Does anybody else make full custom parties for schizophrenic role playing?

[Bionick]

I don’t mean role playing as a schizophrenic character (though if you do, that is neat). I mean roleplay interactions and conversations in your own head.

 

I feel like most people who make full custom parties do so to fine tune their party synergy. I’m the opposite. I often make decidedly unoptimized compositions just for role playing reasons, such as my 6 bard troupe in Icewind Dale or my werewolf pack in Baldur’s Gate 2. I even make full custom parties in games that require jumping through hoops to do so, such as Dragon’s Dogma or Divinity: OS2. I never miss having any NPCs, because I really like making characters, including imaging their backstories, relationships, and even party banter.

 

So, for example, I have one party planned for Deadfire which will be 5 Pale Elf Ciphers from the White that Wends and all with the mystic background. The Watcher will be an Oracle (Cipher + Lifegiver Druid) and the rest will be her order of psychically linked bodyguard disciples. None will have any voices for barks, as they only talk to each other in their minds.

 

My favorite character in PoE1 was an explorer and disillusioned former conquistador and what remained of his crew of pirate/raiders. His backstory fits the setting of Deadfire really well, so I am excited about bringing them back (even though I had to decide which of them was getting the axe due to the smaller party limit).

 

So does anybody else do anything similar, or am I just as weird as I suspect?

[Lord_Mord]

I did both. But that was in the BG days. One of my favourite characters was a schizophrenic bard with a Blixa Bargeld - voice set, that I created from audiobooks and Hornbach-campains. I put it up for download on the BG-forums, but noone seemed interested. Maybe because it was half english half german. "Ich will in meinen Adern wohnen."

I often made gimmicky custom made groups, like wizard or dwarf groups. Once I made a full playthrough with a group of Jan Jansens all with the same voice set. That was a whole lot of fun as they could create duplicates of themselves, so I had an army of Jans. It was awfully overpowered. But roleplaying was reduced to: What would a group of Jan Jansens do? I think, if I imagined the conversations, I would have gone nuts.

 

I never really imagine conversations. More like an abstract interaction like a vague script for a movie. Don't know if that counts.

[Wormerine]

Rarely to that point, never with customs characters.

 

I find it difficult to project personality on an unspecified character. I need a something to start with. BG is effective as the little characterisation companions is very evocative, helping in shaping situation and attitudes in my head. Do I imagine them talking to each other? No, but every once in a while stories will evolve, supported by small character reactivity (like Minsc yelling when Aerie gets low on health and rushing in defence).

 

To support that with player made characters I would need a wider range of tools to define my characters. XCOM2 does it pretty well, via amount of cosmetics available. Icewind Dale 2 did it a bit by giving each character unique dialogues based on their stats, class, race.

[Sedrefilos]

I never do it in games with main protagonist. I'd like to see some day (soon), though, a dungeon crawler a-la Icewind Dale with custom party. 

Edited March 16, 2018 by Sedrefilos

[jf8350143]

They should let you write a small paragraph to describe you character, and any character you create for you team, like in XCOM 2. It won't have any influence on the game play but it will helping a lot for players who like to create a team of their own adventurers.

[Sedrefilos]

I tried to do so in Pillars as a second playthrough. I made a team of fantasy all-star heroes but it just didn't do it for me. There was always a main protagonist and the rest were just there watching in apathy.

 

In a game like Icewind Dale or Temple of Elemental Evil it could be better if dialogues options are shared among the party. So one time the guy with high persuation will talk, next time you can choose your paladin to talk because a special paladin dialogue option pops out etc. It can work (if the devs want to make it work ) and I'd like to see that (in a different game than Deadfire).

Edited March 16, 2018 by Sedrefilos

[Messier-31]

In a game like Icewind Dale or Temple of Elemental Evil it could be better if dialogues options are shared among the party. So one time the guy with high persuation will talk, next time you can choose your paladin to talk because a special paladin dialogue option pops out etc. It can work (if the devs want to make it work ) and I'd like to see that (in a different game than Deadfire).

 

Yes, like in Icewind Dale II.

 

The ghost in Targos can be banished by a priest.

The ruse with the witch and children can be exposed by a paladin.

Edited March 16, 2018 by Messier-31

[Wormerine]

Sure, but UI could support that - like in Wasteland2 or scripted interactions of Deadfire - choose nearby party members without leaving conversation and initiating a new one with different character. I did love that aspect of Icewind Dale2. I was pleasantly surprised by it.

[Sedrefilos]

 

In a game like Icewind Dale or Temple of Elemental Evil it could be better if dialogues options are shared among the party. So one time the guy with high persuation will talk, next time you can choose your paladin to talk because a special paladin dialogue option pops out etc. It can work (if the devs want to make it work ) and I'd like to see that (in a different game than Deadfire).

 

Yes, like in Icewind Dale II.

 

The ghost in Targos can be banished by a priest.

The ruse with the witch and children can be exposed by a paladin.

