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This might be useful to those of you on PC. It shows the full dialogue instead of the "yes" "no" sarcastic" stuff.
http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/1235/?

And I liked one of the responses to this on reddit.

I want one that replaces all responses with "Hodor" so I have no idea what I'm going to say. It'll be about as good as the default system.

That could be really helpful. It is always frustrating when you choose one thing and then Wasteland Commander Shepherd says something crucially different.

However - I think Bethesda (and BioWare before them) do this on purpose as a way to encourage players to develop a consistent personality for their PCs. That way, when you do choose something other than the sarcastic option (if that's the one you usually choose) it seems like a bigger deal to you.

Really? Because I don't think players really need to be pushed in that regard. Most people do have a consistent character, often themselves. It's why it's a role-playing game, because people role-play. And people are naturally hypocrites, so allow them to be, and, if you are really clever, have their companions call them out on it. Allow people to experience things themselves, not be forced down a few narrow paths. Have lots of options, have maybes, have "I'll check it out first before agreeing", ect.

I personally dislike bioware RPGs as RPGs. Good games, just not good (western) RPGs. And it's depressing to see fallout go down that route. Especially as the fallout games (and it's pre-courser, Wasteland) and some of the grandfathers of the WRPG.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Really? Because I don't think players really need to be pushed in that regard. Most people do have a consistent character, often themselves. It's why it's a role-playing game, because people role-play. And people are naturally hypocrites, so allow them to be, and, if you are really clever, have their companions call them out on it. Allow people to experience things themselves, not be forced down a few narrow paths. Have lots of options, have maybes, have "I'll check it out first before agreeing", ect.

I personally dislike bioware RPGs as RPGs. Good games, just not good (western) RPGs. And it's depressing to see fallout go down that route. Especially as the fallout games (and it's pre-courser, Wasteland) and some of the grandfathers of the WRPG.

To me Bethesda and so on aren't really RPGs but more really easy pick your own adventure games, where 99% of the options are open to you regardless of character, attitude or past actions. Really their games are more about you becoming a god in the world they provide and less about player decisions and consequence.

I agree with what you are saying. They are certainly very weak RPGs. But that is what the majority want at the end of the day. Like my friends say, they just enjoy being told where to go, what to kill and then get better stuff for it. This is the reason character creation is dying off, the reason for immortal characters and the huge lack of player urgency or consequence. More importantly it's also why writing gets weaker, not enough people actually care ebout it all that much beyond the reason they have to kill things. It's simply not what people want anymore.

Thankfully there is still a market for RPGs like Wasteland and Divinity original sin being the latest ones.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
This might be useful to those of you on PC. It shows the full dialogue instead of the "yes" "no" sarcastic" stuff.
http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/1235/?

And I liked one of the responses to this on reddit.

I want one that replaces all responses with "Hodor" so I have no idea what I'm going to say. It'll be about as good as the default system.

If anyone has played Alpha Protocol they won't find FO4's dialogue so bad in comparison haha. That game was horrible with that issue, you think you're about to compliment someone and you actually say something really insulting, and because you can't stop during the conversations it just snowballs and gets worse and worse when all you were trying to say was "Hi, thanks for that". I haven't had that happen in FO4 yet at least ha.

I used to think the same way and KSed Wasteland 2 for that reason. But when the rubber met the road, it was just too much effort for too little payoff IMO. I like something a lot more casual these days so FO4 really fits the bill. In some ways, it is a little too high maintenance even. I really hate having to babysit the settlements and most often ignore them. When the game introduced the whole thing to me, the "make me a bed, now make me this and make me that" series of tutorial quests, I was already pretty sick of it. What's next, chew my food? This is a post-apoc wasteland, how did you giant babies ever make it this far?

As for what roleplaying means ... I think folks are taking that too much for granted. In the Western sense, roleplaying means that you create a character (a person, not a set of stats) and play that character consistently. In the Japanese sense, roleplaying means you take on a preexisting role and try to see the story through that character's eyes. BioWare has created an East-meets-West hybrid, where you have very limited wiggle room to customize a pre-written character's personality. With FO4, Bethesda has largely adopted that model.

