History Fallout4 / TropesQToZ

* VideoGameCrueltyPunishment: Most of your companions will dislike or hate villainous actions, especially committing wanton murder. The only standouts are Dogmeat, who is [[CanineCompanion a dog]] and doesn't know better (so he loves you no matter what you do), [[TokenHeroicOrc Strong]], who loves violence, and the sociopathic X6-88. Even the last two have points where they'll disapprove for reasons [[EvenEvilHasStandards moral]] or [[PragmaticVillainy practical]]. Continuing to act like an ass or a psycho killer while they're travelling with you will cause them to dislike you and eventually [[PermanentlyMissableContent leave you, never to return]].

** Some NPCs (e.g. Kellogg) are passive until a condition is met. They will not react if you plant several mines at their feet. If you take advantage of their AftificialStupidity, their fights can effectively be skipped.

** The ''Nuka-World'' DLC added "Rocket" mods for both the regular Slegehammer and Baseball Bats, that can stack with [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice Spikes]], [[KillItWithFire Heated]] and [[HighVoltageDeath Electrical]] Coils, [[BladeOnAStick Circle Saws]], and in the case of the Sledgehammer, Reinforced Concrete. [[NoKillLikeOverkill Some of which can be applied at the same time as each other, too]]. ''Woe betide anything you hit with them.''

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* [[invoked]] SeinfeldianConversation: A RandomEncounter has you walk up on a pair of men, Mikey and Moss, having a spirited debate over the definition of a sandwich. (In a bit of GeniusBonus, [[http://www.natlawreview.com/article/exclusive-use-provisions-burrito-type-sandwich this was actually the subject of a court case in Massachusetts in 2012.]])

** You can invoke this by attaching the Headlamp Red Tactical mod to the [[PoweredArmor X-01]] [[CoolHelmet Helmet]], as its headlamp [[GlowingMechanicalEyes is within the visor]].

* RuleOfSymbolism: A [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools well-done example]]. [[TheConspiracy The Institute's]] [[SigilSpam main symbol]] looks like a stylized [[Creator/LeonardoDaVinci Vitruvian Man]], which seems befitting for their {{Mad Scientist}} origins. What's not often pointed out is that it's also reminiscent of a [[ArtificialHumans Synth]] during construction. Additionally, it also bears a not-insignificant resemblance to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_wheel a breaking wheel]].

** [[TheGoodKing Elder]] [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Arthur]] [[NobleBigot Maxson's]] backstory during the decade-long TimeSkip is heavily based after [[Myth/KingArthur the Arthurian mythos & King Arthur's rise in power]]. After Uther's demise, a young Arthur (at the age of 15) became the new King of Britain and fought a succession of battles, eventually leading to the Battle of Bath. Here, Arthur is victorious against the Picts and Scots, and subsequently establishes an empire. Similarly, some time after the death[[spoiler:s]] of Owyn [[spoiler: and Sarah]] Lyons, Arthur ''Maxson'' fought a series of battles at the age of 15 against the remaining [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Vault 87 Super Mutants]]. This all eventually lead to Maxson's battle with the Super Mutant leader Shephard, [[DarkMessiah who was attempting to unite the Super Mutants of the Capital Wasteland]]. Maxson's victory [[AsskickingLeadsToLeadership led to his ascension as the Elder of the East Coast chapter]] and [[RisingEmpire greatly expanding the Brotherhood's established territory]]. All of this helps show how the East Coast [=BoS=] has taken on more of a feudalistic/medieval model ''a la'' the Soverign Military Order of Malta and medieval Britain since ''3''.

* ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: Vault 81 was originally meant to be used in the [[spoiler: development of bioweapons and their countermeasures]], with the Vault residents being turned into human guinea pigs. But the [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure first Overseer]] - [[LampshadeHanging who was perplexed about how she even]] ''got'' [[WhiteSheep appointed Overseer]] seeing how her political views are at odds with [[OppressiveStatesOfAmerica the prevailing government]] - discovered [[TheConspiracy the true purpose]] [[ForScience of the Vault]] and worked to limit the number of science team members that made it to the Vault. She also cut off contact with the side the researchers were living on to prevent them from being able to carry out Vault-Tec's plans. Vault 81 consequently ''thrived'' compared to virtually every other Vault across the county, and the three researchers ended up testing their bioweapons on Mole Rats instead. One of them created [[ThePollyanna Curie]], first to help them maintain their sanity after the Overseer stopped responding, and then to continue on with the research after they all passed away from old age. On a related note, [[HeelFaceTurn the researchers also all developed more of an ethical side]] and [[HeroicSacrifice deliberately sealed their experiments away with them to make sure they wouldn't infect the rest of the Vault]].

