skyrim HD is just textures, and thus did not overwrite any vanilla meshes) with Vurt's Overhaul. If you delete a texture or mesh, do not get scared -- this is actually how these mods are uninstalled. The vanilla texture will restore itself automatically from the appropriate .bsa file, no fuss, no muss. This also means: don't touch the .bsa files. .esp and .esm files, on the other hand, are subject to a specific load order: if you want a mod's function to over-write a conflicting function in another mod, put it later in the load order. For instance, I have several crafting mods, and one of them is JewelCraft -- one of the things this does is rename Corundum to Copper (the mod leaves corundum ingots' function the same, however charcoal is now used to smelt iron ore into steel). This conflicts with one of my other crafting mods -- hell, probably all of them -- so I put JewelCraft as the last crafting mod in the load order, and it works just fine. As far as installation and general mod management, I only use Nexus Mod Manager to handle the load order for esp/esm files, otherwise I do my installations manually -- sometimes people will include files in the rar download that aren't listed in the description, especially in large texture packs, so it's a good idea to give a quick look through the folders in the rar before you unpack the thing to make sure you're not accidentally overwriting any textures or meshes you wanted to keep. Always keep the original rar file you downloaded. Chances are you'll mess up at least once or twice, and you'll just create unnecessary work for yourself if you delete the rar files once you're "done" with them. I even keep the ones I've uninstalled so I know which ones to avoid while browsing the Nexus.