The alternative, as seen in Skyrim, is a game where you the player have to bring the character to the table and it often feels like the setting is unaware of you/doesn't care (even when you save the effing world!). Obviously, both have issues. I tend to prefer the more Western style of Skyrim, with its faults. (I do not really like BioWare's games, either.) But I am still enjoying FO4 a lot even if I would have preferred an unvoiced PC with a vaguer background.

As to your PC being an avatar of yourself ... I guess that is a lot of folks' default assumption but I think that is the wrong approach for a Bethesda game. I always have more fun with a Bethesda game when I think up a character before playing and then try to play that character really consistently.

But I am super glad I don't have to painstakingly read endless reams of text for minute details that need to be handwritten down on paper notes in order to know what the hell I am supposed to do in Quest #275, a la Wasteland 2.

Manchu wrote:
I used to think the same way and KSed Wasteland 2 for that reason. But when the rubber met the road, it was just too much effort for too little payoff IMO. I like something a lot more casual these days so FO4 really fits the bill. In some ways, it is a little too high maintenance even. I really hate having to babysit the settlements and most often ignore them. When the game introduced the whole thing to me, the "make me a bed, now make me this and make me that" series of tutorial quests, I was already pretty sick of it. What's next, chew my food? This is a post-apoc wasteland, how did you giant babies ever make it this far?

As for what roleplaying means ... I think folks are taking that too much for granted. In the Western sense, roleplaying means that you create a character (a person, not a set of stats) and play that character consistently. In the Japanese sense, roleplaying means you take on a preexisting role and try to see the story through that character's eyes. BioWare has created an East-meets-West hybrid, where you have very limited wiggle room to customize a pre-written character's personality. With FO4, Bethesda has largely adopted that model.

The alternative, as seen in Skyrim, is a game where you the player have to bring the character to the table and it often feels like the setting is unaware of you/doesn't care (even when you save the effing world!). Obviously, both have issues. I tend to prefer the more Western style of Skyrim, with its faults. (I do not really like BioWare's games, either.) But I am still enjoying FO4 a lot even if I would have preferred an unvoiced PC with a vaguer background.

As to your PC being an avatar of yourself ... I guess that is a lot of folks' default assumption but I think that is the wrong approach for a Bethesda game. I always have more fun with a Bethesda game when I think up a character before playing and then try to play that character really consistently.

But I am super glad I don't have to painstakingly read endless reams of text for minute details that need to be handwritten down on paper notes in order to know what the hell I am supposed to do in Quest #275, a la Wasteland 2.

This is pretty much what I was trying to say, I just didn't want to say casual (otherwise Id sound a bit too high and mighty).

I tend to use the word traditional RPG. Technically all video games make you play a role (role playing). The problem with Skyrim is you don't have a character at the beginning of the game, you have a blank slate. Your character could have been a farmer before hand but this means nothing to your character because he has nothing to show for it. In skyrim you start off as an articulate adult baby. In some ways this could be fun, but in terms of Roleplaying it sort of negates your characters past having anything to do with your current self.

Again, lack of consequence, choice and decision making since it could inconvenience the player later on.

I role-play a character as well (the same one mostly, she's been my character for god know how long), but I'm super limited even in that. That's the problem, those constraints. Now I like JRPGs as well, FFIV is one of my favorite games of all time, for example. But actual WRPGs are getting few and far between. I don't want to loose what few w big ones we have left.

As far as the quests are concerned, that's easily solved by having another list along side of that that lists all the things you need to do with bullet points, and then markers on the map (depending on what type of quest/game it is). That allows you to have an in-depth story and dialogue system, while at the same time, not having to experience the bs that was morrowind's questing system (i.e., practically non-existent, they just gave you loads of stuff in your journal).

