History FalloutNewVegas / TropesSToZ

** This is actually built into ''New Vegas'' and 'Fallout 3'''s game engine; every enemy has a "confidence" attribute as part of their programming - the highest level means an enemy will never avoid a fight, with the ones right below that not offering them much better chances.

* ShoutOut: Being ReferenceOverdosed is standard for the ''Fallout'' series. There's so much {{Shout Out}}s in this game that it demanded [[ShoutOut/FalloutNewVegas its own page]].

*** Though the [[HaveIMentionedIAmHeteroSexualToday question]] was phrased in [[JerkAss bad taste]], in actuality the perk grants a [[BoringButPractical combat advantage]] that's [[TookALevelInBadass hard to match]], and [[AnythingThatMoves (outside of prostitution)]] there are more homosexual romance/flirting opportunities [[EveryoneIsGay than hetero]]. This can be viewed as a developer TakeThat versus RolePlayingGames [[FanService in general]], considering the [[RailRoading 10% bonus damage to most of your enemies]]. Or it could be a combination of a [[DummiedOut cut romance]] and other [[ObviousBeta unfinished dialog]].

** The player get to make one at the end of ''Lonesome Road'' [[spoiler: either allow a barrage of nuclear ICBM'S to be launched, destroying either/both the only usable path into the Mojave from the West, or/and obliterating most of Arizona, or asking the copied ED-E to sacrifice himself to stop the missiles. The sacrifice of the copied ED-E doesn't affect the ED-E that exists in the Mojave Wasteland, however.]]

** Nuka-Cola Quartz and Nuka-Cola Victory; they're about as close to [[InfinityPlusOneSword Infinity Plus One Food]] as you can get (The former gives you night vision and a DT boost, the latter gives you extra action points, and neither have a chance of addiction), but there are only a handful of each scattered about. However, the Nuka Chemist perk lets you craft them both using regular Nuka-Cola, which is plentiful. Drinking the Quartz would also be extremely foolish, since you can instead use it to craft Nuka grenade, which are [[InfinityMinusOneSword second in destructive potential]] to the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Holy Frag Grenade]]. If you save all the Nuka-Colas you find and brew your own homemade recipe, you can wind up with hundreds of Nuka grenades, making them an AwesomeYetPractical thrown weapon.

** Nuka-Cola Quartz and Nuka-Cola Victory; they're about as close to [[InfinityPlusOneSword Infinity Plus One Food]] as you can get (The former gives you night vision and a DT boost, the latter gives you extra action points, and neither have a chance of addiction), but there are only a handful of each scattered about. However, the Nuka Chemist perk lets you craft them both using regular Nuka-Cola, which is plentiful.

* ScaryBlackMan: Jean-Baptiste Cutting. The Van Graff family as a whole appear to be a scary Black Family as all but one of the random Mooks and the Courier are Black.

** The Pulse Gun and 'Paladin Toaster' fist weapon will OneHitKill almost any robots or anyone in power armor.

** This aspect of the Pulse Gun being a WeaksauceWeakness is used as an attempt by Veronica to attempt to convince the Elder of the folly of the Brotherhood's slowly self-destructive dogma. It doesn't work...

*** Abominations (including deathclaws and tunnelers) are scared for 10 seconds if you shoot them with a FlareGun and run away from you.

** And don't forget "I heard the NCR took back Nelson..." which is a little ridiculous when it is being said by the aforementioned Powder Gangers who were locked up by the NCR in the first place.

* WhamEpisode: Vault 11. [[PennyArcade The Vaults were never meant to save anyone]], [[{{Tearjerker}} and this is the Vault that proves it...]]
** Also Lonesome Road
* [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse What Happened To The Abominations]]: Lonesome Road features the Tunnelers, mutated humanoids that can tear apart Deathclaws. Ulysses mentions that they're slowly tunneling their way towards the Mojave, which would be utterly screwed when packs of super-strong abominations pop out of the ground without warning. And yet you can do absolutely nothing about this, and its never mentioned again.

* WhatTheHellHero: You will get a small one from the narrator if you get the Legion ending with good karma, or the NCR ending with evil karma.

** [[spoiler: Mr. House]] certainly tries this on you when you kill him, and [[spoiler:the obituary he leaves in your notes]] just rubs it in further. Whether or not [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone you agree]] or [[ShutUpHannibal not]] depends on your personal beliefs, of course.
*** And whether or not you finish reading the obituary [[IsThisThingStillOn to the very end]].

