After delivering the platinum chip to Mr.House he asks you to work for him. If you say yes you can complete missions for him but if you say no he says "think about the consequences" and something about dealing with his securitrons. Really? My only job was to deliver the platinum chip to him and now that I declined his offer he threatens my life. But that's okay because if I kill him I'll just get negative karma anyway. I could just shut him down but that's like being in a isolation cell forever and IMO that's much worse than death. So why do I get negative karma from a man who tries to force me to work for him by using death threats? Shouldn't he just respect my decision and be grateful I risked my life to deliver that chip?

He saved your life, he saved Vegas, he's done a lot of good.
His motivations for doing all that? Purely selfish. Still, it's debatable if that makes it ok to kill him...

Know that deep down you did the right thing.
House was a tyrant who needed to die so the Mojave could be free.

I wonder if we get bad karma for killing Caesar... He did after all civilize Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico under one nation.

Deathclaws provide a natural service by keeping the population of other species from growing too large and overthrowing the balance of the Mojave ecosystem.

I wouldn't say they were selfish. He saved Vegas because he loved it more than anything in the world. Selfish would be wanting to control every aspect of peoples lives ala a totalitarian state.

Im not sure if its right or wrong to lose cuz he saved las vegas BUT wanted to play dress up with models and scan them while doing so BUT he wants to save humanity.
I really dont know basicly

Mr House has neutral karma and I'm pretty sure one always gets negative karma for killing any named NPC with neutral or good. You get bad karma for killing Papa Khan, the leader of a band of raiders known for pushing chems on the Fiends and raiding caravans, because he's technically a neutral party.


But that is selfish. He didn't save Vegas to save its many citizens or to help anyone else - he saved it purely for himself, only because he loved the city so much. Longknife has it right in that House saving Vegas was a "good" act but his motivations were purely selfish/in his self interest.

But House is 'long term good'. I'm not arguing House is a paradigm of Human goodness. But House represents a sort of gray line of good. House enjoys business and general progress of humanity, and his actions in general help humanity, even if the motives are not selfless. He built RobCo because he loved machinery, but it's technology was very popular and convenient for the Pre-War society, ergo he is 'good'. While being good is a subjective term, he doesn't go on massacres or anything. (I'd like to point out that The Strip reclemation when he emerged was apparently a war with the other tribals who refused to leave, and the Kings are savable, showing House has his motives, but I'll ignore this because The Kings are not a part of this discussion)

But House has restored more progress than the Legion, who has bombed, terrorised, and assaulted others.

You misunderstand: I wasn't saying House's end goals wouldn't be beneficial to those on the Strip, Outer Vegas, or to humanity on large. I was only agreeing with Longknife that, despite what the consequences of his self-interest are, House's motivations for saving Vegas and the Courier are selfish. He does them solely for his self-interest.

I'm always a House man, but yeah when you think of it that way, y'know the whole, "work for me or die" aspect, he does become an [censored].......
Hmmm maybe just maybe, i'll stomach it and kill him, on my next playthrough.
Though on my current D.I.D I had too , it took ALOT of time too.....

Your right, Its selfish.If I wasn't the one carrying the platinum chip I highly doubt he would've saved my life. Just look what happened to courier 4. Not to mention Mr.House is trying to play God so if he takes over he'll be in control forever. I don't think that's the best thing for humanity but when I kill him I get a message saying humanity is doomed or something. Weird.


But Caesar and House both threaten to kill you if you won't work for them so how really different are they? Sure house doesn't go on killing sprees but he solves conflict through violence. If you steal from the ncr they put you in jail but if you steal from house he sends someone to "deal" with you and doesn't care how its handled.

But in his self interest, he is helping others, Caesar's only helps himself, he built a cult of people who would worship the outhouse he just had diahrea in. House's self interest IS the progress of humanity. The idea of him being at the center of helping having made man progress is his reward.

@Vats- Actually, he only threatens you A. When you refuse to give him the Chip, which you are obligated to do by contract. and B. He warns you of what destroying the Securitron Bunker, which he spent millions if not hundreds of millions just to have put in place for his plans to make Vegas the beacon of progress in a post war world. If you deliver the chip then say we're done, he's mainly warning you that you'd be a fool to turn down what he has offered you from the palm of his hand, which quite frankly, I'd agree with his opinion.

