Redemption Parties

[Karli]

Hi.

This is my first post on this forum though I've been lurking for a good 5 days now...

Has anyone here run what I call redemption parties?

There's an obvious split between good parties and evil.

I like to run a good - neutral main character but select almost exclusively evil characters to join me on my quests.

I try not to let my rep get too high and will even kill if necessary (the neutral in me setting the balance HAH!)

But overall my main char. seeks to do good and dragf a bunch a nasty bastards around with me. Suckers!

But the Evil characters are just too much fun, while the goodies are a bunch of pansy, sometimes psycho, whiny losers!!!

But we must help reform the Evil Ones by forcing them to help us in our quest for goodness. (If that last sentence sounded like that punk with the hamster, please kill me.

Karli

[Darkman]

Hmmm, that sounds like fun, forcing Evil to do Good [img]smile.gif[/img] Although I think it would be more fun to make those Neutral fence sitters to pick a side!

Slight spoiler here... but in BG2 Throne of Bhaal you are able to gradually influence an Evil NPC into becoming Good, if you set the right example that is.

BTW, welcome to the board! [img]graemlins/happywave.gif[/img]

[Holy Knight Delita]

Hey darkman, can you so the vice-cersa? can you make a good character turn evil?

[Karli]

Well, In BG II you can turn Anomen evil (I think).

Karli

[Thara Song]

Vodka og tyttebærsaft, wierd combination.

just had to say it. sorry

[Barry the Sprout]

I usually play with split parties as it is quite fun to watch them bitch to each other. It only really works from an RP point of view though if you are neutral. My most recent run through BG1 was with a true neutral necromancer, Ajantis, Coran, Branwen, Kagain, and Shar Teel. Whenever one of the evil guys died Ajantis would say: "It is sad that our comrade died before they could change their ways.". Cracked me up every time, which is weird as it is not really all that funny.

[Lemernis]

Mixed alignment parties are more interesting by far. The game gives you 25 NPCs, of which putting together a balanced party limits the number of possible combinations, but still is in the hundreds of thousands.

However, I've got to say that I'm underwhelmed at the lack of NPC interaction so far in current games where I'm trying out NPCs I haven't used much in the past. I recently added Kivan to my evil party because I know he and Viconia will go at it, but after about 20 days I've heard not even a peep between them. Now at about day 74, Kagain and Edwin just recently started having a cross word every now and then, but it is rare. In another current game the only NPCs so far are Safana and Xan, and as far as I know they aren't scripted for any particular interaction.

In all the games where I've used NPCs I have seen very little NPC interaction--hardly any at all. 95% of the time NPCs don't utter anything beyond their happy, bored, tired, etc., lines just as a custom NPC does with a custom soundset. Is that 5% of NPC interaction you get from using nothing but NPCs worth the sacrifice of never trying out custom characters? That is, to never try parties consisting of custom race/class combinations that aren't available among the NPCs?

For a year I've been reading (on other forums) about how players categorically prefer to play with NPCs than making a custom party because of the character interaction. I now suspect that most of them have never actually created a custom party, or if they ever did they didn't use any of the excellent custom soundsets that are available out there.

In both of the games I'm playing I will be trying to get as much interaction as possible as I continue, so I may change my tune fown the road here. But so far I have had just as much fun, if not more, creating custom parties, as long as they have great custom soundsets, of course).

[Darkman]

Well I know you'll get some interactions if you have Monty & Xzar and Jaheira & Kahlid in your party [img]smile.gif[/img] As for other combinations, I haven't seen much more than the occaisonal one-liners myself, except with Kivan when Vicky is in the party.

Here is a blurb from Dan Simpson's BG1 guide about NPC interactions:

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=================SPOILER=========================
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=============NPC INTERACTIONS====================
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Have Minsc, Dynaheir and Edwin in the same party. Since Edwin wants to kill Dynaheir, Minsc gets all surly and protective.

Viconia and Kivan have a love-hate relationship, and also Viconia is very dimissive about Xan.

Put Yeslick and Kagain together to see just how different two Dwarves can be. Yeslick DESPISES Kagain.

Safana and Coran. Coran will flirt shamelessly with Safana, and she will rebuff his every attempt, quite humorously.

Quayle and Tiax. These two really don't like each other. Plus they're fairly amusing on their own.

Faldorn and Jaheira don't like each other either, as they belong to opposing druidic groups.

Put Eldoth, Skie, and Garrick together for a wild Love Triangle. Heh.

=================================================

As for whether or not to create your own party, you're not really missing much in BG1 by opting to not use the NPC's, although a group of well-rolled PC's may make the game a little easy. I usually use the NPC's for my group since the urge to create PC's with 18's in their primary stats would be too great. Having high stats for one PC isn't that huge a deal since it'll be balanced out by the rest of the party. My two cents anyway.

[Lemernis]

I agree with most of your points, and I would advise anyone who is still relatively new to the game to use NPCs. You're certainly right about the temptation to create custom characters that are more powerful than NPCs tend to be. But after a while you get over that and create characters with stats along the lines of the NPCs; i.e., it is more fun to give them some weakness because it makes the game more challenging and interesting. When they are not the main character I also occasionally give them a special ability via Gatekeeper (just as some NPCs come with an innate special ability--eg, Minsc can Berserk, Safana can Charm Animals, Yeslick can Dispell Magic, Eldoth can create poisoned arrows, etc.).

At various points I've tried most of the NPCs by the way, although never in full campaigns, and evidently not long enough to see much of interactions I've read in Dan Simpson's excellent walkthrough. I went through a phase last summer where I was into expermenting with different classes, taking them online in TCP/IP mode, picking up the NPCs to become acquanited with them, and sometimes being joined by a Gamespyer or two.

At least for now what I cannot agree with is what folks are 'missing out on' by using only NPCs. As I said, you apparently have to wait ages for something to happen even with characters that are scripted to interact. Near as I can tell so far, what you do get by way of NPC interaction is exagerrated and way overvalued. They really don't say much, or interact all that much.

Bottom line: the first several times you play the game, by all means, use NPCs only--and do try to put together parties that will give you the most interaction. However know that many commonly used combinations of NPCs aren't actually giving you all that much interaction.

Case in point: in a standard 'popular' good aligned party, eg,

Imoen
Minsc
Branwen
Kivan
Dynaheir

there isn't going to be any scripted interaction (other than a line or two between Minsc and Dynaheir), and whatever random stuff that will happen between any of them doesn't justify never even trying a custom party (even a mixed custom-NPC such as having three custom characters and three NPCs, etc.)

[ 01-21-2002: Message edited by: Lemernis ]