Introduction: Making Fallout 76 Fun Again With Role Play

 

Tristan's Bed in Vault 76 - Notice Some of His Possessions

I've been playing Fallout 76 two or three times a week for almost two years now. My first character is Level 280, and I use him to try out new content, to accomplish most of the SCORE challenges, to play with friends online, and to test out new builds. I have fun with him, but there is not enough new content (or new items to work toward on a reasonable timeline) to keep me coming back as often as I once did.

I started a second character when Wastelanders came out so that I could experience the new iteration of the game from the perspective of a newbie. It was fun, and I imposed some rules on that character so that he wouldn't progress too quickly toward the endgame. For example, he wasn't allowed to head somewhere just because I knew from previous experience that I could get something I wanted from a particular place. He couldn't participate in events unless he had already discovered the location. And he had to have a rationale for why he was working with either Foundation or the Raiders and stick with it. He took the Overseer's mission seriously and let her be his guide where relevant. I realized that I enjoyed that more restricted approach to the game, but in a different way. A few weeks ago, that character reached Level 100 and completed the Wastelander's quest soon after. So my choice was to continue on grinding for gold bullion and legendary weapons so I could improve that character's stats, or try something new.

This time around, I'm trying out a full role-play approach to the game. I'm setting a backstory for my character (which you can read about in the episode entries associated with the blog). Blogging his diary helps me to frame the story and (hopefully) keep his personality consistent. His primary skill is engineering - designing and crafting tools such as weapons, armor, and machines. He was the first child born in the vault, and so for a long time had a bit more notoriety than most of the other children born there. But then something happened with a young woman named Robin that turned many in the vault against him, including the team he was to leave Vault 76 with. 

Tristan woke up in the vault all alone after everyone else had left. He suspects that someone from his team drugged his Nuka Cola at the Reclamation party and then locked him in his room so that they could leave Vault 76 without him. They may have even been trying to kill him. He is a bit of a pariah, and so feels nervous about encountering other vault Dwellers as he makes his way Outside.

Tristan's Record Player and Trophy Case

One way I'm trying to enliven the game is by paying more attention to game lore as well as his surroundings this time around. This started in Tristan's vault bedroom, where there is a trophy case with some interesting awards in it. He won an award for best hair in the vault, and another for outstanding achievement related to the isolation program. There are several others. Check it out next time you start a new character. 

I used items found around the room to suggest his favorite food (Sugar Bombs) and drink (Nuka Cola). There are several Nuka Cola toys and collectibles in the room, as well as several different stuffed animals, a music player and guitar, and a stack of board games. There are also collectible knickknacks. I decided to make Tristan a collector, so that when he finds something he owned in the vault, or something interesting or unusual out in the Wasteland, he will be careful to bring them home and display them. He's also a bit of a slob, as you can see from photos of his room in the vault.

I decided my character will be the type who believes in the mission of rebuilding Appalachia. He's going to love the concept of the Responders and of helping people in need, particularly if he can do so by crafting things to help them. He's also an engineer, so he will spend a lot of energy and resources upgrading guns and armor, and crafting other items. But he will live by a number of rules that will control how he moves through the game.

1.  Combat:  While inexperienced, he will be reluctant to engage in combat except when absolutely necessary, though he will learn quickly that others show no mercy and he will adapt accordingly. A terminal in the vault suggests that all real weapons were locked up the whole time they lived in the vault and were not distributed to Vault Dwellers when they departed.  In my scenario, the security officer was supposed to be each team's main protection. So the only training the character would have with weapons would be with toy (or virtual) weapons. This is why he avoids stalking the robots in the parking lot during Episode 1. He doesn't like pain, and sees no reason to attack unless in danger. However, he is very protective of others so may step in when others are threatened with violence (such as Duchess at the Wayward).

2.  Choosing Destinations:  When deciding where to go next, unless he has a quest that indicates a particular destination, he will either head for the nearest location based on his Pip-Boy, hoping to find useful resources, or he will just explore in his local area until he encounters something. Sometimes the Pip-Boy map has certain locations drawn in, but many of them pop up as the character gets close to them. These will be the character's first choice when he doesn't have a mission or is procrastinating on following that mission for some reason. 

