Grant Cowan, aka The Canadian, Vault Dweller (2d20 Fallout RPG, Modiphius)
Preamble
Another made-and-played character from the five year survey of games I accidentally began in the lock down.
I played through Fallout 1 and 2 decades ago. Half of Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Twice through Fallout 4. Great games but lots of missed opportunities. And of course, they are CRPGs with established plots and endings. So, you’re limited in what you can actually do.
That’s why I like pen and paper RPGs and why I was interested in the Fallout RPG from Modiphius.
I like bits of FoWW but there’s almost no RPG in that game. I also dislike card assets as a game prop as they are easy to misplace, result in highly disorganized tables consuming a lot of space I don’t have, and require painful hours to print-(and cutout)-and-play. But the FoWW scenarios and campaigns are great frameworks.
The Plan - Create a new FoRPG character and use the FoWW scenarios together with the first FoRPG adventures to generate a separate campaign. For what it's worth I ran three sessions after the start below. The character only just got to exiting the Vault.
But I’m not going to start with a cold open on the first scenario or adventure. Nope. I’m going to sandbox my avatar PC’s entry into this setting.
I’m adopting the computer game’s conceit of the player character being known not primarily by their name but according to an appellation. The Vault Dweller, the Chosen One, the Lone Wanderer, and the Sole Survivor. But in this case the player character will be known as The Canadian. Later in the setup it became clear he could also be known as The Prisoner, or The Convict.
Methodology
Where will the campaign take place? The FoRPG default is the Commonwealth but I’m sort of familiar with FO 1/2 although it’s been … longer than my kids have been alive and one is an adult now and the other acts more like an adult than many people I have worked with. I listed the options and arranged them like so then rolled 2d6 knowing that the most likely would be the Commonwealth but would fall into someplace I know more than somewhere I’m not familiar with. I rolled 8.
2-3 FO 1/2 California
4-5 FO 4.1 Far Harbour
6-8 FO 4 Commonwealth
9-10 FO 3 DC Wasteland
11 FO 3.1 New Vegas
12 Somewhere else?
We have the Commonwealth.
The next step is asking when and the ad hoc method I threw together is this.
[1) Days, 2/3) Weeks, 4/5) Months, 6) Years / 1-3) Before, 4-6) After]
[4 = Months (d6 for die size, then d6 for number of dice), 2 & 2 = 2d6 = 7]
Exact date? Turn to Python to pick a random number.
>>>import random as rnd
>>>rnd.randint(1,31)
17
Seven months (March 17, 2287) before the Sole Survivor was released from Vault 111, another individual was thawed from a cryogenic hibernation pod far to the south of the ruins of Boston.
Let's check that assumption. On Ice? d% = 00 Yes, Critical (And if no, then what? Thawed a while a go or maybe an outsider? Maybe a vault dweller.)
Others d% = 72 Yes
How many? d6 x d6 3,4 = 4d8 = 2 + 7 + 3 + 2 = 14 others on ice
Experiment? d% = 90 Yes, And
Prisoner? d% = 00 Yes, Critical (What would I have determined if it was no? Not a prisoner after all.)
I decide that the Vault that The Canadian is in is a cryo-prison, another amazing advancement brought to you by the minds at Vaultec.
Who else was a prisoner? Canadians? 76, Chinese 01, Other 21
Others? Political Prisoners 72, Military 37
Therefore the Vaultec cryo-prison is holding Canadian nationals and political prisoners.
Why was he released?
1 Technical Problem, 2 Faction Trouble, 3 Accident, 4 Planned, 5 Social Problem, 6 Roll Twice
d6=6, okay d6=6 again! Oh boy, 3 & 4, 5 & 2
An “accident” (3) was planned (4). Social Problem (5) in the vault caused trouble with a faction (2).
What faction?
1 Raiders, 2 Gunners, 3 Super Mutants, 4 Ghouls, 5 Robots/Mechanist, 6 Brotherhood of Steel, 7 Railroad, 8 Gangsters, 9 Settlers, 10 Institute
D10=8, gangsters so is it a known gangster? D%=89 Yes, And
I take that to mean two known gangsters or gangsters and another faction.
50/50 two gangsters/another faction 86, another faction
10 The Institute
What’s the Vault Like?
