Lets see.
I tried to take on about 6 Enclave Soldiers, with a .32 Pistol with about 10% condition.
I went into Megaton and shot Cromwell, thinking that nothing would happen apart from a fine (because of Oblivion). Literally 5 seconds later I was dead.
I tried to walk to Vault 87....
I walked through the DC ruins in just a Vault 101 Jumpsuit like "whats that green thing....OH HELL NO"

I went and found Rivet City too soon. I got tired of the fact that I was running out of ammunition and so was what's her face in Megaton. I kind of needed to find another place where there was more ammunition so I set out across the wasteland for Rivet City before I found NPR. Come to find out later, I skipped ahead of what I was supposed to do first which was find Three Dog, do whatever missions for him, then go to Rivet City. Oh well, I'll get it right the second time around.

You can still do his mission, but getting into GNR will be more difficult without help from the Lyons' Pride taking out the Super Mutants and having to face the Super Mutant Behemoth alone (since the other super mutants will likely kill the GNR door guards before you can kill the super mutants). The reward is different when you already know that your dad went ti Rivet City.

I think you can go to Rivet City safely as long as 1) you don't take a side-trip into the Jefferson Memorial on the way, and 2) you don't speak with Dr. Li - but I'm not sure of that. On a side note, on my first play through I did go into Jefferson Memorial on the way from GNR to Rivet City, which confused me when I talked to Dr. Li since it changed her responses. I didn't look too much into it, I pretty much just saw the super mutant inside and turned around and left.

I spoke to Dr. Lee while I was there, and learned about my father before I found NPR. I did eventually find NPR, and there was brotherhood fighting mutants, and the Behemoth still appeared when I reached NPR, but I only got like one mission from 3 dog, and that was to retrieve a radio transmitter disk and place it in the Washington Monument. I don't remember getting any other missions from him after that, so I wonder if I missed out because I didn't go through the intended steps in the correct order. Of course it didn't help that I learned late in the game that we were actually supposed to use the subways to get to the different parts of the Washington D.C.

NPR is National Public Radio.
GNR is Galaxy News Radio.
The difference? GNR is in the game, NPR is not.

There's always Brotherhood outside GNR, but there's not always Lyons' Pride there; they come if you don't already know where James went when you show up in CHevy Chase.

Three Dog only gives that one mission, but the reward varies based on whether you know that James went to Rivet City or not when you turn it in. If you don't, he tells you. If you do, then he gives you the password to an old weapons cache and marks the location on the pip-boy map.

1. At a really low level got the firelance but it got nabbed by a filthy raider who reduced me to an ash-pile.

2. Went into the store with the domino effect but accidentally got hit by the brahmin skull trap.

3. Avoided a rigged shotgun the first time going into a metro tunnel but forget and got killed by it on the way out.

I went abit trigger happy in tenpenny towers and killed some reasonably important characters meaning I can't hand in the tenpenny towers quest as I killed both gustavo and the ghoul guy and another guy who was for a different quest. I also killed the woman who sells you room themes because I thought her prices were abit steep.

Now I am sitting on a huge pile of bottlecaps with nothing to spend it on, I look back at the days when TT still had people in it and I really do miss it.

1. Shot the Overseer right in his stupid face
2. Shot Moriarty right in his stupid face
3. Shot Cromwell right in his stupid face
4. Heard Moira mention the playground in Minefield, so assumed the mines would all be around it; then wondered why I didn't have any legs left
5. Drowned trying to get to the plastic surgeon in the bow of Rivet City, whilst wearing Button Gwinnett's wig
6. Didn't use VATS when using the Fat Man against the GNR Behemoth, and vaporised myself and most of the Lyon's Pride

There could be more, but I think I'd rather forget them x_x;

Ah, I never use VATS now, EVER!
But then that is because I have been playing FO3 since it came out, and after downloading FWE, I fancied even more of a challenge.

To be honest, I see how you killed yourself with the Fat Man, I done that too, I waited for the Behemoth to get up close them was like BANG (thinking that it would be like an uber powerful shotgun).
Although, now I think its just safer to sit in the School Building with the FatMan and blast the hell out of the thing

lol That's a hell of a detour. How did those Deathclaws treat you at Level 2?

I've been playing Fallout 3 for almost a year and have logged well over 100 hours so it's hard to remember back that far (especially since I'm STILL finding new stuff in the game).

