Off Topic > Games
[MEGATHREAD] Fallout 4 || Contraption, Vault-Tec, Nuka World
HULKHOGANWWFWORLDCHAMPION:
--- Quote from: Ravencroft· on December 17, 2015, 10:10:02 PM ---Isn't Danse revealed to be a synth if you team with BoS?
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spoiler alurt dood
sir dooble:
Having a backstory thrust upon you partway through the game is worse than having a minor one at the beginning.
Sure, my character is searching for their son, but I've not much idea what I was before settling down, or what I experienced in the army. That is entirely mine to decide.
But the courier, at the beginning all I know is he worked as a postman at least once.
I can decide myself what he did before being shot. He could have been a raider, a drug peddler, an NCR soldier, a Cattle wrangler.
But nope, partway through the game I find out I was always a postman. One who regularly took the same path, so regularly that a settlement built up around my deliveries.
And not only that, the entire game has been orchestrated by a guy I spurned years ago, that I didn't get a say in! The entire game only happens because you delivered some bad post.
New Vegas gives you a massive backstory, more restrictive on your character than 3/4.
Sure, you can do what you like when you start, but the same is true of 3/4. But my backstory is so much more restrictive on roleplay in New Vegas.
Lord Tony®:
So your spouse was murdered and your son was kidnapped and instead of going to go out to look for your son or get revenge you are busy collecting bobbleheads and having love with whoever you want. Then you randomly do a main story quest and now all of a sudden it's "MUH BABY, MUH SHAAAAUN!"
Kills the immersion 100%, makes no sense and it restricts everything.
And you say this is better than having amnesia from a gunshot.
Lord Tony®:
--- Quote from: sir dooble on December 18, 2015, 11:44:25 AM ---I can decide myself what he did before being shot. He could have been a raider, a drug peddler, an NCR soldier, a Cattle wrangler.
But nope, partway through the game I find out I was always a postman.
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See this is what you don't understand, maybe RPGs aren't for you.
You have amnesia, you don't know who you are but that doesn't matter, what matters is the choices you make in the present/future.
Then you find out you've been a courier all your life, guess what!? No one cares, not even the courier. Who seriously says "welp, I've been a courier all my life I guess I'm going to go back to being a courier." NO! They go out and take over the loving strip.
This is like saying you have a dead end job and then get cancer and as soon as you get better you go back to your same dead end job. Sure, I guess you could say NV is restrictive in that sense if you decide to go back to your old boring life.
tl;dr version
Your backstory in Fallout 4 affects your present/future
Your backstory in NV only affects your present/future if you decide you accept you are a courier and that's now all you want to be for the rest of your life.
sir dooble:
Did you not play Lonesome Roads? The backstory is literally the entire reason why you're doing anything at all.
The story only takes place because you happen to be a postman who delivered a bad package, so Ulysses is out to get you.
Maybe RPGs aren't for you, since you don't seem to understand Roleplay.
You're criticising Fallout 3/4 because your minor backstory (being a child/parent respectively) is the basis of your main story.
Whether your character is aware of it at the beginning or not, the backstory of being a courier is the basis of the main story of New Vegas.
And you've completely misunderstood my point.
I'm not saying "Oh, turns out I was always a courier, best continue to be a courier".
I'm saying that you have even less say in why you're on the path you're on (meaning the entire game), because it was all decided in a massive backstory you didn't even get to take part in.
That kills the roleplay choices you can have with your character. Yes, I can be a nice trader, or a bloodthirsty cannibal, or a merc for hire, or the wastelands greatest chef. But at some point, I was always a hard-working courier, who accidentally destroyed a town, and I have been setup by a person who believes I wronged them.
Yes, the Fallout 3/4 characters don't leave too much room in their backstory for you to create your own story as to why you got where you were, either.
As a child in Fallout 3 in a vault, you can hardly say your village was attacked by raiders, or you came to this place as with a caravan, or were hunting an individual.
Nor in Fallout 4 do you have too much room to explain your motivations/personality (Nate has more room than Nora, since he could become bloodthirsty, or even pacifist from being a soldier, compared to Nora just being a lawyer).
But New Vegas is just as bad, in not giving you room to create your own backstory, and then going a whole mile further to explain why you specifically ended up here. Having amnesia, and that letting you being a maniac, is just a cop out. It's easy, cliché writing. And then giving you a big back story anyway is having your cake and eating it too.
Compare Fallout 3/NV/4's backstory to the likes of Oblivion or Skyrim.
All you know in Oblivion is that you ended up in prison. How or why is up to you.
All you know in Skyrim is that you ended up captured by the Imperials, possibly by mistake. How or why is up to you.
They're much better games for roleplay.