I always create the same character to start the game. I used the same guy in FO3 and FONV until completion before trying new characters. His name is Xander and he has the buzzcut died punk rock red. He looks exactly the same in both games, because the graphics are the same. I pretty much acted like there wasn't much of a time lapse between FO3 and NV. It is cool to me because in my Fallout experience there IS a main protagonist.

So in Fallout 4 I will once again bring Xander out to be Lord of the Wasteland. I am not sure it will mesh well with the voiced protagonist, but I am willing to give it a shot anyways. I am very good at ignoring shoe horned backstory and can just play him how I know he is in my head. Anyone else ever do this??

Some of my characters travel the wasteland, some are exclusive to each game (doesnt make sense to have a Khan in the Capital Wasteland)

Depending on the way the intro to FO4 comes off it may just be a little too much to try the same character with a wife and kid and all. It really just depends on the way it is laid out. If they let you do that final save deal before you enter the wastes like they let you in some of the other games, I will completely ignore the wife and kid lol.

Consider I played the old games (where it was crystal clear each protagonist was separate) I kinda carried over the mentality to make each character a new one. Plus with four its just gonna be akward since now we are back on the east coast, yet Im quite sure Beth plans to avoid canonising events from 3 (except maybe veeery vague things)

I always role-play "me" on the first play through. I pretend I'm there and whatever decisions I make are what I think I might do. Well, granted, it's a heroic version of me. Real me might just be obliged to find shelter and then stay there for a really, really long time.

The second character I usually play is an android who was "raised" by adoptive parents. She has stunted emotional growth and is quite pragmatic. Since this game actually has androids in it that'll make it even more interesting.

After that I just start screwing around.

Yeah, i have the same three characters in every game that allows customization

Only in the sense that my "primary" character tends towards similar playstyle & skills, and my general preferences for appearance tend to show up in each character I make.

(i.e, a lot of my characters are stealthy, small-guns, lockpickers; female with red hair, green eyes, and sharp features)

But in a more specific way? No. Each one is a new character.... different name, not identical faces, etc.

I try to use what I think best fits the canon default character when I play these games for the first time. I know I'll play dozens of times so I'll get much more creative later on.

I used the same character in Fallout 3 & New vegas because for me I could easily explain why this was, like in lonesome road oh well, that was the place a blasted in the alien ship when using the gun but in Fallout 4 it wouldn't make sense so my characters story ends with Her ruling New vegas & using Yes man as a Foot stool.

Caucassian Female with skin color dragged all the way to brownish so she looks Asian. Ginger Bedraggled hair. Melee.
Hope they have pre-set skins in FO4 too.

I've thought about this, and have done a playthrough of New Vegas as the Lone Wanderer.

How do, you ask?

Ron Pearlman Voice: "An expedition had been planned to reconnect with the Western chapters of the Brotherhood, a decision to make up for bad blood. What the Lone Wanderer and his team didn't expect was to have the old Veribird they'd taken from the Enclave shot down over California territory. NCR. Brotherhood. Super Mutants. Or maybe just a raider who wanted to try out the rocket launcher he'd dug up. Either way...Cut off from the East, and no allies, the team parted ways to make the best of it. The Lone Wanderer, ever the one to put his nose in other peoples business, wound up a Courier for the Mojave Express. Good work, simple work, and plenty of opportunity for trouble...Then that damn chip happened."

If I wanted to make it work for Falloout 4, all I had to do was look to the Think Tank in the Big Empty and their cracked out science.

RP Voice: "Time Travel. For the Think Tank it was all theoretical. But it was always something they'd come back to every so often, more so out of boredom and in between experiments. And lucky for them, they had a live-in ready test subject who was always more than a little eager to throw themselves in for the good of science. All they wanted was data on the Old World, things long forgotten. He was only to observe, and never get involved, but the Lone Wanderer...just can't help himself. It was bad enough the Recall device short circuited when he woke up naked in a parking lot, leaving him effectively stranded in the Back When. I guess the Think Tank didn't consider everything. He was stuck again in a strange alien world, completely different from the one he left behind.

"It wasn't all bad...He'd found love in this world, and a family. He could put the old ways behind him. Be happy. Live simply. Enjoy food that wasn't prepackaged garbage. Ah...But he forgot the most important rule. War. War never changes...And the past is damned to repeat itself."

