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I bet the interactions between Sandrah and Safana are either non-existent or a total trainwreck, seeing as she would encroach on her "sexy lady flirting with the protagonist" turf
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Jan 21, 2021 14:29
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Out of bile fascination, I asked around about Sandrah's crossmod content with the mod NPCs I wrote, one of whom appears in BG1 - Valerie, and I got her full interactions with Sandrah. Funny thing is, there's not actually anything especially wrong with the broad strokes of their interactions. It's even in-character for Valerie to get overwhelmed and bowled over by someone like Sandrah. The problems are all in the details of how Roxanne wrote Valerie - her word choice, how she talks, what she's eager to talk about and what she's reticent about, specific details of her beliefs and backstory, etc. It's funny that I can't actually be outright angry, but I'm nevertheless incredibly annoyed by Roxanne not only doing it without my permission, she got Valerie so off. Only thing that makes me kind of mad is (minor spoilers if anyone cares) Sandrah piggybacking on Valerie's attempts (via her friendship track with Charname) to figure out what's going on with Charname - Charname can talk to her about their nightmares and powers, and she'll study and research that. She comes to completely the wrong conclusion, of course. Sandrah, naturally, has also been paying attention to Charname's dreams and powers and is so much smarter and more knowledgeable than Valerie and lectures her and of course figures out the truth but doesn't tell Valerie. I do not recommend adding Valerie to the party. From the looks of her interactions with Sandrah, they're keyed largely off Valerie's own friendship track with the PC, which is slow-burning and gated by plot events to allow Valerie to react to the ongoing story. They don't have many banters, and they'd be spread out over the majority of the game's plot. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Jan 21, 2021 |
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Jan 21, 2021 14:29
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Chapter VI - Wow, little duckling, you are a magnificent swan tonight. I love this cutscene.   I wish I could say they left the party afterwards but alas.  Who needs guides when you have Sandrah? We quickly run into some pretty colourful characters.  I love these guys.  Time to get the ol' calculator!  All's well that ends well. Now to find a good inn, kick our feet up and enjoy a beer or two. Pub crawl!  Ah, the Red Sheaf. Sounds cozy.  Hey, I've had this conversation before in Candlekeep! I've lost count how many times 10 year old me died to Karlat because I didn't understand the mechanics at all. 21 years later and I'm hardly any better at it, go figure.  It can't be overstated just how much of a powerhouse Jen'lig is at this point in the game. During the fight we are aided by a familiar face.  I love Finch.  Well said, Jaheira. BG1NPC definitely has its moments. Karlat's corpse kind of clashes with the decor so we're going to drink somewhere else.  Feldepost Inn? I guess we can afford it.  Eep. Back when I first played this game Marl scared the hell out of me for some reason. It was only years later that I realised that there was a peaceful resolution to his encounter. It's one of BG1 sweetest moments...  ...drat you, Sandrah. Marl flees the inn shortly afterwards.  Picking those dialogue choices after what I just witnessed took quite a bit of effort. Sandrah rushes up the steps in a cutscene before it fades to black, when we return...  I wish I had the words to describe what I'm feeling right now.  These morninglords are all over the inn, I wonder what they're connected to.  Over here we have a locksmith who can make keys to multiple houses in Beregost. Interesting. Since Jen'lig is an expert at picking pockets we use her to retrieve Algernon's cloak, except...  Oof, that was a close one. We do eventually get his cool cloak, at least. Finally Vichan is as charismatic as he imagines himself to be with a whopping 20 charisma!  This is going to be a running theme with Sandrah going forward.  We continue our pub crawl by heading to the Burning Wizard.  Over here we meet Rose, caught pickpocketing some poor rube out of his hard-earned cash. The resulting conversation was extremely wordy and she doesn't have content with Sandrah so eh.  This dreamboat, on the other hand...  Kicking Khalid and Jaheira to the curb we invite him to our party. We'll see them again, don't worry! Let's inspect this slab of beef:   His inventory is remarkably straight-forward. Warhammer, sling, shield, splint mail. What are we going to do with our spare party slot, you ask?  I can't *wait* to see how Sandrah is going to interject here.  That was...unexpected.  Trivial.  ...Do you guys think Sandrah's okay? Really expected her to chime in here.  Let's finish this thing off at the Jovial Juggler!  So rugged.   Fade to black, no dialogue afterwards. Maybe that's for the best... I'd normally end things here but I realised that I completely forgot to give Joia's ring back to her, so a quick detour to the Friendly Arm Inn is needed. One notable thing happened along the way.  Sandrah really gets around. Vichan fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Nov 7, 2021 |
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Jan 21, 2021 18:07
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Fortunately for me this update had something simple for me to grab onto as I struggle against the flow of offending verbiage: You can't 'ruin' a cooking pan with a campfire, unless this fantasy world discovered Teflon coating the pans should be just some solid metal which would need a much stronger fire to warp or crack. And a campfire designated pan wouldn't be coated anyway as there's no fine control dial to avoid ruining a coating.
