Oblivion talk:Roleplaying/Archive 2

This is an archive of past Oblivion talk:Roleplaying discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page, except for maintenance such as updating links.

Better guidelines

In the interest of curbing some of the ridiculous stuff that keeps getting added here faster than we can keep up with the deletions, I propose a new set of guidelines for creating roleplaying articles. (Not that anyone will pay attention to them, but at least when people complain that their articles are being removed, we can point to an established policy and say "here's why". So, my proposal would be something like this: (feel free to add to it, comment, etc.)

• All roleplaying ideas must be possible to do in the game, without mods or console. There's no point in telling people things like "Get married and have a family" when there simply isn't any way to do that in the game as it is designed. (Yes, I'm sure there are probably mods that let you do things like that, but this isn't about mods, and 3rd-party mods are not generally discussed on this site.) The vast majority of roleplaying submissions fail on this account.
• Standing around in one place isn't roleplaying. Thus, an idea like "Be a castle guard" which basically involves just standing around outside the gate for 18 hours a day and then sleeping in the guards quarters isn't really much of an idea. In order to consider it roleplaying, you must actually be doing something. If you're so bored with this game that you actually resort to such mundane, mindless tasks, it's probably time to put it away and find a new game.
• Collecting items isn't roleplaying. Filling your house with whatever random object you think you want to have a lot of for some reason just doesn't cut it.
• Mass slaughter isn't roleplaying. And it's already been discussed in various places anyhow. A roleplay article which basically amounts to "go everywhere and kill anything that moves" is just pointless.
• Roleplays must be Elder-Scrolls specific. Simply put, there are no Jedi in Tamriel. 'Nuff said.
• If your roleplaying idea basically just amounts to pretending to be your favorite Anime character, it really just doesn't belong here. Besides being impossible to do within the game (see above), if we start allowing articles like this, there's no end to the number of characters people could add. Nobody cares how much you love Pokemon and Dragonball-Z. Keep that stuff on your User page. (This doesn't just apply to Anime, of course. But that seems to be the most common source for named-character roleplays. You also shouldn't add articles suggesting that people play as Batman or the Terminator or Snake from Metal Gear, etc.)

I think if we applied these rules, and enforced them, we could weed out 90% of the horribleness on these pages. Any thoughts? Additions? Angry rants? --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 12:10, 9 July 2008 (EDT)

Well thought out, Lurlock, these guidelines might just improve the quality of these articles. Many of your suggestions are brought up in earlier discussions, see #Cleaning up these articles. True roleplaying is perhaps at the core of the TES series, many roleplaying articles here though are a travesty to that idea. --Benould^•T•C 13:34, 9 July 2008 (EDT)

An addition:

• Ideas should be something fun. Admittedly, that's hard to quantify, but the best way is to simply ask yourself when submitting an idea: "Would I actually do this?" If the answer is "no", then the odds are that nobody else would either. A roleplay that basically amounts to sitting around and doing the same tedious thing over and over again every day is not likely to be something that anyone will be interested in actually doing.

--TheRealLurlock ^Talk 14:52, 10 July 2008 (EDT)

These seem like good quidelines. I'm not sure they'll help improve anything but, as you say, it will allow easier deletions when the time comes. — Unsigned comment by Rpeh (talk • contribs) on 14 July 2008

While I agree we need to find a way to improve this page, I have a couple of overall problems with the specifics of these proposed guidelines.

First, these guidelines seem judgmental and at times arbitrary. Although most of the ideas on the page are not ones I'd be interested in playing, the fact is that at least one reader has thought that each idea would be interesting. Simply declaring all of those ideas invalid will make the article significantly useful for those who read the article; it will also alienate a significant number of readers. I think there are ways to limit the scope of the article that may ultimately have a similar effect, but will better incorporate the preferences of readers who use the article.

Second, these guidelines don't help in any way to define what we do want on the page. To make significant, lasting progress towards improving this article will require positive improvements to the article and its structure. We need to have examples of what should be on the page, so that other editors can build on those good examples. We need to find a way to structure the article that limits the overall scope of the article and eliminates redundancy, while also providing a better way for contributors to channel/organize ideas. One key reason why this probably hasn't happened to date is that this type of article revamp requires an experienced editor who is willing to seriously look at the article's contents and understand why readers find the article useful. I don't think that you can help to make the article better if your primary objective is just to delete as much content as possible.

Some more specific nitpicks with these guidelines:

• I don't think there's anything wrong with roleplaying that focuses on collecting items. Several previous articles were specifically related to collecting items, and several more contained elements of collecting. Many players do spend a lot of time collecting items. You can play the game while collecting -- there are even many quests that are just collection missions. I don't see why the whole concept should just be declared invalid.
• Similarly, what exactly is the rationale behind saying that mass slaughter isn't valid roleplaying? Is it a moral argument or is it based upon whether or not the articles contain ideas that readers find useful? A moral argument doesn't seem to hold much water in a game that requires you to assassinate NPCs; I think we have to allow articles on roleplaying evil characters. As for usefulness, my first impression is that several readers have found these

types of articles useful, given that the idea has been proposed several times, in various forms. I would agree that more than one such article would be redundant, but that's true for any given topic.

So, what do I propose instead? I've spent the last couple of days examining these articles pretty closely (and doing a lot of work trying to implement some of my ideas, too). The biggest problems that I see in the Roleplaying articles are:

• Redundancy, redundancy, and more redundancy. Ten articles all of which describe being an assassin in one way or another. General roleplaying ideas that are brought up more than once in the Increased Realism section and then repeated in dozens of subarticles (e.g., how to eat realistically, how to avoid fast travel). No crosslinks to other related roleplaying ideas.
• Poor quality introduction and guidelines on the page (now revised). The previous guidelines repeatedly asked editors to contribute any and all ideas and generally promoted the idea that the article is meant to provide a comprehensive list of roleplaying ideas, which is basically impossible.
• Low editorial standards. This problem is the one that's least likely to be improved in the near future, but I might as well still mention it. Articles and ideas are generally padded with too much emphasis or too many irrelevant details.

