yeah you can't do the baldurs gate style of npcs anymore. the npcs need to be important to the plot and fit a class needed to finish the game.
but having so many npcs in bg is what makes it so spacial. i can go through the game many times and have a diffrent party. factor in well made npc mods and the amount of party combos is limit less.
compare that to most modern crpg where i tend to use the same characters all the time and never mix it up. heck bioware tried to have a huge cast in mass effect 2 but it suffered from some being less developed then others.
Allister, Moragan, Sten, Wynn, Dog, the farty dwarf, etc. I found most of the DAO characters memorable enough, and you didn't have to chat to all of them.
Being identified by one "specific trait" is a caricature. Real people, and properly written characters, are not defined by a single trait. They are more complex than that. That is why Farty Dwarf was the weak link in the DAO cast.
But, given that Mr Gaider was one of the main creators of Dragon Age, if you didn't like that I would reign in my expectations over this current project.
@Fardragon Really? I thought Oghren was among the more developed characters, at least, the potential was there. The problem was how late he came in if you weren't masochistic enough to do the dreaded Deep Roads ugh first. He's full of stereotypes, but at the same time there's quite a few hints that he's more than he appears. He's actually very regretful of his bloodlust and love of battle. He hates himself for his mistakes, he disapproves of harming children and he can be surprisingly intelligent during his lucid moments in a few of his banters. Alistair, Morrigan and even Wynne were fairly easy characters to figure out within a few talks, while Oghren surprised me repeatedly all the way to the end of the game. I actually recommend more players take Oghren along. Zevran too.
If only Awakening wasn't awful and had proper character development...
The BG/BG2 NPC are not at all identified by one "specific trait". It's the complexity of the NPC that is briefly (because of restrictions obviously) outlined that come shining through but it does require a level of comprehension by the players.
BG/BG2 expects us to work, expects us to engage which is exactly what a RPG should do.
If that's what you think and what the current writers of SOD and future FR games believe, it maybe why they made such a catastrophic mistake saying things like "Jaheira is portrayed as a nagging wife".
The BG/BG2 NPC are not at all identified by one "specific trait". It's the complexity of the NPC that is briefly (because of restrictions obviously) outlined that come shining through but it does require a level of comprehension by the players.
I don't see that at all and I've played BG for a long time. To me the NPC's are very straight forward, some with only single traits (though more common in BG1 than BG2) but it sure as hell doesn't take any comprehension from the player to understand their personalities. In BG1 the NPC's are so incredibly shallow and under-developed that you as a player need to fill in the blanks yourself. In BG2 their banters and quests shows of more of their traits and you need less RP yourself to flesh out their characters.
So, with that said, I'm curious; what do you mean by "comprehension"?
baldurs gate 1 came out in 98. by that time jrpgs had already moved away from the blank slate party to having more characters in them. ff4,6,7 chrono trigger, wild arms, the lunar games [ the sega cd versions] etc were all out by the time of bg1. wrpgs lagged behind until planescape which was 99 and chris even said ff7 was an influnce on the game. jrpgs also inspired the party member side quests we see in bg2.
so really i see no excuse for why the characters were done that way in bg1. fallout 1 i can see why as they were not really characters and just meat shields [ this gets fixed in 2].
you can say it's for role playing and thats fine. but i'd rather have npcs that were actual npcs and not one note and never speak again which is why i always use the npc project mod.
The BG/BG2 NPC are not at all identified by one "specific trait". It's the complexity of the NPC that is briefly (because of restrictions obviously) outlined that come shining through but it does require a level of comprehension by the players.
I don't see that at all and I've played BG for a long time. To me the NPC's are very straight forward, some with only single traits (though more common in BG1 than BG2) but it sure as hell doesn't take any comprehension from the player to understand their personalities. In BG1 the NPC's are so incredibly shallow and under-developed that you as a player need to fill in the blanks yourself. In BG2 their banters and quests shows of more of their traits and you need less RP yourself to flesh out their characters.
So, with that said, I'm curious; what do you mean by "comprehension"?
An example.
Xan, weak, pessimistic, doomed, captured Carries a moonblade, only those who are deemed worthy are allowed to do so. He's actually an elven "hero".
So fill in what they haven't told us from what they have.
Loyal? Brave? Honest? Trustworthy? or Compromised? Struggling? Frightened? Trying to live up to the Moonblade legacy?
