Try this for true realism. It may sting.

Ignore the absurdity of bottle caps, period. You can only use prewar money, and bottle caps only for transactions less than 10 caps worth of product.

Assume that trying to pay for something with thousands of bottlecaps would be met with the same refusal that trying to pay for something with tens of thousands of pennies would. 'We're not a bank, buddy. Move along if you don't have paper.' And come up with a weight for caps as well, if you insist on using them....

This sounds like a better deal.... alright alright one last playthrough...

I don't understand how someone may survive FWE in accordance to these rules. FWE is hardcoe mode. But the TC implies that vanilla is the standard and I will stick my answer to it.

* Make the decision to pony up to your karma and choices early. If you are good then you are under it unless something extraordinary invalidates it. If you are a ghoul lover then you will protect them and found PETG.
* When you have are committed to hostility then you may only switch weapons if you are not in their sights ( behind safe cover ) unless it is to switch to and from grenades.
* VATS is allowed only for the initial sneak shot or sniping if you are the one who initiates ranged combat and have not been spotted yet. Use all your action points for that round and none thereafter.
* If, sitting in your chair you feel you must pee but your character is in battle then you must suffer through it until it is safe again. If you pee yourself then you may not take a shower until you find water.
* No jumping off of high places that would cripple, paralyze, or end your life had you jumped from such a height in the practical world of real life, where injury is painful and lasting and death is permanent.
* When a hostile manages to surprise or ambush you, don't be so eager to quickload. Play it out and when it is done you may reflect on whether or not you can life with the aftermath.

That could actually work.

I did have piles of pre war money anyway later on. That and with barter no caps changing hands, hopefully traders stocking the pre war money, not sure if they do, and we end up mostly trading in that, with our main trader anyway.

Would be interesting to see how far I could get.

Because all the opposition is dead? Once I have cleared an area I expect it to stay mostly clear for a while. It would take a while for baddies to repopulate in real life.

Stalker's AI has all the NPCs doing their thing all the time. If I clear an area it will repopulate over time as NPCs wander to it. Much better than respawn points and all that.

Instead of carrying many guns: carry one one multipurpose range weapon and the weight saved is for mines and grenades. Use them every chance you get.

i have a question, sir. how do we use the "all transactions must equal zero" rule when using a trader to repair our weapons?

Why? Caps have been the established currency since FO1. To 'just say no' to caps means ignoring a system that is meant to provide for us. You are a communist. I will end your red existence with a bottlecap mine.

@Big Daddy

What do you do when you discard your current weapon (it breaks, for example, or you find a different weapon) while on your travels. Let's say dropping a hunting rifle and picking up a Chinese assault rifle...do you drop all remaining hunting rifle ammo as well?

Say I dropped the hunting rifle. I think that it is reasonable, with all the other stuff you are carrying, that you can carry 100 rounds of .32 ammo. So I drop the ammo that goes over that amount. If I have less, I take it home and store it, or, I use it during bartering to level the barter window to zero. The next time I go out, using the Chinese assault rifle in place of the hunting rifle, I leave all .32 rounds at home, as now I am carrying assault rifle ammo. Makes for more space in my virtual backpack.

Interesting. So you allow yourself to carry up to 100 rounds for any weapon that you are carrying and subsequently drop. I assume that you do not pick up to 100 rounds for any other weapon ammo type that you do not have, though.

I'm about to start my first Fallout 3 new game with many of the hardcoe rules we have mentioned here. In particular, the weapon carry limit(which I live by, one dual-handed rifle and any two of pistols/melée/unarmed), your ammo rule, crippled limbs and repair only by a merchant/workbench. I think it will be really tough, especially the repair rule, since it is such a powerful skill to have.

Also my Endurance is 4 and my Intelligence is 3, meaning only 13 skill points per level. So it's on a par with the New Vegas levelling system. With no bobbleheads as well I will no longer be a god like figure by level 20.

It's survival Fallout, the way it should be.

This is exactly what I'm striving for. As for ammo, I think 6 full clips of assault rifle ammo is sufficient. One stealthboy for those "I gotta get out of here moments." When I use Blackhawk for my sidearm, I only carry about 50 rounds. I usually use it for looking ahead, and use it sparingly up close and personal, often shooting from the hip. If it's Lincoln's Repeater, I think about 90 rounds is good. But that's how I do it, you might decide different ammo amounts for your own character. When I roll with the missile launcher, I only carry two missiles. I use it out of VATS, and think carefully about where I'm aiming it, as I only have two rounds. I tend to use it when I'm backpedaling from an overwhelming force. As for energy weapons, I'm just guessing here, but use the same formula, even though the rounds look bigger, thus taking up more space in my backpack, or pack pack as my son calls it.

EDIT: I wanted to play NV really bad, but I think after all the crazy problems they are having, will wait for GOTY to come out. When there are random problems on random 360s, that smells like big trouble to mess with.

For me, I think that I will carry as much ammo as I can, providing that I am carrying the weapon. If I sell the weapon then I will sell all ammo as well. If I drop it during my travels then I'm not sure if I will retain 100 rounds, or just drop the lot. I'll see how it goes.

