... Fallout PnP?

[Pop]

Hello all, hello all. New kid, first post on the Obsidian forums. If I break any sacred taboos, I'd like to know about them ahead of time (I read the disclaimers and everything). So do be gentle.

 

I am curently running a Fallout campaign pen & paper style, using the shamelessly completist 2nd edition Fallout Handbook. What motivates me to take the ever-so-bold move of creating a thread right out the gate is that I can't seem to find anybody else who does this, and I'm looking for some GM tips about running a Fallout game in general. Anybody here use this system, and have GM (or DM or whatever the hell you call it) experience in it?

[Calax]

Hello all, hello all. New kid, first post on the Obsidian forums. If I break any sacred taboos, I'd like to know about them ahead of time (I read the disclaimers and everything). So do be gentle.

 

I am curently running a Fallout campaign pen & paper style, using the shamelessly completist 2nd edition Fallout Handbook. What motivates me to take the ever-so-bold move of creating a thread right out the gate is that I can't seem to find anybody else who does this, and I'm looking for some GM tips about running a Fallout game in general. Anybody here use this system, and have GM (or DM or whatever the hell you call it) experience in it?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sawyer was making his own PnP rules for fallout I thinkies.

[metadigital]

Fallout wiki

[Darque]

I am curently running a Fallout campaign pen & paper style, using the shamelessly completist 2nd edition Fallout Handbook.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I remember these rules.

 

They took a few liberties with the canon.

[Pop]

 

I am curently running a Fallout campaign pen & paper style, using the shamelessly completist 2nd edition Fallout Handbook.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I remember these rules.

 

They took a few liberties with the canon.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

They did indeed, there are some things from Tactics which generally aren't considered canon (real-world weapons, etc.) and some locations and such, which I don't use. As far as the actual game mechanics, I can work with them and they don't completely screw up Fallout for me, so in the absence of a better system I use it. I should have said "thorough" instead of "completist". I try and stick as close to 1 and 2 as I possibly can, where I can, although with my limited knowledge of 50's aesthetic, it's difficult for me to create a good retro-futuristic setting I'm actually, uh, using some Van Buren stuff to write my campaign, but I'm sure it pales in comparison to anything official that might have come out of the material. There are also some holes that I have to fill (Ft. Abandon, what the hell the PCs are supposed to be doing, etc.) but I certainly like writing, and MCA's template system for the design docs generally helps out my entire DM process. I don't presume that my stuff is all that great (at this point it's more Mad Max than Fallout, even with the various references and factions from the first two games)

 

As for J.E. Sawyer's SIMPLE system, I really liked it, but it's incomplete and I don't know what he's up to with it. I also started the campaign before I knew about SIMPLE, and it's not feasible to switch systems at this point. I'd use it if I could, but Fallout PnP 2.0 is the best I can use.

Edited August 26, 2006 by Pop

[Pop]

So people, has anybody played Fallout PnP in any capacity (as player or DM/GM/whatever?) What did you think?

 

I've been trying to accrue tips for DMing Fallout, as far as keeping everything organized and tru to the setting goes. Anybody care to enlighten me with some?

[Blank]

Sorry Popsy, but I have no experience and therefore cannot help you.

 

Anyway, it looks like you'll be a good addition to the community

Edited September 8, 2006 by Blank

[Pop]

Well, I guess the campaign's going pretty well. Gots some maps and such I drew up. Once I decide my skillz don't suck I might put up more. Right now I'm trying to adhere to VB as closely as possible (although I forgot the Grand Canyon on the world map, and added a few non-plot related "dungeon" locations, not unlike Mariposa in F2)

 

Right now my PCs are entering Denver, and I'm trying to figure out how to set it up. It's got its own world map. basically I have a bunch of random (ie pre-generated by me) city blocks that divide the different important parts of the city, in which random encounters and scavenging takes place.

 

I won't be surprised if I **** this all up, if I haven't already.

 

Questions / suggestions?

[Pop]

Hmmm, does anyone know of any PnP weapon modification/augmentation systems (KOTOR2 style) that would work in a modern / post-apoc setting?

[Blank]

Does a system even exist for upgrading stuff? You could always make up your own, or just think about it as if it were real life. You can go about it from case to case, since you are the DM.

