How "Kid in the Fridge" Could Have Worked

[MutatedPanda]

I want to propose a way in which the "Kid in the Fridge" quest could have been improved, and that even if it wasn't 100% lore friendly, it would have at least been more interesting.
Firstly, I'd like to give a quick rundown on this quest for those who might not have heard of it. In "Kid in the Fridge" you come across the voice of a child, leading you to a fridge with a ghoulified child inside.The kid has been trapped in the fridge for over 200 years, and simply tells you he wants to return to his family (who are also coincidentally ghouls). You are then given the choice to either help the child return to his family, or you can sell him to the Gunners for 350 caps.
The flaws with this quest are pretty obvious and have been stated here many times over; the kid should have grown up, and he should also have died from lack of food, water, and air. What I propose is a way to try to fix those issues, while also providing a much more interesting quest (if someone has already proposed this, my bad).
As you are wandering the wasteland, you come across a small, locked bunker a little ways away from a town. The bunker is locked, but you can either pick the lock, or try to shoot it off. Once the door is opened, you step inside and see a ghoulified man who is obviously suffering from the effects of long term isolation. You talk to him and realize that he has been trapped in this bunker for over 200 years, and that he took cover from the bombs as a child, leaving his family behind to perish.
You could tell him that what he did makes him an awful person, and he could go on to feel so guilty that he kills himself. On the other hand, you could comfort him by telling him he simply did what he felt was needed to survive. If you do this, you could even come with him to the site of his old house where his parent's corpses remain.
This version of "Kid in the Fridge", while not as action packed as getting to sell a kid into slavery, would present the moral question of "Is survival worth it if it means betraying those you love?" If there's any improvements I could have made, please let me know, and any feedback is appreciated.

 

[Alphons]

Interesting idea, without retcons and twice as much choice.
My idea was that you find fridge with human kid inside. After rescuing him he tells how he was scavenging, when some bandits robbed him and locked inside. Then your choices are to escort him home or lock him back after getting location of his stash.

 

[TorontoReign]

The kid should have been dead, or a Ghoul with some kind of airhole.

 

[Prone Squanderer]

I want to propose a way in which the "Kid in the Fridge" quest could have been improved, and that even if it wasn't 100% lore friendly, it would have at least been more interesting.
Firstly, I'd like to give a quick rundown on this quest for those who might not have heard of it. In "Kid in the Fridge" you come across the voice of a child, leading you to a fridge with a ghoulified child inside.The kid has been trapped in the fridge for over 200 years, and simply tells you he wants to return to his family (who are also coincidentally ghouls). You are then given the choice to either help the child return to his family, or you can sell him to the Gunners for 350 caps.
The flaws with this quest are pretty obvious and have been stated here many times over; the kid should have grown up, and he should also have died from lack of food, water, and air. What I propose is a way to try to fix those issues, while also providing a much more interesting quest (if someone has already proposed this, my bad).
As you are wandering the wasteland, you come across a small, locked bunker a little ways away from a town. The bunker is locked, but you can either pick the lock, or try to shoot it off. Once the door is opened, you step inside and see a ghoulified man who is obviously suffering from the effects of long term isolation. You talk to him and realize that he has been trapped in this bunker for over 200 years, and that he took cover from the bombs as a child, leaving his family behind to perish.
You could tell him that what he did makes him an awful person, and he could go on to feel so guilty that he kills himself. On the other hand, you could comfort him by telling him he simply did what he felt was needed to survive. If you do this, you could even come with him to the site of his old house where his parent's corpses remain.
This version of "Kid in the Fridge", while not as action packed as getting to sell a kid into slavery, would present the moral question of "Is survival worth it if it means betraying those you love?" If there's any improvements I could have made, please let me know, and any feedback is appreciated.

I'm divided on this. 200 years is a long time to be stuck somewhere. It would have to be like a Vault in terms of long-term food supply otherwise he'd die long before anyone finds him 200 years later.

I like the idea of talking to someone who's been isolated for so long. They'd be very unstable or insane even. Perhaps you could have the choice of keeping him locked inside or trying to talk to him and he gets out and runs off. Initially nothing happens because of it, but then later on people keep turning up dead due to the mad ghoul killing them. Sort of like the original intention behind Fallout 1's Gizmo and Killian situation, where originally if you get rid of Gizmo the town actually gets worse as a result.

