When the game ships in November, you will look back at your 'fish out of water' comment and lol

I don't mind being a Vault Dweller, I would just prefer if I could change who I started as. Being a Pre-War Mafia type would be awesome. Or a Doctor, Scientist, Escaped Criminal, or just anything Pre-War when the player accidentally wound up inside the Vault.

Even though our origin seems to be fairly locked in, at least in so far as the military connection, I'm sure there will be several alternate start mods available shortly after launch. The good news this time is that these mods would almost certainly be available on consoles, and not just PC.

I doubt there'll be much about your past, even if the military thing is briefly mentioned.

Michael Corleone served in the military. Just saying.

I wuld have the story that you survived the fallout by being in the subway when the bombs wen't off over time a comunaty grew up in the subways one day you are exploring the system when you come across an abandond station you clime up to explore it and find an open ext you come out in to oh i dunnolet's say ruind london and the game begins.

Well, when is the real question. If you are talking a character in the FO:4 time line, we are talking 200ish years of survival (assuming FO:4 happens around or at the same time as FO:3) so you would have to be part of some sort of group that has the ability to reproduce.

What that group evolves into (or rather devolves into) can vary wildly. Does it head towards Arroyo or does it head towards a wild westish town. Do they find and occupy a military base or are they turned into ghouls over time. SO MANY OPTIONS!!!

Maybe someone bred in a lab by some mad scientist.

You are sent to a desolate part of the country to investigate an abandoned vault. That way you don't know the lay of the land. And maybe you are given a pipboy to collect information (If they want to keep that interface.)

I love me some alternate start mods (there's even one in New Vegas where you're a humanoid robot, complete with awesome ARES texture mod and story).... but I can generally accept a loose "canon" starting point, if it's not too restrictive. I just finished Lonesome Road DLC (finally) for New Vegas, and I was constantly irritated by the way the main antagonist (spoiler) kept referring to how ~I~ had caused all the problems in the Lonesome Road, how I had done this, and then done that, and I was thinking to myself the whole time, "The HELL you say! I never did that, would NOT do that!"

Yeah, I only ever played through Lonesome Road once because of that. Well, that, and it was linear and dull as hell.

The wasteland really provides a perfect setting for starting as anything other than a vault dweller. Ghoul? Super Mutant? Guess we don't get to play either of those again. But starting as a Raider, BoS or any of the other factions in the wasteland would be an obvious way of adding a little flavor to the character creation. It wouldn't be too hard to come up with a story line that a PC from any of those factions could get involved in. That's where RP in RPG is lacking a bit in Beth games.

My story would be more like "The Road" Except my son/daughter would be more in age... 16-18 instead of a pre-teen as is in the book.

More survivalist too than Fallout is.

A prospector who stumbles upon a small Settlement, stays a while when it gets attacked by some unknown force. Survives.
Now she's involved in something big. Whether or not she's actually invested in seeing it through is totally up to the player.

Being a prospector you could have come from anywhere in the map. Asking around where to go, what this place is called, who runs this area would make better sense because of the vague background.

3 or 4 alternative starts would be pretty cool. It would probably be easier for a Beth game than for most other developers, as it could be made to fit with their general philosophy of "player freedom" in an open world, without causing too many problems.

I know there's alternative start mods, but it's not the same as having the designed to be played that way.

While I got no problem being a vault dweller again; but here's my alt.

Your story starts during the Scourge in the Pitt. Your mother dies while giving birth and you are raised by a member of the BOS who goes AWOL after finding you to raise you as their own slowly traveling north. During this slow travel North you make your character selections and there are some scenes where your BOS guardian makes fun of you for being stupid if you have low int. or praises your shooting because you have high agl. And twenty some years later you and your new guardian arrive outside of the Commonwealth. A swarm of deathclaws attack and your guardian dies and most of your gear is destroyed/lost in the attack. You make your way to the nearest settlement and that is where the story begins.

This story - Leaves a blank slate and ties in established lore. Although it is a cliche.

It would be kind of interesting to just be a person who grew up in the wasteland.. A tribal or just a person in a community of survivors. For that though, I'd definitely want a whole beginning story kind of like in Fallout3. Learning to hunt and scrounge about. Things like that.

Id prefer they have it more like the alternative start mods. Where the starting point is shouldn't matter, though the starting point should open up other paths. For example I'm playing new Vegas as a beat up old remnant, I start in Mojave outpost with busted and drained power armor and minimal weapons and food and no caps. I really hate the savior/special person story lines.

I would make an origin story where you are some sort of deliveryman or messenger (a courier of sorts) and are shot in the head while delivering mysterious package but you live and track down the people who shot you

that jokes been made already.

YES! Do this for FO5

Sounds too clich茅 IMO.

I was really hoping for a non-Vault Dweller backstory this time around. I thought it was meta-thematically appropriate for Fallout 3's PC to be a Vault Dweller, since it was a way of reintroducing you as a fish out of water to Bethesda's Fallout series, just as you were a Vault Dweller being introduced to the Wasteland for the first time in Fallout 1.

As for what backstory I would have? With Fallout 4, I would advocate either a tribal background, a low level member of the Institute, a member of the communities in the shadow of the Institute, or a member of a trade caravan that's coming to the Commonwealth.

It does neatly explain why you as the player know nothing of the outside world and the current situation.

Well it certainly appears that your character is not a vault dweller.

He is a vet who survived the blasts and was locked asleep in a vault for 200 years. Meaning, he knows nothing of vault life.

I like vault dwellers. I don't mind being a vault dweller and in fact the only other thing I can think of is... Escaping one of the AWFUL vaults with a pipboy from a skeleton. Thank GAWD I survived that!