Posted September 23, 2023
In 3 and New Vegas, you have an option to play a neutral karma playthrough. Neutral karma is required for Just Lucky I'm Alive in New Vegas if making a critical build. Being neutral in Fallout 3 allows you to have either Butch or Sergeant RL-3 as a companion. Of course, in order to play neutral karma, requires you to steal lots of stuff, hack owned terminals if karma is too high, or donate caps to the church if karma is too low. In New Vegas, it's even harder because of all the good karma you gain from killing feral ghouls, powder gangers, fiends, etc.
In the first two games, I either play a good karma character who raises their karma as high as possible or an evil character who does all the evil quests. But even then, it's difficult to finish the games with low enough karma to kill the overseer at the end of 1 or reach Demon Spawn in 2.
In 1, when playing a good karma character, I'll avoid doing things that reduce my reputation, such as blackmailing Iguana Bob. From what I've seen, there are some 'evil' characters that attack you in the Cathedral, yet reduce your reputation if you kill them, such as the Chanters. Since I tend to enlist the aid of the Followers of the Apocalypse, and the Nightkin guarding the stairs leading down turns hostile. Since I'm the kind of guy who has a black-or-white morality way of thinking, I tend to play all my characters as either good or evil, nothing in between. So my good characters tend to be on the white side of morality, and my evil characters on the dark side.
But often when playing evil characters, I will do certain good tasks for the experience or reward, or both, such as the Radscorpion quest in Shady Sands, establishing the orphanage in Fallout 2 to get those annoying thieving kids off the Den streets. I have the same problem when playing a good character as sometimes I am forced into combat with characters that reduce karma when killing them. Stupid characters tend to also end up on the white side of morality I often find through playing them. I've been told that there isn't really a point to killing everyone in the game because it's stupid, boring, and the resulting endings you get make no sense, acting as if there are people still living there.
I've also been told that karma is just a number and it shouldn't matter regardless of what character you play. But I don't want to do certain evil things as a good karma character because I would risk losing certain companions, such as Sulik, Cassidy, etc.
Except for in 3 and NV, is there even a point to trying to be morally grey in the games?
In the first two games, I either play a good karma character who raises their karma as high as possible or an evil character who does all the evil quests. But even then, it's difficult to finish the games with low enough karma to kill the overseer at the end of 1 or reach Demon Spawn in 2.
In 1, when playing a good karma character, I'll avoid doing things that reduce my reputation, such as blackmailing Iguana Bob. From what I've seen, there are some 'evil' characters that attack you in the Cathedral, yet reduce your reputation if you kill them, such as the Chanters. Since I tend to enlist the aid of the Followers of the Apocalypse, and the Nightkin guarding the stairs leading down turns hostile. Since I'm the kind of guy who has a black-or-white morality way of thinking, I tend to play all my characters as either good or evil, nothing in between. So my good characters tend to be on the white side of morality, and my evil characters on the dark side.
But often when playing evil characters, I will do certain good tasks for the experience or reward, or both, such as the Radscorpion quest in Shady Sands, establishing the orphanage in Fallout 2 to get those annoying thieving kids off the Den streets. I have the same problem when playing a good character as sometimes I am forced into combat with characters that reduce karma when killing them. Stupid characters tend to also end up on the white side of morality I often find through playing them. I've been told that there isn't really a point to killing everyone in the game because it's stupid, boring, and the resulting endings you get make no sense, acting as if there are people still living there.
I've also been told that karma is just a number and it shouldn't matter regardless of what character you play. But I don't want to do certain evil things as a good karma character because I would risk losing certain companions, such as Sulik, Cassidy, etc.
Except for in 3 and NV, is there even a point to trying to be morally grey in the games?