Has anyone played a psychopath?

[whodat1]

I was on another forum where people were arguing the pros and cons of helping the Powder Gangers and I thought about playing an intelligent psychopath. Someone who normally would do the 'right' thing but suffers from extreme paranoia and is somewhat maniac at times. This is turning out to be harder than I thought it would be. It's very hard to put yourself into the thought process of someone like that. I find myself really having to think about everything I'm doing. It's not just the fact that in the end everyone dies, but the order in which it happens so that you can still complete some of the quests and you aren't destroyed right away by an overwhelming force (such as a level 2 character ticking off every major faction at once, like I said an intelligent psychopath). This is turning into one of the most fun play-throughs that I've had in a while. I think I am going to shoot for depopulating the Mohave.

[Zazoomah]

My character has been in Fallout 3, Morrowind, Oblivion, New Vegas, and Skyrim. And one of his traits is that he is "Highly Intelligent". So yeah, I know how fun it is having to be Intelligent and think about everything you do :D

 

I once played as a psychopath, but not an intelligent psychopath. It was... interesting.

Edited October 17, 2012 by Zazoomah

[cyrus224]

I have done this a few times. I try to harness a strange story with them, its best to find something that will make that character snap, think of a backstory to why they may just be set off. Maybe family members being murdered, or going missing, not knowing what happened, maybe seeing some really brutal death as a child, hidden and suppressed memories that your character does not notice, but sets him off subconsciously. It really comes down to how deep you really want to go.

 

Try to close off your real feelings and just feel the character. I once played a character who had deep deep mental issues. She was normal by day, nice to people, would help people, and very smart. But at night, a deep routed hatred she grew up with from her abusive father and drug addicted mother, clicked. She would put on a mask and murder people, anyone, everyone... and the next morning, not remember any of it. I guess she was more schizophrenic than anything.

 

I know that's really dark, haha, but I've played 1,000 characters in 1,000 mindsets, you have to try it all.

[ZagreustheLiar]

None of you are describing what a psychopath is. What you're describing is closer to psychotic, which is the antithesis of a psychopath. A psychopath is fully aware of what he is doing at all times and that some of what he does is considered morally reprehensible, he just doesn't have the capacity to give a s***. They are also highly impulsive, resistant to negative reinforcement (punishment) et cetera. Edited January 7, 2013 by ZagreustheLiar

[charwo]

One of my characters is not a psychopath, but deffinately a Psycho-For-Hire:

 

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PsychoForHire

 

She doesn't work for the NCR per se, the NCR kinda asks her to go someplace and turn her loose. She's a doctor and for most people she's kind, and helpful and a model citizen. If you make a living preying off of other people, she will exterminate you and your tribe. In the backstory I have going now, Honest Hearts was a prequel in early 2280, where she was the Happy Trails Caravan Doctor. When my Courier left to go back to the Mohave, she stayed behind, first helping the New Canaanittes reclaim Ogden, by which time the 80s had wiped out the White Legs, and ended up genociding the 80s from Salt Lake to Reno, men, women and children. Didn't do it singlehandedly, but would have if the raided towns were too afraid to want get even. Take the innate hatred a white supremacist has for Roma people as the degenerate uncivilized, add in the hatred of tribals and raider groups failing to maintain American values and American identity, then add in the suffering and death raiders are known to bring to civilized people, and well, you don't have a psychopath exactly, you have a normally kind, helpful, courageous Follower of the Apocalypse and turn her into a one woman Final Solution. Most of the sadistic things she does to Fiends are thankfully not modeled in the game, but she does like shooting Power Gangers with Missiles as a shock and awful and see my weapons and despair effect with glee.

 

This is a woman as brutal and viscous as any Soviet Commissar, any member of the SS. But she is one of the good guys, hands down. A real nasty Good is Not Nice kinda gal.

[ZagreustheLiar]

One of my characters is not a psychopath, but deffinately a Psycho-For-Hire:

 

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PsychoForHire

 

She doesn't work for the NCR per se, the NCR kinda asks her to go someplace and turn her loose. She's a doctor and for most people she's kind, and helpful and a model citizen. If you make a living preying off of other people, she will exterminate you and your tribe. In the backstory I have going now, Honest Hearts was a prequel in early 2280, where she was the Happy Trails Caravan Doctor. When my Courier left to go back to the Mohave, she stayed behind, first helping the New Canaanittes reclaim Ogden, by which time the 80s had wiped out the White Legs, and ended up genociding the 80s from Salt Lake to Reno, men, women and children. Didn't do it singlehandedly, but would have if the raided towns were too afraid to want get even. Take the innate hatred a white supremacist has for Roma people as the degenerate uncivilized, add in the hatred of tribals and raider groups failing to maintain American values and American identity, then add in the suffering and death raiders are known to bring to civilized people, and well, you don't have a psychopath exactly, you have a normally kind, helpful, courageous Follower of the Apocalypse and turn her into a one woman Final Solution. Most of the sadistic things she does to Fiends are thankfully not modeled in the game, but she does like shooting Power Gangers with Missiles as a shock and awful and see my weapons and despair effect with glee.

 

This is a woman as brutal and viscous as any Soviet Commissar, any member of the SS. But she is one of the good guys, hands down. A real nasty Good is Not Nice kinda gal.

 

Yeah, but that's just a vicious ruthless and bigoted killer for hire. A psycho is either referring to a psychotic or psychopath for hire. Like Anton Chigurgh.

[charwo]

In all seriousness, I'm not seeing much of a difference. Aside from good versus evil, but Anton and my character Dr. Merriweather, have the same live by their own moral code, but whereas Anton sees himself as the reckoning of Fate, Merriweather has contempt for outgroup, or rather, she has no regard for human life whatsoever until she sees that life as connected to one of her ingroup identifications (American, civilized, Western Civilization, or White-enough). She has no inherent value for human life, neither does Anton. Admittedly this extreme outgroup/ingroup importance is based on living in the Hidden Elf Village that is a functioning Vault, but the results are the same: lots of dead people she thought deserved it. And more or less, they do.

 

How is that different at all from a principled psychopath? At least when looking from the outside in?

Edited January 10, 2013 by charwo

[ZagreustheLiar]

In all seriousness, I'm not seeing much of a difference. Aside from good versus evil, but Anton and my character Dr. Merriweather, have the same live by their own moral code, but whereas Anton sees himself as the reckoning of Fate, Merriweather has contempt for outgroup, or rather, she has no regard for human life whatsoever until she sees that life as connected to one of her ingroup identifications (American, civilized, Western Civilization, or White-enough). She has no inherent value for human life, neither does Anton. Admittedly this extreme outgroup/ingroup importance is based on living in the Hidden Elf Village that is a functioning Vault, but the results are the same: lots of dead people she thought deserved it. And more or less, they do.

 

How is that different at all from a principled psychopath? At least when looking from the outside in?

 

A principled psychopath is an invention of Hollywood. Maybe your character checks some points on the ASPD checklist, but she is not a psychopath, who are by definition unable to actually care about any kind of moral code outside of some obfuscating display of humanity.

[Xaranth]

@Zagreus - It's kind of like how when you go through the DSMIV you suddenly realize that you're the victim of umpteen billion neurological disorders.

[Deleted4709949User]

I have played as a psychopath once it was awesome cuz the NPC's kept missing me every time they tried to shoot me