Basically, you'll blow your load on 10 quick levels in just one skill set, and be stuck leveling up in just that one Attribute. When you gain in level, so do the enemies in the game. Here is the problem: If you make your most-used skills (Destruction, if you're a mage), your 'Major' skills, you will level up too quickly for your own good. 10 levels in one skill set = 5 points can be raised for its governing Attribute. The main idea of this is, when it's level up time, based on how you've used your skills to get to that point, you can raise any of these seven Attributes by up to 5 points each. For instance, the Attribute of 'Willpower' filters down into the Destruction, Alteration and Restoration magic skills. Each Attribute is plugged into three of the 21 skills. When you level up, you will get to raise some of the seven core Attributes tied to those 21 skills: Strength, Intelligence, Willpower, Agility, Personality, Speed and Endurance. Your Minor skills do not count towards this leveling up business. Here's a clincher: when you gain 10 points across any of your seven Major skills, in any combination, you will 'level up.' You'll go from, say, Level 1 up to Level 2. You can essentially handcraft a character according to your whims, by simply behaving however you like. You'll get better and better bonuses for each skill as you use it. Want to be a sneaky thieving bastard? Sneak into someone's house, stand in the corner while they sleep, and then creepily stay in the 'Sneak' stance for hours on end while they dream. If you want your character to have more Destruction magic power, use fire spells to fry the fuck out of some deer for about an hour. Your Major skills level up faster than Minor skills, and you can raise the level of each individual skill simply by using it. Each of these skills start at a base number, down in the 20s/30s, and can go up to 100. When you create a character, you will need to divvy up 21 'skills' (stuff like Blade, Marksman, Destruction magic) into two main categories: Major, and Minor.

I'll do my best to explain how it works in as few words as possible, which will be the gist of this first post. I'm referring to the character creation/leveling system in the game (see above picture). In Oblivion, you will need first that equation, a sprightly high school student from China, a telescope, and a fully charged graphing calculator on hand. In the film Pi, a man tries to figure out an equation to predict the movements of the stock market. It will be like travel writing to.what's an equivalent? To maybe like a summer camp in the 90s. Of course the game is beautiful, and I deep down love it. I can openly address what blows: the places where the assumptions of designers and gamers alike go whiffing past anything that's even remotely fun or endurable. The fact that the game is a little dated actually gives me more leeway that if it was released yesterday. The idea is to provide some sort of social commentary on a fake world. I'm sallying forth into Cyrodiil, the setting of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. In an effort to feel productive while playing a two-year old RPG, I've decided to make this into something of a column. First of all, welcome to the first Oblivion blog.

Oblivion funny character creation