Catscratcher
First time out of the vault
Play As Yourself Challenge
For Fallout New Vegas, but will work on other similarly-styled games.
(Note: This challenge is a bit tedious, so may not suit certain play styles)
The 'play as yourself' style is not new - in fact, many gamers who play games where you have a highly customisable character in a sandbox environment will base their character on themselves. Often this a glorified or alternative version of themselves - it's really quite natural and expected - and more often than not the character will do things that the player has to admit that they would not do in their shoes. Again, it's natural because the NPCs aren't going to judge you or laugh at you (and if they do, it's not even real). You can switch off the game at any time to exit an unpleasant or boring situation instead of having to endure it. You don't feel the pain or difficulty they're going through. You do not experience fatigue or illness and you don't need to battle with your own inner demons in a game (usually). You also don't have to think about your own mortality when you can just re-load from the last save point.
The 'Play As Yourself Challenge' aims to take realism to the max. In summary, you will have to be completely honest in all of your actions. If you were that character, and you were stuck in that universe, what would you honestly do? Try to put yourself inside the character as if you were in their universe, unable to just 'switch off' when things get ugly. What would you be feeling and thinking in their situation? How would your true personality shape the course of events and decisions your character has to make?
If you really want to up the realism, there are a lot of mods that can help with this.
The compulsory rules for this challenge are:
1) Every decision you make and action you perform in the game must be accurately based on what you would do if you were in the character's shoes, to the best of your imagination.
2) Your starting skills should reflect your own real-life skills as closely as possible (may not be very easy if your real-life skills are not available in the game, in which case just try to get it as close as possible). In the case of Fallout games and building the character's stats, if you find you have lots of skill points left over because you're really honest and don't think you can justify adding them to any other stat, just add the remainder on to luck.
3) If your character's personality changes away from your own over the course of the game due to life-changing events, PTSD, the development of friendships or rivalries, etc. you must be able to logically back up why these events changed your character's personality.
4) Life-changing events will affect your character's personality in one way or another. If you were in their shoes and went through all they went through, you would probably not be the same person at the end of it.
The optional rules for this challenge are:
1) Keep a journal, whether it be a written journal, a screenshot journal or a video journal. A video journal with your own character's dialogue in your own voice would be best, if you're good at voice acting as yourself.
2) Instead of choosing your own stat-ups each level, keep a written tally of all of the skills you used and how many times you used them per level. Only level up the ones you used the most often. You don't need to do this if you're already playing a game that automatically levels up the skills as you use them.
3) If you're playing Fallout: New Vegas, add the mod Project Nevada. It provides lots of options to add realism to the game, such as food not restoring health (but instead satisfying hunger) or stimpaks not repairing crippling injuries. You can adjust the damage settings, or how slowly you move if your legs are crippled, how quickly you gain experience and how many times you can choose a new perk. The mod also adds more content into the game so is worth having anyway.
3a) If you are using this mod and you have the related option enabled, you will need doctor bags to heal your crippled limbs. But are you really a doctor? Do you even know how to set a broken bone, or stitch back together a torn muscle? Would you even have the stomach to reach into your own oozing abdomen to pull out a bullet and then painstakingly repair the wound, even if you did have the required instruments, skills and sanitation? If the answer is no, or even an unsure, then you must gain a medical skill of at least 50 before you can use doctor bags. Until then you must crawl back to a doctor if you become crippled. If you have an overwhelming fear of needles and don't think you could fight past them, you will also need a doctor to administer stimpaks.
4) If, in real life, you like to get drunk or you use drugs, or if you simply imagine that wasteland life would probably drive you to drink and drugs if you were really stuck there, the mods 'BLTC' and 'CHEMS' (necessary for BLTC to work properly) adds many types of alcohol to the game, as well as adding some real-world drugs. It also adds screen effects for drink and some chems. The buffs that chems can give you have also been overhauled in these mods. It is also possible to overdose.
5) Death is final. If you choose this rule for your game, you may not re-load from the last save point after you die. This rule is purely for those who want maximum realism and don't mind if their challenge is cut short early, and not really advisable since it's so easy to disregard the rule 'just once' in the case of supposed fluke deaths.
6) Don't fast travel. You may, however, use the 'wait' command for the boring bits, for example if your character is just chilling out or hiding away somewhere for the night.
Goals:
Most challenges have a main goal, that's why it's called a challenge after all. However, the nature of this challenge makes it difficult to make a universal goal. The journey made by one person may be drastically different from another, and their goals may also be drastically different. Some may choose to not even pursue the main quest.
So I merely suggest these goals for your challenge to be considered 'complete'. You can complete as many or as few as you like, as long as you complete at least one of them then your challenge will be finished.
Option 1: Create your own goal and complete it. It must be a reasonably difficult goal that should take you past at least 30 levels.
Option 2: Complete the main quest.
Option 3: Complete at least 2 professions (get 2 skills to 100).
Option 4: Reach level 30 (or 40 or 50) if you don't have any other goals, for example, if you're simply a wanderer with no aim in life except to survive, or you don't know what your goals are going to be until you come to completing them.
If you feel you have anything else to add to this challenge that would make it even better, don't hesitate to demand it be added onto the list of optional rules or goals.
I will also be taking part in this challenge, using all of the rules. I will be keeping a screenshot and written journal, since my computer doesn't record sound for some reason.
Also, if this doesn't suit you personally, please say why, just in case there are some tweaks I could make that might make it more fun for a larger group of people.
