Terminal

Fallout: The Long Haul (ALWAYS OPEN TO NEW PLAYERS)

Hayley said “Well shit Poe, I’m just flattered at the attention you seem to be paying to my figure. I judged by your affinity for that bat and your habit of juggling balls in your hands that a ladies’ curves would be the last thing on your mind. Nice to see you too.”

"I'm hopelessly talented at multitasking when it comes to balls and curves." Poe said, his smile not even flickering.

Castillo said “Carter Castillo. Pleased to make your acquaintance, though I will retract that if you blow one of my limbs off.”

"I see my reputation proceeds me. Don't worry too much, I only blow up people when I need to or when I think it might be funny." Poe declared as he propped an elbow on the bat and shook Castillo's preferred hand. Before Castillo could so much as respond, Poe burst out laughing for no particular reason, possibly either at some joke in his own head or because he was easily amused.

Hayley said “As to your redundancy question, from what we know, we should have another couple coming on this trip. Not sure who the guy is that has the one we’ve got though. He wasn’t on the list. I’m guessing he got that Pipboy off’a one of the guys we aimed to invite, otherwise Victor wouldn’ta let him up. He’ll still need to be vetted though….be that as it may though, yeah, you should have more toys to play with. Between you, the Nightkin, and a yet arrived, more mechanical member of the crew, you should have plenty of tools for you box, Poe.”

"I don't have high prospects for that. He seemed completely useless when I talked to him earlier. He has decent eyesight and keeps his cool when you pull a grenade on him, but that's about it as far as I can tell. Once he flunks out of your inspection, make sure you relieve him of his Pipboy. I know those things are difficult to remove, but I've already reprogrammed the thing and he won't have much more use for that arm once it's gone anyway." One of his eyebrows moved in an odd fashion with that last statement. Reading into Poe's deadpans was difficult due to the goggles he wore, but it wasn't too hard to figure out he had just winked at them.

Castillo said “So, I take it you two have some history?”

"Ah, well, I claim a lot of skill in any kind of hardware and software engineering you'd care to name, but our little ember here has the advantage when dealing with wetware." Poe frowned for a moment as he spoke. "A few years back I was working with C.O.D.E. Prewar..." He paused for a moment, mulling over the phrasing as he drummed the fingers of his free hand along the grip of his bat. "...Prewar communication technology." Poe stared pointedly at Hayley for a moment, his lips flattening into a thin and straight line, giving nothing away. A moment later his rictus grin returned. "Has to do with robots and other stuff. I was doing well until I tried working with a Robo-Brain. Then the little ember here dropped in and helped me sort out my problem quick as a flit. I had secured the ruins where the lab I was working in was, so she and her little Follower friends were stuck in a bit of a jam with my traps until I helped them out. I'm sure Hayley will tell you more. My work will speak for itself."

He bobbed his head at Castillo. "You'll see what I mean once we're on the road proper. Right now though, I think I'll go and pick at that Mr. Helper's electronic brain. Try not to explode violently without asking me first in the meantime." He made the odd motion with his eyebrows again before standing up and slinging the bat back onto his travel bag. He gave Castillo a lazy two finger salute before turning and approaching the gathered trio of Raider, Nightkin, and Robot.

As he eyed its chassis and implements, he could immediately tell it wasn't a Mr. Handy or a Gutsy or one of the rare Orderlies (the lattermost he had only ever observed infrequently in the ruins of St. Louis). Its configuration was most similar to that of a Mr. Steel, but the capacitors installed on each of its limbs for powering its implements were military-spec.

It had apparently just finished speaking, which was fine with Poe. Before either Scraps or Elizabeth could respond to it, Poe coughed loudly and then spoke in a clear, and slightly louder than necessary voice, apparently not even caring that he was interrupting a conversation with a mutant who could punch his head clean off his spine.

"EC3slash48Q, identify make and model. Load 3ATslashRT parameters for implements integrated. Load and execute self-hardware diagnostic in parallel process. Parallel end to diagnostic; compile and load diagnostic data. Return make and model and subsequently loaded 3ATslashRT parameters and subsequently compiled diagnostic data. Refine return output to restrict unnecessary aesthetic features during return."

