Fallout as a setting is retarded

[Sykar]

Retarded thread shitting on an old classic nr. 792835429135619042

 

[Skinwalker]

Fallout 1 is shit.

 

[ropetight]

I blame Fo3 for everyone thinking that Fallout is about LOL 50s SO COOL. It was never a big theme in Fo1, hell not even in Fo2 (especially with the new modern weapons like the P90 being introduced and shit like that). There's those elements, yes, but it was never the main takeaway. I'd argue Mad Max / 80s apocalypse had a far bigger influence on everything. It's just that people are retarded and now we are where we are. Actually I think FNV did a well enough good job at walking it back a bit. Guess it's really just Bethesda who didn't understood. What a coincidence.

I think both the 1950s sci-fi/Golden Age of Science Fiction part is very important, but Fallout doesn't take inspiration from just that. There's a lot of later and earlier influence as well.

In a certain way, the OG Fallouts were the 50s retrofuture post-apoc made with a 80s/90s vision. FO3 and FO4 seem to have more of a 2000s/2010 influence, you can see it in the Pipboys and interface which has more of a "retrofuture iPad" appearance, instead of the originals' more "doorhickey" appearance to tech.

The 80s part is also interesting, in that Falloutverse computer tech seemed to be around the level of the 80s, even if the overall tech is far superior from what the 80s could do. Big terminals, personal computers are already a thing but there are no GUIs yet. There are multiple local, military and corporate networks, but there was no Internet yet.

There are even 50s references that Fallout intentionally avoids. For example, Fallout doesn't have the Three Laws of Robotics. It was already an existing concept, but Fallout deliberately hearkens back to pre-Asimov robotics. AI have memory limitations. Robots can and will harm and kill if programmed to. Fallout robots usually lead to people being killed because of defects, bad programming or following their mission to the utmost, not because they decided to "Kill All Humans", which is more of a 80s-style malevolence.

Yeah, the retro 50s future was the Old World. The war killed that world and opened a new world. The new world is "Mad Max Cowboys with Lasers", leather jacketed barbarians going about the ruins of America The New Rome, wielding technology they barely understand. The difference between those two should be clear.

I would also add the Wild West as an influence, there are some points in FO1 where the know world is called "The New West", there's a pretty subtle westernesque influence (like how every damn town has a gang problem, Boneyard even lampshades it in Adytum lol). FO2 and FNV went harder on the western themes.

Possible reason for this is that 50's SF was not very concerned with apocalypse or post-apocalypse - A Canticle for Leibowitz was groundbreaking in 1961., and I don't know for earlier such works.
It was more optimistic and very space-epic oriented, so it was good kontrapunkt for apocalypse.
Visual cues of the 50's were combined with Mad Max and all the post-apoc stuff that happened mostly in 70's and 80's - and they had their own futurism that became retro-futurism in Fallout.

 

[King Crispy]

This is what happens when we allow newfags to join.

 

[0sacred]

This is what happens when we allow newfags to join.

I'm not a newfag

I really like 50's sci-fi

that's all fine and dandy really, you can jack off to whatever you like. That doesn't make Fallout's setting better or work better, though.

 

[ropetight]

Maybe not newfag, but definitely a fag.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

that's all fine and dandy really, you can jack off to whatever you like. That doesn't make Fallout's setting better or work better, though.

Your distaste* for 50s sci-fi doesn't make the Fallout setting stop working, it's a brilliant setting.

*probably caused by having garbage taste. I recommend getting better taste, or suicide.

 

[octavius]

Possible reason for this is that 50's SF was not very concerned with apocalypse or post-apocalypse - A Canticle for Leibowitz was groundbreaking in 1961., and I don't know for earlier such works.

Earth Abides was the first major P-A novel, I think, in 1949.
From the 1950s:
Day of the Triffids
The Long Loud Silence
I Am Legend
The Chrysalids
The Long Tomorrow
The Death of Grass
Alas Babylon

And Apocalyptic:
On the Beach
Level 7

And probably many more.

Hell, even the original Canticle was from 1959.

 

[King Crispy]

I'm not a newfag

 

[Spike]

This is what happens when we allow newfags to join.

Then you wouldn't get patricians like me.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

I thought it was COMMON KNOWLEDGE that the combat and writing in Fallout is mostly serviceable and the C&C is what mattered?

The writing is only serviceable in Fallout 1. Fallout 2 has great writing.

 

[laclongquan]

On the one hand I agree that combat in Fallout 1 and 2 is serviceable. I totally agree with that.

On the other hand, damn if my heart wont start to race every time I start the combat against the ants in Temple of Trial or the rats in the darkened cave outside of Vault 13.

 

[curds]

Which RPG settings are not retarded?

 

[Skinwalker]

Which RPG settings are not retarded?

Elder Scrolls.

 

[Sykar]

 

[Stavrophore]

 

[NecroLord]

Remember Vault 69?

 

[Arbiter]

Which RPG settings are not retarded?

D1 Sanctuary, if you consider Diablo an RPG.

