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Baldur's Gate Canon

Well, I'm not sure how many of you have seen this, but I thought I'd bring it to the attention of those who haven't: http://media.wizards.com/downloads/dnd/MiBG_Launch Weekend.pdf

For those who don't know, basically, it's something of a distant sequel to the Baldur's Gate series, featuring... Abdel Adrian.

Yeah, I can [i]hear[/i] your sighs from here.

That said, his portrayal here seems to be somewhat better than his novel portrayal, if only because he doesn't get to open his mouth too much.

So, better than it could have been overall, though it still absolutely ***** the plot of the games over.
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Comments

  • TwaniTwani Member Posts: 640
    Anyone else rooting for random suddenly crazy assassin Viekang? Go, half-brother! Go and slay the imposter who absolutely ruined the BG novels!

    ...I'm kind of interested in the whole Season. Now that Abdel is dead, it should just be a normal season about another tale of Bhaal trying to resurrect himself. My players might enjoy that. They tend to like dead gods adventures.
  • AnprionsaAnprionsa Member Posts: 106
    Nope. Nope. Nope.

    Anything that has anything to do with that character should be purged. I wrote something about this earlier and you can look that up. It makes me sick.
  • OnestepOnestep Member Posts: 225
    koawinter said:

    Nope. Nope. Nope.

    Anything that has anything to do with that character should be purged. I wrote something about this earlier and you can look that up. It makes me sick.

    Unfortunately, Wizards seem to be going the Microsoft route of 'Don't like it? Too bad. We're going to make you choke it down anyway.'

  • ReadingRamboReadingRambo Member Posts: 598
    That's a pnp module though, sounds pretty cool. I could play candy land with my pnp friends and have a blast.
  • jackjackjackjack Member Posts: 3,251
    Let an editor write a book, and this is what you get people.
  • OnestepOnestep Member Posts: 225

    According to the "canon" , The main character is an unintelligent cool guy who's too cool for school, Khalid is a scheming and evil bastard who just happens to be part of the Harpers (who are apparently evil and scheming too), Jaheira is a helpless damsel in distress who freaks out at something as simple as a small spider climbing up her skirt (which leads to sexual tension between her and cool guy Abdel when he needs to reach up her skirt and grab it).

    Bhodi "charmed" Abdel into having sex with her, Abdel apparently can't kill Ilasera without going into Slayer form, Jaheira and Imoen get killed off, Minsc is a red-head with a big beard who wasn't even in the first novel, and the wimpy teleporting bhaalspawn from Tradesmeet/Saradush kills Abdel in the end and becomes a vicious monstrosity, despite Bhaal's throne having been destroyed and therefore making this canonically impossible.

    The books are a joke, and incidentally I name all of my male human characters "Adrian" as a sort of mockery to the novels.

    Who cares what Wizards does with it, the fact is that the player-base of the already designed games knows what the canon is, and it was all left up to them and their choices. They can't change that, no matter how hard they try, and any attempts made will pretty much just be laughed at. Pretty much just a money sink PnP setting, but who cares? Real fans are either going to just play it for a nice PnP game, or not even bother with it.

    Maybe this will convince people to read the novels and see how bad it is, though :P

    There have actually been a few retcons. Bodhi and Abdel were now apparently genuinely in love and he killed her when he lost control of the Slayer, and Jaheira.... Well, ok, Jaheira was still entirely useless in pretty much every regard.
  • IsandirIsandir Member Posts: 458
    My solution is simple: I never read the novels before and I never will. That way I can imagine what they should have said, and the scenario I just browsed through makes perfect sense in respect to its alignment to the game lore. :)
  • rdarkenrdarken Member Posts: 660
    Onestep said:

    According to the "canon" , The main character is an unintelligent cool guy who's too cool for school, Khalid is a scheming and evil bastard who just happens to be part of the Harpers (who are apparently evil and scheming too), Jaheira is a helpless damsel in distress who freaks out at something as simple as a small spider climbing up her skirt (which leads to sexual tension between her and cool guy Abdel when he needs to reach up her skirt and grab it).

    Bhodi "charmed" Abdel into having sex with her, Abdel apparently can't kill Ilasera without going into Slayer form, Jaheira and Imoen get killed off, Minsc is a red-head with a big beard who wasn't even in the first novel, and the wimpy teleporting bhaalspawn from Tradesmeet/Saradush kills Abdel in the end and becomes a vicious monstrosity, despite Bhaal's throne having been destroyed and therefore making this canonically impossible.

    The books are a joke, and incidentally I name all of my male human characters "Adrian" as a sort of mockery to the novels.

    Who cares what Wizards does with it, the fact is that the player-base of the already designed games knows what the canon is, and it was all left up to them and their choices. They can't change that, no matter how hard they try, and any attempts made will pretty much just be laughed at. Pretty much just a money sink PnP setting, but who cares? Real fans are either going to just play it for a nice PnP game, or not even bother with it.

    Maybe this will convince people to read the novels and see how bad it is, though :P

    There have actually been a few retcons. Bodhi and Abdel were now apparently genuinely in love and he killed her when he lost control of the Slayer, and Jaheira.... Well, ok, Jaheira was still entirely useless in pretty much every regard.
    They went through the trouble of retconning and this is how they changed it??? ugh
  • OnestepOnestep Member Posts: 225
    Yeah, it's a pretty odd choice.
  • jackjackjackjack Member Posts: 3,251
    Starting to sound like an MMO…
  • JarlealeJarleale Member Posts: 114
    BG3: PVP MMORPG. Ends when there is only one Bhaalspawn left. ;)
  • KaltzorKaltzor Member Posts: 1,050
    Well, Abdel WAS the CHARNAME of the person who did write those books... Besides, I'm sure every person who played Baldur's Gate and did a campaign of this could just ignore his existance and possibly replace him with someone else...

