Fallout Wastelands v2.0

A one-page document with each mechanic in a single sentence is what I'd want.

>>Action points
This was something the CRPG stole from the Jagged Alliance CRPG series and it just never went away.

The sprint is good, the idealized countermeasure in real life would be to wait until the enemy is within 10' and then empty a SMG clip into him.

>A one page document with each mechanic in a single sentence is what I'd want.

I will work on something like that for our next post. Seems like a good way to get attention without asking for an hour+ of someone's time.

The main mechanic is the TEST, wherein you roll a d100 and try to meet or roll beneath a certain number on your character sheet, normally a Skill.

DEGREES OF SUCCESS/FAILURE are ranks of success or failure, and one is gained for every 10 points above or below your target number you roll.

A CONTEST is simliar to a Test, but is between two creatures and is determined by the most Degress of Success.

A STAT is one of the 7 SPECIAL Stats and determines your character's natural abilities.

A SKILL is one of the 18 different abilities a character can train in and are originally calculated based on Stats. Most Tests revolve around Skills.

An ATTACK is a Skill Test made with one of the weapon Skills vs a target, Armor Class is reduced from the attacker's Skill.

ACTION POINTS (AP) determine how many actions a creature can take.

Everything is more or less derived from one of those things or are fairly self explanatory (Hit Points, etc.).

>Action points
Alternatively, the way I handled it in the Fallout campaign I was working on was that weapon skill determines the number of times you can attack with a weapon per turn. By dividing the character's skill by the weapon's attack cost you get how many attacks they can make per turn. Attack cost is low for things like self loading pistols or unarmed weapons and larger for things like single action pistols, bolt action rifles or rebar clubs. This calculation only ever needs to be performed when your character gets a new weapon or increases their skills, you can just write on the character sheet next to the weapon how many attacks per action they get with it.

The biggest downside is that, just as Action Points reward stacking AG, this system rewards stacking weapon skills. It ultimately just shifts the problem from one part of the character sheet to another, meaning that while it solves the problem of melee being inferior to guns from an action economy perspective, it doesn't solve the issue that maxing something out allows you to do more in a turn, which is more useful than anything else.

One idea I toyed with was making Action Points increase every couple levels. It might be a good way to make high level foes dangerous without just making them meat-tanks or upping their armor and weapon damage (beyond what's reasonable).

>dumping CHA
It's a sad state of affairs, but this has been the optimal strategy in every Fallout game, and in almost every other RPG, both computer and tabletop. I'll try to find the post by the Into the Odd guy where he lists a bunch of ways to make it matter more beyond just 'reaction rolls' and the number of followers you can have. Stuff like using it to determine which character gets targeted by enemies, or as a proxy for mental "willpower" in the same way Endurance measures the ability to withstand physical threats.

>AP
We're using an NPC system loosely based on Retropocalypse and the enemies get bonus AP at higher ranks to help make them more dangerous and keep the action economy on their side.

>CHA
Yeah, I agree. We added "Nerve" (loosely based on the companion mechanic from NV) and combined it with END for a sort of "catch-all" saving throw. Useful for morale tests, addiction (since it's as much a psychological thing as it is physical) and in Melee combat a creature has to succeed on a Nerve Test after getting hit or be knocked prone. The currently calculation is 5 x (END + CHA), which averages out at 50%.

Found it

soogagames.blogspot.com/2016/04/a-place-for-wil.html

Describe for us a campaign you ran using the system

Not sure if this answers your question, but I'm running my players through a mjrder investigation in New Orleans circa 2228. So far it's been a fairly even mix of combat and non-combat encounters (leaning more heavily toward combat). They've got a solid idea as to who killed the victim, now it's just a matter of catching them.

It's been interspersed with a mix of side quests they've been pursuing both as a group and individually. I've got a screen cap somewhere I can post once I find it.

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>The Overseer should then attempt the character’s Sneak Skill Test in secret and reroll every minute when outside of combat

This is lame. Outside of combat doing things shouldn't require constant skill checks. Roll once and 'let it ride' until something changes that would make the character harder or easier to detect.

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dident josh sawyer make a fallout pnp rpg

Yes, it's what Van Buren was going to be based on, and there are bits and pieces of it in New Vegas.

So, I'm currently running a Fallout PnP campaign. And my fucking players are driving me to drink.

We have:

A vault dweller who overthinks trivial details

A former New Reno Capo who is the only one with any semblance of firearms skills. Also, he can't aim worth shit.

An ex-NCR soldier who is basically psychotic hobo Punisher. (MUH FAMILY IS DEAD. REEEEEEE)

and a ghoul mechanic who is about as socially capable as cardboard cutout.