But he does want to control. Hell, the developers added the Snow Globe collection for that very reason; a snow globe is a world encased in the palm of your hands that you get to control.
Maybe he doesn't want to control EVERY aspect of people's lives, but that has nothing to do with it coming from the kindness of his heart.

My point is, House isn't a man who says "no I can't do that, it wouldn't be right" or "I should do this because it's the right thing to do." Ever.
Every decision he makes is based on profit, as if life itself is a business. Can humanity move forward with such a plan? Probably, but there WILL be sacrifices. Vegas and progress just happen to be his only two true desires, so those are exceptions; he will go out of his way to save those. A person however, like the Courier? He doesn't save the Courier because it's the right thing to do or because he wants to, he does it because it's the profitable thing to do. This may be fine for many people now, but the citizens of New Vegas have to ask themselves how LONG will they remain useful. How LONG can they prove themselves profitable before something occurs that makes their very existence obsolete.

Maybe so. But it's no more different than NCR, they only see you as valuable if you can afford to pay their taxes. The Legion only sees value in the fit and healthy. House sees value in those who can prove themselves, at least under House there is a fighting chance to prove yourself by the might of your own willpower.

As for control, having control doesn't matter, it's how you use that control. House only cares about what you do in the public eye, what your private ideals, sixuality, and wants are, those are your own. He isn't looking to become some deified machine god messiah, to have people going 'ALL HAIL HOUSE!'. He wants to be the top dog in business, just as he was before the Great War. To me a nation like House's vision is my ideal nation.

Again, as I've said in posts past, in MY opinion the NCR and Legion don't even come to the table as considerations for me, it all comes down to Yes Man vs. House. House is the more logical, heartless option that has big picture progress with "the little guy" getting left in the dust fairly regularly, whereas Yes Man is the more compassionate-yet-naive route, where everybody has a chance but there's no real organization or plan to follow, so anything could happen.

I see the Legion and the NCR both as failed ideas. The lesson of Lonesome Road, to me, is that YOU need to be responsible. YOU need to try and make a difference. Under Caesar, you're serving Caesar. You have to completely trust in him, as you won't be there to make a difference unless it's a difference he sanctions. Under the NCR, you can make a difference, but only for so long. In the long-term, it's still a failed idea. Once you're gone, it'd be the same old democracy. It shares the issue that a dictatorship shares: sure the FIRST dictator may be ok, but who will carry on the ideals once he's gone?
The Courier under Mr.House though, he can make a difference because the Courier IS profitable for House; he DOES have the power to say "I want to do things this way" and negotiate with House, as the Courier himself is of high value, as if he's the biggest investor in House's company. Under Yes Man, the Courier would act as the "whenever there's a person in trouble, I'll be there~" sort of romantic hero who preserves the communities and works towards keeping order. With time, the communities and their ideals could flourish, namely, Westside can flourish as an independent community and the King's ideals of respect and freedom can flourish and spread. Much like the Divide, there are nations taking their first breath at hand here.

Don't trust what that horrid little troll has to say about himself in his own obituary. The truth is, killing Mr. House is the right thing to do.

It's been suggested that somehow his rule would be beneficial for Mojave or even the world. But all you have to do is look at what a Hell hole New Vegas is and you'll know it's bunk. It's like New Reno, but twice as bad. The Strip is set up so that rich men can transfer their wealth to Mr. House's pockets, surrounded by killers and cannibals all the while. Just outside its walls, Freeside citizens live in hunger and squalor.

No matter what he claims, he's not out to help mankind. He's not out to help anyone but himself, because with his every action Robert House proves that the only person he's ever cared about is himself. And if he took control of the world, he'd use it solely to fulfill his own selfish desires. He'd create a society in which the poor have nothing, the rich have everything - and Mr. House has control over all of it. The minute his plans became clear, I made a beeline for his casino, got him out of his chamber, and took a chainsaw to his face, then began a campaign of eradication against his evil flunkies.

So yeah, I'm also baffled by the negative karma.

(Truth be told, it'd be nice to have an option in which you cut Mr. House to one functioning body - perhaps making him switch with Yes-Man. That way he wouldn't be in charge of anything, but his knowledge wouldn't be lost either. He could work as a government contractor of some sort.)

