A group based re-imagining of Fallout: New Vegas
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Cutting A Long Story Short
This roleplay will be heavily based on the New Vegas story line, but modified to allow for a group of caravan guards to replace the singular protagonist, aka the Courier, of the game. Consider this a co-op version, and a chance to play the character you never could due to the software's limitations.
Things will start in very much the same way. The group will have been part of a caravan, moving between Primm and Goodsprings when they stumbled into Benny's ambush of the Courier. Cutting a long story short, the Courier gets mowed down, and the caravan guards don't do too well either. Our characters all wake up in Doc Mitchel's house, as he and a few orderlies tend to our wounds and inform us of what's happened.
We then go searching for Benny to get some well earned revenge, loosely following the game's events as we do so.
All told, it should be an easy, casual affair, as the lore and the plot are already provided for us. All we have to do is aim a Fat Man at it and fire!
Cutting A Short Story Long
War. War never changes.
When atomic fire consumed the earth, those who survived did so in great, underground vaults. When they opened, their inhabitants set out across ruins of the old world to build new societies, establish new villages, forming tribes.
As decades passed, what had been the American southwest united beneath the flag of the New California Republic, dedicated to old-world values of democracy and the rule of law. As the Republic grew, so did its needs. Scouts spread east, seeking territory and wealth, in the dry and merciless expanse of the Mojave Desert. They returned with tales of a city untouched by the warheads that had scorched the rest of the world, and a great wall spanning the Colorado River.
The NCR mobilized its army and set it east to occupy the Hoover Dam, and restore it to working condition. But across the Colorado, another society had arisen under a different flag. A vast army of slaves, forged in the conquest of 86 tribes: Caesar's Legion.
Four years have passed since the Republic held the Dam - just barely - against the Legion's onslaught. The Legion did not retreat. Across the river, they gathered strength. Campfires burned, training drums beat.
Through it all, the New Vegas Strip has stayed open for business under the control of its mysterious overseer, Mr. House, and his army of rehabilitated Tribals and police robots.
You are one of a group of caravan guards, hired by a local trader to take them from Primm to New Vegas. However, your caravan happens upon a wide eyed and bloodied stranger, running down the road and begging you to save them.
You reached for you weapons, as the first bullets struck from the darkness.
***
Muzzle flashes light up the darkness of the surrounding rocky landscape. You and your comrades rush for cover, firing blindly in the direction of the ambushers. The person who had approached you for help, lays dead upon the road, pooling blood glinting in the moon light.
Breaking from the road, to find better cover, several of your comrades are shot in the back by your unseen opponents. The trader you were hired to defend, is already dead, slumped forwards by his pack Brahmin. For a second time you raise your weapon and fire in return, but whether or not you've hit anything is anyone's guess. Some of you manage to group behind a large boulder, and attempt to gauge the situation.
Footsteps sound from behind, in the darkness. You all turn, but are promptly riddled with bullets from an automatic weapon. Lead tears through flesh and crushes bone, and an orchestra of your cries of pain signal the end of the fighting. An eerie silence falls over the scene, and you manage to roll onto your back, fighting back the blood threatening to surge through your throat.
The dark night sky becomes darker still, as your vision leaves you. However, through blurry eyes you make out the image of a man, wearing a ridiculous pin-striped suit. He walks onto the road with casual swagger, a group of Great Khans at his back. The barrels of their weapons are smoking, and there's little doubt that these are the bastards that opened up on you.
The man in the suit kneels down by the headless stranger who had first called for your aid, and ruffles around in the deceased's pockets, coming away with something akin to a shiny poker chip. He notices you looking over at him, and in response, he flashes the smuggest punch-me-in-the-face smile you've ever seen.
You try to reach over to your weapon, but it's no use, your body is racked with the pain of a thousand broken glass shards. You become dizzy, nauseous.
The prick stands over you, looking down, still smiling. "Sorry you got twisted up in this scene," he says dismissively. He reaches into his suit jacket, and pulls out a decorative handgun. "From where you're laying it must seem like an 18-carat run of bad luck. Truth is...the game was rigged from the start."
He points the barrel at your head, and you close your eyes as he pulls the trigger.
A crash of thunder, a blinding light.
And then there was nothing.
Rules
I don't really need to list much here, I'm sure you all by now know the golden rules of Rping. Don't be a dick, don't upset people, don't god mod yada yada.
However, there are a few things I want to cover.
Upon creating your character, you will choose stats and skills as you would have in the game. There wont be a levelling system in this though, as that would be ridiculous, and there wont be time for a character to realistically learn new skills either, I don't think. So once you've chosen your key skills, that's it, no more. You choose guns, you can use guns. You choose lasers, you can use lasers. You choose pick locking, then you can pick lock.