To tackle what I see as the real problems I have a few suggestions. Several of these I've already implemented, at least in a preliminary way, to demonstrate what I think is possible. One reason I proceeded to implement some of these ideas is that they can be done without fundamentally eliminating any information from the article and therefore should not be controversial.

• Emphasize in the character roleplaying section that the possibilities are infinite but we are trying to just provide a limited selection of good examples. We can establish some criteria that are used to limit our examples, but those criteria don't mean that other types of roleplaying are less valid.
• Add a General Character Creation section that summarizes the basic outline of dozens of roleplaying articles. This might perhaps encourage readers to follow the checklist to create their own new character (Time Lord, Sith, whatever) without creating a new article just to fill in the checklist. Furthermore, we could start to eliminate articles that consist of nothing but a list of such character creation ideas (e.g., no articles that just provide a list of name/race/skills/equipment).
• Make the individual roleplaying articles be more comprehensive, by merging any related ideas into a single article. I've done this so far for the Roleplaying/Assassin, Roleplaying/Collector, Roleplaying/Scientist, and Roleplaying/Wilderness Dweller articles, in the process reducing some 30 articles into just 4. A given idea (e.g., how to live in the wilderness) should be described only once; similar ideas should be grouped together instead of repeating the same basic ideas. I think for the article to be useful, we need to end up with a list of sub-articles that is short enough to be quickly scanned and digested, so that it's obvious for readers and editors where a given idea is described.
• Aggressively eliminate redundancy. Unfortunately, this is likely to require some familiarity with what exists where. However, if we can improve the article's organization, it should become easier to identify where particular information belongs.

As for limiting type of content actually belongs on the article, I would propose:

• Any roleplaying sub-articles should be Elder Scrolls relevant. In other words, sub-articles with non-ES names should not exist.
  • However, I think there is room to mention non-ES ideas within sub-articles, as specific examples of a type of roleplay. For example, the Ninja section of the Assassin article. The number of such suggestions won't be infinite, because the other criteria will effectively limit the number of relevant non-ES concepts.
• The overall concept described in a sub-article should be possible without console or mods.
  • Again, this doesn't mean that console/mods can never be mentioned. If there are console/mod tips that augment the core idea (instead of creating the idea), then I think readers will find the tip useful. For example, mentioning an archaeologist mod on the [[Oblivion:Roleplaying/Scientist#Archaeologist|Archaeologist]] section is relevant and useful--but not absolutely necessary to be an archaeologist.
• The rolemust be one that can be used to play the game.
  • This is my attempt at something more objective and well-defined than "must be fun." I'd say if we're going to recommend an idea, it should be something that ties into Oblivion, rather than being something that could be done in almost any roleplaying-type game.
  • In other words, the role is one that involves doing quests, exploring dungeons, or otherwise doing activities that give your character money, rewards, and skill-building experience. These basics must be possible without console/mods.
• Any sub-articles have to contain substantial, new content. In other words, there has to be more than just a list of skills and equipment. There should be recommended activities that are not already covered in the general Increased Realism section and are not already covered in other roleplaying sub-articles.

While this discussion is underway, I've added requests to the roleplaying article that no new sub-articles be created. I think this is a reasonable request until we've established what we want for content. Once we reach a consensus in this discussion, the Guidelines for Contributions can be updated to provide the new criteria and allow new sub-articles to be created... as long as they meet the criteria. --Nephele^Talk 23:54, 14 July 2008 (EDT)

Nephele, I think that your proposed guidelines are a great improvement on Lurlocks set. They are very clearly defined and spelled out, and don't seem judgemental or subjective. I've also read the revamped version of the article and find it much more helpful, being much less cluttered, and generally better written overall. Kudos to you. Darkle 00:10, 15 July 2008 (EDT)0

They are good ideas and 5 or 6 pages with these would be very good. Because i don't want to look about 40 pages to get the idea which i want...— Unsigned comment by 78.184.150.144 (talk)

New Categories? I have just checked the 'Scientist' category, and the Archaeologist section has been extremely shortened. I feel this lowers the quality of the individual section. Will this happen to other characters who are categorized in this way? Also, many characters are not relevant to the categories, such as the Dark Lord.— Unsigned comment by 89.242.210.48 (talk)

The four new subarticles are just the first four examples of new, more comprehensive subarticles. There clearly need to be more than just four eventually, once someone is willing to tackle all the required work to create, merge, and rewrite the subarticles. To answer your question, yes, I think that all of the roleplaying articles should be converted over to broader subarticles that combine related ideas into one place.