So, to reiterate, 4 players, only one player with any sort of gunplay, everyone else is either melee or repair and "social".

Can't wait until they run into their first Cazador swarm.

They've cleared out a cave with some viper gunslingers in it, and saved some hostages. Then proceeded to ask the hostages what exactly happened to get them all captured in the first place, didn't actually loot like half the cave (the cave had like 2 rooms in it), and then left.

Found an abandoned merc fort, found out that the mercs inside killed each other over a gun, took the gun, and then I basically flat out told them that they have to ..you know, loot areas to gain equipment and treasure.

and these people aren't new to RPGs. But, for some reason, the concept of looting a dungeon doesn't translate into Fallout?

That's likely a rule from that we haven't tweaked. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

The Investigate, Athletics, and Pilot Skills came from JE Sawyer's RPG. We've been drawing from an assortment of sources after getting the baseline from Jason Mical's 1 & 2 TTRPG to round out the game.

Bumpan' with some story time. Feel free to share your own Fallout stories

I'm currently running a game in Louisiana. The city is run by southern aristocrat ghouls while power armor wearing descendants of the New Orleans Saints do their best to police the city. Two gangs -one mafia styled, the other militant jazz musicians- are doing their damndest to tear New Orleans apart while a secretive resistance group is building up to overthrow the Aristocracy.
Outside of the city a Vault designed to hold an army for the pre-War government's return to glory is stepping up its "sweeps" on the surrounding region and the Brotherhood of Steel just passed the LA/TX border and settled into another Vault.

The players are a noir-style detective with a Med-X addiction and a desire to do right by people in a shithole city (Osiris Caine), a young Psyker from an experimental Vault far removed from the Bayou (Corban) who sort of got sucked into all of this, a sniper who is unknowingly a synth (less FO4 synth, more "Boys from Brazil with cybernetic augmentations") (Wesker), and a weirdo who's not quite a tribal, but not exactly civilized either (Jamahl). They are investigating the murder of a Doctor and chasing down a pair of religious fanatics who seem to want to bring about some sort of cleansing to New Orleans.

So our story begins in 2228 with Detective Caine filling out some paperwork so he can renew his Med-X prescription with Dr. Cushing, the resident doctor in New Orleans that runs the clinic. The man's got some fairly severe back pain after spending years getting beaten up by mobsters for snooping around too much.
As Caine nears the end of his paperwork, his secretary - a Mr. Handy named Quincy - let's in a client. It's after hours, but when you're job relies on people coming to you out of their own volition, you take them when they come in. Turns out it's Jessie, Dr. Cushing's assistant, and she's got the worst kind of news: Dr. Cushing is dead.
So Caine goes through Mid-City to the West Bank (imagine NV's Freeside except underwater) to the good doctor's clinic to find a crowd has already formed and a pair of All-Saints already guarding the place while they wait for a Scout (police investigator of sorts) to check things out.
Caine scans the crowd and immediately notices an old "friend" named Carl, an enforcer for the Silver Dollar Sams that often feeds him information about the underworld of New Orleans - biased to be sure, but better than nothing. He heads over and the two chat, with Carl claiming that the Sams had nothing to do with Cushing's murder, as her clinic was considered neutral territory and good medical personnel are hard to come by these days.

Together the pair manages to bribe their way past the All Saints (Carl not mentioning his affiliations) and start checking the place out. They find the lock is damaged ever so slightly and there's soot and boot prints at the stairs, as well as a deactivated Mr. Handy. Neither one of them having any technical knowledge, Caine heads back out and asks if anyone knows their way around robots and computers. A young man (Corban) raises his hand, and with a few more Caps in the hands of the All-Saints, Caine gets the kid in.
Corban works quickly to reboot the Mr. Handy (named Mr. Orderly) and they get his recollection of the events as well as access to Dr. Cushing's most recent journal entries. With all of this information they piece together a timeline of about two weeks during which a strange couple consisting of a young woman and a very tall man wearing a metal mask entered the clinic and paid Dr. Cushing a large sum of Caps and pre-War medical supplies to take a look at several blood samples and engineer a cure for extreme radiation poisoning and the permanent damages thereof. Curious and a little excited at the idea of a real challenge, Dr. Cushing accepted. However, it seemed that when she completed the job, the couple turned on her, killed her, and took the research.
The trio heads upstairs to Cushing's lab and personal quarters and locate the body. A quick look makes the seem as though blunt force trauma to the neck killed her, but closer inspection reveals that the neck was snapped after she was already dead. The real cause of death is left undetermined for now.

