Robert MacCready

Robert Joseph "RJ" MacCready is the mayor of Little Lamplight in Fallout 3 and a potential companion in the Commonwealth in Fallout 4.

Capital Wasteland
Robert MacCready was born in the Capital Wasteland. Growing up as an orphan, MacCready resided at Little Lamplight, a settlement populated entirely by children where adults, or "mungoes", were barred entry. At the age of ten, MacCready was picked as the new mayor of Little Lamplight after punching the previous mayor for insisting the mayoral title be changed to "Princess." Also at ten, he began practicing with sniper rifles, becoming an entirely self-taught sharpshooter.

At the age of sixteen, MacCready left Little Lamplight, a policy that all children who reached sixteen had to follow. He wandered the Capital Wasteland and took the "odd job" occasionally, eventually settling as a hired killer. MacCready soon met his wife, Lucy. MacCready opted not to tell her his true job, fearing that he might lose her because of it. He instead told her that he was a soldier, and Lucy would carve him toy soldier as a gift. The two had a child named Duncan, and as a promise to Duncan, MacCready opted to "clean up" his act, placing a "no cursing" rule on himself to aid with this. After holing up in a feral infested metro station one night, feral ghouls swarmed Lucy and killed her, leaving MacCready to escape with young Duncan in his arms. Duncan would then contract an unknown and untreatable illness that caused a severe outbreak of blue boils, as well as difficulty walking. MacCready left Duncan and travelled north to the Commonwealth in search of a cure.

Commonwealth
MacCready bumped into a man named Sinclair, whose partner caught a disease that caused an outbreak of blue boils, similar to Duncan's sickness. Sinclair informed MacCready about a potential cure being housed at Med-Tek Research that he planned to obtain shortly before his partner died. MacCready tried to tackle the facility alone, though was nearly killed by feral ghouls.

MacCready made a name for himself in the Commonwealth, finding work well paid work with the Gunners upon hearing they needed sharpshooters. Due to their behavior, MacCready permanently quit, commenting that they "were animals" and "killed anything that moved if it got in their way". To continue his work independently, MacCready set up shop in Goodneighbor, a town known for not asking "too many questions". He struck deal with the mayor, Hancock and "started waiting for the caps to roll in." Two Gunners he used to work with, Winlock and Barnes, continually hounded MacCready for operating within their territory, driving off potential clients who would refuse to work with a former Gunner.

Effects of player's actions

 * When the Sole Survivor meets MacCready in the Third Rail, he is in an argument with his former colleagues, Winlock and Barnes. After they leave, he can be hired as a companion for 250 caps (can be persuaded down to 200 or 100). The amount paid will be given back to the Sole Survivor after completing one of the parts of his quest.
 * When he is the companion, he will occasionally give some random ammo, ranging from 10mm rounds to a fusion core.
 * If the player reaches highest Affinity with MacCready he will give the perk Killshot, which boosts hit percentage for heads in VATS by 20%.
 * Once idolized, MacCready gives the player character a wooden soldier toy, a gift from his wife, Lucy. Lucy made the toy soldier for him after he told her that he was a soldier when they first met.
 * He will steal when commanded to do so by the Sole Survivor. He is able to steal items undetected right in front of people.
 * If the player attempts to steal from the VIP room of the Third Rail and gets caught, MacCready will leave their company and become hostile, prompting an interface for one to send MacCready to a settlement, similar to Preston Garvey if the player character kills a settler. If the player character doesn't get caught, MacCready will like the theft.
 * If the player commands him to steal an item, or does anything to cause hostility while in Goodneighbor, MacCready will leave the Sole Survivor's company and become hostile, prompting an interface to send MacCready to a settlement.

Companion

 * MacCready likes when the Sole Survivor steals things.
 * MacCready likes it if the Sole Survivor picks a lock that is owned.
 * MacCready likes using most special dialogue options that require Charisma, only if one lies, threatens, or asks for more money though.

Inventory

 * * Unlike the other Little Lamplight characters, there's no interaction possible with his inventory when trying to pickpocket him.

Quotes
Fallout 3

Fallout 4

Appearances
Robert MacCready appears in Fallout 3, Fallout 4, and Fallout: The Board Game.

Behind the scenes
The quote "Let's be careful. No human being would possibly pile books this way" is a line from the movie Ghostbusters.

Bugs
Fallout 3
 * Mayor MacCready is prone to disappearing. He tends to wander into obscure and dark corners. He may appear near the front gate if going outside and fast travel back to town, or standing on the platform where he first stood when he let the Lone Wanderer into town. One can move to his current position with the console command.
 * Sometimes MacCready will not give the option to open the gate. One way to make sure that this does not happen is to click all of the grayed out speech options when speaking to MacCready. The dialogue option to open the gate comes after a line that is often grayed/dimmed.
 * It's possible for MacCready to not open the gate after being instructed to do so. He will run to it, and climb up to the catwalk but will not activate the switch to raise the gate. This is because the scripted sequence requires Princess to be on the other end, and she may not run with MacCready to perform this function. Short of using the console to activate the gate/toggle clipping, the solutions are to use the other entrance, reload from a previous save, or attempt to move Princess in range of the event with the console command followed by.
 * Doing DLC quests before opening the path will end "Picking Up the Trail" resulting in MacCready's and Joseph's dialogue options to vanish and making entry into Vault 87 impossible. The only solution is to resort to a save that still has "Picking Up the Trail" as an active quest, and redo whatever progress has been lost or to use the console command and go to the Citadel to start the quest again.

Fallout 4
 * Sometimes you may not be able to talk to MacCready or open up his inventory. He also fails to follow the player during fast travel. Entering the console command followed by  will bring MacCready to the player, but does not correct the issue.
 * After dismissing MacCready, hiring him again will prompt up the dialogue when you meet him for the first time, needing to be paid before being hired. Reloading a previous save fixes this.