Getting dropped into a Fallout TTRPG mid-campaign? Obviously I picked the glitchy murder-maid robot!

It's mid-evening earlier this week, and I get a message from my favourite DM, who's been running D&D campaigns I occasionally play with a few former work mates and their buddies.

He tells me they're running this cool Fallout campaign and are down a player. Would I consider joining them even though they're already four game sessions in?

My answer: you had my YES at hello!

So I'm basically getting dropped into an ongoing TTRPG campaign mid-season, come Monday evening. And suddenly I'm doing the narrative version of jumping onto a moving train.

No slow “meet the party in a tavern” intro. More like “welcome to the wasteland, try not to freeze.”

The setup

The game is set in Boston / the Commonwealth, one year before Fallout 4, during an absolutely brutal winter. The kind of cold where being outside too long isn’t “uncomfortable,” it’s “this is how people die.” So the vibe isn’t just raiders and radiation—it’s also shelter, heat, fuel, and making smart calls about when you move and when you don’t.

Which is perfect, because it means every choice has weight… and it gives a new character a very believable reason to join up fast. Survival has a funny way of making introductions efficient.

The party I’m joining

I’m walking into a group that already has a great mix of weird, capable, and emotionally complicated (aka: my favorite kind of party).

There’s a Vault Dweller from Vault 52… whose backstory is delightfully specific: he was literally the Vault’s pedicurist. Foot care. Lavender cream. Nail clippers. The whole thing. Except it wasn’t just a gag—over time he became a quiet confidant for people’s secrets, fears, and rumors. And when he finally left the Vault, he turned that little “clinic kit” into a practical set of tools for staying alive out here.

Then there’s Danny “Chrome Dome” Sloan, a lone survivor type from a Mojave prepper compound that went bad. When his people slid into raids and murders, he walked away before he became part of it. He’s an infiltrator/scavenger-for-hire, and he wears a full-face metal helmet forged from a pre-war defense robot head… because Fallout characters are legally required to have at least one iconic visual element. (I don’t make the rules folks!)

And there’s Canak, a lucid ghoul who’s been surviving since the bombs dropped. He lived for decades off hunting and skill, fortified an old building into a trade/help hub… and eventually ran out of anything worth defending. Now he’s back on the road with a bow, caught between a world that fears ghouls and a hope that maybe—just maybe—he can earn a place somewhere that matters.

My character: a Mister Handy with a problem

I’m coming in as a Mister Handy.

Yes, THAT Mister Handy: the cheerful domestic robot with the polite voice and the “all sorted!” energy. Except this one has an ugly little secret baked into his history: before the bombs, RobCo Industries pushed “security updates” onto civilian robots as the world got more tense. Nothing aggressive on paper—just “protection protocols,” “access control,” “de-escalation.” The kind of words that sound comforting right up until they don’t.

Somewhere along the line, he got tagged for an experimental patch. A hidden software red button meant to kick in during unrest. You know the drill...

And one day, in a crowded moment, his sensors picked the wrong threat.

The patch flipped. Yikes!

For a few seconds he wasn’t a friendly helper—he was a precise, efficient response. Too efficient. When it ended, a kid hiding nearby looked at him like he was a monster… and still said, “Thanks.”

That moment jammed something in his code. Not the combat routines—the other part. The part that was supposed to be harmless.

A tiny plastic rocket 🚀 fell from the kid’s pocket. He picked it up to throw it away, and his system flagged it: DO NOT DISCARD. He didn’t understand why. He kept it anyway.

Now he’s still out there in the Commonwealth, trying to “serve,” trying to be helpful… while knowing he can glitch into something dangerous when the wrong inputs stack up.

The “don’t let the robot go apeshit” protocol

To make this playable (and not a constant chaos grenade), we’ve got a simple rule of thumb: the glitch tends to trigger under a few conditions—crowded tight spaces with shouting, someone grabbing/trying to restrain him, or a critical power dip in extreme cold.

And the party can pull him back with a quick reset: show him the plastic rocket, use a calm, pre-agreed phrase, and create physical space so the threat loop breaks. It’s weird. It’s Fallout. It’s also the kind of thing that creates great roleplay moments.

Why I’m excited

I love joining a campaign that already has momentum. Might sound weird, but it isn't. The world feels lived-in. The relationships have history. And instead of spending three sessions “warming up,” you’re immediately making choices that matter. And I know the people I'm playing with. We've done quite a number of D&D, and other settings together.

Also: Boston in deadly winter? That’s a setting that practically begs for hard decisions, dark humor, and the occasional “we survived that somehow” story.

So yeah. New character. Ongoing story. Cold that wants to kill everyone. 

A helpful robot with a kill-switch glitch. 

What could possibly go wrong?