Skyrim Diary 1 - Background and Character Creation

For those not familiar with RPGs, usually you are given the opportunity (either before the game starts, or very early in proceedings) to create your character.  Depending on the game, this can be anything from giving them a name, to picking their main skills, to microadjusting every stat, ability, and aspect of their appearance.  The Elder Scrolls tend to the latter extreme (though offering some pre-built examples if you don't fancy hours of customization!).  Many players of relatively open-ended games also make some sort of decision as to the style of personality they want their character to have, and will then bear this out through their in-game actions.

In other RPGs, I've always played a goodie-two-shoes character, who gives to beggars, tries to make everyone happy, and to resolve every petty grievance or mild dispute, no matter how minor. When I did make a conscious decision to play less of a Paladin-like character, they ended up being even more one-dimensional; their "evil" simply being expressed by talking tough, making threats, and demanding more money for every job. In my defence, a lot of this was due not to my poor RP-ing skills, but to the design of the games themselves; it's pretty hard to RP a genuinely nuanced character when you simply *have* to complete do-gooder quests to complete the storyline, with your only "choice" being how you phrase your acceptance ("of course, I'd love to help"/"hmph, there's better be something in it for me!").  It's very hard to convincingly roleplay a homicidal maniac or surly loner, since that will rapidly deprive you of quest opportunities!  Of course, there are some games that offer genuine moral choices beyond "Pet/Kick the Dog", but for the most part, you're railroaded into being a hero, anti- or not.

I swear, I googled "Anti-hero" and that's what came up...

This time around, presented with the latest offering from Bethesda, the kings of open-ended gameplay, I decided I actually wanted to put the RP into RPG and give my character some individuality.  I wanted to really engage with playing the game; not just as a challenge to be overcome, but as a story, and a world, in which to be vicariously immersed. To that end, I decided to make a character very different from myself; the more similar they are to me, the less experience I get of considering how the events depicted would actually affect a real person experiencing them.

Anyone reading my description of the pathetically eager-to-please do-gooder probably recognised more  than a little of me in it (with varying degrees of contempt), so my first two decisions in character design were made specifically to distinguish the character from myself; to make them of a different moral outlook than myself, and to make her female. This will probably be the point at which armchair psychologists start to sit up and pay attention. Do tell me what disorders or complexes I'm suffering from as soon as you find out, I'd love to know!

From the little I'd played of Skyrim previous to getting a legal copy, I knew that race was a pretty major issue.  A little potted history for those who aren't Elder Scrolls nerds (and trust me, there are pages and pages of fictional history if that's your thing) - at the end of the last game, 200 years previously, the Empire was left leaderless after the Emperor sacrificed himself to save the realm, and in the intervening time various outlying regions have been growing restless or outright seceding.  Chief among these is Skyrim, to the north of the main landmass, inhabited by a proud people called the Nords.  As the first settling-place of humanity, and the homeland of Talos, the only human to ascend to godhood, the Nordic region houses people very proud of their heritage and history, and suspicious of any attempts to restraint their liberty.  When an invading force from the Aldmeri Dominion (a collection of Elvish countries) demanded that the defeated Empire signed the White-Gold Concordat (which, among other conditions of surrender, outlawed the worship of Talos), many Nords were outraged.  Racial tensions are rife, civil war is brewing, and heads will roll...

So, race will be a key factor.  I knew from the small amount I'd already played that the player would have the opportunity to join the separatist movement (the Stormcloaks), and presumably there would also be the chance to assist the Imperial Legion in subduing the colonies.  Since I'm going for a radically different character to myself, I decided to make my character (who by this point I'd named Alyssa) excessively racist - having suspicion and distrust of non-Nordic people, and massive distaste for non-human races.

Looking for a little background and motivation for this trait, I decided that, somewhere in her backstory, there'd been some massive trauma related to the Aldmeri Dominion - maybe a patrol had torched her village, or killed her family, or something similar.  Yep, it's clichéd, but I'm not exactly an author!  This immediately led on to another character trait that could provide excellent RP - self-sufficiency and defensiveness.  Leading on from her suspicious nature, I decided that Alyssa would be wary of being perceived as weak or vulnerable, but fiercely loyal to those who have shown their worth.  This has informed some excellent examples of characterisation in my early play - at one point, I actually turned down a minor quest to recover some loot from a wronged merchant, because I'd already allied myself with the Thieves' Guild who had cheated him.  There would have been no repercussions of my taking the quest line - but, despite losing the opportunity for a bit of easy gold, I felt much more satisfied in knowing that I was playing a character, rather than simply grinding through quests.

This character choice also made an obvious choice of class.  Alyssa struck me as someone who would want to be in control of the situation at all times, and to always have the upper hand on everyone - what better class than a rogue, who can sneak in the shadows, pick up on choice titbits of information, and, when the time comes, strike from a powerful position and then retreat into the night?

Right, it's getting late, and I've probably already given armchair psychiatrists far more than they can handle all in one go.  Next post will deal with my early game, and any interesting experiences in the game, as well as a bit of a review of the game itself (spoiler alert: I really like it).