I first noticed this change in design philosophy at the completion of Fallout 3 when (spoiler ahead) your character dies. I thought to myself, well that was the honorable path to follow but it is a bit final. I remembered back to the earlier RPGs in the series and wondered why they had abandoned one of the greatest allegories of Fallout lore.

For those of you that don't know, the hero is tasked with saving his people in both Fallout 1 and 2, in one case a vault and the other a tribal village. After trudging out into the wastes and hazarding all its horrid threats, he returns home victorious only to find that the ugly world is not finished with him. In Fallout 1, his people see the scars he acquired while in their service and cannot risk the integrity of the vault by readmitting him. The vault banishes the hero to become a wanderer in the wastes. In Fallout 2, the hero's home is razed through the course of the narative, leaving him a vagabond.

The allegory at work in these games is that War (the world outside the security of the Vault/Village) forever changes the people that participate in it -- and not in a good way. It makes you do things that you would never wish to do or it does things to you which you wish would have never happened. You can attempt to keep your moral compass whilst dealing with war, but it will be impossible for you to come out of it unscathed.

Now, Fallout 3 and New Vegas subject the hero to these affects since War Never Changes, but they take away the most important part of the allegory -- living with it!

I miss the hazy fadeout of a cursed hero hunched under a great invisible weight soldiering on into an unknown future. That is the punishment of the wasteland. That is a world torn apart by humanity and a humanity struggling to live with itself. That is Fallout.

--antimike

I went two different routes in the main quest and neither led to my character's death.

I remember those endings fondly... kind of miss them now that you bring it up.

Well written btw. :goodjob:

antimike - very well said, I hadn't thought about the games before in that way, but thinking about it now and the way you described the 'spurned hero' aspect I think you have a good point.

I agree, you make a great point. For the sake of playing Devil's advocate, could I suggest that it has something to do with the fact that it's set so far in the future? I'm not familiar with F:1/2, are they set in the more immediate aftermath of war? Maybe an excuse can be made concerning the fact that the latter two games are set within the distinct aftermath of war (and also the fact that, IIRC, you do get shunned from your vault in F:3)? Your post has made me want to play the first two games more than ever, though

Oh you're right, I had forgotten that completely, I guess because a lot happened between that and the end of the game for me, maybe more should have been made of it to emphasise the point somehow, it was something that happened along the way rather than being a point at the end of the game...

Like Expresate said, the main quest doesn't end with the courier's death. There are some issues with the courier as a character- the first and foremost being that s/he has no real reason to do anything in this game outside the quest for vengeance on Benny, and vengeance is not a very powerful trait in a voiceless, faceless (usually) character the player is supposed to more or less inhabit. But FO3 was the only one that broke the string, and generally that's blamed on Bethesda's writers doing a poor job rather than an actual change in philosophy for the series. With the original writers (which means FO1, 2, and NV), the method of letting the character wander once the story is complete is the same.

I'm sorry but I feel somewhat responsible for this. For absolutely years (at least since the mid 90s, so at least 15 years, maybe longer) I have been griping and whining on various gaming forums about the fact that every RPG player-character is destined to save the world in prophesies dating from before his/her birth, and that I would really really like just one game where rather than being a hero destined to walk that path from the start I just played.... "I don't know, something ordinary like a courier...."

And now I have it, this is the best game ever, I don't have any trouble engaging with my character because bloody hell it's exactly what I wanted and asked for....

While I enjoyed the previous endings except for Fallout 3 (Fallout 1 ending is especially great and truly a jawdropper), I think it was a great move to have the Courier in New Vegas. While this partially means having no "coming home gone wrong" so to speak, it really *is* a blank slate to create a character which I find myself enjoying more than I thought I would. And it's fairly fitting with how vastly you can change the wastes.

Totally get what you mean though but I find the Courier to be a nice and fitting, if a bit alternative, take on a main character for the Fallouts.