Do you have any concrete complaints about the Archaelogist section of the Scientist sub-article? Yes, that one section is shorter than the standalone Archaeologist subarticle. However, in my opinion it's because the quality has increased, not decreased. It's higher quality because:

• The information that is shared with other Scientist ideas is now listed at the top of the article, or is listed on the cross-referenced Collector article. The result is that the information is provided just once instead of being repeated over and over again; readers no longer have to wade through repeated information to dig out what's new. The number of ideas has been increased, because now related ideas that were hidden on other articles are also available to people interested in being an archaeologist.
• The combined article makes it easier for readers interested in the general concept to browse for other, related ideas. The chances are that someone who is interested in roleplaying as an archaelogist would find some of the other ideas on the scientist and collector pages interesting. Now those other ideas are easy to find, instead of having to search through the 100+ other articles.
• Ideas that aren't specific to being an Archaeologist have been removed. For example, "Make sure to keep a trusty weapon (enchanted or silver shortsword preferably) next to you, just in case you meet an angry skeleton or ghost!" This contributes nothing to being an archaelogist and therefore does little other than waste space.
• Ideas that seemed to be basically pointless have been deleted. Who is seriously going to want to install a mod adding physics to paintbrushes just so you can drag the paintbrush across artifacts and pretend to dust them off? Even if you're sufficiently bored to want to try it once, it's not something you are going to want to do regularly as part of roleplaying. And it's not something that in any way contributes to how you play the game. Personally, I think winnowing out some of the more ridiculous suggestions on the article will only help the article. Readers do not want to be forced to read through dozens of uninteresting ideas -- I believe readers would rather have shorter articles that focus more specifically on information that is interesting to more than one person.

If you feel that there are valuable ideas on the Archaeologist article that need to be moved to the new article, you are free to move the information. I'd also recommend providing some justification on the talk page, however, because making an article longer does not automatically increase its quality. --Nephele^Talk 17:50, 24 July 2008 (EDT)

Can I suggest putting this page on hiatus (i.e. protecting it and adding a nrelevant notice at the top) until this issue is resolved? Personally i feel the roleplaying section has caused more problems than its worth and all it does is take up time that could be better spent on the actual wiki. --Volanaro ^{T • C • E} 08:37, 21 August 2008 (EDT)

Nephele's four basic guidelines seem effective. A suggestion concerning the rhetoric of the "used to play the game" guideline: Any role-playing proposal should describe, in some detail, a role and a style of play that follows from that role. A good example is the entry for "vampire hunter," for which there is a clear pattern of gameplay (such as: hunt down vampires, use fire-based attacks to kill them, then turn the vampire dust over to the Order of the Virtuous Blood for cash). Many, perhaps most, of the awful suggestions on the page consist of a role with no actual gameplay that follows from it. -- Oban 02:29, 31 August 2008 (EDT)

I agree.

As Nephele has demonstrated with the four revised articles, I would like to point out that most of the ideas in each article should be in note form. I was reading the Guerrilla Rebel once, and I found that it was very hard to take it all in because of the 'clumps' of text. It could easily be shortened.

Also, you can include many different ideas by Categorizing them. For example: Articles like Jedi, Terminator ect. could go into a category called Movies or something.

Anything I would have said has already been said by Lurlock and Nephele. If anything, I support this idea no doubt about it. --Matthewest ^{•T•C•E•} 07:16, 5 September 2008 (EDT)

Pacifist

I'm going to be a member but I can't create pages for sometime(wiki policy) and I suggest you to create this page and name as pacifist. Here are the ideas:

Because pacifists can't stand to see harm(human to creature, human to human etc.)(even if the one who's harmed is guilty), i thought it would be a good experience. Be an orc or nord(for fun :D). Other races will work well (exceptions are imperials and redguards). Create your custom class (or be an monk(replace hand to hand). Do not bear any aggresive skills. Select sneak&security if you are the explorer type. Speechcraft is optional, block is a must-be (To stay out of the harm's way) Do NOT bear any aggresive spells, or do NOT carry any weapons. Only attack if someone has mocked you when you have paying homage to your fallen comrades. Feel regret for your attack and redo the pilgrimage. Stop any fights, or look at a different way.

Add your own ideas or so... idea just came up.

• Interesting idea.

Honestly that sounds like a decent idea... But it can easily be moved into an existing category. Or perhaps get a subarticle created. Priest/religious/whatever you know? It would be a bit of work trying to combine all the priest, monk, etc. from the list into that category, but it certainly would help in the cause.

You could put it under Roleplaying/Lifestyles. — Unsigned comment by 60.240.157.31 (talk) on 11 June 2009

Page Usage

Can i ask, how many people actually use the roleplaying pages? There are numerous articles here but do people actually read these and put the suggestions into practice in TES?--Volanaro 08:15, 25 July 2008 (EDT)

I'm going to guess that only around 50% of registered editors use the ideas. I've only glanced at the pages a few times, but half of the things I couldn't even do (I'm on 360) & that was like about 4-5 months ago. (Thus the recent cleanup.) I think these pages might be used more after the new rules and guidelines.-Puddle ^{Talk•Contribs.} 13:13, 25 July 2008 (EDT)

I love these pages! I visit them one day or the other to see if something new has been added. And yes, I actually use the ideas on the pages in-game. I've some ideas by myself, but none of them are worth an entry yet. They're mostly small additions to what's on these pages already.87.150.188.109 19:12, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Protection?

After the recent spate of vandalism, I'm starting to wonder if we shouldn't semi-protect this page, at least until we've finished the cleanup process. Looking back through the history, It seems like every single edit for the past couple weeks has either been vandalism, redundant additions by people who didn't read the "please don't add anything right now" notice, or reverts of the previous. Of course, if we do this, we should make sure that the cleanup happens as quickly as possible, so it doesn't need to stay protected for long, but we need some way of making people understand that this page is being redone, and a notice telling them to stop adding to it obviously isn't working - if anything there have been more edits since the notice was put up than there were before. Semi-protection would at least stop the IP editors from constantly adding redundancy and vandalism to this page until we've finished the restructuring process. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 19:16, 28 July 2008 (EDT) Agree - I agree. No-one seems to like to read that notice, so maybe semi-protection is a good option. Daedryon^{•T•C•E•} 19:48, 28 July 2008 (EDT)

As a user of this site, I do indeed use this, and did click the link, because I had a submission I wanted to make but wanted to read what was going on first. I would like to vouch that people are indeed doing that, and that people don't completely ignore the guidelines.