Has a Moonblade can hardly use it, a magic school with little offensive magic but deals with manipulation/mind control. He's a Greycloak of Evereska, an organization of investigators and law enforcers, so he's kind of an elven Judge Dredd who, I think most will agree, isn't much good at the role.
That is not straightforward but it's up to the player how much they invest in working out the character.
you can defend it all you want. but it does not change the fact we have moved on from that. if an rpg party member barly has any characterization in this day and age it's considered lazy and is a point against the game.
Has a Moonblade can hardly use it, a magic school with little offensive magic but deals with manipulation/mind control. He's a Greycloak of Evereska, an organization of investigators and law enforcers, so he's kind of an elven Judge Dredd who, I think most will agree, isn't much good at the role.
That is not straightforward but it's up to the player how much they invest in working out the character.
Sounds like you invested considerably more than the original writers ever did.
Sounds like you invested considerably more than the original writers ever did.
If you take BG2 producer Ben Smedstad at his word (and, really, no reason you shouldn't), that was a limitation of technology, not talent. BG2 is, by BioWare's account, a more accurate representation of what they were trying to do at the time.
That aside? Players investing more in characters than the original writers isn't exactly a new concept in D&D. It's rather essential to the source material, in fact. Besides, the Infinity Engine games didn't exist in a vacuum - let's not forget that they were the culmination of a process of development going back through Gold Box and what came before.
So sure, BG1 may seem threadbare by today's standards - but that's because BG helped raise those standards in the first place.
"Sounds like you invested considerably more than the original writers ever did."
The post was in answer to the idea that the NPC'S were "one note".
I don't disagree that BG NPC were too silent, not evolved enough. But I can forgive that for the age of the game. But in spite of the limitations they managed to give players who invested in the RPG aspect, a hell of a lot.
Now I'm playing SOD, all these years later. The NPC Corwin is the most one dimensional character you can imagine. She's a cookie cutter NPC, ticks all the right boxes. And is utterly boring. Yep, lots more dialog, lots more background and it all adds up to what? Strong woman, kid, career, useless ex. Wow, never seen that portrayed before.
Now I'm playing SOD, all these years later. The NPC Corwin is the most one dimensional character you can imagine. She's a cookie cutter NPC, ticks all the right boxes. And is utterly boring. Yep, lots more dialog, lots more background and it all adds up to what? Strong woman, kid, career, useless ex. Wow, never seen that portrayed before.
Name five in D&D/medieval-type fantasy. Shouldn't be a problem if they're so commonplace, right?
to each their own. i liked corwin well enough it was her being a normal person surrounded by the numerous over the top characters that made her interesting.
Yes, Corwin was fine. Likable and belivable. We have seen her like before, but on cop shows, not in fantasy games. Much better than the one-note "look at me, I'm insane" npcs of BG1.
Xan, weak, pessimistic, doomed, captured Carries a moonblade, only those who are deemed worthy are allowed to do so. He's actually an elven "hero".
So fill in what they haven't told us from what they have.
Loyal? Brave? Honest? Trustworthy? or Compromised? Struggling? Frightened? Trying to live up to the Moonblade legacy?
Has a Moonblade can hardly use it, a magic school with little offensive magic but deals with manipulation/mind control. He's a Greycloak of Evereska, an organization of investigators and law enforcers, so he's kind of an elven Judge Dredd who, I think most will agree, isn't much good at the role.
That is not straightforward but it's up to the player how much they invest in working out the character.
OK, so what you call "comprehension" I would call "filling in the blanks". That's not intelligent writing from the developers, leaving bits and pieces like clues for you to find out, that's most likely the exact opposite. I love Xan, I really do, but to me his character is a lot less developed and refined as those I've encountered in DA:O, SoD or any other game .
I understand there's no point in debating this since you seem to be under the impression that everything old is gold and everything new is crap, but to say that a character (Corwin) with traits that have never really been portrayed in fantasy game like this before to more unimaginative than the caricature ones we saw in the old games is kinda odd. If characters like Corwin and M'khiin would have been in the original games I will bet my left eye you would sit here today and defend them.
