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- 15
TLDR / Essence: Fallout 4 is basically the Beach Boys vacation edition of Fallout, it lacks the darkness that previous ones had. And after sinking 100's of hours into the game only allowed to be - at worst - the morally kinda not great guy, it'd be nice to actually be allowed to be evil. Let's inject some Cormac McCarthy's The Road into this, some apocalyptic gritty, dark reality.
In past Fallouts there has consistently been a dark tone to the game with certain quests, characters, etc. Whether it be slavery (ex Eulogy Jones, etc), genetic discrimination (ex. humans vs ghouls, etc), children (various themes), torture, murder, cannabalism etc. In Fallout 4 it seems to me like this has been tuned so that the player character pretty much is all but forced towards being a good guy* with the exception of some sarcastic dialogue comments and morally relative yet ultimately philosophical meta decisions (ie. railroad vs institute vs BOS vs minutemen, all kinda morally gray). I didn't really mind this as I could basically put the Beach Boys entire catalog on play and get a 'Fallout: Vacation' game but there comes a point where, 100's of hours in, you get tired. There's only so much time you can spend in relative paradise before you long for the dark side, the gritty reality that makes your gut kinda twist. Like Negan in the Walking Dead or Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Even in modern times, the world sucks. In reality, the wasteland would be a much much darker place, "and I'm tired of pretending it's not!". Who's to say your character didn't totally mentally snap at one point, or was actually dark deep down but forced in a society 200 years ago to play the role of a good citizen. Dictator? Slave kingpin? Psychotic Vault Reject? Negan Ripoff? Want to run a "captured raider reform" settlement? With these plots, you too can live the dark side!
These could also be used for prebuilt evil towns you have to "save" for good characters
Note: For alot of these, the 'workers' don't really need to be real settlers and alot can be implied by props placed there and signs / plot design. Perhaps slaves/workers/whatnot could be permanent NPC's on those plots doing preset work action and the 'settler' is a 'manager'.
Note: There are already plots for a couple of these but they fit thematically with a neutral or good settlement. Ideally, the below plots would have a neutral evil/dark theme/design. However, not raider themed to be open to as many roleplay/player-designs as possible.
DARK PLOTS
If I get good feedback I'll keep adding to this list. I've played hundreds of hours of Fallout (>700) and I'm done with good characters but I don't wanna have to manage a raider faction to get a taste of a bad one, especially since my ideal evil character wouldn't let himself work for someone else. Raiders are also pretty overdone in fo4 and have a preset image whereas with these plots you could build any style settlement with any backstory you like, not just raider. With these plots you wouldn't need to manage a faction, you could just have an "evil" or "dark" town.
These could also be used for prebuilt evil towns you have to "save" for good characters. Also, the pre existing sim settlements is based around pretty much a "good" aligned theme, especially apparent in the Ss2 missions mood/Jake/etc, these would open up characters to true story / thematic freedom.
In past Fallouts there has consistently been a dark tone to the game with certain quests, characters, etc. Whether it be slavery (ex Eulogy Jones, etc), genetic discrimination (ex. humans vs ghouls, etc), children (various themes), torture, murder, cannabalism etc. In Fallout 4 it seems to me like this has been tuned so that the player character pretty much is all but forced towards being a good guy* with the exception of some sarcastic dialogue comments and morally relative yet ultimately philosophical meta decisions (ie. railroad vs institute vs BOS vs minutemen, all kinda morally gray). I didn't really mind this as I could basically put the Beach Boys entire catalog on play and get a 'Fallout: Vacation' game but there comes a point where, 100's of hours in, you get tired. There's only so much time you can spend in relative paradise before you long for the dark side, the gritty reality that makes your gut kinda twist. Like Negan in the Walking Dead or Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Even in modern times, the world sucks. In reality, the wasteland would be a much much darker place, "and I'm tired of pretending it's not!". Who's to say your character didn't totally mentally snap at one point, or was actually dark deep down but forced in a society 200 years ago to play the role of a good citizen. Dictator? Slave kingpin? Psychotic Vault Reject? Negan Ripoff? Want to run a "captured raider reform" settlement? With these plots, you too can live the dark side!