* AWorldHalfFull: Unlike the Capital Wasteland, the Mojave Wasteland has very few abandoned or destroyed buildings in it, with most of them being just outside the New Vegas strip. Even then, most of them are boarded up and inaccessible. Civilization is firmly in control at this point and most peoples' lives don't revolve around struggling to survive. The Mojave feels more like it has returned to the wild west and less like a hopeless irrecoverable hellhole. (Then again, TheWildWest is still a wasteland, and even the good endings are going to lead to someone suffering.)

* WorthlessYellowRocks: Inverted: Bottlecaps, once worthless, are now the currency of the wasteland, so when you find a cache full of them, it's an unexpected good reward.

* YouAndWhatArmy: [[spoiler:Two of the four endings (Mr. House and Wild Card) play out in this manner.]]
** One of the quests even has it in the title.

** Old World Blues requires you to find two holotapes in order to fill a bottle of water from a sink.

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: [[spoiler: Barton Thorn]] in Goodsprings Source. He should have known better.

* YourHeadAsplode: Often if you always aim for the head. Subverted in one quest where you are instructed to score no headshots on the bounties since their heads are required as a proof. The First Recon squad that are sent to help you kill Driver Nephi is apparently unaware of this and occasionally headshot him.

* ZombieApocalypse: [[spoiler:Vault 22: turns out, they were using a fungus that infected vermin and pests and forced it to kill its own before dying, as pest control. Unfortunately, it spread to the human population.]]

* SirSwearsALot: Boxcars is among the most foul-mouthed people in the wasteland. Justifed, because he's been through a lot. [[FieryRedhead Cass]] as well.

* SpaceCompression: The RealLife area covered by the Mojave Wasteland is about 10,000 square miles. The in-game version is much smaller. This is most noticable around Hoover Dam and the Colorado, which look alright in-game, but grow by several orders of magnitude when overlaid over the real area.

* SpinAttack: Can be done with some melee weapons, though some requires sufficient melee weapons skill.
** The Ranger Takedown. When used in third-person view, to preform a leg sweep.

* SuicidalOverconfidence: Tying in with the above, some people are just too self-confident for their own good. Special mention goes to [=Caleb McCaffery=], who you have to find for the "Debt Collector" quest. He is easily the most unjustifiably arrogant man in the entire Mojave Wasteland. Yeah buddy, you're really such a bad-ass that you can take the Power Armor-wearing, Plasma Caster-packing celebrity who people publically know [[spoiler:killed Caesar himself]] armed with only a low-level shotgun. Even pacifist players will have a hard time fighting the urge to paint the sidewalk with this guy's brains.

* SuperPrototype: The Q-35 Matter Modulator has several superiorities in comparison to its more production-rate plasma rifle brethren: a higher crit chance, higher crit damage, faster rate of fire, less ammo used per shot, and faster projectiles.

* TakeThat: When you are researching weird NCR broadcasts, you can ask one ranger station about reports of [[VideoGame/FalloutTacticsBrotherhoodOfSteel domesticated Deathclaws]] and they reject it out of hand as impossible.
** A response to a rather inbred question asker in J.E. Sawyer's talk page:
--->''Who's the homo that insisted on being so heavy handed with the gay dialogue and references in the game?''\\
** ''Alarm at the presence of homosexual dialogue topics is pretty interesting considering [[DiggingYourselfDeeper the majority of them only appear if you voluntarily take a perk that identifies your character as homosexual.]]''

* TakeYourTime: No matter how urgent the quest giver's language, you can leave and circle the map a few times and pick up where you left off. The only exception is the President's visit, which will run according to scripted schedule.
** The Dead Money addon practically requires you to do this in order to survive it. It doesn't help that [[EverythingTryingToKillYou the whole atmosphere of the Sierra Madre]] makes you want to run through it and [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere get the hell out]] as quickly as possible.
* TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: Diplomacy (and judicious use of seductive perks like Black Widow or Confirmed Bachelor) can open as many doors for you as a lock pick or a hacked computer terminal. The speech stat still reigns king, however - if you're lucky, you can pass a speech check that doesn't require speech ''or'' barter, such as using your intelligence, explosives, et cetera rating instead. Passing speech checks is no longer percentive, either.
** ''New Vegas'' continues the ''Fallout'' tradition of [[spoiler: giving a high Speech character the opportunity to win the inevitable endgame confrontation with diplomacy rather than firepower.]]
*** It then turns this option into the ultimate InfinityPlusOneSword in story terms. [[spoiler: Killing Caesar and Lanius simply sends Caesar's Legion into mayhem, fracturing the group and pretty much ensuring that their methods get adopted by dozens of Caesar-wannabes. If Caesar dies or is allowed to die, and Lanius is defeated but talked into leaving, a much different ending occurs. Lanius has been foreshadowed to be a brutal warrior and capable general, but no politician, and without Caesar's charisma backing him, his plan to retake Hoover leaves him oblivious to the fact he lacks Caesar's leadership ability. The Legion still causes problems in the short term, but gradually dissolves as individual outposts realize it never could have lasted without Caesar or someone like him at its head.]]

