Disclaimer: I'm not on the writing team, so this is only my perspective as a player.
I always thought that the NPCs in the Baldur's Gate games were using a dialogue style that was themed based on the sorts of player you might have at your D&D table. Imoen's being played by the girl who wants to be in character but doesn't always remember that it's a medieval fantasy setting; Minsc is played by a guy who's determined to play up his character's low intelligence score and the two or three gimmicks that make his character interesting; Khalid and Jaheira are played by a (real-life) husband and wife team who aren't very good at hiding their marital problems from the group but are doing their best to stay in character.
Neera, then, is that character being played by your kid sister who's only at the table because your best friend has a crush on her (which is weird, dude, she's like fourteen), and she knows ALL about the campaign lore because she read it over your shoulder as you were creating the campaign, but she doesn't know how a D&D character is "supposed" to talk.
Haer'Dalis is played by "that guy". You know the one. Always comes to the sessions in full costume, speaks in an affected accent, never breaks character even when he goes to refill his Mountain Dew... And hits on every girl player at the table, especially that girl you brought in from the Drama Club who's actually doing a really good job of roleplaying her character, even if she is playing her tragic history a bit thickly.
So the anachronisms don't stand out to me all that much. The characters that bug me generally only do so because in my head they're played by people that (in my head) I don't like.
I personally would rather read more modern-ish dialogue done well than such florid verbosity the likes of which I am subjected to by yon planeswalking bardsman Haer'dalis, which does in truth fill me with the desire to pluck the sparrow from his pixelly realm and make acquaintances of his face and my boot.
Done well, mind you.
When I see these kinds of comments, I start wishing there was a LOL-button I could press. Juvenile, but there it is. Now I just have to content myself with Like.
Btw I really want to try this group now.
PS. I think fantasy these days is made too serious, and comic relief characters like Neera are a boon. That's what I love about Discworld, it doesn't take itself too seriously. Epicness, struggle and heroism have their place, but people need to have fun as well.
that girl you brought in from the Drama Club who's actually doing a really good job of roleplaying her character, even if she is playing her tragic history a bit thickly.
I SEE WHAT U DID THAR!
But all in all, a very interesting and above all plausible perspective. Except for Neera being 14, I just refuse to believe that. Oh wait, elves are different, right? 14 is probably fine there, right? RIGHT?
Except those characters didn't use modern language with all the modern slang. Neera actually says "chill out" at one point. Really now, that's a bit too much.
Alora's character sounds reference the Youngbloods song "Get Together" and Ren & Stimpy's "Happy Happy Joy Joy". Her dialogs reference the Batman & Robin 1960s TV show ("Holy kitty cacophony!") and Freakazoid ("Aww, nut bunnies!").
"Chill out" doesn't seem out of place next to "Holy kitty cacophony!".
Disclaimer: I'm not on the writing team, so this is only my perspective as a player.
I always thought that the NPCs in the Baldur's Gate games were using a dialogue style that was themed based on the sorts of player you might have at your D&D table. Imoen's being played by the girl who wants to be in character but doesn't always remember that it's a medieval fantasy setting; Minsc is played by a guy who's determined to play up his character's low intelligence score and the two or three gimmicks that make his character interesting; Khalid and Jaheira are played by a (real-life) husband and wife team who aren't very good at hiding their marital problems from the group but are doing their best to stay in character.
Neera, then, is that character being played by your kid sister who's only at the table because your best friend has a crush on her (which is weird, dude, she's like fourteen), and she knows ALL about the campaign lore because she read it over your shoulder as you were creating the campaign, but she doesn't know how a D&D character is "supposed" to talk.
Haer'Dalis is played by "that guy". You know the one. Always comes to the sessions in full costume, speaks in an affected accent, never breaks character even when he goes to refill his Mountain Dew... And hits on every girl player at the table, especially that girl you brought in from the Drama Club who's actually doing a really good job of roleplaying her character, even if she is playing her tragic history a bit thickly.
