Not quite. The plot only says that your character has been a courier, so you can only - to fit them into that square hole - logically create someone, anyone, who might become a (previously faction-less) Courier in the South Western USA in the Fallout world. No space King Kong, no secret octopus in disguise.
But that is kind of the only limiting factor.

No. Your character can imply that he (as only available with the Ladykiller perk) once did said thing, but not more. Whether it's meant truthfully or not might just be up to debate. And otherwise, we very well know who the Drifter's father is. ^_^

I was directed to this thread in another thread, by someone claiming that the other thread was a rehash of this one so... yes, you're right, I came in late and read your post out of context.

Though to address your question regarding vague origins: Yes and no. It would be a cool idea, but isn't really feasible. If they had tons of extra time to put in different ways for people to react to you based on your origin, and they put in a sufficient amount of these general origins to satisfy someone wanting to play a variety of characters, it would be great. But that would have taken another year of programming and writing time if they intended to do it right and not just tack it on. Dragon Age: Origins was in development for six years, and they ended up cutting three of their origins. I don't want to overstate the idea that this would be impossible or ridiculously difficult, but it would require a great deal of rewriting, testing to see if any of the default dialogue contradicts your background, not to mention the extra voice acting time required.

To demonstrate the difficulty this would pose, I'll put forth a few of the origin stories I would expect to see:

Brotherhood deserter: It has been established that lower ranking Brotherhood soldiers began to desert once the war was clearly lost, so this isn't at all far fetched. How much work would it take to edit everything involving the Brotherhood to fit this? Well, actually, it might be easy... the Brotherhood could just be hostile to a deserter and want to execute him.

Eastern Enclave deserter: I'd really have liked to see this implemented, but a lot of extra dialogue would have to have been put in to completely shift your interactions with the Remnants and Arcade Gannon.

Famous prize fighter: Well, this one might be easy. Considering you'd only need the occasional mention and perhaps some dialogue added to The Thorn.

NCR dishonorable discharge (or just an ex-trooper): This one would be a nightmare to implement. Just think of how most interactions with the NCR would have to be edited, and Caesar would likely know and inquire about it as well.

I know that as the customer the developer's time and money constraints aren't your problem, and you can want the product you want. I'm just noting why this origins concept wouldn't happen outside of a Bioware game. In a game by Bethesda/Obsidian, it really has to be either one firm story they plop into your lap (like Fallout 3, and I hated that story), or left entirely up to you (like Oblivion).




Hm, well argued. My only counterpoint would be that there isn't much evidence that a Pip-Boy is some kind of really rare artifact. They were standard issue to every occupant of every vault, so since we know that vaults housed about a thousand people each, and there were over a hundred of them to scavenge... lots of Pip-Boys. Further, as evidenced by the Pimp-Boy 3 Billion, the 3000 wasn't exactly the state of the art model as of 2077.

You actually made the point I was going to counter with for me. It isn't completely, literally impossible... just so unlikely that it really isn't worth a writer's time to put in. "Oh, hey, you... Mr. NCR trooper I know... how have you been? Anyways, I've gotta go, bye!"* My point wasn't that you can't roleplay an ex-NCR trooper, my point was that expecting people to know and remark on it is silly. Let's say I'm a lawyer in real life, and live in Atlanta. If I go to Miami, it's really unlikely someone I know will run into me and remark on remembering me as that lawyer from Atlanta. Possible, but not plausible.

*Yes, dialogue along these lines would have to be necessarily poor. They can't say your name, and they can't reminisce with you about that one time you did xyz, or it ceases to fit the 'vague' criteria you mentioned. So it would be difficult to put that in without it being sloppy and impersonal.

During the quest Talent Scout, when you go to get the singer from Novac you get the option in dialogue to say "I say you sing in New Reno" or something to that effect. So the Courier has been to the west before.

I can confirm that this, plus the comment about asking the Lonesome Drifter if he was born 18 years ago in Montana are in the game. HOWEVER, this OPTIONALLY confirms that the Courier has an established history. It is up to the player themselves if they actually select this dialogue option. If you're roleplaying somebody who came from out East, for example, you don't have to say these things because they wouldn't apply to you.