Size of the Vault 1) 10s, 2-5) 100s, 6)1000s
D6=4, Middle of the 100s, so 200+ d6(d100) 200+76+50+12 = 338
Nature of the Vault
Generational, Sleeper, Robots, Institute
33, 94, 89, 16 for each.
Not a generational facility. The human staff are mostly kept on ice and the installation is run by robots with staff being woken up and put to sleep in shifts.
Humans-to-robots ratio? D10:d10 = 8:5
How many staff on a waking shift?
Open to the Outside?
D%=33, No, But
The vault has a limited population. 338 + 14 prisoners
Was it designed for more prisoners? 91 Yes, And
How many? 1) 10s, 2-5) 100s, 6)1000s
D6=4, Middle of the 100s, so 200+ d6(d100) 200+d6x100 = 400
400 humans, 250 robots - 324 humans, 5/8 of 324 = 202.5 robots (so one is damaged)
324 staff, 20 robots, 14 prisoners
How much of the awake population turns? D%=71 Yikes.
There are 1d6(die size = 1) 1d4 = 3 shifts, 108 each shift
Part of the staff grew discontent with the situation and during the course of several recon missions secretly collaborated with their outside supplier, a gangster in the Boston area. Ultimately the gangster cut a deal to take over the vault with a plan to become a pre-eminent power in the Commonwealth.
The overseer thaws the remaining prisoners and explains. They are granted full pardons, American citizenship, but the mood is d%(50) divided.
The Character
Name: Grant Cowan
Moniker: the Canadian, the Prisoner, the Convict,
Origin: Vault Dweller
SPECIALs
- Strength: 5
- Perception: 6
- Endurance: 7
- Vault Kid - Reduce Endurance checks for disease by 1
- Charisma: 6
- Intelligence: 8
- Agility: 4
- Luck: 4
Combat:
- Initiative P+A (6+4=10)
- Melee Damage:
- Defense: 1
- Health Max:11
- Current: 7
- Carry: 200
Tag Skills:
- Science (In) +3
- Repair (In) +4
- Athletics (St)(Ag)(Co) +2
- Sneak (Ag) +3
Skills:
- Medicine (In) +3
- Small Guns (Ag) +4
- Pilot (Pe) +3
- Barter (Ch) +3
Perks:
- Hacker
Equipment
- Vault jumpsuit
- Vault-Tec security armor, and Vault-Tec security helmet
- Vault-Tec branded canteen containing 1 Purified Water
- Pip-Boy
- Baton
- 10mm pistol (20 rounds)
- 1 stimpak
The Story
“Attention, Prisoner”, the loud vaguely synthetic voice shouted a bare meter from my face like the drill instructors had before The Capitulation. “Eyes front!”
Unbearable cold from my ears and toes right to my very core was the first awareness that filtered into my semi-consciousness. My entire body shook. Or at least I imagined it was but I was also paralyzed. I couldn’t move at all. But darkness receded quickly to a blinding glare.
The room was blindly bright but also full of shadows. A constant roar of HVAC and power cables and I was shivering from a cold that reached into my blood and bones.
“What’s wrong with the Prisoner? He’s not responding.”
“It is an inevitable side effect of the cryogenic hibernation. I will administer a Stim-pack and a constitutional enhancement,”
“Do not give the Prisoner Buffout, nurse. He is still an enemy combatant.”
“He will only be roused to normal it is not a full field combat dose but is he not no longer a prisoner?”
“Only if he accepts the conditions of the pardon,”
Pardon? That was a laugh. I had done nothing other than being a citizen of a conquered nation. I had a travel visa. I had not deviated from my route to Nuka-World and I had a reservation at the motel in Bradberton.
“Until then he is the enemy,”
“The war has been over for more than two centuries. I am quite certain the poor man has served his time.”
“Death is the only acceptable sentence for refusing the freedom offered by these United States of America.”
“And yet the Republic is no more.”
“So long as electricity flows in my circuits the dream of freedom remains alive. Prisoner. Can you speak?”
It was a lot to take in. My homeland, my beloved Confederation, was gone. Ground beneath the tank treads and armoured boot heals of the Americans. That was the bitter truth I had known even before they locked me in a tube and the cold had overcome me.
But… the republic was no more? Had the United Statesm been destroyed? I didn’t have enough information. Maybe there was an insurgency. Maybe the Chinese or Russians or … the French? No. I couldn’t speculate. I needed to know more first.