So the anachronisms don't stand out to me all that much. The characters that bug me generally only do so because in my head they're played by people that (in my head) I don't like.
Anyway, that's my perspective as a player.
I would love to hear your thoughts on what kinds of player plays...
I would love to hear your thoughts on what kinds of player plays...
* Anomen * Keldorn * Dorn * Jan
From my perspective...
Anomen is the guy that's really into fantasy novels and Arthurian romance, but also weirdly insistent that everyone in the Middle Ages was completely sexist and racist and that that needs to be reflected in your fantasy game for "realism."
Keldorn is the cool elder who's been playing for years and has binders of old campaign documents in their basement, but is classy enough not to step on the DM's toes.
Dorn's player pitched the character half as a joke, expecting the DM to turn it down flat, and is now caught playing a character they only kind of wanted to play and is slowly realizing that playing a murderous psychopath gets old after a while.
Jan is the player that everyone thinks is only there to goof off and be social and has a tendency to be irritatingly off-topic...until the DM brings in the backstory and everyone realizes there's a really good roleplayer sitting right under their noses. Jan's player was actually working heavily with the DM behind the scenes (it's where all that unique equipment came from) but kept completely mum about the whole business.
With the dialogue that was created between Neera and Anomen, I get this overwhelming sense that the author did not personally like the Anomen character and so felt free to poke at him with their new character. After all, few people do like him, so why not? The problem is, it takes him so far out of character for me that it makes me wince. It just starts to feel silly.
Aaaaaand Dee ignores this point, of course.
Beamdog defending the writing always ignores this point. Kind of just proves it to be true, really. It boggles my mind, because Beamdog has so much respect for the games themselves, and so little for most of the characters.
@Quartz: Not to be repetitive, but what this discussion proves is that the "point" isn't quite as universally accepted as you're making it out to be.
* It's in-character for Jaheira to taunt someone she doesn't like: she does it to Viconia, she does it to Edwin.
* It's in-character for Anomen to be abrasive and a bit of a jerk towards women: let's not forget that if you demure from having sex with him the first time he asks, he breaks off the romance. So if there's a call to take a character down a peg, he's certainly a legitimate target.
* Mazzy has a sense of humor: put her with Korgan for an extended amount of time and you'll see for yourself.
My point is that you can't do a "take the metaphor literally" joke where you just invent something vaguely related to the metaphor and pretend that's what they meant.
Haer'Dalis is played by "that guy". You know the one. Always comes to the sessions in full costume, speaks in an affected accent, never breaks character even when he goes to refill his Mountain Dew... And hits on every girl player at the table, especially that girl you brought in from the Drama Club who's actually doing a really good job of roleplaying her character, even if she is playing her tragic history a bit thickly
I must be the minority here as I kinda like the new dialogues. They are hit and miss, but still a nice change of pace from dialogues I've read through countless times before.
Also I'm totally ok with taking the piss out of Annoyamen, I really hate that guy.
Thank you, hi-five. I like Neera more then most the old npc. At least she keeps me entertained. I can mre then likely count on one hand the amount of old npc I don't want to kill just because.
With the dialogue that was created between Neera and Anomen, I get this overwhelming sense that the author did not personally like the Anomen character and so felt free to poke at him with their new character. After all, few people do like him, so why not? The problem is, it takes him so far out of character for me that it makes me wince. It just starts to feel silly.
Aaaaaand Dee ignores this point, of course.
Beamdog defending the writing always ignores this point. Kind of just proves it to be true, really. It boggles my mind, because Beamdog has so much respect for the games themselves, and so little for most of the characters.
Quality of writing is in the eye of the beholder. One person's cringe-worthy dialog is another's entertaining banter.
More to the point, my earlier post was specifically talking about the different styles of dialogue employed by the various NPCs, not an attempt to defend the writing. Although you could take my premise a step farther and say that, on a given night during a campaign, your players might behave differently based on who's at the table. The women at the table, for instance, might leap to take the side of Neera's player as she attempts to rebuff Anomen's player, even if it might be slightly unusual behavior for them.
