Sorry to necropost, but considering this is my first Legion playthrough, here's my 2 cents.

I really would've liked to play as a raider/fiend type character. The idea of going very tribal and savage appealed to me, as in previous playthroughs I felt more of a cowboy or a soldier type. I decided I wanted to be brutal. Not because I'm a sick individual, but because I wanted a different perspective. So many playthroughs where I murdered these guys, and I wanted to see what it was like to be one.

Like said before, I don't think it's all that fleshed out and enjoyable. Obviously Obsidian had bigger plans, but were unable to pursue them. The biggest problem I have, but don't begrudge the game is: I cannot simply just walk into any town anymore without being attacked. You instantly cut out like 90 percent of the quests you could've played if you side with The Legion. I just wish that The Legion had as many quests and interesting routes you could take as The NCR had.

Anyway, I made a character with survival and melee maxed out, and there's something wonderful about swinging the sword of the east (yeah I console commanded that schnit) and making a deathclaw fly back in a pile of gore. I just don't feel someone like that fits in The NCR.

Probably the same reason why I play video games. I get to be someone/something that I cannot in real life.

Plus its a porthole to another culture that has long been dead.

Seriously though, nobody questions somebody for playing GTA, and you can be way more brutal in GTA. Heck, GTA V you had to torture a guy or you couldn't get to the next part of the storyline.

Because being the good guy all the time is BORING! It's the one thing I hate the most out of Fallout 4 the lack of being truly evil only a smarmy jerk. I loved making a full fledged good character in both Fallout3 and NV and an evil version as well. You could experience the play style in many creative ways that just add to the overall experience. The same reason I liked the old Mass Effects was knowing through my Paragon play through I would get to be a Renegade too and pay back all the assholes I had to handle with kid gloves in the first run.

Alrighty! Here goes!

#1 - Because I hated the NCR that much. ( =P ) Yup! I /really/ didn't like the NCR at all, something about them just struck me the absolute wrong way, the cockiness, the way they talk like Hu-ah soldiers and run on uber-patriotism... Something like that. But! I basically joined the legion largely because it put me in direct conflict with the NCR.

#2 - Style! I looooved the look of the legion, Lanius's armor in particular was an endgame goal for me at one point. I also much preferred the lower-tech way of fighting as it often proved more of a challenge than picking up an anti material rifle and going to town.

There's my two cents!

I mostly play for the NCR,but the main reason I heard in-game about why the Legion could be better is that they actually protect the caravans that are aligned with them while the NCR is spread too thin to protect a lot of routes(i.e. what Ranger Jackson says about the status of Mojave Outpost) and heavily taxes the caravans that do deal with them,making business with the NCR heavily undesirable. While I do see the NCR as the ultimately better option(don't know about independent New Vegas yet),I can kind of see why some people would join the Legion. Oh,and the whole post-apocalyptic Neo-Roman look is pretty cool I must admit.

As always, I won't do the same as others, (sorry guys^^) the question was why do you play as legion... I simply don't. Because I do not like this bunch of psychopaths dressed with robes. I like disciplin, military organisation, but not the way they use their skills at all. Finally, I'd like to see them rot in hell and every time I see them, particularly in Nipton, even if they are peacefull to me, I can refrain to execute them summarilly, because I'm the redeemer after all, a bullet for each of thelm will redeem their soul for their sins, (yes...I know I'm also a psychopath but with a good soul) ^^

I just want to get the most out of the money I used in buying New Vegas haha

I like the color red roman history and its fun to be evil some times

Because it's just funny to be the bad guy

I find playing Legion is much better if you spend half of the game as a neutral party, and make everyone happy until you get to the point of no return. You can do many quests for many factions, then just progress with the actual story once you're finished.

I honestly have been wanting to do a playthrough siding with the Legion for a long time. I'm a huge fan of the Roman Empire and them being "resurrected" in the form of the Legion is awesome. While I admit the idea of being a bad guy who doesn't give a crap is quite intriguing, I can't bring myself to being one. For now however, I will stick to being Mr. Goodietwoshoes.

I did a legion playthrough because I was just digging the Roman aesthetic at the time and downloaded mods that amplified that.