3.  Encounters:  When he encounters someone, he will be cautious but presume they are not belligerent until they prove otherwise. If an individual is indicated as an enemy (their name is displayed in red), I assume that the creature is doing or saying something so threatening that the character doesn't believe a peaceful solution is possible. But this would be impossible to know from a great distance (unless the person is wearing Blood Eagle insignia or something) so he can't sneak up on Raiders with no specific insignia and snipe them. He has to get in close and be noticed so that the Raider would be able to mouth off and indicate his intent to be violent, before my character can kill him. Of course, many of the creatures in the Wasteland are just assumed to be hostile, such as scorched or feral ghouls, and those he can kill without hesitation. 

4.  Occupied Locations:  If my character finds a new location but it is already occupied by Settlers or other non-enemies, he cannot take anything from the place unless the item is junk on the ground, or up on a piece of furniture but lying on its side as if unwanted. I chose to do this as a compromise, because many of the locations around Vault 76 were empty when the game first came out and all of the items found there could be scavenged without an ethical dilemma. A different way to think about this might be that the items at each location represent things that would be found at other locations if the game had a more realistic number of places indicated on the map. That way, the character is not really stealing from current residents, but rather the items taken represent scavenged items from around the area instead. For my character, though, I chose the more restrictive approach.

The Wayward and its Corn Garden

The rules about occupied locations apply to crops planted at settled locations as well, such as the corn growing outside the Wayward, or the Brahmin held in a pen there. "Purchase" of these items is allowed. My character can buy something similar inside the Wayward and consume it or drop it and treat it as an equivalent to the corn or milk he is taking. These items are quite expensive when purchased from vendors and the price of items he buys from the Wayward must reflect that.  

If the occupants of a location say something about needing to clean up the place, then the character is free to take anything classified as junk, regardless of its location.  If a safe is locked and the occupants are recent arrivals, then I assume that my character can work out a deal to pick the lock and share some of the contents with the occupants (player's choice on which contents to leave behind, but something must be left).

5.  Setting up CAMP:  Building a CAMP would take considerable time, especially if doing it alone. Therefore, there are rules about how big the CAMP can be and how many crafting benches it can have based on the character level.  

My scenario operates under the assumption that crafting stations and the CAMP system come with programs that can be used by robots to accomplish the actual work. Newly learned plans can be "taught" to the Workbenches. The robots that complete these tasks were "on call" from the company that designed the workbenches, and the character is simply running a program or providing specific instructions when they stand at the workbench. The company that produces these robots may still be constructing them, much like the security robots in Watoga continue to be built as old ones are destroyed.

In the case of a workbench not at my CAMP, the assumption is that there are still robots associated with these benches that will be called to complete whatever task is programmed, and deliver the final product when it is complete. Still, even for a Handy or Protectron, these tasks would take time.

Floorspace:  My CAMP may only have one wooden floorpiece at 3rd level (with associated walls and roofs, of course). He can add a new floorpiece for each two-level increase (2 floorpieces at 5th level, 3 floorpieces at 7th level, etc.). One nice thing about this is that I will get to see how I'm using the space and the furniture in it as it increases in size.

Tristan's Level 7 CAMP - Three Floorpieces, Three Workbenches

Crafting Benches:  At 3rd level, my CAMP can have a cooking station and one additional crafting bench or other large camp item, such as a powered water purifier. An additional crafting bench or other device can be added for each two-level increase. This restriction means some reliance on nearby locations that have the right kinds of crafting benches until level 15-20.

Atomic Shop/SCORE System CAMP Items:  Special items purchased through the Atomic Shop or earned by other characters of mine via progression through the SCORE system (or holiday events) cannot be used until Level 50 is reached. An exception is the junk collecting Protectron, which my character can set up right away and, once in place, is conceived of as the robot who actually does the work programmed at the CAMP or at one of the crafting benches. It collects junk when it doesn't have items to build. There are robots running around all over Flatwoods, so he could easily obtain one, and reprogram it if necessary.

6.   Lifespan:  My character has only nine lives. When he dies for the 9th time, I have to start over with a new character. That means bloodied builds are probably out, as the risk of dying is higher. It also means that he has to be really cautious about which quests he undertakes and how he approaches them. Does he need to steal an egg from an active Deathclaw nest while still at low level?  Some careful planning is in order or else the character may find himself that much closer to a 9th death. A full health, more tanky build is probably best. Eventually, legendary armor pieces that are bolstering may also be a good choice. Armor pieces or perks that automatically use Stimpaks are another good idea.