 

Just ask yourself: how much would a certain modification cost? (Gauge it based on what the original weapon piece cost, or what that type of technology in your setting costs, and labor or whatever to install it). What features would the modification add? If it is a gun, and someone wants to modify it, you can think of a few options for it that are available at the store or whatever, so if you think of more later, what you thought of previously was just for that store. For example, say that someone has a revolver and wants to upgrade. You would think of some options, like, new grip, which would add a point to the hit chance of a shot, or something more expensive, that was saved before the apocalypse, a heads-up display eyepiece, which would have a laser-type of sensor on the gun, and the eyepiece would display you where your gun is aiming. This would make it so you could just whip out your gun and not worry about stance or anything, just getting to a stable position with your hand. Such a device would add more to the hit chance of a shot, or because its appeal is to just speedily know where you will hit, even with one hand on the weapon, it could add another shot every 3 rounds using the weapon, or whatever you can think of.

 

I am obviously bored.

Edited September 29, 2006 by Blank

[Pop]

Thanks. I'm trying to do this as best I can. But it looks like I'll have to make my own system.

 

Basically, the way it works is, the PCs woke up in an unfamiliar prison (very TES, amirite?) and they get sprung by a prison security breech that opened the doors for them. They escaped the prison (which is full of loonies...) and were apprehended by the NCR, who interoggated them lightly and given a mission to bring all the prisoners back to the prison because the ULYSSES computer at the Prison is a threat to the surrounding civilizations (here I'm not sure if I'm doing anything correctly) and can only be stopped once the its high-alert status (quarantine break, it would seem) is corrected. So they get an idea of where the other prisoners are, and go out to retrieve them. But as they go out into the Wasteland to find the other prisoners, they notice that they cannot sleep, except when drugged, and they are getting massive headaches and blisters on their eyes. These are all byproducts of CODEing, which is only lightly hinted at in VB. That's where I'm at right now. I'm trying to figure out how to make it more fallout-y.

[Blank]

I really wish I had played Fallout, sorry. For what it's worth, it sounds like you are doing it right and fallout-ey for the most part.

 

Maybe, add a sardonic NPC that seems to offer help to the team, but actually hinders them more than help, and his motivations are that he makes a living this way, mooching off of hapless wandering teams of people on missions, like trying to capture prisoners. Actually, make it a girl, and she is hot, that way, people will accept her into the group, and then she'll run away with their goods. And she has a child, used to add sympathy.

 

Also, I'd like you to clarify what the Ulysses computer is doing to threaten the surrounding civilizations. I might be able to help with my obviously amazing ideas.

 

Oh, and at the end, the lady, when she leaves, is realized to be the wife of one of the escaped prisoners. And she leads the group to one of the prisoners unknowingly. How can you resist my mad idea skillz?

Edited September 29, 2006 by Blank

[Pop]

Heh, you can read all about the Van Buren campaign here. There were a lot of holes in the big picture, so I've been asking around to see who knows what's what.

[Pop]

A little late on the reply, but thanks for the ideas, Blank. Now all I have to do is implement them and figure out where to get the components, and what abilities will be required to create said items.

 

I'm writing Fallout again, since the semester has ended. Planned everything up for next week. Basically, the party is in Denver, which is kind of like the Necropolis, except much bigger and much less populated. A few police robots and some salvagers and a lot of dogs, that's it. There are also some slavers and some mercenaries, but at least one of those you fight.

 

My question posed to you all is this: Given that there aren't many NPCs to flesh out here in Denver, what would be the best way to initiate quests and such over a large area? The thing is that without any NPCs, the whole area runs the risk of being a gigantic dungeon crawl. I don't do dungeon crawls well, so I need some inspiration here.

[Jorian Drake]

A little late on the reply, but thanks for the ideas, Blank. Now all I have to do is implement them and figure out where to get the components, and what abilities will be required to create said items.

 

I'm writing Fallout again, since the semester has ended. Planned everything up for next week. Basically, the party is in Denver, which is kind of like the Necropolis, except much bigger and much less populated. A few police robots and some salvagers and a lot of dogs, that's it. There are also some slavers and some mercenaries, but at least one of those you fight.

 

My question posed to you all is this: Given that there aren't many NPCs to flesh out here in Denver, what would be the best way to initiate quests and such over a large area? The thing is that without any NPCs, the whole area runs the risk of being a gigantic dungeon crawl. I don't do dungeon crawls well, so I need some inspiration here.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

forget dungeons, use old car factories, supermarket ruins, a heavily guarded ex-school, some severs with mutated bugs, and maybe a supercomputer (digitalized)

[Pop]

A little late on the reply, but thanks for the ideas, Blank. Now all I have to do is implement them and figure out where to get the components, and what abilities will be required to create said items.

 

I'm writing Fallout again, since the semester has ended. Planned everything up for next week. Basically, the party is in Denver, which is kind of like the Necropolis, except much bigger and much less populated. A few police robots and some salvagers and a lot of dogs, that's it. There are also some slavers and some mercenaries, but at least one of those you fight.

