Typically, I play a good-ish character. She tries to negotiate. She tries to avoid conflict and/or violence. However, she will always defend herself and those she feels are victims and she feels no qualms about that. She will also use violence if it is the means to greater good. That's how I went through my first two playthroughs. I recently finished a third playthough with another good-ish character, but she joined a not so good-ish faction (I'm doing one playthrough per faction) I was hoping these folks would redeem themselves before the end, but they didn't. Unfortunate. Although I'm glad I did it, it wasn't a comfortable (or particularly enjoyable) playthrough.
I just started a fourth playthrough in order to wrap up the factions. This character will be joining the most reprehensible faction (my opinion, of course), thus he will pretty much speed-run through. I've built up an intense dislike of this faction through the other playthroughs. I don't approve of what they represent, nor do I approve of the way they behave in the Commonwealth. They are flat-out bullies. This is going to be a very difficult playthrough for me, I think, but I want to do it for several reasons: 1) perhaps they will redeem themselves (highly doubt it), 2) I want to see their ending and 3) to finish out my trophy list.
It'll be challenging to figure out how to play this fellow without him being a bully himself. How will I justify his decision to support them?
With regard to saving, I'm with D4rkInv4d3r (post #6 above). I probably quicksave every few minutes (sometimes, depending on the situation, every few seconds). I used to depend on quicksaves and three auto saves mostly, making a hard save every 6-8 hours. Learned my lesson, though, on this most recent playthrough. I was about to finish up a Main Quest quest when the game glitched hard. Could not complete, meaning I could not continue with the Main Quest. All my autosaves occurred AFTER I started the quest. The only hardsave I had was 8 hours ago. Grrr.
Now, I do a hard save every hour or so. I still quicksave like crazy .