 

Yes like that. Wasteland 2 was somewhat like that. It's good to have once in a while a rpg of that kind. Removes the burden of creating a ton of deep companions and helps spread the main protagonist reactivity with npcs and the world among an entire party and can give you the feel of having a self-defined party AND roleplaying as one at the same time.

Of course I usually prefer the main protagonist with the deep companions approach but I'd love if these pop up at a ratio of, say,  3 to 1.

Edited March 16, 2018 by Sedrefilos

[Madscientist]

I play games mostly for story and exploration. I will always use the companions I find in the game and I never created hirelings in any RPG.The interaction between the main char and party members and between party members among each other is very importent for me. I will never play BG without Minsc, PST without Morte, PoE without Eder and so on. The game would only be half as much fun without them.

 

I have never finished IWD1. Not because it was to difficult, but because it became too boring. Tons of fighting but little story or party interactions. I own IWD2 but I have never started it and I have never bought a pure dungeon crawler ever since then.

 

If I make a full party myself it will be a classical optimized party (fighter, thief, priest, mage, not neccessarily those classes but the roles they have in the game).

I finished BG1 with a self made party once because the companion interactions in Bg1 are really small, but I could never get myself to do it in BG2.

I enjoyed playing NWN2 SoZ with a full self made party. They were 4 chars with different classes, alighnment, skills and so on so I could always do something useful when interacting with people, enemies or objects. But they had no personality. it was just power gaming to get the maximum amount of interactions with others (instead of the usual powergaming for max combat power).

[SonicMage117]

When I first read this, I read "Does anybody else make full custom panties"...

 

But to answer your question, I do not. Though I would love to, I'm afrad time and energy are not available as they once were. I wish, as it seems it would semi-enhance the gameplay of any rpg like this.

[jf8350143]

I think creating your own teammates works better with the kind of dialogue system in DoS 2, where they only describe what you say in general, but not the specific sentence you say; and you can choose one of your teammates to start a certain conversation and NPC will react differently based on which one you choose.

 

Combine that with DoS 1's personality system, you can very likely play a whole team of newly created characters who can actually interact with each other to a new level. 

 

I hope they could do something like this in the sequel.

[Osvir]

I did kind of for IWD & BG, but I got help from somw friends. They made one character each, and even wrote the Bio for them.

I found IWD & BG thinking it was a local Co-Op game xD but I was wrong. So we were a bit bummed after we started, but I continued on.

That's why "kind of" because the characters were my friends creations.

I usually make custom parties around a "theme" and in optimazation sequences I imagine their personalities during character creation, but not so much during play.

Edited March 16, 2018 by Osvir

[Elkor_Alish]

I've been guilty of this, though lately roleplaying opportunities are becoming rarer. I like to conscript characters from books I've loved (usually all from the same book) and sort of treat that game like a continuation if it shares enough similarity.

 

It seems as though a lot of contemporary developers like to dictate the experience they want players to have, and most characters in RPGs are already more defined than I would prefer. Like in Fallout 4. I could name my character Rick Deckard, I could make him look reasonably like a young Harrison Ford. I could run around in with a trenchcoat, fedora, and pistol (edit: I even restricted myself to only taking perks which suggested he was a replicant and not really human at all, running around with a skinjob Curie). I could adopt a combat and quest play style sort of reflective of his general personality. . .But then every dialogue exchange and cinematic would just ruin the illusion (especially how every choice was 1.) I will do this 2.) I will do this 3.) I will do this, or; 4.) I will do this later. . .and then that terrible voice)

Edited March 16, 2018 by Elkor_Alish

[Bionick]

I've been guilty of this, though lately roleplaying opportunities are becoming rarer. I like to conscript characters from books I've loved (usually all from the same book) and sort of treat that game like a continuation if it shares enough similarity.

 

It seems as though a lot of contemporary developers like to dictate the experience they want players to have, and most characters in RPGs are already more defined than I would prefer. Like in Fallout 4. I could name my character Rick Deckard, I could make him look reasonably like a young Harrison Ford. I could run around in with a trenchcoat, fedora, and pistol (edit: I even restricted myself to only taking perks which suggested he was a replicant and not really human at all, running around with a skinjob Curie). I could adopt a combat and quest play style sort of reflective of his general personality. . .But then every dialogue exchange and cinematic would just ruin the illusion (especially how every choice was 1.) I will do this 2.) I will do this 3.) I will do this, or; 4.) I will do this later. . .and then that terrible voice)

Well, Fallout 4 was pretty terrible for role playing in general. The incongruity between how my character acted and everything he said was pretty jarring. I feel that voiced main characters only works really well if I am playing a predefined character, like Adam Jensen or the Nameless One. If I’m allowed to make my own character, voicing him or her never really works out. This is one of the reasons I have never been able to play the last Dragon Age.

[Clawdius_Talonious]

Sometimes I do, once I've fully explored the companion characters in a game like this. I recreated my D&D party as best as possible in Pillars for an early playthrough. The companions are often the most memorable and enjoyable part of a game of this nature, but after I have fully explored most or all of the conversation options with them, companions are more about combat strategies. I don't tend to invest most of the characters with personalities, although with my D&D party I did try to imagine how we might deal with events and afterward I felt like I preferred our Halfling as an Orlan.

