I spent several days going into elf-dungeons and picking bandits off from the shadows one by one before I ever entered an oblivion gate or advanced the plot. I decided to be a redguard and just killed and looted and killed and looted before I ever headed back to the capitol.
"Hello? Is somebody there? "
Me: mix stuff to make poison, poison arrow, aim, release....SHUNKTCH!
Check body for Loot loot loot and for amusing arrow puncture effects. If possible try to get the body to rag doll down some steps.
Collect nearby glowing elf-stone things.
Find next bandit,
Repeat.
Eventually I sarted running into undeads and picking locks and raising my destruction skill and sword fighting and THEN I started doing quests.
Once I put on some shoes that let me walk on water and got animals to chase me onto the water and they drowned.
Another time I ran into two imperial soldiers shooting arrows into each other. When one dropped the killer walked over to the body, looked at me, and said "Gasp! This man's been murdered! "
Another time in town some guy ran past me then the whole town chasing him and shooting spells at him. Why? I dunno. Racism maybe. He was a cat-guy.
I thought it was an execellent game though it was lacking in variety of scenery compared to morrowwind which had people living in towers, giant crab shells, or giant plants and mushrooms and stuff. Also I missed the plantations, the evil volcano, the hammer skull-crusher, levitation, super jumping, being pursued by assassins, and "uncle sweet share" from the previous games.