Fallout, anyone?

[Bear Rachkle]

War.

War never changes.

The sum of human achievement and civilization took tens of thousands of years to cultivate, but was nearly wiped clean from the earth in minutes. In an instant of hubris, humanity unleashed the atom's apocalypse, claiming the guilty as well as the innocent. The wasted earth left behind in the shadow of war endured as a nuclear purgatory. Humanity was spared extinction, but was condemned to endure the consequences of those who started the atomic fire.

Alone in the fast oceans that surround the global wastes, a nuclear submarine has cruised without end for two hundred years. As warriors of a long forgotten war grew old and passed on, their children inheirited the ship of war, as did their children's children, and on down the ages. It is in this relic of the Great War that you were born.

Now the radioactive fuel that powered the ancient ship of war is nearly spent, and a choice has been made to return to a homeland that no one has ever seen.

But war never changes. Along with you and everyone you know, the ship carries the instruments of man's greatest tragedy, and man's indifference to his fellow man has a long half life.



Pretty much testing the waters to see if anybody would be interested in doing a semi-small roleplay set in the fallout universe. If you're not completely familiar, it's post apocalyptic stuff similar to Mad Max, based in the ashes of America, hundreds of years after a nuclear war that occurred between the US and China in 2077.

[Travis North]

I'm down for this.

[Mandy with an I]

Me too. :)

[Bear Rachkle]

http://fallout.wikia.com

Here's a fantastic resource for anybody needing to know about the fallout universe. It's got geographic locations from the games that are already out, which leaves us with a LOT of free areas left to explore, or we can even fall back on some of the ones already mentioned.

The universe of Fallout is sort of like an alternate universe from our own. In that universe, the world of 2077 never really changed aesthetically and culturally from 1940's-1950's post WW2 Americana. There's a sort of gee whiz, Leave it to Beaver, Pleasantville sort of vibe, crossed with the sort of stuff that you'd expect in a "World of Tomorrow" pop sci-fi event. That all changed, of course, once the bombs fell.

The races in Fallout are pretty basic:


Humans are both people who have not been exposed to radiation in the Wasteland as well as people who only have slight amounts of radiation.
Ghouls are people who were disfigured by extreme radiation in the wasteland. Their skin has sloughed off for the most part and they're hideous and sometimes smell bad. The differences are that they're now completely immune and even healed by radiation, and they are extremely long-lived. Some of them are over 200 years old and were alive during the Great War. Some ghouls still have their cognitive abilities and behave like normal humans, though some have been driven insane by their mutations and have become feral, acting like fast zombies and attacking any non-ghoul they encounter.
Super Mutants are towering meta-humans with massively muscle-clad bodies. They were a failed experiment to create super soldiers for the US government using the Forced Evolution Virus. They're psychotic monsters organized around attacking and culling human populations for food and for the creation of more of their brood. They are almost always evil, though there are some exceptions.
Numerous animals have mutated in the wasteland. Scorpions grew into man-sized radscorpions. Ants became giant ants. Iguanas mutated into a velociraptor-esque abomination called a Deathclaw. Crabs turned into man-sized armored creatures called Mirelurks. Cows grew two heads and became Brahmin. There's plenty of others out there, and obviously some room to invent more based on this notion.
Robots aren't really a race, but worth mentioning because there are many kinds out there. Some like Mr. Gutsy are hovering by aid of a small jet engine and have spidery arms. Some like Protectrons look like the robot in Lost in Space, and others like Robobrains are track-driven robots with bendy arms and brains in jars. Many more exist than just those, but you get the idea.


There are a few organizations that tend to show up no matter where you go in some way or another:


The Brotherhood of Steel is an order that styles itself around groups like the Knights Templar. They are mainly concerned with preserving the knowledge and technology of pre-war humanity in the hopes that it can be used by future generations and not forgotten. They sometimes help wastelanders and aid in good causes, but this is a secondary concern for them at best.
Raiders are gangs of humans completely given over to anarchy. They're loosely organized packs that attack anyone, and kill, torture, rape, and pillage as much as possible.
The Enclave is one or more groups representing the remnants of the ancient United States government. By and large, they are evil and are usually intent on purging America of people who are mutated or deemed excessively exposed to radiation, so that America can be saved.

[Yog]

Awesome setting. Might actually get back into roleplaying for something like this.

We also need vaults, of course.. and I wonder where we can find that damn waterchip.

[Bear Rachkle]

Haha, well there was that one vault in Fallout 2 that had hundred upon hundreds of water chips due to a shipping error :lol

But yeah, we'll definitely have vaults in this. Kind of wanted to use the nuclear sub as the "safe" point of origin for the story, but you pretty much can't go into major areas of the US without finding at least a few vaults.

