Yes, but its a RPG. Kinda gives you an oportunity to fill in the void and make up your own story if you want, also adding story to the NPC′s by saying : Hell that guy came from England and is a rich imperialist... Or whatever your sick imaginations comes up with. I made a great RPG example of the courier, saying he was the lone wanderer, well until i finished both the FNW expansions and Fallout 3 then nothing made sense... ANYWAYZ hope you get my point, make up your own story.

Tenpenny was a key character in Fallout 3. He had his own location and sends you on quests. He should have had a backstory. The devs wanted him to be from England they should have given us a backstory.

Fallout is an RPG and one of the great things about all the Fallout games but for Fallout 3; is that the world in which they take place in is rich with great characters with interesting stories. The important part of writing is the Who, what where when why and how. If you don't have that than you don't have a story. You just have a place holder character, which is what Tenpenny is, he is just there to hand out quests.

Nothing about him is explained and little if anything about Fallout 3's game world or the people in it is explained. While all the other Fallout games take the time to explain the people within the game and the locations. It makes the world immersive and gives the feeling were are really doing something, we feel for the characters. While Fallout 3 has nothing but place holders that hand out quests.


Like I have been saying Fallout isn't that kind of series. It tells a story with different outcomes, and the next game tells us how the last game offically ended. Not every character needs to have a indepth background but the key characters should have a backstory.

Bethesda is lazy when it comes to writing. Play Fallout, Fallout 2, Tactics and New Vegas and see for yourself.

RPG doesn't mean NPC's should be blank slates, I think it should be quite the opposite. Like in other games, which are mostly very linear and with one morality, characters are allowed to be flater, to be one kind of personality with maybe not that much depth. Like in some shooter, there could be this sarge who is badass and he fills the role of "badass sarge", his personality screaming profanity at enemies and calling you a worm, and being awesome in combat. And upon his inevitable death right before the final mission he says something badass, coughs and dies. Do you ever ponder about his wife and possible children, maybe he lost them before in a terrorist attack, what his drive and motives was, if he actually was a very lonesome and sad person, had drinking problems, maybe served a prison sentence, etc etc. No, you don't! Because that isn't important since you've been killing russians all day!

But in an RPG, my character can have that blank slate to be filled with what I want, because it's my character, my role I play. And then I go out in this world with my character and I discover other characters, get to know them, get to know their personalities and underlying motives and the background info as to why they act like they do. That's RPG to me - it's your character and your story interacting with these other characters and their story.

Dude already playid them, my point is its still a RPG and you can make up your own story. Beth aint that lazy they just focus on the wrong things sometimes, when there are so many other things that can be improved. Fact is, i enjoyed fallout 3 cause of the mini nukes mostly (and nuka grenades) and enslaving raiders LOL, combat svcked, unless it was with big weapons, or explosives.
Tenpenny kinda just makes you think: what happened to him. And if you dont like that, then dont complain, play the game or dont play the game, i dont see why you should worry about the background of a rich [censored] that only wants to worry about having the most LULZ by shooting and nuking everything he can see.

Whatever im used to blow up any evil characters so i dont give two [censored] about Tenpenny. Some things are better left burried (lol bad point)

So you are telling me you don't mind not having an awesome story as to how and why he came to America? You don't want to know what his home town was like? What the ocean crossin was like? You don't care about any of that?

If you have played the other game and you say you have than you should know there is a massive difference between them and Fallout 3. Fallout 3's characters are hollow and I never felt any connection to any of them. All they are there is to hand out quests.

Savage explained it well. My character should be the blank slate while the characters in the game world have a rich story and personalities in which my character can interact with. Fallout 3 doesn't have that. Hell you can't even join or help most of the faction in the game. Can't really make a Talon Company or Enclave character because you can't join them.

The game's writing is lazy IMO.

I dont completely give a [censored] about the background, but why would i want to know what he′s life was like? i think about the now and the recent future, the past i only think about when i can prosper from it.

Or more to the point, name one character from Fallout 3 with more detail than Tenpenny.

Exactly. Tenpenny IS in the god tier of most detailed characters in Fallout 3 already, which basically means there AREN'T any super-detailed characters where we understand their backrounds, their motives, their psyche etc. They all stop at the same point where Tenpenny does, with more questions than answers.
In New Vegas you can categorize the detail of characters, with people like Mr. House, Caesar and Elijah at the top with the most detail, then down to the slightly less fleshed out characters like Boone, Arcade Gannon and Cass, then down to the "average" detailed characters like Corporal Betsy, Lily Bowen and Vulpes, then down to the minor characters like Mags, Red Lucy and Pacer, then finally down to the nobodys like Ralph, Blake and Cook-Cook.
It definitely DOES feel like lazy writing when, if I compare FO3 to New Vegas, the best FO3 is capable of is the average tier, on par with Corporal Betsy. And the Corporal Betsy's of FO3 are like the highlight, considered far more detailed than anyone else...


Who are you, that do not know your history?

Yeah, its kinda unrealistic to be asking every named character about their life history (like is shown in NV when u ask the girl in the NCR ambasade thingy). Fallout 3 aint like, HEY TELL ME EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU, and then a little later you come back HEY TELL ME EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU AGAIN and they say the same thing over again. Not saying its bad to give EXACT detail of much of said characters life, its just not how it would work in real, people dont always want to bother telling any random stranger their life story. U also get details about the factions in Fallout by asking and that works fine with me.

