Anthony Burch (of Hey Ash, Watcha Playing and Borderlands 2 fame) has a blog, called No Wrong Way To Play in which he chronicles the many different types of alternate ways to play though our favourite video games that people have come up with once they’ve become bored of the regular gameplay.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is with its role-playing background is ripe for this treatment, so I present to you the Prince/Princess – a set of character limitations that both make the game more challenging and give you incentive to roleplay a stuck-up royal banished from his/her court and forced to do things for themselves for once.
To start, any race will do, although you’ll have to get a bit creative with your background if you’re playing, say, an orc princess as I’m not even sure they have royalty. In their courtly lessons they learned fencing (so one-handed swords and daggers only for melee), archery (bows, not crossbows) and often magic (school should be chosen by race – Dark Elf princes throw fireballs and lightning bolts pretty much exclusively, while Bretons tend to be multidisciplinary mages focusing on conjuring and Nord royals are lucky to learn basic healing spells, if any at all due to their cultural prejudice against magic). It’s up to you which of these to focus on or ignore as your main combat skills.
To appear royal, your character wears a crown at all times. That means a circlet of some kind, and hopefully a good one. (The Aetherial Crown is a good choice and a fun quest. If you do this I suggest using it to equip The Lord and The Lady stones at the same time – the combination just screams “royal born.”)
The downside of this is you can’t take advantage of any armour set bonuses due to the crown taking up a helmet slot. As to attire – it’s up to you (clothes, robes, light or heavy armour are all justifiable) but as a further disadvantage you may not put points into Smithing. Such physical labour is beyond a princess. Improving weapons and armour is ok though, but without the perks you won’t get as many bonuses. Lockpick and Pickpocketing likewise may not have any points put into them.
As to other skills, it’s up to you at this point. Sneak can be both valuable and in-character (bodyguards often train high-profile targets to avoid danger), as can alchemy. A high Block skill can help offset the increased squishiness that leaving your head uncovered in a fight introduces.
As to comportment: thieving and assassinations are below you. So is vampirism and lycanthropy. You don’t have to be a boy scout – heck, revenge could be one of your motivations but you’re not overtly evil. You could choose to complete the main quest or ignore it, same goes for the civil war questline. So that’s it! It makes combat a bit more dire, and lets you come up with all sorts of justifications for leaving the main quest standing forever.
Next Skyrim My Way: Used Book Salesman. More fun than it sounds!
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