What Psychotrip said, pretty much 100% agree. Sure you can RP in the sense of playing the role they force upon you, but if you want to RP a different character the game hardly supports it at all. You can play different versions of the same character, while in 3 you could play different characters, they shared a vague backstory but they could vastly differ, in FO4 it's essentially impossible to have the PC not care about their family, in several instances even the O button option, which seems to be the "[censored] you/I don't care/blunt no/go away/violent/etc" button is just a louder complaint about having lost their baby.

During sidequests then ya, you can act like whatever, and sort of in the main factions quests (aside the parts about them supporting you for the central plot). Also, more subjectively, playing evil doesn't fit and barely seems to have any impact. In my 1st file I joined the BoS, then later betrayed them, and when I fought the MPC who recruited me face to face he didn't say [censored], didn't call me a traitor or question my apparent change of heart or anything. They knew my PC and when they were betrayed they just appeared as an elite mook with a name. In my 2nd/parallel file, I can eat corpses right in front of companions and they don't react at all. In fact cannibalism no longer has any drawbacks of any kind, people don't care when they see it, it heals more than most if not all food items and without any rads, it doesn't even have karma to at least have some sense of being morally grey. It's just a really good extra healing ability.

Also also, being evil hardly has any positive effects anymore either, killing civilians/settlers/etc doesn't give xp, you can't join any flat out evil group and/or make big flat out evil decisions and from what I've experienced so far way too many arbitrarily "essential" NPCs. If I need a key why can't I just kill the guy who has it ? Or why can't I kill any of the minutemen ? Preston I guess is fine cause he's their leader and gives all of that factions quests, but you can't kill any of the others either. No small evil decisions too afaik, in FO3 I could sell kids into slavery, in FO4 I can...talk rudely

Because you have to play the way Bethesda wants. Shame on you for thinking you could do what you want.

So do you guys who have trouble role playing in this game also have trouble role playing in the Witcher series, Mass Effect series and Dragon age series? . I can role play in games like gtav so I don't know what your problems could be other than a serious lack of imagination. You role play a personality type..There is no personality type set in the background of the character you create for Fallout 4. So what if you character has a law degree or was in the military.. what's that got to do with anything? How on earth does that effect your ability to role play a personality..

I was hoping this character would be more like Shepard from ME fame. But it doesn't feel the same. And I'll tell you why. Shepard was never you, the player. It was clear from the start you were playing as Shepard. Now his actions, responses are your choice, but it's still Shepard being a hero, or an ass, or a murderous pig.

We also had 3 games with many DLC's (and books, comics, etc, etc) to get to know Shepard. Anyone ME fan worth his weight has headcanoned both femShep and maleShep. And both probably gay, straight, with Garrus, Liara, Ash, Kaidan, Samara, etc etc.

That's a lot of lore that doesn't exist in FO4. FO4 is a completely new game. If Beth keeps going with this, we might get to the point of ME.. and the character will feel better.

But you can still RP him. Just not be in total control. Start your RP after the vault. Come up with a reason why you don't give a crap about your son and move on. Or don't. You still have options: you can be a shinning light of goodness, a freak, a bastard, or somewhere in-between.

At least a decent backstory can still be done (particularly on how a female SS has knowledge of how to use military-grade equipment, or what kind of soldier male SS was).

So you can still RP something, like combat (maybe a female SS focuses on bashing in skulls with fists, so only uses unarmed weapons, or an army ranger focuses on long range sniping).

Not to mention Deus Ex and possibly the finest computer roleplaying game ever created: Planescape: Torment.

I don't know what you mean by roleplay then. Indeed the other Fallout's all had defined origins ~though they only implied that the PC had been raised in a highly structured society; and that the society was their family, and the only people they know in the world ~at the start.

You say it's possible to roleplay ~overlooking a hardship of pre-defined details... but details generally make playing the role easier.

I never touched (and never will) the Witcher series for exactly this reason. I only played Deus Ex HR once for the same reason too. Mass Effect and Dragon Age started good, especially DAO which imo is a RP masterpiece (you *have* to be a GW sure, but GWs can do whatever they want, and anyone would want to stop the destruction of the world they live in no matter how evil they otherwise are). But Bioware got worse at it as both series went on. Though DA is more like a flip-flop since Inquisition has better agency than II.

