The Skills of Dovahkiin: Your Life as an RPG

Ever wanted to Fight like Dovahkiin?  Well now you can, with the Video Game Combat Guide: Sword and Shield!



Hi guys!  Sorry it's been so long!  I've missed all of you :(  My life is, as always, busy, but I missed writing and I have etched out time and found inspiration to continue!  Yay!

So, where were we? Oh yeah, we were on Dovahkiin, the nord/redguard/orc/breton/argonian/khajiit/dunmer/falmer/altmer star of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim  He/she is a moldable, malleable character, and has honestly been a bit of a challenge to write for in our normal format.  So!  Let's look at the (possible) skills of Dovahkiin!

• Swords, maces, axes, bows, and pointy things.(no fists perk tree ;-; )
• Shields, armor, and protecty things.
• Blacksmithing, enchanting, alchemy, and crafty things.
• Sneaking, stealing, lockpicking, and subterfuge-y things.
• Fireballs, lightning, invisibility, mind control, and magic-y things

So, some or all of these things are approachable.  I'm going to touch a bit on the things we haven't in a bit, but first I want to highlight Skyrim's leveling mechanic.  If you've played any elder scrolls game, you know where I'm going with this.  If you haven't, then let me enlighten you.  Elder Scrolls games emulate real life in that, the more you use something, the better you get at it, skill-wise.  Other games are starting to do this now, but the ES series is kind of the hipster of the crowd.  They were, in fact, doing it before it was cool.

How does this apply to you?  Well, like I said, they are attempting to emulate real life.  When you do things more often, you get better at them.  This should seem pretty straightforward, but a lot of people don't know or think that it applies to everything.  Natural talent can help, sometimes, but it's no substitute for hard work, even for things like art.  And this applies to EVERYTHING.  Not good at talking to the opposite sex?  Practice(even on something like Chatroullette [warning, Chatroullette may contain penises]).  It's said it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become a  master at something.  In martial arts, we say you have to perform a move 10,000 times before it becomes yours.  So if you want to get good at something, do it, even if you suck! Getting better will come with time.

Now, that said, let's take a look at Skyrim's skill offerings.

Swords, maces, axes, bows, point things:  This is something we've covered before.  Look into finding a local historical fencing/stage combat organization.  Purchase or make a bow, get a target, and go practice in your backyard.  Get a couple PVC pipes, wrap them in foam, and challenge your friends to duels!  The most important thing is to get out there and do.

Shield, armor, protective things: Harder to do on the armor part, but if you can find a good rennaissance organization, or stage combat organization, they can help!  Barring that, strap a belt on a piece of plywood and pair it up with your PVC foam boffers and, again, challenge your friends to combat!

Blacksmithing, enchanting, alchemy, crafting things: Ooh, this is fun. I recommend Instructables as a starting place.  Blacksmithing at home is actually more possible than you think, and probably cheaper than you think, too.  Enchanting is kind of difficult, as magic-by-the-bethesda-definition doesn't exactly exist in the real world, but I'll bet if you pick an "effect" you'd like your object to have, you can figure out a way to do it with some Instructables!  If you're more the alchemy type, you can look into herbal medicine and wild plant identification for the more holistic potion side.  I like First Ways: An Urban Foraging Blog as a good starting point for this sort of thing.  If you're more the pure science type, then maybe you should start experimenting with chemistry in your spare time!  Here's a couple links.

Sneaking, stealing, lockpicking, and subterfuge-y things: I am not one to encourage illegal activities, but learning to be stealthy is fun without illegal rewards required!  Practice sneaking up on wild animals, that's really hard.  Or practice sneaking up on family members, if you want to be creepy.  Here's the Army Field Manual appendix on being a sneaky person.  Lockpicking is also fun and harmless, if you choose for it to be!  The awesome people over at lifehacker have this nifty guide. There's also the Greg Miller site, for a more comprehensive look!  For pickpocketing...well, I wouldn't condone such a thing, but I've heard tales of pickpockets hanging strings on bags and extracting wallets from them without ringing the bells.  Not that I would encourage such a thing.  If you do decide to take this course of action, remember that in the real world, your actions have consequences, and jail time doesn't just pass in a day.

Fireballs, lightning, invisibility, mind control, and magic-y things: This is the more difficult of things to emulate in the real world, for previously mentioned non-real-magic reasons.  However, for fireballs, lightning, and even invisibility, you can probably resort to nifty gadgets, many of which you can find on the previously mentioned Instructables.  For mind control, your best bet is probably learning body language.  There's lots of resources online for how to do this.  Also, look up the book titled, "How to Win Friends and Influence People."  It was written a while ago, but is FAR from outdated.  The principles outlined within it will go far for increasing your people skills, and your ability to bend others to your will(mwahaha). 

The bottom line, is, again, practice.  Pick a skill, and GO FOR IT!  And try to focus on just one to start, it will make your life much easier in the long run(don't worry, you have plenty of time to master anything you'd like).

So that's it for today.  It's good to be back, folks.  I'm not sure what kind of update schedule I'm going to be on for the time being, so I suggest you keep an eye on the Facebook page and my Twitter so you know when the next update goes out!

Dan "DaRatmastah" Wallace