See I think you're missing the point, I totally agree with Sentient, I write fanfiction as well and i think it's just so lazy not to have SOMETHING for the PC to go off of. You get nothing, except that you're a postman (woman). I think that's a problem too, you can't really have a backstory if they kept having to write for two seperate biological sixes... For me, that seems to be lazy, but to them, it costs lots of money, so meh, I can understand, but that doesn't mean I have to accept it.

Look at Dragon Age: Origins... that's how you start a game, plenty of backstories, but then, you can choose how the sidequests role out, and decide multiple endings with sub endings. You have plenty of morally grey choices to make for sidequests and Character development. Whether you want to be a bad ass or a saint or somewhere in between. Now, you can say "ohh, it's not as much content as NV, doesn't have as many locations as NV, etc..." whatever, I don't care about that, the point i'm trying to make is that it is POSSIBLE to have a strong backstory for your P.C. and STILL have the ability for the choice all you "blank slaters" so crave. I do as well, but having little to no background material at all to start off of, wtf... it just seems so lifeless.

It seems to me like a call of duty western style for me. There's no attatchment. With my Fo3 character, I got goosebumps for him, I was sympathyzing with him, I choked up when Liam Neeson (sorry... DAD) died, when you sacrificed at the end and it showed the photo of you holding your BB gun with your Dad over your rad roach victory.


Where was that in NV? I just have to think it up? What the hell? So I guess when I go to a movie i'm just supposed to "think up" the beginning and RP it?


sorry, I didn't go to theatre school for years to perfect "getting into character" or i'm not writing fanfiction....


I don't want my gameplay experience to be a CHORE for me to do, I don't want to WORK when i'm supposed to be PLAYING the game. If I have to put effort into comming up with the beginning of the game and the PC's origin... what the hell am I doing playing a game, when I could be writing a story about the PC?

No. The player has the choice to decide that his Courier has been to the west before (or he can choose to say that line but roleplay a liar )

I think what they are doing is setting up for DLC content, thats just what I think of it. The wreckage is near the western map border, which tells me that it could possibly be a connecting area for map extension, kinda like the train tunnel for "The Pitt".

But pointless ones. The game would work just as well with a free background. You wouldn't need to be a noble when you actually wanted to be a human rogue. Heck, what rogue who thinks he's the last survivor of the family that is second in line to the throne wouldn't flirt with the idea of getting rid of Alistair?

My human noble rogue would have attacked Duncan maybe even killed him in sleep had he survived. From her point of view, that bastard was responsible for her parent's dead. (Wrong? Irrational? Yes, but grief works like that...)

Bioware sacrifices having an open world you can explore and a great deal of freedom in exchange for more character and story development. A company can only invest so much development time and money into a game and still hope for it to turn a profit. New Vegas would have needed another couple years of development to match Dragon Age in character development and background options. Don't get me wrong, that would be great, but it isn't going to happen. Comparing an open world game to a Bioware RPG isn't really fair, since Bioware specializes in dialogue and story almost exclusively (the gameplay isn't all that great in DAO).

While we're asking for the unrealistic, I want a Fallout Earth game, that spans the entire planet and has deep, interesting quests and stories throughout.



Liam Neeson can make any badly written character awesome (he was he only redeeming quality in Star Wars Episode 1), but aside from his character you'll also notice that there aren't many others worth mentioning in Fallout 3. The strength in that game was not the story or the characters, which were both very weak.



Yes, you do in fact have to think it up in this game. This isn't a movie, the anology fails.



This is an RPG. If you don't want to put any thought into your character you'd likely prefer the FPS genre.

An excellent point, though in Bioware's defense I think they actually pulled the origins off perfectly. They were firm enough to give a realistic grounding in the world and familiarize you with it, but loose enough to build the character you want.

Unless you wanted to be a sadistic blood mage (WHICH I DID), because all of the mage options were tame.

