Actually "stone made backgrounds" affect roleplaying since your characters history is important and some people want to make it up themselves.

It only affects your roleplaying if you let it. Where you came from doesnt define who you are.

EDIT: there are times when i a set in stone background can negatively affect how you roleplay, Like always being 19 in Fallout 3, but a well written background wont affect how you roleplay even if it is "set in stone."

It starts with you washed on a shore and rescued by a drifter/scavenger and brought to a nearby settlement. After some "who am I?" quests and some faction-based quests, you are told (remember?) you were on a (steam?) boat that was attacked or malfunctioned or whatever. Different factions could either know or not know your true identity and use that to manipulate you into certain roles and then mid-way through the story you decide/remember who you are, through actions and dialogue. You were either a slaver paid and sent to find a runaway android or you are the runaway android (your choice). Setting could be around the Great Lakes area. Detroit? Kinda have the feel of Twelve Monkeys mind play at work...maybe? IDK...

How about something simple?

You wake up, in a shack and you get attacked by raiders or something

I don't exactly know, but lets keep it simple.

You are an Alien experiment and you escape their ship... Turns out you were an Alien the entire game!

If I can by any chance be a ghoul, then A ZOMBIE SAMURAI!!!

from hell

I think starting with a blank state adds to the role playing and discovery aspects of the game..A character in cryogenic suspension since before the war perhaps..They where trying to do Interstellar travel makes sense that they would attempt to do it..But the mortality rate would be extraordinarily high. Everyone else is just a corpse/skeleton in a capsule. And the process wipes out your memories..Skills and general knowledge are preserved but everything you know about yourself and the world is wiped away..Then the whole beginning part of the game could be exploring an underground facility with a rouge AI trying to stick you back in your Pod with it's robot's and Mind screwing you into thinking your the only Human left alive or your in outer space and need to return to suspension..Cept you've seen the Bodies of the Other patients and their is now way you going back..hence escape is the plan..

You are Pre-War United States Army Soldier you are 18 years old. You and your squad served in Operation Anchorage and were decorated by General Chase him self for blowing up the Chinese cannons that were killing thousands of American soldiers. The Pre-War Government had a secret top secret project called "Project Preserve". In project preserve top notch American soldiers and generals and other military staff are to be frozen and preserved in Vaults or High secruity military bunkers. Project Preserve is apart of the COG plans ( Continuation Of Government plans ) You and your squad are pulled out of Operation Anchorage before the bombs fall and are asked to participate in "Project Preserve" they tell you and your squad it's only a matter of time before a nuclear exchange happens. You and your squad agrees. You and your squad go to one of the High Secruity Bunkers or Vaults to be frozen in a Military like freezer that lies on the ground called "coffins". "Project Preserve" is a Top Secret project that most of the military is unaware of. 200 years later the Enclave find the perfectly preserved soldiers and tell them they are the new government and the Enclave asks the soldiers to join them. You and your squad are now Enclave Soldiers and you find out that General Chase the same General that decorated was apart of the project and is now in Enclave High command. PS: Yes I do like the frozen soldier idea why it's cool and who cares if other games used it Star Wars and Star Trek both have light speed so who gives a [censored].

Hell yeah. Though some gamers seem to require it, I personally do not need any hook whatsoever from a Fallout game. It's a Fallout game. It'd be nice to be able to do what I want. I think it would also be nice to be able to leave the initial MQ starting point and pick up on it through side quests later, and without a sense of urgency unless you get to the latest points of it.


I think being a nobody wastelander in the wrong place at the wrong time would be perfect. That's how the Courier started out as, but you find out that this simply isn't the case, particularly when you take Lonesome Road into account. I'm thinking maybe you see something you shouldn't have seen, and this is what causes this 3rd faction to hunt you down. If they were to capture you, perhaps it could be sort of how the Vault Dweller could be captured and taken to Mariposa very early on. Chris Avellone has said that he loves the idea of another character hunting the player down, like with Ulysses, but it would be even better if there was a character that literally tried to follow your exploits. Some sort of tracker character, who would have orders to try and take you out, try to recruit you, or capture you depending on your actions throughout the game. Like how Victor kept popping up in the critical path of New Vegas, but more subtle.

Fallout is good BECAUSE it takes place in 1950's USA thats one of its best features..

on topic

You are a mercenary hired by a "business man" to retrieve and guard a package, you are traveling with a caravan to and you are attacked by a heavily armed force. You are knocked unconscious by a rocket blast and the caravan is destroyed. You wake up in a ditch when a scavenger is trying to take a briefcase out of your arms. You have no idea who you are or what this briefcase contains the scavenger tells you that destroyed the caravan and that you were heading towards .