Again, I'm not saying the writing of any given character or exchange in these cases is "good" or "bad" (any opinion I would give would obviously be colored one way or the other by my closeness to the content and its authors), but given that the writing is there and likely won't be changed, my feeling is that you can either spend energy thinking about how angry it makes you that Anomen is talking in a slightly different affected British Accent, or you can start to think about why he's using that different affectation, in the context of your own head canon.
Valygar is the guy at the table who doesn't know how to emote.
Valygar's the guy at the table who got invited by his friend to participate, borrowed an old character the DM had prepared, and spends the evening in near silence, an awkward smile-and-nod kinda silence, because he has absolutely no idea what's going on or why he's even there.
More to the point, my earlier post was specifically talking about the different styles of dialogue employed by the various NPCs, not an attempt to defend the writing. Although you could take my premise a step farther and say that, on a given night during a campaign, your players might behave differently based on who's at the table. The women at the table, for instance, might leap to take the side of Neera's player as she attempts to rebuff Anomen's player, even if it might be slightly unusual behavior for them.
Again, I'm not saying the writing of any given character or exchange in these cases is "good" or "bad" (any opinion I would give would obviously be colored one way or the other by my closeness to the content and its authors), but given that the writing is there and likely won't be changed, my feeling is that you can either spend energy thinking about how angry it makes you that Anomen is talking in a slightly different affected British Accent, or you can start to think about why he's using that different affectation, in the context of your own head canon.
Thank you for humoring me at least a little. I'll be straight up though, and this is probably why I can't stand said writing: I don't believe in "head canon." I realize that plenty of people get their kicks this way, so I've really no right to diss the notion. So for the record: I'm making the mental effort not to diss it outright. People enjoy what they enjoy, even if I don't get it -- cool.
Everyone can have their different take aways from art … after all, that makes it art. Different interpretations, good stuff. But when people completely disagree on something as simple as what a character's personality is like, based on the two people making stuff up in their own head barely grounded at all in what is actually written, that's where I start to think that there's an issue. The issue can be with the writing, the people, or anything else really. There's a lot of variables. It's very difficult to pin-point and there's little fruit in trying to, I reckon.
But that said, I find that "head canon" starts happening either A.) when there are gaps that desperately need filling (NPCs are awfully quiet in BG1 -- BG1 NPC project is essentially a lot of head canon from the authors of it) or B.) there's nothing wrong with the writing, but the fans love to try and twist their fan fiction into "fact." (Thankfully, this is not so common amongst this community, which is one of the big reasons why I like this forum and this fan base.)
While I can respect your "game table" metaphor (it sounds fun), I never felt even remotely that way all throughout playing the Infinity Engine series. (I can MAYBE get that feeling from Icewind Dale when I play multiplayer, but that's obvious.) I always felt like I was thrown in a world and I'm just plain being told a story. Because it's all thrown at you, there is no real interaction to speak of. The most you can do is converse with people through some very limiting dialogue choices, and whether or not you kill someone. It's an interactive story. I do not see a game table, and it's nowhere near a game table. Am I missing something? Am I Deranged? I don't know. I cannot for the life of me understand how you could get that feeling/interpretation from playing Baldur's Gate II.
What you're describing to me sounds like mediocre role-players playing a decent dungeon. (Not hating … mediocre role-players playing a decent dungeon makes for some fun times, I've been a mediocre role-player in a decent dungeon many a time) From what I'd experienced though, BGII seems like a masterfully crafted story wherein the characters stick exactly to what and when they should and shouldn't say. I guess this is where I can fall back on my "different interpretations" claim, but these two notions are so radically different I just can't understand how we could get those two disparate conclusions.
@Quartz I just feel the need to point out that storytelling and games are art themselves. It's just that you really don't see them as such because they are in a different form. That's why games and storytelling are as much open to interpretation as a painting, for example. Well, maybe not AS much but still, they are.
