Implementing multiple playable races to Fallout?

ElloinmorninJ

ElloinmorninJ

Where'd That 6th Toe Come From?
Do you think adding multiple playable races, besides humans, could be a cool thing to add in future Fallout games? If so, how could this be implemented, without making one race (Ghouls, SM’s and/or Humans) overpowered or underpowered?
 
Not really. Mutants and Ghouls should be all but walking fossils by the time of a new game, especially Mutants who only came out of Mariposa and are basically extinct anyway.

It 'worked' in Tactics, I guess, but nearly anything another race can provide, the human baseline can augment. Radiation heavy zone - radX and RadAway. Need to be beefy, strong, and tote heavy weaponry? High STR chars.

The only way this works if there are things that the human baseline cannot ever, ever get around with in-game items; but like what? Maybe PA is rare for once; so mutants have a edge in carrying heavy weapons off the bat - maybe stuff like the Mini Nuke, the Minigun, the Rocket Launchers, etc, can only be held at all by a Power-Armor human or a supie, even with 10 STR. Maybe RadX and RadAway is super rare, maybe goes 'bad', so ghouls have an edge up in radioactive zones, but there would actually have to be a lot of those zones to warrant a ghoul char - and can't a super mutant take radiation, too?

But overall those are very small niches to deal with to have playable ghouls or mutants. Again, in-game items and stats can do nearly anything they can. Radiation - Meds/Chems/Suits. Heavy guns, tanking damage - heavy str, heavy armor.
 
Eshanas said:
Not really. Mutants and Ghouls should be all but walking fossils by the time of a new game, especially Mutants who only came out of Mariposa and are basically extinct anyway.
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I doubt Bethesda will let Ghouls or SM’s go extinct anytime soon.
 
Honestly, I think it is about time. Scratch that, we should have gotten playable multiple races a good while ago.

I think the first step is to take cues from Fallout Tactics to make the races different.

SPECIAL allowing for stats beyond 10. Super Mutants are three-meters tall giants made of over 300kg of pretty much muscle and hardened bone. Are we supposed to believe they can only hit a measly 10 ST - AKA Body Builder strength? Please. These mutants are like the Astartes of the Fallout universe and should be treated as such.

Allowing for stats beyond 10 is also a good way to make Strength not become useless because of Power Armor.

Might be a bit tough balancing the Supies tho. Perhaps by making them suck in some things - like being sneaky. The fact they are bigger should also make them easier to hit. Not being able to use most small arms and armor is interesting as well. Having problems being accepted and even being straight out attacked in some places, too.

Ghouls are interesting. They seem weaker at a first glance, but they seem pretty tough. Like how they actively heal near radiation (not just immune), can re-attach lost body parts, seem to be less affected by some drugs and other chemicals, etc. I like how FOT made them excel at being perceptive and lucky - it makes sense that fluke results would be "luckier". One possible idea I had is to give them a fourth skill tag (or a trait which gives them one), to represent the fact they are old and experienced. Imagine if you had two centuries to learn things, how many things you would know?

- Its a pity that Synths are actually so human-like, playable humans and playable synths would effectively be the same thing. Unless its one of the Prototype 2.5 Synths, like Nick Valentine and DiMA? That could be cool, and lead to a few interesting ideas - like being someone with a pre-loaded mind upload personality, or starting as a tabula rasa. Or having a few internal tools - like different vision models and whatnot, metal bones, the works.

- Psykers could also be an option, but I'm not sure how to simulate them properly. I dunno, I feel Fallout psykers should be kind of... I don't know, subtle? I mean, this is not WH40k or Star Wars. Outside of Super-Psykers, I feel like they should't be... flashy. But where's the caveat? Perhaps a loss in physical capability? Should psyker powers be one skill, or maybe multiple skills (like Underrail)?

Again, I think its all about mechanics.
 