There is lots of personality in the background on FO4. Being ex-military means the PC wanted to fight in the army, being a lawyer means the PC wanted to study law, being married and having a kid means the PC wanted to marry and have children, and you can't act like you don't care in-game, the game says the PC I made is a loving mother who loves her family, doesn't matter how much I pretend that she couldn't care less about either of them or that she lived alone and didn't have a family. All of their major life choices are preset. What did FO3 decide for by contrast ? You have a father and you live in a vault, neither of which are choices your PC made themselves, and even then you can say you don't care about your father and act like it too. Now just try to find any line that says you don't care about shaun, you can't, there isn't. The PC goes through the main quest being motivated by wanting her baby back because she loves him, you have no choice. If you share that motivation then sure, I bet the story is great for you. But I don't, at all, I literally care more about my grass being burned off than about nate dying or shaun being kidnapped. And no this is a jokey use of literally, I seriously mean that, I would have cared more if the main quest had been about trying to regrow my yard.

Mind you I RP anyway, in fact I RP over most games because the stories and MCs are rarely interesting or relatable to me, I'm just disappointed that the newest entry in one of the few series that actually supported my RPing has suddenly decided to take a big steaming dump on player agency.

An RPG isn't required to allow you an infinite number of possibilities and variables to customize your character. Maybe it's possible in a tabletop RPG, where it's all in fantasy land and where the rules can be bent and the game can be changed to accommodate taste, to create any character you wish. But In every CRPG I've played, key parts of your character are determined. Can you determine your backstory to be that of a powerful raider warlord in Fallout 1? No, because it's been decided you're a Vault Dweller, and there's no way that doesn't strain probability to connect the two. Can I start Baldur's Gate as a rogue pirate settling down in the Sword Cost? No, because I'm the adopted child of Gorion who's lived a pretty cloistered life in Candlekeep. What if the character I make is the kind of person who would refuse to stay in Candlekeep, and escape? Nope, not really possible in the game. What if I'm such a violent psyopath that I would sooner murder Gorion than call him Father? Not possible. You can't be a desk jockey in Deus Ex. You can't be anything but "Geralt of Rivia," a z-list Polish knockoff of Michael Moorcock's Elric, in the Witcher. You can't be an oozing, mutant frog wondering if there's a god in Fallout: New Vegas. There's limits, on both where your character is in the start and what kind of person they are to be in that position.

What if I want to roleplay as a cosmic demigod in Fallout 4, with the power to morph reality? You can't. Is Bethesda "ruining you're rp?" Hell no. CRPGs give you a setting, a plot, and rules for you to use to build, define, and flesh out your character. You're given parameters based on the world and story. And really, Fallout 4's parameters aren't that restrictive. They're not "dumbing down" or draining the RP out of the RPG like so many hapless, witless parrots have been regurgitating on the internet. If they were, why would they bother doing things like making each indivual SPECIAL having a defined purpose to avoid "dump stats," or adding a crafting system with many variables based on character skill, or forcing greater specialization for each character made so it's nigh impossible to make a uber-god character who can do all things well?

And for an RPG, the dialogue has not been dumbed down and limited. There's probably about the same amount actual, character-defining dialogue responses as there would be in text. It may look more "deep" and "complex" when there's a wall of text in dialogue responses in a classic RPG, but any honest fan should admit that there's probably two or three meaningful choices, with most of the responses being comprised of nonconsequential, repeatable, info-dump questions.

Frankly, I'm roleplaying just fine. Weeks before the release I decided who my character was going to be, a highly intelligent combat medic, who's kind hearted, a bit soft-spoken, has a distinct lacking of good people skils, and has a distinct surplus of bad luck. And I'm getting more into it than any other modern RPG I've played.

I feel the way the voice acting was implemented, I felt more invested in shaping my character's moods and thoughts (and I usually don't feel that way with voice acted protagonists like Shepherd and Geralt). The voice acting is superb, as well: forceful enough to display an emotion, and neutral enough to let the player have their own emotion. I heard Warren Spector say that they had JC Denton's voice actor in Deus Ex intentionally sound neutral and almost blank, because they didn't know how the player would feel at that moment. (For a designer's perspective on voiced protagonists in RPGs, I recommend searching for this Let's Play of Deus Ex where three of the developers play through the first hour, it's great stuff).

I don't think it means any of those things. First off Army service would most likely be compulsory ~or spend the time in a penitentiary. Studying Law could have been a family obligation; and children could have been accidents... even ones that caused the marriage.

The difference lay in the developer's freedom (or lack of freedom) to change or expand the narrative with new ideas. With text it's relatively trivial, but with a recorded script, they would have to schedule additional sessions and/or re-record new versions of completed dialog ~twice.