I don't think I would mind another vault-dweller, they would do it well and we know they would, some say it's lazy and tiresome, others would say trademark, and traditional. Being a courier was good for RP related things, but there was no connection to him at all, whereas in all other Fallouts' I felt some connection. Does no one think that it might be interesting to be a ghoul, maybe even a super mutant? I mean a super mutant could be great, you could start off being submerged in the FEV and then the facility could be raided by another faction and you could be dragged out for experiments. Maybe you could have been a part of that faction and were captured, were just a wastelander, harvested like the East Coast Super Mutants do, anything, endless possibilities. As for skeptics who say a super mutant would refine you;too much to combat and stupidity, all I have to say to you is: Marcus. You don't have to be stupid; as you were pulled out of the FEV it could stop half way through, making you a unique strain of super mutant, more 'meta human' as Fawkes would say, advantages of both worlds, [censored] the story could involve trying to find a cure for yourself, or to further yourself, whatever you choose, this could also bring about another foe like The Master which would be brilliantly interesting with the new graphics engines.
As for being a ghoul, you could be a scientist working in the basemant of a vault and gradually turn into a ghoul, as the vault inhabitants would never have seen one before, they banish you into the wastes out of fear and disgust etc, leading you to have to walk around and hopefully find a settlement, anything could happen, something slow where you work your way along and things get gradually more serious, or something quick like a raid that sees you imprisoned and caught up in the thick of something.
I think being a different breed would bring something new to the game and would be thoroughly enjoyable, also imagine the new benefits of rad resistance/added strength etc.

I know we'll probably just be another human, and it will probably be done well, but one day a different breed/species would be brilliant, come on Bethesda, hire me and let me do this stuff.

Your parents are caravan owners, and you're happily helping them out(though perhaps you can also be extremly resistant to helping them out, and complaining about how you want to be exploring. There could be a lot of early moral choices to make to establish what sort of character you are). Then the caravan is attacked, you're knocked out, your parents are killed. You seek vengeance. But this thing goes a lot deeper than a raider attack, people called this hit for a reason. You want to find out why.

You would be called, 'The Orphan'.

Admittedly it does limit you for role playing, but it can be vague enough that you could be anything from a psycho who was the bane of your parents life, or the dutiful son/daughter. You can be whoever you want to be. Perhaps even have an encounter right after you wake you, where someone asks you what happened....you don't have to give a truthful answer. Plus, allows for a tutorial level for new players. One thing it can add is that you're already known to people in certain sites your Caravan visits, there could be dialogue like 'What happened to you, you used to be such a good kid'...'BOOM'. Or 'Your parents would have been proud of you'.

I always roleplay that the character from the previous game/games (i have only playid NV and fallout 3) is the same person as in the new game.

I personally liked the "coming of age" vault-life aspect of Fallout 3 but feel there could have been more youthful character developing missions before skipping so much. However considering impatience, I guess it would be a fair compramise if the "childhood" aspect was optional by:
A] - Choosing to start as a baby or "time-skip" to advlthood.
B] - Have it be a "memory" mission later in the game, similar to the "leave it to Beaver" mission with Betty in that virtual hubworld experiment.

Maybe you could be from Philly, where you've spent a lot of you time not taking things seriously, chilling out with your wastelander buddies, until the Enclave show up, clearly up to something nefarious, turning a peaceful area into a trouble strewn one. You get into a fight, they beat you up and leave you for dead. Your mother comes to find you, and decides to send you away somewhere, where the Enclave can't find you.

You decide to travel with an unusual looking caravan, thinking nothing of it's quirks, and are soon on your way to California.

You arrive there, witnessing the full scope of the landscape, and as you send the caravan owner on his way, you see that this place is up for the taking, and that you're going to rule this place one day.







You will be called.....The Fresh Prince.

^^this

or a cryo-hero of ambigious origins brought back up by some wastelander or scavenger. I like that idea too. I personally don't care much for role-playing as long as i get a good game, but i felt as though the courier had the better start compared to FO3, simply because of the way the couriers lost memories and past actions could be used as a plot device as they were in lonesome road. (haven't played 1/2/tactics so i'm ignorant to the beliefs of the dinosaurs)

You know you can fix that right?