** The boss battle against Oswald the Outrageous in Nuka-World's Kiddie Kingdom can be avoided by various means, like passing a difficult speech check or finding and presenting a specific holotape. The first option can be next to impossible to pull off for player characters without very high charisma. The second one requires either a game guide or ''very'' thorough exploration of Nuka-World's surrounding areas ''before'' meeting Oswald face to face, something that comes across as quite counterintuitive while following the [=DLC's=] main questline. It's worth it though, seeing as the guy puts up an ''incredibly'' [[ThatOneBoss difficult fight]] for someone who's nothing more than a pompously dressed Ghoul. Battling him is arguably more challenging than taking on the entire [[BadassArmy Raider army]] [[WretchedHive of Nuka-World]] during [[GoodIsNotSoft "Open]] [[EarnYourHappyEnding Season"]].
* SlapOnTheWristNuke: The Unstable Nuke Launcher for robot companions in the ''Automatron'' [=DLC=]. It's the single most powerful weapon that can be added to one; for balance purposes, though, it's still limited to a couple hundred points of damage rather than the '''thousand''' or so that a Fat Man can deliver.

* StoneWall: [[TheConspiracy The Institute's]] [[MechaMooks Synth armies]] [[CoolButInefficient don't deal that much damage with their unique laser weapons]], but more than make up for it with their [[WeHaveReserves frequent numerical advantage]] and their special Synth armor (which is the [[InfinityMinusOneSword best body armor in the base game]], and is only succeeded by the Marine Combat Armor in the ''Far Harbor'' [=DLC=]), meaning that they can take a ''hell'' of a lot of punishment before finally going down.
* StormingTheCastle: Done in "The Nuclear Option" quests, where you invade the Institute with whichever faction you side with and blow it up from the inside.

** Conversely, you end up on the receiving end of this if you antagonized the Institute and made the Minutemen powerful enough to be considered a threat. The quest is actually called "Defend the Castle" - fittingly, considering how the Castle is the former [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Independence_(Massachusetts) Fort Independence]]. It can happen a second time after the main questline is completed if you pissed off the Brotherhood of Steel as well. Last but not least, the quest becomes ''radiant'' at this point, meaning that someone trying to storm ''your'' castle can happen at any time [[TooDumbToLive if the fort's defense value is too low]] - [[OverlyLongGag over and over and over and over and over again]]. [[SarcasmMode Have fun]] [[TheWarSequence repelling veritable waves]] of [[EliteMook high-level Super Mutants]] including half a dozen ''[[AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever Behemoths]]'' [[OhCrap on a regular basis]]. You will also have attacks from Gunners or Raiders on The Castle.

--> '''Piper''': [[DeadpanSnarker Whose bright idea]] [[LampshadeHanging was it to arm the gardener?!]]

