Editorials
Post-Apocalyptic Memory Lane: Remembering ‘Fallout 3’ On Its 10th Anniversary
“War, war never changes.”wasteland
Released 10 years ago for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC, Fallout 3 came out to major praise. Developed by Bethesda Game Studios (also responsible for the acclaimed Elder Scrolls series), Fallout takes place in various states across a post-apocalyptic America. The series also embraces retro-futurism, using the aesthetics of the 50s, to present a whimsical, dark world.
As the series’ first jump into 3D graphics, Fallout 3 became a staple in open world gaming. From its interesting character-building elements to its world exploration and lore, traveling throughout the D.C. wasteland is nothing short of a blast (pun totally intended). And while we’ve had Fallout 4 and currently await the release of Fallout 76 next month, I wish to take you down radioactive memory lane, as to reminisce on why Fallout 3 is such an achievement in gaming.
All To See And Do In A Wasteland
For all its years being a top-down RPG, the jump to 3D is one of Fallout 3’s greatest strengths. Taking place in the year 2277, your journey begins in Vault 101. The beginning acts as a fun tutorial with you as an infant, and later a child, growing up in the vault, getting you used to the character building elements and perks you’ll gain throughout the game. The drama kicks off when you wake up one morning to find out your father has left the vault. In an attempt to find out why he left, you too leave Vault 101, coming face-to-face with the land ahead of you to adventure.
As an open world experience, there’s a balance to Fallout 3’s environment; pockets of inhabited buildings and towns are spread across the D.C. area; in-between these places are stretches of barren land, at times peaceful, and other times brimming with danger. All these elements make Fallout 3 feel like a natural world; you can feel the gloom as you travel down paths or as you make your way into a local marketplace. Minus some slight altering of names and appearances, Fallout 3’s D.C. renders real-world sites; for example, some unique locales include The Capitol Building, Lincoln Memorial, and The Washington Monument. Using a fictional version of a real-world place brings an eerie element to the game; this creepy feeling of knowing where you are and being part of such a horrifying “what-if” scenario.
Exploration throughout the wasteland becomes even more interesting when you consider all the radioactivity and violence along the way. Between raiders, super mutants, and other radioactive creatures, you never know what may be lurking around you (or straight up charging towards you). Combat in Fallout 3 is even more fascinating when using the V.A.T.S system.; this in-game mechanic allows you to stop time, pinpointing exactly where you want your attacks to land on an enemy. Not only does this bring an extra level of strategy to combat, but also rewards the player with lots of gory deaths.
But besides blowing the heads off enemies, interaction with the game’s NPCs is another highlight of Fallout 3. One of Fallout’s greatest strengths is its grim humor; from shit-talking ghouls, two-headed cows, snarky robots, to a killer A.I., the individuals you come across in Fallout 3 will always bring some wacky weirdness and fun to the adventure.
From whimsical to serious moments, the atmosphere of Fallout 3 offers so much to take in. It’s never overwhelming, but rather, much more of a meditative journey; this is a world blown away by violence, born from the ashes of bombs. The art of the land is beautiful to take in with its morbid beauty. And when there is action you genuinely feel like a lone survivor fighting against sporadic madness and violence.
That said, while the combat is loads of fun, one component that really makes Fallout 3 shine is how you decide to act morally; it’s how you decide to treat people that will impact your interactions, and show what you’re capable of.
What Kind Of Wanderer Are You?
There’s an entire conversation to be had regarding RPGs when it comes to east vs. west gameplay styles; focusing on the latter, Bethesda is one of the key companies offering unique role-playing adventures. When it comes to Fallout, and specifically that of the third entry, there’s a wide variety of moral choices one can make.
Fallout 3 provides numerous takes on how you can be a kind-hearted wander or a complete jackass. Early in the game, you come across the town of Megaton. It’s a small town with stores and folks trying to scrape by with what’s left for resources. In the middle of the town you see a gigantic bomb that’s supposedly inactive; it’s after a short time that you come across a man who tells you otherwise.
This man not only tells you the bomb is active, but he wants you to help set it off. His employer wants Megatown off the map, and if you help him, he’ll reward you with a fancy place to live. That said, if you choose to deny his request, you can always turn him into the town sheriff. This is just one of the many examples of moral choices the player will find themselves up against in Fallout 3. Based on your actions you’ll gain positive or negative karma; said karma will impact your skills, as well as some interactions with NPCs.
How a Normal Fallout Mission Turned Into a Nightmare
On a smaller scale, you have a wide variety of choices regarding how you want to talk to folks. These decisions can impact specific dialogue and actions throughout the game, making for a fun way to role play. Do you want to come off sympathetic to one’s needs? There’s a choice for that. Do you want to be a total dick and threaten someone? There’s a choice for that as well.