Many on here started with Fallout 3 or New Vegas and then went out an played the Original Fallouts and now call themselves Dinosaurs. I myself started with the originals.

i've tried, believe me, but for some reason my computer refuses to play the original fallouts, not does it even appreciate TES: arena and daggerfall when i tried them out. such is my life, having a computer unable to stomach the orginals and to weak to play skyrim above 10 fps even with performance mods

I think that starting like the courier(no backstory except for a job) without DLCs would be best considering the talent of bethesdas writers.

It doesn't really matter what the origins of the character are as long as they produce a non-linear (by this, I do not mean the "Bethesda way non-linear" where everything is still linear but negligable), well written and consistent storyline with multiple outcomes dependant of your character and style of approach. Well written being the keyword here!

im thinking that ive had one for a while:

you start as the son of an old enclave veteran. he sits you down and talks with ou a while. he gives you an american flag, and then walks out to go get your brother. immediatley, he is shot. a brotherhood innitiate comes in and takes you out. immdiatley after, a .308 round goes straight through his head, and he drops you. an NCR ranger vet then takes you in his arms and carries you back with the gun and armor of the brotherhood innitiate to his team, but never makes it. a group of old men take a cheap dhot and blow his head off. they all are wearing enclave power armor, one wearing enclave officer uniform. he is followed by 2 hellfire troopers and two tessla armor troopers. he says he saw you had the flag and rescued you from the two of those idiot warring bastards. your crying at this point. your only a kid. he holds you tight and carries you away. you look back and see the NCR ranger. he wasnt dead. he looks at you and smiles. he mouths the words "im watching you"
it flashes forward 15 years. your in an enclave encampment. the first america has seen in over 30 years. the officer, you know him as dad, is giving a speech on how the enclave is back and how it has changed. he brings you up and tells you to say a few words. you just shake your head. he laughs. he then just looks at the crowd and say "the enclave is back. and this time, we arent leaving"

you flash to 2 weeks later. your on your first mission. kill NCR's President. you look to your left and the trooper is holding a plasma rifle. he nodsa his head and you take out a .50 calliber rifle and aim it at the speaking president. a gun is pressed to the back of your head. its a ranger. he asks "are you one of them?" you nod your head, never moving. "are there more?" you nod your head no. you turn around and he has killed the trooper. he smiles and says "told you id be watching you." "you can go" he says. you head off. he says "oh, one more thing" he tosses you the flag "remember this?"

a year later.
the enclave has slaughterd an entire NCR camp. they use a brotherhood troopers body to frame them. suddenly, your squad is killed. its the ranger. you run, and jump off a cliff into the river below. your next found half dead by the ranger, and the rest goes from there.

In FO3 and FO:NV, you were searching for someone. Your father, and a guy who tried to kill you and stole something from you. I think that trying to stay away from tracking a person down wouldn't be too bad, but can be a risk. I don't know what you would be searching for, if anything, but it's something to consider.

Though it would be out of tradition and probably would be stupid, I was thinking maybe a pirate searching for a treasure that your father left you after gunning down a Raidar ship. The treasure probably wouldn't be money, maybe a religious artifact or something. Anyway, after you find it you don't have to stop there, you could have it lead you into a whole new thing, maybe even throwing in hunting someone/people down. I have no idea what would work, but I'm not one of the genius' working on it. Whatever they stew up will be epic, I'm sure.

In Fallout 1, you are sent out to fine a watership to save your vault from thirst. In Fallout 2, you are sent out to find a GECK to find your village from a drought. I think that's more of tradition, to go and look for something to save your home and family rather than searching for one person Or well, two games did this and two games did that so...

I just want a tribal character, but he/she should be forced out of their tribe/village rather than going out on a mission to save it

You've been born into slavery. You get to decide what kind of slave you were while in the slavers hands. You escaped and headed North. Where you find yourself in the Midwest. You are known as the Escaped Slave.

It seems more appropriate kind of name for a slave who's been born one.

This one is better for Role-Playing and lore reasons. We get to see how some of the societies are in the Mid-South. And the Slave could've been any number of personas. As opposed to being an Merchant or explorer. You would have gear and skills tailored for that class. While as a slave you'd start off with nothing. This gives off a more isolated feel. If you're someone in the wastes you'll probably already be a mid level character, which kind of takes out the part where you're struggling.

Those two things are what Fallout is about. Humanity's struggle and isolated people with no knowledge of the outside world doing extraordinary things.