Powder Gangers

[FlankerDFR]

It's a game, so in the end what we do, who we side with, means nothing. It's all just there for us to play as we see fit, drawing from it what we will. I've seen the argument before; about playng a role antithetical to your own personality and character, there's nothing wrong with that, it's quite popular, and in a game world no one really gets hurt. It's also true some are so formed by their character, personality, and life experiences it always, or almost always, affects most of their life's acts; including gaming. So play it like you're that rotten, no good, amoral, self absorbed [gee, I'd like to be friends with them :laugh: ] *** if you like. It's your game, and you can play it any **** way you want! Yea!!!

 

BTW: Petty crimnals??? Hhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmm???? Let's see..............observed NPC game behavior: Extortion, murder, robbery, cannibalism, rape likely,....................Yup! Meets my definition of petty. :laugh: Put all that on your resume/CV, and just sit back and wait for thousands of great paying baby sitting jobs to roll in!

[hurrdurrmurrgurr]

1. They have the supplies and more than enough men to take down Benny when he attacked at the end of the comic.

2.They have a lot of dynamite and you aren't just going to sit in their prison you can just use their place as a fortified base to keep out the jackals/vipers/wildlife before heading down the road and stock up on supplies for the trip. On my first go of the game I set the difficulty to very hard and watched Sunny get eaten by geckos in the tutorial, needless to say I've come to doubt her ability to defend the town from anything.

3. It's too bad for them that by that point I'll be down the road with a pack full of all the dynamite and ammo I could get from them and Goodsprings and yet I'll still be greeted if I happen to meet any other smaller camps of them. At that point I can befriend the NCR while the gangers are away allowing me minimal conflict on my journey.

4. I'm down the road with their friendship and ammo who cares about them beyond being the best springboard for starting your journey without getting another bullet in your head.

5. Because it means your character is very shortsighted and doesn't realise they're turning several areas of the wasteland into kill zones for themselves or is disregarding the roleplaying aspect of the game and is just focusing on healthbars, karma meters, faction bars and letting the player feel good about themselves.

 

If you treat Fallout with the same sense that you would in reality where one bullet can kill you and having someone point a gun at you is a very bad thing then befriending all the toughest gangs for protection makes sense. If you treat it as a game and call yourself the warrior of justice then you are being two dimensional.

 

1. The comic is non-canonical and makes so many mistakes on other things that it seems bizarre to take it at it's word that Benny even wears a checkered suit, let alone the relative strength of any faction.

 

2. See your own answer to 5 on role-playing vs game mechanics. Very Hard difficulty isn't "the way the world is meant to be," it's a deliberate mechanical challenge for the player. I've seen Powder Gangers on other difficulty levels get taken down by bloat flies and I have personally, alone and with nothing but a knife on Very Hard difficulty, killed every single Powder Ganger in the world. If we're judging by these standards then the Powder Gangers are laughably pathetic, but then that wouldn't be role-playing.

 

3. Deep role-playing strictly involves siding with whoever is convenient at the time and can get you the most equipment and have the easiest time moving around, even when two of these allies have interests that run counter to one another? So, you're only role-playing if you're playing a selfish and duplicitous character. That's an interesting way to look at it.

 

4. Again, deep role-playing is about whoever gives you the best mechanical advantage? If that's the case, you're better off siding with Goodsprings. You'll get far more ammo and equipment by looting dead Powder Gangers and clearing out the NCRCF than you could from Good Springs.

 

5. Yeah, if you couldn't guess, this was the statement that had me shaking my head in befuddlement. After giving answers to Nohbodey strictly from a "what will benefit me mechanically the most" standpoint or using skewed difficulty levels (a game mechanic) as a meter to judge characters, you then accuse anyone who sides with Goodsprings as being two-dimensional because... they're doing it for the mechanical benefits. That's just silly. What if you're playing an NCR supporter who realizes that the only reason the Powder Gangers are operational at all is because the NCR is overstretched and takes it upon themselves to help fix the situation? What if your character is just someone who won't tolerate bullies, no matter if they're wearing a prison uniform or a military uniform? What if Goodsprings just reminds your character of home? What if you're character is actually grateful to them for patching him/her up? You can come up with any number of role-play reasons to side with Goodsprings, without giving a single thought to anything mechanically related. Just like you could for any faction, Powder Gangers included.

 

Your character is no more or less deep for siding with anyone. If you prefer the Powder Gangers, more power to you, but don't try to act like anyone who prefers siding with Goodsprings is somehow playing the game wrong or in an inferior way to you, because clearly your own reasons are no different than what you claim theirs would be.

 

When I roleplay I like to keep a mechanical fact in the game to keep my roleplaying legitimate, without any mechanical features to follow in the game I may as well roleplay a character who doesn't like bullies "warrior of justice", but then I may as well stop roleplaying altogether and just watch my karma bar go up since everyone one of your examples would have the same result.

 

My mechanical approach means I load my game as soon as I get shot and it allows much greater flexibility since I'm no longer just playing pretend but actually struggling to get from point A to be just as I want my character to struggle. Without any form of ingame related structure to force the player, not just the character to act in a certain way the roleplaying just becomes a voice of god issue, yeah this guy deserves to die because he's evil, he can live because he's with the NCR, this town doesn't deserve my divine intervention because they don't cheer for my side. You can say that you strictly follow your characters and don't allow them to veer off path just because you feel like it, but the urge is always there to take a short hike over a hill and grab a good gun or take a brief shortcut to save time. The key difference is that when you're trying to get into your character's mindset in the game and not just dictate their actions from your chair than you stop judging the world on how it reacts to your character and start judging your character on how you react to the world.

[Fatalmasterpiece]

Vault 19 makes no sense to me. I bust into the vault with a ton of weapons and companions and instead of the Powder Ganger inside saying WTF who are you??? He just started telling me what is going on in the vault...

 

Obsidian just failed all together with the Powder Gangers.

 

Stealing from the ones set to hostile on the road causes karma loss, even though they shoot at you.

 

You've been sitting in prison for years and suddenly your free. Instead of leaving and seeing your family, getting revenge on those who ratted you out or digging up that jar filled with caps you managed to hide before the NCR arrest you, you just decide to sit there in jail and start a new gang which is horribly under armed and gets easily killed by simple townsfolk.

[Dannyt9978]

Well, since the debate is on I think the Powder Gangers are a unique bunch. First of all in the beginning helping Joe Cobb takeover the town gives you benefits (Discounts) + (Saloon Of Gangers) + ( A Town To Own) **RP Wise** and when you find more maps and camps they all can be your crew (Stash Spot) if you steal and kill as much as I do :pirate: complete Eddie's Quest their it all ends with a showdown of the Powder Gangers and NCR see who's the "Bigger and Badder Wolves. Surely the way the Powder Gangers love to war with everyone makes everything so intense, make it to The Strip start a Independent Vegas replace house and have a all out war with the Main Factions... And you can do it all of this, being a Powder Ganger.
#ThatFaction #YouLove #ToHate