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** Stealth Boys and a certain legendary armor mod turn the wearer invisible. Awesomeness by all means! ...Until you realize that the effect also extends to the Survivor's ''weapons'' including any type of analogue sights. Have fun sniping baddies with those crosshairs you can't see anymore.
** Despite their [[TheParagon positive intentions]], the [[WeHelpTheHelpless Commonwealth Minutemen's]] weak command structure led to over-extension and a ''[[TraumaCongaLine huge]]'' [[HumiliationConga decline]] in regional power & influence. It has gotten to the point that when the main story starts, there's only ''[[LastOfHisKind one]]'' active Minuteman left in the entire Commonwealth.
*** Additionally, even if the Sole Survivor manages to become their General and build up all possible settlements in the Commonwealth, it takes quite a bit of time before everyone among the Minutemen's ranks are either persuaded or convinced to recognize the authority vested, as best seen in the Institute main quest "Pinned."
** After establishing the first few Minutemen settlements, the Sole Survivor should prepare for a series of attacks by [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Raiders]], [[PrivateMilitaryContractors Gunners]], [[ProudWarriorRace Super Mutants]], and other threats. Sending out a radio signal across a large area doesn't mean that it will only be heard by those intended to hear it. The Commonwealth's Super Mutant population has learned to use radios and you can bet Raiders, as well as Gunners, are all too eager to take a chance on attacking the settlers who are essentially shouting out loud "We're over here!".
** The Railroad's secret password to get into their [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment secret]] [[ElaborateUndergroundBase headquarters]] is... [[spoiler: [[ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish "Railroad"]]]]. When the Sole Survivor mentions to the Railroad's leaders [[LampshadeHanging about how that isn't a good password]], they justify it by pointing out not that many Wastelanders are literate. [[spoiler:The Brotherhood's got a whole division of erudite Scribes who figure it out in no time.]]
** If the player sides with the Institute, they can become [[spoiler:its new Director... and still have only minimal control over its operations. After all, Father gave you the position without consulting the other department heads, and you're some unknown actor who walked out of the Wasteland, not a fellow scientist who worked their way through the ranks normally]]. He tries to justify the choice by saying the Institute doesn't need another scientist, but a leader to organize their scientific efforts rather than contribute to them. The department heads are only barely convinced, however.
** Behind the scenes, Covenant is getting run into the ground financially due to a combination of them deliberately lowering their prices for competition, the cost of making Covenant look like a [=Pre-War=] town, [[spoiler:and the expenses of running the Compound. One of the Compound's terminals even mentions that, to use a business metaphor, they're only a few months away from bankruptcy]].
** [[invoked]] The game provides an AuthorsSavingThrow on the Wasteland still being... well, a wasteland, 200 years after the war, by showing just how incredibly difficult rebuilding civilization actually is. It takes a lot of time, money, and supplies to build up a settlement of even just a dozen people who can be self-sustaining, never mind setting up mercantile shops, running caravan routes between settlements, and defending the populace from attacks. The PlayerCharacter also has the benefits of AcceptableBreaksFromReality in doing this: the knowledge of how to construct power generators, water pumps, and shelters, being able to do so instantly, and being able to quickly identify junk components needed for the task. Wasteland civilians who obviously would have to do these things realistically would find it much, ''much'' more difficult and time-consuming.
** The Railroad ending also shows what happens when you deviate from an established plan and lock someone out of the loop, even for their own safety: [[spoiler: Liam Binet, a.k.a. "Patriot", who had been assisting synths escape from the Institute but was intentionally not informed of his own involvement with the Railroad or any of their plans, is devastated and ''severely'' pissed when the Railroad decides to blow the entire Institute facility up, and ends up giving a ''massive'' TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to the Railroad and the Sole Survivor before [[DrivenToSuicide killing himself.]] Fairly understandable, considering they kept him completely in the dark and just killed everyone he ever knew and loved in the name of freeing ''synths.'' Desdemona is deeply ashamed by this, because she knew that Patriot was right; the Railroad just wiped out not just a family, but arguably an ''entire community'' in the name of freeing synths, something that seriously does bring to light that the Railroad cares more about synths than humans.]]
** The ''Prydwen'' is a well-built, armored airship operated by one of the most technologically advanced factions in the Fallout world. It is still a fairly slow airship, and a large one at that, [[spoiler: s fact the Minutemen exploit to easily target and bring it down with unguided artillery from multiple angles, if the Brotherhood becomes their enemy]].
** A minor moment, but when exploring the Island in the ''Far Harbor'' DLC, the Sole Survivor can find a note near Rayburn Point that leads to a stash buried in a small grave. However, the "Excavate" option only works if they have a shovel, considered a junk item meant to be scrapped, in their inventory. It's far easier to dig up dirt with a tool than to use one's hands, and faster too, especially when it's on [[DeathWorld the Island.]]

* TalkingIsAFreeAction: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLfIC9njdfU Not]] [[AvertedTrope any]][[HilarityEnsues more!]]

* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: The potential for this is severely [[DownplayedTrope downplayed]] compared to previous games in the series. You can be something of an AntiHero if you choose, stealing stuff and doing whatever it takes to find your son, but for the most part, you can't really play a full-on villain and a lot of innocents are [[InvulnerableCivilians essential [=NPCs=]]]. This can lead to some severe {{Railroading}} as the game can break down and be physically unable to cope if you attempt to play a [[AxeCrazy murdering]] [[ComedicSociopathy psycho]], as [[http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/11/13/fallout-4-killing-everyone/ one journalist]] from Rock Paper Shotgun [[http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/11/16/fallout-4-killer/ found out]] to his [[http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/11/18/fallout-4-bastard/ detriment]].

* WitchHunt: Many settlements and organizations, up to and including the East Coast Brotherhood of Steel, are conducting witch hunts for "Synths", androids who look and act human. [[HistoricalInJoke For bonus points,]] [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything this witch hunt just so happens to be in Massachusetts, home of the infamous]] [[SalemIsWitchCountry Salem Witch Trials.]]

** [[invoked]] During your search for Kellogg, you'll find the remains of a curb-stomped [[DemonicSpiders Assaultron]]. If you've had the pleasure of fighting one of ''those'' before, this should be a dead giveaway that this man means business.

