This has been bothering me for a while. It did so in FO3, but even more in New Vegas. A lot, and I mean a lot of people say "Not much to tell" when asked about themselves. Who around here describes his own life as "not much to tell"? Is this just bad writing, or has life after a nuclear holocaust suddenly become very boring?

I can't imagine living a life in the wastes between raiders, slavers, ghouls, deathclaws, mutated scorpions and super mutants, and then telling people there's "not much to tell" about my life.

Am I the only one annoyed by this?

Well, if the devs had to make a life story about every single character in the game, this game would first have been out in 2014. I'm quite satisfied by the amount of characters already. Try to compare Fallout's writing of characters to other games, then i'm pretty sure that you'll understand what i mean.

I agree, but I don't get why there's the "Tell me about yourself" dialogue option so often, when there's no relevant answer most times.

Think of it as small talk. People ask "how are ya" and 'what's up' all the time, without expecting or even really wanting a true or full (eg, really long) answer.
Also, you're a stranger. Most people aren't going to immediately tell you their life story, or even all of their cool & fun stories, just because you ask. If they did, I'd personally find that a bit odd.

So "tell me about yourself" not getting much response beyond "I've been in town for several years, I keep this shop & my pal over there helps me out" or "I'm a bounty hunter" isn't exciting, but it makes sense to me. heh

Yeah. Well, yeah that's true. Okay you win xD

If this was a constant routine in your life, something you take for granted, and a stranger comes to ask you about it, I doubt you'd start a longwinded story describing what you've been doing for the last couple of years on a dayli basis - well, I don't know you, and this is of course an individualistic matter, but nonetheless. You may find the post apoc setting and life in it very exciting now, but had you lived in it your whole life and knew of nothing else, I doubt you'd be too keen to describe your every day chores (especially to a stranger). That's how I view it anyway.


E - ...should've read the other replies before posting mine, the crimsonian lady pretty much covered this already....