Some people like movies and games that don't cause them to think, some people like things that make us think, you can't make everyone happy.

Thanks for the suggestions! I have two new playthroughs to do;

Space King Kong:

Backstory: After climbing all the skyscraqers of his sinister home world Zarlack, Kong has come to the MOJAVE and the Radiaton mysteriously shrank him into a Sasquatchy type creature......He is then Hunted by Benny and must get his revenge...and the girl!

Basically a Melee and Energy Weapons savage chracter with a weakness for the ladies.








Secret Octopus in Disguise:

Backstory: Calimarah always felt different and when Nuclear waste mutilated his body he developed "Human Gills" meaning he could disguise himself as his alter ego "THE COURIER" and roam the wastes.

Will focus on Speech as he was taught human talk by his surroundings

This is what I agree with.

Making up your background, as it pertains to any dialogue/reactions/responses to ingame things is kinda pointless. Since it has no affect on the story or your character's experience. However, I do this anyway, because I like to RP (and yes, I mean PnP (since the mid 90's) and a small handful of computer rpgs). I wish it had more impact. The most effective rp personality is one with no memory, since the day you get fixed up by the doc might as well be the day you were born. The only things that matter are what your character does from that day forth. Things that affect reputation and karma. Now, coming up with a character/personality can lead you to the choices you make - ie where your interests lie - helping people, killing people, whatever. So that is mainly why RP this game, to stay true to the character, and make that run through more unique, instead of just making similar choices each new character. But, I don't actually think too much about his/her past, since, it doesn't matter. I only think about their personality, motivations, and how that affects the 'now'.

I would have loved some indication of an origin. FO3, while it did make you a vault dweller with that set past, still had it's freedom. It told you where you lived until you were 18, but not your personality. The main quest was short, which kinda points out the fact that that was only a small part of the game. The biggest part of the game was having your character make his way in the wasteland, whichever way you saw fit.

NV is perfectly set up for some background options. And I don't mean anything that would limit your own RP background concept hoohah. It would make RPing better, not just stuff for a 'gamer' as someone mentioned. I don't think it would be too hard. Example.

You pick one:

Ex-NCR = like the courier, you don't work for the NCR, and you can still have all the same quests etc. It wouldn't play much differently EXCEPT: barter, speech checks involving NCR people are easier to pass. You start the game with their main base (or something like that) marked on your pip-boy. Maybe you start the game with already some positive rep with them. Conversely passing speech checks with Legion is a bit harder - but still be done.

So, you could play as someone still wanting to help the NCR, or someone who really hates them and wants to join up with Legion. Not easy, but it could be your goal.

Ex-Great Khans = similar affects. Location on your pip-boy, easier speech/quest checks. A little dialogue along those lines, showing a kindred spirit.

Repeat for the main factions. I don't think little dialogue tweaks and difficulty checks would be hard to implement. They already added stuff like that with some of the perks (see LadyKiller as mentioned above).

With this RPers can still imagine away to their hearts content, but get a little reward for their choices. Note that none of these choices say you can't be a 'kill everyone' sort of player, or whatever. It doesn't force you into any sort of personality, just give a little history (you had to come from somewhere) that makes a minor but noticeable impact on the game.

Wouldn't it be neat if you were ex-NCR, and used that to try and convince the Legion that you should work for them? Since NCR already kinda likes you, it would be easier for you to sabotage them for the Legion.

Also, there would be the option to pick no background, so all the difficulties etc were at their base settings. For those, you know, who want to be giant space monkeys. Better suited to DC, which had a couple tall structures (Captial Monument and tenpenny towers)

Wow, what a ride reading through all the post on this thread, but I have to agree with TayciBear, you can’t make everyone happy. Both sides have valid points for their way of playing. I have to admit that I’m new to RPGs, my first being Oblivion. I don’t remember much of a back story in that game, but again I have a bad memory. FO3 was my second and I found it hard to play anything other than daddy’s little boy. I won’t take a side in this discussion because I enjoy the game for what it is, a mystery. There are slight hints to the courier’s past, but not enough to push a player in any direction. Who knows what lurks in the minds of the devs. So on with your debate, but play nice. Everyone has a right to an opinion.

