Vanilla and mod NPC romances: overview and discussion (spoilers maybe)
vierrae
Member Posts: 103
I'm a fan of BG series for about ten years now, and naturally I've been through almost all romance options available, both vanilla and mod characters. I've decided to sum up my impression.
Vanilla NPCs:
1. Anomen. the one and only option for females in the original game. Bipolar all over and arrogant to the point of absurdity. His character and story is well-written in its own way, but still a no-go for me.
2. Viconia. Bitter, slutty and brooding. Very drow-like, well, except for the ToB part where you actually can change her alignment. All in all I found this romance adequate.
3. Aerie. Cry me a river. I wanted to strangle this npc even without romancing her, while in romance I struggled with desire to inflict something very painful and long-playing.
4. Jaheira. It's not bad, if you forget the fact that she went through her husband's death awfully quickly. That, and constant patronising, which is irritating, in my opinion.
5. Dorn. I was expecting something like male version of Viconia, but no. That was... weird. The man went straigh to "you're mine", without prelude or anything. Bodhi abduction was like "hell no I'm going to mess with this half-orc and make him even stronger". In ToB section I turned him down after his request to share charname's power with him. That went bad, because he turned hostile with phrase like "then I'll take your power myself". So much for romance O_o Still hard for me to imagine, that this npc swings both ways for males and females. Really.
6. Rasaad. Never actually went there, since I had to choose between him and Dorn. But the beginning of his romance arc was *very* awkard.
7. Hexxat. Haven't tried it yet.
8. Neera. I guess this romance was made for Imoen's fans. Never liked her myself, so...
Mod NPCs:
1. Tsujatha. My first romance mod. "Still better story, than Twilight", I guess, but not much. Watch the movie/read the book, replace main character with elven necromancer and you'll get the whole idea. And yes, the author brough her own book character into BG universe, nevermind the mechanics (elven necromancer? seriously?), since he's from another world and all.
2. Xan. Everyone's favourite. Well, I concur. The writing is not hackneyed, character is well-developed and very heart-breaking at some point. One of my favourites without a doubt.
3. Kelsey. I remember I went through this mod a few years ago, but I cannot recollect any impression from it. Therefore it wasn't anything memorable from my point of view.
4. Haer'Dalis. Been waiting for this one like forever. This mod gives complexity and yet it doesn't feel alien and interflows with original character well. So, praises and all. My favourite so far.
5. Kivan. This one is brooding, but on the whole is well-written, if not completely my cup of tea.
6. Saerileth. Ok, this one is creepy both in writing and concept. *15-year old* chosen of Tyr? Who drags PC into a trip to Sigil? PnP rules anyone? No?
P.S. Pardon me for my English, it is a little rusty.
Vanilla NPCs:
1. Anomen. the one and only option for females in the original game. Bipolar all over and arrogant to the point of absurdity. His character and story is well-written in its own way, but still a no-go for me.
2. Viconia. Bitter, slutty and brooding. Very drow-like, well, except for the ToB part where you actually can change her alignment. All in all I found this romance adequate.
3. Aerie. Cry me a river. I wanted to strangle this npc even without romancing her, while in romance I struggled with desire to inflict something very painful and long-playing.
4. Jaheira. It's not bad, if you forget the fact that she went through her husband's death awfully quickly. That, and constant patronising, which is irritating, in my opinion.
5. Dorn. I was expecting something like male version of Viconia, but no. That was... weird. The man went straigh to "you're mine", without prelude or anything. Bodhi abduction was like "hell no I'm going to mess with this half-orc and make him even stronger". In ToB section I turned him down after his request to share charname's power with him. That went bad, because he turned hostile with phrase like "then I'll take your power myself". So much for romance O_o Still hard for me to imagine, that this npc swings both ways for males and females. Really.
6. Rasaad. Never actually went there, since I had to choose between him and Dorn. But the beginning of his romance arc was *very* awkard.
7. Hexxat. Haven't tried it yet.
8. Neera. I guess this romance was made for Imoen's fans. Never liked her myself, so...
Mod NPCs:
1. Tsujatha. My first romance mod. "Still better story, than Twilight", I guess, but not much. Watch the movie/read the book, replace main character with elven necromancer and you'll get the whole idea. And yes, the author brough her own book character into BG universe, nevermind the mechanics (elven necromancer? seriously?), since he's from another world and all.
2. Xan. Everyone's favourite. Well, I concur. The writing is not hackneyed, character is well-developed and very heart-breaking at some point. One of my favourites without a doubt.
3. Kelsey. I remember I went through this mod a few years ago, but I cannot recollect any impression from it. Therefore it wasn't anything memorable from my point of view.
4. Haer'Dalis. Been waiting for this one like forever. This mod gives complexity and yet it doesn't feel alien and interflows with original character well. So, praises and all. My favourite so far.
