Saturday, 27 October 2012

Role Playing and Alternative Beginnings to Skyrim



My Tale of Sigvald’s non heroic adventures in Skyrim begins with these thoughts.

I have not played Skyrim for a long while, after taking two characters past level 60 it felt jaded and very repetitive. Even Dawnguard didn't really do much for me.
A few days ago I stumbled across a series of articles entitled The Elder Strolls by Christopher Livingston The Elder Strolls by Christopher Livingston in it he starts off as a regular non heroic type guy and plays Skyrim from that perspective. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the 10 part series and then came across another similar example The Elder Strolls by Iris Ophelia / Janine Hawkins The Elder Roles which I also enjoyed very much. I really liked the idea of trying Skyrim from a non Heroic type perspective where the object is not to be Dragonborn and do all these quests etc. but to just survive as a normal NPC would, doing mundane necessary things like sleeping and eating and earning money from work as opposed to looting dungeons and saving the world etc.

I think with some nice ground rules for your character to adhere to you could really enjoy Skyrim all over again in a totally novel way. So that's what I am going to do!

A MOD that comes in handy is Alternate Start - Live Another Life by Arthmoor which allows you to start the game from a large variety of places and characters.

I am starting off as a guy attacked en route somewhere and left for dead.

This roles RULES will be:

No long term memory on awakening, you only remember your name and that all your possessions are plundered in the attack (you don’t know your roots or where you lived etc. Your previous life is gone you have to start again and carve out a piece of Skyrim for yourself).

Eat at least twice a day and sleep at least 8 hours a day

No fast travel unless by carriage as I assume normal NPC's would be able to do that in game

No stealing

No murder

No Dragon Shouts

No deliberate quest undertakings that involve dungeons, stealing, returning prisoners, saving the world or any heroic type actions (delivering a sword from a smith in Whiterun to the Palace in the same city or similar type thing is OK)

The purpose of these rules is to force me to play Skyrim from a more realistic perspective. For instance a trip to another city is something I will have to plan for in advance because it’s a BIG DEAL. I'll need to have money to spend the nights at inns along the road, food to last until I find an inn and a weapon in case bandits or wolves cross my path. It's dangerous out there for a nobody from nowhere.

So the story begins.


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