Me and my cousin were playin last night using tcp/ip, and then picked up again this morning. after about five minutes, i got booted (and me being the master, so did he). when we tried to start over, it wouldnt let him in. any ideas on how to fix?

First, know that I haven't played the game in multiplayer, nor I ever will as long as cheating is possible.
However, a certain person called Cirneth posted this info on BG2 multiplayer:
In order to play BG2 in multiplayer, you need to allow the game to use certain ports.

You need to open the following ports to both TCP and UDP protocols, permitting both inbound and outbound traffic:

For BG2: ports 2230-2400, and 47624
For Direct Play: ports 2234 and 47624

The program for BG2 is "BGMain.exe", found in the folder where BG2 was installed.

The program for Direct Play is "DPLAYSVR.EXE", and will probably be found in "C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\" or "C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\"

The procedure for allowing that access is different for each firewall/router, so if you don't know how to do it you should consult the accompanying documentation.I don't know if this info will help you, but at least it's a start.

No it didnt help, Extremist, but thanks for tryin'.

NWN has different ports. Check out http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/NWN/tech_faq.htm#1.03

This is only of use if you have a firewall though.

I doubt it's related to ports - it wouldn't work at all if things weren't set up correctly in that regard. You said you had two sessions... was everything ok in the first session, or did it suffer the same problem the second one did? When you say it wouldn't let your cousin back in, did you try rebooting one / both machines and starting again?

yes to both questions. :( we have no idea why it quit like that everything was fine the first night, and all was good the second day, too, until that happened.

So you'd had a connection working fine the night before, but now it doesn't work at all, and you've tried rebooting both machines...

Well, I can have a few of guesses:

1. A file is corrupt somewhere. Try starting a new game, and see if that works (rather than using your save). I doubt that will fix it, but it's worth a shot. Maybe check the modified date on any of your non-save files (maybe something is corrupted?)... or maybe even just reinstall the game.

2. Someone at your ISP decided to shut the ports you're using for some reason. This isn't all that likely, but it's a possibility.

3. Your network connection has just been playing up. Try again at some point. Check all your network settings... are all your other network services working correctly?

These are, as I said, all just guesses. It's a bit odd that it was working fine for an evening, and just refuses to work at all now. Does the rest of the game function normally? Does multiplayer (just locally, with your own characters) work ok? How about IPX across a LAN?