Mod writing rant

By the way, why is it that people want to play completely original NPC mods anyway?

Because variety is the spice of game replay life. And because, from a love interest angle, it'd be nice to let your PC develop a romantic relationship with someone isn't either A) an elven priestess with issues (now in your choice of alignments!) or, Anomen. Of course, given the quality of most mod NPCs, you're still not left with many options.

Also because it's interesting to see how various authors will handle certain events, namely Saradush or the Tree of Life, and the Slayer change, Bodhi abduction, and Master Wraith for a romance. And again, there are good original characters out there, if you can find them.

Plus I like seeing how authors develop their characters in the world of BG. I hated it when the Amber mod forced me to do a ton of errand quests, most of which seemed designed to enforce Amber's "I'm a tiefling, poor me, nobody likes me. Now go get my bracelet." In BG1 with Gavin, I felt that his quests should have had more time between them--I had to go to Beregost three times in 15 days. But after I finished those, I started to actually enjoy the mod. I liked that he interacted with the Ulgoth's Beard NPCs (he was born there, so it makes sense). If you're playing the romance, various members of his family show up, which gave a sense of him belonging in UB.

Next, interaction with other characters. The Keto/Yoshimo relationship was...well, unusual. I thought it was worth installing the mod. One of the few things I like about the Kivan mod is the lack of character bashing--he's on good terms with Cernd, Aerie, and LG/LN Anomen. Whereas I've Ctrl+Y'ed any NPC by Sillara, because those banters are horrific. A few of Kelsey's banters were entertaining, too. Perhaps the most unusual example is the NPC romance with Auren Aseph and Nalia. Again, certainly unusual, and definitely not canon, but interesting nonetheless.

There's also the variety aspect. I'll admit that I prefer the distribution of the Classic Adventures NPCs, but sometimes having the same group of characters all the way through can get boring. Plus I tend to play "glass cannon" characters, generally a kensai, mage, or archer, which limits my choice of NPCs. Since I mostly play good-aligned PCs and go for really high reputation, I can't use any of the vanilla evil characters, and since I hate spending 5 minutes prepping for battles, I tend to just hack/blast my way through. My tendency, then, is to use mod characters--e.g., Keto for magic missiles, Xan for emotion spells, or Sarah for ranged support. Or I could have Angelo cast stoneskin and use him as a tank character, or have Auren hack her way through a battle. So original NPCs have a tactical aspect as well.

Last is humor. I have several joke mods installed at present. Skooter is definitely an original NPC, despite the utter stupidity of the content, and I don't plan to uninstall him. There are some pretty good lines in other mods. Before the novelty wore off, Keto's tendency to wake up with a hangover was amusing. Getting Xan drunk was hilarious. Angelo had some truly wonderful lines. In Classic Adventures, there's an engineer you have to kill. His name? Scotty. Or the "Encounter of Serpentine Nature in the Pocket Dimension." Funny, but the mod is hardly a triumph of writing. I still play it, though.

My point here is that original mods/characters add another dimension to gameplay. The problem is when said dimension is not worth the download time.

Incidentally, I discovered several very interesting things about mod Kivan in BG1 NPC
1) In versions 17 and before, it was possible to have a romance of sorts in BG1. It was removed for version 18, but for some reason, the romance conflict with Coran is still there.
2) Deheriana is supposed to have died fifteen years ago. IMO, this doesn't account for Kivan's obsession. I suspect that it's to prevent anyone playing the BG2 romance from feeling guilty.
3) Her name is mentioned sixty-four times in just one dialogue file. Granted, a lot of it is because lines are repeated, but still...sixty-four times...

My rules for mods are very simple. If a mod is known to be compatible with other mods, I will probably play it.

You've discovered why this isn't a terribly good idea. It wasn't a great idea seven years ago when there were only a couple dozen mods, and it's a really bad idea now that there are many, many more. Find reviews from people you trust. (And if that person tells you TDD is good, find new people to trust.)

That out of the way...

I think that the problem is that modders want their characters to be "special." Of the many, many mod NPCs out there, most of them have something intended to set them apart.

I don't disagree with you here or want to imply that it's not overdone in a great many cases, but I do want to provide some historical context.

Back when fully-realized NPC mods were first being created, it wasn't at all clear that any significant number of people would genuinely consider replacing one of their beloved five BioNPCs with a mod NPC unless there was a compelling non-story reason to do so. Weimer didn't give Solaufein monster stats and weaponry just because he likes powergaming. He looked at the fact that it was a late-joining NPC and figured, "Well, he'd better be more powerful than Valygar/Minsc/whatever, or people will never swap them out in favor of Sola." Kelsey similarly gets much better stuff than he would if I were designing him today, because it wasn't clear that someone would make room for him unless he was at least moderately better than the other caster options. (Yes, you can convincingly argue that just by virtue of the sorcerer mechanics he was always going to be better, but it didn't seem that obvious at the time.)

