BG3 – Playthroughs and fanfic

A picture with a blue border around it is a link. Click on it to learn more. Or forget less.

This may be one of those posts that’s of interest only to me. I’ll try to make it worth the reading anyway, for the pictures if for nothing else.

In my previous Baldur’s Gate 3 post, I mentioned it was a spin-off from a long post on my approach to Virtual Photography. This post is another “prequel spin-off” from the as-yet-unfinished VP post.

As I put together the VP post, I become aware of how my playthroughs, my fanfic, and my VP all tie together. This post separates out the playthrough and fanfic parts of that connection. It explains how Virtual Photography fits into why and how I currently play BG3.

Playthrough 8

The connection begins with the “awakening” of Arctic Druid Angela, the Hero Hireling, in my fevered fanfic brain.

In my playthrough 8, part of the plot of my first piece of BG3 fanfic was how Druid Angela didn’t get recognition for what she did. The real-world motivation for that plot point was that I wanted to get screenshots of her at key moments of the story, only the game wouldn’t let me.

Real Angela and I even cooperated on a special playthrough 8′ forked from my playthrough 8 to gain recognition for Druid Angela. We failed.

Playthrough 15

The unique thing about my playthrough 15 is that my goals for the playthrough changed with time.

The overarching goals of my sequence of playthroughs has been to explore different aspects of the BG3 story. One branch of the story that I had not yet explored was to play the Dark Urge, embracing the path of murder throughout the adventure.

At the start, I asked myself, “What if Druid Angela became filled with rage at her lack of recognition? What if that led her to become an unrepentant killer?”

You might think the name “Drangela” is some sort of portmanteau of “Dark Urge Angela.” If you guessed that, nope! “Drangela” is a rarely-used nickname for Real Angela.

Some years ago, there were two people named Angela at a gaming party. One was Real Angela; this was before BG3, and that nickname did not yet exist. Since Real Angela had a doctorate, she made the suggestion that she be called Dr. Angela to distinguish herself from the Other Angela.

A couple of us got to talking. There’s a reference somewhere of Dracula referring to himself as “Dr. Acula.” What if “Dr. Angela” was actually the dreaded Vampire Queen Drangela? It made sense, since she attended our gaming events in Goth dress.

She became known as Drangela. Only those people who attended those gaming events might remember that nickname, and then that memory faded as most of them moved to different parts of the country. Only three or four people remember it, and I’m the only one who uses it consistently.

You might think that Drangela and Druid Angela look the same. They’re completely different.

Druid Angela has a Woven Razors tattoo, with the color Sand, faded to 40% intensity. Her hair is Black Neutral, the darkest possible in a game without mods. Her eyes are the gray of Wisdom.

Drangela has no tattoo, at least not right now. Her hair is darker than Druid Angela’s, thanks to a mod. Her eyes are the bright blue of Madness.

I continued on playthrough 15 for a while, mentally composing fanfic in this vein, taking screenshots along the way. Then a couple of other playthroughs changed my perspective.

Trophies

I planned to start playthrough 15 in Tactician difficulty. Real Angela had started doing that in her playthrough 2, and I wanted to experience it for myself.

She reported that (at least initially) she found it very difficult. I added some mods to the start of my playthrough 15 to make things easier for me. Remember, Real Angela is a better gamer than I am. If she found things hard, I wasn’t sure I could handle it. I felt I needed the boost, at least my first time through.

She started on her playthrough 3, which also had a Dark Urge character embracing murder.

I’m vague on the timing, so I’ll make it explicit: Real Angela started using Tactician difficulty and embarked on the Evil Dark Urge path before I did. Her experience informed mine, not the other way around. I’ll also clarify that were playing independently at this point, in separate playthroughs.

She wanted a somewhat more challenging experience, so she added the Extra Encounters mod. I decided to add it too, following her lead.

She found the extra encounters to be quite challenging. Me? I didn’t find them difficult at all. For me, they just interfered with the story.

There was one moment in which Astarion, sneaking around by himself, found an overwhelming group of extra monsters that I did not anticipate. He defeated them all by himself. I admit that was an exhilarating moment. Otherwise, I felt these encounters just got in the way.

Chacun à son goût.

The relevant part of this tale is that playthrough 15 used mods. When I became interested in trophies, I couldn’t use playthrough 15.

In particular, one of the trophies involved completing the game in Tactician difficulty, and another required completing the game as an evil Dark Urge. As I recount in the complete playthrough 3′ post, I got the latter (and at least one other) by restoring an old game save from my playthrough 3.

At least some of my incentive to complete that playthrough was gone. In playthrough 3′, I’d already accomplished one of my major story goals: to see the full ending(s) possible for the evil Dark Urge.

That was fine, but I felt I’d have to “step up” my playthrough 15 fanfic. It turned out that fanfic would provide me with a renewed sense of interest in playthrough 15… and a new reason for delays.

Baldur’s Gate 2

I played Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 as Druid Angela, because why not? Then I got to the part of the story that recontextualized what Dark Urge Drangela was.

For me, this was a much more compelling origin for Dark Urge Drangela than the simple “She’s angry because she couldn’t get her picture taken.” It opened a new door to Druid Angela’s story, which I included one of my fanfic pieces. I’m going to continue that storyline in the future.

Shifting goals

I was going through playthrough 15 at the same time I was going through my playthroughs 8’/2.5 and 2/14.5 with Real Angela, and playthrough 3′ on my own. The fanfic stories for playthrough 15 simmered in my imagination.

