I've been reading through the forums extensively (great community here, btw) and have a few things I'd like to get confirmation on before my friends put down their money. We'd like to play multi-player BG1 together as a weekly game-night a few hours at a time.

If we each create 1 player character, does the party leader control all the NPCs we pick up during game-play? I see how the host could assign more than one pre-generated/saved PC to a player when setting up the multi-player game, but how would you assign NPC control to the other players? (Do NPCs get saved as characters after they join the party or some such? That would explain a lot.)

I understand that the main protagonist is the first PC listed in the multi-player screen. Can you change which PC is the main protagonist between saves or sessions? Does it disrupt anything?

Similarly, can the person hosting change between sessions without disrupting quests or story line?

Small thing while we're at it: if we're picking up quests, do we all need to speak with the NPC in question? Just the leader? Or any one person in the party (with the highest charisma, for example)?

Finally, if there's anything you wished you knew about multi-player with a mix of NPCs and PCs, please feel free to spare us some pain going in. ;-)

Thank you in advance!

It has been a few years since I've done a multiplayer game, but I definately remember you cannot change which character is the protagaonist. At the beginning of the game you assign which NPC's are controlled by which players. You can also set player permissions, like the ability to initiate dialogue or purchase items. If you do allow the other players to initiate dialogue with NPCs the protagonist is still considered to be the character that is talking for quest related purposes.

As far as my advice, be very careful about what permissions you grant. You don't want your irresponsible friend blowing all of your money on himself for example.