Any ideas for "themes" for the vaults?

Also, I was thinking about having the greater geography of this take place in Georgia, with maybe some spill-over into some of the surrounding states. It depends on if people find vertibirds or cars, but I think it's best that those would be rare to make the geography a bit smaller.

[Dasquian Belargic]

Sounds like fun :)

[Morgan Evanar]

Fallout is crazy and you can be crazy in Fallout.

I like Fallout.

[Bear Rachkle]

Yog suggested that New York City, Upstate, Jersey, and New England might be a better locale for our adventure. Would people prefer that area, or the southeast? I think they're both full of possibility either way.

[Rossos Atrapes]

This sounds interesting. I'll hold off a bit now, but I might just get in on this if I have some free time.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Not to be pessimistic but I give it a weekend before everyone abandons it, just like the other post-apoc RP. ;)

[Dasquian Belargic]

If you don't have anyting nice to say, Nancy... :mneh

In fairness, Fallout is a world that's already defined with factions, races, etc and one which many people will be familiar with. That's easier to roleplay in - cohesively - than an entirely new universe.

[Bear Rachkle]

That's true, which is why I think it'll be easy to pick up. That, and while fallout is an established universe, there's really not a whole lot you've got to know other than what I wrote. You've got little details you can get if you want them, but even if you've only played one of the games, you've got just about all the story you need. It's not really something where everything ties into everything else. It's just a big epic about people in an unkind world trying to eke out a living.

[Dasquian Belargic]

Right!

Anyway, this is what the Gen RPing forum is for. Even if we only do a one-shot thread in something, it gives us a chance to try something different and fun :)

[Bear Rachkle]

How about starting in Nantucket, Massachussets? That would still put NYC and points beyond within reasonable questing distances. Y'all game with that?

[Tear]

If you don't have anyting nice to say, Nancy... :mneh

In fairness, Fallout is a world that's already defined with factions, races, etc and one which many people will be familiar with. That's easier to roleplay in - cohesively - than an entirely new universe.

Not to mention writing in a different universe can be invigorating for jump starting overall creativity in all your writing. Even if its just a weekend... its a weekend of fun.

[Mandy with an I]

Yay, I still have my old Sigmund Landers sig saved.

I'll try to read up more on on sunday, when I have time off, and then work out a revised Ziggy for it next week. :)

And Jenny is right - even if most people abandon it, it doesn't mean EVERYONE will. If I like it, I'll be sure to pester everyone to keep posting :poke

[Bear Rachkle]

Some things to think about:

Starting points will be a post-apocalyptic village on Nantucket island, and I figure things would begin with the aforementioned nuclear sub eventually coasting to a rest at the island. Maybe something's broken, maybe they need nuclear fuel, maybe they're just tired of being away from the world and want to actually find a bit of solid land to live on.

That gives us two potential groups of folks to begin the story with - the Nantucket villagers and the "crew" of the nuclear sub. I imagine Nantucket would be a representative backwash of the usual wasteland folks, while the people in the submarine would have all been descended from a few generations of navy crewers. I imagine they pass down some amount of nautical familiarity, but are far enough removed from the culture of the navy as to have formed their own village and identity in its own right.

Might be a good quest idea to have two people from the sub be given a nuclear launch key in the event of some emergency, so that for whatever reason, nobody could use them for evil purposes ;)

[Yog]

Would the navy crewers on-board the submarine have combat training, such as melee and use of personal arms, even after several generations in isolation? I figure the moment one start travel outside of Nantucket, there will be be raiders, giant scorpions and worse to worry about, so you definitely do not want to be unarmed for that.

[Ahnk Rashanagok]

I have a map I made for a Fallout tale set in New York City and the surrounding area. It had all the pretty green circles and everything. :D

brb

edit: k here.

This is my map that I made: http://yfrog.com/3qfonycopy1j
This is BOS logo: http://yfrog.com/2gbasebos1j
This is BOS logo I was using for LA BOS: http://yfrog.com/0nlabos1j
And the recolor I made for NYC BOS det: http://yfrog.com/3qnycbos1j

You can use those if you fancy or not, w/e.

[Dasquian Belargic]

That map is pretty :cool

[Ahnk Rashanagok]

http://yfrog.com/j3fonyj Here is a more bare bones version if you'd want it to define it yourself.