Balance should not be taken too much into consideration when it comes to Fallout "races". A ghoul should be played as a ghoul should be played. That means you will get a hefty skill point bonus due to the lifetime lived (all ghouls should be really skilled due to how long they've been alive), radiation immunity and that means making irradiated areas an actual problem to deal with and rad-away and rad-x rarer or far faaaar more expensive, disease resistance or immunity (if your organs are sticking out of your body and you aren't dying from all kinds of illnesses then they must have a damn good immune response), neutrality with hostile ghouls and crazies, some animals will outright not attack you because they fear you're carrying some weird disease and don't wanna catch it and probably other shit as well.

However, you cannot run. And I don't mean sprint, when you sprint you can kind of jog but otherwise you can only walk at a somewhat brisk pace. This means that it needs to have transportation in the game to counter this for ghoul players because otherwise the gameplay will be a tremendous chore. So vehicles or mounts or maybe getting carried around by a super mutant. You are more likely to be knocked down by heavier attacks. You have less health. Your limbs can break more easily. In fact in combat you will pretty much be useless. If you're playing as a ghoul then stealth or pacifist is your best options.

But playing as a Fallout race carries a lot of narrative consequences. So maybe just start with a ghoul first and see how different it'll make the gameplay. And if we're going to throw in another race into the mix then they better be established real quick because it is weird that no matter where we go the only ones we can talk to are some ghouls and a handful of super mutants and then there's pretty much nothing else but mindless savages, like Pitt Trogs or Hillfolk or Marked Men.

What other races do we have that 'could' be civilized anyway? Super mutants I guess but they carry such negative connotations because of their history that it would mean basically no one would want to talk to you. There's Slags which are a type of Van Buren Trog I guess. Beastmen in Fallout Tactics. Hillfolk could be in other areas and be civilized I guess. I feel like it is far too late in Fallout to just start introducing a ton of other races out of nowhere.

Fallout 1 had ghouls and super mutants. Fallout 2 had Slags. Fallout Tactics had Beastmen but since then what have we had? Fallout 3 had nothing except fucking vampire scene kids. Point Lookout had Hillfolk I guess but none of the other DLC's had any kind of mutant that 'could' be civilized. Fallout New Vegas had nothing. Dead Money had nothing, Honest Hearts had nothing, Old World Blues had nothing and Lonesome Road had nothing.

There isn't a whole lot of "races" in Fallout. There should be. There should be far more kinds of mutants all around the place but sadly, we're left with a very limited amount and often times are very restricted to specific areas.
 
I think rather than having Ghouls and Super-Mutants be necessarily playable, having Mutation and becoming a "Mutant" through increasing amounts of it would be interesting. Something akin to Outer World's "Phobia" system which provides double-edged traits available to the player in contextual fashions. So exposure to radiation or toxic waste, additionally dependant on your Luck. Perhaps on Normal Difficulty you'd have a choice whether to adopt these traits, but in a "Hardcore Mode" you'd unwillingly pickup these mutations unless you took the right precautions.

It'd represent better the chaotic and sometimes arbitrary distinction between the Fallout races of "Human" and "Mutant" rather than Mutant being a specific species.

Still, you could have Super-Mutants and Ghouls be playable. In my PnP system like other ones floating around they have different Minimums/Maximums to Humans with regards to their SPECIAL.

Ghouls have:
-An extra Tag Skill at creation
-80% Radiation Resistance
-No ill-effects to irradiation
-30% Poison Resistance
-Gain a Perk 1 level later than Humans

However, their SPECIAL is also limited to represent their decrepit physical form. Their STR is limited to a max of 6 as well as their AGL and CHR to a max of 8. Of course in the narrative they also recieve poor treatment from being physically repulsive, smelling like rotting corpse and having a reputation for eventually going feral.