We discovered quickly and to our pleasant surprise that, yes, there were in fact many thousands of people who will happily play a new character just because it's a new character. So the "power bribe" turned out to be pretty unnecessary in order to reach most potential players. Keto is significantly and unapologetically underpowered as a result, for instance. But it was a reasonable thought on the part of the pioneers.

Although I have at various times been engaged in arguments about them, I've come to the conclusion that NPCs stats in BG2 barely matter and aren't worth getting worked up about. Most players aren't going to appreciate a low STR because it's an utter pain in the ass when an NPC can barely carry his/her own gear. (Hi, Imoen.) Most players aren't going to appreciate a low CON because low HP just sucks. See also DEX and AC. The mental stats have very little to do with anything except spellcasting and are mostly there for window dressing except in the encounters with drain monsters. Better to judge the character on the consistency of what they say and do than get wrapped up in what the stats say they should be doing.

Nalia is a character that badly needs more dimensions added to her - instead, they just take what little there is and try to squeeze it out over 30-40 lovetalks. It's a not very romantic neo-socialist fantasy where you discuss the needy A LOT. I wasn't sure anyone made NPC mods to make the NPCs more bland, but there you go.

That's one way of looking at it.

My way of looking at it was that Nalia--sweet and well-intentioned as she may be--is fundamentally a bit of a dumbass, particularly in SOA. And I wanted to remain true to that dumbassery, rather than whitewash it just because she happened to be in a PC romance. (Remember the shock we felt when we suddenly found out Solaufein was a poetry freak just because he was in a romance?)

Hmm, so someone completely missed the point of Nalia growing from little miss feed-the-needy to miss Archmage-vying-for-a-Council-seat, I take it?

Not exactly. I never have gotten around to writing the TOB portion of the romance, in part because of the significant challenges her character transformation pose and in part because of things like TBH. I think I know where it would go, but I think it would turn into a bit of an "anti-romance." And I'm not sure I like the idea of that being the last BG2 mod I create, so either I have to change the vision, or come up with a second mod to finish, so then it's twice the work, and...

I wonder if most of the modders look at the Jaheira content/romance, which far exceeds the content for any other character, and decide they have to AT LEAST do that much.

I think most mods have actually been guided by previous mods on this point. So we go back to the beginning again...

Solaufein (the first romance published) had a significantly shorter romance than even Aerie or Anomen, but that could be said to be guided by the shorter length of time he's available in-game. In the early versions he also didn't have the "standard romance events" of Bodhi abduction etc. Tashia and Kelsey were next out the chute. I do think that Arian (Tashia) and I were influenced by the meatiest of the Original Four and used that as a benchmark, yes. I feel comfortable with that decision even now, although I understand the case being made for modeling after a romance that puts a little less emphasis on elevating the romance NPC to the level of "co-star" as Jaheira's does.

Besides, the original romances were cranked out in just a week or two of effort by people who had other responsibilities on the game, whereas an NPC modder can focus on just that character. It's tempting to push the limits. In my own defense, I will point out that I always made an effort to balance the scales. Kelsey had a little more banter than the average NPC, so I went off to do the Banter Pack for the BioNPCs. Kelsey got flirts, so I went off to do the Flirt Pack for the BioNPCs. Whether or not you thank me for that is another matter, of course.

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I would hardly have gotten away with "panties", now, would I?

**************

PS: I want to thank you (plural) for this. Lately, I've been missing the old days of mixing it up with Ken. This sort of thing was never a perfect substitute, but it's better than nothing!

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I would hardly have gotten away with "panties", now, would I?

Well, you certainly didn't get away with this word.

I'll say. Though I nearly sprayed tea on my laptop, looking at the dialogues for the Neh'Taniel mod...it uses the word "eunuch" on several occasions. Not what I was expecting, particularly from an UBER-SPESHUL undead elf Amaunatori paladin (*gags*).

Oh yeah, and he's romanceable. That's really what got me. I just can't take that seriously...
Save the absurdity for joke mods...I'll take Skooter, Banana!, or Snakes on a Plane mod over Neh'Taniel any day.

I don't suppose anyone's done an Ilmatari paladin? That could be interesting. (To write, that is. I doubt I'll have the time and interest to play mods myself. Not that that bodes well for my ever writing one, either, but at least that would be a lot more interesting.)