If they decided that they could implement FEV dipped PCs, they could not do that without entirely new sessions from the protagonists and the NPC voice actors... but without the need of a voiced PC... they could add whatever lines (as text) that they wished to them. Voiced PCs work best when the character is relatively constrained to a general type. In Witcher, you play as Geralt, and have a well cast professional voice for that character. With FO4... If I made a custom PC http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/vaultdwellerfief-1.jpg, he'd still sound like Brian Delaney.

With text the sound is not only not an issue... but there is the even to option to implement variant accents and speech patterns; stutters, and raspy affectations based on character choices. In Fallout, the PC 'sounded' way different while intoxicated and/or during drug withdrawal.

Yeah. It leaves it right open. The draft is probably in effect in Fallout's 2077 universe. And like the U.S. used to do in the 1940s, 1950s, and on, you could be SENTENCED to the military for criminal activity. You want to play a psycho? That could be the reason he was in the military. When the wife says, "I'm so proud of him." it can be said because she thinks the military helped straighten him out - but the apocalypse makes him crack. Etc. Etc.

Some people have no imagination.

Or some simply haven't heard of the draft.

I think StarshipTroopers [a 1955 novel IRRC] had it as the only way to be a citizen was to have served in the military. That would seem equally fitting for Fallout IMO.

This!

I actually liked the backstory and thought I'd be this dark and raged anti-hero out for vengance. Instead, a few days later, I'm this naive and quite jolly chap who doesn't question the new world, doesn't really seem to care what just happend and just rather help people with their farming problems.

There's a reason games can work a lot better when left to the imagination of the player character. You can think of every word, thought and action without feeling obligated to do things a certain way. It's one of the purest forms of freedom of the self. No "roleplaying" needed, but it can let you think of yourself as, well, you. Or someone else if that works for you. Background isn't that relevant as we can imagine HOW things played out for the most part. But we already know that in this case because the player character (if male) states it outright, installing a sense of beliefs and ethics onto the character before even being touched. I hate to say it, but it makes the avatar feel "tainted" in terms of "identifying with immersion". He's no longer me or someone else, he's his own person. To turn my back and pretend it doesn't exist is something I simpy can not do. He's been given life.

Fallout 4 makes you feel obligated. It has some things for it but it feels like it's come at the expense of dialog content overall. Possibly the weakest part of the game. A good example of this would be walking into the mayors office in Diamond city and not even getting into a conversation. It can be more challenging to think of how conversations go when the other side has to react in certain ways. I'm not going to say they should or shouldn't have made the change, but what I will say is that if you're going to change things make sure there's as much dialog as there has been before. There isn't as much dialog. Ergo, not the best trade. It also feels like you only ever respond, never inquire on topics. Which past Fallout games did well. I feel like I'm only "along for the ride", never "Leading the conversation".

None spoken dialog also allows you to imagine your own personality. How you react. We don't get to "pick our own", we get "A choice of 3 at most". Why can't I be a cold hearted bastard when looking at the dead wife? My player character MUST be caring and calm by default. Yes, it sounds heartless, but it would have been nice to have a choice of dialog options at that point to decide to be an evil bastard or not. We're always playing the people with morals. Maybe "Flip out mentally" or "Feel nothing", which in itself is not bad or evil and can mean you care that much you'd rather feel nothing. Etc. Example: Click body. Dialog saying "What do you feel?" Choices of "Nothing", "Empty", "Glad". Things like that. Still letting the player character be himself with his own personality, even if a limited one, but getting to decide it.

I'm actually a little surprised a choice of voice options in games hasn't been set yet. Like "Deep voice and sinister" and "hyper fast talker". Couldn't it be coded so that voices get said differently in different ways without having to repeat the dialog? With an addition of "Comment on voice option here and there" if selected?

Character generation is one of my favorite parts of tabletop RPGs. You can't say it's fine that RPGs devs are slowly pushing away their original audience and they should adapt. All this really means is that there's a hole being left in the market. A hole that very well could be filled by learning C++, bu still a hole.

So, it's official then? For the first time in the series we can't make any big evil decisions and have some people hate us for them? Ouch... I was getting this impression, but holding out hope cause I'm not that far in yet. This makes me sad.

Companions can hate you. I've had the chance to do a few evil things so far, i just choose not to. Its more bound into quests and some dialogue around. You haven't really played the game until you've been to the cities, imo. There are so many npc's with various dialogue, choices etc.

