If you don’t know—it’s hard to imagine you don’t—Fallout 4 is really good, bugs notwithstanding. However, there might be some things going on in the game world the player might find … problematic. It is possible to bring progressive authoritarian orthodoxy to the heathens of the Commonwealth. Never mind the people living in the Commonwealth are just trying to survive; truly, what is survival without living the "correct" life of the Social Justice Warrior? Never fear, because Tech Raptor is your hookup. Here’s a comprehensive guide to bringing the ideological purity of the SJW to the Commonwealth.

Character Build

How does one build an SJW for the Commonwealth? The character doing things for herself, in general, is beneath her; consequently, she prefers to be able to talk other people in to doing them for her. So the first stop in terms of SPECIAL is Charisma.

Charisma is not just a measure of how easily the character interacts with others in the Commonwealth. Charisma is also a measure of moxie and chutzpah. She needs to have the chutzpah to, say, stand in front of the UN with a straight face and state being told, “You suck,” on the Internet is identical to being beheaded for witchcraft in Riyadh. In order to ensure the character can get people to act appropriately (i.e. exactly how she tells them they should) AND have the chutzpah to make such a claim, the character must have maxed out Charisma.

When the character does choose to lower herself to actually do something, she needs to maximize the reward for doing it, as well as maximize the resources she has at any given moment to do whatever it is she’s lowered herself to do. Whether the things she does, or makes, actually work or provide value to her or the people around her is irrelevant, so long as she gets the credit for building it in the first place. The Luck stat provides both the additional resources and the additional reward she needs. The character will have maxed out Luck as well.

The SJW character prefers to talk over expending real effort to affect change in the Commonwealth, so the SJW character has low Strength, Endurance, Intelligence, and Agility—all stats involved with the actual doing of things. The lack of survivability SPECIAL stats make the character really squishy when it comes to combat, but our plan is to slink around or talk our way out of most combat situations. When we do need to be in combat, we’ll need the critical hits we have stored up to end combats quickly, but more on that in a second.

The last SPECIAL stat, Perception, can be higher, but not at the expense of Charisma and Luck. In terms of Introductory SPECIAL stats, the character looks something like this:

Strength: 2

Perception: 2

Endurance: 2

Charisma: 10

Intelligence: 1

Agility: 2

Luck: 9

Note: The SPECIAL book in Sanctuary is used to give the SJW character the tenth point in Luck.

SPECIAL stats are only half the story. We also need to fill out the perks for our character as she levels up in the Commonwealth. Here are some of the key perks for the SJW character braving the Commonwealth.

Intimidation: The best tactic for an SJW in the Commonwealth is Intimidation. At Rank 1, pointing a gun at a human has a chance of pacifying them. At higher ranks, Intimidation can create a White Knight, a useful idiot who does the attacking for the player. This is our go-to weapon, so max it out as soon as possible.

Black Widow: The Commonwealth is a construct of the patriarchy, so the character wants to take advantage of all the men who built it. Rank 1 provides a 5% bonus to damage against men, as well as making men easier to persuade. As more points are put in Black Widow, men become even easier to persuade, and the damage bonus against men in combat continues to increase. Another go-to perk she’ll max out ASAP.

Bloody Mess, Better Criticals, and Critical Banker: The Luck stat contributions to the build provide bonuses in case we can’t talk or intimidate our way out of action. Bloody Mess is a straight increase in damage, combined with more gory finishers when the SJW is forced to Chu someone. Better Criticals increases the amount of bonus damage for critical hits, and Critical Banker allows for storage of up to 3 critical hits at max ranks, so we can dump them all into a man who isn’t affected by intimidation tactics.

Idiot Savant: Life in the Commonwealth is hard. In that way, it’s the antithesis of the American university. Because of the harshness of life in the Commonwealth, the SJW character is going to have to do things at some point. To maximize the effectiveness of doing things when doing things isn’t beneath her, we need a 3x experience point multiplier that has a chance to occur, or proc, any time experience is earned. That’s just Rank 1; at Rank 2, the multiplier increases to 5x. Pay attention to the sound that played when Idiot Savant procs; you’ll be glad you did.

Mysterious Stranger: Sometimes just creating White Knights isn’t enough for the SJW in the Commonwealth. Sometimes more is needed, like an overweight intellectual and emotional infant that reviews movies, to come and fight our battles for us. Let’s call him Bob. Rank 1 of Mysterious Stranger provides a chance for Bob to show up anytime the SJW uses VATS in combat. At increased ranks, Bob shows up more often, and has a chance to refill the critical meter when he kills in combat.