Cause his story would greatly expand the Fallout Universe and the canon. If large parts of the game's story was completely up to us the players. Then nothing would be canon. This isn't Mass Effect. How many threads have there been about wanting to know Europe is like? I have seen alot of them. Tenpenny could have filled us in on what his part of the UK (where he came from) is now like. This expands the universe and gives us more to speculate and talk about.

The way you are talking about, just makes Fallout one big mad lib where everyone gets a different story. Having defined characters with backgrounds and personalities adds greatly to immersion which is key to an RPG and it also builds canon.


You aren't paying attention to what people are saying. No one is saying every single named NPC needs to have an indepth life story. Just important key people. What would Fallout New Vegas be like if Mr.House was just introduced as a guy on a computer screen and nothing else? Would be pretty crappy. What would Caesar be like if we didn't learn his story? Again pretty crappy.

Tenpenny is an important person in Fallout 3. The devs wanted him to be from the UK. So they should have expanded on it. Not just "here is a crazy old guy with a UK accent."

How could he know, he may have come from England but i doubt he came to america AFTER the great war. its not like he has telephatic powers that are linked to he′s homecountry. so no he wouldnt give any info more then the wiki gives, about the war that happened in europe and stuff. i really look forward to the day that we get to know about something else then canada and mexica (pluz USA) but just cause he would tell where in england he is from, wouldnt add to the canon anymore.

Last I checked Tenpenny isn't 200 years old. So he had to have come to America after the Great War. He is an average human male, not a ghoul or like Mr.House hooked up to life support. So he isn't 200 years old.

i didnt say that he was 200, but he could have come from a english family which still makes him english. or maybe he is faking it LOL some people had a theory about that.

I would like to think he was born in America as well, but the Devs of Fallout 3 have stated that he came to America from the UK. So he wasn't born in America.

By the way you worded your last post, it really sounded like you said he couldn't have come to America after the Great War. Which means he would have to be over 200 years old.

Sorry about that, sometimes its hard to remember what year it is in fallout (yeah i kinda meant that at first).

No problem. The issue is the devs of Fallout 3 have said he came for from the UK. People say that it comes up sometimes in a loading screen saying the samething. So myself and others would have very much liked to have learned his story. Why did he come to America? When did he come to America? How did he come to America? What was it like where he came from? Did he come with others?

But all we got was a loading screen and an dev interview.

Also, quests involving him and where you learn about him and his past and his motives? Because you really just get to blow up Megaton, which is a quest given by Burke, and then there's the ghoul problem which Tenpenny can't really be bothered with. He's ok with it as long as you ask the rich [censored]s living in his tower first, and the quest doesn't really involve him, it's just the head guard and the residents that have a problem with ghouls. Then there's the quest with the T-51b, which involve him even less since all you get to know is that these people you are to get keys from once went on a mission ordered by Tenpenny years ago, and nothing is stated as to why he wanted the T-51b. He's just an old man, and judging by dialogue, he also seem to be rather confused and/or dement. He sits on his balcony all day, shooting stuff with his sniper rifle and piss in milk bottles.

Never ever in my many hundred hours of gameplay in fallout seen a loading screen stating he CAME from UK. All i know is he is like a british version of House, except 5000 times worse since he doesnt care about anything, and just likes to shoot at things, so i just kill him and thats it. No need to know he′s story, never really though about the fact that he CAME from UK. Makes me wonder really. Im gonna check the wiki.

Of course you just kill him, because he's a flat character that is boring and evil, since that is all you know you don't care if you kill him. He has no depth to give you second thought, you don't know much at all about his character and nothing about his motives of doing things.

I dont care about he′s story if he is evil, he has to die.

Why?

EVIL CHARACTERS. Look mostly i play a good guy, trying to unite the wasteland and/or killing any evil threats. Tenpenny is a BIG threat.
Caesar as an example, evil character with a thoughtful goal, but i killed him no matter what he′s story was. Evil characters are not neccesarely EVIL, just do evil things to accomplish their goals. House is an example, Caesar and even Tenpenny is a little example (he′s goal was Tenpenny tower, remarkable but still isnt used as a means to do good, but a means to get money)

Good and Evil are vague terms whose definitions vary from person to person. And in real life, most everything is a moral shade of gray, with no person being truly "good" or truly "evil." Killing Caesar because you have determined him to be evil is a bit solipsistic. You're willing to doom an entire civilization because you have judged their leader as evil? I'm assuming you've determined that the NCR is "good" then? Because I could make the argument that they are far worse than the Legion.

The whole morally gray people thing brings me to another point: without providing a decent back story or providing sensible reasons for Tenpenny and his actions, we can't really view him as a "gray" character. Instead, we can only view him as a stereotype of English people who wants to nuke a town full of people he has never met just because it obstructs his view. That's lazy writing. Failure to develop a character and develop a character's motives.

That is one of the key problems of Fallout 3. It's Good vs Evil though and through.

I do think that the Beth devs had a bit of a catch 22 situation with Tenpenny TBH. I have also seen a lot of "What happened in Europe?" threads on here too, and almost every one of them has someone pop up to say either "Who cares? Fallout is about America and shouldn't look at other countries." (Which is remarkably self centered) Or, "There is no Europe, nothing exists anymore except America." (which is frankly laughable).

So if Beth HAD expanded on Tenpenny's history, there would be just as many threads complaining about that as there are threads now complaining that they didn't.