You can cut his connections from his mainframe so he remains alive, though he'd be trapped within his own mind, like a vegetable. If you suggest this possibility to him, he protests and pleads that you just kill him instead.

Do you get negative karma for cutting him off from the mainframe and leaving him to live with only his thoughts? If not yo should get the negative karma for doing that instead of killing him.

In my opinion, ruling Vegas myself is the only way I'll be happy, my Secutrons and connections to the tribes will keep my state safe. Killing House was a necessary evil in the plight of my chaotic-good courier.

I'm aware of that. He can't communicate effectively, doesn't prefer this outcome to death, and probably wouldn't want to tell me all his secrets anyway. It's not really a solution.

You do get bad karma for cutting him off from his mainframe. Infact, significantly more bad karma than you would get if you just killed him.

This. Nothing would horrify me more than the idea of doing this to someone. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AndIMustScream aptly sums up what you'd be doing.

If you joined the Brotherhood and then killed House, what would your karma be then? Cause it would be "kill or be killed" in that case.

I agree with Longknife. House did save you and he did make New Vegas what it is, not just the Strip but Freeside and Westside as well.

Not to mention he was the guy that saved most of the Mojave during the Great War. Without him, the entire Mojave could very well be lifeless desert.

/quote]
I see your point about the brotherhood of steel but isn't gaining bad karma for killing Mr.House defeating the whole "we're not trying to make the game black and white" aspect? I mean I get good karma for killing a fiend but I don't get any karma for killing a chem addict.What's the difference between the two? True, fiends shoot me on sight but if that's the case then I should get good karma for killing any type of raider right? I can't even imagine myself finishing the game with evil karma unless I completely avoid fiends,powder gangers, and ghouls. I don't even think this game should have had karma in the first place because it's clearly broken. Fallout 3 did it better.

If you talk to the king he'll tell you that Mr. House only took three tribes out of out the poorer neighborhoods and left everyone else to fight over the crumbs. The only reason he took them in was so they could work for him to benefit his needs.Not to mention Mr.Houses ending leaves a lot of people without support and he doesn't have an interest in helping them.(Boomers,Followers,Freeside etc). Also, If he made freeside and westside into what it is then he did a poor job because those people have concrete beds and don't have a cap to their name.

Again, He only stopped the bombs so he wouldn't die and so he could continue running his business.

Another minor point worth mentioning...

Let's say you consider House an evil karma character simply based on his selfish intentions. Yes, luckily his selfishness DOES lead to feel good being done (EDIT: lawl, <----pro typo showing off my two languages, "viel gut" in my mind comes out as "feel good," lolololol. Meant to write "a lot of good"), but perhaps you're more focused on the intent of a person than the outcome.

In a similar scenario, if say, a thief were to shoot a corrupt cop who extorts the people of a small town community because the thief knew the cop was the sole witness to his crime, but the death of the cop is a relief to many and the town as a whole is better for his death, does the thief gain good karma or evil karma? On one hand his intentions are bad, on the other, the outcome is good. With Mr. House it's similar, but instead his intentions aren't SO bad; fending only for yourself, in my experience with Fallout, is referred to as neutral karma, as it's only natural to fend for yourself and you can't EXPECT someone to always do the right thing at all times and care for everyone and everything.

In that case, let's say Mr. House is neutral karma. Well, two kinds of people will reward you bad karma for killing them: good karma people, because you've killed a good, helpful person, and neutral karma people, because they're, as a whole, innocent.
If you look at it that way, I think it's quite natural that killing House gets you bad karma.


EDIT: Though just on a side note, I studied law for a time and I can tell you that under German law at least, your general way of thinking is correct. As in, a person who does something good though they actually do it because of bad, criminal intentions, and those intentions can somehow be proven (which realistically never happens of course ) then they're still treated as a criminal. If I want to murder somebody an accidently shoot some guy that was about to murder the exact same person I wanted to murder, I'm still guilty of attempted murder. (infact you can have a debate about if I'm guilty of successful murder (negligent or not), since I DID kill somebody in the end and the argument of "I did it to protect the other guy" clearly doesn't apply to me)
With House it's a tad bit different since he hasn't commited criminal acts, but rather only commited GOOD acts for all the wrong reasons. The law, in that sense, doesn't OFFICIALLY support your argument, but rather in my opinion, the general philosophy and ideals of German law match your own.