Extraterrestrial Interest Check : Fallout Series Discussion

» Mon Feb 01, 2016 12:31 am

Initial Post

Spoiler

So for a long time I've wanted to do an RP that has a lot of lethality. I tried to do that in "There Must Be A Way" and was hoping to see it done in "A Dead Land" and "A Brave New World." I've got an idea to ensure that that increased lethality is present, but it's a very different idea from anything I've seen done before and I want to attach it to an idea that hasn't been explored at all, that I know of.

So...

I want to do what is essentially an extended war RP in an alternate universe of the Fallout world. The themes and settings are Fallout as are the weapons, armor, branded items, and the world setting. The battles, and ultimately the war, would be handled by a different game. That is they would actually be played out.

That would mean that there is no such thing as storyline invulnerability. It would be tough to pull off but I think it could be a lot of fun.

What I'm looking for right now is thoughts about how the world of Fallout would be different. The storyline, which is largely cribbed from another game, would be that the aliens invaded and were ultimately successful. They took over and our story starts about 20 years after that takeover. I'd like to have different aspects to it, but the primary aspect would be people RPing as soldiers (probably want more than 1 due to lethality) who are in the last few weeks of basic training.

I think it's a great environment to explore some of the themes of Fallout. I've got some ideas about what I want to see happen, but I'd like to know who is interested and what they would like to see in something like that and what they would not like to see in something like that.

It's a long ways off, but if it doesn't get off the ground as an RP I'd like to do it as a FF with, hopefully, some input from others.

Input

Spoiler

Ghouls put into higher position than smoothskins by aliens due to age and sterility

FEV lethal to aliens, a tool humans use to take on the aliens, possibly worked on in underground network.

BoS wiped out due to arrogance in the initial phases of takeover, PA largely belongs to human's fighting for aliens

Certain factions are underground. BoS, the NCR Rangers and whatnot.

Mr. House under thumb of the aliens but cut a deal to leave him some control. Secretly providing resistance with supplies.

Mobile Command Base, moving to foil plans, doomsday or # of bases goal. Constantly on move, NV, Boston, CW, etc

Low level radiation hotspots with some areas similar to The Glow or The Glowing Sea

Radiation takes 100 years to dissipate but aliens have tech to dissipate it in 10 years

XCom as multiple independent groups, also sympathizers and raiders. Perhaps anti-alien terrorists

2066 date would be pre-China War

China reluctant to work w/ America, free countries and secretly annex them

Canada and US in tense state, American Freedom Fighters can't trust Canadians and vice versa

Power Armor, Stealth Suit, and Fatman likely not yet developed. Upgrade goal.

Europe and Middle East are small nations, in great danger, possible alien strongholds

FEV research not yet conducted

» Mon Feb 01, 2016 5:18 am

Not personally interested as I've got a little too much on my plate work wise, but you could try and flip the switches here and there.

Have Ghouls, the long shunned and discriminated people, be put into higher positions due to their age and inability to breed (some sort of preference from the aliens) than normal Humans.

FEV could be extremely lethal to aliens and could be a tool humans have to resort to using to take on the aliens. Possibly resulting in a sort of underground research network that the Freedom Fighters support.

Have an idea where the Brotherhood have been wiped out due to their arrogance in the initial phases of the takeover, and so PA largely belongs to a militia of men the Aliens have developed to protect their interests (sorta like what XCOM 2 is doing).

Just a few ideas, I know I'm not the most creative person in the world but hopefully it helps.

» Sun Jan 31, 2016 6:27 pm

So you want X-Com meets Fallout? Not a bad idea although I don't have any time to join up assuming this starts anytime soon. I'm already trying to write up something for Fallen Liberty once every four days, then my other RP on the Guild my work for the Frontier and Fallout of course. And then I just get too lazy for any of that.

But some ideas. Have certain Factions go underground, the BoS, the NCR Rangers and whatnot. If Mr. House is around he's probably under the thumb of the invaders but he'd be smart enough to eke out a deal with them to leave him some control. Maybe he's secretly providing the resistance with supplies.

Give the Resistance some sort of mobile command base, something which X-Com 2 is doing. They go from continent to continent and city to city trying to foil the plans of the invaders. There could be some sort of goal like stop the doomsday weapon or free enough territories. And to meet that goal we must travel around the Wasteland constantly on the move. We could cover NV, Boston, CW or any location we want.

» Sun Jan 31, 2016 7:55 pm

That's the tricky thing. No nuclear apocalypse means no ghouls, no NCR, and no BoS. Mr. House and a few characters from Fallout 1 are just about the only plausible returning characters.

