So I am very new to roleplaying, it is a playstyle I am trying to adopt and learn.

I am just wondering, if you are supposed to roleplay a character in this game, how can you "become" this character and then not just focus solely on the main quest?

You are supposed to step into the shoes of another character so how do you justify doing other sidequests or building on your settlement instead of just ignoring all that and just worrying about this?(like any sane person would)

In the past Fallout games it feels like from where I stand that there would be a more logical way you could just ignore the main and do sidequest, like how you could easy say that while your father abandonded you in Fallout 3 and you want to find him, there is no real rush to do so, and the excitment of for the first time, having lived in a vault your whole life, stepping out into the world you have never seen before etc etc. Or how in New Vegas it is more about a personal vendetta that your character might or might not even want to get involved in. But here in Fallout 4 you have the most motivational situation you could think of, a situation where 99% of all "sane" people would drop everything else for. So how do you incorporate that in a logical way that can make you still roleplay and be "in character" but does not have to feel like you just have to focus on this quest and ignore everything else?

/sigh in every fallout game u step on the character they give u, F1 u need to get the Water chip no metter what, F2 u need to save arroyo. F3 u need to find your dad. F4 u need to find u son. F Nv, u need to deliver the chip and find out what happen to u.

Roleplaying is more about deciding what you want your character to do and then deciding what would motivate that action, to my tastes. There's more than one approach though.

I grew up back in the 80s doing tabletop roleplaying - the "my character wouldn't do that" players get exhausting to roleplay with after awhile. If you, as a player, want to explore the haunted house but think your character wouldn't want to, then you are more than capable of creating a fitting motivation to get them into that house.

For Fallout 4 I'm actually sticking pretty close "to script" so I might not be that much help really. I like to invent details as I go along, too.

For example I knew I'd want to mess around with crafting and settlements so in my mind my character was very civic-minded in her past; active in neighborhood committees and also with a mechanical background who liked to tinker around the house for fun.

Everybody has a different process for roleplaying. Me personally, I tend to try to think of a "concept" for what I want my character to be, or become. It is rare that I think of this concept, and then start the game. Usually I'll spend a lot of time: weeks, months, sometimes even years, adding various ideas to my concept character. It's like a snowball, rolling down a snowy hill, adding more and more snow as it rolls.

One day, I might finally decide it's time to unleash my character into the world. Once he or she is out there, they won't just take every quest which comes their way. Matter of fact, some of them don't do any Bethesda quests at all. From that point on, I tend to get a feel for what my character would like to do, or not to do. Different temperments also apply. Is my character a do-gooder? An [censored]? A thief? ... etc. I try to "listen" to what he or she wants to do.

I realize you just got Fallout 4, and therefore don't have weeks or months to come up with a concept, but I am just trying to give you ideas for future characters.

This is why some of us have multiple characters. If my character doesn't want do something, somebody else will.

I explore the whole map, then do the quests

Hmm, did I explain wrong or why did no one get the point of my post?

Maybe I borrow a quote from another user to make it more clear:

I suppose one thing that might divert a character away from the main quest (and the most important goal) is the sheer bewilderment of this world they've ended up in, the overwhelming difficulty of their main goal, the need to survive and the drive to gather the resources to succeed.

Codsworth says

He's insane and glitchy, obviously. Strike out on your own and hope for the best.

Want allies who'll support you in your quest? Concentrate on making the caps you'll need to buy them off.

Find some people in trouble? Maybe they'll be able to help you survive, or give information - if you help them first.

That sort of confused, frightened, calculating, cautious, paranoid or manipulative character may not be the easiest to play with the dialogue options available, but it is one way of looking at how to at least make ignoring the main quest reasonable, if not entirely plausible.

Here's how I justify the side quests: (wrapped in Spoiler tags for those who still don't have the game)

Well you already answered your post "ignore everything else" Sorry

I agree with Thungrim here. I started out helping Preston first, and now I'm helping him build Sanctuary, locating and bringing in other settlement groups in. Once I get those groups up to a substainable level, I figure I'll have enough experiance and support to start looking for Shawn. So far, with ~ 20 hours in, I haven't touched the main quest and found Diamond City more or less by accident.

The easiest way is to do sidequests on the way to your objective, ex: you're on your way to investigate a lead about your son but you see some settlers being attacked so you step in and then they tell you their family is being held hostage and so on, or wait for a lull in the story. A part when it's not pressing that you do that main quest.

I agree that it's unlikely a loving father would stop to help strangers build a settlement or anything other then looking for his stolen son. I don't like focusing on the main quest in Beth games but this one really makes me feel like a dead beat dike for not doing everything I can to find my son asap.

This is the way I think about it.

My character seems to have a military background, therefore he has sound judgement and thinks a little more strategically. If you rush headlong into danger without fully preparing you will just get yourself killed, and your son will never be rescued. The world is dangerous and you know nothing about it. Therefore to ever have any hope of success you need to get a good understanding of the world by exploring it, you need to meet people and acquire allies, you need to sett up a base (or bases) of operation, and you need to develop survival and fighting skills by gaining experience. Only then can you have a prayer of finding him

That is the way I role play this.

Storm

I think the best answer though might be that since you have been in sleep for 200 years and you woke up at one point to witness the abduction, and then falling asleep again, you have no idea of knowing exactly when that happened and how much time have passed between the events. It could have just happened a year after you went into sleep and then you sleept 199 years until you finally woke up for all you know. So a good way to justify it is that you might fast realize it might be hopeless and then you character just tries to cope with the fact that the world has gone to hell and somehow try to build a new life. Inside he might still have a glimmer of hope thought that pokes at him and might at some point send him on to really find out what happened.

The way I'm framing it is that I don't know what happened yet or why, but probably will need help in my own Quest.

Also for a lot of the settlement features my character is actually falling back on her maternal instincts - her family will need a place to thrive and return to normal once all this is over.

Everything she's doing is actually in support of her Quest. She's just trying to think a little more long-term. She's not a fighter and knows she can't just take everything on single-handed.

The game doesn't end. Play the main story and get it over with if not doing it bugs you so much. Your character ain't going back to 2077 and is going to have to make a living when all is said and done. Save that stuff for later.

I completely agree with you OP. They made the main quest to important. How am I going to plant melons, when there is my son to find, and people to bring to justice?