I'm pretty sure that no one has. If one exists, they aren't on the modlist. In fact, basically the only mod paladin around is *gag* Saerilith. There's a Selunite paladin in Classic Adventures, as well as an Ilmateri monk, but I've never had the monk in my party (with nearly 30 NPCs, how do you choose who to take?!) and that mod is still very much in development. Also, it's a Total Conversion, which makes things a bit difficult.

There's a thread where people can just drop off ideas for NPCs that probably won't make it past the planning stage; I don't know if anything's ever happened with them, though.

If this idea goes anywhere, I'd be very interested in seeing it. Few modders seem to write religious characters, and fewer still write decent religious characters. And I can imagine that an Ilmateri could have some very interesting banters.

I would hardly have gotten away with "panties", now, would I?

Well, you certainly didn't get away with this word.

If the worst consequence for a little vocabulary risk-taking is engendering a few extra rolleyes smileys around here, it's a fine gamble.

In any event, tricky synonyms or a few extra rounds of how-are-we-helping-the- less-fortunate-trudging-around-in-here? are not the most significant components of de'Arnise Romance. (Says me.) Nalia does get some room to grow, the PC gets a pretty significant amount of latitude to speak his mind without breaking the romance (more than I can think of in any of the official Bioromances and the half-dozen or so mod romances I'm closely familiar with), and there's a lot said about the subtext of Nalia's relationship with her father, and their relationship with the Roenalls. Plus what I feel is a pretty plausible explanation of Tor'Gal's "Stronger."

paladin?

Given how popular paladins are among RPG players in general, it is a little surprising on the surface that there aren't more mod NPC paladins. However, I think a major turnoff to writers who might want to create a paladin or indeed any character with a strong LG-slanted moral code is that the game doesn't do a very good job of letting an NPC police and either condemn or reward behavior. It's the "Aerie bats her eyelashes and giggles happily while (CHARNAME) beats and rob a storekeeper" problem.

The reputation system catches some big stuff, but you can get up to a lot of distinctly-not-nice mayhem and plunder while keeping a sterling reputation. I think mod writers get frustrated by this, knowing full well that their character may be saying "What a delight it is to be traveling with someone who understands the true value of (something or other)" while both that character and the PC are decked out in the spoils of theft, chicanery, and unprovoked murder. I did the best I could with Kelsey and stealing (merchants of the world unite, etc.), but the deal was that we could only catch one type of theft in scripting, successful or unsuccessful (I forget which.) That leaves a pretty glaring hole.

The reputation system catches some big stuff, but you can get up to a lot of distinctly-not-nice mayhem and plunder while keeping a sterling reputation.

Well, there's Virtue. The Sword Angel kit in Refinements recommends that players use Virtue to add to the idea of an uber-paladin character. Still isn't perfect, unfortunately.

paladin?

Given how popular paladins are among RPG players in general, it is a little surprising on the surface that there aren't more mod NPC paladins. However, I think a major turnoff to writers who might want to create a paladin or indeed any character with a strong LG-slanted moral code is that the game doesn't do a very good job of letting an NPC police and either condemn or reward behavior. It's the "Aerie bats her eyelashes and giggles happily while beats and rob a storekeeper" problem.

The reputation system catches some big stuff, but you can get up to a lot of distinctly-not-nice mayhem and plunder while keeping a sterling reputation. I think mod writers get frustrated by this, knowing full well that their character may be saying "What a delight it is to be traveling with someone who understands the true value of (something or other)" while both that character and the PC are decked out in the spoils of theft, chicanery, and unprovoked murder. I did the best I could with Kelsey and stealing (merchants of the world unite, etc.), but the deal was that we could only catch one type of theft in scripting, successful or unsuccessful (I forget which.) That leaves a pretty glaring hole.

That would be the thoughtful mod writer's conundrum. For the Sue artists of the interwebs, the problem seems to be that paladins don't have enough potential for ANGST. (Insert tragic backstory of your choice. Cutting and eyeliner are, of course, optional)

Levity aside, the reputation system strikes me a case of The Best They Could Do. It really isn't possible to script a computer game to catch all the variables the way a good p&p game, run by a good DM, can. That said, I think we've all run into moments when either the plot or the game mechanics utterly railroad you, and as a roleplayer, you can only mentally wail for other options.

That would be the thoughtful mod writer's conundrum. For the Sue artists of the interwebs, the problem seems to be that paladins don't have enough potential for ANGST. (Insert tragic backstory of your choice. Cutting and eyeliner are, of course, optional)

That might be a factor, although I think someone with those goals would be reaching the wrong conclusion.

By character class, there is no higher-pressure profession. Someone is quite literally constantly watching you to see if you remain virtuous and pure. If you don't, you are fired--permanently--and become less than you were. The "Oh, god, please don't let me screw this up" pressures are tremendous and constant. And there are a ton of sacrifices to be made in pursuit of the narrow and unrelenting discipline (see Keldorn.)

