Sandrah Saga

[Gorionar]

This mod is a conversion and all attempts to make it part of a larger mega mod have failed.

Why conversion? Because the author of the mod changed the course of the main storyline. No alternate route.

Edited February 2, 2023 by Gorionar

[Thacobell]

20 hours ago, Frenzgyn said:

By the way, I read a bit of that let's play, I was really interested to know more, just out of curiosity, but I wasn't capable of read more thant a bunch of chapters. I need to ask a thing I don't have the moral strenght to search:

In that forum I see some detail about "Minsc being eated". What's that? Any one have the guts to elaborate further? I am a curious being

The thread took to calling Sandrah bedding npcs as devouring them. Since she is a black hole that sucks in all.

[Connelly]

More on point about Minsc, all the ways Sandrah interacts with him not only reads as a sexual predator grooming and ultimately abusing a child-like/disabled person (even worse, because that interpretation of Minsc is flanderized), but does so in a way that instead of raising red flags, it sounds nuke alarms. And with not a peep from Dynaheir (because again, Sandrah is Wonderfully Perfect No Notes). You can't understate that trash, when readers photoshoped that image of "Chronos devouring his children" with Sandrah's face and Boo's horror, it's not (only) for the giggles.

Shar-Teel being mind devoured into OOC, gleeful pregnancy, and yeeted to Sandrah's home at Waterdeep so she can be a proper mom without getting in the way of Charname's Sandrah's story is also quite something. Then again, Sandrah does the same to a bunch of vanilla NPCs, Shar-Teel is just the one she allows (forces?) Charname to have that kind of relation, or any at all.

Edited February 2, 2023 by Connelly

[Frenzgyn]

1 hour ago, Thacobell said:

The thread took to calling Sandrah bedding npcs as devouring them. Since she is a black hole that sucks in all.

LOL! Thank you! Ahaha, now I get it .  

 

51 minutes ago, Connelly said:

More on point about Minsc, all the ways Sandrah interacts with him not only reads as a sexual predator grooming and ultimately abusing a child-like/disabled person (even worse, because that interpretation of Minsc is flanderized), but does so in a way that instead of raising red flags, it sounds nuke alarms. And with not a peep from Dynaheir (because again, Sandrah is Wonderfully Perfect No Notes). You can't understate that trash, when readers photoshoped that image of "Chronos devouring his children" with Sandrah's face and Boo's horror, it's not (only) for the giggles.

Shar-Teel being mind devoured into OOC, gleeful pregnancy, and yeeted to Sandrah's home at Waterdeep so she can be a proper mom without getting in the way of Charname's Sandrah's story is also quite something. Then again, Sandrah does the same to a bunch of vanilla NPCs, Shar-Teel is just the one she allows (forces?) Charname to have that kind of relation, or any at all.

I skipped a lot (I just CAN'T read all that FFS.) but I was really perplexed exactly at that image of Chronos. Thanks for the detailed explanation. It's a lot to process and I think I will gladly stop here.

I am just over-pissed looking at the way she sistematically use assets and material from other authors mostly without permission and the efforts she puts in erasing references and links to websites that host official versions of the mods. Just a very few are properly forked version of the official repository. 
Don't get me wrong, I *knew* all the story (I read it on various forums etc), but looking at it directly lurking in the files or seing the thing in action in a let's play is weirder than I thought.

Now, I wanna just put a rock on the issue and forgot as much as I can.

 

 

Edited February 2, 2023 by Frenzgyn

[polytope]

On 2/2/2023 at 9:32 AM, Chronis said:

I have been playing around with ChatGPT today for the first time. It's pretty cool and can generate an essay on any random topic on the fly. I gave it the following input. The progress with AI really is incredible.

Input:

 "Write a review of the Sandrah's Saga Mod for Baldur's Gate."

Output:

Sandrah's Saga is a highly regarded mod for the classic RPG game Baldur's Gate, and it is easy to see why. The mod adds a brand new storyline that is both engaging and well-written, with a focus on well-developed characters and attention to detail...

Off topic, but this seems an interesting variant on the idea of a Turing Test, in that an AI, no matter how "smart" and erudite it seems lacks the human facility of taste.

If asked whether something is "good", the AI - since it cannot experience it - instead trawls for a consensus as to whether or not it is (probably, I'm no programmer, I'm unsure of the technical details of how it works). If the thing in question is heavily promoted/advertized/astroturfed by the owner or creator, then the AI will return a positive verdict on it, even when most people wouldn't. Maybe a reliable way to detect bots.

[Isewein]

Well, ChatGPT doesn't have access to the internet (yet), so it stands to reason that one particular page advertising Sandrah (likely Roxanne's own) was among the search results fed to it at its creation while continually evolving forum threads are not - otherwise it should well be able to portray the actual consensus on the mod's quality more accurately.

