What is your character backstory and motivations? Many of us find having a detailed backstory helpful for getting the most roleplaying value out of the game, so here is a thread to share our roleplaying ideas.

Michael Finnegan Kelly (Finn to his friends) was born into an Irish Catholic family which hailed from Boston. However, Finn's father was a career Army officer and so Finn grew up on a series of Army posts. Upon graduation from high school, Finn, following family tradition, attended Notre Dame on an ROTC scholarship - double major in philosophy and criminal justice. Finn graduated and was accessioned as an active duty Infantry officer in the U.S. Army. Finn attended the Infantry Officer Basic Course, Ranger School, and Power Armor Training Course. Finn was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 108th Infantry as the Scout Platoon leader. Finn's platoon ran reconnaissance operations during the Yangzte Campaign - scouting enemy positions and then calling in for the heavy power armor units to mop up. Upon his promotion to captain, Finn was given command of of an Infantry company (Power Armored) and was redeployed for the Gobi Campaign. In between campaigns, Finn met and fell in love with Nora, a brilliant law student. They were married soon after Finn returned from the Gobi desert.

After two deployments of heavy fighting, Finn was tired of war and death. Nora was offered a promising job as an assistant district attorney in Boston, and so Finn got out of the Army and decided to put his criminal justice degree to work by starting with the Boston police department.

It was supposed to be perfect. They had a new son, Shaun, their pride and joy. A new life in Boston. Nora's career was taking off. Finn was set to go to the police academy and was volunteering at the Veteran's Hall. It was peaceful for the first time in many years...but instead of going to war, this time the war followed him home.

That fateful day the war came to his doorstep, and so they went to the Vault. It was Nora's idea to get a spot there - a bit of peace of mind knowing that a vault shelter was right in their own neighborhood. It was supposed to be safe, but instead, in the shock and confusion of the day, Finn found himself in a "decontamination pod" - and it was so cold.

Did he sleep? What happened? Who were these people? What were they doing to Nora and Shaun? "Oh my God!!!" "What is happening?" "Nora!!" " What are you doing to my boy?!?! Where are you taking him?!"

The man with the scar...he took everything from me. He killed Nora and he took my son.

I was trying to escape war, but war found me. Now I am taking war to the man with the scar. I will find him. I will get my son back. I will make him pay...War - War never changes.

Look forward to this topic

I was a lego wonderkid,i ate slept and breathed lego.Grew up and lost my imagination,gave up lego to bring yet another ungrateful consumerist sprog into the world.Got froze,saw the sprog get kidnapped and my mental imagination block(the wife) get offed,thereby freeing me to follow my dreams of placing building blocks everywhere i could.

I'm still building.

Here is a little backstory for my Madelyn (Female Sole Survivor):

Madelyn was born in Boston in 2052 to a family who worked for the Government's Intelligence Agency. During high school, she was a cheerleader and met her future husband, Nate. When she was 18, she ended up getting snatched up by the same intelligence agency that her father worked for, and taught to be a spy and assassin for 3 years. she also studied law in her free time, and ended up utilizing much of the skills she learned. Her most recent assignment was to pretend to be in the neighborhood of Sanctuary Hills to report on any possible communist sympathizers. She ended up marrying Nate and having a son, Shaun. Then the bombs fell.

My current character is named Jack Ripley

Jack (short for Jacquelyn) was sort of a tomboy growing up. Always getting into scuffs and fights with the boys in her neighborhood. But she could hang with them and even beat them in a fight. She thought it was funny when they ran home to mother crying and had to explain that a girl beat them. Its actually how she met her future husband, Nate. He was one of the boys in the hood who managed to beat her one day. Of course he got teased that she let him beat her because she had a crush on him. And this is partly true. Eventually they married and he joined the military. That is how two tough and tough kids grew up to be responsible advlts living in an upscale white picket fence neighborhood called Sanctuary Hills.

As is common with most happily married newlyweds, Jack became pregnant. Nate took a less dangerous job in the military from more of a front man to an intel department. That is likely how they maybe caught the attention of Vault-Tec and ended up on the list for Vault 111.

Life was a little peaceful slice of happiness right out of the covers of a magazine. Jack had traded in her jeans and t-shirt for a flowery skirt. Even her hair was all lady like and proper. They were the perfect couple sitting in the front row at church every sunday before heading home and having a picnic in the park. But Nate began bringing home unsettling news. Whispers mostly of unrest in the world's powers, mainly with the Chinese but they seemed so far away. Why fear them?

But as we all know, that fateful day arrived when the bombs began falling. And almost ironically RIGHT after Jack finally gave up with the pestering Vault-Tec sales man and signed up on the list. She thought it might make him just go away but damn, talk about timing.

