One thing you should at least try is getting the expanded dialogue with Torr, the simpleton who minds the cattle in Klamath, early in Fallout 2.

You just answered the question I was about to post. I usually play Fallout games as smart characters, with high Intelligence and Charisma but lowish Strength. I was wondering if this sort of thing happened in all of them, especially New Vegas, where I'm currently 60 hours into a save file with a lady genius.

Don't care much for new vegas. Liked fallout 3 infinitely better.

I loved Fallout 3. I logged over 100 hours in it over the course of a few months. But later, when I really started getting into New Vegas, I realized NV is superior to FO3 in just about every fashion. Now I'm not sure I could ever go back to FO3; now it just feels like an empty FPS with some dialogue trees.

Just to clarify:

- I love how Speech is now measured in the actual skill points rather than a roll-the-dice percentage system.

- In NV, my character has a greater effect on the world and the countless variations on the ending reflect that. In Fallout 3, there were essentially three endings: good, neutral, and evil. It either came down to "You left the Vault and became a saint to the outside world" or "you left the Vault and the outside world turned you into a raging asshole."

- FO3 had no factions in a true sense. You could be the aforementioned raging asshole and kill whoever you wanted, but in the last battle you'd still be fighting the Enclave alongside the giant Democrabot.

- In FO3, the game designers pushed their personal morality on me through the Karma system. "What? You gave the infant girl BACK to the Raiders!? You fucking asshole! Negative Karma!"

- In New Vegas, actual civilization, agriculture, and unification is returning to life. In FO3, the Capitol Wasteland was still a lawless, burnt out husk with isolated communities despite 200 years having passed where someone could have fixed some of that.

I could go on, but basically when Obsidian/Black Isle took the development ball from Bethesda for F:NV, Obsidian fixed the game by making it like first two instead of the super serious run-and-gun thing that Bethesda had created.