Suspension of Disbelief: Age and Race of Charname and Gorion's... involvement. (Boo is Bhaalspawn!)

Ygramul

[mild spoilers]

I suppose I need an intervention of sorts with my restartitis...

Even though I really want to play a Gnome (after almost two decades, no less!) I simply cannot bring myself to, knowing that Gorion had been lovers with Charname's mom. Same applies for Dwarfs, I suppose. It is not even a race thing: the Charname has a full grown beard! I mean how did he grow a full beard in the same few years when Imoen grew to very young woman.

Similarly, I have a problem with Elven protagonists. They supposed to be, like, a century old or something. Not enough time!

Consequently, I always play a Human.
And I occasionally EEKeeper my Human to, e.g., multi-class. It seems to be a whole lot more credible to have a FMC-multi Human charname than having some other race with the plotline restrictions (in hindsight).

How do people deal with their own OCD on such matters? (Obviously, lots of competent players swear by Dwarves and Gnomes and so on...)

Fardragon

One has to assume that, as bhaalspawn, the protagonist matures more quickly than is normal for their race. Remember they are actually only half-gnome.

Iglosnof

Didn't Gorion actually lie about being with her?

PK2748

I never consider my Gnome to be held breeds. Bhaal can incarnate as a genetically pure member of any species. Otherwise we would all be playing Tieflings. Certain Fire Giants might be shorter too

Frankly the game does a bad job with time throughout. Gorion and Jaheira are "old friends" and they adventured together but Gorion has been cloistered with you for twenty years and Jaheira is not only level one but even after adventuring for thirty years she's also young enough to be attractive for a romance? Half elves are "middle aged" at 62 and to really buy the chronology of her story it's hard to see her as much younger than 50 even if you ignore her levels.

If the game can ignore that, I can ignore that Gnomes and Dwarves start adventuring in their 40s to 60s

Finally there is an explicit cartoon strip out there somewhere that makes human and Hslfling connections explicit, why not Gnomes?

Kamigoroshi

Gorion could just as well be an doppelgänger. They're always older than they actually look.

Or if you're feeling inclined to headroleplay something even more exotic: Gorion as an aspect of Bhaal! His "death" by the hands of Sarevok was only staged.

JumboWheat01

Ygramul said:

[It is not even a race thing: the Charname has a full grown beard! I mean how did he grow a full beard in the same few years when Imoen grew to very young woman.

Some people are just really good at growing beards. I knew a few kids in high school who had very good beards. And there are some who are just incapable of doing so, like my cousin. It's such a whispy thing, it can't even be called facial hair. And if anything is really good at growing beards, it would be gnomes and dwarves.

Ygramul said:

Similarly, I have a problem with Elven protagonists. They supposed to be, like, a century old or something. Not enough time!

I am of the opinion, thanks to inferences from my 5th edition PHB, that all these long-lived races PHYSICALLY MATURE at about the same rate as humans, give or take a few years, but the SOCIETY they live in doesn't consider them adults until they reach a certain age. So an elf can be fully grown, if still considered a child at 20ish, in elven lands, they would be considered an adult in human lands, like Candlekeep, for instance. Same for dwarves or gnomes. Though I don't think gnomes ever "grow up." Where would the fun be?

Ygramul said:

How do people deal with their own OCD on such matters? (Obviously, lots of competent players swear by Dwarves and Gnomes and so on...)

Well, outside of what I said above, you don't have to be involved in physical love and can still be someone's lover. Reading the base backgrounds for all races, the only one that seems to imply Gorion as a possible father is the half-orc one, since that almost says you are a first-generation half-orc, rather than one from other half-orc parents. Bhaal still could have interfered with that, he is a god after all, but that's the only one that struck me as having Gorion be your actual father instead of just your foster father.

Ygramul

Of course, of all the possible races, why couldn't I just be a .... dragon?

So, Gorion had a thing with my dragon-mom. When I hatched she entrusted me (upon her dying breath apparently) to Gorion to raise me.

(Not a Dragon *Disciple*, but a full dragon, mind you. Or, at least, a Dragon-Mind Flayer hybrid....)

JumboWheat01

Even Bhaal has standards.

Kamigoroshi

JumboWheat01 said:

Even Bhaal has standards.

*cough*chinchilla*cough*

Ygramul

Kamigoroshi said:

JumboWheat01 said:

Even Bhaal has standards.

*cough*chinchilla*cough*

You mean miniature giant space hamsters?

Boo is Bhaalspawn!

There I said it.

JumboWheat01

As awesome as Boo is, I suppose it makes sense.

Kurona

Meh if you let "canon" dictate your playstyle you'll end up with a boring CG male human fighter every time because it's pretty much what the game assumes you are. Bonus points if you name him Abdel.

* barfs everywhere *

Grum

PK2748 said:

I never consider my Gnome to be held breeds. Bhaal can incarnate as a genetically pure member of any species. Otherwise we would all be playing Tieflings. Certain Fire Giants might be shorter too

Frankly the game does a bad job with time throughout. Gorion and Jaheira are "old friends" and they adventured together but Gorion has been cloistered with you for twenty years and Jaheira is not only level one but even after adventuring for thirty years she's also young enough to be attractive for a romance? Half elves are "middle aged" at 62 and to really buy the chronology of her story it's hard to see her as much younger than 50 even if you ignore her levels.