The hardcoe mode in New Vegas is actually a lot less intensive than the rules that we have described here. NV hardcoe is good and a step in the right direction but really only amounts to various checks to water, food and sleep levels. Comparing this to not stockpiling ammo, limited repair, no Pip-Boy/healing while in [DANGER], weapon carry limit etc, our hardcoe mode is actually a lot more dangerous.

Blow him up with some 'money' ... what a way to go.

You can't do that with a bit of paper and a number written on it.

Whatever works for you.

Why not? Because all my plays end up with my character having somewhere in the range of 60 - 80K in caps. Unrealistic much? And nothing to spend it on. I'm doing a barter only system. Each to his/her own. I get caps from scavenging, selling sugar bombs, and if I need quick caps, will slave for a bigger boost. And that's all. I save what little caps I have for having repairs done, and curing my addictions and radiation poisoning.

I thought I'd add something else I just thought of. I just found the Wanderer's Unique Leather Armor, and as I usually go leather anyway, and the Leather Rebel is a little showy, I'm going to make it permanent. Then I thought about skill increases you get by wearing certain clothing items. So my base skill of Small Guns will go no higher than 60, with the added bonus of the Leather armor.

And sneak is a game-breaker. On a recent earlier character, with a sneak of 100, it's broad daylight and three Enclave troopers go running by me.... Haven't figured out the sweet spot yet, but think it's somewhere around 70ish. So I'm gonna do this too. The other night, I ran out of all ammo, and was reduced to swinging my Shiskebab in front of me willy nilly, and dancing around. I could hear my heartbeat at the end of that one. Good times.

I'm not quite as extreme. Here's what I tend to recommend.

I allow myself to have money, but rarely increase barter.
Fast travel is allowed only through areas I know to be safe
No repairing items unless I;m safe
Weight limit is 50% normal.
Broken items may be repaired.
Must be healed by a doctor, or by a long rest in your house
Three weapons: one rifle, one pistol, one melee/unarmed.
Cannot use VATS.
Must eat one pound of food per day.
Must drink water daily as well.
Must sleep 7 hours a day.
AND, alas:
Cannot have Fawkes (50,000+ HP) as a companion.

Yah, I'm working on a mod that will HOPEFULLY actually make the game challenging without having to do all that craziness. First of all, theres A LOT more enemies (in clusters of about 10-30 usually) And you are Level 50 char but your stats are limited to about 200 HP, etc. And I'm adding a lot of huge boss versions of existing characters. You will probably end up with way too much money b/c of all the extra enemies, but I'm hoping to bring a nice challenge to it anyway. I can honestly say that the only RPG's I've ever played that are easier than FO3 is New Vegas and Oblivion (especially Oblivion, good lord, the overpowered PC's!) And in New Vegas, the only way I could find a challenge is running headlong into the Hoover Dam or Black Mountain with nothing in my inventory except a Vault suit, and using only my fists, and it was still pretty easy!

I've taken no companions this play... it's refreshing..... I do eat food and drink water, but you cannot sleep in the wastes unless you have a companion, or lay a minefield.
These are the extremes that I go through as I'm on the 360, so think of it as just willpower, and rules we can give ourselves for that awesome experience.

I've also heard of people who only carry the amount of guns and ammo that you realistically can.

What I do is I only save in Megaton and can never use Stimpaks. (thankfully the game keeps track of the Stimpaks so i won't be tempted). But whenever the game is loading and I see- "Stimpaks Taken: 0" I'm like aww yeah who's bad?!

Yes, definitely. I'm doing this now, along with many other ideas posted in this thread. In fact, post #23 of this thread summarises most of them.

The problem is two-fold. One part of it is that everyone plays differently. For example, my characters never have huge sums of money even by level 20-30. The reason they do not is because the silly vendors simply do not have enough money for me to sell off all the stuff I scavenge. I only play angelic characters, by the way, so that eliminates slaving and such.

The other part is the way the game is (un)balanced for difficulty versus ammo, damage, health, etc. If you play on max difficulty (as I do), it is not true that you can take tons of damage and that enemies drop easily. This happens because of the adjustments to damage dealt and taken due to difficulty setting. However, the downside is the silliness of shooting something with a missile and having it take almost no damage. If you carry only two missiles, you might as well just get rid of the idea of the missle launcher even having a use because two missles won't do anything for you on max difficulty. Heck, 10 missiles won't do much.

Of course, I am also on PC with mods, and many of them fix some of the balance issues I just mentioned as well as adjust things to match some of the original suggestions (e.g., the way that medicine and healing works). Time passage, respawn rates, etc can also be adjusted. I'm still searching for the best balance, but I'm getting closer.

I play on Normal, up until level 5, then I go to Hard, and stay there for the remainder of the game. Very Hard, while I've played this way, is too unrealistic for me.... If I tag someone in the head with a sniper rifle while sneaking, they should be dead, instead, it takes three bullets. And the missile launcher, I still use it though. I try to use it against crowds of three or more, to maximize the splash damage. Which then makes it easier to kill them faster, before I die. It's working pretty well right now.

That's a really interesting list, I need to try these.