Robert Joseph MacCready

Robert Joseph "RJ" MacCready is the former mayor of Little Lamplight in 2277 and a mercenary operating in the Commonwealth in 2287.

Fallout 3
MacCready was born in 2265. He has served as the mayor of Little Lamplight for three years (since he was ten) when he was chosen by the other residents due to his smarts, toughness and the fact that he doesn't take guff from anyone. He has no fear of adults and is a perfect representative. He is belligerent, small (even for his age), very distrustful of adults and willing to blow someone's head off to defend his young charges, but MacCready is also very loyal to those he considers friends.

MacCready came into office in 2274 shortly after the five-minute rule of Princess. According to Sammy, when Princess demanded the title of mayor be changed to princess, MacCready punched her in the nose and said that the children of Lamplight needed a leader, not a princess. He was then elected to the position of mayor. The child mayor makes regular patrols around the underground settlement, keeping outsiders and potential trouble-makers under close surveillance.

Fallout 4
During the decade between 2277 and 2287, MacCready ended up marrying a woman named Lucy and had a son with her named Duncan. When he first met his future wife, he lied to her about his occupation, telling her he was a soldier and concealing the fact he was a hired gun. He never told her the truth. During that time, they together set up a homestead and tried to make a living growing crops. Later on, feral ghouls killed Lucy while her husband fled with Duncan. Sometime later, Duncan contracted an unknown, potentially life-threatening disease that gave him blue boils, prompting MacCready to travel to the Commonwealth to find a cure.

He was employed by the Gunners for some time, but left. Although the pay was good, he was uncomfortable with the strict rules of the organization and retired, once again becoming a freelance. MacCready has ever since been under the scrutiny of his old bosses Winlock and Barnes, constantly hounded by them for continuing to take jobs in their territory. He is still skilled with rifles and can make precise head shots. When the Sole Survivor first meets the merc, he is in a disagreement with his former superiors. After they leave, MacCready will offer his services to the Survivor.

Quests

 * Picking Up the Trail/Rescue from Paradise: When first met, MacCready will threaten to shoot unless leaving the Little Lamplight cavern entrance. The Lone Wanderer has to pass a difficult speech check, use the Child at Heart perk, or complete the Rescue from Paradise quest in order to gain entrance to Little Lamplight. After gaining entrance to Little Lamplight, the Lone Wanderer will have a new dialogue path with MacCready which reveals the entrance to Vault 87 through Murder Pass.
 * Fungus Deal: After speaking with either Eclair or Lucy, the Lone Wanderer can convince MacCready to enter a trade agreement: swapping either strange meat (to Eclair) or Buffout (to Lucy) for cave fungus.
 * Those!: The Lone Wanderer can convince MacCready (using the Child at Heart perk) to accept Bryan Wilks into Little Lamplight.

Effects of player's actions

 * Speaking to MacCready in quick succession too many times will raise his ire. Eventually, he'll refuse to talk and will tell the Lone Wanderer to leave Little Lamplight. Although one can still talk to him later on, they must wait twenty-four hours to end the silent treatment.

Quests

 * MacCready for Action: This unmarked quest consists of convincing MacCready to join the Sole Survivor.
 * Long Road Ahead: MacCready asks the Sole Survivor to help him take care of the Gunners who were harassing him and later, to help him find a cure for his son. NOTE: MacCready's affection gains will cap at 499 (stopping just short of "MacCready likes you") until the Gunners portion of this quest is completed.

Effects of player's actions

 * When the Sole Survivor meets MacCready in The Third Rail, he is in an argument with his old commanders, Winlock and Barnes. After they leave, he can be hired as a companion for 250 caps (can be persuaded down to 200 or 100, depending on the size of the player's caps purse). The amount paid will be given back to the Sole Survivor after completing one of the parts of his quest. After becoming good friends with him and completing his quest, he will give the Killshot perk, which grants a 20% accuracy boost for head shots in V.A.T.S.
 * When he is the companion, he will occasionally give some random ammo, ranging from 10mm rounds to a fusion core.
 * If the player character 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 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 character 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 the player to send MacCready to a settlement, similar to Preston Garvey if the player kills a settler. If the player 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.

Range of interests

 * 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.

Fallout: The Board Game
MacCready can be acquired at the shop by any player character that has Charisma. When shopping with him as the active companion, the player character can exhaust him in order to buy any items from the asset deck's discard pile.

When the player character performs the camp action, he will be relieved of exhaustion; however, if the player character does not have eight or more bottle caps at this time, he must be discarded.

Inventory

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

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

Behind the scenes

 * "R.J. MacReady" is the protagonist from the 1982 John Carpenter horror film, The Thing, based on the novella "Who Goes There," by John Campbell. In the 1982 movie, MacReady is played by Kurt Russell. MacCready, like his Fallout 3 counterpart, is a no-nonsense, resourceful survivor who rises to a leadership position among his peers.
 * The quote "Let's be careful. No human being would possibly pile books this way." is referring to a line said by Bill Murray's character, Peter Venkman, in the 1984 movie Ghostbusters.
 * The quote "I never knew you could do that with mutfruit." is in reference to being "grapefruited," an oral sex technique involving a grapefruit (or other fruits).
 * The quote "School's out forever, right?" is referring to the song "School's Out" by Alice Cooper. The slight chanting further endorses this.
 * In promotional content for Fallout 76, a teammate with the nickname "MacC" can be seen, a reference to MacCready.

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, even if one is at that point and have followed the advice outlined in this wiki. One way to make sure that this does not befall the player 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.