However the vault was not just a secret facility to monitor the effects of prolonged cryo-sleep. Everyone was subjected to mind altering subliminal re-education. When she thawed out, she was hardly the tame young woman she had grown into being before. The training she was put through had put her mind more into a crazed individual who thought only for herself.

Jack shaved off the hair on the sides of her head and applied dark makeup. She had a sudden fascination for weapons, particularly melee weapons. And then there was the chem induced violent behavior. Jet and Psycho became her dear friends. And alcohol drowned out her troubled mind at night. She abandoned her original home in Sanctuary Hills and built a new one down the street. She does not recall where she learned to built but she was good at it. And her home shows all the signs of the violent psychopath she is becoming. There is a couch centered between two flickering lamps. There is an ash tray flowing over with used up cigars. Empty beer bottles litter the floor and the couch is covered in stains and burns. used up needles are also scattered about. Above her bed which is covered in teddy bears is a picture of an island surrounded by water. Why she chose that one? I don't know.

There is also Shaun's crib in the corner, piled high with toys for the child she has given up all hope of finding.

So now she faces the wastelands. Either she will die in a lonely existence or she might find salvation. Only thing I know so far is even super mutants run when she approaches. Those she encounter often consider her a merc... a raider and a bully. She has twisted more then a few arms to get more caps for a job.

So if you see her...

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/646628456462883866/EF87A719FF64FA350C291B70A4F0B8A2111DA277/

make sure you don't piss her off. With psycho running through her veins, she'll come at you with her bare hands. Even if you have a gun pointed to her head. She just doesn't care anymore...

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/646628456462885286/09E36386EEE8DE40B431BA8CB27817FBF8B35ADC/

Basic story which I will expand later:

My female character is a type of synth but not a synth. She had memory place in her head that she a lawyer and sit out into the world (while been monitor). The experiment was to test out the ability of a organic but Artification creations of giving birth. She would visit a clinic with her newborn child for examination without knowledge she or the public been examined.

My character is a gamer from 2077 in an alternative reality where it is heavily inspired by the 1960s playing a VR Simulation of Fallout 4. So I am not actually controlling the Sole Survivor, but controlling a person that is controlling the Sole Survivor.

Extending on backstories I've posted elsewhere:

Aimee Barlow

Aimee was part of a group a dozen gifted teenagers that were selected for a special government research program. The official purpose of the study was to determine how genetic and social variations affected gifted children. However, the true purpose with the program was to implant the subjects with cybernetic technology that boosted their mental and physiological capacity while at the same time allowing full control of the individuals by implanting commands in their mind, a form of cybernetic hypnosis. The subjects were to become the perfect assassin drones, capable of carrying out high profile operations. Because all of the subjects were gifted young people, they were expected to advance into high ranks in different fields and unsuspectingly be able to get close to powerful targets.

The implants caused many side effects leading to mental instability, all of the subjects developed symptoms such as depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia so the program never became the success they had hoped for. Aimee grew up to successfully complete college, but coping with huge stress and depressions lead to alcohol and drug problems. She frequented many rehabilitation programs, this is where she met her future husband Nate - a former soldier recovering from post-traumatic stress. Codsworth was a wedding gift from friends assigned to help them with their daily routines and to stay clean. Their lives were just beginning to turn around with the birth of Shaun and acquisition of their new home in Sanctuary when that fateful day in October took them to Vault 111.

Upon facing the challenges of the Wasteland Aimee's implants became activated, skills with firearms, lockpicking, acrobatics, melee combat and reflexes became greatly enhanced along with pain threshold and toughness making her into a combat machine.

my back story: im a badass and i dont care about my son, like at all.

Brooks Juneau

Brooks is an ambitious intelligence officer, having served in the airborne service branch before transferring to military intel. He worked for the department of counterespionage and contra-terrorism assembling and anolysing data, but he also had the mindset and experience to work directly in the field when needed. At the time of the great war he was considered essential to the war operations and he was supposed to be transferred to a safe location where he would have worked with the enclave, but an administrative failure on Vault-Tec's behalf had him assigned to Vault 111 instead. On the day of the nuclear fire storm he was away from the office, preparing for a brief holiday with his wife and newborn son.

A loyal officer, Brooks is still convinced that order and stability are the strongest virtues of society and has a strong sense of discipline and rank. Upon learning about the Brotherhood of Steel, Brooks soon settled in within its' ranks. He has a broad range of knowledge, from engineering to heavy weaponry, that is useful to the Brotherhood of Steel and he shares their vision of a future with no mutants, ghouls or synths.

