I am big fan of the Fallout 3, and New Vegas. Both games started differently. Personally, I liked the origins of the Vault Dweller a lot more than the Courier.

For the next installment of everyones favourite post-apocalyptic game, what would a good opening be?

One that would be written by obsidian (they got tim cain, chris avellone and j e sawyer which equale fallout dream team)

I had an idea for one.

You start out in a tribal town, they do not explain anything about your past. You could be a lost explorer who was staying there for a few days, a spy for a raider gang, or you could've lived there your whole life. But then a group called the Radiation (a group of ghouls who believe they're the next step in human evolution and who use humans as slaves) shows up and captures everybody, including you.

You escape from slavery and end up in a town that is in a conflict with the two main factions. You are known as the Escaped Slave.

^{Why not try something new, Your a Cryo frozen Soilder / Civilan frozen since the great war. You awaken to your CryoChambers being invaded by raiders. Your forced to run out of the Vault and slowly as you make yourway towards the hellhole called the wasteland you slowler see the problems of the waste and decide to do something about it}

No, that is to linear and exactly the same thing RAGE did.

The only Pre-War people who survived are messed up physically and that's just how it should be.

I hate the idea of the proganist being from before the war.

they can pull it off. also i never played rage, i couldnt bring myself to do it

as long as you are not the "chosen - one" as it have bean on all fallout and TES games so fare.

just be a normal hero 4 ones,

I didn't say they couldn't do it but it would cause to major problems:

1) The many who have played RAGE would complain about Bethesda copying it (which they would be right about).

2) It completely sets your character's story in stone, making role playing anything but a Pre-War soldier absolutely impossible.

Another character from a vault seems in order as so far there has been a character from a vault in every other game so far in the FO series. While that is not a very good reason the fact that the vaults themselves were experiments there is a nearly endless number of possible back stories to have a completely original storyline yet maintaining a framiliar feel without reducing plot integrity.

As long as it isn't another person coming from a Vault. The Vaults weren't meant to stay closed for 200 years. The only Vault that was meant to was Vault 13. Then Bethesda ripped off the idea of Vault 13 to make Vault 101. Just like they ripped of so much of Fallout and Fallout 2 to make Fallout 3.

The Only true Vault Dweller was the Vault Dweller and that's the way it should stay.

I want you to start in a vault. Not a air-tight, been-sealed-for-200-years vault, but one that's been turned into a home by some people. I just feel that since vaults are a staple of the series, starting you off in one, just feels right.

Though I do agree with Styles, about vaults being closed for so long.

A Vault that was opened and turned into a city like Vault 8 was would be ok with me.

You are the "Seeker" working with the Institute in the Synth Retention Bureau division. A renegade of Androids and a small Boston Militia group has infiltrated the Institute, attacking you and your fellow colleagues while setting many Androids free and stealing the schematic data used to create them in the process. The Head Researcher has giving you the sole task of returning the runaway Androids and the stolen data due to your lack of response at the sudden attack. You have little choice but to agree, wondering if things will get any worse...

The chase is on!

The Forgotten One, A tribal in the waste of Southern Arizona resisting the Legion post-second Battle of Hoover Dam

1. if that was the case, nobody could play a super soldier wearing the most high-tec badass armor because of the Master Chief...just because one game did a cyro hero "and theres literally 2 games that have a Cryo Hero Half-Life and rage". doesnt mean you should discard it completely
The Elder Scrolls have been doing a prisoner as the hero ever since morrowind and everyones fine with it. And screw the people who would "complain about copying rage, rage doesnt have the fanbase to have any say-so in a fallout game", most people who played rage also played fallout and are also disappointed with the game because it didnt live up to its hipe

