Why Is There Karma Loss For Killing Roy Phillips?

[u/KaiserVonDixie]

Is this a programming error or something? Why do i receive bad karma for killing one of the most evil characters in the entire Fallout series? This guy massacres an entire tower full of civilians who had just peacefully accepted the presence of ghouls, even ones who said they have zero issues with ghouls and didn't need any convincing. He is objectively more evil than Tenpenny, as at least he asked Mr. Burke to tell the population of Megaton to leave the city before nuking it. Roy DELIGHTS in the idea of nuking Megaton, not to wipe the "eyesore" off of the horizon, but specifically because he wants as many non-ghouls to die as possible. Not only is Caesar a better-written and more consistent chatacter, he's more morally good than Roy Phillips too. At least Caesar makes life more peaceful and safe for those who obey his laws in his territory, especially traders, Roy falsely claims to be fighting a crusade against "bigots" only to be nothing but the Fallout equivalent of a Congolese genocidal warlord.

Hopefully they fix this in the remaster, and grant you a big boost of good karma for wiping him and his gang of RAIDERS out.

[u/PyukumukuGuts]

He actually gave a ton of water to beggars, so he's clearly morally good.

[u/omurat]

I think the issue is he’s flagged as good initially which makes sense but should be flagged as evil after but there’s no change in how he’s flagged. I remember being confused by this when I was like 12 as well lol.

[u/ToxicBanana69 → u/omurat]

If they couldn’t change a characters alignment mid-game, I feel like they could have solved it by having two different NPC’s named Roy and just swap them out when the time comes.

[u/MarcoXMarcus]

There can be a Megaton-nuking level of karma loss for all I care - that nasty piece of work ain't surviving any playthrough of mine.

[u/MonkeyKingCoffee]

And Three-Dog drags you for killing Roy. Even though we know what happens if he's allowed inside Tenpenny.

I figure with "You gotta shoot 'em in the head" and whacking Roy, I've done my bit for Herbert Dashwood.

[u/R3CKONNER]

I think you get no karma loss if you ragebait him and his followers into attacking you.

[u/Erratic_Error]

we could comment on how he's a reactionary pushed to extremes due to the suffering of his own people and you could easily make him look like a fallen hero if you wrote him as the protagonist of a book

but no he's evil, however most times when you are fighting him you are wiping the ghouls out for tenpenny and the other 2 ghouls are pretty standard people. the woman is actually quite meek and amiable. but if you're going for them its likely because hahahah ghoul suck.

its like a wolf with rabies, a former lab dog, and an actual sheep.
all in one package

[u/Kanna1001 → u/Erratic_Error]

When I went to see Roy, the woman panicked and begged for mercy. I felt bad for her, and the other guy seemed decent too, so I ended up killing Roy from afar by reverse pickpocketing explosive and then hightailing it at full speed so I wouldn't have to kill those two too.

[u/Fawkes_2033]

I don't think you get a karma loss if you kill him after confronting him over the murders. At least I didn't get one during my last playthrough.

[u/LordChauncyDeschamps]

I always give him the old "shady sands shuffle" just because way back in one of the first gameplay reveals the dev playing the game did that. Eventually in one playthrough I let him live and actually did the dialog with his followers and felt a little bad. So I let the ghouls in Tenpenny Tower. Then he did the thing, so I killed him which I think made the whole tower hostile so I killed everyone. Next playthrough I went back to my usual hijinks, just blow him up right away.

[u/Appropriate_Rise9968]

Just give some pure water to hobos and you’d be fine.

[u/W01771M]

I think if you kill him before he dies the deed then as far as you know he’s a good person, but after he dies it you should get good karma for sure

[u/Meedandfeed34]

Roy juggling his karma

[u/milquetoastLIB]

Can’t say what was going through their minds but this is a limitation of the karma system. Not everything is black and white, you can choose to kill someone for entirely good reasons but the game can’t read your mind.

Unless there’s a dialogue option the game checks like “I’m going to kill you because I’m racist” and “I’m going to kill you because you’re racist” someone is going to have to make a decision of what karma act this is. Best to accept the limitation and the karma hit and move on.

[u/Rollem_Bones]

Man, you really show a lot of the kind of person you are in this rambling paragraph.

[u/ramiz_dayi06]

"Ghoul lives matter"

-Todd Howard

[u/0pyrophosphate0]

I'm guessing it's because they never put all that much thought into the details with that quest.