Fallout 76 Community Spotlight: CHAD: A Fallout 76 Story

Many Fallout and podcast fans already know the name.

It’s a familiar name, one they may have known in Highschool, out on the football or track field. It is, however, not a name one would expect to run into outside the Vault in a post-Apocalyptic world.

CHAD: A Fallout 76 podcast started as a passing thought through Kenneth Vigue’s mind. Most people went to high school with a someone known for their athletic abilities. Maybe that person was a bully to them, or others around them. After high school, they typically don’t ever see that person again. “I wondered what would happen if in leaving Vault 76, unlike high school, you can’t truly escape that person.” Kenneth wrote us.

He goes on, “From that seed of an idea I wrote a quick short journal entry about a decreasingly optimistic Vault Dweller named Simon who is just trying to survive and build a shack following Reclamation Day and this annoying character Chad keeps coming over to annoy him and beg for supplies. Eventually Simon is woken up at 2am by Chad just walking into his house and banging away at the armor bench, Simon unloads 2 barrels of a shotgun into Chad and that’s where our story begins.”

Kenneth Vigue is a lifelong gamer, marketer and writer. He first got started on gaming with his Nintendo in 1986. “It was such a novelty that my parents threw a cocktail party and invited the neighborhood adults over.” he reminisces. His family got a PC when he was 16, gifting him Quake and MYST for Christmas where he has since became hooked on exploration and shooters.

Kenneth has been writing creatively since he was 6 years old, later writing short horror stories read by the campfire when he was in Boy Scouts. After high school and some plays and independent films he became discouraged and gave up on writing to focus on his career. It wasn’t until Fallout 76 came around that he found that spark of inspiration and set pen down to paper once more.

CHAD: A Fallout 76 Story started off as journal entries published to various Facebook groups in December of 2018. The first episode launched on May 12th, 2019 and has since amassed over 300,000 listeners and subscribers on all platforms. “I never, ever expected this to go anywhere, much less that the show would be so well received and loved by people who play 76, who haven’t played 76, listen to podcasts or have never heard a podcast before.” Kenneth says. He goes on to say that many listeners is “both baffling and validating.”.

For someone who has never listened to CHAD: A Fallout 76 Story before, one may find themselves wondering what the Podcast is all about? We’ll let Kenneth explain it in his own words, “The podcast is a dark humor serial format, heavily influenced by some of the golden age of radio shows I used to listen to on vinyl as a kid with my grandmother such as Lights Out, the Whistler, etc. But the show is also influenced by both drier British humor and more modern popular humor such as South Park. With this show I wanted to try and make a podcast for people who have never listened to a podcast. Meaning to use cinematic audio soundscapes to recreate in our minds eye the kind of rich sound we take for granted in modern movies. Those sounds and the visuals they are paired with are deeply ingrained in us now, so when we hear them, we can easily visualize the action. For instance, during our Halloween episode Chad kicks someone and sends them flying through the air into an electric chair where they explode into flame. That is such a common action movie trope that the visual pops into our mind without us seeing it.”

The original episodes began as holotape journal entries before Kenneth became worried that listeners would tire of hearing only his voice, and he found himself limited in writing and telling bigger stories. This led to Kenneth putting out casting calls on Reddit and in Facebook groups. "I cared more about the finding the right voice for the characters than if someone had voice action experience” He says, then adds the example of Chad’s voice, “Chad is voiced by Alexander Luthor, who actually is from England but does the most amazing American ‘dude bro’ voice ever.”

Going into Season 2 there are specific characters that Kenneth had in mind and voices he has heard and wants to cast. In these cases, he reaches out and invites them to be characters in the shows. Some of these notable voices are people such as Pete Hines, YouTubers Kevduit and Oxhorn, and Twitch streamer Tooniversal. (For a full list of the voice chat in CHAD: A Fallout 76 Story Podcast, check out the end of the article!)

When it comes to the content of the show, Kenneth expands on what makes it so special. “The ‘secret sauce’ to the show is that the game and its meta that we experience in 3rd person, is experienced 1st person by the characters of the show with hilarious and existentially terrifying results. The largest and major of which is the lack of lasting death or even true consequences for being killed or killing others. But perk cards, C.A.M.P. building, really anything we experience become part of the relatable humor of the show.”

“In a larger sense the theme of the show is to explore how two people, born on almost the same day grow up in the Vault and are shaped by different circumstances. What happens when those people have to pick a road to travel and make choices with regards to survival?” Kenneth asks. The show has now planned over four seasons, where Kenneth and his new team of writers ask and answer the question, “How far would you go?”.