2. what? no no i blame myself i shouldn't have said Soldier, just a Cryo hero. But i wanna remind you incase you didnt know The Vault Dweller, Loner Wonderer and The Chosen One are all set in stone, how the hell can you role play something else, they TELL YOU your character is a Tribal / Vault Dweller who grew up his entire life in a vault / tribe. The New Vegas hero is the only hero you can make up a back ground

i wanna add i shouldn't have said soldier, i sould have said anyone, just a frozen person who has been unfrozen. A Cryo Hero from before the war has way more Diversity then a tribal or the pervious Vault Dwellers. You can say you where a politican, a Soldier, a Fireman who volunteer, someone who was betrayed and thrown in by his enemies whatever. With all the Tribal ideas ur a Tribal... thats your background, you grew up in a tribe/ this happened and now ur own your own.

i personally bath awe in my own idea because i really think a Cryo hero would be awesome and has alot of potential....Just entering the Wasteland as a fresh regular person of the old civil world..You cant get any fresher then that.

they could call him The Legend, The Old God, Prodigy w/e...but again i wouldnt mind having another Vault Dweller =P

Another Courier-like one. It was so much easier to role-play with that.

Exactly.

I second the tribal town thingy, although, like FO3, you grow up in it. Perhaps a cliché, at one point you are forced to commit a crime. The circumstances of the crime are more or less dubious, as such you are exiled from the tribe. A relative or friend manages to slip some supplies to you before you are finally exiled. Core items would be a Pipboy (normally given to tribesmen on long journeys), a bone knife, bow and arrows/small pistol and rounds (not sure which would fit better, the primitive weapons idea would better fit a tribal way of life), some bottles of water (clean) and some food and medicine. Nickname of the character could be Exiled Tribal, Exiled Waster, Tribal Walker or stuff like that.

At one point during the game one could perhaps return to the tribe to "correct" the crime, avenging and redeeming one's self. Perhaps going as far as eliminating a corrupt tribal elder, after which the player character will take the elder's place.

But that is also too linear. With my story you can make up any reason to be there.

Someone who's a general wasteland wanderer who's memory is full of holes for some reason. They can remember small things like their name and how to use weapons as well as how to survive on the wastelands, but either the long wandering or something else has made them lose a lot of their memory of why they wander the wastelands.
That could allow for the player to role play and allow for writers to create a lot of options that could, or might not, explain who the character is and where they came from.

As more of the character's memory recovers, depending on the choices and actions that trigger previously forgotten memories to reappear, a full story develops and the character, like every other Fallout character before them, plays a part in the progress of the place they've come to.

Or maybe it could be someone that was once thought to be dead and buried years ago.

It's hard to say, as long as I can play as female then I'll be happy to role play the character whatever the intended concept for them.

Please no more amnesia riddled characters. It's just not an interesting mechanic. It limits you more than practically every other idea here, because regardless of what type of character you make, they HAVE to suffer from amnesia. That's more than just exlaining where you came from, it follows you throughout the entierty of the game.

Not saying it's amnesia, they haven't lost their memory, it's just full of holes like something's blocked it. Maybe an over exposure to radiation or the loneliness of the wanderering, their memories are still there and they can recall small things, they're just unable to access it.

The other concept could be that you play as someone from another country who's heard about the rebuilding efforts in the US west, they manage to find a way to get over to the wastelands in the US in the hopes of being able to help with the rebuilding efforts since they can't do very much in their home country due to whatever reasons, which could allow for creating more background history on what happened to other countries after the Great War, and find themselves being caught up in events in that area.

It's hard to create a Fallout character that doesn't use the concepts already used in other Fallout games while making it workable.

You wake up in a vault in a vault suit and have been told your a prisoner their.

Some wasteland town or organization has turned the local vault into its own jail to house slaves to do work for them. The beginning is about you trying to breakout. You are made to wear the vault suit to identify yourself as a prisoner/slave.

Maybe save another chunk of Van Buren.

That would be pretty cool.


This would be ideal for me. Another random person with a vague occupation that's easy to role-play off of. Maybe a prospector instead of a Courier next time.

Wakes up in a field with a parachute over them. How you got there is not explained. Character creation would happen when you reach for a knife to cut yourself free and it's in the reflection of the knife.