Edit: Btw, since BG1 and 2 were released there has been a thousand more fantasy games, movies and books released, so making up new characters which haven't already been done to death is harder and harder. Hell, back then even Korgan was "new" since most dwarves I had read about before were good (Gimli and the likes). Nowadays the grumpy, greedy and selfish dwarf archetype has been seen so many times it's very unimaginative do make another (kinda like Oghren, who someone above mentioned).
i like how no one brings up where the real characterization is for unmoded bg1 npcs. the little thing called the biography. thats where it all is a small intro text, their stats and their bios.
On dwarves, I would point to Jarhild in SCL. According to the lore, she is a much more typical dwarf than the Korgan/Oghren/Khelgar clones that we usually see depicted in games.
i like how no one brings up where the real characterization is for unmoded bg1 npcs. the little thing called the biography. thats where it all is a small intro text, their stats and their bios.
Biography is fixed. Real characters develop over the course of the story as they are affected by events.
It doesn't tell you as much as you think anyway. I could write you a biography of myself, but it would tell you less about what I am like as a person than you would learn by reading through my comments on this forum.
i agree. i only brought it up as it was never mentioned. i to prefer the way npcs are done in bg2 and onwards. heck if i never knew about the bg1 npc mod i'd never touch bg1.
I would be happy with bg1 number of characters with npc project like interactions/dialogues with the trade off of less/no voice acting. Unfortunately I can't see a modern game doing this as apparently voice acting is important these days
Yes, Corwin was fine. Likable and belivable. We have seen her like before, but on cop shows, not in fantasy games. Much better than the one-note "look at me, I'm insane" npcs of BG1.
Tell me why there are no wizards, orcs or gibberlings in the latest episode of CSI Detective. Could it be that they would be jarringly out of place in that genre?
And if you do introduce them, which can be done with better writing, you don't place them in 20/21C America with the social mores of 20/21C America.
And as for NPC's in BG being insane. Don't you think, given the setting, being insane is actually normal? Is it insane to raise the dead, turn undead, kill any who oppose you, venture into dungeons full of monsters, chat to Gods? It would be nowadays, FR not so sure.
to each their own. i liked corwin well enough it was her being a normal person surrounded by the numerous over the top characters that made her interesting.
Didn't see this but it possibly gets to the crux of my problem with Corwin.
How can she be a "normal person" as we judge, in a setting that would never and cannot produce our normalcy? She is normal in our view, but our view/world does not exist in game.
Yes, Corwin was fine. Likable and belivable. We have seen her like before, but on cop shows, not in fantasy games. Much better than the one-note "look at me, I'm insane" npcs of BG1.
Tell me why there are no wizards, orcs or gibberlings in the latest episode of CSI Detective. Could it be that they would be jarringly out of place in that genre?
And if you do introduce them, which can be done with better writing, you don't place them in 20/21C America with the social mores of 20/21C America.
And as for NPC's in BG being insane. Don't you think, given the setting, being insane is actually normal? Is it insane to raise the dead, turn undead, kill any who oppose you, venture into dungeons full of monsters, chat to Gods? It would be nowadays, FR not so sure.
Cop shows are written to reflect our modern world. We don't have orcs and goblins in this world, so of course you wouldn't expect them.
But a fantasy realm's rules are all set by the author in whatever way they want. So if the author wants to write about a single mom working for a justice system within their world, there's nothing stopping them. It's their choice.
No one should feel they shouldn't write X character type because "the genre doesn't allow it". Especially in the fantasy genre, where we can have fire-breathing lizards and winged lions and blue people with fins and two heads.
Comments
but having so many npcs in bg is what makes it so spacial. i can go through the game many times and have a diffrent party. factor in well made npc mods and the amount of party combos is limit less.
compare that to most modern crpg where i tend to use the same characters all the time and never mix it up. heck bioware tried to have a huge cast in mass effect 2 but it suffered from some being less developed then others.
Being identified by one "specific trait" is a caricature. Real people, and properly written characters, are not defined by a single trait. They are more complex than that. That is why Farty Dwarf was the weak link in the DAO cast.
But, given that Mr Gaider was one of the main creators of Dragon Age, if you didn't like that I would reign in my expectations over this current project.
If only Awakening wasn't awful and had proper character development...
The BG/BG2 NPC are not at all identified by one "specific trait". It's the complexity of the NPC that is briefly (because of restrictions obviously) outlined that come shining through but it does require a level of comprehension by the players.
BG/BG2 expects us to work, expects us to engage which is exactly what a RPG should do.
