This is a guide for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Pro Gamer Challenge Game Modes

Pushing your game knowledge to the ultimate *LIMITS*, along with a (un)healthy amount of self-imposed limits, would be a struggle.

Le Prelude

Cons:

 

• You will need a lot of time. If an average playthrough of the main quest is 30 hours, this challenge might push it to 100. And that’s just the main quest.
• You might lose your sanity (but only if you’re a noob)

 

Pros:

 

• You will be forced to get creative at times
• You will get unironically really good at the game
• Bragging rights. I grant you bragging rights if you manage this.
• People will gawk at your self-discipline, be impressed, and be intimidated. I’ve had people tell me before ”You’re hurting yourself. Why are you ruining the game for yourself?”. They will tell you this too. Don’t listen to them. They’re just jealous of your skills.
• You will get women. Or any other group to whom you are attracted to. (If you’d like.)
• Your parents will un-divorce (might not always happen)
• For some weird people (like myself) this is actually much more fun than just playing the game ‘normally’

 

WARNING: This kind of run is NOT FOR EVERYONE

If you’re weak, you might not find this run fun at all. If just the instructions make you piss & ♥♥♥♥ your pants, you can cry and run back to your mommy (or the closest mother-like figure in your life) and tell them about how this challenge was just two much <;(((

Otherwise, hold on to your foreskin and heed my words, for these are the HARD RULES:

Le Hard Rules

1.

Legendary (max) difficulty only. From when you first gain control of the menu during the intro cutscene, to when you feel like your life is complete and end the run, your difficulty will ALWAYS be on Legendary. No exceptions.

2.

100% vanilla Legendary Edition only, because it’s the buggiest. The only plugins you are allowed are 1. Dawnguard.esm 2. Dragonborn.esm and 3. HearthFires.esm. Not even USLEEP is allowed. No ENB either, nor ReShade, nor any non-plugin mesh/texture/etc replacers (except for Practical Female Armors – [nexusmods.com] . This is the lone exception).

(I might write a similar guide for Special Edition)

3.

Your character is stingy. You will not be allowed to buy ANYTHING, unless you’re buying it at base price and it’s something you can’t craft yourself e.g. Alto Wine (why would you need it though?). You can only sell things at base price too– you will need a high Speech skill for this.

This is to prevent any shortcuts and laziness. Not a single penny is to be wasted.

You have to find and collect everything by yourself. For example, if you want to build a homestead, you have to mine all the iron and corundum ore, clay, quarried stone, etc by yourself from around the world map.

You can’t buy sawn logs, you’ll have to cut them yourself at a lumber mill for free (you will only be able to do this if you’re friends with the person owning the mill, and you have to ask for permission first).

You can’t buy any resources from your steward even though it’s at the base price.

You can’t buy weapons/armour/clothing/jewelry, enchanted or unenchanted. As a rule of thumb, anything that you can craft by yourself, you can’t buy. If you want enchanted gear, you either enchant a (looted/crafted) item by yourself using soul gems that you looted/filled yourself, or loot it from a dungeon/an enemy.

You can’t buy any ingredients. You have to find/collect everything by yourself. Yes, even Nirnroot and Powdered Mammoth Tusk.

4.

Browsing UESP/other forums for help is allowed because though I want to see you at your best, I don’t hate you.

5.

You’re allowed to use the console, but ONLY to fix game-breaking bugs. Use it as sparingly as possible.

6.

No fast travel. None. Not even carriages/hired boats.

7.

Finish Dragon Rising as soon as possible even if you don’t plan on doing the main quest this run. This is so you’d encounter dragons early on. Good luck.

Those are the 7 HARD rules. The following sections has the SOFT (optional) rules, for when you want the FULL experience. I give you fishy sticks if you do these too:

 

Le Soft Rules

1.

Can’t steal anything, nor pickpocket, except for truly unique items that you can’t acquire legitimately (see https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Unique_Items) – [uesp.net] , or when a quest calls for it.

2.

Can’t steal horses. Can’t buy one either. Only ones allowed are Shadowmere, Frost, and Arvak, or borrowed horses

3.

Can’t harvest people’s crops unless they’ll pay for it (check out this UESP page – [uesp.net] ). If you wanna keep the crops, get your own farm.

(This means you can’t harvest from farms like Chillfurrow Farm, because Nazeem and Wilmeth won’t buy the crops from you.)

4.

Can’t murder, nor trespass unless it’s needed for a quest

5.

Lowest graphics settings possible, to pay respects to all the gamers with potato computers. You’ll need BethINI for this (or edit the .inis manually, if you know what you’re doing). Make sure that all the highlighted settings in the following screenshots match yours. You can ignore the rest/change them to your liking, I don’t care

6.

Kill-on-sight policy with (non-essential) Thalmor. If you’re in the early-game and too weak to fight them, lure them to like a bandit den or something and let other hostiles kill them for you

7.

Can’t eat raw food, except for soups. What are you, a fat cat? It’s a waste of money. Just sell it instead (when you can sell it at base price). Sell the following crops to farmers (never to merchants):

Cabbage

Gourd

Leek

Nirnroot

Potato

Wheat

8.

Can’t bribe people nor pay ‘toll roads’ or other crap like that. Try persuading/intimidating them instead. Remember, you are stingy.

9.

Try paying mercenaries as little as possible. Stick to free followers, the only truly loyal ones

10.

When mining at a place where the owner of the mine will pay you for the ore – [uesp.net] , you can’t keep the ore, only sell it. If you wanna keep the ore, try mining in the overworld or in unowned/bandit mines instead

Le End

And that’s it. The ultimate goal of all this is to get all the Steam achievements while following these rules. You don’t have to do it in one playthrough, but you can if you want to.

Don’t say ‘too difficult’. Say ‘challenging’. Yes, this is all possible

Good luck, little buddy

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