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I role-play a character as well (the same one mostly, she's been my character for god know how long), but I'm super limited even in that. That's the problem, those constraints. Now I like JRPGs as well, FFIV is one of my favorite games of all time, for example. But actual WRPGs are getting few and far between. I don't want to loose what few w big ones we have left.

As far as the quests are concerned, that's easily solved by having another list along side of that that lists all the things you need to do with bullet points, and then markers on the map (depending on what type of quest/game it is). That allows you to have an in-depth story and dialogue system, while at the same time, not having to experience the bs that was morrowind's questing system (i.e., practically non-existent, they just gave you loads of stuff in your journal).

Id rather have the option for both. For Oblivion, I always wished the quest log was detailed so I could simply turn off the "go here" markers and so on. Instead im forced to follow markers for most quests which takes out most of the thought. I'd much rather have loads of stuff in my Journal then simply read what I have to do then figure it out. Otherwise im not doing anything, im just moving here to there. There is no option for both.

 Swastakowey wrote:
In some ways this could be fun, but in terms of Roleplaying it sort of negates your characters past having anything to do with your current self.

With Skyrim, it is up to you the player to decide who your character is before the game begins. Most people don't get this or even care. Some people do care but don't get it and they end up frustrated. Skyrim may not be a really "hard" game in the sense of Wasteland 2 (how much of this text dump can you remember???), it actually doesn't do everything for you. It doesn't tell you why your character would or would not do anything that she or he could do in this setting, for example. That is up to the player. And if you never take that into account, Skyrim is bound to feel a bit pointless because you have forgotten to do the roleplaying.

With FO3 and to and even larger extent in FO4, you are one of two people: [Male Sole Survivor] or [Female Sole Survivor]. (On the plus side that is twice as many playable characters as there are in Mass Effect, given Shepherd's gender is irrelevant.) The story of these people is already written and you mostly just play it out. You can do it with a bit of snark or pleasantly. And you can fight at different "volumes" (sneaky quiet or in-their-face loud or somewhere between). But on balance, those are not really meaningful choices when it comes to who a person is, what drives them, what they want out of life.

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I role-play a character as well (the same one mostly, she's been my character for god know how long), but I'm super limited even in that. That's the problem, those constraints. Now I like JRPGs as well, FFIV is one of my favorite games of all time, for example. But actual WRPGs are getting few and far between. I don't want to loose what few w big ones we have left.

As far as the quests are concerned, that's easily solved by having another list along side of that that lists all the things you need to do with bullet points, and then markers on the map (depending on what type of quest/game it is). That allows you to have an in-depth story and dialogue system, while at the same time, not having to experience the bs that was morrowind's questing system (i.e., practically non-existent, they just gave you loads of stuff in your journal).

Id rather have the option for both. For Oblivion, I always wished the quest log was detailed so I could simply turn off the "go here" markers and so on. Instead im forced to follow markers for most quests which takes out most of the thought. I'd much rather have loads of stuff in my Journal then simply read what I have to do then figure it out. Otherwise im not doing anything, im just moving here to there. There is no option for both.

That's what I mean, have both. Use the journal system from Morrowind (it both details what the player has done/seen/heard, and you could filter it by quest) and then have a the more modern question system on, with the bullet points of what you have to do, and having the option to use magical floating arrows. And then you have stuff like that one spell from skyrim that showed you the direction to you goal, so you could have a role-play reason for you able to magically find things.

Manchu wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
In some ways this could be fun, but in terms of Roleplaying it sort of negates your characters past having anything to do with your current self.

With Skyrim, it is up to you the player to decide who your character is before the game begins. Most people don't get this or even care. Some people do care but don't get it and they end up frustrated. Skyrim may not be a really "hard" game in the sense of Wasteland 2 (how much of this text dump can you remember???), it actually doesn't do everything for you. It doesn't tell you why your character would or would not do anything that she or he could do in this setting, for example. That is up to the player. And if you never take that into account, Skyrim is bound to feel a bit pointless because you have forgotten to do the roleplaying.

