Totally agree. I intro'd to the series with Morrowind as a kid and I wish I'd had Oblivion as my launch point. Spent a bunch of time in all the Beth open worlds so far, but far and away more in TES than Fallout.

Skyrim is a GREAT all around game but they threw magic use to the wolves. It's fun and flashy but mostly useless.

Oblivion was a good learning point because it was, in hindsight, an almost exact middle ground between the potentially destructive freedom of Morrowind and more open-ended restrictions of Skyrim.

Morrowind these days is my favorite for going in to an open world fantasy setting, and basically acting like an immature God a la Grand Theft Auto style play freedom.

It's a STEEP learning curve if you're young. But the game will literally let you kill any NPC you want to at any point. Even if it breaks the game/story. You can irreparably mess up a save file at any point and sometimes not even know until you hit a cross point you didn't know would be coming unless you'd read elsewhere ahead of time.

And the utter, gleeful madness of the freedom they gave you with spellcrafting and enchanting. On CONSOLES!

You can fully customize every spell you want to use.

Example: Acrobatics is a skill in that game. Higher you go, higher you jump. You can create a spell that imbues yourself with fortify acrobatics and literally jump across the map.

That's just one basic idea. It works for every spell and skill in the game. Base game consoles or PC, no mods needed.

Athletics is also a skill. Higher run faster. Same idea, can turn yourself into a gazelle that can run across the map, jump over an ocean, and safe fall into Vivec city to go kill a God and break the game.

Have you played Morrowind before?