Robert Joseph MacCready

Robert Joseph "RJ" MacCready is the former mayor of Little Lamplight 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 10), 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 to 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.

Fallout 4
During the decade between 2277 and 2287, MacCready ended up marrying Lucy and had a son with her named Duncan. At an unknown point in time, feral ghouls killed Lucy while MacCready fled with Duncan. Some time later, Duncan fell to an unknown disease, prompting MacCready to travel to The Commonwealth to find a cure.

He was employed by the Gunners for some time but left - and ever since, has been hounded by them for money. He is still skilled with rifles and can make precise head shots. When the Sole Survivor meets him in The Third Rail, he's talking with two Gunners. After they leave, he can be hired as a companion for 250 caps (can be persuaded down to 200).

After becoming good friends with him and completing his quest; he will give you the Killshot perk, which grants a 20% accuracy boost for head shots in VATS.

Daily schedule
Unlike most of the residents of Little Lamplight, who tend to remain in a specific area, MacCready wanders around the whole town.

Quests

 * Picking Up the Trail/Rescue from Paradise: When first met, MacCready will threaten to shoot you unless you leave 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 to you and will tell you to leave Little Lamplight. Although you can still talk to him, you must wait 24 hours.

Quests

 * Long Road Ahead:

Effects of player's actions

 * MacCready can join the Sole Survivor as a companion.
 * If MacCready likes the player character enough he will give the perk Killshot, which boosts hit percentage for heads in VATS by 20% and may be bugged to go even higher.

Approval

 * He likes mercenary behavior, such as asking for more money to do a quest.
 * He likes sarcastic responses.
 * He likes joining The Minutemen.
 * He likes it when the Sole Survivor turns Darla and Skinny Malone against one another in the quest Unlikely Valentine.
 * He likes it when the Sole Survivor takes the bribe from Jacob Orden while investigating the missing caravan.
 * He likes it when the Sole Survivor refuses AJ's bribe during The Silver Shroud.
 * He likes it when the Sole Survivor does criminal actions, such as stealing or lockpicking owned doors/containers.
 * He loves when the Sole Survivor helps out children or parents.

Disapproval

 * He dislikes the moral high ground/appealing to others' good nature.
 * He dislikes the Brotherhood of Steel.
 * He dislikes when the player character kills or releases Lorenzo Cabot in the quest The Secret of Cabot House.
 * He dislikes it if Daisy becomes emotional when the Sole Survivor tells her about how it was before the war.
 * He hates when the Sole Survivor gets caught committing crimes.
 * He hates the Sole Survivor resorting to violence unprovoked.

Fallout 3

 * 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 and Fallout 4.

Behind the scenes
"R.J. MacReady" is the protagonist from the 1982 John Carpenter horror film, The Thing. Played by Kurt Russell, MacReady, like his Fallout 3 counterpart, is a no-nonsense, resourceful survivor who rises to a leadership position among his peers to deal with the threat of a shape-shifting alien.

Bugs

 * Mayor MacCready is prone to disappearing. He tends to wander into obscure and dark corners. He may appear near the front gate if you go outside and fast travel back to town, or standing on the platform where he first stood when he let you into town. You can move to his current position with the console command.
 * Sometimes MacCready will not give you the option to open the gate, even if you are at that point and have followed the advice outlined in this wiki. One way to make sure that this does not befall you is to click all of the grayed out speech options when speaking to MacCready. The dialog 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 Macready'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.