Months went by, and I didn’t return to playthrough 15. The reason? Photographs.

While I’d taken pictures during the early days I was in playthrough 15, they were in support of both fanfic and a style that I’m no longer satisfied with. Consider this image, which I’ve now rejected:

What is that? What’s it supposed to be? That picture was intended to sustain an entire story on its own. Now that I’ve shifted to pictorials (more on than in the VP post), that single image seems inadequate.

Also, its composition is bad. I almost reached out to an ex, who’d been involved in BDSM photography, for tips.

By working on the fanfic for the “You too can be Arctic Druid Angela” series, I learned a few things. My presentation of alternating paragraphs with screen captures, which you see throughout this very essay, was no longer sufficient for my fiction. I felt that I could tell a better story now, and with better pictures.

Everything is relative, of course. I don’t claim my stories are great or my pictures are high art. I only say that they’re better now.

There were also technical issues. Some of my earlier playthrough 15 game saves were lost to disk limitations on a PS5. Accessing the saves stored on my Mac had its own issues.

I decided on a different approach.

Playthrough 16

Before I get to the “different approach,” as long as I’m listing unfinished playthroughs, I’ll include playthough 1/16. This is my shared playthrough with Actual Sabrina. It’s progressing as she finds time to indulge in gaming.

Playthrough 17

I decided that I’d start a new playthrough, 17, even though I hadn’t finished 15 yet. The goals of this playthrough were:

• No mods, which meant I could earn the remaining trophies I hadn’t been able to gain in previous playthroughs.
• One of those trophies was to complete BG3 in Tactician difficulty from beginning to end. Unlike before, my playthrough 15 experience told me that I could do it.
• I wanted to “set the stages” for photography that I couldn’t easily replicate from playthrough 15. I could build hireling characters that looked the same as those in 15

That’s the “real” reason Druid Angela shows up in the playthrough 17 fanfic. I knew I’d need her in the pictures I planned to take.

That’s not quite the truth. To get both The Chronicler and Druid Angela on the nautiloid, I asked Actual Sabrina to join me in a game I saved when he was on it. She followed my instructions to create a Druid Angela character. After Actual Sabrina left, I had a save game in which I could move and position both characters, in a way not possible in a single-player game. Thanks, Sabrina!

I progressed in playthrough 17, identifying and saving critical moments for photography. And then…

Playthrough 18

I wrote a post on Dice Checks.

As part of that article, I needed screenshots of character creation. I chose to start a new game to create Druid Angela for the images. Again, why not?

Then I had a game in which Druid Angela was at the start of an adventure. Why not continue?

In fact, I’d planned an Arctic Druid Angela “solo” playthrough for some time. Why not do that now?

One thing led to another.

I completed playthrough 18 as a “solo” Tactician playthrough with Druid Angela.

I put “solo” in quotes because it wasn’t a true solo, with only Druid Angela as part of the adventure. Eglantine, Wings, and Karma were also in the party. They stayed behind in camp (when the game permitted it) and never participated in combat. Sometimes they gulped down Invisibility Potions to keep the enemy from attacking them.

However, they did cast buffs on Druid Angela that required Concentration, such as Protection from Evil and Good. This meant that in addition to the usual Protector buffs that I’ve become accustomed to, Druid Angela had other bonuses.

Any of the YouTubers who regularly post solo runs, such as Morgana Evelyn, would laugh at this. It’s nowhere close to what they do. (They also do solo Honor mode runs, which I haven’t contemplated yet.)

So I completed my playthrough 18 before I completed my playthrough 17. I got the trophies I sought:

Playthrough 19/10

To complete my list of unfinished playthroughs: playthrough 19/10 is an Honor Mode run that’s shared between me and Real Angela. It’s my 19th playthrough and her 10th.

We’re not using mods, so I can get credit for the trophy on my PS5.

Back to the fanfic

If you’ve been keeping track…

I’ve published a five-part fanfic series on playthrough 17. But I finished 18 first. What’s happening?

Fanfic. As I played 18, more stories came to me, both for playthrough 17 and 18. I have game saves for both, to accomplish my original purpose of providing stages for playthrough 15. But I found I had separate stories derived from each of those playthroughs.

I completed playthrough 17. It was easy after “solo”-ing playthrough 18. The photography associated with playthrough 17’s fanfic was simpler, so I prepared those pictorials first. I made appropriate excuses in playthrough 17’s first story, and hinted at the eventual playthrough 18 fanfic in the last playthrough 17 post.

My next set of fanfic posts will come from playthrough 18. There are two somewhat complex sequences I have yet to stage and photograph for the story.

Then I’ll bite the bullet and start on the playthrough 15 photography.

Due to the complexity of how playthrough 15’s story has built up in my head, it will be the biggest fanfic project I’ll create.

After that?

From a BG3 story perspective, there’s two storylines that I haven’t seen. After reviewing my BG3 log, Real Angela pointed them out to me:

• Romance Dark Shadowheart; that is, Shadowheart sticks to the assignment and loyalties she has at the start of the game.

  

• Romance Light Astarion; that is, convince Astarion to give up the goals he has at the start of the game and choose a harder path, at least for him.

  

Real Angela has done both. She tells me that the storylines are different from what I’ve experienced.

She’s also heard about something special when the evil Dark Urge romances Astarion. Perhaps I’ll look at that someday.

Will there be fanfic associated with those playthroughs?

All I can say is: I don’t know. Inspiration, even derivative fanfic inspiration, strikes where it will.