I don't know what you're talking about with Fallout 2, Arroyo was re-founded and became very successful after the events of the game, at least in the ending I remember.

Yeah the blank courier is an interesting take...more of a challenge to make an interesting character but it is pretty wide open. I succeeded developing a good character so I'm happy, but I can definitely see someone failing and not being too pleased about the setup.

I think generally though a totally blank slate isn't going to be the best choice. It helps to have a bit of a starting point for motivations and character. Of course in pen and paper RP you're also starting with a blank slate, but so is your environment, unlike the fixed (though expansive in FNV) world of a videogame.

Regarding the idea of a "blank slate": The issue I brought up with the courier is actually the opposite of this. She is not a totally blank slate. Your purpose, from the start, is to find the man who did this to you. While this is a a reasonable motivation, the problem is that this is coupled with a character that is, in all other ways, blank. Because the player's mind dictates what this character's motivations or desires are- either because the player decides to more or less inhabit the character, or chooses these things for the character as a separate persona- there are so many ways that character could behave other than to try and find Benny that it becomes difficult to justify making that the sole motivation.

Additionally, something that amplifies this problem is the fact that Goodsprings is filled with a bunch of fairly boring people who only have one point of current conflict. It does not immediately draw the character into the fabric of the game, which would alleviate the problem.

Consider the previous Fallout starts:

FO1: You're turned out by the Vault to find the water chip.
FO2: You're turned out by the village to find the GECK.
FO3: You escape the Vault because it's falling apart and you're probably going to die if you stay.

All these have the common refrain of the main character being forced out of her home. I have no problem with the writers wanting to get away from that.

However, in the first two cases, what's critical to the early story is that you do not have to proceed with the main quest. They give you an obvious trail to follow, but it's not necessary. You can let the vault in FO1 die. In FO2, eventually you end up finding the GECK because you run out of other things to do, but you don't have to care about it. In FO3, as soon as you leave you find Megaton, which gives you a starting point for finding your place in the Wasteland. But you can go a number of different routes with the people you find there and their quests, or wander off in another direction entirely (though that may be... unwise). Basically, you can logically do what you want depending on what you want your character's motivations to be.

In F:NV, you get nothing but the vengeance story early. If you think of your character as someone who would assume Benny is part of something far too powerful to mess with- which is reasonable enough- there's no particular reason for you to care about Goodsprings or what happens there. Even if you do, there's no reason for you to continue except that there's no game if you don't. Or, and I've seen at least one person on the forum express this view, you might believe Benny's someone you'd like to team up with. But there's no way to explore that, even in dialogue. The best you can do is free him in Caesar's camp and then fight off the whole damned Legion on his behalf.

Basically, vengeance works ten times better with a character that is more clearly defined by the game designers. In a game like this, the possibilities for what to do if and when you find your assailant need to be somewhat more open, and you need a more immediate path to walk than you're given here. Getting thrown out of the vault or village works because you're now exploring an unfamiliar land; a courier who's familiar with the territory needs something else to push her along regardless of her motivations, and there just isn't anything.

All good points. It's funny: I cared so little about the Benny revenge angle that when I was responding to this thread I didn't even think about it.

As for being thrown out onto unfamiliar land vs. already knowing about it...yeah that does seem pretty weak. Another thing I automatically internalized was that I had amnesia from the gunshot wound and remembered nothing, thus was exploring everything for the first time. But thinking back, the game doesn't state this at all does it?

I don’t know about the philosophy differences in the Fallout series and since I’ve only played FO3 and FONV my knowledge is limited. If what you say about the first two is true, then our hero is thrown out into a world s/he doesn’t know in the first three, but is or should be very familiar with the world of FONV. This is the major disconnect for me, because in FO3 I was learning as my character was, but in FONV my character should know this world where as I don’t. I haven’t completed my first play through, but from what I’ve read the ending should have more of a bearing on how I played and I like that idea.