I'm only a couple of hours in, but my thoughts so far-

I like having some backstory to work around. My chatacter did her law degree before falling in with a bad crowd. She then got addicted to booze and chems and got knocked up by a random GI in a drunken fumble. Grudgingly she didn't terminate the pregnancy, married the soldier and started cleaning up her life (notice how he is a bit too keen to compliment her all the time and they have a robot to help around the house- he never really trusted her with Shaun).

Compared to Skyrim, where I was free to make up any backstory I like but nothing from it would appear in the game, I think I'll prefer this approach.

Now, with the family and old world gone and various chems and booze just lying around, she's about to have a major relapse.

You keep asking about your son, but how hard are you really trying to find him? Are you getting sidetracked by other things? Did you stop off to build a house? Not really the actions of a devoted parent. You could easily play that as just going through the motions.

I'm not far enough along to know if you can totally avoid doalogue mentioning your son. I hope so, but I've not tried yet. I'm still making some effort to follow the trail.

Dialogue in general will take some getting used to. It flows pretty well, but I was very cagey and non committal with Preston and he just assumed I had agreed to help. But that could be mainly because it was a set piece battle and introduction to power armour.

I hope other quests will feel more like I am in control. Or I'll just have to learn to say no. We'll see how it works out, but I'm not too worried.

Just remember that many people lie and hide their true feelings and motives quite well. They can even fool themselves. If you apply this to your chatacter, role playing should be very possible. Even when doing the main quest.

I did not buy the game yet and probably will not, let's wait and see. The problem in Fallout 4 obviously is not that you cannot poleplay . Of course you can roleplay. You can be a rather different person with different ablilities and different look (I hope). As long as you are a loving married guy or gal with a child. I just don't want to roleplay such a guy/gal. The voiced player char makes it only worse for me. I can also roleplay the witcher but I don't want to roleplay a guy like the witcher, so I never played the witcher games (I tried one and stopped soon). Perhaps there will be for Fallout 4 a Live an Altenative Life mod like for Skyrim? Then my only other mayor dislike for Fallout 4 would be the restricted clothing/armor item slots system which svcks, not so much as in Fallout 3 but still.

Read this great article from Christopher Livingstone of PC Gamer : http://www.pcgamer.com/playing-fallout-4-with-charisma-luck-and-nothing-else/

Well I have been role-playing, but to each there own. A lot of people have opinions about this game and this forum has just become a battle ground of individuals trying to make their claim seem like fact.

The OP is clearly mad about this game as this is not his only thread they have made complaining about the game.

At the end of the day I am enjoying the game, and i couldnt care any less if other people arent.

In the intro there is a very strong non to him being infantry, although it is not explicit.

It's actually pretty vague how you and your army vet of a husband got married and had a baby. We don't know how responsible they are with money. And do they love Shaun? It's up to you. You can hate someone and treat them poorly while not wanting them to die a horrible death. There are plenty of people who do that in our world, and some them are like that to their own children! As for the reverse, yes, ever hear of the trope: "Even Evil Has Loved Ones"? So your cruel and selfish Sole Survivor may actually give a damn about his/her own spouse and child while they crush everyone else.

All I'm saying is that just because you and hubby/wife are married in the suburbs and have a baby doesn't mean the game's saying we're the nicest people EVER, are responsible with money and we're good with children. For goodness sake, they have a Mr. Handy (armed with a pincer, a flame torch, and a CHAIN SAW) who takes care of their infant son. Really? What does that say about them? It's up to you.

The character was in the military, there are hundreds of branches you could choose from to role play. The obvious choice is special operations, but you could choose medic, administration clerk, chef, officer/NCO? The possibilities are endless...

Actually the player is pretty much forced to make the baby happy. You must spin that thing above him to advance the plot. Regarding Mr Handy, the wide quite clearly says she wasn't sure at first, but it's quite clear that he's either hard programmed never to harm when not in self defense (I just get that impression. Think I Robot) and that he's become part of the family.

And let's be honest, the "morally good looking household" pretty much screams goody two shoes. You can maybe act like a bad parent, even nuke... ahem. Spoilers. But case in point, you can't be outright, full blown evil from the start. Unless it's "deceptive evil" but even then that is not the same as "Uncaring heartless bastard that leaves the house in a mess and beats the bot for trying to clean".

Another thing. You can't not say "We must get to the shelter now". You automatically inform your wife to follow you to safety. Game could have let her do it instead to let you set your own personality.