With FO3 and to and even larger extent in FO4, you are one of two people: [Male Sole Survivor] or [Female Sole Survivor]. (On the plus side that is twice as many playable characters as there are in Mass Effect, given Shepherd's gender is irrelevant.) The story of these people is already written and you mostly just play it out. You can do it with a bit of snark or pleasantly. And you can fight at different "volumes" (sneaky quiet or in-their-face loud or somewhere between). But on balance, those are not really meaningful choices when it comes to who a person is, what drives them, what they want out of life.

If you are a farmer for 20 years, grew up on a farm and all you know is farming would that or would that not effect your current character? Most RPGs have a character creation which means when you make the character (background and all) you can make a character that reflects the past you gave him. This is roleplaying. Skyrim ignores this part of roleplaying. I

I don't like FO3 etc because they are terrible RPG games, but at least FO3 had gaps in your past so you could make up what your character did and so on and change their stats to reflect this. This is Roleplaying, you can then leave and ignore your dad etc just like skyrim, but despite being a bad game (in my opinion) at least you could make your past reflect your current situation.

I think you are confusing writing a character backstory with roleplaying. I see this kind of confusion all the time when it comes to tabletop roleplaying. Some players want to write this extensive backstory. It's not a good idea because it tends to put too many arbitrary limits on how the character can develop and IME the way the PC develops in play is often completely different than what the player had in mind, creating unnecessary frustration. It is much better to come to the game with a thumbnail sketch and leave the rest to actually roleplaying the character out during the game. The same advice completely applies to Skyrim.

It is perfectly possible to start Skyrim with the idea that your PC has been a farmer for the past 20 years. It would then be up to you take into account how someone with that general backstory would approach being marooned, as it were, away from their home and caught up in the itinerant lifestyle of an adventurer. Maybe you are also thinking about stats? IMO, Skyrim assumes that whatever you did before was statistically inconsequential. Your real life, your destiny as an adventurer, begins when the game begins. (But assigning points to attributes and skills is not roleplaying; that's just character sheet accounting.)

It is not, in it'self, role-play, but it is often influenced by such. Let's use special stats for this example, if I want my character to be someone who is super smart, but is very shy, nervous around peopel, ect, I'll give him high I but low C. So the more options the better in that ragurd.


Although I agree that backstory isn't essential to role-play (as you write your own over time, and set/train your skills/stats accordinly). I am fine with basically being a gormless schmuck who happened to be in the right place at the right time and actually prefer that to you being the chosen one or something, ala FO3. Especially when, even though they know you are the one hope for the world to survive, they still treat you like dirt, ala TESV.

Manchu wrote:
I think you are confusing writing a character backstory with roleplaying. I see this kind of confusion all the time when it comes to tabletop roleplaying. Some players want to write this extensive backstory. It's not a good idea because it tends to put too many arbitrary limits on how the character can develop and IME the way the PC develops in play is often completely different than what the player had in mind, creating unnecessary frustration. It is much better to come to the game with a thumbnail sketch and leave the rest to actually roleplaying the character out during the game. The same advice completely applies to Skyrim.

It is perfectly possible to start Skyrim with the idea that your PC has been a farmer for the past 20 years. It would then be up to you take into account how someone with that general backstory would approach being marooned, as it were, away from their home and caught up in the itinerant lifestyle of an adventurer. Maybe you are also thinking about stats? IMO, Skyrim assumes that whatever you did before was statistically inconsequential. Your real life, your destiny as an adventurer, begins when the game begins. (But assigning points to attributes and skills is not roleplaying; that's just character sheet accounting.)

That makes no sense? Part of Roleplaying is making choices and then finding out how to make the most of those while roleplaying. How does removing any form of meaningful choices (not make believe choices like in Skyrim) harm roleplaying? Yes it may mean your character can't use a computer or pick up an energy weapon and use it well later on but thats because your character chose not to. Sure you can learn to use it but you will always be way behind a character that's used energy weapons his whole life.