New payment

I read through this page alot, and whenever I see the 'You can get paid by using the console, or through stealing' I realize there is another way. You can duplicate items worth around 100 gold near the person who pays you, and whenever they do pay you, take one. A suggestion for such an item are soul gems. Ninja Hinder 23:54, 29 August 2008 (EDT)

Better guidelines followup

The discussion about possible guidelines has remained silent for nearly a month; has a consensus been made elsewhere? In the meantime, the articles are still there, waiting to be cleaned up, but the guidelines are still "on the drawing board". The note on the bottom of the page has been ignored or remained unseen by some; new articles are being created, which don't folow any guidelines, but are essentially just an extension of existing pages or types of roleplay. (Which is exactly what we/you are trying to prevent.)

In short: how far are we/you with those guidelines? --LordDagon^T|C 11:03, 25 September 2008 (EDT)

Why does this section exist in the first place?

I can understand wanting to play characters to certain guidelines. I do it myself (my last character was effectively a ghost)... but most of the suggestions given here are ludicrous.

Teleport amulet delusions, leaving money around to pretend to be paid later, annotating NPCs' words for them, getting lost in the woods and huddling under rocky overhangs to avoid the rain? Adventurers in pajamas, food poisoning, inviting Arena fans into your house, pretending to shag the maid, walking through the wilderness with a set of armour for every occasion (total weight = several hundred)? ... And I thought my brief spate of having partial Chameleon, immunity to Normal Weapons (and frost), an Invisible horse, only coming out at night and going around casting Demoralise on NPCs was crazy!

Most important though... surely anyone who has the inclination to roleplay will figure out the means for themselves... right? If they don't want to use a certain game feature because it seems unrealistic, then they won't use it. The point is that roleplaying is supposed to be creative... not just following a set of someone else's guidelines and suggestions. ~ SotiCoto 18:40, 22 October 2008 (EDT)

Personally, I agree with you, and I think this part of the site has been a thorn in my side for quite some time, but it does seem to be fairly popular, so some people must like it. I've advocated getting rid of it on several occasions, but I doubt it's going to happen, because wikis are run by the community, and a large enough portion of the community seems to want these pages to stay that it's unlikely to change any time soon. The best we can do is try and keep them under control, so that it doesn't just blow up out of proportion and bring the rest of the site down with it. We've been trying to do that by combining the subpage articles into larger, more general articles, and removing the more ridiculous ideas that either aren't technically feasable, or not likely to be appealing to any sane person. (e.g. "Be a castle guard! Stand around outside the gate for 18 hours and then go rest in the barracks!") But it's a slow process, mainly because the people who have the skills to effectively do this polishing and culling of the worst parts of this section mostly don't care enough about these pages to put in the effort. I've adopted a policy of grudging tolerance, and try to do my best to ignore what goes on here for the most part, stepping in only when there's clear need to do so. (Some of the ideas posted have been rather controversial, offensive, or - let's just say inappropriate for younger audiences. These usually get taken down pretty quickly.) If you'd like to help with this process, your assistance would be appreciated. Otherwise, I'd just say let it go and don't worry too much about it. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 23:24, 22 October 2008 (EDT)

Allow me to represent the ones who enjoy this page and say there would be a firestorm if it was removed. Ninja Hinder 22:46, 23 October 2008 (EDT)

I must say that I remember back the days where it was a small little section of "Things to do when you are bored", and it opened my eyes to alot of cool ways to RP in the game. I use these advice alot, they usually give me some good ideas. Im not talking about making a char thats some weirdo standing and waiting all day long. Im talking about Roleplaying the character you have, then maybe having a RP sidejob too. Like currently im a crusader, back the days of KOTN i created the crusader part of the RP section. Its grown alot since then and I use that information too. - Fireresistance vs Flaming (elderscrolls forum)

To be honest, I think if you dont like the Roleplaying section, just dont bother with it, ignore it, UESP has the entire internet to expand, so you people that don't like it just leave it be, people such as myself find the ideas entertaining to read and perform, no offense anyone but I mean come on, its just a roleplay section for the few of us who like to really get into our characters after we've beaten the game (Complete Main Quest/Factions) X amount of times, so we like new ideas other than make a new character and do it all over again for the 5th or 6th time Zalphon 20:16, 6 January 2009 (EST)

I have to agree with SotiCoto. I definitely see the origins of this page in what Zalphon called "Things to do when you're bored". Anyone into RP will come up with their own ideas, and many of these suggestions are more than a bit odd (I half expected to see the "shag the maid" idea in this list). The only people who actually need suggestions like this are...well, people who are bored. Here's some advice: if the game bores you so much, quit and play another game, or turn off the computer or console and live your life.

And I also have to respond to this ridiculousness about Fast Travel being unrealistic. Fast Travel is not teleportation. Time passes in-game when you Fast Travel. Don't believe me? Check the date and time in the map tab in the journal before and after Fast Travelling. It takes about an hour and fifteen minutes to Fast Travel by Chestnut horse from IC to Aleswell, and a little over an hour to FT from Aleswell to Bruma. That's approximately the same amount of in-game time it would have taken to do it yourself if you followed the main roads and did not meet any encounters. Travel is not instantaneous. The only benefit from FT is that is saves you real-world time and effort, but it has its downsides too:

• You cannot discover POI while FT, and you will miss out on some wondrous scenery.
• FT follows the main roads, which may or may not be the fastest and most direct route (bad when you are role-playing some sort of time constraint, and explains why it takes over four hours to FT on foot from Vilverin to the Market District in IC when you can run it in just under an hour).
• You do not encounter anything on the road while FT, so you will miss out on xp and drops (I personally only use FT when I would follow the main road anyway and I know the area has already been cleared and has not reset).