They look through her personal computer and find three missing dates within the timeline established with Mr. Orderly's assistance. With some help from Corban, Caine also manages to locate the missing entries and they discover the full extent of Cushing's project.
Jessie returns to the doctor's office just as Caine and the others are wrapping up their initial investigation and asks about Tommy, a patient she had mentioned earlier (my bad) who had spent the night in the clinic. The detective and his pair of junior detectives scramble to find the Jet junkie, but fail to do so. They add him to the list of suspects just as Scout Ireland of the All-Saints arrives at the scene.
Now Corban's player wanted to know a bit about Scout Ireland, and somehow we likened him to J. Jonah Jameson a-la Sam Raimi's Spiderman trilogy. So imagine him in a trenchcoat and fedora and you've more or less get the picture. A no-nonsense, "get me pictures of [suspect]!" kind of guy.
Caine walks out to meet with Scout Ireland and hands over some pictures of the scene that he had taken in an attempt to assuage the Scout - after all, he had technically tampered with a crime scene. Ireland, being a pragmatic man, decides to let Caine continue investigating alongside his own boys, figuring that two heads are better than one. With some help from Jessie, they get the location of Tommy's residence.

They look through her personal computer and find three missing dates within the timeline established with Mr. Orderly's assistance. With some help from Corban, Caine also manages to locate the missing entries and they discover the full extent of Cushing's project.

Jessie returns to the doctor's office just as Caine and the others are wrapping up their initial investigation and asks about Tommy, a patient she had mentioned earlier (my bad) who had spent the night in the clinic. The detective and his pair of junior detectives scramble to find the Jet junkie, but fail to do so. They add him to the list of suspects just as Scout Ireland of the All-Saints arrives at the scene.
Now Corban's player wanted to know a bit about Scout Ireland, and somehow we likened him to J. Jonah Jameson a-la Sam Raimi's Spiderman trilogy. So imagine him in a trenchcoat and fedora and you've more or less get the picture. A no-nonsense, "get me pictures of [suspect]!" kind of guy.

Caine walks out to meet with Scout Ireland and hands over some pictures of the scene that he had taken in an attempt to assuage the Scout - after all, he had technically tampered with a crime scene. Ireland, being a pragmatic man, decides to let Caine continue investigating alongside his own boys, figuring that two heads are better than one. With some help from Jessie, they get the location of Tommy's residence.
As they're about to leave the scene of the crime, a young man steps out of the crowd and hands Caine a paper depicting the sales of Bawls Guarana vs. Nuka Cola in the greater Louisiana region. Confused for a moment, Caine flips the paper over and finds pic related. The man explains that he lives across the canal from Dr. Cushing's and saw that person enter the building sometime around midnight that day, narrowing down the Detective's timeline considerably.

Now for reasons that I don't fully remember, Caine, Carl, and Corban decide not to immediately chase after Tommy and instead make their way back to Mid-City to have a drink at the Green Door, a bar owned by Caine's old friend Johnny Boot-Legger.

Now for a moment of lore. Johnny Boot-Legger is a ghoul. Most ghouls in New Orleans are either well-to-do pseudo-nobility known as the Aristocrats (the ruling class) or are exiles living in "the Colony," a section of the West Bank where ghouls that would give the Aristocrats a bad image are sent to live out the rest of their non-feral lives. Johnny, not being a native to New Orleans, decides to set up shop in Mid-City and open a bar. After a few visits from the Silver Dollar Sams (the lapdogs of the Aristocrats) that resulted in several injured Sams (and a few dead), the Aristocrats decided to let Johnny do his thing, so long as he didn't embarrass ghoul-kind.

So anyway, Caine, Corban, and Carl make their way to the Green Door around noon and find that it's oddly busy for a Sunday. In one corner they see some Blue Note Boys setting up for a show, and in the other corner some of Carl's Silver Dollar Sam friends. Lastly there's an older man sitting at the bar drinking alone. Caine immediately goes on the defensive, realizing that there could easily be a firefight coming with members of the two New Orleans gangs here. Johnny himself seems rather unconcerned, which puts everyone at ease.

So Caine shares their findings with his friend, who recommends a few locations to get more information: Tommy's in West Bank, the Colony ("They figure out just about anything there."), and the Continental Hotel in Uptown (the SDS headquarters).

Carl, being a Sam himself, promotes the idea of going to the Continental to get some information there, but Caine and Corban outvote him and decide to check out Tommy's first. They get up to leave just as a man dressed in black kicks in the door to the bar, sees the older man drinking alone, and shouts: "My name is Sue! How do you do? Now you're gonna die!"