I'm a case of mistaken identity. Everyone seems to think my wife was killed and my son kidnapped and like to remind me about this, like, all the time. It's to a point where I have started believing its true and actually think about asking people if they've seen this kid anywhere, but then I remember it's not really my kid and that I don't care. Still, it's 25% of the possible answers my mind spawns to any given question about my coming and goings in the Wasteland. I have to break free from this line of thought and find out why people seem to think I have a kid when I was just a nerdy janitor who never got laid, but sneaked into one of these pre-war Vaults. Am I going slowly mad...?

I like to keep it short and simple.

Francis: Good-natured [censored]. Military engineer and former USSA astronaut, with the greatest endurance around. Not necessarily the most dangerous soldier, but he could defeat a statue in a war of attrition. Doesn't give a second thought about helping the weak and the needy, but that doesn't mean he won't treat them like crap anyways. Will not stand for those that abuse their power, or try to control the weak. The hero the wasteland needs... but not the one any of them really want.

Caecilly: Doomgal. Trophy wife to a now-dead prize-fighter, spent all of her spare time playing violent video games. Now that she's stuck in the wasteland, she survives by emulating the rugged, bloodthirsty, and bland male protagonists from the games she adored. A regular master-at-arms, wielding a Ripper, 10mm Pistol, Automatic Plasma Rifle, Sawed-Off Shotgun, Combat Shotgun, Minigun, Rocket Launcher, and a Fat Man... also my excuse to play the game as if it were DOOM.

Baudoin: Wasteland Don Quixote. After losing his child to the wasteland and discovering the number of people that have suffered as he has, he decides to take up the mantle of a wandering knight and roam the land with most faithful friend and servant, Codsworth, providing succor to those in need and accepting this harsh world at face value.

Penelope: Pirate Queen of the Commonwealth. Follows the Pirate Code, and only hurts those that deserve it... but utterly destroys anyone who does. She does not think small.

Van Buren:

Formerly part of a spec ops T-51b squad that fought during the Liberation of Anchorage, Alaska and was part of the final push against the last of General Jengwei's forces. Nearing the end of the battle however, was he attacked by a Crimson Dragoon that was waiting for the opportunity to strike one last time before Chinese defeat and took a deadly blow from an electric sword. Due to his injuries was he finally sent home for his valor in freeing Anchorage from the Chinese invasion, though such an honor did not hide the scars of war mentally and physically. He had hoped returning home to his family would change things for the better, but was only welcomed by the devastation of nuclear fire shortly afterwards.

His time in the wasteland has only further damaged him, fueling his cruel and ruthless nature in never being able to escape war. But the hopes of finding his son are all that keeps him going, and accepting what the world and himself have become. He will sometimes lose himself in the waste, and become no different from many lonesome drifters that forget why they do the things they do.

*eagerly awaits Bleak's response*

In 2282, the Think Tank had a breakthrough in a radical idea that they had tossed together amongst themselves but never had the means of progressing. Of all their records and data and technological prowess, what they felt they lacked to complete their files was a detailed account of the day the bombs fell. They also built the time machine because it was a Sunday and no one had anything else going on. They also had the benefit of a more than adventurous resident to assist them in the form of the Courier, a man trying to get away from the chaos of the Mojave following the second battle of Hoover Dam.

His mission was simple. He would go back and indoctrinate himself into society of the Back When times and record observations about society and world events leading up to the day, and then use a device to bring himself back when the time was right to report on his efforts.

The Courier woke up in Los Angeles, California naked and the bring-back device had been fried by the process. Essentially, the Courier found himself stuck in the past. However...He chose to look on the bright side. Now he could get a cold Nuka Cola Victory whenever he wanted.

And then one day he was talked into joining the army, some time after making the acquaintance of a lovely lady named Nora.

We all know the rest of the story. There he stood outside the gates of 111, finding himself once again in the irradiate wasteland. This was not the Mojave. In the days that followed his re-awakening back into the wasteland, he had contemplated making his return to the Mojave, and complete his mission with the Think Tank, but none of that seemed important. The things that had become more important had been taken away. And before he could even allow himself to think about going back...Some people had to die.

Mia was arrested for sedition against the State. She thought the strictures against citizens were becoming too stringent during the war and deigned to speak out.
An almost fatal mistake.
She was conscripted into the infantry for a mandatory term. When the ASVAB was mandatorily issued it seemed she was a maintenance prodigy and was given front line orders to service the T-60 armor suits but was not allowed said protection.
A year before the bombs fell, the entire unit she serviced had been destroyed by an infiltrating Manchurian Contingent.
She mounted the armor she had so long cared for and with a few short strokes, solidified the forward position.
In recognition for her 'bravery' and 'decisiveness' she was offered amnesty from her sedition charges on the dual conditions that she apologize for her previous statements and became one of the 'Faces of the Nation'.
The 'Faces of the Nation' project turned early sedition criminals into purported 'model citizens' that were filmed and transmitted at all times by both radio and television feed as 'model citizens'. Sanctuary Hills was one such televised commune. Specialized Mr. Handy units were put in place to ensure compliance,
Mia was issued one 'Codsworth' and monitored around the clock.
She became pregnant and had Shaun. The only beacon in a bleak landscape that offered her any hope in a place where she was not allowed to express herself. She had only begun falling into the role of parent as the bombs fell.
In the end? The Vault Tec rep was still there. Her Codsworth monitoring unit was still around the after two hundred years... though his programming seemed frazzled.
She heard tales of 'The Institute' and it made her pause and think about how government had insinuated itself into her life before the war.
The question now remains.