[[Fallout4/TropesAToC Tropes A-C]] | [[Fallout4/TropesDToI Tropes D-I]] | [[Fallout4/TropesJToP Tropes J-P]] | '''Tropes Q-Z'''
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!!!''VideoGame/Fallout4'' provides examples of the following tropes:

** Legendary enemies have a trick where [[SelfRecoverySurprise they return to full health]] and get stronger if they are reduced to below 50% health. An exception, however, is if you hit them once with such force that it's instantly lethal, which overrides the regeneration.

* SuicidalOverconfidence: The standard response by Raiders if you're in power armor is to actually say ''"Power armor?? BRING IT ON!!"''. Justified because they're so zonked on Psycho and other chems that they're out of their minds.

** The Concorde Deathclaw. You can simply skip the entire town. Or you can zoom through (ignoring Preston), get the Armour off the roof, and them skip town before the Deathclaw script kicks off.

* SkippableBoss: Swan. On the way to recruit Nick Valentine, the player will pass through Boston Common in an area called Swan's Pond. Swan [[spoiler: a Super Mutant Behemoth]] sleeps fitfully in said pond, but can be avoided by quietly moving past the pond and into the nearby subway station. Many followers familiar with the area will also warn you of the peril while in the area, and the site is also marked with a Railroad sign normally reserved for dangerous areas lousy with Institute synths.

*** You can clear the Drive-in by leading the resident mole rats to the Diner.
*** If you follow Cricket, a roving merchant, she and her guards will clear many of the hardest locations for you: they can take an infinite number of nukes to the face, and will wear down even the toughest foes. As a bonus, you can immediately strip and sell goods from the corpses they generate.
*** Travis and Preston can be exploited by not completing their quests, so they simply follow you forever. The game treats them as immortal super mooks, rather than as companions. This duo can Maim World while your own kill count sits at zero.

*** If you follow Cricket (a roving merchant), she and her guards will clear many of the hardest locations for you.

** About half of the perkes are completely useless in vanilla Survival mode. One of the Survival bugs is that entering VATS will (at random) lock up the game. If you don't use mods to fix this,the only way to play a Survival game is to entirely avoid VATS and therefore most of the luck, perception and agility perks are of zero use.
** V.A.N.S. uses VATS to display a path that's closest to your quest objective. You really don't need a perk to show a path to your objective when you can set a waypoint. ''Nuka-World'' gives +2 to Perception... at level 36. Items can do that when you need it and it has the net cost of doing it manually but without a stupid restriction in the way!
** Toughness gives 10 points of Ballistic Defense per rank, and its sister perk Refractor gives an equal amount of Energy Defense. By the time you can max out either perk you could either invest in Ballistic Weave for, at minimum, 220 in both categories, or you use Power Armor, so that extra 50 doesn't have much of an effect. The Assault Marine armor in ''Far Harbor'' gives you the same bonuses without the level restrictions too.

** Originally, the chem Jet was invented by Myron, a companion in ''Fallout 2''. While ''Fallout 4'' doesn't imply a different inventor, it is mentioned as one of the drugs that Vault 95 was being sent a supply of during it's construction, which doesn't line up with the older games at all. Though, knowing [[AttentionWhore Myron]], it's possible he just figured out a post-war recipe and claimed Jet in of itself as his creation.

* ShownTheirWork: Bethesda Game Studios clearly put a ''hell'' of a lot of effort into researching the Boston area when designing the Commonwealth. Just as a few examples, famous historical monuments and landmarks like the Bunker Hill Monument, the Old North Church and Paul Revere Monument, the ''[=USS=] Constitution'', Faneuil Hall, Walden Pond, Fort Independence (now called "The Castle"), Saugus Ironworks, and the Minuteman statue outside of Sanctuary Hills (which is located where Minute Man National Historical Park is in our world, and has the Old North Bridge as it's entrance) are all where they roughly should be. Most of the differences can be chalked up to either an {{Acceptable Break From Reality}} or examples of how the Fallout Universe is an {{Alternate History}} to our own.

%%** And of course, there are mods designed to add more opportunities for this. For example, a mod that tweaks dismemberment so it can happen to any opponent when they are still alive. So if you want to shoot the legs off a supermutant, feel free to do so. Want to literally disarm a particulary annoying Ginner? Yep. Mods like these also have the added benefit of adding more strategic options, as it's much easier to kill a Deathclaw by sniping it's legs off before moving in and executing it.