7.  Perks:  My early perks are aimed at crafting (because he is an engineer), defense (because he can only die a few times) and at quality of life (food weight, chem weight, lucky finds, etc.). He is a reluctant combatant, especially at first, so the more offensive perks are fewer and come later than they might otherwise. This increases the challenge and fits with the personality.

My character gets to engage one Legendary Perk every 50 levels, even though I have five perk slots available from the start because my high level character is Level 280. Legendary perk slots apply to all characters based on the number earned by the highest level character on an account. 

8.  Fast Travel:  During a single day of gameplay, my character can fast travel to any place that he has already been before on that same day. The assumption is that any obstacles along the way would have been dealt with earlier in the day. For other kinds of fast-travel, I must plan a route, travel no further in one jump than the length of my index finger on the map (on a PC screen), and deal with any obvious obstacles that would normally get in the way, such as a Blood Eagle camp. I often fast travel to a point near the obstacle, engage the obstacle, then fast travel onward. In mountainous regions, I have to assume I'm traveling along roadways if I want to fast travel.

9.  Food & Drink:  Although there is no penalty for hunger or thirst after Steel Dawn, I must manage my character for hunger and thirst.

10.  Events & Recurring Tasks:  Many of the events that take place in Fallout 76 are not the kind of thing that my character would bother with. He might be willing to hunt down a Supermutant horde that has the potential to terrorize human settlers, for example, but why would he escort Brahmin to an empty farm?  He might help to defend someone's claimed workshop from invading creatures, as part of rebuilding Appalachia, but why would he agree to go on a hunt for the Huntmaster at the Black Bear Lodge more than once? My assumption is that rewards for doing something for a robot generally come only once (except for tasks such as Sweetwater's quest for honey, where he obviously has the ability to make the item for his reward multiple times). 

My character might chase down Mad Dog Malone to control the Super Mutant population (maybe), or do the Swarm of Suitors quest to control the Mirelurk population (more likely), but why would he do the Messenger quest more than once, or the quest with the robot testing different chemicals on plant growth?  He might do the Pioneer Scout quests (some of them, at least) because one of the early ones brings him a practical reward (insect repellent) and he may hope for more of those kinds of things. There are also skills to be learned in the process. But why would he drop a nuclear bomb on a mine just so he can go in and kill a monster that is already trapped in the mine and not harming anyone (plus there's the whole nine lives limitation to think about...too much risk for the reward).

In general, my character will not undertake events unless he happens to be in the area when it triggers, and then only if it makes sense to him to do so. Doing things just for the reward is not allowed. The downside is that this means much slower progress in terms of accumulating legendary items (and therefore more of a need to manage ammunition unless I have a melee build). On the other hand, fewer boss fights might mean ammunition will actually last longer, so maybe the two effects will balance each other.    

Fallout 1st Scrap Box - An Important Quality of Life Item

10.  Fallout 1st:  I play on Fallout 1st. There are two big advantages. One is that my character gets an unlimited stash box for junk, to help with his interest in crafting, and another is that he can use private servers so that his experiences as he follows the main questlines are not impacted by other players.

I allow use of the survival tent only for dumping excess junk and accessing the stash box. In my mind, when he does this, he is actually making one or more trips back to camp, or he is hiding things in the forest for later retrieval. But this saves me some play time. The tent cannot be used as a combat aid (climbing on top to avoid enemies), nor for music-playing buffs. Cooking is okay, because he could just as easily build a campfire. 

For at least the first 50 levels, my character has to play on a private server so that he will not encounter any other player characters. According to a terminal entry in Vault 76, the residents were told to travel far away from the vault in their efforts to resettle the Wasteland, so he might not encounter many of them for some time. The vault was originally designed to hold 500 people, but the plans only show space for 88, so there is quite a lot of space for these people to melt into, and with the threats out there, many of them probably wouldn't survive. It's not inconceivable that the character would not meet any other Vault Dwellers for some time. 

My hope is that treating the character more like an individual with a personality, ethics, and a serious purpose in life will add a different flavor to the game that will help me to enjoy it for at least another year while I wait for the full release of Baldur's Gate 3! This approach will mean that legendary weapons and armor will be few and far between. Purchasing them after Level 50 may be an option, but anything that requires a grind may take nearly forever with this character. He may die for the 9th time before he ever gets a full set of Secret Service Armor. But that's okay. My high level character already has a set, and when I want to play that style, I can use him.