The aliens showed up in say 2079, there was a war until say 2085, and now 20 years later the aliens have control and there's are small resistance groups scattered around the world.

And yeah, XCom 2 is the basis of the story and the game I plan to use to play out the battles. Don't plan to start for at least a month or two.

» Mon Feb 01, 2016 4:10 am

The Apocalypse started in 2077. So there'd still be nukes everywhere plus the start of the BoS. As far as Rangers go well, yeah I see your point. If the Aliens waited till we blew ourselves up they can sweep us up easier. Or alternatively this could have been due to the consequence of F3's Mothership Zeta, if the player failed to foil the alien's plans. So we could place this at F3's timeline and go from there with the Aliens rapidly terraforming the planet removing hostiles and making cities for themselves and enslaving humans.

» Sun Jan 31, 2016 5:07 pm

I think as VATROU pointed out you're gonna need to pull the date back by two years.

It'd also be worth considering the date being before 2066.

-No war with China; this'd create a more unified world willing to fight against a greater cause. If you push the game past 2066 it'd be worth having a reluctance from China working with America to fight back the Aliens. Could also give space for a different freedom force, with the Chinese possibly acting like Russia in WW2, freeing countries and secretly annexing them.

-Canada and the US are in a tense state (not yet annexed, that'd be about five or so years later), so again it'd give an interesting stake to the game where American Freedom Fighters cant really trust the Canadians just north.

-No innovations associated with the Sino-American war, or at least the research would still be in the very early stages, like Power Armour and the Fatman, the latter being a weapon I'd imagine would be a key to successfully driving back the aliens by knocking out their larger ships.

-Europe and the Middle East are essentially in Cluster[censored] mode, tiny nations easily picked off by the aliens, and could prove a good space for their stronghold.

-FEV research has yet to start, and thus no FEV mutations possible.

The date of everything would be key unless your planning to rewrite the pre-war lore, and your just looking for Fallout pre-war culture/tech vs aliens.

» Sun Jan 31, 2016 6:30 pm

For a mobile base, we could have a crawler like the Enclave's base in Broken Steel. Or if we go more pre war, we could really do anything.

» Mon Feb 01, 2016 5:52 am

Thanks, you guys have given me a lot to think about.

I was thinking something about the apocalypse never happening, kind of a status quo developing. Aliens start showing up in small countries. This creates an incentive for the UN to reform. UN fights the invasion, but because the alliances are shaky and the aliens are single minded the humans ultimately lose. We'd be in, as stolen directly from XCom, a captured alien supply ship.

Now I'm thinking maybe an apocalypse on a smaller scale, a mini-ocalypse.

» Sun Jan 31, 2016 5:07 pm

perhaps it can be something like Homefront (I think it was that game)

Anyway the apocalypse/bombs dropped happen (either due to resource wars or fighting aliens) but the aliens where (mostly) able to stop the nukes aimed at them thus creating "low radiation"(abit like Vegas) hotspots all around the world and over the last 20 years have mostly return to per-war tech levels but are ruled by aliens.

The rest of the world was hit by nukes and turned in to wasteland but after 20 years is for the most part becoming habitable with various groups (Xcom knockoffs, other rebel groups?, non-rebel survivors(who don't want to fight aliens) and raiders setting up various towns/hideout/camps throughout... a process made faster by tech/supplies smuggles out of alien controlled zones.

There should also be some "glowing sea" like hotzone areas which no-one enters but contains some high-end loot (perhaps including some alien gear from aliens who failed to shoot down nukes.) Finally the aliens could also have some costly/high maintenance tech which "cleans" radiation faster (should still takes years but 10 instead of 100) and allows them to slow expand there territory

» Mon Feb 01, 2016 1:28 am

So I kind of see a few different story possibilities. One of the key questions to me is does this take place across the planet or purely in the United States.

1 - No Apocalypse, but China/US War happened.

The initial idea I had. That is there was no nuclear war. American and China went at it but ended in a stalemate. Thus PA, Fatmans, and Chinese Stealth Suits all exist. Aliens came in a few years later. A UN like entity was formed to combat them, but due to issues between the constituent countries mankind was defeated. Our story begins 20 years after the alien victory. Scattered resistance fighters remain but have been unable to do much beyond hide, survive, and plan. The countries of old are now called by new names, their cultures assimilated into the one government. Only the resistance remembers what was.

This RP is set in the entire world with membership from different countries. Our resistance force is based out of an alien supply ship, scouting out with Vertibirds.

2 - Miniocalypse.

