Things you do to roleplay when playing BG
creator1629
Member Posts: 66
I was wondering what other people do to roleplay when playing BG. These may not be things that you do during your first run through of the game, and they don't make the game easier or more efficient, you just do them to instill a sense of realism to your gaming experience to engross yourself in the world more. these are some of the things that i have done:
* I try to keep to a regular day/night cycle in the game, sleeping at night even if my spells are fully stocked and none of my party members has fatigue. although an all nighter at times is necessary as it is in real life
* I give money to churches of impoverished towns even if my reputation is full, to help the town prosper, if i can afford it
* If a party member is seriously injured during a fight, even after healing him i will leave him out of fights for several in game days so as to let him "heal"
* If my whole party is seriously injured in a fight, i will spend an in game week resting at an inn to recover before heading out again
* I will let my whole party enjoy a night of drinking at an inn after a quest/adventure. i will buy more expensive booze if it was a big adventure. of course I don't let aerie drink if she's pregnant, i don't know if bhaalspawn/elvish blood is immune to fetal alcohol syndrome or not, but why take the chance right?
* I will let my archers carry a realistic number of arrows during a quest, not fill up their inventory with hundreds and hundreds of arrows
* If during a battle an area effect spell happens to kill someones livestock by accident, i will leave one or more valuable jewels at the farmers feet to repay the damage i have done
* If a quest involves rescuing a family member or a friend and that person happens to be dead already, i will leave jewels/valuable items at the quest givers feet to pay for the funeral or to help with the household if that person happened to be a provider
* I try to maintain my alignment as it is in real life, which i would have to say is lawful neutral, not exactly good but not evil either
* When at an inn or walking in town where i feel relatively safe, i disarm my men and take off all heavy armor to let them relax and rest a little (not always recommended)
* When resting at an outdoor location, i try to move my men to a spot i would actually camp at, not just hit rest in the middle of a road
* I try to close doors behind me as i enter or exit a room, common courtesy really, even if you are robbing the place
* Legitimately fall in love with in game character, divorce real wife, marry giant cardboard cutout of said character... whats that?... oh yeah... umm... me neither hehehe... (*nervous twitch*)
So what do you guys do in your games?
* I try to keep to a regular day/night cycle in the game, sleeping at night even if my spells are fully stocked and none of my party members has fatigue. although an all nighter at times is necessary as it is in real life
* I give money to churches of impoverished towns even if my reputation is full, to help the town prosper, if i can afford it
* If a party member is seriously injured during a fight, even after healing him i will leave him out of fights for several in game days so as to let him "heal"
* If my whole party is seriously injured in a fight, i will spend an in game week resting at an inn to recover before heading out again
* I will let my whole party enjoy a night of drinking at an inn after a quest/adventure. i will buy more expensive booze if it was a big adventure. of course I don't let aerie drink if she's pregnant, i don't know if bhaalspawn/elvish blood is immune to fetal alcohol syndrome or not, but why take the chance right?
* I will let my archers carry a realistic number of arrows during a quest, not fill up their inventory with hundreds and hundreds of arrows
* If during a battle an area effect spell happens to kill someones livestock by accident, i will leave one or more valuable jewels at the farmers feet to repay the damage i have done
* If a quest involves rescuing a family member or a friend and that person happens to be dead already, i will leave jewels/valuable items at the quest givers feet to pay for the funeral or to help with the household if that person happened to be a provider
* I try to maintain my alignment as it is in real life, which i would have to say is lawful neutral, not exactly good but not evil either
* When at an inn or walking in town where i feel relatively safe, i disarm my men and take off all heavy armor to let them relax and rest a little (not always recommended)
* When resting at an outdoor location, i try to move my men to a spot i would actually camp at, not just hit rest in the middle of a road
* I try to close doors behind me as i enter or exit a room, common courtesy really, even if you are robbing the place
* Legitimately fall in love with in game character, divorce real wife, marry giant cardboard cutout of said character... whats that?... oh yeah... umm... me neither hehehe... (*nervous twitch*)
So what do you guys do in your games?
21
Comments
I'm really impressed. I can't say I do any of that (apart from the last one - I can confess to a bit of a crush on Imoen).
I do try to role-play my NPCs so I don't let Imoen or Alora backstab and I always make Minsc wade in to melee rather than use a bow. Viconia always heals herself before anyone else. Jaheira always heals Khalid first. Montaron breaks into people's houses and robs people while my paladin isn't looking (and he always keeps the stuff he gets for him and Xzar so I don't benefit from it).
However, all this feels pretty feeble compared with your efforts. From now on I will at least start buying drinks for my party whenever we stay at an inn. I'm sure Kagain will appreciate it.
When I played chaotic characters I picked fights. Lawful ones I never stole or opened chests that did not belong to me, even in dungeons.
When I played characters with low int, I'd equip items before identifying.
I usually try to play close to my PC's alignment. (Which is why I can't play lawful good or paladins; it makes no sense that Captain Boy Scout would hang out with Imoen, and turn a blind eye while she steals from people in inns).
Sometimes my thieves will sneak into people's rooms and move their posessions around. So the guy who locked away his dagger for the night wakes up to find his neighbor's leather armor in the drawer. My PC thief finds that kind of troublemaking funny.
During a recent Beregost encounter with Silke, my neutral evil thief turned on everybody, doing Silke's bidding at first and then killing her in turn. Kivan complained, so I had him walk over and lay a shield over the bodies of the innocent men, out of respect.