A firefight ensues, during which Sue's target is knocked out - but not killed - Sue himself is also knocked out, half of the Sams are killed, all of the Blue Note Boys are killed, and Johnny is rather vexed over the fact that his bar was shot all to hell.

Caine and company are thanked by the SDS and given a business card and told to head over the Continental if they ever need work. Carl gives Caine and Corban an "I told you so" kind of look, but they ultimately head to the West Bank first, after paying their tab to Johnny and helping him clean up the mess.

Now West Bank is an absolute shit hole. Most of New Orleans is surrounded by a wall and patrolled by either the All-Saints or the SDS. Not West Bank. It's basically a slum on the southern side of the Black Water (Mississippi River) where most of the current buildings are built on top of submerged pre-War buildings. Without walls or anyone to patrol the area, the West Bank often falls prey to raiders.
With that well in mind, the trio makes their way to Tommy's shack and finds that the generator has been smashed to hell. Corban takes a closer look and determines that a shiskebab was used to sabotage the device. Caine knocks on the door, and when no one answers, Carl kicks it in.

They find a body on the shack's single bed and identify it as Tommy. They also locate a lunchbox with several doses of Jet and a significant sum of Caps. This doesn't feel right to Caine, as Jessie informed him that Tommy was known to spend his Caps from his work in the Railyard on Jet faster than he earned them, and that his Jet supplies almost never made it past sundown. Strange then that he would have a decent stockpile of both.

Caine looks through Tommy's belongings and finds a holotape, pockets it for later, and determines that the site has little else to offer them. Carl once again suggests they head to the Continental, and Caine acquiesces with the caveat that they stop by his office to play the holotape first.

Just as they are ready to leave, Corban hears a sound from outside: "Nou ofri kòUg - Qualtoth. Nou ofri san ki al nan Ug - Qualtoth."

Raiders.

The trio quickly takes cover inside of the shack as the raiders open fire. Carl throws some dynamite to blow up the walkway leading to their little "island" just as a raider tries to cross, blowing off one of the raider's legs and sending him to the bottle of the Black Water. Despite the small victory, however, the trio finds themselves outgunned and outmatched.

That's when Jamahl shows up. Now Jamahl's player is an odd guy. Real fun to hang around, but definitely a weirdo. His character is basically just him with a different name. His entire character basically boiled down to being the human incarnate of the Wild Wasteland trait. He shows up, something weird happens, and he disappears.

So Jamahl arrives on the scene and blows a raider in half with his double-barrel shotgun, patches up Carl by blowing some strange powder in the man's face, and promptly gets shot full of holes and slumps against the building. Emboldened by their strange new companion's (for lack of better word) bravery, Caine and the others press on and manage to kill most of the raiders and drive the others back.

Corban does his best to patch up Jamahl, who then explains that he felt some "bad juju" coming from those raiders and was drawn to them. As it turns out, Jamahl is something of a tribal, more or less. He grew up in New Orleans, but spent most of his time on his airboat buying and selling from local tribes and learning their customs. Jamahl's character explained that he's been exposed to so many chems and toxins that it's permanently damaged the guy's brain, leading to strange hallucinations and an obsession with eradicating "bad juju" and replacing it with "good juju." The detective, the gangster, and the psyker all just nod their heads and smile.

After looting the raiders, Caine leads his companions back to his office and they give the holotape a listen. A mechanized voice - possibly a robot's or someone using a voice changer - fills the room.

"Detective... Yes, I know who you are. I know that you are following me. You are quite persistent, Detective. But I implore you, stop. If not for your own safety, for the safety of your friends and family.

"I apologize for the death of Dr. Cushing. She had such a brilliant mind. Truly the envy of the Bayou. But she had to die to save my father. To save New Orleans. The city is sick, Detective, don't you see? It is a festering corpse, and the All-Saints, the Silver Dollar Sams, the Blue Note Boys, and the Aristocracy... they are all parasites that need to be exterminated.

"But no one else has to get hurt, Detective. No more innocents have to die. Walk away, Detective. Just walk away and leave me to my work. This is your only warning."

The quartet exchange looks as they realize they're going after a lunatic with a college freshman's grasp of philosophy and morality. Figuring they have little else to go on, Caine motions for Carl to lead the way to the Continental.

Now if you've ever seen "John Wick," the Continental is that hotel. Not so much an homage rather than a straight up rip off. I even named the owner Winston. It's a good movie, so I don't care.

Now the Continental in New Orleans is owned and operated by Winston, who is an old friend of Fat Frankie, the current don of the Silver Dollar Sams. To say that Winston is a member of the SDS and that his hotel is owned by the gang would technically untrue, but not altogether incorrect. The Sams keep the place protected, and while the staff doesn't have to join the gang, most of them work for Frankie as well as Winston.

