About

Introduction

A few years ago, I played my first game of Dungeons & Dragons, and I was immediately hooked. RPG's have always been my favorite genre of video games, especially ones set in a world of sword and magic fantasy, so the quick addiction was easily predicted.

I started playing with a small group of friends who had never played D&D before. We had been joking about playing for a few months, but it always seemed like the jokes were half sincere. Eventually, I just went for it. I purchased the Player's Handbook and Starter Kit we did our best to learn the rules together.

Inspiration

The biggest frustration, for me at least, was having to learn, yet another, massive history and lore, complete with wars, deities, and politics.

It became clear that the best choice for me, rather than spending a couple of nights reading up on the rich history of D&D, was to spend immeasurable hours creating an Elder Scrolls Tabletop Roleplaying Game, using Dungeons and Dragons 5e as the base.

My first Elder Scrolls experience was in 1996 with Daggerfall. After spending 30 minutes or more creating a custom class, I was quickly killed by the first rat I encountered. And then killed again about a dozen more times. Once the rat was dead, I quickly fell in love with the series incredibly deep lore and open endedness, and that love has continued ever since.

Has This Been Done Before, Right?

The first thing I did was search online to see if there were any other people who had the same idea. I mean, you've got groups of people devoting hundreds, if not thousands of hours, into creating the entire continent of Tamriel in two different games, there just had to be someone who has converted D&D into the Elder Scrolls.

I found some homebrew versions of races - meant to be plucked out of Tamriel and dropped into the multiverse, but that wasn't going to do it for me. I happened across a blog by Hedge GM that had made some significant progress that fit with my vision, but it seems that the project might have been abandoned.

Another d100 Elder Scrolls RPG kept popping up, which is really well done and has fantastic bits of lore sprinkled through their beautiful guides, but I was really enjoying the simplicity of Fifth Edition D&D.

Bringing on the Challenge

I initially only planned on creating just enough to get by and start writing an adventure to play in. The plan was to only create 5 classes and set up the different races. As I started writing the classes, I found myself forcing classic Elder Scrolls archetypes into roles that didn't make sense just to fit into 5 classes. None of that made sense, and I figured if I'm going to spend the time on it, I might as well give it my best.

The 5 classes quickly rose to 10 classes, which then extended to 12. While working through magic classes, it became apparent that spellcasting and magic would need some tweaks to fit into the world of Elder Scrolls. On top of that, the weapons and armor will need to be updated, backgrounds need to include the birthsigns, and at the same time, needing to create an adventure to accompany all of this. This small little hobby quickly turned into a massive project.

Community Feedback

My inexperience with D&D definitely creates some pretty obvious challenges. Balancing races and classes is exceptionally difficult when you have very little understanding of what a late game adventure feels like.

The feedback from the community has been fantastic! There are so many people out there that are passionate about both Elder Scrolls and D&D, and many who know more about both series than I do. This really is a project for the community, and I hope that together we can really make something we can all enjoy.

Please feel free to put any feedback on the website or email me at UESTRPG@Outlook.com. I read all of your comments, and I'm work a little bit everyday to try and keep this project moving forward.

The Golden Rule

As our community has grown, it has showed us that there is a vast difference in playstyle that each person brings to the table, and each player brings with them their own expectations of Elder Scrolls. What works with one group may not work for another. With this in mind, we've taken to a single Golden Rule: Your Table, Your Tamriel.

This might include modifying existing rules as presented within this system. It may mean altering the fate of certain in-game events, such as how Dragonbreaks work. Or, your table may have certain historical events transpire in a specific manner that may be left vague within canonic lore. Others may introduce new themes, new political parties, new allies, new creatures, or any other number of new things not presented in-game.

It all comes down to how is the game experienced when played. GM's should strive to achieve the best possible satisfaction for their player's first and foremost, even if it means tweaking a few things in order to make sense of Tamriel at their table.