When I was a kid, I recall using a chess set for action figures on occasion.

...See now you're just dodging the issue here...Or you're doing it on purpose for a laugh.

Honestly I think trying to play the same character over and over again is pretty unimaginative.

Branch out a bit H-W-R. Try being a new man (or woman). Stretch imaginations legs and go for a jog.

I don't think it is unimaginative at all. It gives me a continuity that I "imagined" all by myself and it is cool thinking that when Fallout 3 first came out that I loved my first character so much that I can't let him go and I "imagine" why he is where he is at and his motivations. Gizmo, I said "modern" Fallout meaning (obviously) 3 and beyond. I have beaten Fallout 1 and 2 myself and do not consider either of those protagonists the same person. Anybody can make up a random character, I was just pointing out a certain style of play.

Not at all, I said precisely what I intended; points intact.



Consider only the last two on the list then; it doesn't change the post really.

I agree with this. And it raises a serious question: who sets the limits? I prefer to set my own limits. It sounds, from reading your posts, as though you prefer others to set your limits for you.

I play roleplaying games to tell a story. Others want to be told a story. In my time on these forums I have come to the conclusion that these two points of view are almost entirely reconcilable. They are two completely different ways of looking at roleplaying games and those who hold one view rarely understand those who hold the other view.

I want to tell my own stories. You want someone else to tell the story. I want to set my own limits. You want someone else to set the limits for you.That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But your way is not "the right way," just as my way is not "the right way" either.

I am eager to see how it all plays out this time with the voiced protagonist. I don't really want it, but I am not going to hate on it until I see it. It is really the only worry I have for the whole game because I know it will be a great game no matter what it turns out to be. I am confident I will get at least two good long playthroughs as the male and the female to change things up and hear the different voices and perhaps the stories will even be varied changing the sixes. Going back and playing FO 1 and 2 taught me what it was about and when New Vegas hit, it pushed The Elder Scrolls to my second favorite game franchise.

No. The Lone Wanderer and Courier are two very different individuals. Even though the timeline allows for it, I just can't imagine my Lone Wanderer leaving behind his life in the Capitol Wasteland and traveling across the entire country just to deliver packages.

No matter what, I always end up playing as basically the same person for some reason. That's why I picked this username.

If you mean limits like ~the planet; gravity; the PC of Strength 3 not being able to lift a car, then yes.

The limits come of the character design; what the character sheet lists of the PC. The game should react impartially to the PC, and give whats warranted, and withhold what's not deserved.

In the case of Fallout PC, those limits dictate the kind of characters the game can support. It should be impossible to produce the same kind of PC in Fallout 2, as in Fallout, because their backgrounds are wholly alien to one another.

I think that this should only ever be game series specific. If one doesn't like Baldur's Gate, then one should not expect BG2 to be pleasing.

Personally I suppose that I loathe the lack of a professional narrative, presented as a feature, with the message, "go play". I find such RPGs a waste of time; what's the point of absolute freedom, if there is no meaning or restrictions applied to it, or changes that come from it. A wandering sandbox for the hell of it, is not my idea of fun. Fallout was my idea of fun, and it's now lost practically all incentive to play ~sans mods, in the new incarnation.
This should be series specific; for TES it's fine ~that's what TES is, but for Fallout it's not fine. Fallout is not supposed to be TES 2.5 with a reskin. It deserves better than that; it was one of the best RPG series ever created.

Nah. Some will wind up being similar towards the end, at least skill wise.
But I have never set out with the intent of playing the same character in another installment.

I roleplayed that my character from Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas were one and the same. Had the Fallout 4 protagonist not been a pre-War citizen from a Vault, I would've still made a completely new character; my Fallout 3/New Vegas character's story arc is done. She has no reason to go back to the East coast.

I may go this route too, as I went independent in NV at the end so his arc could be over as the kingpin of New Vegas. Decisions, decisions.

