I like exploring. And doing quests (since they lead to more exploring). And finding cool loot. And cracking terminals to get the background story of all the emply (and not-so-empty) buildings I find. And watching Super-Mutant suiciders blow up in nuclear glory as I shoot their backpacks. I'm playing slowly as time permits, and am only at maybe level 14 at the moment, and haven't yet bothered going to Diamond City.
I'm enjoying the game so far, but I have absolutely zero (0) interest in starting a Settlement. I did start one at Sanctuary, but only enough to learn how the system worked, and I then proceeded to setup a basic crafting center/home base at Red Rocket and haven't gone back to Sanctuary since (except where the main story required it).
Which brings me to my question: is it possible to complete the game and ignore the settlement system? I've been trying to avoid spoilers, but I'm getting the impression that at some point I won't be able to move forward until I have something "substantial" set up at Sanctuary.
It's not a game killer for me (I'll do the minimum necessary to move the story forward), but I really like the "Lone Wanderer" aspect of the Fallout games, and babysitting a bunch of semi-helpless civilians just doesn't sound all that much fun to me. I understand I'm missing out on a big part of the game playing this way, and may explore it in more depth after my first playthrough, but for now I just want to see what's out there and find as many locations in the game as I can first.