Want to use a laser gun but didn't choose energy weapons? Tough, your guy/gal is going to suck at using it OR SO HELP ME GOD I'LL SPAWN A LEGENDARY DEATH CLAW ON THEM. Want to hack a computer but didn't choose it as a skill? Sorry, you just activated the nearby RobCo Molestorbot from the cupboard behind you, have fun with that :)
The same logic applies to stats. If you don't have enough strength to carry a weapon (will be using the game's weapon stats to determine that), then tough, you can't carry it properly. Didn't invest in agility? I don't think your guy/gal should be moving as fast as you're claiming.
But let's have a Q&A to add some more clarity to all of this.
Can I have two characters?
Yes.
So if I chose guns, repair and science, you're telling me my guy couldn't figure his way around a laser gun?
Kind of yes, but it depends on the context of the situation. If your guy picked one up from a fallen opponent or comrade in the heat of fighting, then we can be pretty happy that the weapon is at least in working order. However, your character wont be too familiar with the sight system, and probably wont know how to reload it-- or maybe would only know in theory (science!).
So yeah, in this situation your character could pick up that laser gun and point it at things and pull the trigger.
However, if the gun run out of ammo, you're going to be fumbling with the energy cells, and you wont reload it as quickly as someone who does know their way around them. Also, you might botch the reload, and turn it into a thermal hand grenade that goes boom the moment you pull the trigger.
My point is, your guy/gal could probably work out how one worked, but in the heat of fighting, their unfamiliarity with the weapon needs to be accounted for.
This same kind of philosophy applies to all skills. Someone who can't picklock, might be able to picklock a simple door from time to time, but the moment they tried it on something more advanced, they'd find themselves wholey inadequate to the task.
Same for medicine. Any dumb fool can use a stimpack, but a doctor is going to know how to use them much more effectively, giving much better results.
Who do we side with? Legion or the NCR?
Whoever you want!
What if there's a divide in opinion?
Then get your PvP sausages out, and I'll get my dice out. We'll resolve any player on player battles with some jury rigged dice rolls, if players cannot come to agreement.
Can I Kill NPCs?
Yes, UNLESS they are vital to the plot's progression. Once these particular NPCs have served their purpose, they become expendable though.
Do we have to follow the New Vegas storyline to the point?
Yes, and no. The idea is you all want to track down the guy who tried to kill you, and to do so, you need to find out who the Hell he was trying to kill in the first place, which will lead you to Primm, which will lead you to Nipton, so on, and so forth.
However, you don't need to go about it the same way, and you're free to embark on little side adventures.
What if no one knows what to do next?
I'll point players in the right direction, upon request.
Maps
NPCs
NPC interaction might pose an issue, as the characters will need to converse with them at certain points to further the plot. Now, there's no way I'm going to try and take on the living breathing world, because that would be boring as Hell, and frankly would take too much time.
Instead, we'll all share equal power over NPCs.
In conversations, I don't expect you to quote their dialogue from the game, but you may need to paraphrase it if they have information crucial to the plot's progression.
As for their mortality, kill or befriend at will! Don't like Sunny Smiles because she scorned your attempts at flirting? Blow her face off. I mean, the locals wont be too happy, and you'll end up having to fight your way out of the town- but hey, that's Fallout for you.
Although if you become too problematic, the other players might decide that the bullet did too much damage to your brain, and murder you.
As for bartering, players are free to handle this at will. Want to buy a weapon mod from Chet? Then just go and do it, but be reasonable. If we see you walking out of there with a Fat Man launcher, we'll castrate you.
Do your research, find out what traders sell what goods, and use that knowledge to back up your purchases.
Finding Items And You
How do we answer the age old question of players deciding when it's an appropriate time for their character to conveniently locate a weapon or armour upgrade?
I think the only real way to deal with this, is to beg everyone to be reasonable. I wont bar characters from finding goodies in locked chests, ruins or on corpses, but I wont encourage the kind of behaviour that sees them finding Li'l Devil after stepping outside of Doc Mitchell's house.
Keep your character as strong as the enemies you're running into, and don't become so powerfully equipped that you can one-man the Hidden Bunker.
When it comes to supplies, such as food and meds, I'm more lenient on this. Again though, it comes down to you guys being reasonable. I don't expect to see anyone lift up a rock and find twenty stimpacks.
If you'd like to find an item that has more significance to your character's story arc, than it does to them being OMFG unstoppable, then I'll give you free reign with this. A player asked me for example, if they'd be allowed to find a guitar. In this case, yeah, why not? It's not going to kill a Deathclaw, and it's not some kind of technology that puts the game at a bit of a slant.
But all in all, if you're unsure, it's always best to ask the question in the OOC. That way you know you wont be upsetting anyone!
"Hey guys can I find the Rat Slayer in here?"
"LOL NO"
":("
"JK"
":D"