* WorthlessYellowRocks: Zig-Zagged when it comes to Pre-War Money, bundles of $100 bills...which are, of course, worthless as actual currency. As one of the few weightless "Junk" items, they're easy to acquire in large quantities and convert to "Cloth" for ItemCrafting purposes. The most common items that use Cloth are ''beds and chairs'', meaning you're stuffing your furniture with old money. That said, they do still have a value of 8 caps when bartering, giving them use as weightless ShopFodder. Another use (though [[NobodyPoops this doesn't affect the player character]]) according Lucy Abernathy, explaining why people pay good money for "useless" pre-war money - they use it to ''wipe their asses''. Overall Zig-Zagged as, while Pre-War Money is indeed "worthless" for it's original purpose, the people of the wasteland have found a new purpose for it.

* TheQuisling: Clint, whom you can find in the Quincy Ruins. He was originally one of the Minutemen. But when he saw how few of them showed up to defend Quincy, mostly due to the severe infighting the group was going through due to lack of a charismatic leader, he saw the writing on the wall, and promptly defected to the Gunners. He also revealed the highway overpass above the town, which allowed the Gunners to quickly overwhelm the remaining Minutemen along with many of the citizens there, which later became known as the "Quincy Massacre" when Preston talks to you about it. As a result of this, he is given command of the Gunners stationed in Quincy. Though there's no actual quest or dialogue related to it, [[LaserGuidedKarma you can thankfully dish out a massacre of your own when you kill all the Gunners there, including Clint]]. If Preston is with you, [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge you get a "Preston Loved That"]] each time you kill one of the Gunner leaders, there, including Clint.

* SexyWalk: All women in the Commonwealth walk like fashion models.

** [[TheGoodKing Elder]] [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Arthur]] [[NobleBigot Maxson's]] backstory during the decade-long TimeSkip is heavily based after [[Myth/KingArthur the Arthurian mythos & King Arthur's rise in power]]. After Uther's demise, a young Arthur (at the age of 15) became the new King of Britain and fought a succession of battles, eventually leading to the Battle of Bath. Here, Arthur is victorious against the Picts and Scots, and subsequently establishes an empire. Similarly, some time after the death[[spoiler:s]] of Owyn [[spoiler: and Sarah]] Lyons, Arthur ''Maxson'' fought a series of battles at the age of 15 against the remaining [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Vault 87 Super Mutants]]. This all eventually lead to Maxson's battle with the Super Mutant leader Shephard, [[DarkMessiah who was attempting to unite the Super Mutants of the Capital Wasteland]]. Maxson's victory [[AsskickingEqualsAuthority led to his ascension as the Elder of the East Coast chapter]] and [[RisingEmpire greatly expanding the Brotherhood's established territory]]. All of this helps show how the East Coast [=BoS=] has taken on more of a feudalistic/medieval model ''a la'' the Soverign Military Order of Malta and medieval Britain since ''3''.

* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: A major theme of ''Fallout 4'' is you determining what qualifies as human or sentient, and the alliances you make will narrow based on your thoughts and choices. The Institute view Synths as nothing more than machines, treating them as property and refusing to acknowledge that Synths have the potential for sapience. The Brotherhood calls for their destruction because they think Synths will lead to another apocalypse. The Railroad takes after the historical Underground Railroad, and is dedicated to the liberation and equality of Synths. By the time you have met any of the three factions, you have likely made a friend or enemy of several different Synth characters.
** Ghouls, Super Mutants, and robots are also under the thumb of this theme, but to a lesser degree than Synths are.

** More generally, there's the jetpack mod for power armor. It allows you to rocket up into the air at the cost of AP and draining your Fusion Core like soda through a straw, and while it usually doesn't last long, it will last long enough for you to jump up a story or two of a building, letting you get explore some dungeons in unconventional ways and reach areas you'd normally have to walk around to. Further, with a good supply of consumables to restore AP, you can hotkey them and continuously use them while in-flight to keep restoring AP, practically letting you fly anywhere you want to go.

** Averted in the main questline compared to ''3'' and ''New Vegas''. The furthest you can skip ahead right as you leave Vault 111 is making a beeline to Vault 114 to rescue Nick, but after that you still have to track down Kellogg, visit the Memory Den in Goodneighbor, track down Virgil, and then hunt down the Institute Courser to finally be able to get into the Institute. Because of the overlapping nature of the four faction questlines that lead to the end of the game, some of them can be dived into without doing any of the previously mentioned things, but sooner or later the three non-Institute questlines will require you to infiltrate the Institute for some reason, so you can't put off the earlier quests forever.