There was a nuclear war but it wasn't as bad as in Fallout. Aliens moved in afterward to take over now that the nations of man had weakened each other. There was a war, but due to the damage caused by the nuclear war the civilizations of mankind were defeated. Our story begins 20 years after the alien victory. BoS and NCR exist in some small form (perhaps unified) but have limited access to tech due to alien controls. The states of old are now called by new names, their individual cultures assimilated into one government. Only the resistance remembers what was.

This RP is set in the United States with membership from different states. Our resistance force is based out of a Mobile Crawler unit, scouting done with Vertibirds.

3 - No Apocalypse, No US/China War.

China and Canada but reluctant to work with US. China was giving nearby countries "freedom" but secretly installing their own agents as a form of annexation. Power Armor, Stealth Suits, FEV, and Fatmans were not yet developed. Due to this distrust the alien invaders are victorious. Our story begins 20 years after that victory. The borders of old have been replaced with those of alien design. Only the resistance remembers the world that was.

This RP could be set in the US or the World.

We could also do any of these approaches as the initial Human/Alien War rather than the 20 Years After Alien Victory thing.

Here's a bunch of stuff about how I imagined the actual RPing to go...

Spoiler

- 1 GM

The GM in this instance plays a different role. He will actually be playing the battle scenarios out. This helps keep things unpredictable. I'd like to play this role, as I've pre-ordered the game and am quite looking forward to it, but we could also easily have 2 or 3 people playing out these scenarios and sort of an amalgamation of the results.

- Many Troops

Everyone participating can join as multiple troops. In the very beginning everyone will start out nearing the end of their basic training, after that everyone will start out having just graduated. Whether an individual troop flourishes or flounders is based on their approach to combat and a lot of random chance. It will be good to make multiple troops because any individual character may be killed or injured at any time. Having more troops will also allow posters to put together a squad as they see fit when it's their turn to be the commander. Initially what class a troop becomes will be random, but pretty soon you'll be able to decide what class you want a troop to be. The Character Sheets will be brief, but will include things to help the GM use the character as you would want them to be used.

- Commander or Commanders

This role rotates from one participant to another. Either one person in charge of this or the position rotates between posters. Here you will be in charge of what to investigate or invest in until a combat bit pops up. You will then get to decide how to build your squad. That is why it's important to have a number of troops, if you want to have an all Sniper squad you need 4-6 Snipers to be available for use. Since we only have so much traffic here and there are a number of possible classes it's important to have a good number of troops. After you make your choice the GM will go through the combat gameplay and then send you the results. You can then either type up a battle summary yourself or ask the GM to do it for you.

- In Action

So...

The GM would tell the Commander what mission is up and what the terms of completion are (like kill all the baddies or find the McGuffin). The Commander would decide what Troops he/she wants on the mission. He could also describe how he wants to progress in general terms how he wants to approach the mission. The GM would then play out the mission according to the Commander's instructions and the troops characteristics. When that's done he would describe what happened to the Commander who could then write up how the mission went.

That way everyone gets to do some combat writing as well as some general messing about the base stuff.

Character Sheets

I want to keep these simple, as in my Commonwealth RP that fizzled out. Something like...

Name:

Nickname: The first game assigned this based on performance though it is editable. Not given until you reach the rank above Recruit.

Appearance:

Nationality: You can have a flag on the back of your gear and I figure it would be kind of cool to have them still wearing the flags of countries that no longer really exist.

Role: These are also unlocked when you reach the rank above Recruit or when we reach a certain point in game.

Personality Traits: These will define how the GM plays that character. If Tommy Salami is a gung-ho maniac with a death wish he'll do more flanking maneuvers, get up closer, and use cover less. If Tony Bologna is a reclusive sniper with a savior complex he'll try to always keep his partners covered from a height advantage. If Sophia Sopressata is a bad ass with a heart of gold she'll stick right there with her squad ready to fix up any injuries and insist on leaving no man behind.

The cool thing, to me, about this approach is that it would mean everyone gets to be a Commander every so often. You can put together a squad of troops that you like, knowing that every time you send them out they may not come back but if you don't send them out they'll never get better. Any character can die at any time, so a character who actually does make it through a bunch of missions would likely grow on us. The game even has built in things like Panicking and PTSD.

Even if you're not interested in the alien bit I'd appreciate any feedback. It would be difficult but if we develop a system that works it could be adapted to work for a NCR/BoS War RP or Institute/BoS. Might have to wait for mods to come out as there are some elements that have no Fallout Universe equivalent, but I'm sure we could make it work.