Protagonist-Be-Gone! for BG2, BGT, Tutu, BGEE, BG2EE and EET

[argent77]

Protagonist Be Gone!

Download: Protagonist Be Gone! (latest)

In the tradition of "XXX-Be-Gone" mods I present to you Protagonist-Be-Gone! This mini mod removes the protagonist, so that Imoen can finally take her rightful place in the game. For that reason the mod provides a "slightly" modified start of the BG1 and BG2 parts of the game series.

The mod is compatible with original BG2, BGT, Tutu, BG:EE, BG2:EE and EET.

Spoiler

This mod is primarily meant as a joke, since many players complained in the past about Imoen being reduced to a side kick in Charname's adventures.

It was originally just one of many test mods that have piled up on my hard disk to experiment with various aspects of the game engine. I have decided to turn this one into a standalone mod and make it public.

The mod is *not* meant to be installed for a serious walkthrough.

BTW: I tried out an AI-based voice changing software and recorded a new line for Jon Irenicus in David Warner's voice that can be heard in the BG2 opening cutscene. Since I'm not a native English speaker and have never done this before I'm curious how it turned out.

Have fun with the mod!

Edited April 16, 2023 by argent77

[subtledoctor]

Wow I LOVE this idea!

EDIT - damn, I read the spoiler after posting that…

Edited April 1, 2023 by subtledoctor

[zelazko]

Love it! This way we can save a slot for mostly useless generic PC Charname. How does this mod affect mod concerning Imoen like Imoen Friendship/Romance Imoen4Ever or mods that add banter talks to Imoen like MazzyMegaMod?

Edited April 1, 2023 by zelazko

[argent77]

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

Wow I LOVE this idea!

EDIT - damn, I read the spoiler after posting that…

It is possible to replace the protagonist by someone else, even in the original games without TobEx. But whoever replaces the protagonist will be treated as the protagonist for the rest of the game (or until replaced by yet another character). It also means that the death of that character will trigger the "game over" sequence.

In my test runs with this mod it was Minsc most of the time, since (for some reason) the more obvious choice, Imoen, keeps her slot 2 status unless you save and reload before adding another character to the party.

[suy]

Quote

The mod is *not* meant to be installed for a serious walkthrough

In what way?

I assume that if you publish it, you are not expecting game breaking stuff (at a technical level), but is a lot of dialog seriously broken? Could it be fixed? I'm gonna be honest and admit that editing dialog seems very unrewarding work, so I'm not volunteering for doing it, but I think that making Imoen the protagonist is a great and original idea. I have never been able to play without her yet, so it's a nice way to explore more party compositions or seeing the role-playing in a different and interesting way.

[argent77]

3 minutes ago, suy said:

Quote

The mod is *not* meant to be installed for a serious walkthrough

In what way?

The original intent of the mod (back when it was just a test project) was to prove that the role of the protagonist is not set in stone. However, the whole scripting of the game doesn't make sense if someone else takes over that role, and would require a total makeover. Even the little bit of content in Chateau Irenicus required quite a bit of adjusting, and may still have some awkward dialogs under certain circumstances. From a technical standpoint it is doable, however.

Placing Imoen into the protagonist role is more tricky though, since you can't replace the Player1 slot directly. Removing Player1 results in an instant "Game Over". Matters are complicated if you also want to deal with the situation that the player creates a custom party of 6 characters.

[jmerry]

I've run a couple runs without the standard protagonist myself, and I have to say I approve of the concept here. Not that I'll likely ever play this mod; if I ever get an idea for a run like that again, I'll probably do it with console trickery and ad-hoc hacks.

Incidentally, BGEE and BG2EE handle things slightly differently if the protagonist is removed. BGEE gives an instant Game Over if you're ever unpaused without a player 1 in the party, while BG2EE allows you to play with no player 1 as long as you dodge the Game Over on that protagonist's removal.

My runs on a similar concept:

- "The Dukes Get Off Their Butts": Abdel dies in the ambush outside Candlekeep, and we pick up with Imoen as the Bhaalspawn and protagonist. She is joined by an absurdly overpowered party of Entar Silvershield, Belt, Liia, and Kelddath Ormlyr. After tearing through the main plot with very few detours (not even a visit to the gnoll fortress), I bring the run to an end with the defeat of Sarevok. That provides a neat endpoint for the characters; most of them go back to their jobs, while Imoen signs on as a mage apprentice with Liia. Without any real semblance of difficulty, I substituted roleplaying to keep things interesting.

- "Dorn It": A poor Sod heads out from Candlekeep, and gets murdered by a shady traveler he picked up near Nashkel. Now it's Dorn's story. And using his soul-stealing sword to do the deed had some unexpected consequences. Put together an evil party, slaughter all who stand in their way, and eventually bring down Sarevok himself. Then, catching wind of a plot against him, Dorn arranges for a Patsy to be captured instead. She meets up with him in Athkatla after escaping the strange dungeon, and then Dorn murders her too. Keep going from there, all the way to the final confrontation between two usurpers at the Throne of Bhaal. All hail the new Lord of Murder!

