So... This one time, in a BG2 Lan session we gathered together 6 adventurers stuffed in a tiny room surrounded by desktops and laptops. We each made a character and eventually managed to get ourselves to De'arnise Keep were our druid found a potion of firebreathing. After urging the party not to drink said potion he stowed it away safely and we continued on. Our rouge enjoyed using his pickpocket skill, and we all would occasionally "loose" parts of our equipment. Of course we all knew who was stealing them, not only from the satisfied remarks echoing from his characters voice set via his computer speakers, but he was also our only rouge. He'd return most things, laughing, and in all honesty its in his personality to cause chaos and it fit his character as well. But, he did not heed our druids warning and he managed to nic that potion of firebreathing. He cooed in awe, at his computer station, and without reading the description downed the thing. We then watched his portrait slowly fill with red, a pillar of fire spurting from his sprites head, and our curious sticky fingered friend died. After a good laugh we dragged him back to temple to resurrect him.
This was one of the best experiences I had on BG2 and it was MP. Yup, there were technical issues. But it was worth RPing with friends, enjoying and exploring the world with company. I don't think I'll be changing any hearts or minds here, but I come from a strong PnP background as do a lot of people on the forums. Although you can accomplish a lot more when your not distracted, alone in single player. The NPCs in BG2 are some of the most vibrant and fantastic characters ever created in my option. But I defiantly prefer to play with a party of my friends than with NPCs by myself. I guess it really depends on weather there are enough recourses to develop Lan capabilities without effecting the single player experience. But my fingers are crossed.