Carl flashes the business card at the entrance, and after a quick pat down - no confiscation, just a noting of the heat that's being packed - the quartet is let in, given a table in the dining room immediately, and set up with a waitress named Cassandra. Beers, bourbons, wines, brahmin steaks, and more are ordered and sent to the table at no cost to the quartet, much to Caine's surprise. Also, a note comes with the detective's first drink.

"Detective,

"It’s rare for someone of your particular profession to be in the Continental with good intentions and without my having summoned them. However, I am told that you aren’t here to start any trouble, and may in fact be investigating a case that I have a personal interest in.

"So here’s what you’re going to do: You’re going to enjoy your meal, nice and slow, order a few more drinks, and generally have a good time. When you’re done with that –and take your time, I insist- you’re going to pay your tab, leave a real nice tip for Miss Cassie, and hand the bartender the business card you have. He’ll take it from there.

"Regards, A Friend"

So, at the request of his new friend, Caine decides to enjoy himself.

What sort of weeb made the katana?

So after a fine meal and several drinks, Caine heads over to the bar and hands over the business card as requested. A man named Paulie meets him, tells him to follow him, and leads Caine (and the rest once they see Caine leaving) to a private room in the Continental.

The elevator ride feels like it's taking forever as the four companions sweat out their fate. Not even Carl is sure what's going on, and he's the closest thing they have to an expert in all things Silver Dollar.

Paulie instructs them to enter the private room where they find four pressed suits that upon closer inspection are woven through with ballistic fiber with added ceramic plates for additional protection. Each of them selects a suit per Paulie's instruction and try them on, discomforted by the fact that each of them fit almost perfectly, as if specifically tailored to them.

With their fancy new suits on, Paulie leads the quartet to another room and tells them to sit down and have a few more drinks. Carl and Jamahl don't argue and pour themselves some whiskey while Caine and Corban decide it's best to stay sober-ish.

The ability is straight out of New Vegas, but I deliberately made it over-the-top weeabo for my own amusement. It fills me with nothing but shame.

Anyway...

In walks a pair of men dressed to the nines. First is a man in his fifties with dark hair that's turning gray around the temples in a charcoal colored suit. He has a single ring on his right hand and a watch on his wrist. Clean shaven with a thin mustache on his lip.

Behind him is a taller man, a ghoul that Corban's player later described as "the kind of guy that owns people." Basically imagine Col. Sanders combined with a plantation owner. Fine white suit, hat, gold necklace and watch, a black metal walking stick used more for beating people to death than walking, bolo tie. That kind of thing. The gentlemen sit down opposite Caine and his companions and briefly exchange pleasantries.

The human dismisses Paulie and introduces himself as Ian Winston and his friend as Astor Du Pont, a recent addition to the Aristocrats from the city of Carbon, Texas. Winston then politely asks what Caine's business is in the Continental and how he can be of service.

Caine gives Winston a basic rundown of their investigation so far, leaving out the holotape. During this, Winston patiently listens, occasionally remarking on a specific event, and when the detective concludes his retelling of the events, the Continental's owner says this:

"I may be able to help."

As it turns out, the Sams have been doing a little investigating of their own, not altogether happy over the death of New Orleans' best doctor. As it turns out, Evelyn and Adam were last seen entering the French Quarter, the Aristocracy's own backyard.

Unfortunately, you can't just walk into the French Quarter without being an Aristocrat or working for one. That's where Astor Du Pont comes in.

The ghoul had recently moved to New Orleans, traveling east to get away from the Brotherhood of Steel expedition that was taking over Texas. He had sold his massive brahmin herds, bought up all the guns, ammunition, and body armor that he could get his hands on, and left. He chose New Orleans after hearing about old money ghouls running the place and figured that it'd be the perfect place to settle down.

While Astor himself made it safely to New Orleans, not all of his shipments arrived. One of the caravans was waylaid in the Bouge just north of the city, deep in raider territory. In exchange for serving as Caine's patron, Astor wanted the detective and his friends to recover his shipment of weapons.

The mission was a fairly simple snatch and grab, although instead of lugging lockers and crates of guns back to New Orleans, they simply had to secure them and attach a tracking device so some of Astor's mercenaries could go in and recover them. Seeing a good pay day and the best way into the French Quarter, Caine agreed.

Now not being a total asshole, Astor instructed Caine to meet with some of his boys just outside of the Continental and gear up for the mission, giving each of the quartet a small stipend to spend on weapons and other supplies. After all, his "merchandise" was quite valuable and he didn't want the recovery team going in half-cocked. Most of them spent their Caps on ammunition, although Caine bought a decent amount of stimpaks to make sure that everyone got through the mission alive.

