This is Game Maker's Toolkit. I'm Mark Brown.
Welcome to the Ultra-Luxe, the most elite hotel on the New Vegas strip. Home to roulette
wheels, fine dining, the White Glove Society, and a dark, morbid secret.
In this episode, we're going to break down a Fallout: New Vegas side-quest that takes
place in this hotel, to see how developer Obsidian packed so many opportunities for
role-playing into just one quest.
Because, while you perhaps wouldn't know it to look at Fallout 4, these games have traditionally
been about letting you tell a very personal story, based heavily on the character you
build at the start of the game.
Chris Avellone, designer on Fallout 2, has said "I think players should have the freedom
to create their own destiny. What you should be giving them is a playground for them to
roleplay their opportunities".
What this means in practice is that many options in the game are locked away from you unless
you've got a certain stat, perk, standing in the community, alignment with a faction,
or moral reputation.
Plus, your lock picking, computer hacking, stealth, and combat skills will dictate the
sorts of choices you can make and the stories you'll discover.
So, to see how that actually comes into play, we're going to do the same quest five times,
with five different character builds, to see how a single quest can offer so many outcomes
and chances to role play.
The quest is called Beyond the Beef and, naturally, I'm going to be spoiling it. Like, all of it.
You have been warned.
The quest is about Heck Gunderson - a Brahmin baron who has come to the Ultra-Luxe to negotiate
a beef deal. But his son Ted has gone missing somewhere in the hotel.
HECK: He was right here! I didn't leave him but a minute.
Let's play as a stealth character, who wants to lend Heck a hand.
We talk to the leader of The White Glove Society, Marjorie, who tells us two interesting things:
that her group has a history of cannibalism - but has moved past it - and that another
person has recently gone missing.
MARJORIE: Two disappearances in my hotel? What will people say?
An investigator was looking for them and hotel manager Mortimer can help you chat to the
detective.
We ask Mortimer about it and get a key to the detective's room. Inside, yikes, the dude's
dead! He's got a matchbook on his body but before we can read it, we get assaulted by
these goons. Luckily, our high sneak stat let us smuggle some guns into the casino,
and we take these thugs out with a silenced pistol.
The matchbook tells us to meet someone in the steamroom at 4. Which we do. It's Chauncey:
a White Glove lackey who spills the beans. Mortimer wants the society to return to cannibalism,
he's got Ted Gunderson locked up in the meat freezer, and he's going to serve the poor
kid as a meal at tonight's big bash.
Before we leave, an assassin ices Chauncey. Good job we've got that gun.
To get to Ted in the kitchen we throw on a stealth boy, crack open the door behind the
bar, and and sneak past this guard. We pick the key to the freezer from the chef's pocket,
and then murder him and stash his body in the pantry.
We drug the wine that the society will drink before their big meal, and get the head waiter
to serve up dinner. We can then let Ted out with the key...
TED: My daddy's gonna kill all you bastards once he finds out what you done to me.
...and walk straight past the knocked out guards to reunite Heck with his son.
HECK: You got me my boy back. I got not words.
Okay this time we're going to play a villainous sort, with a silver tongue. And we're going
to go straight to Mortimer and get the gig from him. Because from his perspective, this
becomes a job of replacing Ted with a different human.
MORTIMER: I need a replacement. And I need the boy taken care of.
Mort gives us the key to the basement, and we can talk our way past this goon. We open
up the fridge...
TED: My daddy's gonna kill all you bastards once he finds out what you done to me.
...and convince Ted to leave quietly. We now need his replacement.
We travel to Carlyle St. Clair's house and while it would be fun to knock him out with
a pistol whip or a cattle prod and throw him in a dumpster, we can just talk this poor
chump into going to the Society.
We chat to Mortimer and finish the job.
MORTIMER: Of his own volition? My goodness, you are very professional, aren't you?
Let's be something a bit different. Let's pretend to be a famous boxer. The makers of
Fallout often say that half the story happens in the player's head, after all. So we pump
points into the unarmed skill, and we do some jobs on the strip to become famous around town.
Back at the Ultra Luxe we take the job from Heck, chat to Marjorie, get the key from Mort,
discover the body, and get jumped by thugs. This time, we kill 'em with our bare fists.
We meet up with Chauncey, and convince Marjorie to let us be an honorary member of the White
Glove Society.
