Lazy Heroes
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Say for example, I head out into the wasteland of Washington, and proceed to do a side-quest that involves either dismantling a bomb in the middle of a fledgling township, or detonate it for a large pay-check. In my play-through, I dismantled the bomb, and then told the sheriff about the nasty man who'd propositioned me with the horrific idea of detonating the same device that got me born in Vault 101 in the first place. So I told the sheriff, and he runs into the bar to confront the deviously minded miscreant. Said miscreant then proceeds to kill the sheriff, and the game auto-saves, permanently killing off the one character I'd taken to in the game so far.
I was horrified. Not only was it my fault he was shot, I then had to go to his house and explain this to his ten year-old son. I felt like a despicable character who had cost a good man and father his life simply to grass up the local troublemaker. The kid took it hard, and I visited him every day since. Does my character reflect on it? No, but I do, and that saddens me even further. To just have my character stop outside that boy's empty house, and weep a little, even utter a few profanities in shock of what's taken place, would have sufficed.
It's not that we're trying to create our own lives as we would live them in these worlds, it's simply that there's no motivation to clear ten side-quests when they have no lasting impact on your avatar, but the main storyline does. Once I found my father, my dialogue changed, and the world began to change, albeit slightly. But I went back and killed those ants, and do you know what happened? Nothing. My character wasn't even upset at the loss of ammo.
