Tenpenny Tower
Tenpenny Tower is a fictional building in the 2008 action role-playing game Fallout 3, created as part of the Fallout franchise by Bethesda Game Studios. Previously a luxury resort prior to a nuclear war that devastated much of the Earth, it was revived by British immigrant Allistair Tenpenny and his right-hand man Mister Burke as a residence for wealthy and non-irradiated humans within the Capital Wasteland setting. Tenpenny Tower's area is kept strictly guarded and intentionally bars "ghoulified" individuals due to bigotry, general distrust, and their mutated appearances. One quest revolves around a conflict in which Roy Phillips and his gang of ghouls are kept out of the building by security chief Gustavo. The player character can resolve the situation by either killing the ghouls on behalf of Gustavo, killing all the human residents for Roy, or negotiating for a peaceful solution in which bigoted human denizens are removed from the hotel and Allistair Tenpenny is convinced to allow the ghouls to live in his complex. While the short-term solution for the last option appears to hold at first, a later return reveals that Roy and the other ghouls slaughtered nearly all the human residents and hid their bodies in the basement. Another questline involves the detonation of a nuclear warhead at Megaton on behalf of Mr. Burke and, depending on the outcome of the other quest, either Allistair Tenpenny or Roy Phillips. Fallout 3 lead designer Emil Pagliarulo stated that Tenpenny Tower was directly inspired by a wealthy-only hotel in the post-apocalyptic movie Land of the Dead, and purposefully was designed to not have any best ending in the human-ghoul conflict quest to showcase the harshness of the game world.
Tenpenny Tower's two main side quests have been positively received by game critics for the representation of elitism in the game's world and ethical choices presented to the player. The human-ghoul conflict from the Tenpenny Tower questline has been well-covered by many academic sources, many authors of whom closely studied the extent of player agency and the subversion of a seemingly best outcome leading to bloodshed that was likely not intended by the player. Multiple of them have also connected the quest to themes of discrimination and bigotry, weight of karma in-game, and ethical solutions that may not work out as well in more dystopian worlds like that of the Fallout series.
Appearance and development
Tenpenny Tower is a large-sized apartment complex at the Capital Wasteland, an alternate timeline setting of a nuclear-devastated United States, in the 2008 action role-playing game Fallout 3, developed by Bethesda Game Studios as part of the Fallout franchise. It is named after its current owner Allistair Tenpenny and serves as a luxury hotel and the sole residential building of a desert. The hotel served as a luxury resort until the nuclear war of 2077, leading to its subsequent closure until its eventual revival by Tenpenny. The building itself is fortified and protected by security gates that keep out unwanted outsiders. To enter the tower's area, a visitor has to talk to the complex's head of security Chief Gustavo from the gate's intercom for access. When the player character, known as the Lone Wanderer, arrives at the Tenpenny Tower's outside area the first time, a ghoul named Roy Phillips can be speaking to the intercom, demanding that he and his fellow ghouls be allowed to live in the building. Gustavo can be heard making anti-ghoul slurs against him and again rejecting his request. Roy then vows to achieve his aim of getting himself and the other ghouls inside and leaves. The first time onwards, the Lone Wanderer will have to talk to the head of security via intercom to be allowed inside the Tenpenny Tower's vicinity.The residents of Tenpenny Tower are non-mutated humans who pay to rent living spaces. The complex consists of shops on the bottom floor, living quarters in high-level floors, and a high society-only for upper class residents on an upper floor. Above all the previous floors is one owned by Allistair Tenpenny, the private chambers connecting to a balcony. Ghouls are specifically excluded from Tenpenny's society to ensure that "unhealthy" individuals are not mixed in with the "healthier" ones. Allistair Tenpenny was a British refugee who arrived in the United States seeking fortune, a goal he later achieved as the Tenpenny Tower's landlord and owner. Tenpenny, when talked to by the Lone Wanderer, reveals that he knew of the potential behind the then-abandoned complex and hired musclemen to polish the place. He continued that he had the "great fortune" to run into his "absolute gem" of an assistant Mister Burke for his capability in completing his tasks. Finally, he said, he had to then find the "right type of tenants with the right type of assets" to lead to the upper-class life of his tower". Tenpenny Tower's area is guarded by a security force equipped with unique armor. Allistair Tenpenny can be found at his balcony, using his rifle to shoot at wasteland creatures from afar.
Tenpenny Tower is involved in multiple side quests that the player character can help to fulfill. The main side quest of the location can be started either by talking to Chief Gustavo at the hotel or Roy Phillips at a hideout in a subway station called Warrington station. Should Gustavo be talked to first, he will task the Lone Wanderer with killing Roy and other ghoul members of his gang at the metro station. Should the player choose to kill Roy and his gang, they can talk to Gustavo for their reward of bottle caps, a form of currency. Alternatively, the Lone Wanderer can talk to Roy, who will ask them to find a solution allowing them to eventually move into Tenpenny Tower. Two of the solutions to help Roy involve violence while one is a more peaceful solution. The first solution to this straightforward, involving the player character killing all of the tower's residents by themself. The second solution has the Lone Wanderer unlock a generator-basement at Tenpenny Tower to allow feral ghouls in, killing all the human residents in the process. The third and final solution is for the player to negotiate with the residents of Tenpenny Tower to allow the ghouls from the station to reside at the hotel. The player character has to deal with five residents of the complex, who all can be convinced to exile themselves because of their anti-ghoul stances. Afterward, they can talk to Allistair Tenpenny to convince him to allow the ghouls to live at his hotel. Later, the ghouls from the station and the original human residents can both be found peacefully coexisting at Tenpenny Tower. Upon returning to the location a few in-game days later, however, the Lone Wanderer can find that only the ghoul residents are still around. Should the player character unlock the building's basement, they can find all of the corpses of the former human residents who have been stripped of their contents. When confronted by them over the deaths of the human residents, Roy Phillips explains that the humans and ghouls supposedly had a "disagreement", leading him to decide to "take out the trash". Regardless of the option taken to help Roy, he will reward the player with bottle caps and a ghoul mask, which if worn will make feral ghouls friendly to the player character. The only human resident who ends up surviving the massacre is Mr. Burke.
Another side quest that the Tenpenny Tower leadership is involved in is in another location called Megaton, a settlement built around a nuclear bomb. While the quest presents the option of disarming it on behalf of the people of Megaton, the Lone Wanderer can alternatively visit Moriarty’s Saloon to meet Burke there. Mr. Burke informs the player character that the nuclear warhead in Megaton can be set up to detonate and therefore destroy the settlement itself and kill nearly everyone there in the process. He then hands a detonator to the Lone Wanderer and asks them to rig the bomb then meet him at Tenpenny Tower. The reasoning for Allistair Tenpenny's interest in seeing Megaton explode was that he found it to be eyesore while watching the outside world and therefore wanted it gone. Should the player character choose to side with Burke and Tenpenny in destroying Megaton by detonating the bomb from Tenpenny Tower, the player character will be rewarded with bottle caps and a suite near Allistair Tenpenny's space but will lose massive amounts of in-game karma points in the process. If the player character chose to do the quest after Roy Phillips and his gang had taken over Tenpenny Tower, the player character will find that Roy Phillips and Burke discussing common ground on destroying Megaton before allowing the player character to do so.