War...war never changes [FALLOUT]

[Stahlseele]

The Pariah Dog for people wanting to play a Troll.

[Aryxbez]

Tactics still gave us Dog as a PC race. It's arguable that they should be relegated to Retainer/Follower status, but you totally put down Gecko as a potential playable race? That was confusing.

Though I've not played Tactics, I'm sure they didn't have much non-combat applications, let alone roleplaying either. Dogs as a option wouldn't have much interaction with the game, paws can't hold things. They would be followers, that's been their place in Fallout, and for good reason. I can see it being something you gave to a little kid to play, but otherwise a proper PC race I find questionable. Unless it's like that movie "Boy and his dog" where at least the dog was telepathic, so ye have all that potential there.

I got the idea from this abandoned D20 Fallout campaign, otherwise Gecko's are kinda like halflings. I suppose make them more sentient, they also seem to have human like hands, so ye could have basic human manipulations there. Otherwise, yeah, wasn't that good of a racial choice in retrospect.

Wouldn't Cyberdogs already pretty much fill the PC dog niche?

EDIT: This game is awesome and I want to play/run it.

Agreed on the EDIT, though hopefully we can fill out more of the empty parts of the game.

As for Cyberdogs,it would help the sentience part a bit, though still the issue they're still dogs, and pretty much be relegated to more silent casual role, so wouldn't really be able to roleplay with other characters.

[Meikle641]

Re: the loot chart... Why would Farmland have no ammunition? Rural areas general have firearms, for one reason or another. Seems more likely for it to be Low than None...

[OgreBattle]

Of course dogs should be a PC race, and have plenty of opportunity to interact with the plot.

Like the ones in Ginga Nagareboshi Gin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSUCIux510M

"I understand animals, animals understand me" can just be a 'language' people can take.

[norms29]

What I find ridiculous and slightly offensive is the idea that religious institutions would store and safeguard ancient knowledge

didn't The Church do exactly that through a big chunk of the dark ages?
and then the Abbasid caliphate presided over what is commonly referred to as The Islamic golden age which started with the preservation and utilization of ancient Greek and Roman knowledge.

[Chamomile]

Seriously, religions are just a bunch of guys in pointy hats who believe in something supernatural. They are not magically incapable of seeing the value in any knowledge or technology ever, nor are they arbitrarily opposed to all learning. The only time religions have ever been opposed to knowledge is when that knowledge directly contradicts beliefs or assumptions that keep them in power. That is a fairly specific situation, and outside of those specific situations it is not at all weird that religions would be chill with doctors.

[tussock]

didn't The Church do exactly that through a big chunk of the dark ages?

The reason the dark ages are dark is the medieval Christian church, who came immediately afterwards, destroyed all records of the past and then destroyed all record of having done so. There's a cache found in north Africa with a papal decree to destroy all books and ban everything that isn't the latest modified version of the bible, which the local guy in charge buried instead of destroying, including a pretty whacky bible with a full-on magical Jesus book or two.

nor are they arbitrarily opposed to all learning

They are absolutely opposed to the existence of knowledge that goes against the literal Word of God as written in the bible, which is true, because God wrote it, because it says God wrote it, which is true, because God wrote it.

A lot of people think the faithful are secretly all sceptical rationalists, but they're really not. A few religious folk can handle the notion of their holy books being largely allegorical, and most heavily cherry-pick the bits they want to apply to life, but it's a real thing where Christians think if you can't find a bible passage to twist into supporting your idea then it's a lie made by Satan, and Hindus think people who touch poop for a living curse their descendants to be sub-human forever more, and Muslims think if you make a joke about Mohammed then you need to be killed for that, and Buddhists think that being poor is punishment for something your last incarnation did so poverty must not be alleviated.

Because it's in their big bronze-age books of all the truth they'll ever accept, and anyone who says otherwise is an agent of Evil trying to bring them eternal suffering. Because they're not rational at all.

Which is way off topic for this thread and board in general, but is a conversion I love having anyway.

[Stahlseele]

"God has made you sick, Human has no right to cure you!"

[fectin]

Seriously, religions are just a bunch of guys in pointy hats who believe in something supernatural. They are not magically incapable of seeing the value in any knowledge or technology ever, nor are they arbitrarily opposed to all learning. The only time religions have ever been opposed to knowledge is when that knowledge directly contradicts beliefs or assumptions that keep them in power. That is a fairly specific situation, and outside of those specific situations it is not at all weird that religions would be chill with doctors.