I think there are two distinct approaches to videogame RPGs. I almost think of them as "first-person" and "third-person" roleplaying, but that's kind of an easy generalization for lacking any better terms. (I just find that those who tend to roleplay as "themselves" or prefer absolute freedom of narrative gravitate towards first-person perspective and those who view themselves more as a director of the PC and want more of a structured narrative to gravitate towards third-person.) Obviously there are exceptions and it's probably more of a spectrum range than an absolute value.

But I do think that there's something to be said for Bethesda's approach to freedom being something of an existential indifference. In most RPGs, when you can do anything you want it tends to be because nothing you do really matters, the game doesn't particularly care or notice that you're doing it. I remember early on in my time on this forum, I hadn't realized that there were players who would spend hundreds of hours in Oblivion roleplaying as town guards (not that there's anything "wrong" with that approach, I just found it surprising.) Oblivion never recognized that play-style, NPCs would not remark on you being a guard, as far as the game was concerned you weren't a town guard - but so long as nothing got in the way of that approach to playing the game the player was happy.

For me, I just can't get into something like that if the game doesn't recognize that conscious choice on my part. I don't feel like something really... "happened" unless the game is tracking and recognizing it. So I actually like having a bit of a... "set" background to work within, like you. That way the game can function in ways that respond to any decisions I can make to differentiate my character from other characters, even if they do all start from essentially the same place. I see a videogame RPG as a mutual production between myself and the game, whereas other players will approach the game as a sandbox - a blank world on which they want to paint their own narrative with minimal outside interference.

The two approaches likely are relatively irreconcilable - freedom in gaming comes at the expense of existentialism it seems (you can only program so many variables after all.)

Anyway, to the topic - each character I make in Fallout has been somewhat distinct. I often make the same "type" of characters (I've said in other threads that what I like about starting as a Vault Dweller is that it does double-duty of introducing you to a new setting as an outsider that wouldn't have prior knowledge of the area as well as being able to be kind of a "straight man" contrast to eccentricities of the inhabitants of the Wasteland.) I generally play women in my Fallout games, and focus on Science or Repair, and Speech - but I like to think of them as having somewhat distinct personalities and motivations.

But... if you want to come up with some headcannon to explain how you have the same character through all the games, then more power to you. I can easily imagine that half of the fun would be just in coming up with a backstory to connect all of the games, and the adventures your character would have had to face in the interim between the games or to cover that distance.

Well when I think of a RPG where I'm playing someone else's story I think BioWare. Bethesda, while it does have a story, generally makes the game so you can completely ignore the MQ if you want. Many of my characters in Skyrim had great stories IMO but didn't touch the MQ.

FO is a little tougher sell as the MQ generally 'ends' the game. When it does that you can't really say it's your story anymore, it's Bethesda and the story is over.

We'll just have to see how FO4 does it.

I think there are more than two, but that approaches should not be mixed in the same series. A series forms an identity and expectations of all the games in the series. On can [or should] be assured that Carmageddon 3 or 4 is not a Mario Cart game, and that neither God Of War 5 nor Wolfenstien 5 is a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fkz2Exvlxfg clone. (Developers shouldn't be allow to get away with that. Even if legal, they shouldn't be allowed to ever live it down.)

What's depressing is that any TES fan will agree that there should not be a TES sequel in the style of Fallout, but they usually are fine with suggesting that Fallouts be made like TES, and will ignore the obvious reversed plight of the Fallout fans and series. That includes the developers here. You recall what Ashley Cheng said of Diablo 3.

*Happy Birthday BTW: 12 days late.

If the original developer went under, and a different company (especially one with a firmly established MO) bought up the IP and made a new game a decade later? I would honestly not be surprised at all if it were different. Regardless of the game series.

(Heck, even within a company, if a series goes on long enough you'll see them make games in the series in different styles: Fallout Tactics & Fallout:BoS; Battlespire & Redguard; Starcraft:Ghost, if it had survived; etc.)

Eh, whatever. Perhaps I just don't "invest" myself so fully into things (games, movies, books...). I'm honestly hard pressed, for ex, to name a single "favorite" whatever, when those threads come up over in the Community forums. I really like a lot of things, I don't obsessively love anything.

My last character in Fallout 3 was Clint Eastwood, and my first character in New Vegas was Clint Eastwood, so yes.