Super-Mutants are a bit more complicated:
-50% Radiation Resistance
-Limited effects of irradiation
-20% Poison Resistance
-Gain Perks every 4 Levels
-Additional +2 HP per level
-+20% to natural Damage Resistance
- When using weapons too small for their hands (Which is most) they recieve -15% hit chance
- They recieve -15 to their AC due to their immense size
-Can only wear armor designed for Super Mutants, of which there are not many.

In terms of SPECIAL their STR is a minimum of 7 and a maximum of 12. Their Endurance is a minimum of 5 however their Charisma is limited to a maximum 6.
 
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ElloinmorninJ said:
...how could this be implemented...
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With great difficulty—on the content side.

The PC would need the art and sound of course, but all NPCs would need alternate reactions if the PC is are not human (looking). NPCs might bar them from towns or their homes, or commercial establishments. They might betray them after the quests; blame them as scapegoats; in the very least they would speak to them differently. Imagine the Lynette conversation if the PC were a ghoul.

It was a thought by the F1 devs, that they might let the PC survive the DIP and finish the adventure as a supermutant——had they a blank check for developing the game.
 
Mr Fish said:
Balance should not be taken too much into consideration when it comes to Fallout "races". A ghoul should be played as a ghoul should be played. That means you will get a hefty skill point bonus due to the lifetime lived (all ghouls should be really skilled due to how long they've been alive), radiation immunity and that means making irradiated areas an actual problem to deal with and rad-away and rad-x rarer or far faaaar more expensive, disease resistance or immunity (if your organs are sticking out of your body and you aren't dying from all kinds of illnesses then they must have a damn good immune response), neutrality with hostile ghouls and crazies, some animals will outright not attack you because they fear you're carrying some weird disease and don't wanna catch it and probably other shit as well.

However, you cannot run. And I don't mean sprint, when you sprint you can kind of jog but otherwise you can only walk at a somewhat brisk pace. This means that it needs to have transportation in the game to counter this for ghoul players because otherwise the gameplay will be a tremendous chore. So vehicles or mounts or maybe getting carried around by a super mutant. You are more likely to be knocked down by heavier attacks. You have less health. Your limbs can break more easily. In fact in combat you will pretty much be useless. If you're playing as a ghoul then stealth or pacifist is your best options.

But playing as a Fallout race carries a lot of narrative consequences. So maybe just start with a ghoul first and see how different it'll make the gameplay. And if we're going to throw in another race into the mix then they better be established real quick because it is weird that no matter where we go the only ones we can talk to are some ghouls and a handful of super mutants and then there's pretty much nothing else but mindless savages, like Pitt Trogs or Hillfolk or Marked Men.

What other races do we have that 'could' be civilized anyway? Super mutants I guess but they carry such negative connotations because of their history that it would mean basically no one would want to talk to you. There's Slags which are a type of Van Buren Trog I guess. Beastmen in Fallout Tactics. Hillfolk could be in other areas and be civilized I guess. I feel like it is far too late in Fallout to just start introducing a ton of other races out of nowhere.

Fallout 1 had ghouls and super mutants. Fallout 2 had Slags. Fallout Tactics had Beastmen but since then what have we had? Fallout 3 had nothing except fucking vampire scene kids. Point Lookout had Hillfolk I guess but none of the other DLC's had any kind of mutant that 'could' be civilized. Fallout New Vegas had nothing. Dead Money had nothing, Honest Hearts had nothing, Old World Blues had nothing and Lonesome Road had nothing.

There isn't a whole lot of "races" in Fallout. There should be. There should be far more kinds of mutants all around the place but sadly, we're left with a very limited amount and often times are very restricted to specific areas.
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Who were the Slags again?
 
They were the cave-dwelling survivalists underneath the farm near Modoc. They were unable to see in naked sunlight.
 