Removing this crucial element of character building ignores your characters life until that point. In terms of Skyrim this means your character is nothing except for a name and race when you start, all those years of farming did nothing for your strength, or all those years as a math professor did nothing for your intelligence. All of a sudden your choice to be a farmer before you started your adventure means 0 on the impact your character has in the game. What the game is saying is basically your character means nothing, just do what you want, it doesnt matter.

It is roleplaying to make a character. Creating his story, his mental and physical capabilities and the skills he gained over his life until that point is creating the character and how he will play. His life before the adventure should effect how he behaves just like my upbringing effects how I behave and the skills and traits of my character. What happened to me at 5 isn't determined by what I do tomorrow, it has happened and cannot be created during the game.

The reason character creation is ignored now is so the player doesn't feel annoyed by his previous choices AKA lack of consequence. It does nothing to enhance roleplaying at all not having it, but does everything to enhance roleplaying (unless you want to be godlike and do as you please, but even then I can't see how having character creation prevents this).

How do you get a dead raider out of a power armor frame?
Also, how do you build houses? It never works right for me.

Lack of consequence is something that really annoys me. Especially with essential characters. Make then kill-able, and do your best to allow the main story to continue regardless. For the man skyrim story, for example, plenty of those characters are not 100% required for the story to continue, they could make ways around them. It'll be more difficult, but, hey, that's what you get for killing them (your consequence). Although there is the problem with characters being killed by betheda buggyness, but that's also solved by making previously essential characters only kill-able by the player. Have them go into that "down but not out" thing that they do anyway, and if they get hit in that state by a player, they die, but otherwise not.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
How do you get a dead raider out of a power armor frame?
Also, how do you build houses? It never works right for me.

You can't at this point (AFAIK) but if you can hit their fusion core (or pickpocket it from them) they'll pop out. I think it counts as stealing if you take it though.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Lack of consequence is something that really annoys me. Especially with essential characters. Make then kill-able, and do your best to allow the main story to continue regardless. For the man skyrim story, for example, plenty of those characters are not 100% required for the story to continue, they could make ways around them. It'll be more difficult, but, hey, that's what you get for killing them (your consequence). Although there is the problem with characters being killed by betheda buggyness, but that's also solved by making previously essential characters only kill-able by the player. Have them go into that "down but not out" thing that they do anyway, and if they get hit in that state by a player, they die, but otherwise not.

I agree, it's like in Skyrim being able to join the thieves and the companions guild with 100% no worries or danger of them finding out or Fallout 3 being evil but still having to do the main story a good way etc. The actions don't seem to change the world very much or effect what you can and cant do as time goes on. In terms of NPC not dying, this is in place because the story cannot be completed in many ways. Since they don't want the player to miss out on doing things they simply make certain NPCs immortal instead of coming up with multiple methods of completing quests etc. This is also why they god rid of many skills, since you are pushed by the game to solve through killing 99% of the time and the story does not require other skills so removing them hides this issue somewhat.

@Swatakowey:

Roleplaying is a matter of your character's POV, not his stats. And coming up with that POV is not roleplaying, either; rather, it's the condition upon which roleplaying is possible. I can prove it actually by using JRPGs or even FO4 as examples: in those games, your PC's backstory is pre-written. The roleplaying part starts when the game starts. The same is true of tabletop D&D or indeed Skyrim. Assigning stats is also not roleplaying; for reference, many tabletop RPGs from the beginning have used randomly rolled stats ... which you then roleplay.

Why did CRPGs have such extensive chargen options in the past? The answer has nothing to do with roleplaying. It was a kind of mini game that you played before the real game. And you got to see how well you did at the mini game by playing the real game. You could totally feth up chargen and really struggle in the game. If you think back to what that was actually like, you'd spend so much time before you ever started playing just poring over all of the stats and wondering how all the mechanics would work in practice. Recent games like Demons Souls (a Japanese take on Western RPGs) are super dumb in this respect, as they barely even explain to the player what anything does. So then you have to play a mini game called google search before you can play the mini game called chargen before you can play the actual game called Demons Souls.

