I'm making a shotgun waster character and I'd like to know what perks, skills, and SPECIAL to take. Also, what two traits in the beginning of the game. (Your opinion, besides the obvious Surgeon perk). I was thinking high END since I'll be up close, but also medicine/survival for good healing, but I'm nos sure. Also, where can I get a shotgun rather early in the game?

Thanks!

You get single shot gun fairly early in game, and you can buy Caravan shotgun (holds two round instead of one!).

Slugshot is actually, a Slug instead of 7 pallet bunch together, in case if you are not sure.

Stick with Fastshot since you are shooting things up close anyways; 2nd Trait is purely personal preference.

As for Perk goes:
Rapid Reload (not sure if the .357 loading bug effect lever-action shotgun, but you would be fine otherwise).
HandLoader (recover more hulls, and give you more shot for crafting)
Stonewall (+5DT against melee attacks)
Cowboy (stretch lever-action shotgun's life spam, if it doesn't suffer .357 loading bug)

Okay, thanks for the info. But..where do I get the shotgun specifically? I want to get one asap so I don't have to be using a varmint rifle until I get a hunting shotgun.

Its relatively easy to pick up single-shot shotguns and caravan shotguns off of Powder Gangers and escaped convicts.
As for perks depends on whether or not you use VATs a lot. If you rarely use vats (when I'm using a shotgun i hate using Vats) the rapid reload perk is essential because most shotguns (besides the riot shotgun) either have long reload times or you have very short clips.
I will look into perk descriptions again. I remember a lot of the perk descriptions but I keep on forgetting their names so i can't tell you builds

1. Take Trigger Discipline to reduce spread considerably.
2. Take Shotgun Surgeon.
3. Take all the possible AP-giving, VATS-based perks so you can run up to a group of mobs, press V and murder them all.
4. Cowboy perk is questionable, it boosts only one shotgun, lever-action and it's hardly the best thing out there.
5. You want to be using either Boomer, Riot or Dinner Bell as your end game weapon.

Powder Gangers on the road have Single shotgun and in NCRCF should have Caravan; Goodspring general store should sell either.

You also get Traveling Merchant that would sell up to Lever-action shotgun I believe.....in Novac IIRC is where you can get Hunting shotgun.

I find it hard to play as a character without using sneak or sniping from a distance...it seems if I play a closer range character I'm always getting shot from afar by large groups, or when they close in its not feasible to fire 1 or 2 shots from a shotgun as three enemies are swarming. Makes me wonder if the game is geared more towards the sneaking sniping type....

Trigger Discipline is questionable, it hurts your DPS in the long run and only give moderate boost to high accuracy shotguns; not to mention the extra action points for VATS for AP hungry weapon like shotguns

You are only going to use shotguns? Hmmm.
Well, since you only want shotguns, you might as well take good natured to get an early game skill boost. Shotguns are pretty much horrible outside of VATS, so you are going to want to make a character highly VATS dependent. So you might consider kamikaze instead of good natured.

High agility, high endurance, 6 in STR.

2 fast reload
4 educated
6 shotgun surgeon

Focus on AP/VATS perks frrom there on in.

But.....you do less Crit damage in VATS.......

It reduces spread by quite a lot. Without it there's no shotgun gameplay mid-range. With Fast Shot shotguns are pretty much useless unless "in the face".

Search the houses in Goodsprings, i can't remember which one but there in a single shotgun and some 20 gauge ammo you can steal on a dresser in one of the houses and the people who attack Goodsprings often have at least 1 single shotgun bewteen the 6 of them.

What the hell are you mumbling about there and who are you mumbling to?

Really? I found Hunting/Lever-action still have a decent range, and Riot just destroy everything with Slug.

VATS...Shotgun...Does not compute.

There are few things that can stand up to the unholy carnage a Riot Shotgun operating at max ROF brings. For those that can there are beanbag rounds.

I LOVE the Riot Shotgun, that things beast. You can get one from the Gun Runners fairly early. Withe Cowboy perk you can increase the damage with a Lever Action Shotgun... Other then that I don't know what else you can pick.

Dinner Bell, Trigger Discipline, you can actually hit stuff before it's in point-blank range.