First off, no spoilers please.

Basically, I'm looking for advice on skills/perks/traits/etc. Also, which mods are must haves for a first playthrough?

I suppose it's also worth mentioning that I have the GOTY Edition.

Well its hard to give advice, there are many different ways to play the game and you kinda just got to try weapons and strategies to see what fits your play style and the character you want to be in the world. I personally was a sniper with a shotgun for back up, which would be put your skills into small weapons, stealth, and repair. Energy weapons are great but they feel more like a mid to late game weapon, so don't throw you skills into that right off the bat.

If you do take a sniper's route I recommend leveling up between 5 and 10 and playing Operation Anchorage (that what it was called?), it has some great armor and weapons for that play style. And all the other DLC wait till you either above lvl 20 or at least completed the main story, I'm tried to do all the dlc first one time and it was rough. I'm also terrible at the game so maybe take my advice with a grain of salt, I practically lived in VATS.

The "Bloody mess" perk makes things fun. Also, i think I never used "big" weapons like nukes. They felt underwhelming, but that might be because I didn't have the right build

Kill everything. Everything.

Speech, max that puppy out. And Science too perhaps? It's been a while since I've played it but man what a great game. Lockpicking too as if you're like me you'll want to loot everything and won't let no stinking door stop you! Perks - 'Child at Heart' and 'Lady Killer', both speech upgrades for talking to children and the opposite sex (not as weird as it sounds). Just basically talking for me is the thing and what I love about the Fallout games. Getting a success on saying something so bananas when the percentage rates are not in your favour or just completely avoiding combat entirely with your linguistic skills is a great feeling.

As for killing things I'd say go for a rifle or long range weapon of some sort and crouch like a mofo, sneak attacks dealing more damage. Energy weapons are also good but I'm not sure how often you find them or ammo early on. I basically went for Combat Shotgun, Assault Rifle, Hunting Rifle at first and then later on got into energy weapons.

if you want to make the game super easy and have all the DLC, you can hit up mothership zeta and by the end you will have enough weapons and a means to get unlimited ammo that the whole game becomes a cakewalk. I wouldn't recommend that unless you are wanting to kind of skip some of the challenge, but it is an option.

SUPER IMPORTANT EDIT: for the love of god, make multiple saves, even with patches there can be some quirky moments that could screw you if you aren't saving often in multiple slots!

Yes, YES, especially if you plan to mod, with the way Bethesdas engine was mixed with mods there would be times where I would kill a person and the entire game would crash, or I'd literally walk into or out of an area and every single time I did the game would crash until I figured out what mod was causing it and disabled it. So save a lot, know thy quick save button well and make sure auto-save is turned on.

I guess that's another word of advice as well, don't over mod, at least not until you beat the game one time.
Look for some things you think are cool, personally I enjoy the mods that let everything in the game be killable and that let me have as many companions I want but there are sooooo many mods out there it's hard to say what ones are that important, just do some searching, there is a website I forget the name of but something along the lines of fallout nexus, if you google that you'll probably get results, they are a pretty good mod hosting service, got 90% of mine from there.

Also I have a recommendation about a companion you should probably keep around later on in the game, if companion revelations count as spoilers to you and you want to go in fresh then look ye no further but I'll attempt to keep it as spoiler free as possible.

At some point you'll be able to have a super mutant follow you around, you'll probably get separated from them at some point but do try to get them back and keep them around for a while. Saying much else is spoilers at this point but do try to keep them around.

Small Guns, Speech and Science/Lockpick. Done.

You'll want to invest in Small Guns, Lockpick, Science, and Speech most of all. Also, get the Terrible Shotgun at Evergreen Mills.

General moneymaking tip: pick up everything you find and sell it all plus all of the ammo you aren't using. You'll be rolling in caps in no time.

I know it's a terrible, buggy mess and always will be................but man, I wish I could play Fallout 3 for the first time again. It was the game (along with Condemned 2) that got me back into videogames after skipping the PS2 era completely (I got a Dreamcast at launch, and when it died so did my gaming hobby).

On topic - don't underestimate how useful it is to have a high repair skill. If you plan on shooting your way through the game, it makes life a lot easier to be able to maintain your arsenal on your own using found parts.

Speech and Lockpick first and formost. Then choose a weapon skill, small arms being the most useful early on.

Also, if your doing the DlC, try to slow down some before them. I played through the game and DLC 6 months ago, and by the last DLC I kindof just had to stop mid way.

If you have the expansions that raises the level cap, then absolutely don't worry about really specializing. At the end my character maxed out the mot important skills (stuff like computer and sneak) with other semi important ones at at least 80.

Other comment on skill: small guns for early game and energy weapons for late.

As for mods, there's nothing really necessary for a better experience. But try the dark nights and street lamps mods to make the wasteland dangerous to travel at night.

Enjoy it? I mean the great thing about a game like this is that you can kind of play it any way you want.

edit the "fallout.ini" file, that was the BIGGEST improvement for that game.

Alright, it sounds like you're playing on PC because you asked about mods. The first thing you want to do after the game is loaded up, is take your mouse and move the cursor down to the option that says 'Exit Game'. Then open up Steam or some sort of digital games marketplace and purchase a copy of Fallout: New Vegas. Install it, move your mouse to 'launch', and when you get to the first menu hit 'New Game'. From there, you should be fine on your own.

Shoot that guy.

Seriously, though, it doesn't matter. Play how you want. Its an open world game and I don't recall there being a way to gimp yourself.

Speech and that one trait that's been in all the fallout games where people you hit or shoot explode are good ones. People always say speech though so you can avoid a lot of the combat from dialogue trees. It's up to you if that's how you want to play or not.

Doesnt exactly answer your question, but try playing Fallout 1 first, then you'll appreciate Fallout 3 so much more. Seriously. ALthough it's a bit tricky to install it =P

Go pacifist, kill nothing, befriend the wasteland!

Seriously though avoid perks that boost skill points and leveling, waste of a perk slot imo. Small Guns is generally the way to go for weapons. Lockpick/Science are key, Speech as well.

There's more, but I don't want to give too much away, part of the fun of Fallout is discovery. Go out there and make horrible mistakes!

Guns, science, medicine, lockpick. there's 100 pistol rounds in the locker near the end of the tutorial area. Don't get EXP boosting perks. if you wanna go sneak you can bring the game to its knees with the hunting/sniper rifle.

Honestly, if you have it around, i'd go with New Vegas. it's a much more robust, complete world with better mechanics, and Fallout 3 will burn you out too much to really enjoy it.

@brodehouse: Ohhh you.

@redgetan:I've already played through Fallout 1, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics.

Anyway, thanks guys for the responses. I'm just been looking around The Fallout 3 Nexus and found the Unoffical Fallout 3 Patch, has anyone used it?

Also, is there a sledge hammer? I did a lot of hammering in the previous games.

Shoot and loot. Wander around.

@beachthunder: oh nice, i dont think a lot of people played Fallout tactics (i just tried the demo before), you're one of the few special ones =P Anyway, good luck with Fallout 3