There is that approach sure. Another way is to just have your "real background" start once you are released from the Vault. I did this all the time with Skyrim for example. One of my favorite playthroughs technically had my character coming down from the Greybeard mountain. He didn't show up as Unknown Prisoner #3, he was a member of the Greybeards, had trained in using the Voice, but was also in his previous life, a priest of Arkay. He was a true pacifist, but had a hatred of undead (which is in keeping with Arkay's priesthood). My background for him was that he came down after hearing about the vampire scourge (that vampire DLC plot stuff), and returned to his priesthood days, with a "purge the unholy with the light of Arkay" mentality. OOC: I had him hire a mercenary swordsman to fight for him, IC: It was his Sword of Arkay, the martial arm of the Arkay priesthood who would travel with the pacifist priests and protect them from danger. This is 100% canon with the Elder Scrolls mythology by the way, I did my homework on it.IamLEAM1983 said:That's a great idea.Happyninja42 said:
RPGs offer lots of flexibility, especially since the last two console or hardware generations, and coming up with your own scenario is totally fine. I just think it's a bit unfair when I hear people say that the game's vanilla storyline doesn't allow for their initial ideas or concepts.
I always tend to play RPGs twice, at the very least. Once to follow the plot and behave in a way that makes sense for the role and universe the game puts me in, and once more to do whatever the Hell I want, or whatever it is I haven't tried in my main playthrough. I don't mind having initial constraints - I'm given a story that's been pre-crafted, but over which I have some control.
My character doesn't *have* to open Nora's pod once his own icy jail is cracked, he doesn't *have* to express grief at her loss - the decision to open that pod and press "Interact" on her corpse was mine. Someone else would be free to assume that Joe or Jane Schmoe goes Terminator after being let loose - screw Shaun and all that.
So while the game had him start in the cart and the dragon and all that shit, I just ignored it, and gave him my own background, and then did the content that was related to that. I didn't even touch the main plotline, because he wasn't the Dragonborn. I did enough to unlock the dragons, so he could learn other Shouts (support related shouts), but he fought them as just a regular priest of Arkay. I never attacked anyone directly, unless they were an undead, which is allowed. The rest of the time, I cast fear spells, buffed my allies, healed them, and used Fus Ro Dah to do crowd control. It was great fun, and had jack shit to do with the background given to me by the game. But that's ok, because you don't need to follow the plot to play your character. Just go do your own thing. They give you enough content to go carve out your own personal story, and it doesn't have to have anything to do with the main plot.