Everything Elder Scrolls and Fallout
Fallout 4 Slavery And Prostitution
I think that there was something missing in Fallout 4 in terms of filling the world with the sex and slavery. it was almost entierly just the debate wether or not Synths should be treated as humans or not,when it comes to the slavery aspect.
It would have been great for like The Covenant to be a new Paradise Falls, a Sub-faction that would capture and treat synths as wares and help out their own research at the sametime.
Also why arent there any prostitues in the Commonwealth? there are still raiders plenty and people act somewhat the same, so the very idea that Prostitution would be illegal or an unwanted profession in boston seems really odd.
And now you could have had the lovers embrace buff be a buyable buff on sertain places for those who do not have higher charisma. Also could have had the Memmory Den be one of those locations where instead of prostitues you could pay to experiance the memmory of sleeping with your original spouse instead.




I imagine that after Fallout New Vegas, Bethesda wanted to shy away from that sort of content. New Vegas was very up front and graphic about that material, which the company might feel just won't jive nowadays. I don't really feel it's absense hurts the game that much, but I agree with you. It was weird to see that sort of material completely missing.
Well as you mostlikely know New Vegas was a spinoff and not created by the bethesda studios, so i find it unlikely to take much at all from that game, they sure didnt otherwise, just implimented enough to admit its existance.
It could be part of the reason they don't acknowledge it much is because they're not comfortable with how graphic Obsidian went with that content. But maybe that's looking a little too hard at it. Maybe they just don't want to offend anyone, which is.. kind of cowardly, but for a big company like Zenimax, I can't really blame them. People are pretty lawsuity lately.
Or its just not right for your creative freedom to be depending on the creations of nothing more then a spinoff, but yeah they're casualizing or mainstreaming it a bit too much.
New Vegas was developed by Obsidian Entertainment, not Bethesda (BlodMust alluded to this already). Compare FO4's take on Slavery and Prostitution to FO3's and you see that Bethesda clearly made a choice to exclude the issue of slavery in FO4. Perhaps they felt the focus on the human rights issues related to Synths was enough?
It would be too easy for me to think that they were simply dumbing down the title, avoiding deeper social issues and commentary that have been a factor of the franchise since it's inception. Or to think that Bethesda wanted to somehow prove it's dominance over the franchise by avoiding shared elements with New Vegas (such as the only now being implemented Survival Mode).
Thats better put then i could have said it. And the Synth issue of slavery would just have increased depth if there was a slavery sub faction that captured synths beyond the Institute that took it as their original propperty, something to counterbalance the railroad.
Also i supose adding prostitutes trough modding wont be very hard.
It's a combination of things. Firstly, this sort of subject matter was very prevalent to begin with back in the old West Coast setting Fallouts by Black Isle. Part of Bethesda's goal from the begining after their acquisition of the franchise and move to the East Coast region was to sort of do their own thing with the setting, and they got a fair amount of negative and mixed feedback on how they handled similar elements in F3.
That, combined with a general discomfort discussing things like slavery and prostitution in the western zeitgeist makes it easier just to avoid the issue and focus on similar elements more abstractly through things like Synths (which are also more relevant to people's interests as we approach AI/synthetic mind development IRL and questions of artificial persons rights become closer and closer to being real issues).
Obsidian couldn't really do that for New Vegas even if they wanted to, since prostitution, slavery, etc. were already pretty strongly established as themes and issues under the NCR and their neighbors. So Obsidian focused more on a complex sociopolitical landscape and realpolitik in the West, while Bethesda plays with more sort of abstract 'big idea' material out East.
It's also worth noting that as far as slavery in the Boston region goes, Boston is MUCH better equipped to supress that sort of activity than the DC region. It may still happen, but it's debateable as to whether a 'settlement' like Paradise Falls would be much tollerated by the Minutemen (at least, before their general evisceration prior to game start), the Railroad, or any of the other major players in the area, all of whom are vastly better staffed and equipped than their peers in DC (bar the Brotherhood). The Institute alone would provide an odd sort of passive deterent: local communities are having a lot of trust issues as it is, never mind what would happen to a slaver group in terms of acute paranoia and social dysfunction if they started having issues with either their personnel or 'stock' turning up replaced. Especially if the Institute took to seeing them as a convenient middle-man.
Not to say it wouldn't happen at all, just that not having a full-blown Paradise analog makes as much sense as anything.
And i think the Intimidation perk would let you take all the persons propperty down to the clothes they're wearing.