Potential angst machines in full plate, surely. A paladin who is in the lower quartile of his profession could actually be a really interesting character.

Levity aside, the reputation system strikes me a case of The Best They Could Do. It really isn't possible to script a computer game to catch all the variables the way a good p&p game, run by a good DM, can.

No, but they could have done better. Infinity lacks a consistent way to track "who is doing what to whom and when, and what is true at the time it is being done." (Is that person I just told Keldorn to attack an innocent child? If so, maybe he should just flat out refuse to attack.)

That said, I know from experience, having made sure that WeiNGINE does have such capabilities, that actually building and enforcing a set of conduct rules is a huge and questionably worthwhile pain in the neck, but...

For the Sue artists of the interwebs, the problem seems to be that paladins don't have enough potential for ANGST. (Insert tragic backstory of your choice. Cutting and eyeliner are, of course, optional)

That made me laugh, actually. But you have a point. Also, paladins are too easy to bash. They are, to be fair, rather uptight, and sometimes downright arrogant. In a different game I play, paladins receive -5 to intelligence--worse than the fighter class--and a lot of fanfic authors seem to do this as well. That is, they make their paladins monumentally stupid and obnoxious.

as a roleplayer, you can only mentally wail for other options.

There was a mod being developed for evil characters--Mod for the Wicked. Players would be able to deal in slaves and arena fights, trade black lotus, and a lot more. It featured four evil joinable NPCs--including Kirinhale, the Durlag's Tower succubus, and Montaron. It would have handled low Virtue/reputation in an entirely different way, and for once high INT/WIS/CHR would be useful. But the modder's computer died, and he lost most if not all of six years' worth of work. So, unfortunately, you're right.

By character class, there is no higher-pressure profession. Someone is quite literally constantly watching you to see if you remain virtuous and pure. If you don't, you are fired--permanently--and become less than you were. The "Oh, god, please don't let me screw this up" pressures are tremendous and constant. And there are a ton of sacrifices to be made in pursuit of the narrow and unrelenting discipline (see Keldorn.)

I'd imagine that this is fairly difficult to write, actually. Out of all the mod paladin characters--the original ones, that is--there's a Mary-Sue that should be shot on sight in BG2. Classic Adventures has a fallen Helmite paladin (fallen because he basically stopped caring, and engaged in some *very* nasty business deals) and a NG Selunite paladin (who's also pretty laid-back).

that actually building and enforcing a set of conduct rules is a huge and questionably worthwhile pain in the neck, but...

A pain in the neck, maybe, but for the enhanced roleplaying experience, it might indeed be worth it.

I don't know... If I was writing a character mod, I would certainly like to think of everything as much as I could. But if some things are just beyond what the game's technology can do - and thereby, what is expected of the game by those who have played it - then I wouldn't worry too much about them, even if it were theoretically possible to write a whole new system to account for them all.

that actually building and enforcing a set of conduct rules is a huge and questionably worthwhile pain in the neck, but...

A pain in the neck, maybe, but for the enhanced roleplaying experience, it might indeed be worth it.

I will heartily encourage such a mod!

But if some things are just beyond what the game's technology can do - and thereby, what is expected of the game by those who have played it - then I wouldn't worry too much about them

Right, and people can/do.

But, if all else is equal, if Character Concept A has a moral/ethical code which can be represented with 80% accuracy by game mechanics, and Character Concept B has a moral/ethical code which can only be represented with 40% accuracy by game mechanics, you'll probably write A instead of B.

I don't know... If I was writing a character mod, I would certainly like to think of everything as much as I could. But if some things are just beyond what the game's technology can do - and thereby, what is expected of the game by those who have played it - then I wouldn't worry too much about them, even if it were theoretically possible to write a whole new system to account for them all.

And honestly, isn't that one of the reasons why we write fanfiction anyway? To smooth over the rough spots, fill in the gaps, and wrestle with concepts that the game can't/doesn't?

And I always thought that fanfic was for horrific self-insertion slash pairings. Oh wait, that's just ff.net. But there are some things that are completely impossible to handle in Infinity's confines that are possible to write...

What seems to be another cause of bad mods (aside from the "I IZ SPESHUL" thing) is when the author adds things that don't really fit in a game but would work in fanfic. For instance, too much "action text" is really, really annoying. But as this post demonstrates, it's possible to do a huge amount just with dialogue.

Come to think of it, the character for whom that very very long post was written--Aran Whitehand--will probably be either an excellent character or a thoroughly mediocre one who takes over SOA. He's supposed to be a "companion NPC mod," so he either reacts to or can be asked about every little in-game thing (and for female PCs, there's an...interesting...relationship path). We'll see, I suppose.