There are many, many things in the game that are ridiculously unrealistic (like everyone in the world telling the exact same stories word for word, and guards all over the country knowing that you committed a crime at the instant you commit it). Fast Travel is not one of them. Here endeth the rant. Phelaran 14:26, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Character roleplay idea

I think that a nice addition to the sperfic charcater creation section would be criminal for bandits and the like.121.218.222.125 02:53, 31 December 2008 (EST)

Revamp proposal discussion

I've posted a proposal for a revamp of the Roleplaying pages here. Please chime in. --GuildKnight^Talk2me 06:59, 15 January 2009 (EST)

If "Skooma Addict" can be a lifestyle, why can't "Drunkard" be one? The rules are similar: the objective is to get that next drink, and the playing style involves acting constantly on impulse without any long-term plan. This has been tested and the game can definitely be played this way, and the results can be hilarious and great fun. I suggest you do not delete it but incorporate it into your Lifestyle section--216.55.202.19 11:48, 29 January 2009 (EST)

If you have an objection to one of the articles under deletion review, it would be appropriate to comment on the Deletion Review page linked to on the Deletion Review box at the top of that page.

Magical Storing

what if you enchanted an amulet or something like "amulet of magical storage" and then you can justify carrying more than usual. like pretend like all the items are magically stored and then removed when wanted. Humansaw93 22:01, 15 January 2009 (EST)

Wouldn't that sort of eliminate the point? --Debatra 23:59, 15 January 2009 (EST)

not necessarily because you could be a mage and probably get away with it.Humansaw93 09:09, 16 January 2009 (EST)

some personal objections

The "cannot be used to play the game" concept of deletion doesn’t make any sense to me could someone explain it? It’s just a behavior pattern you'd have your character practice to get in to a certain role so it seems perfectly reasonable that it would be there. And "can not be done without mods" that’s what the note about mods is for! honestly i just think its ridicules. Why limit our entries to what is possible in the vanilla game? Modding is a very popular practice among players of the PC version of the game.so I don’t see what the problem is. 71.87.144.230 07:05, 5 February 2009 (EST)

This has been discussed before... on this page. To quote Nephele in the discussion above;

• "The rolemust be one that can be used to play the game."... "In other words, the role is one that involves doing quests, exploring dungeons, or otherwise doing activities that give your character money, rewards, and skill-building experience. These basics must be possible without console/mods."... "This is my attempt at something more objective and well-defined than "must be fun." I'd say if we're going to recommend an idea, it should be something that ties into Oblivion, rather than being something that could be done in almost any roleplaying-type game."
• "The overall concept described in a sub-article should be possible without console or mods."... "Again, this doesn't mean that console/mods can never be mentioned. If there are console/mod tips that augment the core idea (instead of creating the idea), then I think readers will find the tip useful. For example, mentioning an archaeologist mod on the [[Oblivion:Roleplaying/Scientist#Archaeologist|Archaeologist]] section is relevant and useful--but not absolutely necessary to be an archaeologist."

My thoughts on the topics: Roleplaying articles should be restricted to roles that can be used to play the game. If playing the role means that you cannot actually play the game as it was designed, then it does not have anything to do with TES, and can likely be accomplished with any RPG. Roles described in these articles should also be possible without use of the console or mods. There's nothing wrong with a mod that enhances a role, but if the role is not possible in the vanilla game, then, once again, it's not really related to TES, and could likely be accomplished with third-party mods on most RPGs.

There were no arguments against either of these guidelines, a consensus was reached, and the main article of this page was updated to reflect these new contribution guidelines. --GuildKnight^Talk2me 19:38, 5 February 2009 (EST)

Obviously, some people forget that RPG stands for Role-Playing Game. The idea that these things should be possible without Mods is fine, but what about roleplaying as a Priest, a Healer, a Prisoner or other things that don't involve "doing quests, exploring dungeons, or otherwise doing activities that give your character money, rewards, and skill-building experience"? --Debatra 22:12, 5 February 2009 (EST)

If a third-party mod or a console command is neccessary to carry off the effect described by the roleplaying article, then that statement excludes any and all players who lack either the capability or the mods being used. Any suggested roleplaying idea should, at least, have the grace of being possible to execute by any player who reads that suggestion. —Dark Spark 22:59, 5 February 2009 (EST)

Debatra has a good point. These different ideas don't necessarily need to advance the character in the game. This page contained some interesting ideas, and there was no reason to delete them. However, it does need to be a character that is playable. Otherwise it truly is pointless. My only protest is that some good, playable ideas were deleted. --Oblivion nerd 21:55, 3 March 2009 (EST)

This page contains really interesting ideas, and I fail at seeing any problems with it. Maybe I'm just slow? Why do people keep complaning about using consoles or mods, what's the use in being "Oblivion purists" while those things could make roleplaying a whole other thing? If it was a multiplayer game, then yes, it could be quite the problem, hacking and such. But it's single-player, everyone should be free to RP in the way he/she feels like. And if you're just a console player who's feeling envious, this is not the place to waste your anger on. Thanks. — Unsigned comment by Newyn (talk • contribs) on 6 March 2009

I think the reason Nephele put that in about about them needing to not require mods or the console to use is that anyone that wants to should be able to use these, however if you have something specific in mind ask someone like GuildKnight, or TheRealLurlock about creating a category; maybe something like: Roleplaying -> PC and then put whatever sub categories are required afterward.