After getting some more specific information about the location of the missing weapons, the quartet sets out, heading toward a cluster of pre-War warehouses in the middle of raider territory. They set up some raiders for an ambush fairly early on and Carl carries them through the attack with him Submachine gun while Caine and Jamahl help and Corban misses almost every attack.

After patching up their wounds, Caine and company find the warehouse, but see a dozen or raiders milling about the place. They take some cover behind some buildings and start the fight with an explosion that set off a few old delivery trucks as well. This took out probably half of the raiders, but alerted the other half to their presence.

The companions hunkered down between a group of buildings while the raiders tried to circle them. As with the previous fight, Carl carried the group with his SMG while the other three "helped." Finally as the battle seemed to be wrapping up, Carl took a double dose of Psycho and charged the last pair of raiders - who had taken cover around the corner - only to be cut in half by light machine gun fire from a raider he failed to notice. Carl went down just as a second group of raiders arrived to reinforce the first, leaving Corban, Jamahl, and Caine greatly outnumbered.
That's when the gunfire started.

Controlled, pattern-like bursts of what Caine identified as 5.56mm fire. He peaks around the corner of the building and notices a squad of perhaps six troopers dressed head to toe in pre-War combat armor complete with gas masks. These soldiers - the Ruined Men of Dead City (Baton Rouge) - quickly gunned down the raiders and surrounded a truck. They started unloading it and Caine realized it was the last of the supplies.

Thinking quickly, Caine and the others stepped out and after explaining that they weren't raiders, managed to negotiate with the Ruined Men to get half of the weapons, seeing as they killed most of the raiders.

Heart-broken over the loss of Carl, Caine and Corban (Jamahl mysteriously disappeared as his player was unable to make the session) returned to New Orleans with Carl's corpse. Winston quickly took the body and had it sent away to prepare for a funeral while Astor raged at the thought of the Ruined Men taking his supplies. He paid Caine and Corban the full Cap reward and informed them that he wanted to know as much as possible about these Ruined Men as they could find out. Caine blanched, not wanting to go to Dead City, but agreed to the terms. Satisfied, Astor told him that he and Corban could enter the French Quarter for a few hours to continue their investigation before setting out, but reminded them to behave themselves, as they were representing him.

After attending Carl's funeral (very Viking-Esque where they burn a boat and send it down the Black Water), Caine and Corban head to the Green Door to drink away their sorrows. After telling Johnny everything that had transpired, the ghoul introduces them to a young man named Wesker, a mercenary he had met a few years back out along the edge of the Tangle (imagine the Florida Everglades grew out of control and crept along the edge of the Gulf of Mexico until they stopped at Louisiana's eastern border). He suggests that Wesker tag along with them for some additional firepower, and Caine agrees, not having many options available to him at this point.

After a few drinks, Caine and co. head to the French Quarter to find Adam and Evelyn. While there, Caine questions a few citizens and workers and learns that Adam was seen at the Church of the Mother, a great cathedral that had survived the Great War unmolested. Evelyn was there briefly, but left. While Caine goes to speak with the leader of the Church, Wesker and Corban continue exploring the FQ.

It's during this time that the various members of the party discover that Evelyn and Adam were let into the FQ by a ghoul named Lafayette, the right-hand of the Marquis. What this could mean isn't completely known, but Caine suspects that either the Marquis is condoning the actions of the siblings, or that Lafayette has gone rogue. Neither one of these options fills him with goodwill and cheer.

Now during his meeting with Mother Veronica, Caine learns that, at least according to the woman he's speaking to, Adam is a troubled soul trying to do what he considers God's work. Caine mentally checks off the "religious zealot" box on Adam's profile, takes the holotape the man left for him, and leaves to go give it a listen.

The holotape tells Caine that Adam believes him to be a righteous man, a good man that puts others before himself, and says that he will ask his father to spare Caine from the reckoning they will bring to New Orleans, but only if Caine gives up this chase. If the detective wants to continue, Adam invites him to meet him in the Dead City.

Now having two reasons to head north to Dead City, Caine and co. recruits a local airboat pilot - a super mutant named Shemen - and sail north along the Black Water. Before they set sail, they are once again met by Paulie, who informs them that Winston has attached him to their little gang to make sure they get back alive. Without further delay, they take off.

During their trip the engine has a slight hiccup and slows down just enough for a pair of Mirelurks to ambush the craft. During this fight they see Jamahl simply sitting along the river bank cooking up God only knows what on a hotplate. Once the Mirelurks are cleaned up, Jamahl rejoins the group, says his howdies to Wesker and Paulie, and continue on to Thieves' Landing, a small shanty town a few miles south of Dead City. They all pop a Rad-X and put on their gas masks before heading into the green fog.