Folks on this board tend to be ignorant and bigoted about religion, bot in general and in specific. The less you add to the discussion, the less you'll have to listen to them going full timecube.

It's just like having a charming, but racist older relative: steer the topic somewhere else, and be happy their craziness is so specifically confined.

[Kaelik]

Seriously, religions are just a bunch of guys in pointy hats who believe in something supernatural. They are not magically incapable of seeing the value in any knowledge or technology ever, nor are they arbitrarily opposed to all learning. The only time religions have ever been opposed to knowledge is when that knowledge directly contradicts beliefs or assumptions that keep them in power. That is a fairly specific situation, and outside of those specific situations it is not at all weird that religions would be chill with doctors.

Folks on this board tend to be ignorant and bigoted about religion, bot in general and in specific. The less you add to the discussion, the less you'll have to listen to them going full timecube.

It's just like having a charming, but racist older relative: steer the topic somewhere else, and be happy their craziness is so specifically confined.

It is cute how you simultaneously accuse everyone on this board of being terrible bigots who are basically just racists, but you fit in your argument for why you have not and never will point to any incorrect thing anyone has said.

Because you are above pointing out where people are incorrect, but not above calling them bigots. You High Road you.

[fectin]

High road would have been by PM. This is purely self-gratification and smugness.

[Kaelik]

High road would have been by PM. This is purely self-gratification and smugness.

Obviously, but my point was that smugness completely absent being right or even a tiny itty bity token of a being right is pretty pathetic.

If you can't back it up, don't put it in the first place.

[the_taken]

Take off and talk about the Super Duper Mart!

Now how about them perks and luck stat? I know fans of the series will be upset if you can port a character from one of the vidja games without starting over. I want my Sniper Black Widow Daddy's Girl Explosive Expert Pyromaniac Infiltrator!

[OgreBattle]

"This halfling stole my money so I killed him, then the whole town started attacking!"

"That... wasn't a halfling, that was a child. You killed a child"

"...oh"

FALLOUT1 BEST FALLOUT

[Aryxbez]

Well, in the Fallout setting, there are Mormons, though I'm sure that's part of some Apocalyptic joke (idea Mormons were prepared for it, and thus would survive), far as that religion bit goes.

Of course dogs should be a PC race, and have plenty of opportunity to interact with the plot.

Like the ones in Ginga Nagareboshi Gin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSUCIux510M

"I understand animals, animals understand me" can just be a 'language' people can take.

While that is an example of Dogs doing stuff, even some stuff bit above just a bite attack (Use Rope, and decapitation!), combat applications for the "dog race" isn't really a problem. Unless there is something I'm missing from that video (nor would one expect someone to watch all 21 episodes of it), then not sure shown me any further example(s) and/or reason why they could interact with the game itself. Even in the games, they're not really socializing with the other characters (albeit in part because you the PC would be, but unlikely you'd be playing the dog anyway). Though I wonder if implying by speaking with dogs, it'll be more like Brian Griffin language, opposed to Wild Empathy and what not. After all, if combat was the only concern for the "Dog race", then it's pretty much sold, albeit as basically the "timmy race" (give to newtime players/children/the drunk?).

Super Duper Mart?! that's actually one of my favorite places in Fallout 3, sometimes I miss the lovely encounters therein, once I've cleared it. As for the Luck Stat, it's pretty much Edge, hell in the original Fallouts it was described as the "virtual dice" of the game! So putting those dice in your favor is what Action Points, or Edge basically do.

[Korgan0]

What do we want the endgame to look like? Do we think that the players should end up running a major regional powerhouse a la Vault City or The Hub, or are we talking much smaller settlements/scavenging bands that nevertheless have a high tech level? If it's the former, then maybe we should have some hard-and-fast rules for political interactions with local powerhouses like the NCR/BoS/Caesar's Legion, but if it's the latter then I don't think we have to bother.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Well, in the Fallout setting, there are Mormons, though I'm sure that's part of some Apocalyptic joke (idea Mormons were prepared for it, and thus would survive), far as that religion bit goes.

That and for all their craziness Mormons are far less outlandish than most of the organizations in the American Wasteland.

[Aryxbez]

What do we want the endgame to look like? Do we think that the players should end up running a major regional powerhouse a la Vault City or The Hub, or are we talking much smaller settlements/scavenging bands that nevertheless have a high tech level?