“Yes,” I replied through chattering teeth.
“Good. The overseer of this facility is empowered to grant you a full pardon and citizenship in these United States of America should you agree to defend this facility against traitors, communists, and other enemies of the state and vault-tec.”
“Alright I agree.” Compliance was mandatory. It was the only hope I had.
“Excellent welcome to your new home citizen. We are currently under attack by traitors, communists, and radioactive mutants. You are now legally conscripted into the army of the republic. Are you prepared to defend this facility?”
“Yessir!” I snapped. I knew how these Mister Gutsy models worked. And that was a Miss Nurse floating behind him. It was working the controls on a cryopod. There were dozens of them that I could see. “Point me at the enemy,”
“Excellent attitude private!” the Gutsy barked “Pick up your freedom armour in the room at the end of this row of cylinders and snap to it.”
My legs were so weak they felt like cold noodles but somehow they managed to get me to the room where another Gutsy floated. Several other people were present in the room. A slender brown skinned woman was cinching a flack vest of some kind on. She glared at me as she gathered her long black hair into a pony tail.
Three others were collapsed onto steel benches. All wore the same orange jumper but also had a flack vest. A Chinese man - if I guessed right - with receding hairline. A black man – young and strong based on his build. A white guy finger combing his hair back, slicking it with water from a can.. A protectron was attempting to resuscitate a body collapsed on the floor. Two people in bright sky blue clean room suits stood behind thick glass windows. Their voices crackled when one picked up a microphone and held it close to their face shield.
“Sign the forms for the weapons and armour in triplicate and equip yourself quickly.”
A drawer opened in the wall beneath the glass.
I really could have done with a hot shower and a shave - two hundred years felt like it had put twenty days of itchy stubble and stink on my face and body respectively - but looking around I wondered if there was running water at all other than that which was seeping into the facility. Plastic panels were stained. Lights flickered or were burnt out entirely. Cracked linoleum tiles were loose or raised, peeling back from the concrete floor.
The protectron was still trying to shock the corpse into life when I scratched my signature on the clip board’s triplicate papers, my John A MacDonald transferring to the lower carbonized layers
The drawer took the papers and returned with a riot/flack vest, clear faced helmet, security baton, and a 10mm pistol.
I donned the light armour quickly as I could hear the sound of gunfire somewhere echoing through the crumbling corridors and the jet of a robot approached. Looking up I saw it was a Gutsy.
“Do you require instruction on how to use the firearm?”
Picking it up I removed the magazine, ejected the round from the chamber, locked the weapon, retrieved the rouund and returned it to the mag, then inspected the firearm. Ten millimetre pistol. The rapid fire told me I'd be facing full auto.
“Negative,” I replied finally. I laid the firearm on the table beside the clip, strapped on the belt and holster, returned the magazine and after checking the surrounding sighted the weapon against a locker, feeling the weight. “This much hasn’t changed in 200 years,” I told them.
After all, war never changes.
Commentary
The fiction is part of my self-immersion for soloing a new avatar character. The rest of the sessions were a lot less writing and just note taking closer to the setup methodology at the top of the page.
What happened after this? A couple of firefights with two small groups of Triggermen including a ghoul Triggerman then four Synths. Although I'd played combat in 2d20 Conan I wanted to see how it would shake out in FoRPG. I'll do the same with Star Trek Adventures, Mutant Chronicles, and John Carter of Mars later. I've played a dozen sessions of STA but phasers have only been fired in combat once. Somehow that game has been a lot of actual science fiction situations and social situations that came about because of the science fiction premises so I still don't know much about combat for STA.
The Canadian convinced the Gutsy to (1) let him have a map of the battlefield - accessed through the PipBoy - and (2) let the Protectron go with the defenders for medical assistance. It was used to draw fire while the Canadian and two others circled behind the attackers. They picked up submachine guns, a couple chems, a couple of revolvers, and switchblades. The second group of Triggermen was lured into the Synth recon unit and they did a lot of damage to each other before the Triggermen fell. The Synths were lured into an open area, doors locked remotely to prevent escape, with the defenders on an upper balcony.
The dice rolled about the attack indicated the numbers would be small, as if the Triggermen and/or Synths were not expecting any actual concerted resistance.
Edits: Miscellaneous typos.