This is a summary of my experiences playing the game with a character that emphasized talking over fighting. Surprisingly, it went pretty well despite the violent apocalyptic environment. People experiencing a lot of trouble with moral in the shelter might find it useful.

I started by assigning all points to Leadership and Negotiation. Only once both skills were at least two thirds full I assigned some points to melee. My weapon of choice was a humble hammer, later I added a kukri knife for human enemies.

Evidently, my character wasn’t much help in a fight and had to rely a lot on the team. (Renee, Anita and Joel at first; later Vic, Paul and Gertz). However, being very weak during the first few days isn’t so bad because you are not facing enemies with guns. By the time I started to find many looters and coyotes I was decently good with the hammer and I could offer support to my shooters. Even though at the end of the game I had points to spare, I kept using a hammer and only picked up a rifle for the final boss fight.

The physical weakness (I had 32 points of health at one point) was compensated by how well behaved the shelter was. It was glorious and I felt drunk with power. Everyone just did what I said. Soon Vic and Paul said they would respect whatever I decided and Regina was quick to follow that path. No sass, no rebellion, nothing.

I only found two characters that were hard to please. One was Clifford, who I only kept around because I knew he would trigger a crisis event and I craved that sweet morale boost. He didn’t even trigger it because I scared him into compliance.

The other troublesome character, of course, was the much blessed and holy Todd. I played as a liberal character so we disagreed pretty much in everything. However, he wasn’t terribly bothersome. I shut down his initial request to have a religious service in the cafeteria (mostly because he said that if it bothered people, they should leave, even though they were there first trying to have breakfast) and while he wasn’t happy he didn’t take too much a moral loss. Because I said no to the service from the start he didn’t come later to ask for luxury items for the meetings thus avoiding repeatedly saying no and dropping his moral. He was still, by far, the most demanding leader and we always disagreed on crisis events. However, because every other leader had my back, even his followers experienced a mood boost with my decisions.

Having a good negotiation level also helped me snap Elaine out of her shock. Without spoiling the story (but still tread lightly), a certain couple kept being a couple and didn’t break up, and the person with the hero complex kept things civil.

Outside the shelter, having strong negotiation skills allowed for new dialogue with Ken Nash and the Militia and a certain possible ally was more willing to give me information. I also had a random event in which some looters or coyotes stopped me in a road and I was able to scare them off without fighting. I liked that.