For Fallout New Vegas, but will work on other similarly-styled games.
(Note: This challenge is a bit tedious, so may not suit certain play styles)
The 'play as yourself' style is not new - in fact, many gamers who play games where you have a highly customisable character in a sandbox environment will base their character on themselves. Often this a glorified or alternative version of themselves - it's really quite natural and expected - and more often than not the character will do things that the player has to admit that they would not do in their shoes. Again, it's natural because the NPCs aren't going to judge you or laugh at you (and if they do, it's not even real). You can switch off the game at any time to exit an unpleasant or boring situation instead of having to endure it. You don't feel the pain or difficulty they're going through. You do not experience fatigue or illness and you don't need to battle with your own inner demons in a game (usually). You also don't have to think about your own mortality when you can just re-load from the last save point.
The 'Play As Yourself Challenge' aims to take realism to the max. In summary, you will have to be completely honest in all of your actions. If you were that character, and you were stuck in that universe, what would you honestly do? Try to put yourself inside the character as if you were in their universe, unable to just 'switch off' when things get ugly. What would you be feeling and thinking in their situation? How would your true personality shape the course of events and decisions your character has to make?
If you really want to up the realism, there are a lot of mods that can help with this.
The compulsory rules for this challenge are:
1) Every decision you make and action you perform in the game must be accurately based on what you would do if you were in the character's shoes, to the best of your imagination.
2) Your starting skills should reflect your own real-life skills as closely as possible (may not be very easy if your real-life skills are not available in the game, in which case just try to get it as close as possible). In the case of Fallout games and building the character's stats, if you find you have lots of skill points left over because you're really honest and don't think you can justify adding them to any other stat, just add the remainder on to luck.
3) If your character's personality changes away from your own over the course of the game due to life-changing events, PTSD, the development of friendships or rivalries, etc. you must be able to logically back up why these events changed your character's personality.
4) Life-changing events will affect your character's personality in one way or another. If you were in their shoes and went through all they went through, you would probably not be the same person at the end of it.
The optional rules for this challenge are:
1) Keep a journal, whether it be a written journal, a screenshot journal or a video journal. A video journal with your own character's dialogue in your own voice would be best, if you're good at voice acting as yourself.
2) Instead of choosing your own stat-ups each level, keep a written tally of all of the skills you used and how many times you used them per level. Only level up the ones you used the most often. You don't need to do this if you're already playing a game that automatically levels up the skills as you use them.
3) If you're playing Fallout: New Vegas, add the mod Project Nevada. It provides lots of options to add realism to the game, such as food not restoring health (but instead satisfying hunger) or stimpaks not repairing crippling injuries. You can adjust the damage settings, or how slowly you move if your legs are crippled, how quickly you gain experience and how many times you can choose a new perk. The mod also adds more content into the game so is worth having anyway.
3a) If you are using this mod and you have the related option enabled, you will need doctor bags to heal your crippled limbs. But are you really a doctor? Do you even know how to set a broken bone, or stitch back together a torn muscle? Would you even have the stomach to reach into your own oozing abdomen to pull out a bullet and then painstakingly repair the wound, even if you did have the required instruments, skills and sanitation? If the answer is no, or even an unsure, then you must gain a medical skill of at least 50 before you can use doctor bags. Until then you must crawl back to a doctor if you become crippled. If you have an overwhelming fear of needles and don't think you could fight past them, you will also need a doctor to administer stimpaks.
4) If, in real life, you like to get drunk or you use drugs, or if you simply imagine that wasteland life would probably drive you to drink and drugs if you were really stuck there, the mods 'BLTC' and 'CHEMS' (necessary for BLTC to work properly) adds many types of alcohol to the game, as well as adding some real-world drugs. It also adds screen effects for drink and some chems. The buffs that chems can give you have also been overhauled in these mods. It is also possible to overdose.
5) Death is final. If you choose this rule for your game, you may not re-load from the last save point after you die. This rule is purely for those who want maximum realism and don't mind if their challenge is cut short early, and not really advisable since it's so easy to disregard the rule 'just once' in the case of supposed fluke deaths.
6) Don't fast travel. You may, however, use the 'wait' command for the boring bits, for example if your character is just chilling out or hiding away somewhere for the night.
Goals:
Most challenges have a main goal, that's why it's called a challenge after all. However, the nature of this challenge makes it difficult to make a universal goal. The journey made by one person may be drastically different from another, and their goals may also be drastically different. Some may choose to not even pursue the main quest.
So I merely suggest these goals for your challenge to be considered 'complete'. You can complete as many or as few as you like, as long as you complete at least one of them then your challenge will be finished.
Option 1: Create your own goal and complete it. It must be a reasonably difficult goal that should take you past at least 30 levels.
Option 2: Complete the main quest.
Option 3: Complete at least 2 professions (get 2 skills to 100).
Option 4: Reach level 30 (or 40 or 50) if you don't have any other goals, for example, if you're simply a wanderer with no aim in life except to survive, or you don't know what your goals are going to be until you come to completing them.
If you feel you have anything else to add to this challenge that would make it even better, don't hesitate to demand it be added onto the list of optional rules or goals.
I will also be taking part in this challenge, using all of the rules. I will be keeping a screenshot and written journal, since my computer doesn't record sound for some reason.
Also, if this doesn't suit you personally, please say why, just in case there are some tweaks I could make that might make it more fun for a larger group of people.
I guess I'm not so good at character design. Damn she looks creepy standing in the light like that.[/spoiler:9c756ba8c3]