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Jan 21, 2021 18:21
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I prefer her implausibly and very hurriedly sleeping her way around the party to the sick-making 'flirty' dialogue between her and the PC, honestly. At least if she's fading to black somewhere she's not blathering on endlessly to us.
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Jan 21, 2021 18:21
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So the default coping strategy is to feed male party members to the beast. I'm not sure how well this reflects on us...
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Jan 21, 2021 18:26
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She ruined the Marl encounter at Feldepost's?!? The gently caress, lady?jng2058 posted:Well, you have to give the mod points for being accurate in it's naming. This really is Sandrah's Saga. Vichan's officially the sidekick now. Seriously. Can't wait for dream sequences to written off as "Had a weird dream, anyway back to Sandrah!" Fighting Trousers fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Jan 21, 2021 |
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Jan 21, 2021 18:28
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Well, you have to give the mod points for being accurate in it's naming. This really is Sandrah's Saga. Vichan's officially the sidekick now. 
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Jan 21, 2021 18:28
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I'm telling you the author just doesn't know the first thing about cookery! It's hard to imagine but it's true.
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Jan 21, 2021 18:29
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Fighting Trousers posted:She ruined the Marl encounter at Feldepost's?!? The gently caress, lady? Completely unacceptable. That's the first part I got angry at and I'm positive it's far from the last. Drake's voice acting is remarkably pleasant, by the way. It's not often that mods manage to get it right. On that note, I know I haven't said that much about Sandrah and Jen'lig's voice acting. There's a reason for that. Sandrah never seems to speak during dialogue, her voice lines when selecting/directing her don't correspond with the text. The voice itself is completely bland. Overall it feels unfinished. The quote under the banner is the only voice line that's worth mentioning because it's just terrible. Jen'lig's voice line is just the Githyanki scream, over and over again.
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Jan 21, 2021 18:59
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Every mod NPC I was aware of prior to Sandrah who had potential romances with the PC or with other NPCs was coded to only pursue the NPC romance if the PC doesn't qualify for their romance or the PC torpedoes the relationship. Sandrah casually sleeping with so many people while presumably still being a romance option for the PC is... a choice.
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Jan 21, 2021 19:00
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She can't help it, it's all that sexy, sexy armour.
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Jan 21, 2021 19:04
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Fighting Trousers posted:She ruined the Marl encounter at Feldepost's?!? The gently caress, lady? I was at least expecting her to tell Marl off herself about his taking out his loss on complete strangers. To just completely REMOVE such a tone-setting moment entirely... yeah, this has definitely become her story, can't have any of that pesky deconstruction and self-introspection getting in the way of the Wunderkin's Journey, huh? And as has been bugging me for a while, I made peace with her usurping the narrative wholesale, but she does it while also blatantly script-reading. We aren't even near Nashkell and she's already given us the Branwen quest solution!
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Jan 21, 2021 19:16
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Cythereal posted:Every mod NPC I was aware of prior to Sandrah who had potential romances with the PC or with other NPCs was coded to only pursue the NPC romance if the PC doesn't qualify for their romance or the PC torpedoes the relationship. To be fair Choice of Games' CYOAs do that often but those take the classy and tasteful way about it, here you just can't ignore this in your face sexuality and enjoy your game because the author never heard of pacing and moderation.
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Jan 21, 2021 19:18
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Strawberry Pyramid posted:And as has been bugging me for a while, I made peace with her usurping the narrative wholesale, but she does it while also blatantly script-reading. We aren't even near Nashkell and she's already given us the Branwen quest solution! Suffice it to say, she'll do this a lot and is pisses me off. Edited to remove a bunch of modder sperging. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Jan 21, 2021 |
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Jan 21, 2021 19:20
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Fighting Trousers posted:She ruined the Marl encounter at Feldepost's?!? The gently caress, lady? It is so unbelievably obnoxious for someone to overwrite stuff from the original game with your inserted character babbling away. That original scene is really good because of the "secret" peaceful solution to the encounter. This just replaces it with more ~Sandrah~ bullshit. Its horrible. Ditto the stuff about Branwen. It's so disgustingly on the nose, zero subtlety at all. Especially when considering that everyone playing this will have undoubtedly played the game previously and know exactly what this refers to. Was the purpose of this NPC to be a literal in-game walk through? It certainly feels like it. If Shandra said straight up "You can hit space to pause the simulation" I would not be surprised.