[Captain Untouchable]

Would the navy crewers on-board the submarine have combat training, such as melee and use of personal arms, even after several generations in isolation? I figure the moment one start travel outside of Nantucket, there will be be raiders, giant scorpions and worse to worry about, so you definitely do not want to be unarmed for that.

I'm just skimming through the thread at this point, and I have zero knowledge about the Fallout mythos... but one thing that springs to mind at this point: wouldn't it be a bit problematic to have "several generations" if women aren't allowed to serve on submarines?

Or is the AU sufficiently different that stuff like that can be ignored? Like I say, I know absolutely squat about Fallout. :\

[Bear Rachkle]

Those are sweet! Awesome!

I'll start ruminating on some generic locations for the area, mind if I use some of the locations you selected too? Did you have any descriptions for those locations?

The only thing I could think that might change would be the Vault numbers. I think they are numbered low to high from west coast to east. I don't think the number of vaults you have in that floor plan would be excessive though. I imagine NYC & metro would have at least that many, yeah.


Would the navy crewers on-board the submarine have combat training, such as melee and use of personal arms, even after several generations in isolation? I figure the moment one start travel outside of Nantucket, there will be be raiders, giant scorpions and worse to worry about, so you definitely do not want to be unarmed for that.
This is a good question. I would think it would be a possibility. I'm sure that the original crew had some good idea of the destruction wrought after World War 4. They probably spent a good while mostly submerged or out of port, subsisting off of fishing when possible and whatever hydroponics and food stock they could get.

I figure at some point they may have tried to come back to America, only to find it to be a bad idea (maybe they had an early brush against the Enclave?), and they may have tried other places too, so there's the possibility they've had contact with hostile locals before, and maybe even the occasional pirate skiff ;)

I would definitely say they're not as combat salty as the Enclave or Brotherhood or even most wastelanders, but I imagine "Pugilism 101" and "Front towards Enemy" basics would be covered if they ever came across an angry pack of bass boats with harpoon guns :lol

EDIT: I think it's also important to figure that in the assumption that this boomer still has its nukes, I can almost imagine there was some sort of "Crimson Tide" moment in which the nuke order was given, and for some reason or other, veracity of it was called into doubt, and this boomer never launched. Maybe she was in the Pacific and the early strike prevented easy verification of the shoot order, or maybe there was a higher moral reason to be uncovered later.

[Bear Rachkle]

I'm just skimming through the thread at this point, and I have zero knowledge about the Fallout mythos... but one thing that springs to mind at this point: wouldn't it be a bit problematic to have "several generations" if women aren't allowed to serve on submarines?

Or is the AU sufficiently different that stuff like that can be ignored? Like I say, I know absolutely squat about Fallout. :\

Well keep in mind that the big shooting event is in 2077 so even if it was our universe, there would be plenty of time to liberalize into a co-ed policy on boomers.

So I think it would be okay

[Ahnk Rashanagok]

Those are sweet! Awesome! Thanks. It was a bit of work getting it all crafted together like so, given the resolution I was working in. Would retrospectively be simpler to amp it up rather than work with the C&P the way I did. But nonetheless, anything Fallout for me is a labor of love.
I'll start ruminating on some generic locations for the area, mind if I use some of the locations you selected too? Did you have any descriptions for those locations? Well, before you ask if you can use my locations, I'll show you the WIP map so you get a better idea of where I got them.

http://yfrog.com/5ifonyredirj

That is the map with the original street and district names underlaid. So you can see where I got the names for the towns. They basically all represent the area of New York they fall in, but chosen because the names suggest something about what might be found there; similar to Fallout and how some of the names happen to coincide with the general set up of the town therewithin. Descriptions I only had in my head because the project is still in the infancy stages, but basically:

Staten Island is a sprawling collection of towns set about the ruins. Most of them emerged from the Vault, and the tech level and disposition of the town is roughly equivalent to, say, a Hub.

Jersey City was something of an outpost town. For a lot of people, it was the last stop before they made excursions into Manhattan area. So sort of like a smaller version of the Hub.

Rutherford was going to be a city sort of based on ROD/Shady Sands, in that it was the burgeoning township trying to establish feelers of trade and influence throughout the area.

Union City was the staging area for the BOS forces in the area. It was mostly composed of tents under which they refueled and a vehicle pit where they repaired their armor and light vehicles.

Manhattan and the Bronx were basically wiped off the map by multiple bombs, so the area was still a radiological graveyard. Raiders did what they could to pick it clean, but the only people who could survive there were mutated beasts and ghouls.

Brooklyn was sort of the ultimate mish mash city in my head. With the populations from Vault 6, Ghouls from Gravesend, and visitors from Atlantic City and Terrace Heights, it was again basically a Hub city.