My dumbest things from the first playthrough would probably be:

- Before I had done pretty much anything else after leaving the vault (I think I had gone to Megaton and got the info on GNR) I was wandering the Potomac at nighttime when I could see the outline of the Jefferson Memorial. Not realizing just how detailed a game Fallout actually was and being an American history nerd I said "wow! The Jefferson Memorial! I need to check that out!" Then of course at Level 3 or whatever I had to wipe out all the Super Mutants after dying 30 times. I walked into the control room of Project Purity and saw the setup and was like "well this is stupid, I wanted to see the statue" and of course didn't even notice the holotapes I ended up having to go back for.

- For most of the first playthrough I didn't realize you could do more than one shot at a time in VATS. Yeah. Dumb.

- Not being able to find the GNR building because I didn't realize I was supposed to use the subway tunnels...I think I ended up in Arlington Cemetery or something (and then the Jefferson Memorial as outlined above).

- Upon arriving in Springvale and encountering the Enclave Eyebot, whacking it with a baseball bat and turning it hostile (this had to to happen to like half of all people the first time through).

- Not even going to Megaton but hanging a right in Springvale and ending up running into Bryan Wilkes on the highway to Grayditch and triggering the "Those!" quest before I even knew what the hell I was doing.

- The first time I played the "Reilly's Rangers" quest I think I wandered that damn hotel for an hour because I couldn't find whatever piece of tech I had to find. I actually had to look it up on the wiki.

- During "Finding the Garden of Eden" I not only took Murder Pass but needlessly wandered into the Great Chamber-ish living quarters which is full of Super Mutants carrying missile launchers. I slapped myself on my second playthrough when I realized I didn't need to go through that section of Murder Pass, then slapped myself harder the third time when I realized I could just hack the terminal to get right into the vault.

- In "Blood Ties" I couldn't find The Family. I think I covered a fourth of the map looking for them when all I had to do was take another right in the frickin Moresti Tunnel.

Probably much more dumb things than that, but these stand out.

After finishing the battle at GNR I tried to open the door to the building without first using the speaker box to get the all clear and all the BOS when hostile and shot me to hell.

Oh, hell, what didn't I do?

Left the vault, walked right off the scenic overlook. Whoops.
Took cover behind cars during a firefight.
Tried to get out of the reach of fire ants by climbing on top of a car.
Shot a Behemoth at close range with the Fat Man. Blew myself to hell, I don't know if it even scratched the damn Behemoth. :facepalm:
Repaired a unique weapon with a standard one. That was an accident, though.
Sold unique weapons. That was just being dumb.
Used Quantums and Sugar Bombs myself, dumped Blood Packs, Pre-War Books and Scrap Metal as useless.
Turned in the android component, thereby losing out on the fancy plasma rifle and the Wired Reflexes.
Drowned several times trying to get into the Broken Bow. Once I succeeded in doing that, I got killed by MIrelurks two or three times and killed by the gas/grenades trap once or twice. Yep, I was being a slow study.
Got lost looking for Megaton - this was before I figured out how the compass thing worked.
Took skill-boosting perks (Gun nut, specifically)
Threw grenades and blew up pretty much all of the cars in the blocked tunnel behind GNR. Oops. Admittedly, this tactic can work to get rid of the ghouls, but you need to be standing somewhere a bit safer than I was.
Didn't keep track of my rad count until I dropped dead.
Did the Anchorage Memorial the hard way before I found out I could do it by going into the maintenance tunnels and meeting only two mirelurks instead of six or so inside the main building.
Sold the skill books. I am so ashamed.
Didn't look for the bobbleheads.

All of above, and anxious looking for a paradise called Tranquility lane, hoping to find a nice green oase, but gotting caught with a damn little girl for days! :blush2:

threw a frag grenade at a mutie standing at the opposite side of the car I was using for cover... the frag detonation was out of my blast radius... the car.... not so much.

my biggest newbie mistake was when I wanted to go see the Mall, I wanted to see how D.C. Mall looked, so I blindly went through tunnel after tunnel and street after street.... and battled my way through the Capital Building at level 6....


Yes, I survived it too... barely.

In my first play through I took many +Skill perks such a Gun Nut, Little Leaguer, Size Matters, etc. not knowing how easy it was to max your skills.