@Atomic Postman Instead of limiting SPECIAL I think it'd be better to alter what the stats do.
1-10 STR for humans is not the same 1-10 STR for ghouls or super mutants.
So the bonus to carry weight and unarmed/melee damage is greater pet STR point for a super mutant than it is for a human and ghouls suffer a penalty to it.
Otherwise... Well, you can pick Bruiser which gives you STR and reallocate those points elsewhere. You're just gaming the primary stat system at that point.
It's better to just alter the derivative stats and what each primary stat do.
 
Another "race" that could be playable:
A robot.

I don't mean a synth, but an actual robot (Brainbot, Mr Handy, Sentry bot, etc).

It could have it's own perk and trait list to choose from, so it couldn't pick some of the same as a human character, but could pick also new ones not available to humans.
Equipment could be upgrade-able parts, so armors would be better/more durable robot bodies, weapons could be upgrade-able parts and some that humans can use too (depending on which type of robot you are), etc.

Rare upgrades could increase Attributes.
 
Risewild said:
Another "race" that could be playable:
A robot.

I don't mean a synth, but an actual robot (Brainbot, Mr Handy, Sentry bot, etc).

It could have it's own perk and trait list to choose from, so it couldn't pick some of the same as a human character, but could pick also new ones not available to humans.
Equipment could be upgrade-able parts, so armors would be better/more durable robot bodies, weapons could be upgrade-able parts and some that humans can use too (depending on which type of robot you are), etc.

Rare upgrades could increase Attributes.
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I don't like this for the simple fact that it necessitates Robots with legitimate, player-level intelligence/decision making/independent thought. It's the Bethesda problem of Mr. Handy's being AI even though that is the role of the room-sized ZAX machines. Fallout Robots/droids shouldn't have much more intelligence than a really charming Siri.


ElloinmorninJ said:
Oh, hey I remember them. Was it explained what they were doing in the caves? And how they hot mutated?
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They were run-of-the-mill survivalists. They weren't mutants per-se, it was just that generations of living in extremely low-light conditions meant that their eyes were incapable of dealing with natural sunlight, and they felt physical disorientation at being in the open sky rather than a cave.
 
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Atomic Postman said:
I don't like this for the simple fact that it necessitates Robots with legitimate, player-level intelligence/decision making/independent thought. It's the Bethesda problem of Mr. Handy's being AI even though that is the role of the room-sized ZAX machines. Fallout Robots/droids shouldn't have much more intelligence than a really charming Siri.




They were run-of-the-mill survivalists. They weren't mutants per-se, it was just that generations of living in extremely low-light conditions meant that their eyes were incapable of dealing with natural sunlight, and they felt physical disorientation at being in the open sky rather than a cave.
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So they’re kind of just humans but with a wierd disability or quirk, right?
 
Atomic Postman said:
I don't like this for the simple fact that it necessitates Robots with legitimate, player-level intelligence/decision making/independent thought. It's the Bethesda problem of Mr. Handy's being AI even though that is the role of the room-sized ZAX machines. Fallout Robots/droids shouldn't have much more intelligence than a really charming Siri.
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Not really. It's possible to make it so they have a personality, but not real AI. Just look at robots like ED-E, the Sink personalities, Yes Man, etc.

Also it would allow to offer dialogue and quest options that are more cold, less empathetic, more machine and less "human".

Basically you would be playing as a more limited in the options, but you would have a learning protocol, where your personality would improve with experience.

Let me describe some basic scenarios:
The character is talking to someone about getting a quest.
(if character is human) I'm in need of some cash, so is there any work around here?
(if character is robot) My information library specifies that currency is needed to acquire repairs and upgrades. *BEEP* How can I obtain currency?

