So it has been suggested for past games but i havnt personally seen it discussed for this one: Ghoulification

Isnt it about time we had the chance (intentional or accidental) to become a Ghoul? Dont get me wrong gamesas has proven they can take racial discrimination and make it disappear (Skyrim...that is all) but i feel this is the chance to make the game change drastically (in a social way) by letting us turn into a shuffler and then become reviled by bigots all over the wasteland...or is that still too big of a restriction? I mean they removed Vampire Sun Damage and Werewolf Moon Transformations so i wouldnt expect them to allow ourselves to be...inconvenienced by our own choices or anything...

So yeah i guess i dont really expect this to ever happen, but while we are all here we can still discuss the possibility of it's implementation in FO4, it's mechanics, gameplay value, etc...so fire away smoothskins

Well, I'm open to the possibility. Some would argue that becoming a Ghoul that fast would be against Lore, but me and those people rarely agree on much of anything. People like that use Lore as a ball and chain as opposed to allowing things that make things fun.

But...I'd play a Ghoul, at least once. Just to give it a spin. See where it took me.

In an earlier thread I even detailed a possible scenario to how it could work.

Well Bethesda themselves allowed Moira in FO3 to become one near instantly so i guess you could say the lore has changed

I'd rather not. If they did a spin-off game like Tactics and let you start as a ghoul, I'd be open to the experience, but they'd have to record so many more lines to put ghoulification into a regular Fallout game where you start as a sheltered human.

Many many people were pissed when that happened to Moira, saying it was against established Cannon. Like I said. No fun no fun.

No more than we got in Skyrim (every race got a list of lines from NPCs)

how would they handle the whole "going feral" deal with Ghouls?

Well as far as i am aware the rules for going feral seem to be random in FO3 and NV, some go straight to Feral, others stay "normal" for 2 centuries, and others slowly change. I would assume they wouldnt bother letting you cross that thresh-hold...unless it was factored into hardcoe mode and you had a sanity/mental degradation meter...i am open to suggestions

Obsidian did it themselves in NV, with Searchlight, The Long 15, and Dry Wells, all having instant ghoulificiation.

I'd like ghoulification.

Maybe only occuring if you were to deliberately expose yourself to some high dose of radiation in some special area. Just so that people who play regularily dont just find themselves auto ghoul-ed when roaming the wastes.

As a fun optional feature like wherewolves/vampires I'd like that.

I really don't think it should be accidental. The impact on gameplay would just be too severe. I suspect most gamers don't really want to find the character they've created up and changed on them by the developer, and they aren't even sure why it happened.

Sure, have a story point similar to (but not the same as) the original ending of FO3, where you have a clearly signposted "do this and you die of radiation exposure". It could be to save a town, rescue your previously-presumed-dead family, take revenge on the Enclave... some sort of end of main quest moment. You get the choice of ordering a companion to die in your stead, you find a different solution to the problem, or you take the plunge and sacrifice yourself - only to find you don't die, but are slowly starting on the process of ghoulification.

That way it's the player's choice, it's still their character, and there is a clear and well defined moment when it happens (so players can reload from before and do things differently if they want).

With those caveats, I think it's a really interesting idea .

Not so sure. Ghouls are immune to radiation and ferals don't pay them any mind if I remember correctly. I'm not sure either one of those should be true for the player character.

Maybe as a possible ending?

"You consumed too much irradiated food in your play-through. GOUL!"

(Love your title, btw)

Far as the voiced protagonist issue goes, I don't think it'll be a problem. I mean I really doubt Christian Bale really sounds like he did as Batman. Heavily distort the recording Batman style and you have your "ghoul" voice. Now the problem is the extra 13,000 lines in mp3 form; I don't know how many megs, possibly gigs that would take. An added in-game distortion might mean extra game crashes adding to ones we're already anticipating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wzzua9D65v0

Well, not all ghouls have to have ghoul voices. Remember Dean Domino?

The Ghoul Mask in FO3 made you "invisible" to Feral Ghouls so that isnt a forbidden zone. Also the benefits of the Radiation-immunity would come with many negatives to balance it out. Like automatic Charisma reduction (among certain humans) as well as quicker filling of that mental degradation meter i mentioned earlier. They could even have it where certain super-irradiated places could only be accessed by the PC if they became a Ghoul but would otherwise require a Ghoul/Super Mutant/Robot Companion to access it for you

I would really like the chance to play as a ghoul.

It would be nice if instead of doing story DLC they allowed you to go throw the main game from the perspective of a ghoul. It would nice if you were the "smart ghoul" and could organize the other ghouls to attack and take over big settlements. Would be even better if you could tie that into your game save and actually fight your character from a previous play through. Would love to try and attack my own settlements in another playthrough.

That would be fun.

The way Skyrim handled vampirism shows that it is at least possible to change basic characteristics which include appearance of a player character. Vampires in Skyrim are handled by the game engine as a different race, which allows NPC's to have different reactions to vampires as they would to a non-infected PC.

Something similar could be done with the PC in Fallout.

To much work... the NPCs should react on it. And this would mean way more dialogues just because of it.

It'd be nice to play as a ghoul though I think the biggest problem would be recording all the reactions to your character and the way NPC's interact with you since not a lot of people take kindly to ghouls.

If NPC's just treat you like any other smoothskin wastelander then there's not much point in being a ghoul outside of having a batman voice and immunity to radiation.

Uh.. Skyrim says hi.

Literally dialogue bits for everything you do from random people.

It would be cool as an optional game feature, sort of like vampirism in TES. Without being curable for obvious reasons.

if they add ghoulifican i hope they also add becoming a super mutant maybe a single unopened vial of the FEV and you can choose to open it or leave it be.

Like a Khajiit getting comments about furry ears

Almost want to do an striptease in front of the guard to show its fur everywhere.