Edited March 17, 2018 by Clawdius_Talonious

[Archaven]

custom characters are boring for me. but it's really great if we have another spin off pillars game ala icewind dale style that solely focuses on combat. that makes more sense for a full custom party.

[Yosharian]

I've been guilty of this, though lately roleplaying opportunities are becoming rarer. I like to conscript characters from books I've loved (usually all from the same book) and sort of treat that game like a continuation if it shares enough similarity.

 

It seems as though a lot of contemporary developers like to dictate the experience they want players to have, and most characters in RPGs are already more defined than I would prefer. Like in Fallout 4. I could name my character Rick Deckard, I could make him look reasonably like a young Harrison Ford. I could run around in with a trenchcoat, fedora, and pistol (edit: I even restricted myself to only taking perks which suggested he was a replicant and not really human at all, running around with a skinjob Curie). I could adopt a combat and quest play style sort of reflective of his general personality. . .But then every dialogue exchange and cinematic would just ruin the illusion (especially how every choice was 1.) I will do this 2.) I will do this 3.) I will do this, or; 4.) I will do this later. . .and then that terrible voice)

Mods can fix this entirely

[Hybridsalmon]

No. In most games custom-made companions serve as nothing more than soulless mercenaries. I find it hard to imagine a character while the game decides to treat those companions as practicaly non-existant. They don't have any dialogue, they're just.. there. I don't have that much imagination unfortunately. DOS did it pretty well though. You'd miss out on some great dialogue and quests if you don't choose the pre-made companions but the custom-made companions were actually acting like companions.

Edited March 18, 2018 by Hybridsalmon

[algroth]

I did both. But that was in the BG days. One of my favourite characters was a schizophrenic bard with a Blixa Bargeld - voice set, that I created from audiobooks and Hornbach-campains. I put it up for download on the BG-forums, but noone seemed interested. Maybe because it was half english half german. "Ich will in meinen Adern wohnen."

 

Did he swing his melee weapons while screaming "fütter mein ego"?

Edited March 18, 2018 by algroth

[Lord_Mord]

 

Did he swing his melee weapons while screaming "fütter mein ego"?

 

Good idea. But he actually said "Mach die Beine auf Mama" (Open the legs mama), "Was geht mich deine Leiche an?" (What do I care for your corpse?) and "Yippi ya ya, yippi yippi yeah!" I didn't use parts of songs, as I didn't want music in there. I wanted it to sound like a real voice set. I was very proud of it back then. Mainly I built the character around quotes from "The Hamlet machine". "Ich war Hamlet" (I was Hamlet), "Mein Gehirn ist eine Narbe" (My brain is a scar) and such kind of stuff. He was a mysogenist psychopath with the secret desire to become woman himself. So he was kind of destined to find that short sword that had bonuses against women.

 

I just checked, the soundset isn't online anymore. I'll put it back.

 

Now I'm nostalgic

[algroth]

 

 

Did he swing his melee weapons while screaming "fütter mein ego"?

 

Good idea. But he actually said "Mach die Beine auf Mama" (Open the legs mama), "Was geht mich deine Leiche an?" (What do I care for your corpse?) and "Yippi ya ya, yippi yippi yeah!" I didn't use parts of songs, as I didn't want music in there. I wanted it to sound like a real voice set. I was very proud of it back then. Mainly I built the character around quotes from "The Hamlet machine". "Ich war Hamlet" (I was Hamlet), "Mein Gehirn ist eine Narbe" (My brain is a scar) and such kind of stuff. He was a mysogenist psychopath with the secret desire to become woman himself. So he was kind of destined to find that short sword that had bonuses against women.

 

I just checked, the soundset isn't online anymore. I'll put it back.

 

Now I'm nostalgic

 

I don't recall that short sword. I do recall that cursed girdle though...

 

Sounds like an interesting character all in all.

Edited March 18, 2018 by algroth

[Lord_Mord]

 

 

I don't recall that short sword. I do recall that cursed girdle though...

 

My fault. It probably was a mod. The White Queen, I think. My game was almost always so heavily modded that I can't recall for shure.

[IndiraLightfoot]

If I do! Making schizophrenic custom made parties is my long and cumbersome middle name. I love doing that. I always have, even when I started out playing PnP RPGs a long time ago. 

[Bionick]

If I do! Making schizophrenic custom made parties is my long and cumbersome middle name. I love doing that. I always have, even when I started out playing PnP RPGs a long time ago.

Hello previously unknown RPG tendencies internet soulmate!

 

Growing my PnP group always played two characters each (so the DM wouldn’t feel bad about killing off characters). I just remembered that and realized that this is probably why I am so used to role playing multiple characters simultaneously and imagining their elaborate interpersonal relationships. Like that between my scoundrel, perpetually drunken, recalcitrant fighter/cleric, Mittens Murderfists, and his constantly exasperated partner-in-crime, thief-with-a-heart-of-gold, Friar.

Edited March 19, 2018 by Bionick