If that's what you think and what the current writers of SOD and future FR games believe, it maybe why they made such a catastrophic mistake saying things like "Jaheira is portrayed as a nagging wife".
So, with that said, I'm curious; what do you mean by "comprehension"?
so really i see no excuse for why the characters were done that way in bg1. fallout 1 i can see why as they were not really characters and just meat shields [ this gets fixed in 2].
you can say it's for role playing and thats fine. but i'd rather have npcs that were actual npcs and not one note and never speak again which is why i always use the npc project mod.
Xan, weak, pessimistic, doomed, captured
Carries a moonblade, only those who are deemed worthy are allowed to do so. He's actually an elven "hero".
So fill in what they haven't told us from what they have.
Loyal? Brave? Honest? Trustworthy?
or
Compromised? Struggling? Frightened? Trying to live up to the Moonblade legacy?
Has a Moonblade can hardly use it, a magic school with little offensive magic but deals with manipulation/mind control.
He's a Greycloak of Evereska, an organization of investigators and law enforcers, so he's kind of an elven Judge Dredd who, I think most will agree, isn't much good at the role.
That is not straightforward but it's up to the player how much they invest in working out the character.
That aside? Players investing more in characters than the original writers isn't exactly a new concept in D&D. It's rather essential to the source material, in fact. Besides, the Infinity Engine games didn't exist in a vacuum - let's not forget that they were the culmination of a process of development going back through Gold Box and what came before.
So sure, BG1 may seem threadbare by today's standards - but that's because BG helped raise those standards in the first place.
"Sounds like you invested considerably more than the original writers ever did."
The post was in answer to the idea that the NPC'S were "one note".
I don't disagree that BG NPC were too silent, not evolved enough. But I can forgive that for the age of the game. But in spite of the limitations they managed to give players who invested in the RPG aspect, a hell of a lot.
Now I'm playing SOD, all these years later.
The NPC Corwin is the most one dimensional character you can imagine.
She's a cookie cutter NPC, ticks all the right boxes. And is utterly boring.
Yep, lots more dialog, lots more background and it all adds up to what?
Strong woman, kid, career, useless ex.
Wow, never seen that portrayed before.
1. romance
2. cool spears
3. mind-flayers
I understand there's no point in debating this since you seem to be under the impression that everything old is gold and everything new is crap, but to say that a character (Corwin) with traits that have never really been portrayed in fantasy game like this before to more unimaginative than the caricature ones we saw in the old games is kinda odd. If characters like Corwin and M'khiin would have been in the original games I will bet my left eye you would sit here today and defend them.
Edit: Btw, since BG1 and 2 were released there has been a thousand more fantasy games, movies and books released, so making up new characters which haven't already been done to death is harder and harder. Hell, back then even Korgan was "new" since most dwarves I had read about before were good (Gimli and the likes). Nowadays the grumpy, greedy and selfish dwarf archetype has been seen so many times it's very unimaginative do make another (kinda like Oghren, who someone above mentioned).
It doesn't tell you as much as you think anyway. I could write you a biography of myself, but it would tell you less about what I am like as a person than you would learn by reading through my comments on this forum.
What is Rashemen?
It's where Minsc comes from.
Without the relevent FR sourcebook the information tells you exactly nothing.
Yep, in cop shows, modern cop shows.
Tell me why there are no wizards, orcs or gibberlings in the latest episode of CSI Detective.
Could it be that they would be jarringly out of place in that genre?
And if you do introduce them, which can be done with better writing, you don't place them in 20/21C America with the social mores of 20/21C America.
And as for NPC's in BG being insane.
Don't you think, given the setting, being insane is actually normal?
Is it insane to raise the dead, turn undead, kill any who oppose you, venture into dungeons full of monsters, chat to Gods?
It would be nowadays, FR not so sure.
Didn't see this but it possibly gets to the crux of my problem with Corwin.
How can she be a "normal person" as we judge, in a setting that would never and cannot produce our normalcy?
She is normal in our view, but our view/world does not exist in game.
But a fantasy realm's rules are all set by the author in whatever way they want. So if the author wants to write about a single mom working for a justice system within their world, there's nothing stopping them. It's their choice.
No one should feel they shouldn't write X character type because "the genre doesn't allow it". Especially in the fantasy genre, where we can have fire-breathing lizards and winged lions and blue people with fins and two heads.