Starting out, it was just Kenneth. With no experience in recording, production, or podcast creation, he set forth with an idea in mind. Each episode can take weeks to produce, from writing to recording, editing and mastering. The episodes are an hour long and release once a month. Since its boom in popularity, Kenneth has brought on two additional writers for minisodes; Cody Hightower and George Wolf. He has also enlisted Christian Mower who voices Punch and a few other characters on the show to help with editing and is searching for an alternate editor as well.

With so many months of creating compelling and interesting stories and characters, we asked Kenneth what his favorite memory has been so far? “Up until this season it was the Bethesda Game Days live show we did…just about the most amazing day and experience I’ve ever had. But more recently for our Halloween special this year we did our homage to my favorite author and story of all time, Ray Bradbury’s, ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’. I honestly feel it is the best writing and best produced show we’ve ever done. The tone of that story, of good versus evil…the hidden depths, wants and fears of the human heart pair perfectly with theme of Fallout. It is both whimsical and horrifying at the same time.”

Kenneth Vigue not only created CHAD: A Fallout 76 Story, but he is also involved with the Fallout community in various other ways. Most recently, Kenneth created “Fallout for Hope” A large-scale charity event from December 14th to the 20th that involved over 300 live streamers, content creators, and gamers across Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook Gaming. All the streamers and events planned are centered around the Fallout series, with the goal to raise $50,000 for St Jude Childrens Research Hospital. At the writing of this article, Fallout for Hope had already raised over $8,000- days before the event even began. (Note from Author: The event is now over and raised over $105,000!)

“St. Jude’s is an organization we’ve donated to privately for years. They are a global organization now that specializes in research and treatment of life-threatening diseases and conditions for children. From birth defects to cancer, their research has led to a major decrease in deaths.” Kenneth says. “Honestly though, Christmas when you are a kid should be happiness, light and hope…not fear and pain. If our actions can help them get a little of that or help ease their pain or get them well, I can’t think of a better thing to do.”

Kenneth also does outreach for other aspiring writers on his downtime. “After our show took off, I really was hungry as a fan of the series to hear more original stories outside of our own. I’ve listened to some amazing ones such as West Vault Radio or Arron Clow’s Mindfog, but I really would love for there to be more Fallout and Fallout 76 content out there. So I started a Writer’s Campfire Guild for writers to help them shape their own stories into podcasts or machinimas. Since we started that, there are 5 really amazing shows in pre-production, one of which will be launching soon. If anyone is a writer and wants to turn some of their Fallout 76 or really any Fallout stories into something and needs a group to help cheer them on and offer feedback, they can hit me up on Twitter and we’d be glad to invite them to the campfire.”

Thanks, Kenneth, for taking time to talk to us about your podcast, charity activation and writers' group! We’re big fans of the stories you tell and can’t wait to listen to another season of CHAD: A Fallout 76 Story.

Want to keep up with everything Kenneth is doing? Check out his social media below.
Facebook
Twitter
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YouTube
Twitch
Podcast Host
Website

Also a big thanks to the cast of CHAD: A Fallout 76 Story Podcast:
Alexander Luthor ~ Chad Johnson / Dr. Stanislaus Braun
Kenneth Vigue ~ Narrator/Simon Rex/Mothman
Paul M Watson ~ Jake White
Taylor Jinx Knight ~ Amata Hayes
Clint Winberry ~ Moose Miller
Peter Anthony Buxton ~ Scoutmaster Stewart, various bots
Christian Mower ~ Mr. Handy (various), Punch
Jessica Marie Dickey ~ Patsy Parker / Mary Ann Belts
Jessica Duval ~ Susie/Ella, Betsy
Morgan Brown ~ Karen
Kevin Chenard ~ District Attorney Malcolm Fletcher
Mary Kalopodes-Saunders ~ Overseer
Dr. Mark Hauswirth ~ Brian Williams / “Slick” Willy
Robert Solomon ~ High Mothman Priest
Cody Hightower ~ Hugo Warren
Joseph Picard ~ Vault-Tec Security Chief Albert Vince
Christopher J. Morrow ~ Robert House, David
Adam Silva ~ “Fast” Freddie
Fenwa Teryen ~ Charles Bishop / Bland Banshee / Silver Shroud
Jorian Koeten ~ Insult Bot