Let's Play a Total Bitch in: Fallout New Vegas

Sorry for those who voted for other options, but I've kinda had an itch to play another WASD-based game after Skyrim. Whenever I try another game my fingers head for the Tab key to bring up my menu and gulp down 15 health potions and a Draught of Berserking before a big fight. But mainly this is a proof of concept post, to let you guys know what my ideas are and where I'm going with all this. If you guys like the approach but would rather it in a new game, just let me know in the comments.


This playthrough will be in marked contrast to my previous one, where I played a goody-two-shoes, smile-for-all-of-gods-radioactive-monstrosities type who played nice and killed as few people as possible until the endgame, where a tragic misunderstanding in Caesars camp led to her slow descent into blood soaked madness. Also I was a Science and Energy Weapons character, which will be something I probably avoid in this run, at least at first.


I should note I'm planning to have italics be my out-of-character commentary, and the rest should be read in-character.





The bastard shot me.

I don't even know who he was. I was just taking a part time job, carrying mail across the desert because the pussies around here are afraid of little things like Radscorpions and Deathclaws, and suddenly these guys jump me like I'm some sort of amateur. Can't remember if I got any of them, must have, but I went down, and then the asshole in the stupid jacket take the package and pops one in my head. Disgraceful. How did I let this happen? Must be out of practise.

Come to in a mangy, dusty old coffin of a place that judging from the rusty medical tools lying around, is meant to be some kind of doctors office. Which likely makes the guy in front of me someone who thinks he's a doctor. Goddammit. If I'm lucky he won't have patched me up with a staple gun.

Hello young lady! Now that all that nasty lead is out of your brainpan, I need to check you can form coherent thoughts. So, could you tell me your name?

...You mean you don't recognise me on sight?

Curse you screencap shortcut key! But yes, ignoring the 5, I've named the character a combination of russian and czech that some viewers may find familiar, others may be confused by.

Don't ask why '5' is my screen capture key.

 

Well, thankfully my good looks are intact, barring the scar underneath my hair...

Dammit, he scarred me. I can't let that stand.

Did women in the 50s hate having symmetrical hair? Why can't I choose a style like this, but on both sides? I have the option to make her hair purple and her skin blue, and give her an impacted chin that looks like Benny hit her with a sledgehammer rather than shoot her, but theres this tiny amount of hairstyles?

It takes a minute for my head to clear and for the room to stop spinning, but I get up, and the Doc has me use  an autodoc thats been made out of pinball machines parts.

Is this on a scale out of ten? I feel insulted. And how does it measure 'luck' from my blood pressure, exactly?

I'm kinda going for a risky stat spread this time, to accentuate the 'Frail But Deadly Teen Assassin' vibe I'm going for. The SPECIAL system is designed to leave starting characters a little hosed unless they take some serious dump stats, the point is that Skills make the character, not the base stats. I'd actually considered making an Int 1 melee character so as to have points for maxing out Strength and Endurance, but that sounded too much like my Skyrim character.

I suppose thats the best we can hope for, under the circumstances...

Speak for yourself old man, some of us have standards.

Mumbling something about 'Unusual moody behaviour', the old man asks me to come sit on his couch (I'm still in my underwear, I should point out), and says he's going to do some psycho-analysis on me. Its hard even for me to avoid bursting out in laughter.

5 minutes of me politely answer his pop-psychology bullshit later, and he's trying not to shit his pants in terror. Glad to see he's finally woken up to the situation.

What are you implying, exactly?

Erm...Implying? I was just m-mumbling to myself,  young lady, pay it no mind!

So...What did all your tests say about me?

 

'Likely to be skilled in manipulating people,  presupposed to 'mad bomber' tendencies, and  inclined to use lasers to injure people.'....Wait, lemme recheck that...oh dear...

Hah! You're a quack, old man.

 

I grew out of cherry-and-shrapnel bombs years ago. And I use guns, not lasers.

But you do do the manipulating people thing?

When its not faster to cap them in the head from hiding.

Maybe I should recheck the Hippocratic Oath for some loopholes...

I also take two traits to ram home the playstyle, with the perfect princess who has the constitution of a housefly. I really want to avoid being hit, but hopefully this skill boost will make up for it. I'm not too worried about the experience penalty, the game is packed with XP sources as long as I remember to do quests and maybe some DLC.

I was going to take the Four Eyes trait before I spotted Skilled, but I can work without indulging that particular fetish this time.

Because I have all the DLC, 'All I had on me' includes 4 sets of armor, a shotgun, a grenade rifle, some  spears, and the holy grail, the Vault 13 Canteen, which refills health and reduces thirst every few minutes. Rather odd of Benny and his goons to take the cowboy outfit I was wearing in the opening cutscene, but leave all the rest.

As he tries to push me out of his house, the old man mentions that, worse than just being beaten by those guys, the whole thing was just a glorified mugging. They attacked me just to steal that package, this 'chip'. I have to get it back and deliver it. Its a point of honor. I never fail at something as simple as a delivery.

Also it'll be on the cocksuckers corpse when I kill him, so I might as well take it back.

Going through my things, then?

I-I wanted to know if you had family wh-who needed contacting!

L-look, how about you take my wife's old jumpsuit, with this built-in wrist computer, and we don't mention this again?

....Acceptable.

And now he's implying I need help walking over warm sand. My god, this guy just does not know when to shut his mouth.

This part about a robot helping me...Thats odd. Why would a logical being like a robot help a person? That seems off to me. Maybe I should investigate that, at least.

One of the ulterior motives for doing this playthrough is to get the Steam Acheivement for finishing the game on Hardcore, so I'll be playing with those rules. After almost never sleeping or eating in Skyrim, I feel I owe it to myself to put myself through these kinds of hoops in the name of sensible behaviour.

I take the time before leaving to scrounge some food and medical supplies the old man had left lying around, as well as a badly-maintained laser pistol (hey, lasers aren't all bad) and a broken machine gun that I jury-rig back into working order. The old man doesn't even seem to notice.

(Maybe if I ignore her she'll go away faster...)

Ooh, fashionable accessories.

Hey! I need those to see!

You didn't seem to need them when you were performing brain surgery...

And just look how that turned out!

Look, just go back to your room and let me get dressed, old man.

Ugh, he really doesn't have any womens clothes left but this nightie....Guess I'll have to make do with the leather outfit I took off that bandit.

I'll take this just in case though....

Ok, maybe I'm indulging a few fetishes...

And it occurs to me as I steal virtually everything of value in Doc Mitchells home that this is exactly what I did with my goody-good, never-steal-a-thing character as well. Thats a worrying thought...

Okay, I've had it with this trash heap. Time to get back on the road and get that bastard in the stupid jacket.

And maybe there'll be a few more challenges along the way...

As I said, the Couriers Stash DLC adds a whole bunch of the preorder extras to your inventory as you start the game, including two max-condition-but-not-upgradable guns, and several different types of armor. The Lightweight Metal Armor is fantastic and renders you virtually immune to many early weapons...but I'm not going to use it. Latooni is a professional, and professionals don't need bit dirty suits of clanky armor to get the job done! So I'll be sticking with light armor at most, and if I can find some sufficiently fashionable normal clothes, I'm going to switch to them.

Man, I really do not want to get hit with this character...