 

[Einhanderc7]

The only feasible way I can see this working without changing the character,
Player open the fridge and discovers mummified remains. However in doing this Bethesda would have allowed a child to die in their game and they would not support such an action.

Therefore this a quest destined to be a failure based on their moral obligations.

If this game was only marketed towards an adult audience as it should have been I expect the result would have been vastly different.

*To parents, stop letting your kids play adult games that they can't comprehend
*To kids, its perfectly fine to go back to older games and discover them when you are older. Also the fact that you children are ruining the games that should be marketed for adults.

 

[Pwener]

You could remove the quest entirely, that would fix the problem. Out of sight, out of mind.

I jest.

Seriously though, kinda off topic here but I have to say that the ideas brought up by you guys, as simplistic as they are, far surpass the content given to consumers with this "quest."

What the hell kind of writing team Bethesda employs these days deserves the boot and shame of the entire game development world. I pride myself as a decent writer so let me give it a shot.

My Version Of The Quest
----------------------------------------
You begin the quest via the rumor mill instead of being given a task by any single NPC. The rumor is this; there is an area of Downtown Boston that few dare to thread due to disappearances in the area. Typical wasteland stuff the player might think but the more you hear the more insidious it becomes. Entire caravans disappearing without a trace? No sign of struggle or death? Impossible. Must be work of The Institute! Yet you can bring the issue with someone there and discover they once lost a Courser in that area and have decided to give it a wide berth as a result. The plot thickens.

If the player decides to explore this area at night they can be attacked by a rogue Courser prototype the same vein as Valentine (companions would comment on this). The encouter would only occur at a certain level. The Coirser would be carrying food and other supplies it would not have need of along with a grocery list curiously enough. The last item on the list would be "people." The note would also have directions on dropping the scavenged items in pre-determined manholes in that area. Here a new machanic could be brought back from older Fallouts.

THE ALMIGHTY ROPE! Using a rope to descend one of these manholes in this district would reveal large bunker-like tunnels under the city. No enemies though, keeping the player on edge. If you make it to a new manhole you will find food and healing chems that have been dropped there, presumably by the Courser. Remember that this is still an unmarked quest. For now. Continued exploration will lead to a sealed bunker door the player can open in various ways. Hack the terminal, lockpick or blast open. Inside the titular "Ghoul Kid" is.

He would then go on to explain in erratic ways that his parents were wealthy industrialists before the war and had the sewers in this district reinforced to withstand the bombs and the shelter as a way to survive the blast and radiation. They hid inside but eventually would run out of food. His parents left to gather more and never returned. Out of sheer fear and paranoia he refused to leave surviving through rationing the last stockpiled supplies his parents left him with. Eating only once a day, that sort of thing. Eventually he turned into a ghoul around his teens and ceased aging altogether which allowed him to survive by eating less as his small build required less proteins than a grown adult.

The quest now triggers after conversation with the kid is exited and he invites you to stay as long as you want as he is "desperate for company." The only quest directive is to "explore shelter." Exploring the medium sized shelter reveals little in the way of information until a locked terminal is hacked which opens up a false wall leading to a backroom containing hundreds of unopened pre-war cans of food. After completion of the quest these cans would serve as the reward. Their function is a one use "infinite food" for any one settlement the player has. The code can be on a note in the kid's inventory as well which can be pickpocketed.

You can now proceed to prod the kid for answers on various topics depending on your perception and intelligence points. Things like the untouched supplies left by the courser and how he managed to get one on his side. Why his parents left the shelter with yet so much food in the back. He then proceeds to lie his ass off about convincing the synth to help him survive and his parents being pragmatic survivalists.

With sufficient intelligence/perception you can expose his lies and finally he admits he hotwired the rudimentary systems of the ancient synth and that his parents were murdered (he will refuse to say whom was responsible and no check can get him to open up). Hotwiring the synth reveals he left at some point which when called out on he reveals he left once. This explains his ghoulification.

Further questioning him on why he lied about never leaving makes him react with hostility and lashes out at the player if continued to be questioned. When killed he says "Not sorry... did... what I had to."