* TechnicalPacifist: O'Hanrahan, one of the misfits. His squadmates think he is a coward, though if you did follow his advice on squad improvements, he has no problem kicking legionaries' asses in the final battle. According to him, the behavior is because of his upbringing: he was always very phsyically strong, and his mother told him something to the extent of "with great power comes great responsibility," which he readily took to heart.

* ThereAreNoTherapists: Thoroughly averted. Standard medical training seems to include psychiatry in the Mojave - Doc Mitchell gives you a mental health examination, the Followers of the Apocalypse help with the mental health of the people they care for (one of their biggest jobs in Freeside is helping addicts), Lt. Markland at Bitter Springs asks you to find psychology textbooks to help him help the refugees, and your character's own medical skill allows some dialogue options in which you diagnose mental trauma or disease. The Auto-Doc in ''Old World Blues'' can also give you a one time psych exam (read: A second chance to pick your traits).

** In fact, given the very high amount of wacked out lunatics in the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' universe, the intro at the start of the game where Doc Mitchell specifically wants to find out out if you're all there make perfect in universe sense, especially given the paranoia that led to the post-apocalyptic war and all the crazy people who tried to make the lives of the post-apocalypse population suck in the previous games. That said, it makes good sense for him to want to make sure you're not batshit insane.

* TombOfHorrors: Dead Money's Sierra Madre is like the Fallout version of this classic D&D dungeon. [[EverythingTryingToKillYou Everything,]] literally [[UpToEleven ''everything'']] is trying to kill you. Traps are everywhere. Sometimes any decent loot you find and desperately need [[SchmuckBait is boobytrapped.]] There are [[OurZombiesAreDifferent half-alive abominations]] stalking the streets that move like creepy ragdolls and will try to tear you apart on sight. Radio signals will set off the ExplosiveLeash around your neck and turn your head into paste. [[DeadlyGas The very air you breathe is a poisonous fume.]] It may have been a calculated decision by ObsidianEntertainment (for the same reason Gary Gygax created the TombOfHorrors) to create an addon pack that wasn't a MontyHaul like ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' and the rest of ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' is. The entire addon is NightMareFuel from beginning to end.
* TooAwesomeToUse: The Fatman, which has less than 20 mini nukes to use in the ENTIRE game, at least until GRA came out and added more to purchase and new variants. The three Holy Frag Grenades which are even more powerful than the Fatman can only be obtained in a special encounter. And the Alien Blaster, a ridiculously powerful energy pistol that comes with a limited supply of ammo that you only get once. And any weapon that uses the devastating yet rare .44 magnum rounds.

** Then there's [[ReturnOfTheLivingDead Trash]], a girl who decided that life as a human sucks, so she'd become a ghoul. How? By exposing herself to excessive amounts of radiation, naturally. She lives in a shack on the southern edge of the map, in an old nuclear test site. How she even got there is a mystery considering it's surrounded by tough-as-nails feral ghouls. Of course, the odds of ghoulification are roughly one in one million, but she assumes it's a sure thing, and when you reach the shack where she's staying, she's usually dead (she may spawn alive as a bug). Basically, mixing radiation and idiots are a fatal combination, at least for the idiot.

** Sometimes entire ''factions'' qualify as this based upon irrational reactions to you (given your in-game actions). It's entirely possible to enter Cottonwood Cove and only get a mild "don't mess with anything or else!" response from a non-hostile Legion - after coming out of the Divide, where you [[spoiler: fired a NUCLEAR WARHEAD at a Legion camp]]. And this was ''after'' already being vilified by the Legion.
* TookALevelInBadass: The Courier takes several levels of badass over the course of the game, both game levels and in-story levels.