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Jan 21, 2021 20:37
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It wouldn't surprise me to learn that Roxanne never found the peaceful solution to Marl when they played BG1 themselves. Makes me wonder what other encounters this mod changes. Its been a fun read so far.
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Jan 21, 2021 21:40
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biscuits and crazy posted:Makes me wonder what other encounters this mod changes. Its been a fun read so far. That's good to hear!  I hope people are not too bothered by the glacial pace, I really am trying to talk to as many people as possible just to see how many times Sandrah'll chime in with more nonsense. I've left out some encounters where Imoen might say something inoffensive but every single drop of Sandrah content will be shown, drat it!  Cythereal posted:Edited to remove a bunch of modder sperging. Don't hold back on my account! 
Vichan fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Jan 21, 2021 |
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Jan 21, 2021 22:51
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Not sure about how the modding works, but what determines which mod takes "priority"? Because if I was doing a character mod that was interfered with by this, I'd be tempted to put my own interactions to override Sandrah stealing my character's story.
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Jan 21, 2021 22:52
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Razakai posted:Not sure about how the modding works, but what determines which mod takes "priority"? Because if I was doing a character mod that was interfered with by this, I'd be tempted to put my own interactions to override Sandrah stealing my character's story. It's the install order. Which for large BG2:EE installs is mostly determined by EET. Which itself is maintained by Roxanne, Sandrahs creator. What I'm saying is there's no escape. Though jokes aside I think they'd be okay with you making a mod that expanded upon Sandrah. Private Speech fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Jan 21, 2021 |
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Jan 21, 2021 23:11
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Vichan posted:Don't hold back on my account! As you wish! Valerie, the BG1 NPC mod I made (her BG2/ToB component is about 90% done but just... hasn't finished and probably will never) has a lengthy friendship track gated by plot progress in BG1, with shades of flirtation if you meet her requirements (what would have been her requirements for her actual romance in BG2). I included the plot gating as a way to let Valerie react to the ongoing story as it evolves, and one of the things that happens is that she'll notice the restless nightmares that the PC has. She'll ask the PC about them, and if you agree - you don't have to, this bit is entirely optional - the PC will explain their nightmares and strange new powers to Valerie. Being a Cowled Wizard and studious sort, Valerie does some research off-camera in her own time and eventually tells the PC what she thinks is going on with them. She is, of course, completely wrong. She makes a pretty reasonable guess from the facts available to her, but the truth never occurs to her as a possibility because why would it? Sandrah, however, jumps in after this talk to reveal that she also paid careful attention to the PC's nightmares and strange powers, did research, and unlike Valerie she's figured out the truth. She doesn't say what the truth is, naturally, but lectures Valerie about what's 'blatantly obvious' (i.e. Sandrah read the game's script and her writer makes assumptions about things that I don't). Valerie also falls in love with Sandrah and sleeps with her, but that's par for the course for Sandrah (and also, I'm sad to say, in-character - Valerie absolutely would get run over by a beautiful, smart, charismatic woman who knows a lot about magic and is comfortable in her own skin). And happens after Sandrah lectures Valerie about her tendency to drink when she feels anxious and stressed. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Jan 21, 2021 |
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Jan 21, 2021 23:13
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As I said pacing and restraint are two concepts that are non-existent here. I wouldn't be too surprised if a spelljammer ship arrives because the captain heard about Sandrah and immediately fell in love with her and set sail.
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Jan 21, 2021 23:46
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Holy poo poo it's so full of bullshit! Vichan posted:All that being said I want to throw a question your way, are there any NPCs specifically that you want to see Sandrah interact with? Edwin kind of deserves all the crap you can throw at him so  Well, the bickering adventuring party was a reasonably enjoyable addition at least. Though perhaps it's just that i'm desperate for content that doesn't involve someone deciding to hijack the entire encounter...