Because resurrecting a culture that's been dead for thousands of years and thrusting it into Post-Apocalyptic America is just... Priceless.

The GTA reference made earlier is probably correct. I do worse things without even barely a thought in GTA. Why did I drive backwards, as fast as I could, on the wrong side of the road?
'Cuz.
There was no reason, at least nothing complex. It was there. It's probably how certain monstrous killers have viewed the real world, like we'd view a game.
Admittedly I wish the legion had been slightly less kill-bot raider-ish and a little more Intellectual Caesar.

i thing is easier to kill in GTA because its just mayhem fun and people are seen as objects but its harsher in new vegas because you actually get to know people and can feel a little bad for killing them.

I can't get over the blatant torture and evil the Legion displays, and when you learn about the stuff they did to the tribes the conquered it's horrible.

But on the flip side, in the harsh nuclear apocalypse they have /one of/ the best ways of keeping a large population safe from outside threats.
The Legion we see in NV isn't the entirety, so they must have structure that goes all the way back.
I wish it could have been expanded on

Yeah,the legion were made unnecessarily evil. One can represent the "pros and cons" of one strong leader with a uniform culture, without excessive unnecessary, blatant slaughter and sexism. They could and should have been "we're doing something harsh to save the world from itself, to stop history from defeating itself." But they act like raiders, and that's not a grey area. They would utterly destroy Vegas' economy and probably its bright lights and everything else that was special about it. It would end up like the vegas ruins, with no tourism and kill-all-profligates-raiders running the show. It's a real shame. They clearly have some kind of civilization back in Arizona, as they have a minted currency.

because you can do anything you want in new vegas. (that or they wanna see other endings).

I'd argue that the legion is the most moral choice if you're simply going by whichever ending produces the smallest body count. The NCR is shown to have no tolerance for civilians, as is shown through the bitter springs massacre, and so an NCR victory would inevitably lead to the massacre of every Legion aligned person, whether child, citizen, or even uninvolved but just residing in their territory. Choosing House/Independent also dooms the NCR, as well as all of it's citizens, to mass starvation, as is directly stated by many individuals involved in the farming situation. By cutting the NCR off from New Vegas, you not only cut off their access to the many farms that they run, but you also limit them from benefiting from potentially lifesaving technologies, which the player encounters a ton of during their stay. Considering the NCR'S population is near a million strong, then this choice is obviously the worst you can make, even if it isn't necessarily evil. Essentially, by choosing either of these three choices, you enact a large scale genocide against populations that number in the hundreds of thousands, even if it was never your intention.

Meanwhile, the Legion is shown throughout almost every interaction to be completely non-hostile to citizens, even those of the NCR. I don't know why this is so largely ignored, but the ONLY people the legion ever enslave or conquer are tribes that directly refuse to join, corrupt individuals, and enemy combatants and/or military organizations, such as the brotherhood of steel and NCR army. As one of the ending to Primm's fate shows, the legion would not massacre the NCR citizens upon victory, they would only ever directly fight against the government and their military. Essentially, this means that, although many soldiers would die, the legion would also take the hundreds of thousands of NCR citizens under their control as well, providing shelter and protection. By choosing the legion, you guarantee the safety of all citizens living in California, Arizona, and Nevada, while in the other two endings you doom at least one, and probably both, populations to death.

The funny part is, the Legion isn't even any more evil than the NCR or House, they're simply upfront about their violence instead of trying to hide it away. The NCR is so corrupt that it takes bribes to allow organizations to massacre their own citizens, as is shown through Cass's questline. Additionally, they directly command the murder of children, as is shown through the Bitter Springs Massacre. House has a similar "the ends justify the means" attitude, and is shown to be willing to kill anybody who disobeys him, or gets in his way, as is shown through the letter provided at the start of the game, and the various threats he makes to both the player, and the groups surrounding New Vegas. The Legion may be brutal, but they have never, in the entirety of the game, been shown to unjustly kill anybody, or be overly aggressive in their ways. Most people ignore all of this however simply because they only take the organizations at a face value, while also, ironically, falling for the same lies that the NCR feeds it's citizens. To paraphrase a character from the game, the NCR steals, and then makes laws to make their stealing legal.