Another thing I had in mind is that a characters personality is hardly a simple thing. Basic personality is one thing, but when you're pushed or annoyed, your personality might make a total U-turn compared with what it is normally, or your normal behavior might become hugely accentuated.
These kinds of banters don't toss the characters out of their roles for me. It just brings out a side that doesn't normally show. Of course people are mostly serious when you're rescuing your childhood friend or going after a mage that stole your soul. But when you get settled for the night, camping out in the woods, there's only so much seriousness a person can take. So why not throw the occasional joke about baking cakes?
@Quartz I just feel the need to point out that storytelling and games are art themselves. It's just that you really don't see them as such because they are in a different form. That's why games and storytelling are as much open to interpretation as a painting, for example. Well, maybe not AS much but still, they are.
I'm so confused. Didn't I basically say this myself? Lol
I agree with you about the humor, too, it's just that I haven't laughed at most things Beamdog has churned out. Neera talking to the old halfling "friend" in Baldur's Gate was pretty damn funny though.
Everyone can have their different take aways from art … after all, that makes it art. Different interpretations, good stuff.
What you're describing to me sounds like mediocre role-players playing a decent dungeon. From what I'd experienced though, BGII seems like a masterfully crafted story wherein the characters stick exactly to what and when they should and shouldn't say. I guess this is where I can fall back on my "different interpretations" claim, but these two notions are so radically different I just can't understand how we could get those two disparate conclusions.
I enjoy Neera's writting, the only part I didn't like was the last sentance of her first romance dialogue in BG1. I always felt like my pc was too serious to stuck on revenge especially in BG2 and her random sillyness always brought him down to level.
Neera struck me as a very anachronistic character that I didn't much care for initially. However she started to grow on me and I think when you take into account the whole Wild Mage arc of her storyline being filled with very quirky characters, she makes more sense. She's still not my favorite character, but I don't feel that she's out of place. Also the dialogue quoted isn't bad... it's a bit frivolous but no one is actually out of character there. I hate this idea that things that are light hearted are inherently inferior to dark and/or serious themes.
@Dee What you're describing to me sounds like mediocre role-players playing a decent dungeon. (Not hating … mediocre role-players playing a decent dungeon makes for some fun times, I've been a mediocre role-player in a decent dungeon many a time) From what I'd experienced though, BGII seems like a masterfully crafted story wherein the characters stick exactly to what and when they should and shouldn't say. I guess this is where I can fall back on my "different interpretations" claim, but these two notions are so radically different I just can't understand how we could get those two disparate conclusions.
When Bioware initially set out to create Baldur's Gate, they set out to create a table-top like experience. Many (most?) of the characters created for the game were based on the designers own tabletop characters and their personalities were matched with the playful tone of those characters. Minsc is pretty much the poster child for that. His entire personality seems to be one of those RPG players who likes playing the big dumb lovable oaf with a quirk (in this case a giant miniature space hamster). There are all sorts of constant little examples throughout all the series that keep referencing table-top roleplaying and elements of those kind of games that creep into the narrative.
What Baldur's Gate does is it mixes tropes of tabletop RPGs with a single player narrative driven game. The light hearted moments of dialogue and more amusing quests are meant to evoke that kind of over the table conversation that you'd have with friends in between encounters. I think you're taking the storyline of the game a bit too seriously or intentionally ignoring how much silliness is baked into the original game. These constant references and anachronisms don't hurt the game or its story... they strengthen it by evoking those kinds of enjoyable social moments you'd have at the table with your friends. The npcs are stand-ins for certain people who would be at the table playing with you.
Baldur's Gate 2 does have a good story (masterful seems excessive to me, but c'est la vie) but if you're ignoring its basis on a roleplaying system and the ways it tries to evoke that experience in a single player game, I think you're selectively paying attention to the game and missing out on part of what makes it special. Great narratives are not uncommon in video games. But how many games are able to evoke the feeling of a fun story told over the tabletop with a bunch of your friends? Considerably fewer, and that is part of what makes the Baldur's Gate series so memorable to me.