These could also be used for prebuilt evil towns you have to "save" for good characters
Note: For alot of these, the 'workers' don't really need to be real settlers and alot can be implied by props placed there and signs / plot design. Perhaps slaves/workers/whatnot could be permanent NPC's on those plots doing preset work action and the 'settler' is a 'manager'.
Note: There are already plots for a couple of these but they fit thematically with a neutral or good settlement. Ideally, the below plots would have a neutral evil/dark theme/design. However, not raider themed to be open to as many roleplay/player-designs as possible.
DARK PLOTS
- (Agri) 'Pig' Pen fed humans/mutant/other meat
- (Agri) Human/mutant/other meat butcher - Hunger doesn't discriminate, it all grills the same
- (Agri) Mirelurk Hatchery / Pen - Fenced in or in a vat/pit and a slave takes the risk of feeding/raising them. Lost a few fingers to baby 'lurks? Still better than being raider meat.
- (Agri) Slave-Run Farm - Fenced in, with a neck collar on a long enough chain to reach only the edges of the farm. Could be a ex raider serving time, you decide the story.
- (Martial) Guard tower with spikes and a few corpses - Corpses could be ambiguous so you don't know if they're settlers, raiders, criminals, etc (for diff themed settlements)
- (Martial) Hangman / Guillotine - Ambiguous so it could be used for good (zero tolerance for raiders / bad offenders) or evil (dictator) themed settlement.
- (Martial) Ghoul Pen - produces ghouls by forcibly irradiating people, for release outside the city walls like war dogs or such
- (Martial) Ghoul Wall - Ghouls with iron collars chained to a wall, for a city wall, similar to Negan's zombie wall. Ghouls can "come from" the ghoul pen above.
- (Martial) Torture Chamber/Prison - for interrogating raiders, being a dictator, breaking psyche to create a slave, etc
- (Commerce) Slave Trader - Men, Women, Kids, Tamed Supermutants, Ghouls, Self Aware Robots, whatever. Bleak nihilistic wasteland doesn't discriminate. If it can be sold for caps, it probably will be. Throw in an innocent vault dweller from 81 ("New stock! Untouched from the Vault!") for extra player-character-nihilism. Nothing says "I don't care anymore" like allowing fellow vaulters to be sold for caps in your own settlement.
- (Commerce) Evil-themed Drug Dealer, now featuring Chems for Kids
- (Industry) Workhouse, akin to early industrial revolution with children / poor / underclass working
- (Industry) Caravan Hunters, bring back scrap material, humans for Slave Trader, caps, etc.
- (Industry) Dangerous Scavengers, desperate/enslaved settlers "go into the dangerous areas to get the best scrap, at a risk"
- (Recreation) Brothel, doesn't have to be gender or even species based. Could have Codsworth earn some caps featuring as Fisto lmao
- (Recreation) Drug den - could toss in a ghoul 'kid' as a permanent 'patron', stuck in a 10 year old body but mind lived through 200 years of wasteland hell was just too much. Don't have to write many voiced lines as they went there to escape not to relive it. Idea comes from 'Claudia' from 'Interview with the Vampire' novel.
- (Recreation) Thunder dome / Death Matches - nuff said
- (Recreation) Church of the Blessed - nothing says "apocalypse" like a screwed up new religion based around human sacrifices and blind zealotry
- (Residential) Slave/Prison pen - Beds, shackles, open concept or prison cell style, lots of different designs in different apocalypse movies
- (Residential) Slums - Various designs
- (Residential) Workhouse - could double as an industry and residence. "Please sir, can I have some more?"
If I get good feedback I'll keep adding to this list. I've played hundreds of hours of Fallout (>700) and I'm done with good characters but I don't wanna have to manage a raider faction to get a taste of a bad one, especially since my ideal evil character wouldn't let himself work for someone else. Raiders are also pretty overdone in fo4 and have a preset image whereas with these plots you could build any style settlement with any backstory you like, not just raider. With these plots you wouldn't need to manage a faction, you could just have an "evil" or "dark" town.
These could also be used for prebuilt evil towns you have to "save" for good characters. Also, the pre existing sim settlements is based around pretty much a "good" aligned theme, especially apparent in the Ss2 missions mood/Jake/etc, these would open up characters to true story / thematic freedom.
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