Companies like Bethesda cut this nonsense because thankfully they understand that most players would rather just get into playing the actual game rather than jump all these hurdles that are just there to give you the opportunity to feth yourself over before you ever even start playing. All this junk has zero whatsoever to do with roleplaying.

Manchu wrote:
@Swatakowey:

Roleplaying is a matter of your character's POV, not his stats. I feel like this is splitting hairs a bit but coming up with that POV is not roleplaying; rather, it's the condition upon which roleplaying is possible. I can prove it actually by using JRPGs or even FO4 as examples: in those games, your PC's backstory is pre-written. The roleplaying part starts when the game starts. The same is true of tabletop D&D or indeed Skyrim. Assigning stats is also not roleplaying; for reference, many tabletop RPGs from the beginning have used randomly rolled stats ... which you then roleplay.

Why did CRPGs have such extensive chargen options in the past? The answer has nothing to do with roleplaying. It was a kind of mini game that you played before the real game. And you got to see how well you did at the mini game by playing the real game. You could totally feth up chargen and really struggle in the game. If you think back to what that was actually like, you'd spend so much time before you ever started playing just poring over all of the stats and wondering how things played out. Games like Demons Souls are super dumb in this respect, as they barely even explain to the player what anything does. So then you have to play a mini game called google search before you can play the mini game called chargen before you can play the actual game called Demons Souls.

Companies like Bethesda cut this nonsense because thankfully they understand that most players would rather just get into playing the actual game rather than jump all these hurdles that are just there to give you the opportunity to feth yourself over before you ever even start playing. All this junk has zero whatsoever to do with roleplaying.

Your whole history is not written, just some of it. Was your character a baseball thrower in Fallout 3? If so you can increase the throwing skill etc. This means your Roleplaying has effected and changed the game before it even started. It has everything to do with roleplaying. When you have happy fun time with your wife and decide to roleplay, you create a character (AKA a role) and then play it out. If you however said 'Nah lets just be nothing and see where it leads" you aren't doing any sort of roleplaying, you just doing an event.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing

With no character or role to begin with, you aren't really roleplaying.

A role-playing game is a game in which the participants assume the roles of characters and collaboratively create stories. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterisation, and the actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines. Within the rules, they may improvise freely; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the games.

Without character building or role construction you are left with only one aspect of Roleplaying and that is creating a story (since it's a video game you are completing a story but this is inherent weakness of video games etc). Fallout is weak (really weak) on the RPG scale . It's really just a sandbox shooter. This is not a bad thing at all really if that's what you like, but it's certainly not a good RPG. Character creation is essential to creating a role then playing it out.

It sounds like your issue with role playing is you don't like being tied to a role and or don't like the mechanics of creating a role and playing it.

Ok, I am in awe of the genius who wrote the USS Constitution part of the game. I've only just started it and met the captain, but, yeah, amazing.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Ok, I am in awe of the genius who wrote the USS Constitution part of the game. I've only just started it and met the captain, but, yeah, amazing.

Spoiler:

Just the sight of a sentry bot with a captain's hat sealed the deal, I was totally not expecting a sentry bot, but the hat totally sells it.

Wait till you finish the quest. I want to know what all the companions have to say about it afterwards. Piper echoed my thoughts exactly.

 Swastakowey wrote:
With no character or role to begin with, you aren't really roleplaying.

We haven't talked about a single game in which you don't start with a character. Just because you don't get to do a full on skill point assignment extravaganza at the beginning of these games doesn't mean you don't start with a character.

Manchu wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
With no character or role to begin with, you aren't really roleplaying.

We haven't talked about a single game in which you don't start with a character. Just because you don't get to do a full on skill point assignment extravaganza at the beginning of these games doesn't mean you don't start with a character.

