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self imposed challenge


Fidens9

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i'm playing skyrim with some rather interesting rules to spice up the game. this made me think that maybe others out there might be interested in spicing up their gameplay in the same way. and i'm also interested in hearing how others spice up their gameplay. so this topic is to discuss these things.

 

my self imposed rules is about limiting what i loot from enemies. i decided to play by this rule when i noticed how easy it was to get everything i could ever need without having to buy them. if you have an iron sword and you want to upgrade to a steel sword you're not gonna buy one. you'll either craft one or you'll loot it off the corpse of some bandit (and let's not forget how easy it is to find decent equipment from chest).

 

looting everything also makes it easy to have lots of money. for example, if you take on a radiant quest to eliminate some bandit camp you'll make way more money from looting and selling everything you can carry back from it than the quest actually offers.

 

now there's a decent amount of things to buy. like spells and crafting material (and maybe healing potions). so money isn't completely worthless. but it's so easy to have more than you actually need when looting is your main source of income.

 

by making questing my main source of income, not only do i feel like i earned every bit of gold i make, but it also makes quest feel more meaningful. even something as simple as arrows become more valuable when you can't just loot them off enemies to have an infinite supply.

 

now this isn't to say that i completely abstain from looting. rather i just limit it. i still loot crafting material, but i don't sell what i craft, that would make it too easy to be loaded with gold. and of course i also loot quest items (and notes). animals are also fair game. finally i do loot treasure chests but i also use a mod that reduces the amount of items and gold i can find in them.

 

well that's pretty much what my self imposed challenge amounts to. now for you people, what do you think of my self imposed challenge? and what are yours?

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Intresting idea. After learning how much money could be made in a hearthfire home garden with a few perks and a couple specific ingredients, I then had to refrain. As to your idea with looting. Find out how to create duplicate of preferred race and change carry weight. It is kinda unimmersive when you head back to town with iron armor,2 steel swords,staff of flames,shields,ench battleaxe of fear, ingots,shovel(didn't even mean to grab that) plus all you normal gear and then some.
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There is a mod that taxes you for houses and horses owned. You could set the amounts and how often you had to pay and what happened if you didn't have the money.I used it for a while as a money sink but I got tired of that courier showing up every month to collect the taxes so I removed it. Maybe if it was modified so that the money was simply removed and you only got a message about it I might put it back.

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I impose a lot of limits, but perhaps it's silly to consider a game lost by "slaughtering a bunny". Still, I manage to play through the majority of my saves without doing it.

 

Because Bunnies.

 

I've also never done Thieves Guild, Mage, Bard, Dark Brotherhood, Stormcloak and never been a Cannibal, Vamp or werewolf after my first playthrough. Never done a radiant for the companions that required me to be an "honorable" petty thug. Sometimes I find mods that help, other times just have to be creative. I find plenty of other things to do that fit into my "rules".

 

My first playthrough was utterly ruined by Forcegreet junk that could only be addressed by "loading an earlier save".

Edited by TeofaTsavo
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Interesting. I do challenge myself, but in a light way. For example, depending on how I role play a particular character, I join some of the factions but not all.

 

My main, Empire side, doesn't join the Companions or Thieves Guild, and until lately the College of Mages - I decided to join 'cause it seemed odd that she was a battlemage with no connections there - thanks to a mod I can step down and simply be a Master Wizard once I finish the quest line. Is a vampire Vokihar side.

My alt, Stormcloak side, joined the Companions, Dislikes the Thieves Guild and most of all the College. Is a werewolf.

Another alt I have is the perennial aloof mage: Dunmer, unconcerned by any and all politics, and most factions - the Telvanni would be proud.

Etc, etc...

 

There...is a... deeper explanation with the way I roleplay each character...but eeehhh, not going to put that here.

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  • 3 months later...

i finally beat the main quest while playing with my self imposed rules of limiting my looting. and i have to say it was a rather enriching experience. i figured i may as well elaborate on that.

 

in a normal playthrough of Skyrim it's so easy to get everything. mainly through looting but in other ways it also pretty much just hands you everything. makes it hard to feel like you actually earned anything in this game. my rule that limits my looting doesn't fully fix the problem but certainly helps. most of what i get feels like i earned it.

 

1 time i was suddenly struck with San... um, vampire disease and i panicked. i use a mod that makes it so that shrines don't cure diseases and i had very little gold on hand. i rushed to an alchemist hoping they had a cure disease potion and hoping that i had enough gold to afford it. so much effort only to end up flat broke afterwards, but that's part of the experience. this rush of emotions isn't the kind of thing you'd get from a normal playthrough, you're as likely to get it as much as you'd ever need a cure disease potion.

 

even a simple quest to deliver a note that only earned me 10 gold felt somewhat meaningful since i wasn't exactly making bank. now that isn't to say my work never saw a profit. part of that was because my mods slightly increased my rewards as my level increased, but most of it was the fruits of my labor.

 

i played on expert difficulty, and i used quite a few mods to make the game a bit more challenging (not too many though, i've went overboard in the past so i know how much of a mistake that is). since i couldn't just loot better gear, battles we're not that easy at first. and the paltry sum of gold i was slowly making didn't make it any easier to get better gear, spells, potions, etc. and when i could afford that stuff i had to be selective and make sure i got what would be useful.

 

i had to be more tactical in how i approached battles. when i had to kill bandit leaders i didn't blindly charge in. my main tactic was to fury my target, they'd either die at the hands of their own minions or be weakened enough that i could take them, but even then i still conjured up some help. if my targets were killed by their minions i'd often just leave those minions be and go get my reward. my playstyle made it so that at the beginning i was weaker than even common bandits. but overtime i was able to get better equipment and better spells. becoming strong enough to be considered the hero of Skyrim wasn't just something that came to me naturally, i earned that.

 

the game still had moments when it just handed me rewards so casually but when i earned something i felt it and it made the game a rather enriching experience.

Edited by Fidens9
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