Like many others I found myself instinctively taking cover behind cars O.o :nuke:

Killing Caravan Merchants because I though they might have good loot

Didn't do the optional objectives in the Wasteland Survival Guide

When trying to slow travel to Rivet City, I took the "hard way" because I was too afraid to swim in the irradiated Potomac. (It turns out swimming is the fastest way from Megaton to Rivet City, and the negative effects from the radiation in the river is largely negligible with all the ways it could easily be "cured")

Spent dozens of hours to find GNR topside following the compass, but not using the Metro... "How do I get around these freakin' ruins?" :facepalm:

To be fair, there are other places where swimming is...inadvisable, to say the least. Stupid mirelurks... :swear:

I didnt do to much wrong on my first playtrough cuz i catch on quickly but i killed all the caravans and everyone in paradise falls without doing the quest thats prob it

How about this - not realizing that "caps" and "bottle caps" were the same thing. I mean, who uses currency to build a mine? So, I would have a lot of "bottle caps" in my inventory and when I went to trade something, I would have "caps". Two different things. I would store the "bottle caps" in my locker and wondered why I was broke when I went to Moria to buy something. Oh, and hiding behind cars too.

Punched Brau- I mean Betty in anger for making me play all of ...erm its stupid games. :nuke: :shocking:

I usually bomb hard my first time playing a new rpg but I actually didn't do anything that stupid I even managed to save Simms on the first try and did Those! at like level 3. I did however fail to monitor my radiation and drank from water sources rather often. I miss understood the radation system so I eventually just dropped dead walking by that irradiated power station by the school.

Attacked the raiders on the other side of Vault 101 with the police baton. Died a lot and almost tossed the game.

Tried killing the Super Mutant Behemoth with hunting rifle.

Attacked the raiders outside Big Town with hunting rifle and ran into the Mutants, not good out come.

Fled the above to Meresti Trainyard and ran into... guess what more raiders.

Forget the first time playing this game, it was a disaster. :nuke:

I played it pretty safe on my first playthrough, I didn't attack people who weren't hostile to me, I conserved my ammo, meds and slept to heal. The only thing I regret was leaving the vault so unprepared to the harshness of the ruthless wastes.(Never found the stash of 200 ammo for the 10mm in the security locker).

This thread brings back memories...
Stupid things I did on my first run:

1. Didn't discover Megaton for about 3 hours.

2. Used a sawed-off shotgun as my main gun.

3. Put all my skill points in to only small guns.

Not dumb thing, just saying to throw it out: I'm on my first playthrough, although I did beat it I went to a previous save to play more.

1: Barely explored anything until after I did the above.

2: Killed everyone in Megaton before completing all quests except for disarming the bomb.

3: I have a bad habit of killing everyone in towns...Megaton is gone, just killed paradise falls, plan on killing everyone in Tenpenny Tower, idk why they just royally [Censored] me off, idk I might leave brotherhood of steel, I might kill Three Dog if it doesn't effect GNR, Big Town won't last very long, destroyed Arefu after finding it after starting the quest, Killed everyone in Canterbury Commons, it goes on and on.

4: I wimped out the first time I saw a super mutant in the distance, I just saw a black figure (down in subway).

5: Let Burke get away after he killed Lucas Simms, thought it'd cause the town to kill me.

6: I distributed all my points on everything just about evenly because I didn't know Level 20 is the limit GD!

7: Old Olney? Some kind of retirement home? Better go see if its a friendly settlement...20 minutes later..."Hey wtf is this? Deathclaw?" Bang bang bang. "Alright, it's dead. OMG another one! Let me see where I am!? Hmm...just a coincident" Then after killing 4 more I fell into the sewer..."I don't think this was a retirement home..." Then I go into the door only to find my own death...lets just say what Eminem said in one of his songs once "Mama had a baby and it's head popped off!"

8: Radaway? Some kind of useless drug? I better sell them...I lol'd when people said they'd think "Stimpak? Some kind drug? Better sell it!" I did this with radaway and spent a lot of money on radiation curing >.< .

More, just can't remember them all lol.

It's fine to kill Paradise Falls, you get positive karma for some of the kills (all of them, with the Lawbringer perk, after you turn in their fingers) as long as you don't kill the slaves. Tenpenny Tower is a tossup, there's both good and evil people living there (Tenpenny himself gives good karma when killed, and also drops a finger for more good Karma if you have Lawbringer, but most others give negative Karma).

And here's something funny I did...

I downloaded the Shojo race mod, basically it's a child-sized advlt with a child's head. Then I made a addon for that mod that makes some NPCs into Shojo. One of the NPCs I changed was Princess from Little Lamplight.
So I got to Little Lamplight, quicksaved, and blasted her head off with the Terrible Shotgun. Let's just say the kids SCATTERED and the dogs attacked me. But it was worth it...I reloaded the save anyway.