    Respond them shoving Abdel at you with a quick "I reject your reality and substitute my own."
  • GoodSteveGoodSteve Member Posts: 607
    Kaltzor said:

    Well, Abdel WAS the CHARNAME of the person who did write those books... Besides, I'm sure every person who played Baldur's Gate and did a campaign of this could just ignore his existance and possibly replace him with someone else...

    Respond them shoving Abdel at you with a quick "I reject your reality and substitute my own."

    I doubt Abdel was created by someone who actually played the games... have you read the novels? There's no way the person who wrote them could stray so far from the game's content. Unless of course he is simply the rawest and most pure form of evil to ever have existed and frankly I can't come to grips with imagining a mortal to be a personification of such malice and wrongness.
  • egonegon Member Posts: 94
    Novels? What novels?
  • FoggyFoggy Member Posts: 297
    Gorion's Ward has become too powerful. I can accept even a halfling wizard slayer as canon, but not that wimp Abdel, the disgrace of a PC that calls himself a Bhaalspawn. I've read my share of lousy books in my life, and that lame excuse of a BG novel was the worst.
  • That1DudeThat1Dude Member Posts: 19
    Never read the novels, never will.

    But laying siege to Baldurs gate with an army of charnames would be awesome, until the first one died and it all dissolved into bickering over reloads. I'm pretty sure I have my cheated lv 50 beserker, lv 50 cleric charname around here somewhere....
  • syllogsyllog Member Posts: 158
    Malicron said:

    Right, that's it. My CHARNAME's either fixing up the Planer Sphere or getting a lift from Haer'Dalis to the "canon" version of Toril, tracking down Abdel, and killing him before that teleporting wimp gets the pleasure. Anyone want me to stop by your world and pick you up? Get a hoard of angry CHARNAMEs and lay siege to Abdel's Baldur's Gate.

    That would be an Awesome Mod!!!
    :)
  • CrowseyeCrowseye Member Posts: 28
    I read somewhere that Athans wrote the first novel from an early outline of the plot because of deadlines and all that jazz. It really is one of the worst pieces of fantasy I've ever read. To quote myself from long ago:

    "It's almost like Bioware told Athans 'the books should be dark and gritty' and Athans interpreted that as meaning he should show people die gruesomely and have characters that think about sex a lot. And he somehow still pulled that off in the most juvenile way possible.

    Athans comes off as a rank amateur...with his characterization, his storytelling, and his prose. The best that can be said IMO is that he does follow the general outline of the story of the games as far as where the characters go and why (though obviously he skips a lot).

    To top things off, obviously neither Bioware nor WotC went and did a serious continuity check to make sure what Athans wrote matched existing material, or game material that could have been used in a more official capacity later."

    For the most part I use the games in my personal Forgotten Realms storyline and reconcile everything as needed. I use the name Abdel Adrien, but he's certainly not Athans' Conanesque Abdel or whatever he was trying to emulate.

    Anyway, if WotC wanted to put Bhaal back in play (something I'm not against, as I think a war fought in the shadows between the faiths of competing gods of murder would be awesome), bringing in Abdel Adrien and having him killed a century later to complete Bhaal's plan in a playtest module is a really lame way to go about it IMO. Instead, I would have gone for the essence in the Boarsekyr river where Bhaal was killed and the intentional attempted resurrection of Bhaal by someone foolish enough to try to use him to destroy Cyric.
  • QuartzQuartz Member Posts: 3,853
    Jarleale said:

    BG3: PVP MMORPG. Ends when there is only one Bhaalspawn left. ;)

    Oh gawd.

    That would be epic, but so bizarre. And actually probably pretty bad unless it were toiled on for AGES to get game balance down pat.
  • nanonano Member Posts: 1,632
    I can see it now... fighter/mages everywhere D:
  • NonnahswriterNonnahswriter Member Posts: 2,520
    nano said:

    I can see it now... fighter/mages everywhere D:

    Or better yet, Kensai/Mages! D:
  • KaltzorKaltzor Member Posts: 1,050
    Baldur's Gate MMO, all of the Kensai/Mages and Illusionist/Thieves?
  • booinyoureyesbooinyoureyes Member Posts: 6,164
    egon said:

    Novels? What novels?

    Fo' reals. I am perturbed by the fact that so many posters here seem to be so delusional. No amount of True Sight seems to dispel this dreaded illusion that the Dark Wizard Philip of Athans has cast.
  • nanonano Member Posts: 1,632
    Kaltzor said:

    Baldur's Gate MMO, all of the Kensai/Mages and Illusionist/Thieves?

    and no clerics anywhere.

    need rez plx
    lf healer, have dps
    res pls
    need tank!!1
    who here can cast raise dead?????
  • KaltzorKaltzor Member Posts: 1,050
    nano said:

    Kaltzor said:

    Baldur's Gate MMO, all of the Kensai/Mages and Illusionist/Thieves?

    and no clerics anywhere.

    need rez plx
    lf healer, have dps
    res pls
    need tank!!1
    who here can cast raise dead?????
    Who needs an actual tank when a Kensai/Mage can just use Stoneskin, Mirror Image, Protection from Magical Weapons and Spell Immunity...
  • artificial_sunlightartificial_sunlight Member Posts: 601
    I read the novels 2 times Because I could not understand them whole the first time The second time I was much better in English but I still didnt understand wat is going on
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