Hi folks! Just wanted to drop a note for any that might be interested, that Round V of our Haven DiD Competitions looks to have a tentative kick-off date of February 6th. If you're interested, come on over and check out the discussion threads!

(These are a continuation of the DiD Comps. from the Skyrim section of Bethsoft, we just start it at Haven now, since we make up about 90% of the usual participants. I believe we will have a thread up for it at Bethsoft, too. )

This one has been curious, is this a real competition? If so, how is the winner determined?

Usually there is a set theme, and you get points for adhering to it. The last round featured the Thieves Guild, and you received points for each quest completed, and a bonus for completing them all. Plus other points and bonuses for radiant questing, and stone hunting.

Typically we have a multiplier in place for the different difficulty levels that help determine the winner, IE;

Novice .50
Apprentice .75
Adept 1.0
Expert 1.25
Master 1.50
Legendary 1.75

On some rounds we also do randomly drawn skills. For instance, in the TG round; Conjuration, Illusion, Destruction, Light armor, and Archery were the drawn skills, and the only ones you could level/perk. Speech, lockpicking, and sneak are usually given as freebies, since it's impossible to not raise those. But if you raise other skills not chosen, you get docked points.

For round 5, though, you get to pick your class/build and relevant skills, and will only be allowed to level and perk those that are chosen. But, the freebie skills will likely be the same.

So how do you know people aren't cheating?

It's an honor system. Haven't had any issues yet, outside of a round where someone was sitting on their level ups.

Oh ok gotcha

Round V: The Hero of Skyrim has officially begun.

Round VI is due to start on Friday, if any are interested. We're going for more of a fun round this time. Treasure hunt!

Been a while since I posted about our friendly little competitions, but we are beginning the talks for how the next one will go. So far, it looks like it will be a Dawnguard run!

Round X

I have thought of joining one of these, but for me the whole dead-is-dead thing is an emotional process. I actually get upset sometimes if my character dies, and it's a fair death. I can't really conceptualize the idea of putting my character into a contest just to see how long he or she lasts. I'm not criticizing the idea, I'm just saying I have considered it in the past, but don't really understand the contest part of it all.

I still remember the days back when we all table-gamed, back when I was in high school. Simon, my sword-swinging high elf, who was pretty high in level, decided to go back to his homeland. This meant travelling alone, without the rest of the party. It shouldn't have been a problem.

Well, we had to roll dice for every day of travel, to see if any encounters happened. And he got attacked by three dire wolves one night. They surprised him, which means they got the initiative during the attack. Their attacks would go first, and Simon's attack wouldn't happen until theirs were all done. No problem. I mean... it was three measly wolves, right?

Wrong. One wolf's attack rolled double-damage. This means three six-sided dice get rolled, and to get double-damage is pretty rare. Still no problem though, I mean, we're talking about a character who had been around for a few years (Earth time) so he was pretty well-developed for combat. But then the next wolf rolled TRIPLE damage. Three ones, basically. And the next wolf rolled either double or another triple. That's one of those things which never happens! It was intense.

Except it did happen. Simon the elf was dead. My other gamer friends witnessed this. I was pretty upset about it. Might've even cried! And that's what it's like for me. Not that I sit there bawling nowadays, but it's also not something i take lightly.

Anyway, good luck your DiD contest. How exactly do these competitions work? I am curious. I guess I could just follow that link...

I've had a few that made me genuinely sad when they die, but that's why I gave up on Dead is Dead, except for the Comps. All my normal characters reload as needed.

That's a stinker about your High Elf. I wish I had other friends with that interest when I was young...I thin I'd have loved D&D!


We play for fun these days. Most of the die hard competitors have moved on from our group, and are dealing with Bethnet instead.

The main rules are always the same, but the rounds are usually themed and my have specific rules. Nothing too hard! We're kept in check by an honor system. We all know, trust, and respect each other to play fair.

OH no kidding! Wow.

Those were great times. And it's funny too because even way back then (the 1980s) I used to sit there wondering if anybody would ever make a videogame which simulated all the dice rolls, book consults, scenes, etc. Except in real-time. That's why I'm so obssessed with Elder Scrolls!