Flushing was much like Necropolis; a valfunctioning Vault led to a large Ghoul population. These ghouls don't trust humans and defend their Vault ardently against raiders and the like.

Utopia was a pacifistic, well, Utopia, set amongst the principles of peace and understanding. At least, in theory. They were almost constantly under seige from either hostile ghouls on their way Terrace Heights or by members of Terrace Heights on their way to attack the Flushing vault.

Jamaica was a major hub for drugs in the area, containing both sales and research centers. They mostly stayed out of everyone's way.

Cedar Manor was sort of like Dukov's place/Tenpenny Tower in that it was a large manor and surrounding town under the thumb of a rich, snobby aristocrat.

Terrace Heights is sort of like Vault City in that they hate everyone around them and want to wipe them out so they can expand. Cedar Manor is okay because those are well to do pure strain humans but with ghouls up north, hippies to the west, and drug dealers southwest, they feel surrounded by sin.

Garden City is a city set up with the GECK from the Terrace Heights vault. Once set up, though, the city, with running water, plant life, and all the amenities of a moden city, became isolationist, only allowing access to traders who traded for what they needed and left before nightfall.

Floral Park is the outcasts of Garden City who have tried to recreate the city's success while removing the isolationist nature. Without a GECK, though, they've had little success of their own.

Never really drafted a concept for Valley Stream; I was thinking of making it a small village, sort of like Klamath. It just seemed a logical place to put a town, geographically

Long Beach was going to be the central location of the local raiding forces. Slavers and raiders would primarily call Long Beach home and outsiders would usually steer well clear.

Atlantic City was basically New Reno, with the lawless organizations from Long Beach operating Atlantic Beach sort of like old Atlantic City. They also used the ports here, though what was being brought in to the ports, and from where, I never defined.

Gravesend was the center of the displaced Ghoul population: anyone who had been run out of another town, or escaped the chaos of Manhattan, had come here to make a life of it. They mostly traded and meandered, but some of them were experts at fixing old tech.

Manhasset I never really defined. I just figured it was big enough and in an interesting enough spot to make it a city.
The only thing I could think that might change would be the Vault numbers. I think they are numbered low to high from west coast to east. I don't think the number of vaults you have in that floor plan would be excessive though. I imagine NYC & metro would have at least that many, yeah.Vault numbers were totally placeholders. Those can be changed super easily if you want to use this map as a base for something.

[Crusader]

I am a RP virgin when it comes to forum RP but I would be excited about trying this out...since it is fallout!

[Wasteland Narrator]

(Charley here, made a little narration / mass NPC account)

Been thinking about location a bit, and I think it might be interesting to start out in Massachussetts and maybe work into NYC area if/when things progress. Reason I thought about that is that there are a few bits of things in Fallout 3 that point to a vague area to exploit:

The Commonwealth (http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Commonwealth) is mentioned in a few quests, but nothing really to hem us in. It's the area roughly around Massachussets, which if things get serious, could lead us down long island and into a bigger NYC & tri-state universe too.

The Institute (http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Institute) is the remnant of Massachussetts Institute of Technology, and is some community or organization still highly recognized for scientific pursuits.

It could be interesting to get involved with something in the Institute, because they've been known to have invented sentient androids that look and act just like normal people. There's also a group called the Railroad (http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Railroad), who act as some sort of cybernetic rights group and work against the Institute to free androids from their creators.

Other things that were mentioned were to have giant irradiated lobsters, which would be awesome.

[Tell Cho]

If this picks up, I want to make a ghoul character. Can anyone point me to some good pics for a ghoulish avatar?

[Wasteland Narrator]

Here's a tentative map of the region I'm thinking about using. I've removed all the landmarks involved but this includes Massachussetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York:

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p156/LoungieMu/commonwealth.jpg

[Wasteland Narrator]

If this picks up, I want to make a ghoul character. Can anyone point me to some good pics for a ghoulish avatar?

It would be an awesome backstory to explain the armor, but:

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p156/LoungieMu/Charona.jpg

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Did a quick google search for fallout ghouls:

[Dasquian Belargic]

Ghoul with a clipboard... :thumbup

[Parsideon Denix]

Those rule :)

Ack, one of them is a Reaver, which are insanely hard to fight >_<

[Tell Cho]

I like the fourth (the clipboard) one of s'Il's post the best, as it would need the least amount of shopping to work. Think Obi-Wan Kenobi without the Force (and zombified) in A New Hope, and you have the general idea of the ghoul character I'm plotting.