Fallout: The Long Haul (ALWAYS OPEN TO NEW PLAYERS)

TheEvanCat said
I have my conspiracies. But you assholes won't listen when I tell you that Obama is a space lizard.

Yeah, well, that's because everybody with even half a parasitic lobe parasite infesting their skull knows that he's actually a Glamour Morlock.

Fallout: The Long Haul (ALWAYS OPEN TO NEW PLAYERS)

TheEvanCat said
Puns are no good humor! C'mon, man!

Evancat, damnit, we were all pretending we didn't even see those! You ruined the conspiracy you great blit! >.<

:P

Fallout: The Long Haul (ALWAYS OPEN TO NEW PLAYERS)

Dinh AaronMk said
tl;dr - Fallout stats suck.

I liked the way I said it better. -_-

Fallout: The Long Haul (ALWAYS OPEN TO NEW PLAYERS)

In my personal opinion, attribute and skill systems are things that are only used in order to make a game playable - They have no purpose to exist, except to facilitate the instance of playing the game. Since one presumes when playing a game that it was designed with a difficulty and balance curve, this means there must be limits placed upon both any existing attribute and skill system. This is no less true in a game like Dungeons and Dragons or what you have.

There are two notable problems with such an arrangement. In real life, there is considerable variation amongst human 'attributes' to the degree that it is, in fact, entirely impossible to constrain the notion of human intelligence within the confines of a 10 point scale. It simply doesn't work, because intelligence in particular is a relative term. If we define it simply as capability to understand, integrate, and adapt to new ideas and concepts, then many people who might be considered reasonably intelligent otherwise become gibbering morons, and drooling imbeciles are ranked as geniuses because they can accept things that a reasonable person would have trouble accepting. If we define intelligence through I.Q., or a general aptitude test that ranks intellect based on visual recognition skills, mathematical ability, situational awareness, etcetera, then conventionally intelligent people become the new dumb compared to everyone with extenuating circumstances who excel in particular areas and blah blah blah blah

The point being that intelligence is a series of hills and valleys that people walk through and while it can be statistically measured in terms of variances or agreed upon measurements, a single point score in an attribute system cannot begin to even approximate the concept.

A similar problem presents itself with charisma (are we pretty or simply eloquent? Perhaps we're a hideous mutant with powerful aphrodisiac pheromones? Maybe people like us for our sunny disposition? Perhaps our INTELLECT is what makes us charismatic?), endurance (endurance, stamina, vigor, willpower, hardiness, resilience, toughness, fitness, etcet), and in fact every other attribute.

If you're still with me, I am now getting to the point. :P

In Fallout, the Attribute system does literally nothing but allow you to pass a few speech checks, determines starting skill points, and adds bonus points to particular skills, full stop. That is literally all they do (barring 'accessory' functions like how many implants you can receive in New Vegas). The Skill system is massively biased towards high intelligence since that means more skill points, but ultimately even a low-performance autistic with an intelligence of 1 can still max out skill scores.

If one entirely ignores the attribute system and ONLY looks at skills, things seem to make a lot more sense. The skills themselves do not raise any of the same conflicting questions that the Attribute scores do. "How can I have maxed out speech and barter if I have an intelligence and charisma skills of one?" The answer is: Attributes do not reflect who you are. They reflect how difficult it was for you to become who you are.

In Development Psychology there is a term called 'Canalization,' accompanied with the metaphor of a ball bearing rolling down an inclination or a groove on a hill. Because of gravity and the shape of the groove, there is very strong pressure or influence for the ball to travel in that one direction. Despite this, there always exists the possibility that the ball will roll in an unexpected way, because shit happens yo? Different facets of the human conditions are canalized to different degrees. Rooting behavior in infants, for example, is very highly canalized. Fear of darkness and the unknown is canalized to a fairly high degree, as is fear of heights, spiders, and snakes. Susceptibility to PTSD is canalized to an extent (higher stress levels and a greater physiological response to stress means enhanced reflexes), intelligence is variably canalized, the list goes on. The point is, of course, that everything is canalized and variable, and thus everything can be either harder or easier to achieve between individuals.