Is the Institute a mere arm of the government that persecuted her and destroyed her world?
Or is it something else entirely.
Welcome Home?

Roger Deniton.

Psychological and physical duress in the time of his captivity in chinese interrogation camp has left him bitter (although still good at heart), deformed, weakened. He survived only because of his knowledge of the spiritual practices. He managed to block out the pain and when things got real bad he projected himself into astral realm, after the torture when he regained counciusness he managed to heal himself with reiki and scalar waves to some degree.

After the rescue from the camp and return home chems and food provided a convinient way to block out the memories and make the pain go away. Roger knows that he should loose weight and drop the chem habbit, see a psychologist and psychotheraqeut, find a new meaning in life.

Roger, the former field intelligence operative, is now caught up in the past. Comes the dark, comes the past.

Whoa! That's spooky. My character, Charlie Foxtrot was also an ex-military guy with power armour training who married a woman named Nora and had a son called Shaun (apparently we couldn't spell either). We were even offered places in a vault like you were, right down seeing Nora murdered and Shaun stolen away.

Dude! What are the odds on that?

Did you run into that magic junkie that thinks her hallucinations will tell her where the boy is? Or the weirdo with the tricorn hat and laser musket that got stuck in 1776? Personally I'm starting to wonder if we aren't both stuck in one of Stanislaus Braun's little experiments.

The only thing I could come up with that I liked that doesn't totally jar with the forced backstory and character of the game while still making me feel like it's mostly my character was to go with waking up in the vault with no memory but with programmed knowledge and skills (mostly revolving around killing and manipulation) perhaps shes some kind of synth, more likely an experiment in creating the ideal soldier or spy. This extends to my characters interactions with other people so she is constantly surprised by the stuff that comes out of her mouth while she's making her way around the Wasteland, to the point that for a long time she became a recluse and just hid away in a corner of the map refusing to talk to anyone.

Jackson: Born 2045 Washington

Signed up to the engineer core when he was 18... Had basic combat and power armour training... He went into conflict zones to build structures for civilians and military... Was injured in Anchorage in 76 and upon his return he married his high school sweetheart and moved to the suburbs of Boston... Started a small construction company but struggled to integrate himself back into civilian life...

Sorry in advance for the long post but its a fun character build.

Major General Benedict Arnold from the revolutionary war

He claimed victory in many battles against the British being shot in the same leg 4 separate times during these battles only to have the credit for those battles stolen by his on fellow Generals who gained promotions through his acts while he was passed up for promotion several times by congress and almost losing his leg in the process.

In 1780 Benedict Arnold than tried to sell a fortress at West Point to the British for ￡20,000 but his plan was than discovered when Washington's forces intercepted one of his letters to a British officer and he fled narrowly escaping capture by George Washington's forces (this is where the story deviates from history) but gathering his wife and newborn son and heading north to Boston to throw off Washington's forces just as a cold front hit

His extensive leg injuries have permanently lowered his agility to 1 and rendered him incapable of running and crouching and he only uses weapons similar to the ones he was trained to use like the laser musket, hunting rifle, and Chinese officer's sword.

This would pretty much sum up what I based my character after.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ9nRAhr2Io

awesome

What back story? You are a soldier a father of new born baby and then war happens............ and you know the rest...

This is an FPS with some basic character development mechanics..........can't be termed as RPG....

My first character was supposed to be a real wastelander, but I guess it was too early to try that story, so she is ended up to be just a mother with a nasty face. Because in my first playthrough I always tend to follow the main story, no matter which background I would choose.

My second character is way better:

he was always good with electronic, engineer, quite good logic, so in military he was in the position of communication department.

After he married, he got used to big dinners and confortable couch and TV, so he grew fat and soft.

But after the vault experience, he was slowly returning to his military background, to the very basics - like holding gun and armor, to sleep in dirty beds, which he always hated and despised.

So he was really glad when he found out, that there are groups who would use his brain also and with clean beds, if not the TV...

In my third playthrough I'm going to roleplay an american native indian, with high perception and sniper with combat military background and I do hope it will be possible to be the tough guy who don't care about anyone, that real wastelander I wanted. Maybe I will wait for DLC or mods with more content for that.