The quest ends and exp given. From here on people will start commenting that travelers have stopped disappearing from that district and it seems to be an ideal trade route in the area. What exactly was going on is left to the player to interpret. The missing caravans, rogue Courser, the grocery list, untouched bundled supplies in the tunnels right beneath the open manholes, kid's violent lashing out at simple curiosity, unopened pre-war food hidden behind the false wall, the fate of the parents, ect.

The answer is self evident fueling dread and disgust as to why he descended into this madness leading many players to write fanfics and make fanart based on this quest with unnecessary amounts of Rule 34 thrown in for good measure.

 

[ThatZenoGuy]

Easy fix.

Kid says he's been there for hundred years, but its a trick, he's LYING.

While you're busy trying to open it and let him out, ghoul ambushers come out and demand you give them your goods.

You can talk them out of it, or fight them.

 

[Einhanderc7]

@Pwener Yeah, I'm not going to read that wall of text. Maybe next time break it up a bit so it doesn't look like Egyptian hieroglyphics on a stone wall?

 

[Pwener]

@Pwener Yeah, I'm not going to read that wall of text. Maybe next time break it up a bit so it doesn't look like Egyptian hieroglyphics on a stone wall?

No skin off my back. I like writing and I think little of those that dislike reading. Your loss.

 

[Atomkilla]

No skin off my back. I like writing and I think little of those that dislike reading. Your loss.

You may like writing, but you certainly dislike using paragraphs or simply pressing Enter for that matter.

 

[Pwener]

T

You may like writing, but you certainly dislike using paragraphs or simply pressing Enter for that matter.

Really? Because I made us of paragraps in my comment. How about you only make comments about what I like or don't like after you have some experince dealing with me.

Now quit saying silly things, this isn't the YouTube comment section.

 

[Atomkilla]

T


Really? Because I made us of paragraps in my comment. How about you only make comments about what I like or don't like after you have some experince dealing with me.

Now quit saying silly things, this isn't the YouTube comment section.

How about you stop acting like a fucking asshole on your second day in this community? Nobody really gives a shit about your opinion at this point, certainly not one so poorly typed out, because this:

You begin the quest via the rumor mill instead of being given a task by any single NPC. The rumor is this; there is an area of Downtown Boston that few dare to thread due to disappearances in the area. Typical wasteland stuff the player might think but the more you hear the more insidious it becomes. Entire caravans disappearing without a trace? No sign of struggle or death? Impossible. Must be work of The Institute! Yet you can bring the issue with someone there and discover they once lost a Courser in that area and have decided to give it a wide berth as a result. The plot thickens. If the player decides to explore this area at night they can be attacked by a rogue Courser prototype the same vein as Valentine (companions would comment on this). The encouter would only occur at a certain level. The Coirser would be carrying food and other supplies it would not have need of along with a grocery list curiously enough. The last item on the list would be "people." The note would also have directions on dropping the scavenged items in pre-determined manholes in that area. Here a new machanic could be brought back from older Fallouts. THE ALMIGHTY ROPE! Using a rope to descend one of these manholes in this district would reveal large bunker-like tunnels under the city. No enemies though, keeping the player on edge. If you make it to a new manhole you will find food and healing chems that have been dropped there, presumably by the Courser. Remember that this is still an unmarked quest. For now. Continued exploration will lead to a sealed bunker door the player can open in various ways. Hack the terminal, lockpick or blast open. Inside the titular "Ghoul Kid" is. He would then go on to explain in erratic ways that his parents were wealthy industrialists before the war and had the sewers in this district reinforced to withstand the bombs and the shelter as a way to survive the blast and radiation. They hid inside but eventually would run out of food. His parents left to gather more and never returned. Out of sheer fear and paranoia he refused to leave surviving through rationing the last stockpiled supplies his parents left him with. Eating only once a day, that sort of thing. Eventually he turned into a ghoul around his teens and ceased aging altogether which allowed him to survive by eating less as his small build required less proteins than a grown adult. The quest then triggers after conversation with the kid is exited and he invites you to stay as long as you want as he is "desperate for company." The only quest directive is to "explore shelter." Exploring the medium sized shelter reveals little in the way of information until a locked terminal is hacked which opens up a false wall leading to a backroom containing hundreds of unopened pre-war cans of food. After completion of the quest these cans would serve as the reward. Their function is a one use "infinite food" for any one settlement the player has. The code can be on a note in the kid's inventory as well which can be pickpocketed. You can then proceed to prod the kid for answers on various topics depending on your perception and intelligence points. Things like the untouched supplies left by the courser and how he managed to get one on his side. Why his parents left the shelter with yet so much food in the back. He then proceeds to lie his ass off about convincing the synth to help him survive and his parents being pragmatic survivalists. With sufficient intelligence/perception you can expose his lies and finally he admits he hotwired the rudimentary systems of the ancient synth and that his parents were murdered (he will refuse to say whom was responsible and no check can get him to open up). Hotwiring the synth reveals he left at some point which when called out on he reveals he left once. This explains his ghoulification. Further questioning him on why he lied about never leaving makes him react with hostility and lashes out at the player if continued to be questioned. When killed he says "Not sorry... did... what I had to." The quest ends and exp given. From here on people will start commenting that travelers have stopped disappearing from that district and it seems to be an ideal trade route in the area. What exactly was going on is left to the player to interpret. The missing caravans, rogue Courser, the grocery list, untouched bundled supplies in the tunnels right beneath the open manholes, kid's violent lashing out at simple curiosity, unopened pre-war food hidden behind the false wall, the fate of the parents, ect.