Well, if we're going by the system Frank wrote up for, based on Warp Cult? It does seem like you "could" eventually become your own regular NCR to battle it out with other nations. So agreed on politics, though imagine do need to come up with values (randomized or otherwise) for "none-low-medium-High-Farmable" with the former being obvious, and the last one just need to have an idea how much it produces at the end of its process.

Also, how to handle the attributes of a robot character, since obviously they don't have a standard array, do they pick from few pre set selection, based on type/model of Robot character? So maybe something like a protectron might be a low quality, 0pt, or even drawback it gives you some? While being a Sentrybot give you the best combat stat block, but is up as one of the more expensive qualities, with Android probably being the most.

whether you are playing a game about creating a civilization or whether you're playing a game about a small group of badasses wandering the wasteland shooting fools and solving episodic problems. For the latter you just need a game that handles shooting fools, for which there are many options.

Lastly, I was wondering what "many" of those options would be? Particularly ones that would be more fitting, or particularly Good quality (not too many problems have to deal with at every turn). Though unfortunately, I'd imagine for whatever game, gonna have to make up a decent sum of content, if not just for Stimpaks, but for laser/plasma weapons, and even other unique weapons that Fallout has featured over the years.

[hyzmarca]

Yeah, that is literally the dumbest possible explanation for the apocalypse ever. Everyone just deciding to be super stupid and die of starvation because if they don't, they might die of nuclear war later makes literally negative sense.

It makes sense if the idiots hypocritically maintain a huge stockpile of pre-war weapons and simply nuke anyone who violates their anti-knowledge laws. Of course, then it stops being a post-apoc survival story and becomes a totilatarian dystopia.

Wouldn't Cyberdogs already pretty much fill the PC dog niche?

EDIT: This game is awesome and I want to play/run it.

Agreed on the EDIT, though hopefully we can fill out more of the empty parts of the game.

As for Cyberdogs,it would help the sentience part a bit, though still the issue they're still dogs, and pretty much be relegated to more silent casual role, so wouldn't really be able to roleplay with other characters.

You can totally have cyberdogs with voice boxes and manipulator tentacles.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Well, in the Fallout setting, there are Mormons, though I'm sure that's part of some Apocalyptic joke (idea Mormons were prepared for it, and thus would survive), far as that religion bit goes.

The joke there was that the LDS Church bought a vault just for themselves, and Vault-Tec decided to equip that vault with jumpsuit-makers that produced low-quality clothes and that would stop functioning at all about six months after the vault was sealed.

[Username17]

Sorry, I haven't worked on this or anything else for a week because I was in Malta for an interview.

Dogs (as opposed to cyberdogs) absolutely should exist, but they aren't characters. They are equipment. They show up on the battlefield as units, but there is absolutely no reason to stat them up like real characters. For fuck's sake, they have a life span that is short enough that you'd actually need to track it. You just have a number of dogs and they eat food, and some portion of your dogs can be taken to battles and you can also leave them on guard duty and have them hunt and shit. And that would be handled by having their handler make skill tests.

Re: the loot chart... Why would Farmland have no ammunition? Rural areas general have firearms, for one reason or another. Seems more likely for it to be Low than None...

Farmland in the Fallout universe isn't the same as rural lands in our world. Arable land means that the land wasn't poisoned, which means that basically the war wasn't fought there. The "farmland" is like the middle of the national parks and shit - it's not places that were housing rednecks, it's places that the Chinese never shot any missiles at or send any kill droids through because they were uninhabited.

Should the Encounter table include more stuff than just things trying to roll up and take your stash? Should it include severe weather like tornadoes or hazards like un-exploded ordinance?

There should be additional encounter tables. That table is literally just the incursion table. There needs to be an "exploring empty hexes" table, and a "your caravan has an encounter in the wilderness" table and so on and so on.

-Username17

[Red_Rob]

I love the way Frank apologises for not spending his leisure time working for free on a game that someone on a forum randomly suggested he should make for them.

I'm looking at running a Fallout / Dark Sun style fantasy/post apocalyptic D&D campaign next so while not all of this is applicable it's a goldmine of ideas. I'd been thinking of emphasising the "build up civilization" angle and this provides a solid framework for that side of things.

[Hicks]

Robots would be pretty simple, they cannabalize parts of deactivated robots to advance. Ultimately, a robot N/PC can slot their brain into any other robot body, and any mental upgrades would slot into the brain; they are rewritable software running on hardware.