The thing about Dead City is that it got hit by an atom bomb in an attempt by the Chinese to disable a secret military installation located downtown: Vault 99, the home of the Ruined Men. As a result, most of the city was obliterated and the survivors ghoulified and quickly turned feral. So there's a sizable about of feral ghouls already there, plus all non-ferals migrate there when they start losing themselves.

It was such a pack that the Caine Detective Agency came across as they moved through the ruins. Fortunately they managed to lock down an alleyway to funnel the ghouls in and retreated into a bank as they started to get overwhelmed. Just as the last ghoul is brought down, Wesker hears gunfire off in the distance, but rapidly closing in. He and Caine identify it as the Ruined Men and decide to hide in the bank's vault rather than risk having their equipment repossessed by the RM. The RM enter the bank and after a few minutes of tension, they leave without discovering the party.

The party spends a few minutes patching themselves up and deciding their next course of action.

The gang decides to tail the the Ruined Men battalion, but as they set out they hear a message on Wesker's ham radio calling for help at the One American Place building. Caine changes the party's course of action to help the people in the tower, pausing only to loot a sporting goods store, a pharmacy, and an old police station, which nets them, among other things, a Bozar rifle, a suit of salvaged T-45d power armor (malfunctioning servos) and a riot shotgun. Overjoyed, they continue moving toward the One American Place only to find that it's overrun by super mutants.

The party works quickly to clear out the mutants on the ground, but they aren't able to goad any of the ones inside the building to come out, creating a standoff. Aggravated by this, the super mutant leader starts throwing prisoners out of the third story window, forcing Caine's hand. The party manages to clean house on the first floor, but as they take the elevator up to the third they come across the leader holding a minigun to a woman's head demanding to be let go. Having few options, the party gets out of the way and let's the super mutant go. Caine considers taking a shot (as he managed to remain hidden) but doesn't want to risk hitting the girl.

That's when Wesker's radio picks up the following transmission: "take the shot."
The mutant's head explodes as a round of .308 hits it, covering the poor prisoner in blood and brain matter. The rest of the Ruined Men squad quickly sweep in and secure the location, thanking the players for their actions here, as they were delayed by feral ghouls deeper in the city. Rather than "acquire" the players' gear the Ruined Men allow them to leave peacefully, but not before Corban skims their surface thoughts and gathers enough information to satisfy Astor.

So that's where the players are now. There's a side quest with Caine and Winston, but I don't want to post and spoil it for any of my players that might be lurking.

Good story FalloutGuy.

Bumpan' with some story time. Feel free to share your own Fallout stories

I'm currently running a game in Louisiana. The city is run by southern aristocrat ghouls while power armor wearing descendants of the New Orleans Saints do their best to police the city. Two gangs -one mafia styled, the other militant jazz musicians- are doing their damndest to tear New Orleans apart while a secretive resistance group is building up to overthrow the Aristocracy.
Outside of the city a Vault designed to hold an army for the pre-War government's return to glory is stepping up its "sweeps" on the surrounding region and the Brotherhood of Steel just passed the LA/TX border and settled into another Vault.

The players are a noir-style detective with a Med-X addiction and a desire to do right by people in a shithole city (Osiris Caine), a young Psyker from an experimental Vault far removed from the Bayou (Corban) who sort of got sucked into all of this, a sniper who is unknowingly a synth (less FO4 synth, more "Boys from Brazil with cybernetic augmentations") (Wesker), and a weirdo who's not quite a tribal, but not exactly civilized either (Jamahl). They are investigating the murder of a Doctor and chasing down a pair of religious fanatics who seem to want to bring about some sort of cleansing to New Orleans.

I'll post the more recent events once I get home from work. Appreciate the read.

Is a weird mispost. Phone is acting up.

I remember reading about your Louisiana Fallout setting, and it's nice seeing it get used.

Which game(s) is it based on?

...

The mechanics are from Jason Mical's RPG primarily, so it's based on 1, 2, and Tactics mostly. However, I started on 3 and logged most of my fallout hours into New Vegas, so there's a lot of influence there too (most of the item art, for example, and many of the NPC artworks are Adam Adamowicz's works, which I find to be the best Fallout artwork there is). We tried to reference as many of the games as possible in item and perk descriptions, section quotes, and all of that. So in the end I'd say it's a fairly even mix of old Black Isle and newer Bethesda stuff, leaning more in BI's favor.

My only worry is the rumor that Fallout: New Orleans has been trademarked in the EU and now everything I've written will soon be undone. Better drive to Bethesda and drop off a fat stack of notes before it's too late.