While a lot of video games offer a sense of choice, a lot of those games still force you down a direct path. While Fallout 3 has some of these issues, they in no way make up the majority of the gameplay. Many of the choices you make do have some impact on characters and setting; consequences range from small and humorous, to significant and dramatic. Your interactions may land you welcoming into a particular location, or they may end up in a gunfight.
Fallout 3 is a great example of how to combine genres; from survival to RPG and action, the game takes so many elements and mashes them together to be one cohesive thrill. From the moment you leave the vault you can go in any direction you want. The best open world adventures allow players to embrace freedom, while also being able to observe and deal with consequences; Fallout 3 provides all of this wherever the player wanders off. Even though there’s the main story, it’s possible to become lost in side quests and exploration.
Not counting the DLC that came out after the initial game’s release, Fallout 3 is a massive experience. The places available to you are vast and brimming with character. In those places, you will find people with a variety of beliefs, morals, and emotions. While Fallout 3 is a game with heavy science-fiction elements, it also offers the chance to feel a real sense of sympathy. There will be difficult choices to make; there will be cases where you may not want to make an immediate decision, but consider the outcome.
A Sci-Fi Experience To Remember
When I first got to play Fallout 3 ten years ago it changed my life; I consider it one of my favorite games of all time and continue to compare current open world games to it. In every step I took I was in awe; from the massive crumbling monuments to the numerous personalities and quests I came across, playing Fallout 3 was (and still is) one of the most immersive games I’ve ever played.
I’m not too sure what to expect from the Virginian Appalachia of Fallout 76; what I do know is that I’ve been in love with this series ever since Fallout 3. Having explored D.C. and the areas surrounding it, as well as New England in Fallout 4, this series has continuously given me and many gamers the fantastic opportunity of in-depth adventuring.
But there’s s something about Fallout 3 that is always calling me back. Perhaps it’s the humor or the number of thrilling tasks to complete; it could be the characters I’ve spoken to or the fact that I love creating my own character in its unique world. Whatever it is, Fallout 3 is a game that shares a special place in my heart (and within the hearts of many). It’s a game that we’ll always remember; we’ll remember it for its fun, its innovation, and for reminding us that war never changes.
Books
Despite Treading Familiar Territory, ‘Ravenloft: The Horrors Within’ Provides a Wealth of Gameplay [Tabletop Terror]
I’ve been running tabletop RPGs for several years now, but I’ve never actually run the most iconic of them all, Dungeons & Dragons. Sure, I’ve played it more than any other game, but the setting and genre aren’t something that makes me want to pick up the GM guide and set up my own campaign to run players through. Any time I run games, I stick to horror or sci-fi games that align more with my interests, both mechanically and thematically.
The closest I ever got to wanting to run D&D was after my party played the Curse of Strahd campaign in fifth edition. The Ravenloft setting was perfect for me, forcing our intrepid band of heroes to face down all sorts of vampires, werewolves, and other things that go bump in the night. One of my all-time favorite moments as a player was entering someone’s home, slowly realizing she was a witch, and pushing her into an oven “Hansel and Gretel” style before she could spring her trap. Leaning into the horror got my mind racing with the possibilities for a campaign, but nothing ever came of it.
Recently, Wizards of the Coast released Ravenloft: The Horrors Within for the latest edition of D&D, revamping the legendary setting for the updated ruleset. While I still have plenty of games I would turn to first for spooky roleplaying games, after flipping through the book, I was impressed with the wide range of horror that the new setting manual allows for. To be clear, this isn’t a beat-by-beat campaign book with full prep for a long-running adventure, but rather a series of settings, creatures, villains, and character creation options that can be added to the world, allowing you to explore the darker side of D&D.
Character Options With a Horror Twist
The introduction of The Horrors Within outlines the main narrative concept of the book, the Domains of Dread. These are isolated areas that can be accessed by traversing through mysterious mists. Each domain has a Darklord, who is both a ruler and prisoner in the land. Their domain acts as a dark reflection of their past in a way that makes for a cohesive space that’s backed up by interesting character drama.
While much of the book is dedicated to GM-facing tools for creating a horror campaign within the Domains of Dread, the first chapter is all about new subclasses for players to use as their characters level up. There’s not a new one for every class, only seven of them, but they do add some supernatural flavor to the traditional character archetypes, along with smartly thought-out mechanical additions. None of them are terribly game-changing in my opinion, but they do help you create characters that feel like they are becoming monsters themselves. My favorite of these is the Reanimator subclass for the artificer, who assembles corpses into undead companions that can help you out.
The book also has a bard that summons ghosts, a cleric who worships the forces of death, a ranger who communes with dark creatures, a rogue who gets trinkets from the dead, a sorcerer who draws power from the shadows, and a warlock who made a pact with an undead patron.
