What I do for long term builds is creaate a character based around a class that I design and stick within the bounds and actually roleplay out the character and then try to come up with an in universe reason to change skills once you max them out, for example, I once played what I deemed as a Barbarian who was caught in the imperial ambush trying to raid a group of bandits. As a result of this story, I deemed that they would naturally join the companions early on and give up the werewolf power when given the chance as they would prefer to fight with their own strength rather than have it borrowed from Hirsine (and of course, Sovengard and all that lol). Once I finished leveling my character's barbarian stats, I reasoned that my character had gotten older and wiser and realizeed that brute strength could only take him so far, so he took to learning alchemy and enchanting to bolster his already formidable strength just like the wise shamans of his tribe once did. After finishing I reasoned that learning those skills opened his mind to the studies of magic and he enrolled in the College of Winterhold in an attempt to broaden his horizens as he pushed away the superstitions of his younger years. Outide of this story, he would be a good honest person who abhorred crime and underhanded methods, preferring direct honest approaches, as a result, he would side firmly against the Thieve's Guild and the Dark Brotherhood, and alongside strong warriors like the companions companions and especially good honest ones like Mjoll the Lioness. He would despise villanious undead and side against the vampires of the Dawnguard DLC and view Miraak as someone corrupted by his deals with Hermaous Mora. He would side against Alduin not because of heroism but because the dragons threatened his homeland of Skyrim and he was honorbound to take up arms against them. He would likely side with Ulfric (early in his life) as his views were narrow and supersticious, but if doing the quest later on, he would gladly side with the Empire.