If we take this metaphor and apply it to the Attribute System, that means a person with a score of 10 in intelligence has a very easy time learning new things (improving skills) and is, in a general sense, more likely to pursue activities associated with high intelligence (since they are more likely to succeed in initial attempts). The metaphor breaks down slightly if we apply it to attributes like strength (since damage done with melee weapons and unarmed strikes is based both on your skills score in those areas AND your attribute score in either strength or endurance), but ultimately the result isn't that two martial artists with unarmed tagged and different endurance scores are inferior/superior to each other. It simply means one has to try harder, perhaps practice more to get the same results.

In other words: Attributes kind of suck and are generally only worth considering for the purpose of gameplay considerations. I want a lot of skill points, so better dump everything into intelligence - but that doesn't stop me from putting points into melee weapons, even with just a strength score of 5. On a personal note, I don't believe in the concept of luck - I believe in chance and statistical probability, but not Luck. So Luck is always my dump stat whenever I play Fallout. All in all, I ONLY CONCERN MYSELF WITH ATTRIBUTE SCORES TO THE EXTENT THAT THEY INFLUENCE SKILL SCORES, and otherwise I simply don't give a damn.

With that in mind, I feel free to define my character through their skills. "This guy is really smart, but he doesn't have very high skill scores in anything except barter because he doesn't have a lot of practical experience." "This guy is really, really ugly AND stupid, but he has a high speech and science score because he has a background in filing research articles."

'-'

So uh

Yeah sorry about that.

Words just happened and stuff.

EDIT: Also, to capture the idea of 'skills' in the sense of accomplishments not covered by the tag and skills system of Fallout (perception requirements to spot traps for example - I based whether or not Dallas/Sabin would spot Poe's grenade prank on their Perception scores), one presumes that there are 'unlisted' skills that cannot normally be trained in the manner most skills are, such as spatial awareness - which would be more likely to improve or deteriorate across long periods of time due to stimuli rather than experiences, no? In which case the Attribute that assigns your starting points in these unlisted skills becomes an important factor of consideration, ala Poe's grenade prank. I may have run an attribute check past Dallas and Sabin, but if somebody else with a high spatial awareness skill score came along who could demonstrate such even if they had a low perception score, I probably would have let it pass.

Fallout: The Long Haul (ALWAYS OPEN TO NEW PLAYERS)

Also, a giant Enclave base.

Yeah no thanks.

We already spoke about this earlier in the thread, and I can agree that it is entirely possible for the Enclave to have isolated pockets of small bunkers and facilities scattered about in remote locations, with the possibility of there being actual bases to the North in Canada. But after the events of the Fallout games, the main Enclave bases of operation across East, Central, and Western America have been stomped flat and their primary leadership candidates obliterated. As was demonstrated in New Vegas, most organized forces - the NCR, the Brotherhood of Steel, etcetera - all have shoot on sight policies regarding Enclave. Finally, recordings by Enclave technicians in the Divide show that there are no remaining active bases responding to radio hails during the events of Broken Steel and afterwards.

I don't mind there being individual scattered Enclave Remnants. There were at least eight in New Vegas alone. I do object to the presence of a 'Giant Enclave Base' on the grounds that it's patently improbable, and also because the Enclave in general are a massive plot tumor who don't have a place in a story like this one. :/

On the other hand, if someone can tell me why it might be possible for aforementioned giant base to exist, I suppose I could grudgingly go along with it.

Fallout: The Long Haul (ALWAYS OPEN TO NEW PLAYERS)

Poe is currently waiting to discuss business with Castillo and Hayley.

Fallout: The Long Haul (ALWAYS OPEN TO NEW PLAYERS)

ArcanicNeon said
Should I edit it so he DOES have one?

You can't, only Rangers of 20 years get Sequoias. He enlisted at age 22 and is currently 34.

Fallout: The Long Haul (ALWAYS OPEN TO NEW PLAYERS)

Meh, if he doesn't have a Sequoia it doesn't count. :P

In all seriousness though, he has never seen a ranger before. He had no way of knowing when he first walked in. As far as he's concerned, Dallas is currently just some git.

Fallout: The Long Haul (ALWAYS OPEN TO NEW PLAYERS)

Sabin is out of urine. He will have to now resort to dispensing fecal matter.