How Fallout was made SPECIAL

I talk about how the team converted Fallout from GURPS to SPECIAL in near-record time, thanks to Chris Taylor's homebrew system and a modular programming design philosophy.

[oldieal]

"Oh Jason, I don't know... 'SPECIAL' has some negative connotations." -Tim
"On the other hand, 'ACE LIPS' has some sexual connotations." -Jason

[drsnova]

I think they really missed a trick there when naming it. When you re-arane the letters of "SPECIAL", it actually could spell out LICE SPA. So much better.

[ereviscale]

That SPECIAL used to be ACE LIPS is something I never expected. That was cracking me up!

[jesseheinig]

I remember the meeting in your office in which we tried to suss out the ranges on stats. GURPS stats use 10 as a base and go up or down from there, since they're set in the middle of the 3d6 bell curve distribution. Moving away from GURPS meant that we needed a new way to determine values! I pitched the idea of your stats possibly being 0 as average, negative values as sub-optimal, and positive values as advantageous, which I had previously played with in Ars Magica. You didn't like that because negative numbers are a little counterintuitive for some players, so we switched to the 1-10 range with 5 as the average. (This also has the hidden advantage that a 1-10 range is on a factor of 10 from the 1-100 range, which was used for skills, so you have a sense of some parity between the two systems.) Then we added the notion that your stats had descriptors—"Average, " "Good, " "Great"—so that players could look at something and instantly have context for "I have a 6. Where does that lie? Oh, it's Good. Ok, I get it, I'm a little better but not super in that area." That obviously owed a debt to the Marvel Super Heroes game with its stat ratings like Remarkable and Amazing!

Then there was the whole discussion with Chris about whether each skill should just tie directly to one stat, or if some skills (or all of them) should use averages. There was the usual concern about some stats being more important than others, like, if you play a high Agility, is it just strictly superior to having a high Strength? Plus the idea of verisimilitude about the skills themselves—is this something that relies on being smart, or having deft hands, or some combination of the above? Chris I think eventually settled on the distributions of where various abilities influenced specific skills.

Then when you sent out the email about perks, everyone on the team was contributing ideas. The earliest perks were all combat focused, like "I do more damage with pistols" or "I can reload faster, " and then we got the big sea change with perks like Presence ("I get bonuses to social reactions") and Empathy ("I get hints of what dialogs are good or bad"), some of which were a lot more implementation work than others! (Empathy was kind of a bad idea in retrospect...)

[pitchforker]

I still remember looking at the original Fallout 1 box and thinking, "SPECIAL - that's so clever!"
Amazing to learn how so many iconic elements of Fallout came together...

[redredkrovy]

Don't have a question. Just wanted to say as a 90's Interplay and Black Isle Studios fan Fallout 1 & 2 are my favorite games of all time and I love your content! Don't ever stop giving us these behind the scenes stories. They're awesome!

[simeon]

I felt a wealth of memories in that last sentence.

[FluffySylveonBoi]

Fun fact: I am from Czech Republic and we rearranged the letters to SLEPICA which basically means a hen or a chicken.

Fallout was a big hit here back in the day, we have a Czech version of the Mad Brahmin web and it still works today. Watching your videos is such a pleasure, can you imagine seeing the developer of your favorite childhood game talking about it feels like meeting a god or something :)

[teyrns]

I know this is more of an art question rather than game design, but would you be interested in talking about the "talking heads" system in FO1/2? They're so charming, and have so much loving detail baked into the way they emote.

[semirrahge]

SPECIAL was my introduction to real RPG rules and even though I'm adjusted to all the various systems now I will always hold those 7 traits in my head as the "default" RPG attribute system.

[DeAtHPoInT]

Thank you father Cain for creating a tremendous rpg, always have a good day

[xxlCortez]

I always thought that first came the SPECIAL then the devs tried to make attributes based on the initials.

[abstraktdrey]

If there were more people like you in this new gaming industry, we would have nothing but quality titles.

...And I would probably be found skeleton remains in front of my computer.

[VoxelShow]

Tim, you're a massive inspiration to me and the team; Fallout has been such an important part of my life growing up and its influence extends to nearly everything I write about games.

I've always wanted to ask - it's no doubt that Fallout inspired some of the direction of Outer Worlds; how difficult was it to create a game that was so reminiscent (in a good way) of the modern Fallout games without borrowing too much from the Fallout universe? Did you need rules or guidelines in place for yourself or the team to prevent "rehashing" elements from Fallout?

Thanks for what you've created these last years - you've inspired a generation.
-Max

[TheAlison]

I love actually seeing people who know and have direct experience with what they're talking about... talk about it! Much better than second hand sources and third party commentary essays on design and history.

[MrsFallout]

That’s awesome, thank you for sharing!

[caseyclyde]

I love how rigorous you are with giving credit. Very cool.

[haku_haku_haku]

I love that he's always eager to give credit to people when they've done something cool.

[thedoom]

Another amazing video by Tim. I hope we get a video on the GURPS change history. Also Tim would be a really fun stream to play old games on Twitch and just doing commentary on.

[drifterax]

GURPS and SPECIAL are so amazing, you could say they're "CLASSIC"