Personally, I managed to mess it all up. The roving Super Mutants all but obliterated the Ghouls, Shady Sands, the Hub, Junktown and the Children of the Apocalypse. And there I was, thinking I'd been so neat throughout the whole game, talking the Master into suicide and all. Finished with a gifted gunman with maxed luck, finesse and all the crit-enhancing feats I could get my hands on. Endgame, nearly every shot was a critical, splattering brains all over the place. Tagged skills were Small Guns, Speech and Science, all maxed more or less.
I remember being thrilled and awed setting foot in Shady Sands for the first time, exploring Vault 15, and entering dialogue with the Master. Agreed to help him => goosebumps. Words can not describe how awesome is that game.
I remember being seriously stumped on how to beat the mother Deathclaw, until I figured out how to make called shots. The game suddenly got a whole lot easier.
I'm much more familiar with Fallout 2 than I am with the original, so I can't clearly remember what I did for the ending of the first. I remember mostly 2 things on my initial play-through of that game: 1) Being creeped the fuck out during that final walkway to the master in the bottom of the cathedral. 2) Being sorta sad that all the ghouls in Necropolis died when I came back again.
I donned the robes, had Morpheus take me down to the master and talked him into suicide. Then, for some reason, I switched to Power Armor and died trying to get out. I repeated that about ten times or so before I finally realised that if I simply continued to wear the robes, the mutants wouldn't attack. Boy, did I feel silly?