The Old RPs..

May i ask why all the old Roleplays were removed?? Like Mr Nice guy - ok we could possabley change the name but they are all Roles that we can play.. With mods/Console or without they are still roleplays...

Suggestions plaease — Unsigned comment by Target (talk • contribs) on 7 April 2009

See the Deletion Review entry here. --GuildKnight^Talk2me 22:03, 7 April 2009 (EDT)

The old Roleplays that were removed were of poor quality. Half of them had less than 5 sentences of information and were pointless. As you can see the new Roleplays are of a much higher standard and give plenty of information, pictures and tips. If you can make a Roleplay that is of equal standard, we will be happy to keep it. --Matthewest ^{•T•C•E•} 04:22, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

Still, why remove some of them when they just needed work. — Unsigned comment by Target (talk • contribs) on 8 April 2009

They didn't just need work. They were deleted because they were beyond salvage, either because they duplicated other, better-written ideas, or because they had no hope of ever being expanded. You're lucky that the other roleplays didn't share the same fate: I think most people would prefer that they were all just deleted. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 00:40, 9 April 2009 (EDT)

Is not the purpose of Oblivion, and indeed, most roleplaying games to play the game how you want? If you wish to do a roleplay here is an area where you can look and gain ideas from other users. For the motto of the game is 'live another life in another world'. –-Veltas^•T•E• 23:59 10 May 2009 (EDT)

Veltas has a point. I agree, some were stupid, but most could've been revised rather than deleted. --Oblivion nerd 04:09, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Any that could have been revised were rewritten and/or merged with another article. The only was that were deleted were the ones that were beyond salvage. --GK^Talk2me 04:35, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

.hack rp's

-Ok, i wanted to ask if i could make a whole new thing for roleplaying? If you've ever played .hack its basically a not-online mmorpg for ps2. In it theres a lot of different classes and stuff and i wanted to make a roleplay of .hack where you pretty much pretend that the you're playing a person whos playing oblivion may sound wierd but i think it could be fun. In the original version of The World, there were six classes.

-Blademaster(could be played using only a one-handed blade) -Heavy Axeman(use only axes) -Heavy Blade(use only two-handed blades) -Long Arm(okay, in the world thes guys use spears, so this one would have to be staves or something.) -Twin Blade(i really dont know how twin blade would work without mods) -Wavemaster(spell user)

but theres also the new one with

-Adept Rogue( basically you would use multiple classes, but you can only have your final amount add up to 4 points, for example, Blade briandier costs 1 point and shadow warlock costs 3, so that would be all you could get.) -Blade Brandier/1 point(could be played using only a one-handed blade) -Macabre Dancer/3 points(these guys use fans and spells in .hack so i dont know how they could be played) -Edge Punisher/1 point(use only two-handed blades) -Flick Reaper/2 points(they use scythes, so i dont know how they could be played) -Harvest Cleric/3 points(mainly use healing spells) -Lord Partizan/2 points(they use gigantic spears and axes, so two-handed axes would be good) -Shadow Warlock/3 points(mainly use attack spells. -Steam Gunner/3 points(could not be played unless instead f a gun, you use a bow) -Tribal Grappler/2 points(wear gloves and use hand to hand combat) -Twin Blade(I really dont know how twin blade would work without mods)

It would be cool though because you'd pretend that the pc's in the game are other players of the world and you can get followers and make a party, and you could preend places are areas, and you could be a PK(player killer) or a PKK(Player killer killer) and you could pretend that the arena is lumina cloth and you need to become the Emporer of it( in dot hack that means champion)

Anyways, just a sugeestion but i think this would be really fun. Doom Knight 22:58, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Roleplays from other games usually don't work. If you insist I'd recommend reading the guidelines for adding good roleplay sections. --Timenn-<talk> 13:31, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Teleportation

I can't decide whether or not to add this to the traveling section, opinions will be appreciated. Anyway, With the frostcraig spire add on your really can teleport to the cities via the mages guilds portals. Then you can use them to get back.I already have the Battlehorn Castle DLC and im thinking about getting frostcraig spire as well. If you are in the same situation then you can use the spire to teleport to chorrol and walk to your castle. --SneakyPenguin77 (also my Gamertag) 00:43, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

The specific usage of teleporting to Chorrol to get to Battlehorn Castle probably isn't appropriate, but I see nothing wrong with mentioning that roleplayers who don't like fast travel can save time by using Frostcrag Spire since there's an explanation for why teleportation is possible. --GK^Talk2me 03:04, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

The Battlehorn thing was more of an examlple of the idea rather then something i meant to be in the article, my bad, i should have made it clear. Anyway, ill add that to the article then, thanks for the opinion --SneakyPenguin77 (also my Gamertag) 03:33, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Swimming

Somewhere it should be mentioned that for added realism, the player should take off most or all of their clothes or armor before swimming. I'd add it myself but I'm not sure of the best place for it.--SneakyPenguin77 (also my Gamertag) 05:53, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

It's already mentioned; Here, it says in the third bullet point, "Bathe periodically by taking off your clothes and swimming. Wash your clothes, too, by dropping them in the water. For more realism, drop them in a sunny place and wait for them to dry; if it's cloudy, wait a bit longer." --GK^Talk2me 17:02, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Ah, my bad, must have missed that bit. --SneakyPenguin77 (also my Gamertag) 18:50, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Miscellaneous

Make a permanent Command Creature spell and cast it on a wolf to have a dog that follows you around.

