I take the main quest to the Khans in Boulder City and then I ignore it until I'm ready to take the game to the end. I don't look for Benny and I don't visit Mr. House. I just blow them all off and do whatever I want to do since I'm not going to side with them and I don't care about their fancy comp suites. There's plenty of time to find Benny and I'll deal with him on my terms. Then I do all the main quest and march on to an exciting and glorious victory. Everything I do is exploring and setting up for the end battle.

:fallout:

I follow the main quest up through the initial conversation with House, then let it sit while I go off on my own. I wait to deal with Benny until I have decided who I am going to follow with that character based on impressions gained during play, since dealing with him triggers the amnesty offers and I want to hold on to those for as long as possible in case the character is given reason to go off on a particular faction.

In a more specific case: if I choose to go with Yes Man I put things on hold once Wild Card: Side Bets is active, since at that point I go get Arcade and enable his personal quest, which gives me a perfect excuse to go wandering off.

I don't have a problem wandering off to do wasteland stuff. I'll more or less follow the main path as far as Boulder City but I hit the quests I run into along the way (and check out any interesting locations I happen to stumble across). For instance, at Primm I'll clear out the powder gangers and find a new sheriff (which requires a trip to the Mojave outpost, unless you go with Primm Slim). At the outpost I'll do the quests for Rangers Jackson and Ghost, and I will likely do the Searchlight quests when I'm passing that way. And so on and so forth.

The only one I have a real problem with is Dead Money. There's no real logical reason to leave all the stuff that's going on in the Mojave to check out an old casino. Want to gamble? There's the Strip. Want guns and goodies? There are plenty of locations in the Mojave where a prospector-type character can find cool stuff (and usually, by the time I hit the level required to go to Sierra Madre, I'm rich and have my own luxury accomodation anyway).

FO3 did it a bit better - Operation Anchorage and The Pitt started with distress calls while Point Lookout started with a woman entreating you to find her missing daughter. Dead Money just starts with an advert. Who in their right mind is going to drop everything to do some sightseeing? It's hardly a compelling reason to leave a brewing war - and especially not after witnessing the Nipton atrocities.

To OP - I just want to say that I am glad someone approached this topic ... this is my main qualm with the game. When playing Fo3, I was able to break away from the main quest at a few different places, but also had Broken Steel to finish up any loose ends and continue role playing my character. With the NV main quest line, as someone said earlier, it tends to hang over my head - not giving a logical place to say "O, I think I'll go do some exploring" it seems to have a dire sense to it all - plaguing your character with the "impending war" and choosing sides. I generally do the Yes Man ending just so I feel like I have the right to explore my "options" rather than go run errands for some entity - at least with Yes Man, I'm sort of in charge...

I know it's been said that Obsidian will not make a "Broken Steel" add-on - but i really hope they change their minds, I'm just not as enthralled or "immersed" after a certain point in the game.