Comments
I always thought that the NPCs in the Baldur's Gate games were using a dialogue style that was themed based on the sorts of player you might have at your D&D table. Imoen's being played by the girl who wants to be in character but doesn't always remember that it's a medieval fantasy setting; Minsc is played by a guy who's determined to play up his character's low intelligence score and the two or three gimmicks that make his character interesting; Khalid and Jaheira are played by a (real-life) husband and wife team who aren't very good at hiding their marital problems from the group but are doing their best to stay in character.
Neera, then, is that character being played by your kid sister who's only at the table because your best friend has a crush on her (which is weird, dude, she's like fourteen), and she knows ALL about the campaign lore because she read it over your shoulder as you were creating the campaign, but she doesn't know how a D&D character is "supposed" to talk.
Haer'Dalis is played by "that guy". You know the one. Always comes to the sessions in full costume, speaks in an affected accent, never breaks character even when he goes to refill his Mountain Dew... And hits on every girl player at the table, especially that girl you brought in from the Drama Club who's actually doing a really good job of roleplaying her character, even if she is playing her tragic history a bit thickly.
So the anachronisms don't stand out to me all that much. The characters that bug me generally only do so because in my head they're played by people that (in my head) I don't like.
Anyway, that's my perspective as a player.
Btw I really want to try this group now.
PS. I think fantasy these days is made too serious, and comic relief characters like Neera are a boon. That's what I love about Discworld, it doesn't take itself too seriously. Epicness, struggle and heroism have their place, but people need to have fun as well.
But all in all, a very interesting and above all plausible perspective. Except for Neera being 14, I just refuse to believe that. Oh wait, elves are different, right? 14 is probably fine there, right? RIGHT?
"Chill out" doesn't seem out of place next to "Holy kitty cacophony!".
I know dragons with feet like rabbits! 'Tis true, I swear!
I would love to hear your thoughts on what kinds of player plays...
* Anomen
* Keldorn
* Dorn
* Jan
Anomen is the guy that's really into fantasy novels and Arthurian romance, but also weirdly insistent that everyone in the Middle Ages was completely sexist and racist and that that needs to be reflected in your fantasy game for "realism."
Keldorn is the cool elder who's been playing for years and has binders of old campaign documents in their basement, but is classy enough not to step on the DM's toes.
Dorn's player pitched the character half as a joke, expecting the DM to turn it down flat, and is now caught playing a character they only kind of wanted to play and is slowly realizing that playing a murderous psychopath gets old after a while.
Jan is the player that everyone thinks is only there to goof off and be social and has a tendency to be irritatingly off-topic...until the DM brings in the backstory and everyone realizes there's a really good roleplayer sitting right under their noses. Jan's player was actually working heavily with the DM behind the scenes (it's where all that unique equipment came from) but kept completely mum about the whole business.
Beamdog defending the writing always ignores this point. Kind of just proves it to be true, really. It boggles my mind, because Beamdog has so much respect for the games themselves, and so little for most of the characters.
* It's in-character for Jaheira to taunt someone she doesn't like: she does it to Viconia, she does it to Edwin.
* It's in-character for Anomen to be abrasive and a bit of a jerk towards women: let's not forget that if you demure from having sex with him the first time he asks, he breaks off the romance. So if there's a call to take a character down a peg, he's certainly a legitimate target.
* Mazzy has a sense of humor: put her with Korgan for an extended amount of time and you'll see for yourself.
The kind of style that does confusing crap like this:
NOT LIKE I'M THAT PERSON.
NOPE.
/totally that guy.
There are many who regard the Lord of the Rings as one of the most brilliant literary works of the 20th century. Others regarded it as "juvenile trash".