To round out character creation, there’s a new set of horror-tinged backgrounds and species to layer on top of your character. Variants of werewolves, vampires, and zombies are now available to you, in addition to some fun concepts like paranormal investigator and spirit medium. While none of these excite me a ton on their own, I can see the possibilities forming in my mind as I come up with different ways to mix and match the classes, backgrounds, and species, making it enticing for players who are looking for creepier ways to build their new character. It doesn’t elevate the class creativity to something along the lines of Heart: The City Beneath or Mork Borg, but it’s definitely more flavorful than the standard D&D archetypes I’ve been using for years.
Darklords, Domains, and Dark Gifts
As you level up, you’re given access to a new set of feats called Dark Gifts. These can be bestowed on you from the GM at narratively interesting points, or can be selected any time you would gain a feat from the origin category. These are once again very thematic, combining mechanics and fiction in clever ways, but importantly, they come with a price to be paid when you roll a critical failure.
For example, the Gathered Whispers feat allows you to not only cast Message, but also to use a reaction to summon spirits to defend you when you would be hit by an attack. As a cost, if you roll a one, the haunting voices get so loud that you need to make a saving throw or take the condition deafened. I’m always in favor of a tabletop RPG making failure more interesting, so this is a step in the right direction for me personally, and I would love to see the concept pushed even further, especially with the focus on horror.
The bulk of the book, about half of the page count, is spent outlining the various domains of Ravenloft and their associated Darklords. This chapter is extremely thorough, highlighting the various horror subgenres and hallmarks that each domain explores so you can find one that aligns with the story you are trying to tell. Want to do something about gothic horror and political intrigue? Send your party to Borco and have them caught in the battle between the two Darklords, Ivana Boritsi and Ivan Dilisnya. Looking for a dark fantasy adventure about doomed quests and cursed items? Then you’ll want to use the Shadowlands, where the sentient sword Ebonbane torments would-be heroes.
Is your group begging for cosmic horror? Well, among the Domains of Dread in this book is Innsmouth itself, giving you the tools to put your players against the ultimate Lovecraftian evil, Cthulhu. There are sixteen fully-realized domains in here, as well as about two dozen others with brief, but still intriguing descriptions. I wouldn’t say any of them are mind-blowingly creative, but they certainly push the limits of what I’m used to seeing in D&D, with lots of options to explore your subgenre of choice.
While they don’t lay out full, beat-by-beat campaigns for each of the locations, there’s definitely enough information here to get the gears turning on hooks to draw the player in. There are several points of interest laid out for each domain, as well as a full history of the area and the associated Darklord. Each Darklord also has a full stat block, preparing you to craft that epic boss fight when the time comes. My favorite part of each entry is the suggested campaign overview, which outlines ideas for what characters should be doing during specific level ranges.
These are only about a page long, but they also come with plans for a full mini-adventure within that overview, complete with NPCs, plot twists, and often a map for you to use at the table. I’m a big proponent of the GMing philosophy of “draw maps, but leave blank spaces,” so while some may be disappointed that there’s not more detailed prep contained in this chapter, this is just the right amount of info for me to start creating my own campaign.
A Worthy Collection of Horrors
The following two chapters are focused on giving you the tools to start writing your own campaigns within the Ravenloft setting, providing solid advice for how to think about how you want the horror to manifest at your table. Given how goofy players can get at the table, it can be hard to maintain an atmosphere of menace between friends, but the tips and tricks in these chapters are a great start. Ravenloft: The Horrors Within also gives you the framework to build your own domains and darklords to tell the story that you want to tell, including tables to roll on to help you generate ideas.
To round out the book, the final chapter is a bestiary full of horrors to throw at adventurers. They all still end up getting broken down into D&D mechanics, so they aren’t anything extremely wild and out there, but there are some gnarly creatures rendered in compellingly moody artwork. My personal favorites were the Boneless, an animated skin of a flayed corpse, the cleverly named Carrionette, a doll animated by sinister magic, and the Relentless Killers, a series of supernatural murderers that take inspiration from slashers. Included among the monsters are some good NPCs that can be worked into your campaigns, either as friend or foe. It’s not as clever as the surreal monsters in Mothership or as truly horrific as the terrors outlined in Mork Borg, but these are definitely some of D&D’s darkest creations, allowing you to weave horror into your standard encounters.
There are definitely games better equipped to do horror in tabletop RPG form, but if you’ve got a group of players who love D&D and don’t want to try a new system, this setting book is the best way to inject the horror you’re looking for into the classic game. Not only does it lay out a wealth of options for you to pull from, between the domains, darklords, and monsters, it also provides you the tools to come up with your own ideas to prepare compellingly terrifying campaigns of your own.
Even if it sticks to well-worn genre tropes, any horror-loving GM will get a kick out of flipping through this book and seeing how their favorite subgenres have been translated into the world of Dungeons & Dragons.
Ravenloft: The Horrors Within is available now from D&D Beyond in Digital and Physical versions.
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