For the first two fallout games which I played long after fallout 3 I did an unarmed character it was challenging untill I got power armor melee hits against me did little to nothing even against deathclaws it was fantastic! for fallout 3 and beyond I will be doing a energy weapon weilding badass.

I suppose I tend to. In the end, because I struggle to limit myself for roleplaying purposes (for my main characters), my main characters tend to become a reflection of me (in terms of the decisions they make).

And I think that's the best way for me to do it. I always try to create some sort of anti-hero who "does what is necessary" for the greater good, but I think that is just the in-game version of myself. So basically, the real life version of me would be a total coward and try to make friends with everybody and always try to do the right thing. The in-game version of me is a total badass who loves combat, believes death is an appropriate punishment for some evil deeds, and tries to do good things while still aiming to get the best out of it as he can. That's because it's a game where the whole morality thing is different.

In a game, you don't feel like you have "blood on your hands" when you kill someone - it's just the click of a button. In a game, you're trying to have fun and get the best loot you can, so often you'll make your decision based around that. In real life, loot/fun is taken out of the equation, and killing someone becomes a messy, evil business. In real life, my in-game character would probably be considered like a total psychopath. In-game, he's just an anti-hero who does what needs to be done. So that's what I end up playing for my first (main) character in all Bethesda games, I guess. Of course, they vary from this base model. Some are science-oriented, some have been repair-oriented, others have been sneak/lockpick-oriented, others have been speech-oriented, etc.

I hope it makes sense, it's hard to explain. I'm not trying to make it more complicated then it sounds, but tldr: I play the way I want to play, which always ends up being the same.

EDIT: added more info.

I consider it a lack of respect for the material. Developers making a part 2, of an established franchise; with an established fanbase, should understand [and like] the previous title; if they don't care about it, then they should not be making a part 2. Apply this to TES, to Halo, to Might & Magic; to any title built around mechanics and a world; as opposed to a specific character ( like Batman, Mario, and Laura Croft ). Combat and FPP aside, FO3 chooses convenience over accountability at every turn, and that's a cardinal mistake for a Fallout title. A deliberate mistake to make it sell better; despite being an about face of series' priorities.

I can imagine that roleplaying the same character from FO3 in Fallout 1 or 2, would likely see the PC universally hated in all provinces; while roleplaying a psycho in FO3, doesn't really affect the player's [positive] behavior options adversely. FO4 will probably see the PC as a true neutral [IE. crazy] individual that can pick their response at random, and not see any serious consequences from it. This is because of the different design goals of the three [four?] teams that have worked on the series; but the first team invented it all, and established the series design; all else is deviation; and it began with Fallout 2.

I as well roleplay the same Character from Fo3 into NV and intend to do the same in Fo4 "ignoring" the whole family bit as a "bad dream" and coming under the pretense of my chars shenanigans for ending up Cryo frozen back in boston for whatever reason.

See how much ignoring and side stepping I did there

no complaints, just how one goes about this can get silly.

I'm utterly serious about roleplaying the same char though.

I'm already thinking about making my favourite character, Venenum, travel all the way to Boston from the Mojave, get ambushed and captured, and put inside a Vault that experiments on false memories ''injected'' in your mind.

A spouse, a child? He was never married! I should say he can't even love anymore...

I love the idea of the last few posters in the thread of being the same guy, but captured and frozen with false memories! Imagination lives!!

My FO4 PC will be "me", but not the same "me" that played FO3 and NV. The back story that Bethesda has given is one that intrigues me, and I can relate as a married man with children (albeit from a previous marriage and they are grown and on their own). So to me, this "me" will be the closest I have gotten yet in a video game. I imagine I will be hunting for my family, and woe onto they who harm them!

Well, it looks like Fallout 4 would likely be set before New Vegas, so there would be ample time for my character Cathy to mess about in the Commonwealth before setting off for the Mojave.

I will headcanon that the Pre-War intro is Braun's another shot for a simulation, this time in full color, but someone realises that it's all an illusion and activates the failsafe. Which makes the nukes go off.