Again, I'm not saying the writing of any given character or exchange in these cases is "good" or "bad" (any opinion I would give would obviously be colored one way or the other by my closeness to the content and its authors), but given that the writing is there and likely won't be changed, my feeling is that you can either spend energy thinking about how angry it makes you that Anomen is talking in a slightly different affected British Accent, or you can start to think about why he's using that different affectation, in the context of your own head canon.
Everyone can have their different take aways from art … after all, that makes it art. Different interpretations, good stuff. But when people completely disagree on something as simple as what a character's personality is like, based on the two people making stuff up in their own head barely grounded at all in what is actually written, that's where I start to think that there's an issue. The issue can be with the writing, the people, or anything else really. There's a lot of variables. It's very difficult to pin-point and there's little fruit in trying to, I reckon.
But that said, I find that "head canon" starts happening either A.) when there are gaps that desperately need filling (NPCs are awfully quiet in BG1 -- BG1 NPC project is essentially a lot of head canon from the authors of it) or B.) there's nothing wrong with the writing, but the fans love to try and twist their fan fiction into "fact." (Thankfully, this is not so common amongst this community, which is one of the big reasons why I like this forum and this fan base.)
While I can respect your "game table" metaphor (it sounds fun), I never felt even remotely that way all throughout playing the Infinity Engine series. (I can MAYBE get that feeling from Icewind Dale when I play multiplayer, but that's obvious.) I always felt like I was thrown in a world and I'm just plain being told a story. Because it's all thrown at you, there is no real interaction to speak of. The most you can do is converse with people through some very limiting dialogue choices, and whether or not you kill someone. It's an interactive story. I do not see a game table, and it's nowhere near a game table. Am I missing something? Am I Deranged? I don't know. I cannot for the life of me understand how you could get that feeling/interpretation from playing Baldur's Gate II.
What you're describing to me sounds like mediocre role-players playing a decent dungeon. (Not hating … mediocre role-players playing a decent dungeon makes for some fun times, I've been a mediocre role-player in a decent dungeon many a time) From what I'd experienced though, BGII seems like a masterfully crafted story wherein the characters stick exactly to what and when they should and shouldn't say. I guess this is where I can fall back on my "different interpretations" claim, but these two notions are so radically different I just can't understand how we could get those two disparate conclusions.
Another thing I had in mind is that a characters personality is hardly a simple thing. Basic personality is one thing, but when you're pushed or annoyed, your personality might make a total U-turn compared with what it is normally, or your normal behavior might become hugely accentuated.
These kinds of banters don't toss the characters out of their roles for me. It just brings out a side that doesn't normally show. Of course people are mostly serious when you're rescuing your childhood friend or going after a mage that stole your soul. But when you get settled for the night, camping out in the woods, there's only so much seriousness a person can take. So why not throw the occasional joke about baking cakes?
I agree with you about the humor, too, it's just that I haven't laughed at most things Beamdog has churned out. Neera talking to the old halfling "friend" in Baldur's Gate was pretty damn funny though.
What Baldur's Gate does is it mixes tropes of tabletop RPGs with a single player narrative driven game. The light hearted moments of dialogue and more amusing quests are meant to evoke that kind of over the table conversation that you'd have with friends in between encounters. I think you're taking the storyline of the game a bit too seriously or intentionally ignoring how much silliness is baked into the original game. These constant references and anachronisms don't hurt the game or its story... they strengthen it by evoking those kinds of enjoyable social moments you'd have at the table with your friends. The npcs are stand-ins for certain people who would be at the table playing with you.
Baldur's Gate 2 does have a good story (masterful seems excessive to me, but c'est la vie) but if you're ignoring its basis on a roleplaying system and the ways it tries to evoke that experience in a single player game, I think you're selectively paying attention to the game and missing out on part of what makes it special. Great narratives are not uncommon in video games. But how many games are able to evoke the feeling of a fun story told over the tabletop with a bunch of your friends? Considerably fewer, and that is part of what makes the Baldur's Gate series so memorable to me.
I think I've misplaced my actual consternation with Beamdog and said some silly things in this thread. I appreciate the patience.