Fortune Finder and Scrounger: I mentioned above the character needs resources in order to build things. Fortune Finder increases the amount of caps found in containers around the Commonwealth, and Scrounger increases the amount of ammunition found in containers. Adding up the cost saving provided by Scrounger with the additional caps from Fortune Finder, and the SJW can dump caps on shipments of Screws and Gears, instead of 5.56 ammo.

Faction Alignment

There’s only one faction in the Commonwealth the SJW character can be a part of, and that’s the Brotherhood of Steel. In an attempt to minimize the number of spoilers for the Brotherhood storyline, I won’t belabor the details of the storyline. Instead, I’ll make a list of things the Brotherhood does that’s in keeping with the feelings and tactics of Social Justice Warriors.

Absolute hatred of everything not them? Check.

Require total subjugation of the individual to the orthodoxy? Check.

Willingness to use any and all means to achieve their goals? Check.

Capability to destroy one of their own the instant he/she becomes ideologically non-compliant? Check.

Misplaced sense of being the “good guys”? Check.

Hide behind technology instead of engaging in earnest conflict/debate? Check.

Everything one could want as an SJW is here for the taking. The character can hide behind the orthodoxy of the BoS, while self-deluding into believing they are going to “save” the people of the Commonwealth. Go forth to cleanse or convert, Paladin. Ad Victoriam!

Gear and Playstyle

Obviously, the character is going to deviate slightly from current time SJWs, as all the blogs to whine about patriarchy or Skinny Malone’s suit have been destroyed. The character will want to equip gear that increases her inferior stats (STR, AGI, END, and INT). In general, these are pretty common and easy to acquire. There’s one other piece of gear the SJW character absolutely must have, though.

Towers in Fallout 4 are worthless, but they help with Idiot Savant procs

In the basement of D.B. Technical High School is a character with a unique piece of headgear. Kill the character wearing it as soon as it is feasible—possibly right after finishing ArcJet Systems. I won’t spoil what the headgear is other than to say, if the character does get caught doing something untoward to the children of Diamond City, the character can always say they were just being edgy on a Robo Co. terminal.

In terms of combat, the most important thing is acknowledging how paper thin the character is. A stern look from a decently equipped Raider is enough to kill the character if Intimidation doesn’t work, and the SJW is out of banked criticals. With a full bank of criticals and a decent rifle class weapon, the SJW character can take down a legendary man, or a man that cons with a skull. Banking those criticals requires a hefty dose of VATS, so keeping an eye out for armor upgrades that decrease VATS cost might be helpful.

In the broadest sense, things that work for other Fallout 4 sniper or rifle character archetypes works for the SJW archetype, though there’s increased importance on crippling legs so the character can maintain distance from enemies. Having a combat shotgun around for ghoul infested areas is nice, too.

When not fighting, the character should be building or modifying as much stuff as possible. The stuff doesn’t need to be useful, nor does it actually need to work—the stuff just needs to be built. Every time something is built, the player earns EXPs, which in turn is an opportunity for Idiot Savant to proc. Does a settlement need a 5 story tower in the middle of it? Of course not, but think about all the credit, in the form of free EXPs, the character will receive for building it in the first place. Sure, all the beds are on the first floor and there’s no door, but the tower doesn’t need to be functional to proc Idiot Savant.

Companion

Since INT and PER are low, getting Locksmith and Hacker perks is going to be nearly impossible. The care and feeding of the character in the Commonwealth will be significantly easier if she has the capability to hack terminals or pick locks. Nick Valentine can hack terminals, and Cait can pick locks. Cait also has a double barrel shotgun, for those of the militant SJW mindset.

Giving either of these characters a high damage, close range weapon option, like a flamethrower, certainly helps, but realistically, it’s almost a certainty the SJW character will have to fight at some point. The SJW fighting in the Commonwealth should be looked at as even more chances for more credit from Idiot Savant procs.

Most Important, Have Fun in Fallout 4!

I had been having a ton of fun already playing Fallout 4 before trying this archetype, and credit where it is due, I saw the basic archetype in PC Gamer first and molded it into the SJW archetype.

This character archetype, if you can stomach a few hours of running away from skull mobs, legendary mobs, and picking your spots in terms of quest completions, is amazing and fun. Getting Idiot Savant procs after patiently waiting for someone to get into better position for a sniper rifle headshot makes my day every time I hear it. To say nothing of the ridiculous things that come to mind to build in search of still more free EXP.

So, give smooth talking and blind luck a shot when next you venture into the Commonwealth, and you too can bring intersectional theory to the heathens.