A question about the creation of new party NPCs for the Baldur's Gate saga

hybridial

Hello,

I wanted to gauge opinions on this matter here, particularly from those who actually have made NPC mods in the past.

I have some degree of interest in making a mod NPC myself, and I obtained permission from the artist of the portrait I'd like to use. Of course I'd be learning how to do it from scratch so whether I'll manage to amount to anything with it, I don't know, but I do have certain feelings about the content of the enhanced edition games, and the expansion Siege of Dragonspear.

What I'd like to ask about is, should a mod NPC be designed and written for a particular interpretation of the series over the objective state of them. The issue is, I don't like much of Beamdog's additional content or their expansion. For a couple of reasons, believe me nothing to do with politics. It's all in presentation and immersion for me. I think for example, many mods do a great job feeling like they fit in the game. The BG1NPC project is excellent. The Sirene NPC mod I really like and I think she is a great fit in the games.

It's unfortunate but I don't think Beamdog's professionally made content does a great job of fitting in. Like the original content it has its bad points, and its good points, but tonally and technically it's just dissonant to me. Dragonspear greatly disappointed me, for example, in cutting little chunks of Baldur's Gate (meaning the city) and cutting you off from the awesome city you previously had the pleasure to fully explore.

Basically it's stuff like that, that makes me not want to use the Beamdog content, in my playthroughs. It's entirely a personal preference.

But if I want to make a new NPC for these games, the question arises if it would be the right thing to do to not create SoD content for that character, or write interactions with Neera, Dorn etc.

I think if I get to a point where I'm serious about this character, I might very well consider perhaps doing entirely vanilla run of those games (which is probably how most people experience them) and design the character to fit in best there. From a practical standpoint, it seems like it would reach the biggest audience there.

However, there is the artistic end of it; would it be better to go with my heart on this and write the character entirely within the framework I like the most (Which is pretty much the original games plus the BG1npc project and G3 and iepbanters for BG2) and just ensure any prospective downloaders understand what they're getting.

Since being indecisive is a speciality of mine, some insight from the games audience would really be helpful, and even if I don't get to make it, because this post is not a promise I will, I do find the question itself interesting.

TheArtisan

I'm posting solely because I feel like this topic warrants some discussion and I don't think it should be pushed to the second page without any responses. I'm going to tag @LavaDelVortel here too since we're probably the primary 'writer slash modders' around here so we should give some input.

I personally think Sirene's nowhere near as good as my most recent content but that's besides the point. Personally, I'm on the middle ground between writing what I want to write and writing what will appeal to the audience. When it comes to integrating my mods with existing plenty of content, there's plenty of NPCs that I dislike writing for and cringe every time I have to do something involving them. Edwin and Jan are probably the premier examples as their characters just do not fit my writing style at all, so I end up having to either tone them down a lot or just have very low content. That said, I still do my best to try and take a fair and inclusive approach to my mods. I actually rarely use the EENPCs myself save for Neera, but I will still write for them anyway because I feel like I should make the effort. Sometimes I even end up liking the characters a little more once I get a chance to expand upon them the way I would like through writing new banters, interjections and so on.

Problem is, I can't really tell you what you should do because since I don't have as much of a negative reception of the new content, my viewpoint is quite honestly not all that useful. I can only provide my own thought process as some form of useful advice. The only question I think you should ask yourself is: are you primarily writing for yourself or your audience? This is not rhetorical, by the way - I'd say that Sirene, or at least the BG1 portion, was mainly written for myself in a way and I wouldn't have done things the same way if I were to start over. I think you should give it a go and do things the way you want to, and perhaps your perspective will change once you've gotten a bit of experience.

I think Lava will probably have more useful words of wisdom for you though, since he's been writing for a lot longer than I have.

hybridial

If there is one thing I probably need to confess, it's the fact that I've probably been dismissive of a lot of Beamdog's work based both on my first impressions of some of it, and what other people have said about them. My experience with them is kind of limited, and mostly in the first BG. I have played with Neera and Dorn and completed their quests. I played SoD only really up till recruiting/talking to several of the recruitable npcs in the city.

In BG2EE I have played some with Hexaat, at least up until I recruited the real one.

And yeah my opinion of that content for varying reasons are not super high. I didn't mind Dorn I guess, in that he feels like he fits in okay. He's not got much depth, but having a character like that available in a game that lets you play "evil" makes enough sense. Neera though just seemed completely off, I blame her dialogue for this mainly which I don't think was written with the idea she inhabits Faerun at all. Corwin seemed very dry for what little time I used her. I think in fairness I can't judge the other NPCs due to a lack of exposure to them. Also considering I shamelessly always have Viconia in my party because of reasons that totally have nothing to do with me finding Drow attractive to look at, honest, I can't always say I'm a fair judge of the quality of an NPC or the reasons people might choose to use them.

Red headed tieflings I don't mind either. :P (But I honestly do think you did a pretty solid writing job with her, and gave her an interesting kit which is enjoyable to play with)

I suppose where my conflict is, and I can admit this a flaw in my character, is I sometimes just would rather judge things based on early impressions and not bother with them. Even though given from what I do know about Dragonspear, Caelar Argent is a genuinely interesting sounding character to me. But I also feel that Dragonspear's story has so many issues with it including this one; they wrote it to try and resolve that the story of Baldur's Gate flows fluidly into Shadows of Amn. And it fails to do this for several dozen reasons that would take a while to go over.