 

My question posed to you all is this: Given that there aren't many NPCs to flesh out here in Denver, what would be the best way to initiate quests and such over a large area? The thing is that without any NPCs, the whole area runs the risk of being a gigantic dungeon crawl. I don't do dungeon crawls well, so I need some inspiration here.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

forget dungeons, use old car factories, supermarket ruins, a heavily guarded ex-school, some severs with mutated bugs, and maybe a supercomputer (digitalized)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, it's Fallout, there are no dungeons. What I mean is, everything in the location is going to be either combat or fetching missions for the one or two NPC-intensive areas of the game. Last time I did a fetching quest, it was terribly boring.

[metadigital]

That's not your fault; fed-ex tends to be kinda difficult to win favour with the players ...

[Pop]

That's not your fault; fed-ex tends to be kinda difficult to win favour with the players ...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hell, I wasn't too satisfied with it either. Go into decrepit pre-war dungeon area X and find parts Y and Z for the failing power plant. It was terrible to DM as much as I'm sure it was to play as a PC. So I cut most of it out, gave them the parts, and had them roleplay with some NPCs.

 

And that's the dilemma I have now. Without NPCs in most of the city, this entire part of the game is going to be that "find and bring back" deal, and some of it is necessary, but I'm restricted to it. I can do fetch quests a lot if NPCs are involved (convince man X to give up Y, or take it from him, etc.) but I can't do this here.

 

So I've realized through experience that this particular part of the game was definitely meant to be rendered by a PC, or at least a more skilled DM who can take the monotony of scavenger hunts. So either I can take a precious PnP DM liberty and change the location so that the salvagers aren't the only NPCs in the area, divert course from VB, or I can drastically reduce the size of the city and see if that helps.

 

So I'm thinking what I can do is, instead of having the salvagers as the sole inhabitants of the city, I could throw in some tribals and slavers (Fallout staples, and Slavers were in Denver anyway) and spread them out amongst the city, and have the groups intertwine with another through quests like the factions in the Boneyard (get quest from Regulators, get the real story from Blades, negotiate with the Gunrunners, fight the Regulators)

 

But if I do that, I might mess up the game more and deviate it more from the source material. That wouldn't normally bother me, but I want to ensure that at least most of the story and the endgame are intact when I play this.

 

Really, I'm just lucky I have dedicated players who are willing to feel through all this.

[metadigital]

Yeah, I was going to suggest something similar: instead of a "Quest" plot, to go and get rare item Q from some far-off and hard to get to place, or have the other D&D staple "Overcoming the Monster" plot with a big end-boss using it for a back-scratcher, you could just use a lot more politics. Multiple mutually-hostile groups who need to be dealt with, maybe get some to work together against a third, or bribe one group, or sneak in, rather than just kill 'em all.

[J.E. Sawyer]

Well, it's Fallout, there are no dungeons. What I mean is, everything in the location is going to be either combat or fetching missions for the one or two NPC-intensive areas of the game. Last time I did a fetching quest, it was terribly boring.

Any abandoned structure can effectively be a dungeon. My "salvagers" often went on simple fetch quests that were made very complicated by groups and events that interfered with their goals. When a fetch quest involves travel, you can throw almost anything in the way and get some interesting results. I usually had a handful of "random" encounters that I prepared ahead of time and launched on players as the mood/pace demanded it. It worked out pretty well.

 

E.g. the party got a job that involved going to San Francisco to find out what happened to another salvager, a friend of their employer. The "fast route" took them along I-80, east of Sacramento. They could go on the "long route", but they had no idea what nasty stuff was out there. On I-80, they knew what to expect: the 80s.

 

Sure enough, those dum-dums attacked the party and got smacked around pretty badly. Two of the guys were riding on a little SEC-powered motorcycle. One of the party members really wanted it, so he took it with him against the wishes of the others. When they reached Sacramento, they saw that it was a hive of scum and villainy (surprise).

 

The new motorcycle-owning PC decided to hide the motorcycle from view and drive it around the "north side" of Sacramento. Of course, since he had not been to Sac-town before, he did not know that it had been heavily booby-trapped by scumbags. Along the way, his bike hit a mine and blew up. He flew into the dry riverbed and was taken away by scumbags for interrogation. A mini-adventure evolved in which the other PCs made a rescue attempt and wound up blowing away a bunch of dudes.*

 

Outside of the fact that one of the 80s owned a motorcycle, none of the stuff that followed was planned for. I just made sure that I was confident enough in the setting that I could handle the PCs trying to do wacky things like that.