[Chronis]

On 2/1/2023 at 9:00 PM, Graion Dilach said:

adds username to "shouldn't bother supporting" list

And I promise to never ask for support so all remains well in the world no?

I used the mega mod tool to install some 100+ mods. I have not passed this way for a good decade or so so most of them I had never heard of. The tool installed them all fairly easily and the game started up ok which I thought was cool. Whether it will be buggy or not later I do not know. I was impressed by the ease of use and the quick ability to identify and install mods.

I have a lot of sympathy for mods with good ideas that go off the rails. 

Let me tell you a true story about a terrible Baldurs' Gate mod that I guarantee that none of you except maybe jastey have ever heard of.

A very long time ago some 15 years ago a very young Chronis had a mod idea. Wouldn't it be cool I thought if one could could make Kirinhale the succubus from Durlag's tower into a joinable NPC if you free her.

Kirinhale complains about being trapped in human form by magic. I found a cool succubus animation from an obscure game no one had ever heard of and figured out how to import the animation into Baldur's Gate. I also gave Kirinhale the ability to transform into this demon form once she escapes Durlag's tower. 

The demon form was powerful but using it would create problems. There was an increase chance that increasingly powerful demon hunters would randomly spawn and try to take out the party and the demon. The human form was safe but mostly useless. 

The mod had 2-3 banters with native bioware NPCs, About 15 in-game interjections and comments about various quests and AI alterations. Guards, Druids, Paladins and Good and Neutral Clerics will go hostile if they saw Kirinhale in demon form. It was also going to have a romance which would end very badly for the PC because romancing a succubus is just obviously not going to end well.

The mod was nearly done when I shared it with the only people who have ever seen it besides myself cmorgan, theacefes, and one or two other around here at the time. I was very proud of my handiwork.

So why have you never heard of this mod before? Well you see it had a fatal flaw. That obscure game I mentioned that no one had ever heard of. It turned out that I was mistaken about that. It was not obscure at all. In fact it was an underappreciated and amazing classic. I played it for the first time shortly after I finished the mod. That's when I realized that it had been an unintentional but horrifically bad idea to import Fall-from-Grace's animation and make her into Kirinhale.

Thus the mod disappeared into the dustbin of history never to be seen again and Chronis went on to create a slightly less terrible Civilization IV mod. 

It's easy to get caught up in the creative process and allow that creation to inappropriately trample over the greater overall work and creations that have have come before. I have fallen prey to that so I sympathize with the creator of the mod who made the same error I did on a much larger scale.

[Chronis]

On 1/30/2023 at 6:54 PM, Endarire said:

PS: Chronis, I like your staff!  It looks like a medical staff.

Yep good eye. When I set up this profile I was working towards  a career in the medical field and was interested in medical imagery. 

It's the Caduceus which is sometimes used as a symbol for medicine thought the Rod of Asciepius is more historically appropriate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caduceus

Edited February 3, 2023 by Chronis

[subtledoctor]

6 hours ago, polytope said:

Off topic, but this seems an interesting variant on the idea of a Turing Test, in that an AI, no matter how "smart" and erudite it seems lacks the human facility of taste.

If asked whether something is "good", the AI - since it cannot experience it - instead trawls for a consensus as to whether or not it is (probably, I'm no programmer, I'm unsure of the technical details of how it works). If the thing in question is heavily promoted/advertized/astroturfed by the owner or creator, then the AI will return a positive verdict on it, even when most people wouldn't. Maybe a reliable way to detect bots.

So on other words, the theory is that it's impossible to spoof good taste?

I like it.

[Endarire]

(Chronis, as an aside, I've heard that the Caduceus is a reference to the staff Moses lifted up in the desert, and that Christ mentioned Moses doing.  How true is that?)

[Thacobell]

19 hours ago, Endarire said:

(Chronis, as an aside, I've heard that the Caduceus is a reference to the staff Moses lifted up in the desert, and that Christ mentioned Moses doing.  How true is that?)

Probably depends on the context. There's a lot of similar iconography throught history and different cultures. Some of the oldest confirmed meanings include things like trade, liars, and alchemy or the god Mercury. The US adopted it as a symbol of medicine in the 19th or 20th(?) century. Hilariously mistakenly. The actual symbol that represents medicine is the Rod of Asclepius. Which has no wings and only a single serpent, as Chronis mentioned above.
Considering the culture of the US, I'd wager that its done as reference to the Bible story in that context. Not so much in other contexts.

[Hubkin]

Hi, i have a little problem, cant find Khattark the bandit inside Waterdeep seweres... do you have any advice how to fix it, or where else he could be?