I kinda liked the choices in that they were real hard ones to do, but roleplaying your way through isn't really the answer either. With most of my "good guys", committing a mass murder (of brotherhood) is straight out, but so is murdering just one guy. So... roleplaying doesn't necessarily lead to the endgame but rather to abandonement of the main storyline.

I'd have liked a pacifist option, and if it would lead to a really bad ending, all the better.

Guess going with the Yes-man is probably the best choice if you just want cash and don't want lots of people dying. That or siding with House.

You are really missing the whole point of this game, you make a choice and suffer the consequence. This gives you replay value and a broad specter of choices to role play.

That none of the choices are pure good/bad and not obvious is the real beauty of the game.
F3 in contrast had you role play: "Hi, seen my dad? This tall?" and pick stupidly obvious choices, for me it was almost idiotic.
With the dumbest choice being to sacrifice yourself like an utter dunce even if you had a radioactive proof companion.

I'm planning on doing this soon with my current character using the Rail Cannon from Project Nevada (it is awesome). :D

Anyway, I think DoDoGeo said it well. This is one of few modern games where not only are there a significant amount of choices that aren't just ridiculously polar good/evil choices, but they actually have consequences.
It is actually possible do a pacifist run. I haven't done it though, so it may involve letting companions kill dudes. I'd guess that going Indie is probably best pacifist-wise though, since you can basically just leave everyone alone if you want.

When you were trying to deal with the Legion, were you wearing faction armor from a faction the Legion is enemies with? (NCR for one. Not sure about Powder Gangers.) Alternatively, if Boone is still in your party, even if you've told him to wait somewhere, they'll be hostile. You have to dismiss him completely, so you get the message "Boone has returned to Novac."

That's why I love New Vegas! I've just played 5 hours so far but I'm alredy at "war" with the Powder Gangers.
----------------Some small spoilers ahead----------------




Personally, I don't have any problems with them. I just wanted to help Sunny Smiles, because she's a nice girl and helped me after leaving Doc Mitchell's House. That's all. The Powder Gangers however, didn't like what I've done. At least they started attacking me after the Ghost Town Gunfight quest.




----------------End of spoilers----------------
What I really don't like in New Vegas is the karma system... Since the Powder Gangers start shooting at me when they see me, I start shooting at them before they see me. Note: I'm murdering them out of a hiding place. We're not talking about a fair fight. Sometimes they don't even realise what happens. I'm gaining karma for that. After killing them I'm taking their valuables from their dead bodies without impact on my karma. And now make a guess what is causing a loss of karma... Taking one laughable dynamite from a nearby table in their camp -.- I've "stolen" something. I'm a bad guy now... *roll eyes*

I don't care for some occasional karma loss for "stealing". The "problem" is that I've entered the NCR correctional facility yesterday (Had a tough fight at the entrance. This game can be pretty hard, compared to Fallout 3!). I'm allowed to kill the Powder Gangers and to loot their bodies but taking any of the other loot results in karma loss... That's ridiculous. As I said, I don't care that much. It's just a little bit annoying because it doesn't make any sense.

I don't need some very high karma. I'm happy as long as I don't fall into the bad karma range. But this would be a turn-off if I wanted to play a character with a lot of good karma. I would be missing a lot of loot just because the guy I'm going to kill refuses to hold that stimpak from the table for a second. Not funny.

One of the problems of the game is that you get good karma to easily. Therefore I wouldn't bother with a few "steals". But yeah, that is a bit stupid. But that hardly happens in the game, if you play a good guy. Quest loot is always karma neutral and generally after a few hours that kind of stealing is not only rare but not really necessary.

The idea of getting good karma for sneaky kills on evil people is that you go out on your way to "rid the wasteland of bad guys", at least that is what I read somewhere.

Generally, karma has a very, very low impact on the game. Faction reputation is a lot more important. Every faction will deal with the worst of humanity if it advances their goals. Honestly, apart from the ending slides and a few perks I wouldn't know what karma actually influences anymore.

As far as I know, besides the endings and the perks from Lonesome Road, the only thing Karma affects is Cass. I believe if you get really low Karma she'll leave you, but we're talking murdering everyone in Vegas for laughs, not helping yourself to some free medical supplies.

Heh, awesome. You know what would've been cool? The ability to assassinate Caesar and then essentially tell the Legion "I am your ruler now, anyone who disagrees will personally have their head exploded by me" and then you could have your own personal army to do with what you will.

You can assassinate Ceasar, but Legate will be new leader.

Then you kill the Legate, duh.

I was disappointed I didn't get a chance to kill him though, I just told him to fuck right the hell off after doing my quest for Mr. House.

The House always wins.

Not in my save. :P

Legate is hidden away until the ending, same as the NCR General. This was done for that very reason, to avoid you killing the big ending bad guy for the opposing faction.

Yeah, I know. Little joke.

He went down like a little bitch in my game though, so I guess things balance out. First time I fought him I screwed up the dialogue choices and got swarmed while wearing a fancy dress 'cause I forgot to change to my armour, and I still almost won.

Yeah, I get your point and I agree that getting the 'right' story (I understand this as 'The story you want') should be a challenge. I always play through my games more than once so I appreciate those kind of things but I think that NV got some points of it wrong. (However, I enjoy more just walking around seeing things and doing secondary quests and I tend to leave the main quest until the very end. That kind of 'off-road' experience was much more enjoyable on FO3 IMO)

The problem I see with NV is that sometimes you have a huge lack of information. I don't mean plot information like which are the plans of the Omerta when you first get his quest because that kind of information would spoil the game for you (Even though there are parts of the plot which seemed a little confusing). I mean game-based information like if performing a certain mission would make you instantly fail another mission from another faction (And this happens) when it's not plot-obvious. This is a huge problem on NV since almost anything interesting you do is quest-based. You are always given a certain quest with clear objectives which I think makes the off-road experience more predictable: If you are not given a quest then there's probably nothing too interesting to do there. (Even in some vaults you are given quests just by walking into them, that kind of ruins the immersion and makes the game feel more linear)

Don't get me wrong, I think NV is a great game but IMO what Bethesda did with FO3 felt much more alive and immersive.