Role Playing?

[Cassandra]

Hi, I've seen people post topics about role playing in Elder Scrolls games. What exactly is role playing? I mean, I can only guess that it's building your character in certain way, but why would you choose to do that? Is it something I should try?

[Unionhack]

It's immersing yourself in a game, in this context.

When you play a TES game, in most cases your character is an avatar of you. When you talk to a villager and he asks you whether you support the Stormcloaks or the Imperials, you might reply either way depending on your personal preferences.

If you're roleplaying, however, you're treating your character as a character of their own, not just a conduit connecting you to the game world. You might react in-game depending on their preferences, not yours. You might have a code of honor, but your character might be an unscrupulous ruffian who doesn't mind breaking the law to get what they want. Alternatively, you might find yourself doing EVERY quest in the game on one character, joining EVERY guild, but if you're roleplaying in the mindset of your stalwart Nord crusader, he might find the Thieves' Guild to be a bunch of craven criminals, and will never join them.

UESP has great articles on the subject. Here is one in the context of Oblivion. Give it a look, see what you think.

People do it because it's fun! Short and simple. It's fun to be someone else.

[Dark Spark]

Imagine you've just been hired to play out the game on TV for everyone to see. You have to keep the audience interested in a life story that makes sense for the character.

[Cassandra]

Wow, that sounds really cool. Though as it turns out, I'm already doing some of the things it suggests! But I'll definitely give my next character a backstory and everything.

[Marisa Kirisame]

I usually roleplay some kind of dominatrix that tries to succeed in everything and claim everything. She's also a collector that likes unique thingies up to the point of collecting unique souls in MW.

[VelothiConservative]

I understand how some people like roleplaying... I'm not much into that though. I used to do it more years ago, but I have thankfully stopped, because it was an impedement to actually playing the game. See, I felt 'forced' to create a "good" character in order to play the good quests, and "evil" characters to play the evil ones. Sometimes maybe I felt I needed to make seperate characters for each main faction! Of course, this meant that I needed several characters to play through the game. But what actually happened was that I lost interest in the game instead, and I hadn't even played through most of the faction quests! can you imagine that I have actually not, to this day, even played the first dark brotherhood mission in skyrim for these reasons??

It was a horrible affliction, but I am now cured. And the cure is very simple: you simply roleplay as a YOLO jack-of-all-trades character. rather than being truly good or evil, just be indifferent and neutral. rather than being seriously commited to anything, just do everything as you feel like. So in a sense, I am still roleplaying, but I am now doing it in a way which does not lead to be losing interest in the games. It used to be that I would create a warrior type character, and the gameplay and missions would all focus around that. No longer! Now i always make a custom 'adventurer' class, which has skills from all specialisations, and I can roleplay-wise justify doing everything and anything as an adventurer.

I'm actually in the process of re-playing the TES games, after years without playing, and this time I am going to truly "finish" them. Playing oblivion right now, and my character is a member of all the factions, which would have been inconcievable a few years ago.

But enough of my personal problems :p... a comment on roleplaying in TES in general: The game doesn't really care about you roleplaying. What I mean is, say you make up a backstory for your character: literally no one in the actual game will care at all. Say you roleplay as a racist dunmer (hey why not?), will anyone care? no. The game never gives you any opporunity to express these things. Sure maybe there's a few alternative dialogue options which might allow you to pick that one which most fits with your story, but in general, you have only one option. The game doesn't care about your backstory, it gives you the same stuff regardless. The game never gives you any opportunity to make your backstory relevant. You're free to pretend that you're just a normal citizen, or whatever you fancy, but the game will never treat you as anything other than an adventurer. Therefore I find it pointless to roleplay as anything other than an adventurer.