So Skyrim begins with a character? It begins with a skin not a character. Unless for you a skin is a character? More like a player token I suppose.

Skyrim has the same amount of character to roleplay from as your Star Wars battlefront skin in the latest game. Appearance and skin.

What I am saying is, the player supplies the character. Before I start a new PC in Skyrim, I have a think about the backstory. So for example, my last character was a Nord nationalist who returned to Skyrim to join up with the Stormcloaks. She wasn't captured by accident; she was there to get recruited. Having a character is as simple as that. Of course, that all exists outside of the video game. It has to be supplied by me as the player. And it has to be lived out by me playing the game. To the extent that I play the game according to what my PC would do rather than as my own avatar, that is roleplaying.

In FO4, I take on a largely predetermined role: my character is either an ex-soldier or a lawyer-to-be. Thanks to Vault-Tec, I am two hundred years out of time. I have a son named Shaun who was taken from me. My spouse was murdered by the kidnapper. The most important thing in my life, no matter if I try to run from it or not, is finding Shaun. That is a big contrast to Skyrim, where Alduin's return may be the most important thing going on in the world, along with Ulfrik's rebellion, but neither of those things is necessarily the most important thing to my character.

Importantly, in neither scenario do I lack a character simply because I don't have to spend time mastering the mini game of 1990s-style CRPG chargen.

Manchu wrote:
What I am saying is, the player supplies the character. Before I start a new PC in Skyrim, I have a think about the backstory. So for example, my last character was a Nord nationalist who returned to Skyrim to join up with the Stormcloaks. She wasn't captured by accident; she was there to get recruited. Having a character is as simple as that. Of course, that all exists outside of the video game. It has to be supplied by me as the player. And it has to be lived out by me playing the game. To the extent that I play the game according to what my PC would do rather than as my own avatar, that is roleplaying.

In FO4, I take on a largely predetermined role: my character is either an ex-soldier or a lawyer-to-be. Thanks to Vault-Tec, I am two hundred years out of time. I have a son named Shaun who was taken from me. My spouse was murdered by the kidnapper. The most important thing in my life, no matter if I try to run from it or not, is finding Shaun. That is a big contrast to Skyrim, where Alduin's return may be the most important thing going on in the world, along with Ulfrik's rebellion, but neither of those things is necessarily the most important thing to my character.

Importantly, in neither scenario do I lack a character simply because I don't have to spend time mastering the mini game of 1990s-style CRPG chargen.

Again, back to original point this makes skyrim etc a weak RPG game because your roleplaying has little effect on the game. It''s also as strong of a roleplay as starwars battlefront. Both have the progression part (creating a story) but they lack in the create a role and play it out within the limits etc of the world.

FO4 is a better RPG than Skyrim, but is also a weak RPG because it limits the creating a character/role stage hugely.

Now if you like sandbox games, then having what you think of your character do ntohing but determine what you feel like doing, then thats cool. But an RPG has you create a role, then play that role as per your creation, then follow through by creating a story as you play. The more vague (or in skyrims case non existent) the character creation, the weaker the RPG. Because the weaker the first 2 elements are.

Again, bethesda etc makes very weak RPG games as their games barely scrape through the RPG tick list (sometimes ignoring it completely) and is more of a hybrid of first person shooters with a story and open world adventure. You can role play in your head to any game... that does not change the game.

Your Battlefront example is pretty telling. That setting cannot accommodate roleplaying. Skyrim, however, is explicitly designed to do exactly that.

So, it appears FO4 kinda suffers from the same problem as FO:NV in terms of endings, in that all but one of the endings are basically the same (having completed 3 of the 4 so far).

I have grown wings and become an angel of death:

I'm getting some bad gliches with the Jetpack. Exhaust clouds being imprinted on the screen, and it depleting my core when I'm not using it/moving at all. It just drains power as if it were on...

How do you have 47 cores?? I'm still slumming with 16.