That is what I was going to ask, whether there is an honor system or not.

I did follow the link you provided and read a few posts, but my question is: Do you explain the competition aspect of it all in-game? In other words, is it like our characters see a flier posted in some town which says "Hear ye!" and tnen explains that there's some sort of contest. There's a chance some might meet their ultimate demise, but for those who survive, ultimate riches abound?

Ha! I feel like I'm overthinking this!

I wish that last bit were so! It would take a little bit of modding, and I think the only among us that have created mods are neildarkstar, and possibly Turija.

We make a thread for each round that has all the finalities, and the sign-up. It also is the thread where we update scores and talk about experiences in the competition. Here is one of our previous threads for the actual event. That one was a round focused on Dwemer exploration.

Oh it wouldn't need to be mod-added, it could just be from imagination. Or you could put a flier up in the thread itself.

I am overthinking it though, like I said. For me there has to be an in-game reason why my character is doing this, it can't just be me joining a contest. Because I find it near-impossible not to roleplay, even for "test" characters.

I should join Haven. I think I'm already a member there. If so, I hope I can remember my ID and password.

I do see a Renee G in our member list. Let me know if you require any assistance.

Speak of the Khajiit and he shall appear. Yeah I’ve done a bit of modding and something like this wouldn’t be too hard. Just type up the rules and add them to a note and have the existing courier system deliver it, or drop it into the world where it could be discovered. Once you get the framework set up it would be very easy to change the text for each competition.




Yep, back when I played in the contests that is how I did it. Came up with an RP reason for the character to do what they were doing and did not let the character know they were just a plaything in a contest. Made me feel like an Ideal Master, or Daedra Lord, playing with a poor puppet on a string. I have not participated in a contest in a while because I don’t have that much time to play and what little time I do play is spent on my regular RP characters. And the contests force a faster play style than I am used to since there is a time limit, usually a month or so real world time, so you have to play a lot and get a lot done when you play in order to be competitive. My character tend to take their time and spend a lot of time just walking the roads from place to place and enjoying the scenery. But if I recall you are the winner of the “my character actually *walks* from place to place” competition. Mostly my characters jog when traveling down the roads, but they spend a lot of time doing it nonetheless and that’s not conducive to winning competitions when the timer is running.

I had some good times though. I even won one of the early competitions and came in second in another. I would have won that one too but my character died literally 45 minutes before the contest ended because he was rushing through the falmer lair taking chances he should not have been taking. A more careful approach would have been better but the clock was running out. If he only had survived that last battle he would likely have earned enough points to put him over the top. That was a fun competition though. The only “rule” was you could only perk three skills. So it was easy to roleplay around that. And points were awarded for all kinds of stuff a character would normally do, like collect gold, kill enemies, discover locations, clear locations, complete quests. If my character had cleared the sightless pit and killed a few more falmer he would have won.

Wow, that sounds intense, in that falmer cave there...



Ha! Yeah that is me. Although I do have some who run more often (especially in dungeons if they're backtracking), in general the idea is they don't run unless they have to.

Yah, I'd fail miserably because of time limit thing.

I've never had a character that just walked everywhere. Vanilla walk speed is too slow in Skyrim to stomach it. I've looked for mods that speed up player speed only, but they always give NPC's the zoomies, too.

I get enough of those from my cats, lol.

I have noticed this about Skyrim, the walking speed is really slow if I switch to mouse & keys. Although I use a controller most of the time, I sometimes switch to mouse & keys so I can use the Autowalk function, assuming my character is moving long distance along a relatively straight road. And yeah, it does seem like the speed is really ..... slow if he/she's just walking. This isn't a problem when using a controller, because controllers support a variable amount of speed.

Is this a mouse & keys thing though? Because mouse & keys only allow walk or run, right? I always assumed it might be this, or it might also be some mod I've got which slows all my characters down.

It is a mouse and key thing. Back when I played on 360, speed was variable but still a pain cause you had to angle the joystick just right.