I've been drafting up a Fallout campaign for my winter group, set in Post war New Mexico

There are a few different main story arcs that I been kicking around. The first is set in Los Alamos, a derelict military research installation where the bomb was first developed. Rumors circulate of ghosts in the ruins, guarding the site from trespassers. Some event - maybe A radioactive dust storm or an ambush by the now feral base prrsonnel - drives the players into the base in search of shelter. Upon entering the installation, they're greeted over the installation intercom by Robert Oppenheimer, who invites them into his lab. Oppenheimer has survived because his brain has been deposited into a mechanical chassis, much like in OPs picture. His programming prohibits him from leaving the base. He also longs for his missing humanity and subsequent mortality at a natural end. He tasks the players to search the ruins for his body, preserved somewhere on site in cryo stasis. He warns of Rose, who would keep him imprisoned forever. All outside monitoring to the lab have been disabled to keep Rose in the dark h

Upon entering another section of the base, another voice greets them over the PA, identifying itself as the Los Alamos Regional Operating Systems Administrator, LA ROSA, colloquially known as Rose to former staff. She inquires as to the adventurers purpose at the base. Regardless, by observation and logical conclusion, she figures out what that everyone is searching for Oppenheimer's body.

She can't allow personnel to leave. The base is in a state of lockdown since the war, which can only be lifted by the commanding officer. Regardless, she is aware that a man of Oppenheimer's genius is a bigger boon to humanity if he is alive, and continues his work. The options are thus...

>reunite Oppenheimer with his corpse, and fight a bloody conflict against Rose
>persuade Oppenheimer to stay
>find the commander, lift the lockdown, and please both parties

I like it. I'm actually kicking a quest idea around involving the Louisiana Sidney Murray Jr., Hydroelectric Station and throw in a Red Alert reference in there. The station serves primarily as a power station, but secretly there's a super weapon designed by "Allert Ensteen," a pre-War scientist from long before the bombs fell. A weapon designed to influence weather patterns to create massive storms as a super weapon. The players can either try to stop the cultists that worship the machine from repairing it, repair it and unleash holy hell upon the Bayou, or use it to create nice weather and actually make the Bayou a nicer place overall (the area is thick with rad storms).

The second arc I was kicking around revolves around the BNSF railroad company. During a stop in Santa Fe, a roaring horn echoes through the waste. A massive train, wrapped in barbed wire and bristling with mounted weapons rolls slowly into the middle of the downtown market. A brief lull is punctured by shouts and gunfire as raiders pour out of boxcars, tasing locals and putting them in slave collars before dragging them back to the train. The raid is brief and a retreat is called. The players have the opportunity, should they choose, to board the train. If they do, the train takes the players to Albuquerque.

The city has seen better days. The populace has been torn apart by constant civil war and famine. The only options for anyone in the city to survive was either cannibalism, or to raid outlying settlements. The raids were relatively localized until one of the factions, the Iron Horses, their captors, managed to secure a train and repair the rails. They have been abducting people since as a food supply.

The players are captured, or cornered, leaving them to fight their way out, by might or stealth, to ensure their survival. Leaving Albuquereue, however, is a different matter entirely. The city is a war zone miles away from any refuge. If not killed by raiders, the desert is inhospitable and parched, only crossable with a large supply pool and a few pack brahmin... and if the players want to leave, let alone rescue the captured people waiting for their deaths, and prevent more raids in the future, the most viable option is to take the Iron Horses' train.

The final arc I was kicking around for New Mexico...

A shooting star races across the sky, hurtling to the south east, until the players realize that shooting stars don't make sonic booms upon atmospheric entry. The light sails onward over the horizon, and then the bround briefly quakes. There's a sharp flash of light like an explosion and then silence.

The tiny town of Roswell, New Mexico is a sleepy place, mostly populated by farmers desperately trying to catch what little rain falls, struggling to raise crops and cattle in the desert. Something is wrong, though. The herds are thinning, and constantly on edge. Mutilated brahmin have been turning up on the ranches, their blood drained, covered in lacerations. More ominous, is the recent disappearance of town folk, and tall, lanky strangers have been sighted on the.outskirts, fleeing before anyone can approach them. The populace is uneasy, and asks for the players help.

To the north is the crash site, a derelict ship larger than the city itself lays in smoldering ruins.

And thats about as far as I've gotten with this one at the moment. I'm trying to find a way to give it a good twist. Maybe experimental US aircraft with people instead of aliens? Maybe aliens that aren't necessarily malicious, just trying to survive in an inhospitable waste? I don't know yet