I have been thinking about this for a while now. I think it would be awesome if there was some way for your character to change into a ghoul. The only way I can explain it is something like becoming a vampire in oblivion. Just say you were walking the wastes and you've been through a bunch of radiation and you've been sick with radiation poisoning for a while, you could cure your sickness or if you take to long you start becoming a ghoul. I feel like it would have to take a few days or maybe even a week (in game of course) to change to make sure nobody is accidentally a ghoul forever but I think this is a cool concept. Anyone agree?

I'd love that

Wonder what kinds of benefits / drawbacks you'd have, though. Radiation and disease wouldn't be much of a problem anymore, I guess, but maybe you'd find quickly enough that people really don't like ghouls. Seeing that people in the wasteland usually put a bullet through what they don't like, this might lead to some difficulties.

It would be a very long process and unless they let you fast forward a few months into the future as your character sat around in some radiation, it'd just be better if they just allowed you to be a ghoul when you first create your character.

Except a vampire in Oblivion isn't a good example of supporting Ghouls as a race, namely the fact that Oblivion or any the of the previous predecessor have a quest dedicated of curing that disease. Ghoul is basically a long life effect of becoming a walking corpse and there not really any indication that the people of the wasteland would really give a time of their life time to find a "cure" for ghoulification, or the fact one cannot really reverse rotten skin.

I also picture many interaction of many dialogue that base on PC Ghoul to NPC reaction. Basically, the PC is either Stunned or attacked on sight. Using up alot of space for voice file and making it a hard time for the PC to adjust to get the NPC to "like" them. Better to just stick with just Human only for this.

So the answer is no.

@Qawsed Asap

Well, stimpack-technology could probably fix rotten skin --- it's injected stem cells or something, right? And even though radiation probably fills every cell of a ghouls body, something could probably be done about it. So there could probably be a quest for curing being a ghoul.... like some scientist doing research somewhere's got something for you to do.

There are many factor into the reason why that would not work. For starters, There isn't really a technology that can reverse rotten flesh. Stimpack can only do so much as to heal the body but cannot repair something that has already been damage beyond repair, namely broken bones and rotten flesh. Then there the fact that radiation practically bound into the body that can literally be seen as becoming blood or infuse with it, in a sense. It make sense as to the fact that radiation heals these ghouls. It also changes the body so much that a reverse process is either impossible or death as the body relied on the radiation to live.

As for scientists, I doubt that there any one that would even care to take the time to actually find a way to do all this ordeal. Even if there were some that might wanna take the change, the technology level seem to be very high to even make it even possible to start any sort of testing what so ever.

Then there the "quest for curing being a ghoul". This would automatically lose a certain atmosphere that shadow the ghouls itself. Namely the fear of becoming one to point that these race are the reminder of how so much as change because of the the great war. If a "cure" sudden appear and "work", then it loses the whole idea of the Ghouls itself and simply shrug it as a disease rather than a long lifetime changes and its atmosphere around the idea.

I'd love to have the option to start the game with a ghoul character, probably along with several varient human origins: former vault-dweller, urban resident, raider, etc.. However I don't like the idea that this is something that could occur to a character in game.

There are multiple examples of instant ghoulification in the games: Moira in FO3 was turned in to a "normal" ghoul and there's an NCR camp in FONV where a radiation device turned the members there in to feral ghouls. However I still don't like ghoulification as a transformative threat for characters. It could also really complicate dialogue, it would be weird talking to an NPC who formerly knew you as a human and have them not react (and giving everyone a "oh you're a ghoul now!" comment would get annoying fast).



Certainly being about to "cure" ghoulification would be odd but you could have ghoulification without this option.

Fact is, we know very little about the tech that's available to the wastelanders, and we know very little about the tech that we know is there. Many of the weapons, for instance, have been put in without any explanation of how they actually work --- same goes for stimpacks (as far as I know). I thought it would be something like stem cells, because that would make sense (stem cells can regenerate dead tissue in the sense that they can create new tissue that's identical -- so you could grow a new arm... hypothetically) -- I couldn't find anything to confirm this, however, and everywhere I looked, the contents of stimpacks was refered to as "drugs".... not very enlightening.

Well, anyway -- I wasn't really trying to defend having a "cure being a ghoul quest" in the game --- I just said it could be possible (albeit without bothering to use much time pondering it -- as I don't really want it). I see your points on how it would be difficult, and I agree for the most part.

Although I think it could be a lot of fun, I think it would have a lot of problems in breaking storylines - take vegas for example: Although the NCR is intergrated (officially at least) I couldnt see any sign of racial harmony in the Legion, and I don't think a ghoul would meet strip dress code.

I didn't expect to see so many interesting replies on this, you've all brought up really good points. After reading through them I think it would be really interesting becoming a ghoul somehow in game and not being able to cure it. Of course there would have to be a change in the way people treat you and as far as I know stimpaks being a healing issue although, ghouls can be healed by radiation. If you didn't want to be a ghoul than you would just have to make sure you don't get enough radiation to become one over time (or however you would end up becoming one). I think it would be a cool way to try and have a fallout playthrough just to make things interesting.

You could make it so that the cure for ghoulification only works on 'new' ghouls. If you've been a ghoul for years, there's no turning back.

Like how some real life sicknesses can be cured in their early stages but not later on.

I think it would be tons of fun to play a ghoul. Since I play on the PC, it is on my "To Do" list for FO3, probably with http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3160