MARJORIE: Given your deeds on the Strip alone, I can safely say that you would be a prized addition
to our honorary ranks.
Now we can waltz straight into the kitchen.
We barter with the chef, which lets us get to the oven. And we use the chef's recipe
to cook up a pretty good steak that will trick Mortimer into thinking he's chowing on human meat.
We let Ted out...
TED: My daddy's gonna kill all you bastards once he finds out what you done to me.
...and hide in the back of the society's banquet. Mort tells everyone that they just ate Ted
Gunderson but we appear, with Ted in tow. Mortimer's just admitted to everything, and
we've exposed him. All that's left is to punch him. To death.
Okay, this time we are a cannibal and pure evil. Like, sadistically so. We convince Mortimer
to let us in on the job by revealing that we too, like eating human meat.
MORTIMER: Good! Then you know what it is to be discreet in matters of... nutrition.
We go to the kitchen, open the freezer, and kill Ted.
TED: My daddy's gonna kill-
We grab a sample of his blood and then eat his remains.
Up at Heck's penthouse suite we kill his guards and spill his son's blood on his sheets and
in his sink, and then we get him, er, arrested for murdering his son. Finally, we finish
things off by locking our companion character, Boone, in the fridge and offering him as a
replacement to Mortimer. Yummy.
MORTIMER: I know what a terrible sacrifice this must've been for you.
Or, we can just be a total madman. Following clues and tracking down hotel rooms sounds
like a chore so we tell Heck that the White Glove has got Ted and he gives us a shotgun.
HECK: Listen, you do what you gotta do to find him.
We go on a murder rampage, killing everyone between us and Ted.
So what can we take from all this?
Well, one: It doesn't matter what stats you picked at the start of the game. This quest
has so many options that you'll find ways to make use of your chosen skills and play
out the role you've picked.
That even involves bringing in a niche perk like cannabalism, reacting to what you've
achieved elsewhere on the strip, recognising that you have a human companion, and deciding
whether you're a goody two shoes...
MORTIMER: I don't think you'd have the stomach for it
...or an evil arsehole.
MORTIMER: You strike me as just the sort of person who can help me.
Two: That being said, your story is not completely predestined by your stats because you can
still make choices. You might have to improvise, of course, and kill a guard you can't talk
your way past or swap your plan mid way through. But that's good, too: you rarely get locked
into one decision so you can change your mind mid way through the quest.
Three: There are always multiple ways to achieve the same goal. To get to the kitchen you can
pick a lock, pickpocket a key, work with Mortimer, pretend to work with Mortimer, or become an
honorary member of the White Glove Society. Some have higher risks or costs than others,
and they all speak to the type of character you are role-playing.
Four: The consequences of your actions are often forecasted to you. Mortimer warns of
the heavy resistance in the penthouse...
MORTIMER: I understand he's hired security, so be careful if you go up there.
...so you can plan accordingly or avoid that altogether if you're not playing as a talented
killer. But not all outcomes are so transparent. You probably didn't foresee the goons and
the assassin, but that's what makes them so surprising. It's a give and take, depending
on the level of the challenge.
And five: There are multiple choices, but the branching paths often come back together
to reduce the number of permutations that the designers have to come up with. Multiple
solutions involve sneaking into the kitchen, or meeting up with Chauncey in the steam room.
It's not perfect. The fact that both Heck and Mortimer give you the exact same reward
makes the choice of who to help a bit less exciting. And yes, the whole quest is as buggy
as hell.
But overall, Beyond the Beef is a fantastic example of a role-playing quest. It has a
brilliant premise and a surprising sequence of events. It fleshes out the fiction of New
Vegas and speaks to the game's central theme of greed as a savage force.
It has huge opportunities for player expression, it has moral grey areas between its black
and white extremes, and it will react to your choices in surprising ways. Even outside of
the side-quest as other characters comment on your exploits in the Ultra-Luxe...
YES MAN: A cannibalism problem? Really? I'm so glad you weren't eaten!
...and the White Glove Society and the Gundersons tie-in to other quests down the line.
So if you want to give your players a chance to tell their own story, no matter what they
bring to the table, this is the sort of quality quest design you should be aiming for.
Thank you so much for watching. I want to hear about your favourite quests in RPGs so
let me know in the comments below. If you want to support the show you can subscribe
on YouTube, tell a friend about it, or even pitch on Patreon where supporters get early
access, a cool newsletter, and even bonus videos.