has zero fucking Enter keys pressed during the time it was typed out. If you think this has a paragraph in it, you should go back to elementary school and learn a thing or two before giving people like @Einhanderc7 shit like accusing him of disliking writing. What you did with that text there only shows that you are the one who dislikes writing, at least proper writing.

And no, shit you've written before or after that huge wall of text isn't enough to validate your claim of using paragraphs. If the main part of your post is written that bad, it takes the whole thing down with it.

And maybe you should visit a Youtube comment section sometimes, because most people there sure do have better grasp of written language than you do.

 

[Einhanderc7]

T


Really? Because I made us of paragraps in my comment. How about you only make comments about what I like or don't like after you have some experince dealing with me.

Now quit saying silly things, this isn't the YouTube comment section.

Lets not kick a sleeping bear shall we? How about simply editing the post to make reading your thoughts simpler for the rest of us? I say this because surprisingly we here at NMA actually like to engage with people, and their views instead of starting shouting matches.

So lets be adults for a couple of minutes and try to understand each other. I'm sure everyone will benefit from a little restraint, and understanding.

 

[Pwener]

Lets not kick a sleeping bear shall we? How about simply editing the post to make reading your thoughts simpler for the rest of us? I say this because surprisingly we here at NMA actually like to engage with people, and their views instead of starting shouting matches.

So lets be adults for a couple of minutes and try to understand each other. I'm sure everyone will benefit from a little restraint, and understanding.

Very true. I'll do so.

 

[Prone Squanderer]

Easy fix.

Kid says he's been there for hundred years, but its a trick, he's LYING.

While you're busy trying to open it and let him out, ghoul ambushers come out and demand you give them your goods.

You can talk them out of it, or fight them.

I like this idea. It's simple and makes sense. One alteration though, I'd make them all human not ghouls.

 

[ThatZenoGuy]

I like this idea. It's simple and makes sense. One alteration though, I'd make them all human not ghouls.

Why humans? Ghouls still exist, and on average are more desperate, needing numbers to take on single humans.

 

[Prone Squanderer]

Why humans? Ghouls still exist, and on average are more desperate, needing numbers to take on single humans.

Yeah but I just feel it could work just as well with humans. Given the lack of government and law enforcement in the Commonwealth, a group of people ganging up on someone is plausible. In fact, if ghouls were that desperate and fragile they'd just shoot you as soon as they could, they wouldn't risk negotiating.

 

[Black Angel]

Not to mention we have never a ghoul kid before.... are we going to just give the explaining to Bethesda on how a ghoul kid really work? My first assumption would be that youngsters would have died before ghoul-ification even start because their body aren't matured enough to handle it.

So, yeah, this quest would better work with a normal human kid trapped in a fridge as a trap to ambush the unwary. Or, if you can write good, just keep that slaver so an evil character can just sell the kid to him.

 

[Einhanderc7]

After I read @Pwener 's post I like their rendition. From my point of view I can see it working.

 

[lolpop109]

I still don't know the point of this thread surely you should just write something better? It would literally take like 5 mins