How do you make a permanent command creature spell? I know you can make spells at the arcane university, but how would you make a permanent one? --Sencilia 01:58, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

You can't, at least not that I know (I play on xbox), probably it's possible in the PC using the console or the CS. You can, however, stack effects but you will have to cast the spell continuosly.--S'drassa 03:03, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I see. thank you. Maybe once I get to the university (when i feel like it *is lazy*) ill see if I can make a strong spell. --Sencilia 04:16, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Good point. I don't recall how one would make a permanent spell in Oblivion. I've removed the note altogether as it's not helpful because it doesn't provide a how-to. --Timenn-<talk> 12:51, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, providing you have it for PC, you could always make it "Command Creature for 100,000 seconds OnTouched, power spell, use once per day, cost 0 magicka" and it'd work out, granted you'de have to recast it daily. Roleplayer242621 18:04, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Edits

Some of my edits were removed, I checked with the guidelines and they were perfectly fine? Why'd they get removed then? ;( — Unsigned comment by Daedric Crayons (talk • contribs) on 14 December 2009

The reason your edits were changed/reverted was explained in the edit summaries. --GK^Talk2me 05:30, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Main Quest

If your roleplaying the main quest one thing to do is be level 25+ before starting. this might not sound like a big deal but think about it, how realistic would it be if you beet the main quest at level 4 and all you ever see in oblivion is stunted scamps. this way you will be up against the toughest draemora. not a big point but i find it importaint when playing the main quest. Forkorpl8 12:06, 15 December 2009 (UTC)forkorpl8

Although I agree, I don't think that is an element of roleplaying. This is more of a simple suggestion. --Oblivion nerd 22:54, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

ok. just thought i would through that out there. Forkorpl8 20:11, 17 December 2009 (UTC)forkorpl8

He's got a good point though and I would suggest it being considered to be added into the main article. I mean, how can Mehrunes Dagon, the Daedric prince of destruction conquer Tamriel with an army of Scamps?

I prefer to start the main quest at level 1 and then level to the maximum after the Dagon Shrine quest as if Mehrunes Dagon was saying "Thats it, he stole my book, this is serious business, kill the moron."120.16.175.117 06:02, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Don't Delete This Page!!

For freaks sake people, role playing games are NEVER perfect. We're never allowed to do what we want to do. Call me a 4 yr. old, but its called pretending, and we can do it if we want! Why delete this page? If you dislike it, get off of it imo.... — Unsigned comment by 74.177.104.65 (talk) on 18 December 2009

Where does it say this page is up for deletion? --Timenn-<talk> 13:06, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I think there has been some talk about it, but I'm not sure. --Oblivion nerd 19:45, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Don't delete it, it's quite good and when you actually do some of it - it's fun!— Unsigned comment by Daedric Crayons (talk • contribs) on 18 December 2009

It isn't proposed for deletion, if it were it would have the the specific tag ({{prod}}). I think that this whole concern came from here, and as you can see, it was a long time ago. --^MC• S'drassa ^•T2M 22:17, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Good, ive found it..useful. General Badrang 22:57, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

When I found this page I laughed at some of the suggestions. But when I play these days I have began incorporating some of the suggestions in the article into my game, such as providing more backstory to my character and giving him more emotion allowing me to intereact more with him. Due to this, I have managed to reach a higher level and do much more in game with this character (my third playthrough) and using certain aspects of this page it just makes it more fun to do. There are some suggestions that are very foolish (pretend your dying by eating a poison apple, who would keep that up throughout the game?) but personally I think they should be kept in purely because they are hilarious. ~SamGhadiali

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS PAGE ISN'T PROPOSED FOR DELETION ANY MORE AND HASN'T BEEN FOR A LONG TIME!!!!! rpeh •T•C•E• 10:44, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm thinking about redoing every specific character idea.

I'm thinking about giving specific character ideas a reveamp. Every idea, such as warrior, thief, samurai, cook, etc. will be given the same layout. This layout was made to be easy to read and informative, and give more information that ideas currently do. At the moment there really isn't one decided-upon way to make a new roleplying idea, so some of the new ones end up as a bulleted list, some a wall of text, and most are something in-between. This new format is neither. Instead of explaining it to you, here it is:

Template

Character Type

• Race: What ones are the best for the character, what ones aren't, and why.
• Class: What specializations and skills are best for roleplaying the character. A Thief doesn't need Heavy Armor. Almost 100% of the time, a custom class with up to 7 skill suggestions will be shown.
• Looks: This doesn't matter as much. This area specifies whether character might need a beard, or have to look neat, or if they'd usually have to be a male or female.

Equipment

Suggests what sort of equipment the specific character would need. Lockpicks for a Thief, staffs for a Wizard, swords for a Knight. This section may also say what equipment the character shouldn't have, and what kind of things they would take as loot or to wear.

• Clothes:
• Food:
• Weapons/Armor:
• Other:

Backstory

This area outlines why the character is what it is. This section can be very large or small, depending on how freeform the idea is. It should at least explain what the character is, allies and enemies of the character, and what it does. This section can also provide suggestions of a starting story for the character, certain quirks about it, and motives for what it does.

Ideas/Activities

This is not a bulleted list of everything that this character does, but instead should be treated as a few suggestions and ideas to give a clear example of what the character does. The reader should do a couple of these things with their character so that they know what the character does and how it acts towards people.

And to show you just how well if works, I'll show a roleplaying idea that doesn't use the template (96% or so of them) and then I'll show you the improved version of it that DOES use the template.

Boxer

• Create a male Redguard, Nord, Orc, or Khajiit with Hand to Hand, Speechcraft, Athletics, Light Armor, Block, and whatever else as major skills, choose combat as their specialty, and Strength and Endurance as preferred attributes.