This is also my opinion on it. I found the wreckage before hearing the story in Primm, but once I did, figured the wreckage had to be some sort of DLC entrance. It does sound like a good set-up for an expansion! I'd like to know a bit more about the Courier's backstory, myself.

Nah. Dragon Age is a great game, but you don't get to make a character for it. You get to pick a character for it, from less than half a dozen choices. I liked the backstory they wrote for my playthrough, but let's not pretend that I had anything to do with it. Dragon Age is far from being some kind of perfect compromise.

And what if you want to play as a character completely different from yourself? Having no background that could influence future character interaction can detach a player from their creation. This doesn't mean that you cannot have some sort of emotional investment with NPC characters but it does have a negative effect for some players, and who could blame them.

I appreciate the open-endedness that New Vegas gives the player but I know that it comes at a price. I find that when I play this game I have an outward look towards everything without the same kind of attachment for my own character. For example, Shepard in Mass Effect elicited the exact opposite type of reaction.

I don't think you're wrong in preferring this type of openess and I don't think it's wrong for the thread starter to prefer something else. Perhaps there should be a middle ground for the next game.

What a condescending remark to make. There's nothing wrong or idiotic about wanting more meat to a backstory. This method can still give the player a lot to think about and some relative freedom.



Edit: Most games do not allow the player any freedom in how the character is designed and yet still manage to churn out stories and characters with a lot of thought put into their creation. Games like Metal Gear Solid are a perfect example.

Don't forget about the remarks about people "lacking imagination" either.

This is what I find so annoying about these forums in particular. There's no middleground with some of the responses and they often insult people with differing opinions and ooze elitism. :blink:

I'm not really helping.

I never promoted that my way is better. Read my other posts in the previous page and you'll see that I acknowledged the benefits and negatives to two methods of story telling. And pointing out that some of the posts, not all, are snobbish in their veiled insults towards others does not then put me into the same boat.

Unfortunately, this is one of those things that I don't think can ever be compromised on. Because the moment you even so much as hint or suggest an established history of what is supposed to be as blank a slate as they can manage (as already indicated in this thread about the Courier), that immediately infringes upon whatever character history the player has decided upon in their mind. In fact, it's probably bad enough that the Courier is a courier, but to further suggest the Courier definitely came from out West and may have had some daliances with a woman in Montana 18 years ago gives away the Courier's possible age and where he used to live. It's a good thing that these couple of possible histories are just optional dialogue choices, because if I wanted to make up and play a traveller from the DC area who is a mere 21 years old then that would conflict with the history I had already decided upon. The point is that even tiny little hints and suggestions of a past will basically piss off people who want full creative control over their character's respective biographies, thus prompting the developers revealing as little about it as they can possibly manage.

At the other end of the spectrum, for the players who want to step into the shoes of a fully established character like John/Jane Shepard or Michael Thornton, they need to have as much outlined and developed about their character as possible even if you are given the choice of several different histories or personalities to adhere to, because it's like watching the main protagonist in a movie. They want to know as much about their hero as possible, and so the game for them is more an interactive movie or story rather immersing themself into the role of a character. So since they are watching a movie/story instead of writing the character themselves in their own mind, it's up the the developers to develop this character during the course of the game and make him/her as 3-dimensional and compelling as any movie protagonist is ideally supposed to be.

The only way I can think of for a developer to successfully pull off something that would please both crowds is to give the player the choice, at the beginning of the game, to pick between playing an established character with a full name and history written up and into the storyline, and a playing a "blank slate" character where nothing at all is revealed about their past and all NPC's treat them like a stranger relatively new or unknown to the area. I imagine that would require a lot of work.

I beheld you wretch — the miserable monster whom I have created.
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No, actually you made me laugh. Nice ones, creative and funny. ^_^