The character is asked to help settle a brahmin dispute. There's two characters that claim the brahmin belongs to them and not the other person:
(if character is human) After I heard all of what you both said, I can agree with *insert name of character here*.
(if character is robot) I computed all the information available, best course of action was calculated. *BEEP* Animal will be divided in two and distributed accordingly. *Shoots brahmin*

The character arrived at a new settlement. Guards tell the character to not cause problems and keep their weapons holstered at all times:
(if character is human) Sure thing.
(if character is robot) Does not compute. Cannot comply! (Guard reaching for his weapon) What the fuck does that mean? (robot character) Can't overwrite self-preservation protocols. If existence threatened, will have to use weapon for self-defense. (Guard) Does that mean you will go berserk and start shooting at people? (robot character) Only if in need to protect existence. Self-preservation protocols cannot be overwritten. (Guard) Uh... Ok, ok.... I guess you're good to go... But don't start shooting people...

Yeah, these examples aren't very good, I just woke up and my brain is still half-asleep. I don't think I managed to convey the true purpose of having a robot that doesn't have true AI being playable.
I guess one of the ways of explaining is that the game would be different, kinda like when you play Fallout with low INT. You would have less choices in some occasions and (rarely) have more choices in other cases. You would be locked out of content, but maybe have access to extra content.
It would be a harder, more limited, with less overall choices, but quite different way to play the game
 
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Risewild said:
Not really. It's possible to make it so they have a personality, but not real AI. Just look at robots like ED-E, the Sink personalities, Yes Man, etc.

Also it would allow to offer dialogue and quest options that are more cold, less empathetic, more machine and less "human".

Basically you would be playing as a more limited in the options, but you would have a learning protocol, where your personality would improve with experience.

Let me describe some basic scenarios:
The character is talking to someone about getting a quest.
(if character is human) I'm in need of some cash, so is there any work around here?
(if character is robot) My information library specifies that currency is needed to acquire repairs and upgrades. *BEEP* How can I obtain currency?

The character is asked to help settle a brahmin dispute. There's two characters that claim the brahmin belongs to them and not the other person:
(if character is human) After I heard all of what you both said, I can agree with *insert name of character here*.
(if character is robot) I computed all the information available, best course of action was calculated. *BEEP* Animal will be divided in two and distributed accordingly. *Shoots brahmin*

The character arrived at a new settlement. Guards tell the character to not cause problems and keep their weapons holstered at all times:
(if character is human) Sure thing.
(if character is robot) Does not compute. Cannot comply! (Guard reaching for his weapon) What the fuck does that mean? (robot character) Can't overwrite self-preservation protocols. If existence threatened, will have to use weapon for self-defense. (Guard) Does that mean you will go berserk and start shooting at people? (robot character) Only if in need to protect existence. Self-preservation protocols cannot be overwritten. (Guard) Uh... Ok, ok.... I guess you're good to go... But don't start shooting people...

Yeah, these examples aren't very good, I just woke up and my brain is still half-asleep. I don't think I managed to convey the true purpose of having a robot that doesn't have true AI being playable.
I guess one of the ways of explaining is that the game would be different, kinda like when you play Fallout with low INT. You would have less choices in some occasions and (rarely) have more choices in other cases. You would be locked out of content, but maybe have access to extra content.
It would be a harder, more limited, with less overall choices, but quite different way to play the game
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You'd also not be able to use chems and various other consumables. Armor and clothes et cetera

It would be so vastly annoyingly different there is no way it'd ever be a practical idea
 
Atomic Postman said:
You'd also not be able to use chems and various other consumables. Armor and clothes et cetera

It would be so vastly annoyingly different there is no way it'd ever be a practical idea
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There could be items only usable by the robot characters, doesn't mean it would be bad.
And even if you couldn't use chems or clothes armor (even though I mentioned that there would be upgrades to the robot body to replace armors) it would still be good to have the option.

Just because it's different, doesn't mean it's annoying. I would love to have that option. After playing Fallout and Fallout 2 so many times in all the ways possible (including low INT). Having a different way of playing the game would be a breath of fresh air.

It's a great and practical idea, if you ask me. Playing always the same ways gets old fast, the more options and diversified gameplay you can include in a game like Fallout, the better.

Fallout Tactics has already several Robot Traits (traits only available to robot characters) and a robot recruit too, for example.
 
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