 

* Actually, they got terrified because a guy with a double-barrel shotgun was inside the house and could possible kill any one of them with a good close-range shot. Solution: throw three grenades in the windows and pray.

[Pop]

Well, it's Fallout, there are no dungeons. What I mean is, everything in the location is going to be either combat or fetching missions for the one or two NPC-intensive areas of the game. Last time I did a fetching quest, it was terribly boring.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Any abandoned structure can effectively be a dungeon. My "salvagers" often went on simple fetch quests that were made very complicated by groups and events that interfered with their goals. When a fetch quest involves travel, you can throw almost anything in the way and get some interesting results. I usually had a handful of "random" encounters that I prepared ahead of time and launched on players as the mood/pace demanded it. It worked out pretty well.

 

E.g. the party got a job that involved going to San Francisco to find out what happened to another salvager, a friend of their employer. The "fast route" took them along I-80, east of Sacramento. They could go on the "long route", but they had no idea what nasty stuff was out there. On I-80, they knew what to expect: the 80s.

 

Sure enough, those dum-dums attacked the party and got smacked around pretty badly. Two of the guys were riding on a little SEC-powered motorcycle. One of the party members really wanted it, so he took it with him against the wishes of the others. When they reached Sacramento, they saw that it was a hive of scum and villainy (surprise).

 

The new motorcycle-owning PC decided to hide the motorcycle from view and drive it around the "north side" of Sacramento. Of course, since he had not been to Sac-town before, he did not know that it had been heavily booby-trapped by scumbags. Along the way, his bike hit a mine and blew up. He flew into the dry riverbed and was taken away by scumbags for interrogation. A mini-adventure evolved in which the other PCs made a rescue attempt and wound up blowing away a bunch of dudes.*

 

Outside of the fact that one of the 80s owned a motorcycle, none of the stuff that followed was planned for. I just made sure that I was confident enough in the setting that I could handle the PCs trying to do wacky things like that.

 

* Actually, they got terrified because a guy with a double-barrel shotgun was inside the house and could possible kill any one of them with a good close-range shot. Solution: throw three grenades in the windows and pray.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks, Josh that helps a lot. I get where you're coming from. I need to "expand my mind".

 

Could you tell me about working under SIMPLE? How different is it from 2.0? We'll likely convert here soon. Thanks for keeping your wiki up to date! That's a lifesaver.

[Darque]

Convert?

[Pop]

Convert?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Indeed. I had started my campaign using Fallout PnP 2.0, which was okay for awhile, but as the scope of the game got bigger and more variables were introduced to the gameplay, it became more apparent that the system was more fitted to computers than DMs in a way that I couldn't handle well.

 

After I started the campaign, I learned about SIMPLE, and given that I have a few weeks of vacation break from the game I felt that it would be prudent to "convert" the game to the more PnP-friendly Sawyer treatment. It wouldn't harm the game in any great way, I'd just have to change a few things and remake some characters under the new system.

 

As is the case with any system switch, it's a little disconcerting and disorienting. But I'll probably get my players together and feel it out.

[Pop]

So I've ventured to "spice up" Denver a bit more, for lack of a better term.

 

I took Josh's suggestion and built off of what I had. The PCs have to acquire some generators and some medicine to get what the Salvagers have that they need. Getting the generators will be relatively easy, but I'm moving the Slaver population of the locale from a hotel to an old hospital. So getting the medicine will entail either fighting the Slavers or dealing with them.

 

But I'm torn on whether I should add in a third faction to the mix, so that dealing with the slavers to get the meds won't directly contradict working for the salvagers. Maybe take the easy way out and have the main slaver dude looking for a Denver vault or something, maybe having to do with the mind-control "CODE" system in VB (an ambitious way to control slaves). I can then tie this third faction in with said Vault (either coming from it, and tying into the Vault experiment and whatnot, or Tribals inhabiting it or something) and thus expand the RP potential of the locale even more.

 

Conversely, I could Khan up the slavers, and make them an adversaries over employers. Or I could leave that up to the players.

 

But I'm not sure how complicated I want to make this. I've been known to throw too much "Science!" hokum into the plotlines as a crutch, and generally overcooking everything. Maybe simplicity is the way to go. Sure, Denver is a big place in the game, but there are more important things that happen later in the setting (what happens in the design docs is waaaay too difficult for the PC's level), and I don't want to burn out the players on it.

[metadigital]

I think you would be well advised to add political complexity, rather than science ... a few different factions are good to play off against each other: even if you have one faction that everyone hates and is against, that still leaves a few little arguments as the other factions in "alliance" jostle for position.