Part 49: Buffy Season One: A Woman's Wasteland Experience

Buffy Season One: A Woman's Wasteland Experience



We'll stop right now before heading into New Reno to take another look at odds and ends missed in the game, as well as how playing differs if you use a female character. I've modified the character slightly from the original concept, since it turns out that 7 intelligence is necessary for a lot of the better quest resolutions.



The first thing you'll notice different playing a female character is that things get a bit sleazier. On the plus side, getting things like the special prices from the Gecko in Klamath is a good bit easier.



This time around I went around to talk to the Duntons before doing so many quests that our karma was too high. I've gotten used to doing Torr's quest right off the bat, so it was a bit of an effort to go over here.



The first thing is that evidently they got ahold of the Colonel's recipe and applied it to jerky. As someone who's had more than his fair share of Jerky, I'd give that a shot.



I actually refused their proposal, which results in them threatening you into silence. After all was said and done I was only about 200 XP from gaining a level, so I went into the canyon to kill the robot before dealing with Torr's scorpions.



Turns out that doing so caused some of the scripting to break, since there's an additional portion of the quest that occurs in the canyon. Going there without talking to Torr makes a mess of the quest line. Torr disappears and you can't get the quest to go guard the Brahmin, but the Duntons are still here. I ended up abandoning it for a few moments to check on some other things.



Talking to Rebecca brings up a few references to members of the Unwashed Villagers, an early community dedicated to Fallout that got a few other cameos throughout the game. Rebecca mentions a person named Dave who either went to become a commando or went commando, who evidently passed along a present from the Hendee family:



It's a pretty solid set of gear for early on in the game, and that $1000 means we'd be able to get Vic right away if we really wanted to.



Naturally I went around and did some more quests for the experience and additional cash. This is one of the more nefarious places they can randomly hide "The Lavender Flower", since you'd have a hard time seeing it unless you were walking behind that wall.



I'm not sure if female characters get different reactions, but I hadn't seen this one before. Sounds like it's that kind of book, alright.



Talking with Metzger about Vic gives us an additional option that isn't available to male characters, which lets you cut the asking price in half at the cost of a non-evil character's self-respect.



Spoilers: many of the different resolutions offered for female characters involve sleeping with people in exchange for goods or services. A shining example of feminist empowerment this ain't.



The game continues to act weirdly around me as I continue. For some reason the portion of Tyler's gang inside the church wouldn't aggro on me until I ended combat.



Then when they were all dead, Lara's gang turned on me and started attacking… so in this playthrough nobody is guarding Metzger's shit and I ended up with a lot of additional pistols.



You can also sleep with Joey, the thug who has the locket, if you really want to… this doesn't get you the locket, but it does have some slight benefit:



You end up separated from his companions, which makes murdering him and taking it out of his cold dead hands a bit easier. The drug addict providing bizarrely appropriate comedy is a random occurrence in this pla through, not a regular feature.



Going back to Klamath I decided to check in to the bathhouse and see what was different. The first thing that pops out is that Sally tells you that she's only got girls working there so if that's not what you want you have to go elsewhere. This dialogue explains that she's the parents of the Dunton Boys since she offers them as option, but considering that Sally also says that any woman who spends time around them usually wants a bath I don't think she's that fond of them.



For some reason I had an additional fee attached for a pre-rinse with a mustachioed woman named Gerda. I'm particularly tickled by the bottom-most option that suggests that Gerda's actually a drag queen.



…I'm not sure if there were lesbian shenanigans going on here, or if they had a slumber party. I'd hope not the latter for $185.



I decided to do some experimenting to see if I could fix the whole Torg quest line, and the previous shenanigans during Wei Ho Lung gave me an idea. These are the three map points for when you re-enter Klamath, but just like in the Den these aren't all the map points that are accessible.



Map points can also be accessed by pressing a number key, and even if one isn't actually showing up on the screen it can still exist. In fact, I'm inclined to think that the programming setup in the game might require anything with a green border to have its own map point. Pressing 4 drops you into the rat tunnels, and pressing 5 puts you into the pasture… where Torg is waiting for us, thanks to the flags I tripped earlier.



It's been long enough that I accidentally did what the Duntons wanted and got Torg to leave. Oops!



You can still back off at this point, but you've already sent Torg off so it's counted as happening regardless. I murdered them to see if that did anything, but they're still counted as having rustled the cattle if you send Torg away.




Going back to town we can proceed with the next portion of the line to go and find Torr, who's now run off to the canyon for some reason. You can point a finger at the Duntons here, but it doesn't actually accomplish anything. That's okay… with that many scorpions around, they'll never find the bodies.



Torr is hanging out by the Vertibird, freaking out about the robot that was already dead when he got here. I really buggered up this quest. Technically I believe the highest possible experience payout is to go along with the Dunton's plan, take the reward from them and get an experience bonus from it, kill them and the scorpions, and then rescue Torr from the canyon.



Once we finish dealing with Torg, he'll start spouting lines you get from clicking on Orcish troops in Warcraft II.



Going back to Arroyo while you're in the neighborhood you'll get more and more guilt inducing messages the longer you stay out. Smoke in particular doesn't get a happy ending.



Continuing on with the game and going through Modoc, there's an armed guard standing by the farm if you come back.



Somebody mentioned the reaction if you fall down the pit trap a second time, and here it is in all its glory. I can't blame them, I'd laugh my ass off too.



Going over to Grisham's we have a few more dialogue options with a high charisma character. You can also seduce him with a male character, but I haven't built a male character with high enough charisma to pull it off.



The reaction is the same with either gender… well, I'll just say it's nice to see a father being protective of his son. This leads to a shotgun wedding with all of your equipment on the floor that I sadly can't screencap because it's a scripted sequence that won't accept any inputs.



With Grisham's daughter the key is to act like you're not interested in sleeping with her and talk up how interesting she is.



Keep it up long enough and she will quite literally attack you.



Personally I've always found the reaction for this one funnier. The local justice of the peace doesn't quite know what to make of a wedding with two women and refers to your "lawfully wedded other," then says that the brides may kiss.




Either way you go with it, you end up with a companion who can't be left behind and is absolutely useless for anything except for being an ammunition mule. You can get a divorce in New Reno, but that would actually require me to take one of them with me and I'm just not prepared to do that.