Lone Wanderer 111: Emerges from the vault. "DAMMIT!...Oh well...Good be home..."

Considering how hard it is to re-create a given appearance (barring mods / pre-sets that I do not know how to create), almost none of my characters look alike except in the most general terms. As noted above, my ~playstyle~ tends to shine through regardless of what the character looks like, but I rarely consider them to be the same character. I used to pick names pretty much out of the blue since no one ever uses them except in some rare text dialog. But with the potential to have my name spoken, I may be tempted to make a more normal sounding name.

My current character has traits similar to most of mine - full cheeks, silver hair in a wild, short (vaguely Cloud but not too exaggerated) style and silver/gray eyes. Since I was watching Killjoys on Sci-Fi ---- a show about bounty hunters ---- I made her a bounty hunter and named her Killjoy. Clearly not a name Codsworth will be using.

Of all the myriad things that the character creator will offer us, the one thing I desperately want is the ability to -save- a given configuration. I may not use it exactly, but on a few rare occasions I have managed to stumble across a look I really like... and then can never duplicate it. The way (in Fallout 3/New Vegas) that the sliders interact with each other, so you adjust the jaw width and then have to change the chin height and the nose sellion length, or whatevr.... there are numbers there, true, so I could have written them down but considering how many sliders there are, that would be a LOT of numbers to track. Champions Online (a superhero MMORPG) has a neat "Save" feature that lets you, obviously, save the current character "look" in its entirety so you can then LOAD it back up again later and make whatever tweaks you want to it.

I always play as "me", or as close to me as I can get within the game. My PC acts out as I imagine I would in the world setting. I look so forward to this new setting and being someone literally dropped in from another time. It really feels like this one will fit how I like to play very well, and it doesn't hurt that I like the voice better than my own!

Edit for more content: I also set my SPECIAL stats to reflect my perception of myself. Slightly under average strength, slightly above average for intelligence, agility and perception. My charisma depends on the group, but usually I am the guy making people laugh at parties and I sell as part of my job, so it must be pretty good! Luck, well I haven't won the lottery yet!

I think that's one of the coolest things, is that we start the game only...what, 50 years from now now? You COULD make yourself, and really get that "Oh wow I'm in the wasteland...what do?" feeling. I don't think people consider that when they complain about background restrictions in this game.

Never. None of them can ever have the same background; so none of them could have ever grown up the same.

In Fallout, the PC was born in an institutionalized vault and cast out with the intention of returning to save their community.

In Fallout 2, the PC was out to save their community, but they were born in a tribal hut, and lived in the village.

In FO3, the PC was an outsider raised in the vault, and chased out at gun point.

In FO4 the PC is one of the very few (if not only) non-ghoul alive that remembers the Fallout world as it was before the war; and I expect that they will do nothing with it, and ignore all roleplay aspects that could come of it. The PC seems effectively the same person who went into the vault; as though they came out the next day.

None of these characters (regardless of player customizations) can ever be the same, or even similar PCs.

That's because you lack imagination, Gizmo. I tie it nicely together for myself when I want to.

Agreed. I think there is enough time between 3 and NV that the Lone Wanderer could have made it out there and be the same guy. Reading some of the backstories from those that do this, it seems plausible. The only limit is your imagination.

Seriously? I ~lack imagination?

Rather it is that I can imagine the characters very well, and that makes it impossible to gloss over the impossible, while retaining any respect for the narrative.

And I think you let the narrative control you.

As it should be in an RPG. The narrative is the boundary of the PC's predicament.

Are you suggesting things like including "But my PC is https://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/622x527q90/r/155/mutantim2.jpg!" and trying to inject that into the narrative because it's creative?

Before the DLCs for NV, there was nothing to suggest that the courier could not be the lone wanderer. If memory serves there is 5 years between 3 and nv, more than enough time to get to vegas from dc.

Nothing so banol. But you allow the narrative, or the idea of the narrative, limit you. And it also makes you something of a bore to talk to on the boards. You just kinda come on and go "No it's this way because reasons". Hardly even counts as discussion or discourse at this point.

The entire idea of roleplaying is to be limited.

(Those reasons are the point.)

*Those reasons are why I'd never play the same PC across all Fallout games.

No no see, this is what I'm talking about...You can do you, but you come on and get on an aggressive soap box like other people are doing theirs wrong.

I always do a self insert before using other characters, which I usually re-use throughout all the games.