The main storyline is sooooo important that Murderface hasn't even bothered to do it yet and he's level 40-something. ;) Once you go to the tower and kill the first dragon, dragons start randomly spawning in towns, out in the wild, etc. and I wanted to put that off as long as possible. I'm sending Murderface to as many word walls as he can get before starting the dragon questline because I got tired of dying on the first run, and once the dragons start showing up they guard the word walls.
The only thing is that you can't really talk to the Jarl of Whiterun if you haven't killed the dragon because he's all "Why haven't you killed the dragon yet?!" But nobody else cares, except for the people worriedly talking about the dragon problem. XD There's a ton of quests and a number of questlines you can do without doing the main one. I keep discovering new ones...Toby's on his fourth run and still discovers new quests.
The settling thing (and adopting) requires the Hearthfire DLC if you want to build a house, but you can buy a few houses in towns otherwise. You do a set number of small quests for Jarls and their people (3-5 depending on the size of the hold), and once you've proven yourself a friend of the people, the Jarl allows you to either purchase a house or purchase land on which to build a house. If you want to eventually adopt, you'll need a house where you can build or buy children's beds and a chest for each to put their stuff in. If you get named Thane of a place you get assigned a housecarl, who can furnish a house for you if you just shovel gold at them so you don't have to buy or make it (or in Whiterun, you can buy it from the Jarl's steward if you buy Breezehome from him) if you assign the housecarl to your home.
If you do decide to adopt, the only place the kids seem 100% happy is the lake house--in the other spots, the kids complain occasionally about being scared.
NPCs who are companions will have an option in the dialog choices for you to say "Come with me" or to hire them. Sometimes you need to do a service for them in order for the option to show up. The one companion I know of in Whiterun is Jenassa the mercenary, who hangs out in the inn across the street from Warmaiden's. For 500 gold she'll follow you anywhere.
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The only thing is that you can't really talk to the Jarl of Whiterun if you haven't killed the dragon because he's all "Why haven't you killed the dragon yet?!" But nobody else cares, except for the people worriedly talking about the dragon problem. XD There's a ton of quests and a number of questlines you can do without doing the main one. I keep discovering new ones...Toby's on his fourth run and still discovers new quests.
The settling thing (and adopting) requires the Hearthfire DLC if you want to build a house, but you can buy a few houses in towns otherwise. You do a set number of small quests for Jarls and their people (3-5 depending on the size of the hold), and once you've proven yourself a friend of the people, the Jarl allows you to either purchase a house or purchase land on which to build a house. If you want to eventually adopt, you'll need a house where you can build or buy children's beds and a chest for each to put their stuff in. If you get named Thane of a place you get assigned a housecarl, who can furnish a house for you if you just shovel gold at them so you don't have to buy or make it (or in Whiterun, you can buy it from the Jarl's steward if you buy Breezehome from him) if you assign the housecarl to your home.
If you do decide to adopt, the only place the kids seem 100% happy is the lake house--in the other spots, the kids complain occasionally about being scared.
NPCs who are companions will have an option in the dialog choices for you to say "Come with me" or to hire them. Sometimes you need to do a service for them in order for the option to show up. The one companion I know of in Whiterun is Jenassa the mercenary, who hangs out in the inn across the street from Warmaiden's. For 500 gold she'll follow you anywhere.