And I would create interactions in my head. So if someone lawful caught a thief stealing, or someone good caught the other wanting to or succeed in killing an innocent, I'd make them confront each other, and if pushed too far, fight each other! And sometimes I'd add other NPCs as well, and if they disagreed with someone, I wouldn't hold back.
It was a great way for me to get some inspiration as I like to write in my free time.
of course i did draw the line when i was walking one of the streets of baldur's gate and i had to get up for a bathroom break when my friend saw me and said "whats the matter with you, would you really do that in the streets of a large city? either find an inn or go to the woods!"
Response: Pretty much nothing.
My thieves usually steal everything not nailed down, and I do one of three things:
- sell it all
- shove all unsellable junk into one container, usually a strange choice (baskets, flower pots, shoes, forks into the oven)
- hide everything in someone else's house (or pocket), thus incriminating him MWAHAHAHAHA
If I play an assassin, I like to leave a "calling card" at the scene of my work, such as a dagger. Though one time, I had an assassin with a very peculiar "signature": she would kill her mark, then eat EVERYTHING in his house, leaving the fomicile bereft of edibles... Not even a crumb for the mice!
First I romanced Morrigan as usual, and then thought 'I've never actually romanced Leliana yet', so got it on with her. Then came the storm of jealousy and Leliana made me break up with Morrigan, with who I then lost 30 odd reputation points.
But now I can't stand Leliana and would rather go back to bonking Morrigan!
Wait what was I saying? Oh right, I'm glad that playing BG in character has a lot more depth to it than which NPCs I end up bonking in my tent.
-I voice all the unvoiced lines, imitating characters' voices.
-I talk to the characters. Like, actually talk.
-I make up scenes-conversations, interactions, that sort of thing-that aren't actually in the game, to make it feel more like it's really a group of people traveling together.
-I always get in-character before starting a play session and react as my character would.
-My headcanon is that Xan is afraid of kobolds after everything that happened to him in the Nashkel Mines. Because of this I have him run around in a panic every time we fight kobolds.
-Same for my most-played CHARNAME and her phobia of the undead.
-I have my party stop three times a day and pretend theyre having a meal.
-I pause the game before resting and close my eyes and roleplay out the party setting up camp in my head.
...That's off the top of my head. There's probably a lot more.
Me too recently...
DRINKS FOR EVERYONE!
In BG1, If I drop Viconia, I'll leave her at that abandoned temple , next to bandit camp. I believe she'll convert the undead near there and make it a temple of Shar .
Hey Solobear ... lurk moar
That's a joke, I'm pretty sure you lurk these forums more than anybody else. Signing up so early and only having ~40 posts, all sporadically different dates and threads. Whoosh!
0: The game engine will bow to my vision for the character. If this means my Halfling Cleric/Mage is an Enchanter as well then so be it. If it means that my Monk is actually a dryad carrying around the Bonsai tree they're bound to, then you can bet that I'll be booting up Shadowkeeper to make that happen. Once the concept is in place, everything else comes from there.
1: There is no resting unless my party is tired, sometimes fatigued, even if that sometimes mean going without full compliments of spells longer than is convenient. If it's not assassins trying to kill me, it's my various companions being captured and needing rescue, my soul being taken and my gradually transforming into a demonic monstrosity, or something about the end of the world and stuff, you know, day to day concerns. Sleeping, especially in the open, is just asking for assassins to find you and eat your skin. And that's without the urgency a lot of quests find you in.
I make an exception for inns, since everyone deserves a soft bed every now and then, and prep-time, where that eight hour period is actually drawing up battle plans and strategies, preparing spells, and making sure you remembered to wear pants this time.
2: Each character responds differently to NPCs and situations. Most characters have a particular quirk; sarcasm and dry commentary, altruism (casting the occasional Heal or Restoration on weary travellers, or even a slow poison on people drinking in taverns), short temper, or intolerance for a certain kind of behaviour (whining intolerance is a good one to make sure no vanilla romance ever succeeds) and so on. Since people aren't just one dimensional, this doesn't always go hand in hand with their alignment.
3: If my character is good aligned then yes, they will donate the odd amount to temples (though unless they were the religious type, which even a cleric needn't be, and typically any beggar that asks - unless they already asked, then they're just being greedy. Some characters just aren't very religious though, so they wouldn't end up in a temple very often at all (Aleph the Ranger/Cleric, for example, was actually rather ambivalent towards any religious considerations, and didn't much like churches; his abilities were a result of his divine spark).
4: Characters are defined by their moods, the Neutral Good Cleric is likely to behave politely to everyone and swallow their distemper, whilst the Chaotic Neutral Wild Mage with a temper is likely to get stroppy very easily, especially if he's tired and has been travelling all day for some NPC to be rude to him. even Neutral and Evil characters may drop a coin for a beggar it would have to be after they've just got paid for a job well done.
5: Each character will attempt to carry their own gear where possible, and have it prepared in advance. In the heat of combat you do not have time to go rooting around in your backpack, nor is it reasonable to expect others to perform a porter service, if you can't manage to carry your own gear, then you will make do with less until such a time as the fighting is over and your needs are attended to.
I also like the idea of not resting while in a dungeon. Not resting in the middle of the day or in a dungeon just to re-memorize spells.
I was worried it would be a huge hassle, but its actually turning out to be shockingly fun. Combined with a fully elaborated biography and personality, my charname feels a great deal more alive and involved in the story than any of the others I've played before.