If the game can ignore that, I can ignore that Gnomes and Dwarves start adventuring in their 40s to 60s

Finally there is an explicit cartoon strip out there somewhere that makes human and Hslfling connections explicit, why not Gnomes?

As for the levels, when I want to take her I wait until Charname is lvl6 before picking her up. At that point she is a mid level adventurer. Given her quest in BG2 with Ployer the slaver, you can further rationalize her lvl 6ish levels as being due to many of her adventures being political/investigative in nature.

Daevelon

JumboWheat01 said:

Some people are just really good at growing beards. I knew a few kids in high school who had very good beards. And there are some who are just incapable of doing so, like my cousin. It's such a whispy thing, it can't even be called facial hair. And if anything is really good at growing beards, it would be gnomes and dwarves.

I can confirm, at 17-18 i could have a long nice beard if i wanted. I started to shave at 14's

Raduziel

My OCD just allows me to make Charname as Human, Half-Elf or Half-Orc.

PK2748

Halfling matures at a fairly close rate to
Human so if you really did feel obligated to try and get in line with the broken timeline with Gorion you could add them to your list

MacHurto

Grum said:

<

As for the levels, when I want to take her I wait until Charname is lvl6 before picking her up. At that point she is a mid level adventurer. Given her quest in BG2 with Ployer the slaver, you can further rationalize her lvl 6ish levels as being due to many of her adventures being political/investigative in nature.

If i plan to romance her in BG2, i dont go to the FAI until chapter 3 (Gorion told you to go but seems like the obvious place for an ambush so you avoid it). That way I never meet her in BG1, somehow get connected before getting captured (will know how when SoD is available for iPads) and it doesnt look creepy to date her after Khalid dies.

BelegCuthalion

Ygramul said:

Kamigoroshi said:

JumboWheat01 said:

Even Bhaal has standards.

*cough*chinchilla*cough*

You mean miniature giant space hamsters?

No, real bhaalspawn chinchilla. I saw it, with my own eyes!

Quickblade

PK2748 said:

Frankly the game does a bad job with time throughout. Gorion and Jaheira are "old friends" and they adventured together but Gorion has been cloistered with you for twenty years and Jaheira is not only level one but even after adventuring for thirty years she's also young enough to be attractive for a romance? Half elves are "middle aged" at 62 and to really buy the chronology of her story it's hard to see her as much younger than 50 even if you ignore her levels.

If the game can ignore that, I can ignore that Gnomes and Dwarves start adventuring in their 40s to 60s

Finally there is an explicit cartoon strip out there somewhere that makes human and Hslfling connections explicit, why not Gnomes?

BG1 is set in 1368. Jaheira was a young child at most in the Tethyrian civil war of 1347 (presumably, it's never specifically said that it was THAT war that caused her family to be killed), so I doubt she could be any older than perhaps 35 and probably younger, down to mid/late 20s.

I'd have to dig up dialogues related to Gorion himself but Gorion and Jaheira definitely had separate adventures (such as the dialogues with Fiirkraag where Jaheira pipes up that Gorion and some others once caused trouble for a red dragon...somewhere (don't remember the mountains) and that she had no idea it was THIS one). Clearly she wasn't there for that.

BladeDancer

JumboWheat01 said:

Some people are just really good at growing beards. I knew a few kids in high school who had very good beards. And there are some who are just incapable of doing so, like my cousin. It's such a whispy thing, it can't even be called facial hair. And if anything is really good at growing beards, it would be gnomes and dwarves.

On that note, I started to grow a mustache and beard when I was 14, I'm not joking. Some people really are good at growing facial hair whether they want to or not.

semiticgoddess

Started growing a beard at 15.

Started losing my hair at 15.

Modern medicine has slowed down the loss, but I'm going to lose the rest of it sooner or later. The unfortunate part is that I had really, really thick hair when I was young. It was quite glorious.

JumboWheat01

At least you're saving on shampoo costs now.

semiticgoddess

@JumboWheat01: Not yet. There's still hair left; it just looks worse. And I'm not ready to shave it down yet.

Raduziel

Let it go, let it go...

mlnevese

Ygramul said:

Kamigoroshi said:

JumboWheat01 said:

Even Bhaal has standards.

*cough*chinchilla*cough*

You mean miniature giant space hamsters?

Boo is Bhaalspawn!

There I said it.

I thought everyone knew Boo IS Bhaal... He just wanted to have some fun while he watched his spawn pave the way to his rebirth

Nimran

I always thought Boo was Ao, who came down from on high to moderate any and all divine intervention with CHARNAME's quest.

Alexisisinneed

Nimran said:

I always thought Boo was Ao, who came down from on high to moderate any and all divine intervention with CHARNAME's quest.

He's doing a piss poor job because I never take minsc with me in my play throughs.

mashedtaters

You're doing the math wrong, that's why it bothers you. But don't beat yourself up about it. After all, there are only 3 types of people in this world: those who are good at math, and those who aren't.

gorgonzola

Quickblade said:

but even after adventuring for thirty years she's also young enough to be attractive for a romance? Half elves are "middle aged" at 62 and to really buy the chronology of her story it's hard to see her as much younger than 50 even if you ignore her levels.

To be young is only one of the many things that can make a person attractive and romanceable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajiCRoNi14s
This is a movie, and in RL I had never romanced people with more than 20 years age difference from mine, but I had witnessed successful romances between people with a difference like a young bhalspawn and a middle aged Jaheira, and money was not a factor in it, I am not talking of young people romancing old people's money.