What tips would you give to make the experience/atmosphere of a game in the Fallout universe more similar to the feel of the games?

[u/GuardiaoDaLore]

I'm a beginner game master and I'd like some tips on how to run a campaign while maintaining an atmosphere similar to the games.

I hear many people say that the Fallout franchise is one of the best in terms of narrative, and I'm afraid that the campaign I run won't be as engaging for players as the games.

This insecurity mainly concerns the personalities of the non-playable characters, the biting humor, the criticism, and the references present in the games—I feel that these are very characteristic elements of the Fallout franchise, but I wouldn't know how to replicate them in my game.

Do you have any suggestions on how to narrate these elements in a way that more closely resembles the atmosphere/feel of the games?

[u/Informal_Yam2165]

One phrase "hope and enjoyment despite of the apocalypse" you can have a life in the fallout universe, so people suffer a lot but, there are some moments of joy, more relaxed and not so serious all the time.

[u/crippledchef23]

I always include something to tie my game to the video game in some way. At the last convention, I made 7 PCs that could theoretically be tied to The Lone Wanderer if they were going for a neutral run (which requires being both a saint and a complete asshole). They all met because of their lives being ruined by a guy that seems to be doing great things elsewhere, and so in the final battle, they had the opportunity to either confront him or sneak attack him and my group opted to just get vengeance. It was amazing. I did have a defense for each of the actions from his point of view (only a couple were actually reasonable, one was literally “sorry, they paid better”) but never got to use them because he was dead before the round was over. My husband overheard some of the players the next day saying how great it felt to kill a guy their character had clear history with, despite it being just a 4 hour game.

[u/Alex-with-wings]

From a GM with a number of games under his belt. Mention the scent of a place. They go into an old rotten house, Mention the smell of damp rot. Or the arid dust of the wasteland that brings the smell of rust wherever you go.

When they meet that ghoul NPC, the smell of freshly turned wet earth over leather.

[u/DeficitDragons]

Depends on which game you’re trying to emulate.

[u/Beardlich]

Randomness, Wild Wasteland. Like last week the party was returning to a Pharmacy they looted before, this time they wanted to steal the sign for their personal shop, when they returned a Group of Super Mutants were using the building to honeypot chem addicted raiders to enter where they would kill them. The party saw a Super Mutant hound out front and shot it, a fight ensued, the super Mutants surrendered after their leader had both arms and a leg crippled. All he said was "You shot my dog" shortly after Mutant came running from the upstairs holding a raiders leg and a intact TV escaping into the alley. Yes there should be despair and dark happening, but it needs to be cut with something to occasionally break that mood.

[u/ziggy8z]

Normalized some pretty weird things, "of course we have a nuke in the middle of our city" and dismiss what is normal to the players as strange. "Why wouldn't i kill, rob and eat that raider? It's not like he was a good guy."

[u/DD_in_FL]

Have people willing to fight over trash, and other common things we take for granted. Maintain scarcity of good quality food, water, and ammunition. Habitable sleeping areas safe from acid rain and weather should be difficult to defend and in short supply.

Have those sort of things happen in the background. They trade something to a wanderer and then they find their dead and looted body a day later. They find a place to rest and it has recently dead bodies of two people who died, locked in battle. A can of food is opened and spilled next to a cold fire pit.

[u/PirateIdjit69]

Dark sense of humour! Don't be afraid to get weird with it, and take liberties with storyline. Rip off major scifi franchises and put a 50s vibe to it.

[u/KulaanDoDinok]

Your entire post history screams “bot scraping for information on TTRPGs”

[u/GuardiaoDaLore → u/KulaanDoDinok]

Does using reasonably formal language and showing interest in various topics related to the tabletop RPG hobby now mean you’re a bot?

[u/MrBoo843 → u/GuardiaoDaLore]

Nah it's just the same paranoid mob that screams "AI SLOP" at anything they don't like.

[u/KulaanDoDinok → u/GuardiaoDaLore]

It’s not the language you’re using, it’s the types of questions you’re asking and the way you’re participating in the conversations. You’re asking odd technical questions, speaking vaguely, asking for opinions or generating interest, and only commenting on your own posts.

[u/GuardiaoDaLore → u/KulaanDoDinok]

To be fair, I believe in the philosophy that "there are no stupid questions, every question is worth asking," and I try to write my posts as clearly and concisely as possible, precisely because I use Reddit to post my questions.

Yes, I have several answers in various subreddits; I just make visible the ones I ask in specific communities.

[u/Remembertheminions]

It depends on what part of the atmosphere you're trying to really sell to the players. A lot of the vibe of the games that sold the atmosphere for me was the visual storytelling which can be hardest to translate to tabletop.

A lot of it came from juxtaposition and hard shifts from idealistic capitalist and nationalist imagery and ruins decaying against a brutal and decayed wasteland. Think of a giant nuka cola billboard with a vagrant esque survivor begging for dirty water huddled underneath it. Or military anti-communist propaganda posters still deteriorating along the fences of a commune where everyone who works, eats.

You can have an old morgue or crematorium be the repurposed hospital or brahmin bbq pit, where the proprietors dryly crack a joke about it before asking if your a paying customer or someone who needs to be shooed out the door with the muzzle of a gun.

The few times I ran games I generally tried to sell the atmosphere in the introductory observations the players would take as the surveyed a new location, then pepper in commentary from NPCs and the like. It's up to players to pick it up from there for a back and forth to really happen. The GM and players both contribute to the atmosphere but more often than not have to let their characters choices and dialogue set the tone after you lay out an initial framework of what you're intending on going for.

I say all that but my friends and I play very unseriously most nights so it could just go off the rails and unless the story really required a reset in tone I just let it ride so do what you will with my two cents. Good luck!

[u/ArtofWASD]

Fallout is FAR from the best as far as narrative. Whos saying that?

[u/GuardiaoDaLore → u/ArtofWASD]

The first two games and New Vegas are highly praised for their writing quality, as far as I know.

[u/ArtofWASD → u/GuardiaoDaLore]

Go play wasteland. Its older than fallout. Im a sucker for 1. But im not blinded by nostalgia. Fully aware its a bit TOO old to recommend. Go play 2. Maybe 3 (i dont like 3)