* ToThePain: The Terrifying Presence perk is pretty much based around this. It causes [=NPCs=] to flee for a little while after you make scary threats like "I'll carve myself a knife out of your bones."
** What Caesar did to Joshua Graham.
*** In a sense, what you can do to Elijah if [[spoiler:you trick him into [[AndIMustScream trapping himself forever]] inside the Sierra Madre vault.]]
* TrainingThePeacefulVillagers: One of the options at the end of the Honest Hearts DLC. [[spoiler: It's Deconstructed; having learned to fight, they're not peaceful anymore, so they spend the next couple decades warring with former allies. However, sparing Salt-Upon-Wounds leads to them being more merciful.]]
* TraumaInn: There are always certain places you can bunk for the night especially if you're running with hardcore mode on.

* TribalFacePaint: In the Honest Hearts DLC, one of the two tribes of Zion Canyon, known as the Dead Horses, has a custom where members earn a facial or body tattoo for every major achievement they accomplish.

* UniversalPoison: Played straight in the main game, as the generic item "antivenom" will cure you instantly, whether it be a simple radscorpion sting or a nasty Cazador attack. Averted in the ''Honest Hearts'' DLC, where the local poisonous plants have their own type of antivenom.
** On the other hand, the effects themselves differ wildly by toxin source.

* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: [[spoiler:...But if you want to kill him, there's always a nice cross you can strap him to. You can also smuggle a pistol into Caesar's tent and shoot him in the head for PoeticJustice, but it takes around 15 shots and he keeps yelling "Damn!" while all the guards become antsy at your having produced a gun.]]

* WeaksauceWeakness: The Pulse Gun and 'Paladin Toaster' fist weapon will OneHitKill almost any robots or anyone in power armor. The Securitron robots, while tough and powerful, have a major weakness in the wheels.

* SadisticChoice: The player get to make one at the end of ''Lonesome Road'' [[spoiler: either allow a barrage of nuclear ICBM'S to be launched, destroying either/both the only usuble path into the mojave from the West, or/and obliterating most of Arizona, or asking the copied ED-E to sacrifice himself to stop the missles. The sacrifice of the copied ED-E doesn't affect the ED-E that exists in the Mojave Wasteland, however.]]

* SanitySlippage: [[spoiler:Mr. House, more specifically the Mr. House that is the half-brother to the one in the Lucky 38, during his reign at H&H Tools.]]

* SaveScumming: this plus a Slots Machine equals easy but boring money-making... [[TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything until the casino kicks you out.]]

* SceneryGorn: Camp Searchlight.
** [[DeathWorld The]] [[EverythingTryingToKillYou Divide]].
* SceneryPorn: Lake Mead Cave.

* SchmuckBait: Vault 11 is deliberately designed like this. Really, when there's an option to open the [[spoiler:sacrifical chamber]] on a terminal, you just know the end result will be bad. But you'll do it, because you've come this far and you need to know (and have to in order to complete the unmarked quest). Curiosity demands it!

** You can find the Thump-Thump, a variant of the regular Grenade Rifle during the quest Ant Misbehaivin'. Said Ants have been eating gunpowder, and you were told in advance of fighting them that they'll pretty much explode if you look at them the wrong way. The chances that this is a coincidence are extremely small.
* ScratchDamage: Your defensive stat subtracts damage, but can never make attacks do less than 1/5 the damage they would against a completely unarmored target. Sufficent [=BBs=] will take down a Paladin.

* SecretTestOfCharacter: [[spoiler:Vault 11.]]

* SequelDifficultyDrop: The DLC have done this so far--Dead Money is NintendoHard, not least because you can't bring [[InfinityPlusOneSword your stuff]]. Honest Hearts lets you bring some items based on weight (the good stuff is generally heavy), but hands you quite a lot of good equipment along the course of the story. Old World Blues doesn't restrict what you can carry at all, and even hands you three free perks near the beginning (with different versions available to replace them at the end).

** And don't forget [[LargeHam the Tesla coils! The coils of Nikola Tesla!]]
* ShortRangeShotgun: The Sawed-off Shotgun returns to affirm this trope, but every other shotgun in the game has a tighter spread, making them actually useful for medium range combat. Ballsy players may choose to use a modified Hunting Shotgun to snipe. In addition, there are also Slug shells, which makes the shotgun otherwise behave like rifles. Higher tier shotguns are also superior weapons to submachine guns and most handguns in medium range combat even with just buckshot shells.

* ShotgunsAreJustBetter: The Shotgun Surgeon perk, along with other things (see ShortRangeShotgun), allow shotguns to become viable all-situation weapons.

** The fluff about the Legion fits both in-universe and in the meta. The Legion features far too many accurate reflections of the Roman Empire's nature to be cooincidental.

