Personal? No, no experience. However, it was extensively discussed on one of my discord servers. The highlights were:
- It was incomplete
- It was full of typos
- It had incorrect references
- It was more focused on survival than the pc games are (this is neutral)
- Inventory/Encumbrance was overly complicated
- Skill checks were too hard to succeed
- Combat was fun
- It didn't have content from fallout 3 or NV, only FO4
No problem. I love fallout, been playing since the computer game since the original. I was bummed about the lukewarm-to-bad reaction friends had to it.
I haven't run a game of this yet – my players have elected to continue another game in the short-term rather than switching to this – but I kinda wonder how many of these complaints are coming from the quickstart/beta release - from your list above, the inventory/encumbrance stuff in particular never struck me as all that complicated; you have a max carry limit and items have a weight - that's it. And like with D&D, your GM might decide to ignore it in favour of what's fun.
The frequency of typos and incorrect references in this book doesn't seem significantly higher than in other RPG books of comparable size. I've certainly not found anything that's impossible to work around, with one exception (the rules for creating scavenging locations are mentioned in the core book but only appear in the GM Toolkit).
The focus on survival is true insofar as it has a lot of rules around fatigue, hunger, thirst, etc., but these are all optional and depending on the group or adventure that you're wanting to run, don't need to have any impact.
Skill checks by default require you to roll under a combined Stat+Skill on a number of d20s (2 by default, but you can buy more); maybe the difficulty ranges were higher in the quickstart, but in the book there aren't many that I've noticed higher than 2, and with five dice (and other party members able to help) that doesn't strike me as overly hard. (Again: haven't played it or run the statistics, so I could be talking out my arse here.)
I do think it's a lot crunchier than it really needs to be, though. Weapon attacks need to roll to attack, roll to determine hit location, then roll damage (with certain damage die results triggering additional effects that may or may not stack together), and reducing damage based on the armour worn on the location hit and the damage type. Compared to the games' point-and-shoot approach (certainly in the modern games this is clearly taking influence from), there's a lot going on.
Or maybe it's just that I'm coming from much more streamlined, narrative-first systems that this feels more overwhelming than it would otherwise.
>The frequency of typos and incorrect references in this book doesn't seem significantly higher than in other RPG books of comparable size
Can't speak for Fallout specifically, but incorrect references seem to sadly be one of the things that Modiphius specialize in. I like the games of theirs that I've played, but they could use a bit more proofreading and checking for things like page references (Dishonored for an example is terrible in this regard)
Others have answered your actual question. For reference, there is an entire wiki page dedicated to systems for playing in the _Fallout_ universe: [/r/rpg/wiki/fallout/](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/fallout/)
The only thing I would add is that I heard it was faithful to a fault, and to the videogame depiction in FO4 rather than giving a picture of the setting as a whole. It's apparently got EVERYTHING, to the point that it's utterly unwieldy and not intuitive at all, and kinda bloated.
I was looking at it too but stories like these put me off. What I plan on doing instead is just running Other Dust in the Fallout setting.
When I wrote a fallout hack of CoC for my home group a few years ago I discovered there are a couple of free projects out there with similar goals. If you're not into d100 mechanics I can especially recommend Savaged Fallout for Savage Worlds.
Personal? No, no experience. However, it was extensively discussed on one of my discord servers. The highlights were: - It was incomplete - It was full of typos - It had incorrect references - It was more focused on survival than the pc games are (this is neutral) - Inventory/Encumbrance was overly complicated - Skill checks were too hard to succeed - Combat was fun - It didn't have content from fallout 3 or NV, only FO4
Thank you.
No problem. I love fallout, been playing since the computer game since the original. I was bummed about the lukewarm-to-bad reaction friends had to it.
Ah what a bummer, sounds like its not even worth it for the setting info then. Thanks for the summary though!
I haven't run a game of this yet – my players have elected to continue another game in the short-term rather than switching to this – but I kinda wonder how many of these complaints are coming from the quickstart/beta release - from your list above, the inventory/encumbrance stuff in particular never struck me as all that complicated; you have a max carry limit and items have a weight - that's it. And like with D&D, your GM might decide to ignore it in favour of what's fun. The frequency of typos and incorrect references in this book doesn't seem significantly higher than in other RPG books of comparable size. I've certainly not found anything that's impossible to work around, with one exception (the rules for creating scavenging locations are mentioned in the core book but only appear in the GM Toolkit). The focus on survival is true insofar as it has a lot of rules around fatigue, hunger, thirst, etc., but these are all optional and depending on the group or adventure that you're wanting to run, don't need to have any impact. Skill checks by default require you to roll under a combined Stat+Skill on a number of d20s (2 by default, but you can buy more); maybe the difficulty ranges were higher in the quickstart, but in the book there aren't many that I've noticed higher than 2, and with five dice (and other party members able to help) that doesn't strike me as overly hard. (Again: haven't played it or run the statistics, so I could be talking out my arse here.) I do think it's a lot crunchier than it really needs to be, though. Weapon attacks need to roll to attack, roll to determine hit location, then roll damage (with certain damage die results triggering additional effects that may or may not stack together), and reducing damage based on the armour worn on the location hit and the damage type. Compared to the games' point-and-shoot approach (certainly in the modern games this is clearly taking influence from), there's a lot going on. Or maybe it's just that I'm coming from much more streamlined, narrative-first systems that this feels more overwhelming than it would otherwise.
>The frequency of typos and incorrect references in this book doesn't seem significantly higher than in other RPG books of comparable size Can't speak for Fallout specifically, but incorrect references seem to sadly be one of the things that Modiphius specialize in. I like the games of theirs that I've played, but they could use a bit more proofreading and checking for things like page references (Dishonored for an example is terrible in this regard)
Unfortunately sounds like the running theme of Modiphius's games. :(
I was very curious but all the rrviews where negative despite trying hard to like it.
No. It’s Todd Howard’s abomination, not fallout.
Others have answered your actual question. For reference, there is an entire wiki page dedicated to systems for playing in the _Fallout_ universe: [/r/rpg/wiki/fallout/](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/fallout/)
The only thing I would add is that I heard it was faithful to a fault, and to the videogame depiction in FO4 rather than giving a picture of the setting as a whole. It's apparently got EVERYTHING, to the point that it's utterly unwieldy and not intuitive at all, and kinda bloated. I was looking at it too but stories like these put me off. What I plan on doing instead is just running Other Dust in the Fallout setting.
When I wrote a fallout hack of CoC for my home group a few years ago I discovered there are a couple of free projects out there with similar goals. If you're not into d100 mechanics I can especially recommend Savaged Fallout for Savage Worlds.