*Not sure if this belongs in Spoilers, but just in case...*

For the last week I've been playing a DiD character. It's been going well enough, but I started to find it boring because it was going in the same direction as my Prime character took - stealthy assassin slash goody-goody hero type slash settlement builder/politician.

Spurred on by yesterday's discussions, especially about the one about the no-crafting-perks option, I created a new character last night that is basically 100% against my usual instincts in these games and it's revealed some interesting surprises.

It's an old man because I wanted to play up the war veteran aspect for RP. Came out of the Vault traumatized and put his WAR face back on, which means Power Armor, automatic weapons, explosives, and chems. I'm also playing him cynical, sarcastic, and just plain mean, generally dismissive of other people's problems. This is the guy that says, "I've got my own problems, Garvey."

While this playstyle is very, very counter-intuitive for me (I'm cringing at some of the dialog choices) it has been extremely interesting so far. The jerkish dialog choices have resulted in completely different responses from Garvey and Mama Murphy - things I never would have heard if I hadn't gone this direction. Assuming this continues, it rather puts the lie to the generally accepted idea that FO4 is not really an RPG.

The power armor is fun so far, and the "charge in and bash 'em" playstyle seems to be quite viable. I'll also be using a Companion this time which I hadn't before because they are basically incompatible with stealth play. And chems...ah, sweet chems. Never really touched those before but they are indeed a blast! Oh, and the no-crafting this has been fine so far. It's rather nice to only be lvl 5 and already have Big Leagues, Commando, Pain Train, Toughness, and Chem Resistant instead of "wasting" those first few Perks on crafting/building.

I may have only played 3 or 4 hours so far, but this is shaping up to be a very cool run. I can see it holding my interest for a long time, almost like playing a new game.

Anybody else done radical shifts like this? Do the different dialogs continue?

OMG get outta here!!! Your character sounds totally like the one I just created! LOL I was also thinking of making this exact same post. I started a new play-through and I'm also going against my nature with the sarcastic/mean replies and I also cringe at times! lol Now, I have to say, that at times I do use the nice response, it all depends what the occasion calls for. Alice is a smart-ass, but not really mean, unless provoked or pushed into a corner.

When I told Harvey "No, I'm not your savior" I had Cogsworth with me and he was totally taken aback by that response. When I asked him later how our relationship was going, he was like I don't even know you anymore Ms. Alice! LOL

My first character did the Lone Wanderer thing and Alice will keep a companion with her at all times now. I already maxed out Piper's affinity and I just turned level 20! I've actually also missed out on a lot of interesting things, while exploring the world all alone.

I took Valentine with me to Fort Hagen to confront Kellog and after we were done, he suggests to go see Piper and get her input. That never happened during my first game. I've also not found the Railroad, declined to lead the Minutemen and also told Danse that I wouldn't join the BoS. So, right now I'm totally "Factionless" and I wonder where that will take me and for how long I can remain that way. Alice is just doing her own thing. Piper actually gave me the run down on the 3 factions, another convo I never had before.

I build a really nice compound at Starlight Drive In and did liberate a few settlements and build some defenses for them, but this time, I am not going settlement crazy LOL Cat, my first character had to build a cabin/house for every settlement! hahaha

Oh and no Power Armor this time around. I used it quite a bit in my first game, but I think I will only use it for the Glowing Sea part this time around. I like my green shirt and combat boots, with some leather armor and a legendary chest piece that dropped. I wore the same thing the whole game pretty much last time around. I want to switch it up this time and wear different outfits and not depend on the +1 strength of some things, so I have to watch my weight. lol

First time around I also played on Easy and now I switched to Normal difficulty. Thank goodness I'm not doing a DiD character. LOL However, I only died (fell unconscious hehe) 3 times in 20 levels, all 3 times due to me running into a corner and the enemy throwing a freakin' nade!!! ugh... in all 3 instances, I had nowhere to run, literally.

Nice to see a positive thread like this! I too am getting a lot from subsequent playthroughs. The first time I played, I basically just tried to rush the main storyline. My current playthrough feels even better though, because I've been able to work with all the factions to get more content and obtain a more peaceful ending. I also understand the building and crafting mechanics better, which has been really helpful.

I've retired three PC's now with differing play styles.

1) Male, auto weapons, no settlements, BoS, heavy armor (no PA though).

2) Female, pistols, settlements, RR, leather armor.

3) Female, energy weapons, settlements, Institute, no armor just base outfits.

I'm currently playing a male that's kind of a repeat of #1. However I've already planned out a couple others including a survivor that cooks all his healing items (no chems of any kind), uses only raider and metal armor (including raider PA), and pipe guns only. I also need to work on making a melee character as that is something I've completely skipped so far. Generally I'm not inclined to use melee vs. guns, but I've read that it's viable in FO4 (though in RL I would never try to take out a guy with a machine gun using a knife).

Yeah, what confuses me about the dialog criticisms is that it supports role-playing just fine. In all of the RPGs I've played, there are usually two "types" of dialog in the game: The first type is "Let's simulate a natural conversation where I get to choose how to respond to what you're saying, and that affects the flow of the conversation" - conversations like these usually don't offer a bevy of responses to choose from, and usually the NPC responds to what you say and then goes back to what they were going to say no matter what dialog option you picked. The second type is just "Let me ask you some questions", and that has almost nothing to do with roleplaying (although in New Vegas, I could roleplay my character already knew what was going on in the Mojave by just not picking those options... kinda funny that so many people believe it's established the Courier has amnesia.).

Anyway, Fallout 4 handles the first type just fine - it's not remarkable, and it's a shame there aren't stat checks other than Charisma, but for RPG dialog it's pretty standard. What I really think Fallout 4's dialog is missing is the chance for us to prod NPCs with a series of questions. It does a well enough job of answering questions, but I think if the standard "question?" topic branched out to a series of questions, or if the dialog topic just cycled through different questions each time you picked it, the dialog system would have been a little bit better received.

(stray observation: every Elder Scrolls game before Skyrim had virtually none of the first type of conversational dialog, and consisted entirely of the second type of investigative dialog. Some RPGs, huh? )

I just hate how the morality in dialog choices isn't on the good/evil axis but charitable/cheap. Almost every challenge is to chisel another 50 caps out of some bum.