• Steal the Bands of Kwang Lao from the two Arena combatants practicing outside the Arena. This will fortify your Hand to Hand skill by 20 points, which helps a lot. The first thing you must do is join the Arena in the Imperial City. Live in the Imperial City; spend most of your time there.

When you're not in combat in the Arena, wear a pair of pants that are either your training pants, (some simple cloth pants most lower-class characters wear) or some enchanted light armor greaves with Fortify Fatigue or Hand to Hand. When in the Arena, wear the Light Raiment. As expected, box your opponents to death. You can use a Disintegrate Weapon spell to force the Arena combatants to fight you in a legitimate boxing match.

Never wear shoes. Or a shirt, most of the time. You can often wear some wristbands however. Make many Restore Fatigue potions called Energy Drink. When you are punching someone and you are running out of Fatigue, drink them.

Focus on building up your Hand-to-Hand as your sole all-effective combat skill. Whenever you run into bandits or animals on the road, beat them to death. Frequently head out into the woods or inside Ayleid Ruins as training. Beat everything to death in Hackdirt, conjurers in ruins, or necromancers in caves. With the Fighters Stronghold download, you can train with your Orc friend as he never dies and regenerates health.

• If you have the PC version, beat up essential NPCS, knock them unconscious, rinse, repeat, then delete the bounty and hostility with the console. This also works if you have the Staff of the Everscamp, which grants you unlimited scamps to beat up. Another good training technique is at Peryite's Shrine (check page to see and prevent bug) because you don't get a bounty for hitting them and they never die.

It's short, not too informative, but it looks like a fun idea. What if it was easier to read and had more info?

Boxer

Character Type

• Race: For a traditional boxer, the human races work best, especially Redguard and Imperial. Any race is fine though.
• Class: You'll want to specialize in combat. The essential skills for a boxer are Hand to Hand, Athletics, and Block. Anything else is up to you.
• Looks: You might want your character to look beat up, with a slightly disfigured face.

Equipment

• Clothes: A male boxer just needs pants and some good shoes. Outside matches, a boxer would wear clothes for any social class, depending on how much money the boxer has.
• Food: Any boxer should have a healthy diet consisting of plenty of meat, vegetables, and water. Water? Make a potion with a Restore Fatigue effect, and name it Water (Or buy one) and drink it regularly. You can use the Duplication Glitch for infinite water.
• Weapons/Armor: Of course, this character fights with his fists for a weapon. However, you may want to put leather gauntlets on him/her instead of proper boxing gloves. Since most of your fighting will be done in the IC Arena, you'll have to wear the Light or Heavy Raiment.
• Other: Outside of the arena, you are basically a normal citizen.

Backstory

Boxers are trained fighters who fight for entertainment across the world. They usually fight inside a square ring, and with special gloves to make sure that their hands and other body parts aren't too injured during matches. Rules in a boxing match vary from league to league, but usually, the person who has the most physical strength and fleetness of foot wins. As a boxer in Cyrodiil, you'll be in the only fight league there is. The Imperial City Arena. You have no enemies or allies that you don't make yourself, and if you become arena champion, you'll have a lot of fans. Remember, Boxers train a lot and entertain the masses!

Ideas/Activities

• Focus on building up your Hand-to-Hand as your sole all-effective combat skill. Whenever you run into bandits or animals on the road, beat them to death. Frequently head out into the woods or inside Ayleid Ruins as training. Beat everything to death in Hackdirt, conjurers in ruins, or necromancers in caves. With the Fighters Stronghold download, you can train with your Orc friend as he never dies and regenerates health.
• Steal the Bands of Kwang Lao from the two Arena combatants practicing outside the Arena. This will fortify your Hand to Hand skill by 20 points, which helps a lot. The first thing you must do is join the Arena in the Imperial City. Live in the Imperial City; spend most of your time there.
• You can learn alchemy and make potions that restore your fatigue and health over time, and call them 'Energy Drinks'
• You could learn destruction and cast spells that break your opponents' weapons during fights so that the fight becomes a pure fist fight.
• Perhaps you're out to prove that you can fight with your fists as well as anybody can fight with a sword. Be creative!

Tada! This new version was rushed, because I have to go soon, but I hope you get the idea. So, who approves of this? Ninja Hinder 21:33, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Well its a lot more informative and organized. The section is a eh...popular area and I think it should go in there. For the record, I kinda want to either clean up extensively or get rid of the section altogether but if we do this and delete some of the more ridiculous categories, it should be much better.--^Corevette₇₈₉ 18:15, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm new to this whole Wiki thing, but I particularly liked the way the Assassin character-type roleplay article was set up. It starts off by describing what the roleplay is. This is helpful, as I never know what to expect when I go to the "Lifestyles" or "Jobs" pages. Within that section, which I think may deserve its own section, it recommends items or skills would be beneficial to that type of character. After that, it has a "Possible Activities" section. This gives you broad and general tips for the role, like say if you just wanted a few ways to make it more realistic for yourself. Then, further down, it lists more specific character ideas, titled "Variations". These sections give precise details that separate that particular style from the others around it. I've had my eye on the roleplaying pages for some time and I thought that this was one of the clearest and easiest ones to read pages I've seen in a long time.

Its just a suggestion, but I think the other character-type roleplaying articles would greatly benefit from following this sort of template. As a comparison, the Ruler page has a handful of sections that are all very similar, so wouldn't it be easier to, like the Assassin page, have a "Possible Activities" section, where all the obvious actions of being a ruler could be identified? Then, if needed, further detail could be given to the specific styles of rulers. This would eliminate so many sections saying the same things repeatedly.

This is just my small contribution to cleaning up the roleplaying section. Djdontcare 11:11, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

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