* ScaryBlackMan: Jean-Baptiste Cutting.

* TheVoiceless: Christine from the Dead Money DLC, due an Auto-Doc malfunctioning and cutting her vocal chords out. [[spoiler: She gets better near the end, though.]]
** [[spoiler: Not so much voiceless and not so much a malfunction. [[NightmareFuel Which only makes it worse.]]]]

** A dead Brotherhood of Steel Paladin is found in a bomb crater near the Boomer's territory, suggesting he took a direct hit from the Boomer's artillery. If you read thw holotape on his body, it says something like 'We don't know exactly what you'll encounter on your mission, but your PowerArmor and advanced weapons should be more than enough to protect you from any threat.'

* SmartPeopleKnowLatin: Your character can use Latin phrases in certain trees provided their intelligence is 8 out of 10. The lower ranks of Caesar's Legion seem only to know "vale" and "ave", while a centurion POW you meet seems to be fluent.
* SniperPistol: The [[RevolversAreJustBetter Hunting Revolver]] comes with a scope attatched and is accurate to boot. The .44 magnum and 9mm can also be modded to have a scope.

* SoLongAndThanksForAllTheGear: A companion exiting the party takes the gear with them. In case of the ED-E retrofit, the gear is lost forever. The only exception is if you complete Arcade Gannon's quest, where he gives you all the gear he was carrying.

*** Speaking of Powder Gangers, helping them fight of authorities makes it silly too. Even if you've never attacked the NCR, they'll all gun for you. And if you defend yourself and kill ONE: prepare for an endless "MURDERER! MURDERER! MURDERER!" chorus until you get the last one.

* WolverinePublicity: The Ranger Combat Armor, which is featured on the cover, title screen, and intro, and can otherwise hardly be found anywhere in-game until near the end. Recent patches, however, have aleviated this somewhat and made it available earlier and more easily.

* TemptingFate: One too-proud-for-his-own-good NPC just doesn't know how to take the hint.

** Subverted for console versions of the game. Quite a few achievements/trophies center around in-game challenges. [[ThatOneAchievement Including completing three of the three-star challenges added by Gun Runners' Arsenal.]]

* ScratchDamage: Sufficent [=BBs=] will take down a Paladin.

* TheWoobie: Every single one of your human/ghoul/mutant companions have their own woobie stories that you can play through and help them find some kind of peace or a new purpose in life:
** Boone was JustFollowingOrders when he [[spoiler:[[WouldHurtAChild massacred women and children]] at Bitter Springs]]. He feels that karma for this led to [[spoiler:his wife and unborn child's sale to the Legion and his eventual decision to kill her rather than let them be sold.]] Your time with him can help him face his demons and give him something new to fight for.
** Veronica just wanted to help the [[KnightTemplar Brotherhood of Steel]] survive in the changing world of the Mojave. The brotherhood [[spoiler:refuses to do so, even in the face of evidence that they'll die out]] and it's up to you to help Veronica [[spoiler:decide to find a new calling in life or to stay by her doomed organisation to the bitter end.]]
** Arcade Gannon just wants to help the Mojave any way he can. He's [[OldShame troubled by his past]], though it was really [[SinsOfOurFathers his father]] who [[spoiler:was a soldier for the Enclave which tried to poison the entire wasteland.]] You can help Gannon [[spoiler:[[PuttingTheBandBackTogether track down his old ex-Enclave friends]] who helped raise him as a boy and persuade them to [[GoodFeelsGood fight the good fight]] in the end]] to [[TheAtoner make up in some small way for their past misdeeds]].
** Raul is a StoicWoobie with the most painful past of them all. Having [[spoiler:lost almost his entire family, then his dear sister and later failing to save a young woman who [[YouRemindMeOfX reminded him of her]]]], Raul [[WeAreNotGoingThroughThatAgain gave up gunfighting and became a mechanic...]] unless [[spoiler:you persuade him to pick up his guns again.]]
** Poor, poor Lily. The best way to help her live a life free of [[ShatteredSanity pain and madness]] is to help her to [[spoiler: take her medication which will also make her forget about her grandchildren [[TheAgeless who probably died centuries ago]]]].
** Rose of Sharon Cassidy lost everything when her business was destroyed by unknown attackers. You can leave her to perpetually [[LadyDrunk drown her sorrows]], or you can [[spoiler:persuade her to embark on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge, or you can help her to accept a RestrainedRevenge.]]

-> [[FalloutNewVegas/TropesHToM I-M]]