The gaming industry has gradually shifted away from making games with a strict moral alignment system, and the Fallout series exemplifies this pretty well. For example, the player character’s Karma significantly impacted Fallout 3. However, its importance was greatly reduced in favor of Fallout: New Vegas’ factions and eventually dropped entirely from Fallout 4.
However, while Fallout 4’s conflict is a bit more nuanced than Good versus Evil, that doesn’t mean some characters don’t lean toward one side or the other. One Fallout 4 fan decided to have a little fun with this idea, choosing nine Fallout 4 companions and matching to a Dungeons and Dragons character alignment.
Of course, it is debatable whether someone can fairly apply the rigid Dungeons and Dragons alignment system to Fallout 4, but that hasn’t stopped Reddit user NotASynth499 from trying. They created a three-by-three grid arranging characters from Evil to Good on the vertical axis and Lawful vs. Chaotic on the horizontal axis. Reading left to right and top to bottom, it shows Preston Garvey as Lawful Good, Deacon as Neutral Good, John Hancock as Chaotic Good, Old Onfell as Lawful Neutral, Dogmeat as True Neutral, Strong as Chaotic Neutral, Porter Gage as Lawful Evil, Cait as Neutral Evil, and X6-88 as Lawful Evil.
Given that Fallout 4 doesn’t have an objective in-universe standard for Goodness or Lawfulness, some of these placements will come across as more than a little arbitrary. Naturally, this led to some debate among Fallout 4 fans regarding how accurate this chart is. Preston’s position is uncontroversial, but some felt that Deacon was more Chaotic than the diagram implies. Others argue that Hancock is Neutral or even Lawful due to his leadership of Goodneighbor and clearly defined principles.
The Evil characters were the most divisive. Some argued that Fallout 4’s Cait isn’t Evil at all and that she and the super mutant Strong should trade places. Several people also expressed confusion over how or why anyone would consider X6-88 Chaotic. As an Institute Courser, his job is to help maintain the Institute’s iron grip over its Synth servants, and he enforces its laws without question. Meanwhile, Porter Gage breaks the system entirely. Fallout’s raiders generally fall on the Chaotic side of the spectrum. However, Gage’s main job is to maintain order and unity among Nuka World’s gangs, and he lacks the violent temperament of other raiders. Thus, there are arguments for putting Gage anywhere on the Lawful/Chaotic spectrum.
Gage himself exemplifies the problem with imposing D&D character alignments on settings that don’t use them. Even some Dungeons and Dragons players find the system artificial or overly simplistic, particularly in how D&D defines Good and Evil. Thus, one would not expect it to mesh perfectly with another game. Still, it’s at least fun to think about how Fallout 4’s companions might fit in the tabletop game’s logic.
Fallout 4 is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
