The Origins of Fallout, Part 2

Brother None

Brother None

This ghoul has seen it all
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In part 2 of R. Scott Campbell's writeup on the origins of Fallout, the game's lead designer explores the very first design and setting decisions, the core design principles, and the problems with GURPS later on.<blockquote>Another core decision that stemmed from our Role-Playing addiction was the idea of creating your own characters. Sure, most RPGs allow you to allocate attribute points and choose a male or female body – we wanted you to be able to create a character that allows you to play the way you want to play.

How do you want to play the game? Do you want to be the gun-wielding tough-guy? The buff melee brute? Maybe the stealthy assassin? The nimble guy who can’t be hit? Or maybe the guy who can talk anyone into anything? All of these choices (and any combination between them) must all be valid. By simply choosing from a few skills and abilities, you can tell us how you want to interact with the game.

This also meant that however a player specialized their character, they still had to be able to get through the game. Initially, I underestimated all the permutations that this decision actually meant. What if you had a character that was really good at persuasion, but not trained in combat? If a player wanted that kind of play experience, we had to deliver. Thus, those “Charisma-boy” characters can easily gain allies that fight for them, and are able to talk their way out of most situations in the game.

<center>Rule #4: Let the player play how he wants to play.</center></blockquote>
 
:clap: These are incredibly interesting to read! Thank you for Fallout, Scott Campbell, and for your memories!

I remember him looking up quizzically at me and saying, “Kids too? Do we really want to do that?”

I had a moment of indecision. I had visions of parents walking into little Timmy’s room and watching aghast as he mercilessly mows down a schoolyard of children with his chain-gun.

Thankfully I stuck to my beliefs and said, “Hell yeah.”
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Bravo! Guys like these are the true brave, committed developers I respect. There hardly seems to exist any like them these days.
 
A near future; one where the threat of war was becoming a reality. The only way to win a nuclear war? Have more survivors than the other guys! Thus, government creates underground city-sized fallout shelters – not just for the elite, as in most dystopian futures – but for as much of the populace as possible.
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Interesting how the franchise has strayed from this concept with the true purpose of the Vault and the whole experiment stuff.. not that I mind, every franchise changes during the years, it's just interesting to see how a lot of the ideas were conceived. :)
 
WorstUsernameEver said:
A near future; one where the threat of war was becoming a reality. The only way to win a nuclear war? Have more survivors than the other guys! Thus, government creates underground city-sized fallout shelters – not just for the elite, as in most dystopian futures – but for as much of the populace as possible.
Click to expand...

Interesting how the franchise has strayed from this concept with the true purpose of the Vault and the whole experiment stuff.. not that I mind, every franchise changes during the years, it's just interesting to see how a lot of the ideas were conceived. :)
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Indeed. I'd actually love if this whole 'Vault test' idea was gone. It makes the game seem a little bit... too fictional? I mean, on one hand the government tries to make Vaults for people to survive, that's hardcore realism. On the other, the government makes a test for its own nation, when in fact, the whole Earth could be doomed to be destroyed. Add on top of that this constant... government fear (like in Fallout 3's terminals). Makes the Old World look scary, something a game like Fallout, at least to me, shouldn't be doing.
 
Well, after Fallout 2 introduced it and Fallout 3 expanded upon it, I'm afraid this will be the mainstay of the series forever.
 
That's fine. Campbell's take is very Dr Strangelove-esque logic that was very real during the Cold War. A numbers game. It worked.

But personally I never felt the whole Vaults are experiments idea ruined anything. It's just a different take but it's on the same paranoia-driven, no respect for human life logic. It's just a question of how it's handled.
 
Well, the Fallout 3 wacky experiments were rather over the top, I think, although that wackiness started already in some of Chris Avellone's experiment descriptions in the Fallout Bible.
 
I am trying to persuade myself with the idea that not all vaults had been filled up with some strange experiment. There must have been some normal ones here and there.
 
Brother None said:
But personally I never felt the whole Vaults are experiments idea ruined anything. It's just a different take but it's on the same paranoia-driven, no respect for human life logic.
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One of the things that I really like about post-apocalypse and subsequently Fallout is this presence of the Old World ghost. It seems like a dream that will never come true, yet in the same time, there seems to be something that could ressurect it, make it come back to life. Haven't you this feeling when you explored West-Tek? Or visited the Brotherhood? This pre-War technology, lying in forms of holodisks, bulky terminals, this feeling of strict military discipline as you find old army-grade weapons and armor or talk with the Paladins in the BoS...

This idea was essentially a bit butchered down with the Vault experiments. Now the Old World ghost is more like a haunting type. It follows you everywhere, you understand that even with a storm coming right over their head they wanted to dictate, to make their citizens die for the 'greater good', chase them off on military trucks, with armed to the teeth robots and big-ass miniguns into a Soviet-style death penalty.

Once again, Tim Cain is the living proof everyone percieves the story differently. I suppose even we have various views on what the franchise needs.
 
I never wanted to imply that anything was ruined, and to be honest, I think that the test idea ultimately worked out better than just normal vaults in the end.

And yeah, the idea of a shadow government using Vaults as tests is pretty fictional, but so were the ideas behind the Mariposa base and the Master's plan. It's all how in you handle it, and yeah, Fallout 3 went overboard (mostly because a lot of the experiment never felt like they could have anything possible to do with the Enclave's master plan).
 
Lexx said:
I am trying to persuade myself with the idea that not all vaults had been filled up with some strange experiment. There must have been some normal ones here and there.
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There were 17 control Vaults scattered across the land. Plus, not every Vault experiment was lethal (vide Vaults 15, 21, 29 etc.)

The biggest part missing from the experiment is its purpose. If the eventual goal of the Enclave to colonize another planet was presented in the game, it'd elegantly bind together the entire program, as each experiment's results would allow for tailoring the environment and program routines onboard the space ship and later, in the colony).
 
A fascinating reading.
I just "tilt" about making every skill usefull.
One of the few things fallout 3 and NV managed better.
 
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