What do you want to see in Fallout d20?

[gluttoncreeper]

This thread is for you to sound off on what you would like to see in Fallout PnP: Players Guide.



Now, Get in my Belly!


The Gluttoneous One

[Tensen01]

Definitely a Timeline

I'd like to know enough about that world that I wasn't having to wait for the other books for reference. This is a Setting afterall.

Oh, and this is probably a bit much, as you may not have the rights, but the "War never changes..." bit printed somewhere maybe the back hehe

[Drewskie]

Sort of like what Fallout: Tactics did with playable races. By the end, you could have ghouls, supermutants, or even a death claw in your party. They each had different modifiers to stats and other abilities, like the ghoul's resistance to radiation. You could have a party sort of like this in Fallout 2 as well, but the stats/character sheet in Tactics let you know exactly what was going on. So I suppose it would be human(nomad, vault dweller, gangster), ghoul, supermutant, robot, or death claw as options for races.

[Ausir]

Definitely not robots and deathclaws. The talking deathclaws are all dead (or should be), and most of us prefer them to remain mysterious, deadly beasts rather than yet another intelligent race. As for robots, the only ones with real intelligence were the brain bots - others were simple automated machines. Still, even if they *might* be playable with some effort, they'd be better left for some future expansions, and the three core races - humans, ghouls and super mutants should be in the main book.

As for my wishes, I hope you keep it true to the setting of the original games. Our Fallout wiki (The Vault) is the perfect source for that (and it's already being used by the Bethesda folks too):

http://falloutvault.com/i

[atoga]

Are traits (or anything resembling them) going to be implemented?

How are perks going to be implemented? I realize that perks are just going to be replaced by feats (there's no real difference), but my concern is that the feats in d20 are generally pretty mundane and underpowered when compared to the versatility of some of the perks in Fallout.

Are there going to be weapon/combat skills, or will everybody have the same attack bonus? What other skills will you introduce/remove?

Also, you should allow players to pick backgrounds and stuff at creation which affect starting skills/equipment/their general outlook on stuff. Things ranging from the mundane (mercenery, farmer, and so on) to the extreme (vault dweller, shaman in a tribe).

I'd also like to see a pretty faithful representation of the setting (Fallout 1 and 2), though the inclusion of things from the Wasteland setting might prove interesting (provided you're legally allowed to do that), since a lot of it is alluded to in Fallout 1; and while it's technically not 'canon', it fits with the atmosphere quite nicely.

[Drewskie]

Even if only optional I think they should lay out as many choices as possible. The player's handbook will be pretty thin if there are only 3 choices in there, though I suppose humans (and their organizations) should be the focus... gun runners, brotherhood of steel, children of the cathedral, hubologists... Which also begs the question of when in the Fallout timeline will the pnp game take place.

I'm trying to remember... the robot dog that could join. Did it have advanced AI or was it just a tinker toy?

[Ausir]

How are perks going to be implemented? I realize that perks are just going to be replaced by feats (there's no real difference), but my concern is that the feats in d20 are generally pretty mundane and underpowered when compared to the versatility of some of the perks in Fallout.

Grzegorz Ocetek, one of the designers, says that he's currently converting most of the perks from Fallout to d20 feats.

I'd also like to see a pretty faithful representation of the setting (Fallout 1 and 2), though the inclusion of things from the Wasteland setting might prove interesting (provided you're legally allowed to do that), since a lot of it is alluded to in Fallout 1; and while it's technically not 'canon', it fits with the atmosphere quite nicely.

No, Wasteland is being owned by Brian Fargo's compeny InXile, now. Anyway, while there are references to Wasteland in Fallout, it isn't the same setting. I wonder if Glutton Creeper has the license to Van Buren - they could add some background from there as well. While a lot of stuff in Fallout Tactics sucks, I think the general storyline can be considered canon as well, with some changes - as in "there is a fascistic branch of BOS somewhere in the Midwest), a technology cult called the Reavers etc, although it would be best if the main book focused on the Core Region (California, Nevada and Souhtern Oregon).

[atoga]

Which also begs the question of when in the Fallout timeline will the pnp game take place.

I think it should be kept ambiguous. A comprehensive timeline should be included of what races/groups was around when, where, how prevalent they were, how they interacted with other groups, etc. so that play could be accomodated at just about any point in time. (The same should be done for technology). Technology (and junk) is a huge part of Falluot so I'd like to see a lot of emphasis on the importance of the gear that the players have, as well as lots of salvaging junk and rules for building things if the players are skilled enough (this would be a good way to give skills a lot of importance).

And NO DOGS (robotic, talking, or otherwise - I remember at least one had AI, though, or was, at the least, really damn smart). Please. Weird, hard-to-roleplay races shouldn't exist in the core rules.