And all this given if WotC had been willing to let them tweak the opening of SoA just to reflect whom you had in your party at the end of the first game, and also who was killed in that run.... I mean yeah they would have had to tweak some further content in SoA to fully integrate them logically but, I think such a thing might have been possible had Beamdog been allowed to alter the original games.

I do feel SoD just fails completely and utterly in its main goal, but in its sub goal Caelar's story seems like a good one; might have been a better game in the long run if it had just been a self contained extra campaign without the greater narrative pretense.

Sorry if that seems like a rant, I just thought further explanation might make my position more clear. However I've kind of resolved already to just keep the beamdog NPCs available in the main game and try them out. That's not as potentially disruptive to my fun than as needing to work through SoD as well.

But also, I'm operating on a few things I've experienced and really more things I've read about and debated between other people. I'm willing to reconsider the stance if anyone thinks I'd really benefit from doing so, especially in regards to if I want to pursue modding these games.

TheArtisan

The best advice I can give is to start with what you’ll enjoy doing. Modding is a hobby and there’s no point in it if you aren’t going to have fun with what you’re making, and that goes doubly for mods that involve writing in my opinion. There’s an audience for most kinds of mods so there’s no need to go in a direction you’re not comfortable with just to please anyone.

@LavaDelVortel
Would really love to see your input in this my friend pretty please?

AstroBryGuy

If you are looking for information on the nuts & bolts of writing an NPC mod, check out Kulyok's Branwen BG2 NPC mod. It's an NPC mod and modding tutorial all-in-one.

http://forums.pocketplane.net/index.php/topic,28623.0.html

LavaDelVortel

Okay, I think I have a moment now, so I will try to say how I think.

It all depends on your goal. If you think of your mod as of a project you're going to share, I would say you can't ignore the EE content. Modding is like finding a balance between what you like in the game, what you want to see in it AND what you want to share with people and they may want to see. It's mostly how communities work. They talk. Dispute. Share things. Users listen to eachother. They do not have to agree on everything, but that's an entirely different thing.

Another thing: I am not sure if that's a good idea to pretend some parts of the game you mod do not exist. Let's say I don't like Cernd, Jan and Korgan. Does it mean I should pretend those NPCs do not exist? Well, I am sure some people would decide that lack of content that would aknowledge their existance in game makes my mod feel incomplete. But does it mean I have to write a lot of content for those character? No. It's to show that those characters "see" eachother. Also note that certain holes in content may become something I would call immersion-breakers.

You are using EE version of the game, as far as I understand, and EE come with many things some may like and others will dislike. What's there, in the game, is something our character is going to interject with. If it's an EE mod, then it's for EE player. If it's for EE players and lacks EE-specific content... well, that may mean some EE player won't like it.

...then again, that's a question of what's the aim of your mod. Is it only for your own use? If so, then you don't have to aknowledge different playing styles and opinions. If it's something you want to offer to players, you may need to remember that people have different tastes, opinions, thoughts. Many of your potential fans may like EE content and will find lack of certain content disappointing.

It's about balance (omg, now I sound like some druid...) - balance between your idea of the game, your own throughs, desires, plans, stories AND people, acknowledging that they have opinion of their own and their way of playing the game. It's a difficult thing - to find the exact point to situate yourself between those two things; to follow what you want to say without ignoring those with whom you are going to share your work.

I am not sure I would say the same thing let's say 3-4 years ago. But I think that's my current opinion. I remember what story I want to tell, but I also try to remember I need to build something enjoyable and readable for others. Otherwise, it will become a wasted potential and a story only few will ever hear.

hybridial

I want to to say thanks to you guys for your input.

I think the main thing I've decided is that, for the moment, I don't really want to deal with Siege of Dragonspear. However the EE NPCs, whilst I may play more of them in BG2EE and warm more to them, or not, ultimately their not going to negatively impact my enjoyment all that much, certainly not compared to an entire expansion anyway. SoD has its share of detractors so I'm probably not alone in electing to skip it, though I'd probably consider doing SoD content for the character after they're completed for the main games. And I think when it comes to writing content for the mod, writing some additional discussions with the Beamdog NPCs isn't going to add an immense amount of content on what I'd be trying to do already, if nothing else I think my character would potentially be very interesting to play with Dorn, and probably couldn't end in anything less than a throwdown between them eventually, and writing conflicts in like that seems like half the fun. I do think it's most fun when characters do what they want do do over what the player wants, as long as it's not constantly disruptive anyway. (except evil characters leaving at rep 20 for me... some make sense but for a lot of them it really doesn't)

I have decided what voice set I'd like to use for them (Like Sirine I'll be borrowing a voice set from IWDEE), and have some rough ideas for the character's story, but now, I actually have a heck of a lot more playing of both BGEE and BG2EE to do. I've finished the first game 3 times and the second once, I've far from seen everything they have to offer. I've never even met some NPCs in BG2EE.

Luckily in the mean time I have other writing stuff to do, but I'm pretty keen to do this once I've played through the saga a few more times.