Brian, as I mentioned, I think you and I have similar taste in open world games. If so, let me describe my approach to Skyrim, and you can take what you like from it.
First, the reason I love Skyrim is that it provides a huge, living, varied open world in which to role play. That is what I am seeking in games like this. For me, the quest lines and stories are just part of the open world, and Skyrim allows you tremendous flexibility in what you do and how you do it. I think the reason some people don’t like Skyrim is they are seeking an exciting, novel-worthy story in which they are the center of the world and they are looking for a world in which the story is the primary focus. That’s cool, and I like some games like that. But for me, the stories and quest lines are just another part of this wonderful open world, to take on if and when I please. Even the “main” quest line is not really a blow you away, I’ll never forget that! kind of story. It is interesting, and provides some nice growth and background and powers, but there is no feeling, once you complete it, (at least for me) that you have completed the core of why Skyrim exists as a game.
For me, there is the main quest, the dark brotherhood storyline, the thieves guild storyline, the Companions storyline, etc. but also a gazillion smaller stories that aren’t part of any “main” storyline but stick with me. Like the lighthouse I stumbled on, and as I explored it I discovered the story of a man who wanted to save his money and move out of the city, and this lighthouse was his dream. But there was more to it than that. A small, inconsequential story but it stays with me. The world is filled with these.
Skyrim is a world that rewards you using your mind to create who you are and why you are here and why you are going to do what you do. My character is level 53, an archer who is very stealthy, amoral in many ways but with his own set of ethics: he won’t steal from the poor, for example. I had a wife (Mjoll) that I shared many adventures with, but now she is in a house I built, with a homeless child who was wandering the streets of Windhelm and whom we adopted. I met Mjoll in Riften, and she clearly did not like the Thieves Guild so I never took her on Thieves Guild missions. ;)
I would suggest getting all the DLC up front, as they integrate into the game world very nicely and will add, from the beginning, a variety of new places and encounters, even if you choose not to pursue the story lines that come with them until later.
In short (too late!) Brian, I think you will enjoy Skyrim if you take it as a huge interesting open world to explore and wander and in which you create you own history. It will reward you well if you take that approach (oh, BTW, I have almost never fast traveled - I enjoy walking the trails and areas that I have been through many times, recalling the adventures I’d had there before and how frightened, for example, I’d been early in my life in Skyrim at what had occurred there in the past. Plus you will get a lot of random encounters throughout the world.)
FWIW.