[Ausir]

As for races, I suppose they could be divided into "sub-races", to make up for the small number of races in the main rulebook - e.g. regular ghouls and glowing ghouls, dumb mutants and smart mutants (the latter ones with a level adjustment or something like that, to make up for their advantages), humans could be generally divided into "clean" ones (e.g. Vault Dwellers or the Enclave) - aquainted with high tech, but not adjusted very well to life outside (radiation, survival in the Wasteland), tribals, who are best suited to surviving on their own in the harsh environment, and the ones in between, who live in remnants of towns or towns made after the War, who use some technology and are somewhat adjusted to life in the Fallout world.

As for the setting, I think they do have to choose some point or area in the timeline, as otherwise various sourcebooks might be confusing. They should include information on various events in the history of the world, but most information should be about the default year or decade. I think setting it somewhat before Fallout 2, like in the 2230s, would work best.

[Matt_Helm]

I wonder if Glutton Creeper has the license to Van Buren

We've been told not to use anything from VB.

And NO DOGS (robotic, talking, or otherwise - I remember at least one had AI, though, or was, at the least, really damn smart). Please. Weird, hard-to-roleplay races shouldn't exist in the core rules.

Any dogs will be sidekicks like Dogmeat, not characters.

[Ausir]

Looking at the fan-made Fallout d20 by Elodious, I hope you don't make factions (like Reavers) into sub-races, like he did. Better to keep those things separate, and if you include human sub-races, they should be kept more generic (like in my example above). Including Beastlords as a sub-race, like he did, also was a bad idea, even though they are something of a sub-race, since

1) they were a bad idea in the first place
2) they were only found in the Illinois/Missouri area, a result of unique mutation caused by a unique kind of radiation in one cave complex, and the main book should focus on the Core Region
3) they were a bad idea in the first place
4) they were wiped out by the Eastern Brotherhood of Steel by the end of Tactics, which took place 40 years before Fallout 2
5) while psykers do exist in Fallout (some of them were in the Cathedral in FO1), they are a very rare mutation and all of them are mentally unstable (and the Beastlords weren't that sane either).

[King of Creation]

I'd really like to see an in-depth Brotherhood element to the game. Complex Brotherhood hierarchy, skills, traits, etc.

[Ausir]

Original Brotherhood of Steel, of course. While Tactics might be considered somewhat canon as far as the general plot goes, the fascistic Eastern BOS shouldn't be the focus here.

[Haris]

-Encounter table
-npc detailed list with xp gain, stats and so on
-worldmap

[Ausir]

Oh, and this is probably a bit much, as you may not have the rights, but the "War never changes..." bit printed somewhere maybe the back hehe

It should definitely be in the book's introduction .

[Drewskie]

I've always thought the Reavers were sort of redundant when you already have 3 powerful groups with lots of high tech weaponry: BOS, Enclave, Master's Army... and a 4th, the robots, if you want to include Tactics. In general, Fallout is supposed to be a low tech, sticks-n-stones world with all that tech a rarity.

The BOS recruitment process of Tactics was silly as well: take any nomad out of the wastes, put him in power armor, and give him a mini gun. It would be like the US Air Force putting me in a F-16 right now.

[King of Creation]

Yeah...Reavers shouldn't really be included. They were a dumb addition to the universe to begin with.

[Ausir]

Actually, I think the Reavers were OK - a technology-worshipping cult ain't that bad - but they definitely aren't a "subrace". The Beastlords (psychic tribals who controlled animals) were much sillier. And they aren't that redundant, since the BOS, while they revere ancient tech, they don't consider it sacred like the Reavers.

Anyway, around the time of Fallout 2, when I suppose FO d20 will be set by default, the Master's Army was no more (although it got divided into several factions, the largest of which wandered to the East), and the Tactics robots were no more, having been destroyed by the Eastern BOS.

[VasikkA]

Including the Enclave and the Master and his mutants depends a lot on during which time the game is set in the Fallout timeline. I'd rather see heavier emphasis on the more trivial wasteland wanderer types and perhaps ghouls. I don't like the idea of playable robots and deathclaws. BoS should definitely have a passive role, much like in Fallout and Fallout 2. I don't mean that you couldn't play as one, but that their nature wouldn't be as aggressive and expansionistic as in Tactics.

[atoga]

The reavers make sense, since technology is such an important part of the Fallout universe; it seems entirely plausible that people might worship technology in some sense and revere implants as holy and stuff like that. HOWEVER, they shouldn't actually have a pantheon of technology gods or anything (no "Sony God" or anything else silly like there was in Tactics). Essentially, it's a cool concept but the developers shouldn't go overboard with it.