 

[Lujo]

The first one was a serious little "art" game, or had a lot of appeal of that. The second one was damn near: "Monkey Island: The Wacky Post-Apocalypse". Felt almost like a Mel Brooks movie at times. Even the guys who made the first game sorta-kinda figured there's no place to take it while still playing it straight.

 

[GrafvonMoltke]

Fallout was good, op is not

 

[Ladonna]

I blame Fo3 for everyone thinking that Fallout is about LOL 50s SO COOL. It was never a big theme in Fo1, hell not even in Fo2 (especially with the new modern weapons like the P90 being introduced and shit like that). There's those elements, yes, but it was never the main takeaway. I'd argue Mad Max / 80s apocalypse had a far bigger influence on everything. It's just that people are retarded and now we are where we are. Actually I think FNV did a well enough good job at walking it back a bit. Guess it's really just Bethesda who didn't understood. What a coincidence.

I think both the 1950s sci-fi/Golden Age of Science Fiction part is very important, but Fallout doesn't take inspiration from just that. There's a lot of later and earlier influence as well.

In a certain way, the OG Fallouts were the 50s retrofuture post-apoc made with a 80s/90s vision. FO3 and FO4 seem to have more of a 2000s/2010 influence, you can see it in the Pipboys and interface which has more of a "retrofuture iPad" appearance, instead of the originals' more "doorhickey" appearance to tech.

The 80s part is also interesting, in that Falloutverse computer tech seemed to be around the level of the 80s, even if the overall tech is far superior from what the 80s could do. Big terminals, personal computers are already a thing but there are no GUIs yet. There are multiple local, military and corporate networks, but there was no Internet yet.

There are even 50s references that Fallout intentionally avoids. For example, Fallout doesn't have the Three Laws of Robotics. It was already an existing concept, but Fallout deliberately hearkens back to pre-Asimov robotics. AI have memory limitations. Robots can and will harm and kill if programmed to. Fallout robots usually lead to people being killed because of defects, bad programming or following their mission to the utmost, not because they decided to "Kill All Humans", which is more of a 80s-style malevolence.

Yeah, the retro 50s future was the Old World. The war killed that world and opened a new world. The new world is "Mad Max Cowboys with Lasers", leather jacketed barbarians going about the ruins of America The New Rome, wielding technology they barely understand. The difference between those two should be clear.

I would also add the Wild West as an influence, there are some points in FO1 where the know world is called "The New West", there's a pretty subtle westernesque influence (like how every damn town has a gang problem, Boneyard even lampshades it in Adytum lol). FO2 and FNV went harder on the western themes.

Original Wasteland. This is the biggest influence for Fallout, by far.

Many of the story arcs in Fallout are very similar to some of the arcs in Wasteland (Wasteland has more), only on a smaller scale. Mutants replace robots as the big bad, but plenty of the smaller arcs, ie; Killian and Gizmo = Faran Brygo and Fat Freddy, Temple of the Union = Temple of Blood, Followers of the Apocolypse = Servants of the Mushroom Cloud, and so on. . The vacuum tube/1950s tech divergence is a Fallout thing though. Wasteland is all about the 1980s.

 

[Tihskael]

The only good setting is Shkyrim in which I can shout off Viking female companions off a cliff.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I fell asleep....



Oh well.

Yeah.... I guess.

 

[Laz Sundays]

I had a TV and an old murican gramophone/single roll cassette player that ran on lamp tech while child. Was obsessed with it once I found out some russian planes rolled on that powar and were performing crazy well, but then a theory came out. Theory that this tech was close af to unlocking even greater potential and shift technology into something spectacular, yet we ditched it and proceeded into microstuff.

One brave soul claimed that lamp tech was close to communicating with the dead even. Fun stuff, great mental gymnastics, fond childhood memories. ANYWAY, I see nothing bad with Fallout setting but it's ok if you do? Just don't claim how we should all feel like idiots for loving it.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

If you want to play a really dry Fallout, you have ATOM RPG.

it's not that I mind humour in games so much though. I like BG, after all.

It's rather that you look at the setting and go SAY FUCKING WHAT. And then they used humour and pop culture references to gloss over the holes in the setting and its ridiculousness. You basically have to break the 4th wall to appreciate the setting, and they knew it, so they added even more of that stuff to keep you in that state and make it seem right.

Very shortly you will be LARPing the world of Fallout for real except with all the hypothetical 50's advanced technology that never actually materialized in this sh*tty back alley parallel universe that we find ourselves in. You won't be able to find atomic power reactors just sitting around pumping out free electricity for centuries and you won't find high-tech weapons and armor to defend yourself with. Instead you will voluntarily report to the post-nuclear confinement camps and be reduced to eating bugs and mealworms while the tranny guards take turns butt raping you and making you dance for bubble gum. Oh how you will pine for Nuka-Cola when you realize that Fallout was an attempt to take your flat butthurt world and make it into an interesting place after the apocalypse ... not just a neverending ordeal of mascara tears while you deal out ass for food. You would give anything for a Shiskabob or lizard-on-a-stick instead of Karl Schwabs mealworm sandwiches but it will be too late. You will realize you loved Fallout in a deep homo way but could never admit it, now that it has been revealed to you what was really waiting for you after the apocalypse.