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here. You can let the Vault die in FO1, that is true. But I don't particularly view the Courier's revenge mission any different than finding the GECK. You can go off and do your own thing in New Vegas as well even though there is a loose path for you to follow if you wish. Eventually you can confront Benny, like you say, if you run out of other things to do (or if you decide to cooperate with Mr House). The difference between FO1 is that there is no end-state brought upon you if you choose to ignore it, but there isn't in FO2 either. The main quest always "waits" for you, and in FO3 as well.
You can't work with Benny, this is true (aside from helping him later on). But there is no option given in FO2 or FO3 to work with the Enclave either, or to simply *not* support Project Purity (except a very binary choice at the end). And hell, if you have Black Widow (or Confirmed Bachelor I think?) you can even get Benny to bed and do things "peacefully", even if Benny himself does not wish to have anything to do with you. Again, that is more lenience than what was given in FO2 or FO3. In FO1, I have very little reason to care about Vault 13 other than the fact I know the game will end if I don't support it, same with the rather vague Super Mutant threat. I had no reason in FO2 other than a really loopy group of people who are insanely backwards in many ways. In FO3, I have to follow the Project Purity questline even if I feel it makes zero sense. I think it has to be assumed that the player will make up *some* reason to care for his/her character and what will happen to the wasteland within the framework of the game.

It also makes more sense in terms of character creation overall. While I can sorta see that a Vault Dweller would've trained in some areas, I find it extremely hard to swallow that you would be good at something like Big Guns, Explosives or even Barter when you've grown up in a Vault. In Fallout 2, it makes very little sense that the Chosen One would have any skills in something like Science or Energy Weapons.

What I don't get...one of the primary things people complained about in FO3 was the crappy ending slideshow... so they do it again? WTF?

What are you talking about? Who did it again?

The ending in NV was nothing like the ending of FO3, nowhere near as crappy. People didn't complain because there were slides, people complained because it was JUST slides.

FO3: "Oh hey there's the Lincoln memorial, I went there" - Not one word said about the Lincoln memorial/slaves.

FONV: Each slide is narrated explaining what happened after the game based on the choices made by the Courier.

Yep. All my complaints about the F3 ending wasn't that it ended, not at all. It was simply that they did such an unbelievably crappy job in tracking what the player had accomplished in the wasteland and recounting the consequences in the ending slides. I think that's one of the very key things in Fallout and it's one thing that Bethesda *completely* botched.

Well, the "good" (and "canon" in this case since it's referenced in NV) ending has the Chosen One establish New Arroyo with the surviving tribals, vault dwellers, and the GECK. Then said settlement prospers enormously, to the tune of "the ending slide has buildings made of beautiful marble and equipped with electric lights."

@Leinadi: I have to work shortly, so I'll keep this briefer than I otherwise would.

The short version of my point, using your comparison, is this: In FO2, you could disregard Arroyo and the GECK. If I remember correctly, you technically don't even need to pick up either of the GECKs you come across (though I did- maybe you do have to, I don't know for certain). Likewise, in NV, you can basically disregard Benny.

However, the GECK is a thing. It just sits there as an object to be acted upon, and you have the binary choice- do so, or not. Benny is a person to whom the courier has an emotional- presumably negative- connection. But that opens up a much wider variety of potential choices for the courier in how to react to her circumstances at the start of the game. If the courier was a character molded by the writers that you then take the role of, that would be fine. But it's a character who you are supposed to mold, which means you should in theory be given many different options in terms of how to react to the situation. Many of those would not make for a very good game, however, so more generally the motivation of vengeance as a binary "do it or don't do it" for a character like this is not a good decision. She should have been introduced with a different motivation for initially moving into the game world.

That said, I did not know about being able to seduce Benny. That's a good way to push the "attempt at peace" angle. And I'm not saying the whole Benny thing couldn't have happened. But she needs a more immediate reason to be an active participant in the world.