Some things broke in the Dorn run. For one thing, none of the dreams in SoA ever triggered; I had to console in access to Slayer Form after Spellhold (set a variable the dream would have, let the scripts grant the ability). And meeting Imoen for the first time ever in Spellhold does weird things to the narrative structure. But the worst of it were the cutscenes in Dorn's quest; most of those outright hang the game if Dorn is player 1. I had to create edited versions of them just for this playthrough, removing various ActionOverride("Dorn", do something) commands when they followed a CutSceneID(Player1). Dorn also talked to himself some, though thankfully I cut things off before the self-love could really get going in favor of romancing Anomen and Viconia.

[Endarire]

This is the technical wizardry we should expect from you, Argent, with the perfect timing of an April Fool's Day prank.

It reminds me of the FFIV Randomizer April Fools day prank I came from where all recruitable characters were Cid clones.

Does this mean that we can have a rotating cast of arcane casters who each casts find familiar?  What happens to these familiars if they're out and their master leaves the party?

(PS: Happy Pranksgiving today!)

Edited April 1, 2023 by Endarire

[argent77]

11 hours ago, Endarire said:

Does this mean that we can have a rotating cast of arcane casters who each casts find familiar?  What happens to these familiars if they're out and their master leaves the party?

Familiars are still hardcoded to the Player1 slot. However, you can switch the character in slot 1, and the familiar will happily accept that character as their new master.

[jmerry]

Returning a familiar to your pack that was summoned by someone else of a different alignment may have unexpected results; absent other mods that alter familiars, if the summoner and the new master have different alignments on the law/chaos axis, you'll get a different familiar in the pack than what was actually out. And then, if you try to bring it out again, the familiar will vanish into nothingness. No inventory slots taken, no familiar that can do things, but the bonus hit points are still there and you can't summon a new familiar.

Edited April 2, 2023 by jmerry

[zelazko]

@argent77 are there plans/(is it even feasible) to allow whoever is the leader of the party = npc with the top portrait - to be considered protagonist bhaalspawn? That way frequent switching of the party leader would allow fleshing out banters of the npc and not locking them out from using their default conversations, reactions and banters.

[argent77]

38 minutes ago, zelazko said:

@argent77 are there plans/(is it even feasible) to allow whoever is the leader of the party = npc with the top portrait - to be considered protagonist bhaalspawn? That way frequent switching of the party leader would allow fleshing out banters of the npc and not locking them out from using their default conversations, reactions and banters.

It would work only partially, and even then only after making many adjustments to the game. The game engine distinguishes between internal party order and party slot order (as shown in the UI). It is possible to target the character in the first party slot in scripts, but other features (such as tokens) are hardcoded to use the first position within the internal party order.

To make matters even more complicated, party slots are updated lazily by the engine. If you remove or exchange the protagonist then the vacant or replaced party slot (internal order) is only updated after a save and reload.

[jmerry]

argent77 already answered about the main issue there.

As for NPC interactions? Those mostly work even if one of the NPCs is player 1. You see, most of the protagonist's dialogue doesn't come from their own dialogue file; when a character outside the party talks with a party member, that's in their dialogue file and the replies that you get to choose are from the protagonist's perspective by convention. Though they're technically attributed to whichever character is being talked to. And yes, characters can talk to themselves without a problem. In my playthrough with Dorn as protagonist, I had to have him deliberately turn himself down to avoid a self-romance. (He romanced Anomen and Viconia instead)

There is a "PLAYER1.DLG" file in the game. It's used very sparingly, generally only for internal narration tied to the Bhaalspawn plot. This is done using the StartDialog action, as in this snippet from BG2's AR1514.BCS where you first transform back from being the Slayer: 

IF
	GlobalTimerExpired("SlayerTimer","GLOBAL")
	Global("AsylumPlot","GLOBAL",43)
THEN
	RESPONSE #100
		ClearAllActions()
		ActionOverride(Player1,ReallyForceSpellRES("spin718a",Myself))  // End Slayer Change
		Wait(1)
		SetGlobal("AsylumPlot","GLOBAL",44)
		ActionOverride(Player1,StartDialog("player1",Player1))
END

That action temporarily sets the protagonist's dialogue file to player1; if they're a recruitable NPC, the change will last until you load a save and the NPC's normal dialogue file reasserts itself. This can cause some interactions to go weird, like the conversation when you first enter Hell after beating Irenicus on the Tree of Life. Everyone has something to say ... but when you come around to whichever NPC is in the player 1 slot, they have the wrong dialogue file. The transition is unable to reach its target, and the conversation ends abruptly. Then, if you don't load a save while you're in Hell, it gets worse at the final fight. The pre-battle trash-talking cuts off abruptly at that NPC's line, the next cutscene doesn't happen, and the fight breaks completely. Irenicus stands there doing nothing, immortal. Nothing you can do but reload.

[argent77]

New version available: Protagonist-Be-Gone! v1.1

Changelog:

• Added Russian translation (thanks yota13)

[argent77]

New version available: Protagonist-Be-Gone! v1.2

Changelog:

• Added French translation (thanks JohnBob)