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Jan 22, 2021 01:56
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Honestly this makes me interested in playing the whole shebang with just QoL mods. I haven't played this since the mid-aughts and I'm curious to see what Beamdog did with it.
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Jan 22, 2021 02:19
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I just found this LP and I already love it. Please continue it for as long as you are able! I haven't laughed like this in a long time. Before, I thought that Elminster was a self-insert of obnoxious proportions. Now, he looks like the very model of restraint. Magnificent.
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Jan 22, 2021 03:25
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Cythereal posted:Valerie also falls in love with Sandrah and sleeps with her, but that's par for the course for Sandrah (and also, I'm sad to say, in-character - Valerie absolutely would get run over by a beautiful, smart, charismatic woman who knows a lot about magic and is comfortable in her own skin). And happens after Sandrah lectures Valerie about her tendency to drink when she feels anxious and stressed. We just need to keep feeding the Beast with party members so it stays the hell away from us.
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Jan 22, 2021 03:36
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:We just need to keep feeding the Beast with party members so it stays the hell away from us. Honestly? Sandrah gives me predatory vibes. A feeling like she's very deliberately exploiting her physical beauty and overwhelming presence to prey on anyone even vaguely susceptible for her own use even if it's always nominally consensual. I don't think that's what Roxanne intends by any means, but that's the feeling I'm getting.
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Jan 22, 2021 03:51
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Cythereal posted:Honestly? Sandrah gives me predatory vibes. A feeling like she's very deliberately exploiting her physical beauty and overwhelming presence to prey on anyone even vaguely susceptible for her own use even if it's always nominally consensual. I get that from the "Hey, injured man, let me heal you with my vagina" exchange. Gave me the heebie-jeebies
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Jan 22, 2021 05:18
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The biggest crime to me is that you just know there's not going to be any character that gets one over on her. No jokes at her expense, no one pointing out how she screwed something up, nothing. She knows all. Hell, at this rate, she'll probably ruin the game's big twist in like 3 updates. Technically, I can't prove this for sure until the end of the series, but we all know.
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Jan 22, 2021 06:28
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I suppose this is a fairly obvious insight, but man this feels like the worst kind of poo poo I had to put up with when playing D&D in high school. The muthafucking DM PC or sometimes DM's Best Friend's/Girlfriend's PC. Better than you in every way, protected by the hand of god, with you there just to stroke their ego and watch the "awesome" happen. Just miserable. And unlike tabletop D&D, with this poo poo hardcoded, you can't even gently caress with them the way you could in face to face tabletop! Gives me hives just remembering it. But hey, at least you're going through it instead of me! Good luck and godspeed! We're all rooting for you! 
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Jan 22, 2021 06:40
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It's Baby's First Fanfiction, we all wrote deep-cringe poo poo like this at one point. But the stage where you're able to make a functional total conversion mod for a long and complicated game to float your story on is also the stage where you're more than old enough that you should have grown out of it.
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Jan 22, 2021 08:55
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Vichan posted:
You mean you don't share in their feelings of amazement and worship of Sandrah?
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Jan 22, 2021 10:16
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Chapter VII - You full hate, elfling? with the flamedance ring back to its rightful owner we head back to Beregost.  I want to be a dick to Garrick here but I don't want to risk Sandrah's wroth.  Neera is one of the few Enhanced Edition characters that Sandrah interacts with heavily...  ...I kicked her out of the party right after this, sending her packing to the Friendly Arm Inn. We'll get to her later. While going to the smithy to sell some stuff we run into yet another familiar face.  Still maintaining his sunny disposition, I see.   On second thought, let's let Breagar cool down a bit before talking to him. Shortly after this I killed some spiders for Landrin back at the Friendly Arm Inn which warranted yet another visit to the drat place. (Did I mention I suck at this game?) After entering the inn yet again...  They're really hitting it off, aren't they?  That's funny. I don't remember this being in the original game. Making a mental note to visit Landrin later on we decide to head for the Beregost temple.  I'm liking Jen'lig more and more. The journey to the temple turned out to be somewhat unnecessary. We did run into two mod NPCs however.    Both seem like good eggs. Gavin will definitely be joining our party somewhere along the line, Sirene I'm still not sure about. In the backroom of the Jovial Juggler we stumble on a weird sight.    