This is one of the things I always thought was so interesting about Tenpenny Tower. It's a very isolated place cut off from most of the Wasteland. No caravans make there way there, and most people are not even allowed to enter the building unless they are a resident or have business with Mister Burke or Alistar Tenpenny. I find it especially funny that Paradise Falls, the place that brags about it being so "isolated" and having nothing to trade, gets caravans in their settlement all the time. Yet Tenpenny Tower has no caravans but they seem to have a booming economy and plenty of stuff to survive off of. Also Tenpenny Tower doesn't have a single repairman, so it makes you wonder how they keep everything fixed in tip-top condition like the purified water sinks and electricity in the building.

It makes me wonder where Tenpenny Tower gets it stock and how they keep the place running. One of the ideas I had was that somebody like my character who lives there and is the adventuring type, maybe goes out into the Wasteland and scavanges valueable junk from the ruins to sell to the merchants. And of course Tenpenny hires mercenaries to serve as his security guards, maybe he hires some to go out and find valueable stuff for the residents too? Kind of like in the movie Land of the Dead where in Fiddler's Green (which Tenpenny Tower is based on) the old rich guy who ran the building hired poorer scavangers to go out and loot things from the zombie-infested city like liquor, cigars, food, clothes, etc.

As for repairing, I know this is stretching things a bit, but I thought maybe the scavanger who lives down the street in Lucky's might come into the tower occasionaly to fix things for the residents.

Your theory sounds about right and most probable. Now that I think of it, Tenpenny does seem to be running things rather smoothly considering it's so far out.

Off Topic: Love the sig. Where is that quote from?

Well, Dashwood is a bit of an adventurer type. He could likely be charged with finding the caravans(Most likely at the Megaton stop) and trading with them there.

The quote is from Mary Alice Young, the narrator of the show Desperate Housewives. It's my favorite quote from the show which is why I decided to use it.

Anyways I like to roleplay that my character is sort of like the local scavanger of the building who explores the buildings of the wasteland looking for stuff to sell to the merchants to keep the residents living happily. Like exploring the Grocery near Tenpenny Tower reminded me of that scene from Land of the Dead where the scavangers explored an abandon liquor store for stuff to sell to the rich residents of Fiddler's Green. He's also their protector, like when he protected them from Roy Phillips who wanted to let the Feral Ghouls come in and kill everybody.

You know, it'd be cool if I could get a Tenpenny Security Guard uniform and pretend to be one of the guards working for Chief Gustavo. I don't think I could get one without killing a guard though, and I don't want to reverse pickpocket. Do security guards respawn like the ones in Rivet City?

Most of the stuff is smuggled in through a plothole

kinda like the one the enclave uses to get in to vault 87

Well, maybe they got through Little Lamplight. All you have to do to get in is tell Macready that his face looks like your butt.

As for Tenpenny, I thought the caravans did visit there. I'm pretty sure it's on the map you get in Canturberry Commons. Any settlement with a large number of people would have to be serviced by the caravans. But one does wonder how Tenpenny gets so rich, and where the residents got their caps as well.

Nope, Tenpenny Tower is like the only settlement that doesn't get carvans. Never.

If i recall about Little Lamplight after they open the gate for you they never reclose it just liek at rivet city once the bridge is put out they never put it back except that 1 instance when your with dad the bridge for soem random reason has to be sent out again ...

Never mind that no structure would last 200 years without some level of extensive maintenance, but TT looks like it's hardly aged (other than the reinforcements at ground level to keep out raiders. Short of the Enclave or BoS providing the skilled technicians to keep the building standing....

Are you sure? I've traded with caravans outside the tower many times. They tend to show up in the late afternoon for me, rather than in the morning for a lot of the other locations.

Hmm i've never seen them there.
Do you use mods?

I think the theory is that Tenpenny is very rich and all his residents are also rich (and paying big caps to Tenpenny).

So I'd guess he hires specific people to supply the Tower. No need for caravans since the residents would likely not want to go outside the gate to trade.

Also he may send out the security forces to scavenge. His suppliers might include professional scavengers, maybe Talon Company, even Raiders.

360. They don't show up every day, but I have certainly traded there, mostly Wolfgang.

Economics 101 you require buyers and sellers for a market society however this game is void of buyers but heavy on the sellers (merchants). Tenpenny Towere, Megaton, Rivet City....and so on, you never see a free flow of consumers. Each place is like an island with it's own inhabitants. You would expect that a place like Megaton would have create a wide area of inhabitants living close however it doesn't happen in this game. Once you leave a town, you seldom run into a wastelander (alive anyway). More than likely what we are seeing is a barter economy where everyone fills a niche and trades with the others. An occassional drifter may happen by or a merchant with new or more interesting goods but the society is more closed than open with great distances and dangers between other towns.

and then there's Dukov with his women, whiskey and drugs having a great old time!

If i recall about Little Lamplight after they open the gate for you they never reclose it just liek at rivet city once the bridge is put out they never put it back except that 1 instance when your with dad the bridge for soem random reason has to be sent out again ...

I agree, that doesn't make sense. Just as it doesn't make sense that either Rivet City or Tenpenny Tower, two very secure locations, will allow you to traipse around with a load of lethal hardware and power armor. A security force that allowed such activity would find itself and those it was protecting swiftly massacred.

There are just some game mechanics that you have to put up with.

Tenpenny Towers is a place that depresses me, all those people living in denial and trying to emulate a world that is long dead.
I think its some what deliberate making the place so isolated. These people are living in a fool's paradise, pretending that their ragged pre-war clothes make them high-class. But most of them are just scared of the Wasteland, all they want is a place to be safe. Their closed little world makes them snobbish and contemptuous of people from outside, but if you talk to them most seem to be desperately unhappy.

But yes, there has to be something like an economy to keep the place going. People have to eat & drink after all, and Tenpenny has to keep his guards in caps otherwise they wouldn't work there.

There are a couple of clues. One thing is it seems most of the residents there had to buy there way in. That's something that even Three Dog mentions on the radio; that the Ghouls have the caps so why shouldn't he accept them as residents too. Another thing is his relationship with the strange Mister Burke. You could reason from that bit of information that Tenpenny has all sorts of shady connections with the shady dealers in the Wasteland who probably do business with him. It would fit his character that he controls the flow of goods and food brought to the place to keep tight control over the residents. Another hint is the You gotta shoot em in the head quest where it turns out that he has even more shady connections (they don't come slimier than Dukov) back in his fortune-hunting days.

It's a top-down economy, Tenpenny has all the wealth and all the control. What it doesn't explain is what the residents do to stay in money after they have paid their entrance price. Does he turn the unlucky ones out when they run out of caps?

Probably, and they end up whining at the gates of Megaton.

As much as I wouldnt mind living there, I agree on its truths, but it's my kind of place architecturally. But if you read the load screens one screen info says something along the lines of 'Allistair Tenpenny is the owner of Tenpenny Tower, his is a madness reserved for the obscenely rich' So it's basically a classic case of self proclaimed superiority. As to denial, you're right, if you listen to them, one line pertains to a line of a desire to have caviar. I'm sure most of them come from rich pre-war families that tried to believe their place in the world was still there. It's a cozy place, but I think,intended or no, it is a classic example of 'beneath the warm fire of this hearth is the cold chill of an empty and illaborate illusion.'.

They eat Soilent Green.