5. Kivan. This one is brooding, but on the whole is well-written, if not completely my cup of tea.
6. Saerileth. Ok, this one is creepy both in writing and concept. *15-year old* chosen of Tyr? Who drags PC into a trip to Sigil? PnP rules anyone? No?
P.S. Pardon me for my English, it is a little rusty.
Post edited by vierrae on
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Comments
Kelsey was... well not terrible... but boring... and I seem to recall that it bashed Anomen in the conflict dialogs all the time. I actually like Anomen, I'm just annoyed he's the only option in the original game. I heard that the ladies were supposed to have Haer'Dalis and Valygar as options but they got scrapped. So very thankful the Haer'Dalis romance mod exists (that was a tough wait, I found one project that died, then gained new hope in the second, that also died... the crushing disappointment was worth it for the one that finally did get released.
For vanilla I liked Anomen well enough, never did CN path though. Out of the female romances I don't usually play male characters, but I did complete the Aerie romance which wasn't bad. Granted I genuinely like Aerie as a character and have never once wanted to kill her. The Jaheira one got shot down as soon as possible since while I like Jaheira as a character she always struck me as a surrogate mother figure in the first game, especially with the bg1 npc project (T_T still waiting for this to be compatible with BG1EE) Added in to the fact that Khalid was one of my absolute favorite characters from BG1 and I was VERY upset about his death, romancing Jaheira EVER was a big no.
From what I've heard about Tsujatha and Saerileth I'm not even going to consider installing them
Aerie is actually my least favorite romance. It's not that it's only in her romance that she starts spilling all her feelings about her wings and is quiet otherwise. I don't mind if a character trusts my bhaalspawn enough to confide in them (even if that trust is totally misplaced in some places). It's just for the first half at least when she gets depressed, it doesn't really feel like romance; it could just as easily be a friend helping out another friend. And then what happens in ToB... just doesn't feel like the medium for all that.
Jaheira, I love the character and her development. But it does feel like I'm being pushed into choosing her because of all her involvement in the plot and Khalid conveniently being killed off. And I agree she does tend to feel like a mother figure in the party.
And Viconia... love her character. Her constant, randomly antagonizing other characters does grate a bit after a while though.
Anomen, for some reason I've not romanced very often. It seems like his boasting and arrogance is really just him covering for his insecurity and the abuse of his father. I can forgive him. I find with all the characters once you look into their backstory they really don't seem too bad.
There are many mods I want to try out, but there's a compatibility problem nowadays, integration with new characters, crossmod content etc. Gonna wait till all of that is done. Arath, Gavin, Darian and Angelo are on the list. Right now I'm going through Adrian and I like it this far, but a bit dissapoited there's no voice actor...
And there's this Aklon NPC mod wich has been in the development for several years now, and I doubt it will ever be finished. Oh well.
Hexxat's romance... she's basically the antithesis of Dorn. She has a conversation with Viconia where she basically goes right after her, but she doesn't do that with the PC. Having run a couple of female PCs, the only real comparison I can make is with Anomen; where Anomen is a guy with some emotional issues that wind up resolved when he and the PC get together, Hexxat is very closed off about herself, and to a certain degree you have to decide just how connected she and the PC are in your head. There's a lot of emotional subtlety, and it's not going to strike the right note with everyone.
However, they blended the Hexxat romance in with her quest line. I doubt the quest line has different potential outcomes if the PC is not romantically involved with Hexxat, but the entire feel of it changes if they're an item. And that part is very well done.
I think Dorn's bisexuality makes sense because he is primarily attracted to specific character attributes, these generally being constructed as loyalty, strength, and competence, which the game presumes Charname to have. Biological sex is essentially an irrelevant factor in attraction.
I'm going to watch a Youtube video of his romance, but I'd be astonished if I get the sense his mindset involves something considerably deeper than this.
Just don't try to restrain him for squeamish, wishy-washy reasons (like "Oh no, we can't harm an innocent!") and you'll get on fine.
Again, I don't think this would fit the nature of the game well enough, but it would have been interesting if the Dorn romance became a real D/s kind of thing, where the PC might be an incredible power but was actually pretty submissive on a personal level. It very much felt like that's where it was going to go at the start, and the more or less equal level they landed on didn't quite seem right.
There is an engaged path, a path where you broke up after finding out your heritage in the first game, and a new romance path, as well as a friendship path. I've only played the engaged path, though I plan to try each one after the Throne of Bhaal portion is completed.
XD Now if only someone would do a continuation for the BG1npcproject Coran romance for BG2, I'd be very happy indeed XD
Soooo should I do my Edwin Romance run? Or leap straight into BG2EE? I haven't seen anything about that mod being compatible with EE yet. The Xan romance should be (and I haven't tried the new bonded path that lets you keep him yet, though the BG1 voice restore mod hasn't said anything about being compatible with version 12 yet and I hated the new voice they gave him in the mod, so I'm not playing with it until I know for certain I can give him his BG1 voice back.
As for leaping into BG2EE, well, in my opinion it's new romance options are not really worth it.