On our first visit we also ran into Morwen and I completely forget to add it to my last post, she doesn't have content with Serah so eh. Time to make some actual progress again, Bassilus awaits!  She could've held off on giving it to us 'til the next game... ....right?  COULD YOU STOP loving EVERY OTHER SCREEN JESUS loving CHRIST  I love Bassilus  Drake is growing on me as well, got to admit. The resulting fight is trivialised by the skeletons not turning hostile quick enough.  Sandrah may talk the talk but we all know what would happen if Cyric joined our party.  It is with a heavy heart that I bid farewell to Drake here. Party slots are precious things and Drake hasn't interacted with Sandrah besides the initial conversation. ...What I'm trying to get at here is that Drake is too good for this LP. What a shame. While heading north to High Hedge we run into a talking chicken.  Garrick is very popular on Reddit.  Sandrah knows Melicamp? This warrants further investigation. To High Hedge!  The placement of the various areas is different, likely to be more accurate to their actual locations. A nice touch.  Permidion Stark is quite the name. Once inside High Hedge we take care of the flesh golems before talking to Thalantyr, the cantankerous conjurer.  God, I *love* how a character's personality traits melt like snow whenever Sandrah's around. We show Thalantyr the chicken and he quickly sets to work to restore him to his original form.  Let's be honest, did anyone not see this coming? Talking to Melicamp again yields...interesting results.  Yeah, we'll definitely run into him again. Skipping over Kivan entirely because I'm a loving idiot we run into another mod quest in Beregost.  Let's see what ails this po-  ...Oh.  Well said, Garrick.  Tulbor, huh? I'm pretty sure I saw him hanging out at one of the inns.  I really like Ascalon's questpack but they were in dire need of an editor.  Finally, thanks. (Choosing the cheaper option is extremely hazardous to Eltholth's health) Anyway, after giving him the potion...  Yay.  Think this conversation is almost over? Think again.  Christ, I thought it would never end. The companion interjections are leagues ahead of Sandrah's, at least. Anyway, time to correct my mistake and pick up Kivan post-haste.  Kivan's content in BG1NPC is quite something, let me tell you. I wonder how Sandrah will fit into the whole thing, though.  In vanilla BG1 Kivan clashes with a lot of NPCs because they talk too much. Just thought I'd throw that out there. Determined not to be outstaged Jen'lig also has stuff to say shortly afterwards.  Next time we'll finish up in Beregost (for now) so we can start to head to Nashkel. Vichan fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Nov 7, 2021 |
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Jan 22, 2021 13:18
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It's weird that none of the people trailing after Sandrah with their tongues hanging out, including the PC, have any sort of reaction to her ducking off camera to gently caress Garrick every five minutes. Surely the whole point of a Mary Sue is that everyone should be jealous and fighting over her/forming ever more convoluted love triangles that rapidly turn fractal?
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Jan 22, 2021 13:47
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She is too perfect for anyone to be jealous.
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Jan 22, 2021 13:52
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I've never played Baldrus'GAte. I'm purely here for the Black hole that is Sandrah and it's paying off.
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Jan 22, 2021 14:04
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Ah, Gavin. An innocuous enough NPC on the surface, and if you don't pry any deeper he'll remain just that. But there's some real  content beneath the surface if you care to go looking, and he's the first NPC we've met who will boink Imoen in BG2.To quote the author, happy people and healthy relationships are boring and unrealistic, and Gavin is not only her tabletop DnD character she'd played for twenty years, he's the husband she wishes she had. If I sound prejudiced against Gavin, it's probably because when I approached his modder about crossmod content with Valerie she went on a homophobic rant about gay people not existing in the Forgotten Realms and that Valerie would be considered a sexual deviant. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 14:46 on Jan 22, 2021 |
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Jan 22, 2021 14:14
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Isn't like 1/2 the lore of FR done by Ed Greenwood? I'm pretty sure that means that the default sexuality in this setting is "pansexual orgies".
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Jan 22, 2021 14:28
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It's always extra stupid when someone goes "this fantasy world filled with magic, dragons and sentient slime molds does not have gay people! "
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Jan 22, 2021 14:34
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 05:41 |
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Cythereal posted:To quote the author, happy people and healthy relationships are boring and unrealistic, and Gavin is not only her tabletop DnD character she'd played for twenty years, she's the husband she wishes she had.  Well that's a whole parade of red flags. Especially:By popular demand posted:It's always extra stupid when someone goes "this fantasy world filled with magic, dragons and sentient slime molds does not have gay people! " It's honestly a bit of a chilling thought that Sandrah probably isn't even close to the bottom of the barrel.
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Jan 22, 2021 14:39
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