Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Why is Tav the least interesting character?

Roleplaying "their way" is meaningful (and satisfying) only when companions, NPCs, and the world respond specifically to your roleplaying.

I agree with some of the folks here in favor of blank slate Tav because of one reason: there's no way to accommodate for all of the possible backstories people can come up with. There's always going to be someone that feels like none of the possible backgrounds fit their characters.

Also take into account that not everyone starts the game with a backstory for their Tav, some people like, myself, like to discover their characters as the game progresses. Perhaps some of the reactions, check results or how some situations are resolved end up influencing how you see and play your character. You may end up with something totally unexpected.

There is one custom character with a backstory and it's the Dark Urge, they have their own quest with branches and decisions. Some people will like it, some don't, and that's okay.

We have to remember that a videogame will always be more limited than our imagination.

But as so many of us keep pointing out, you don't need to have any backstory to still have reactivity of the "blank slate" player character to the other characters and world around them. Many other RPGs have already very successfully done exactly this without any controversy or problem.

Using the conceit of the BG3 story, what would you have changed to allow us to play our version of Tav without having him or her be a blank slate?

And what exactly does that ADD to a story centric TAV ? What do you roleplay? This isnt a sandbox game or MMO. Its a STORY DRIVEN game. The story is set in stone.

Your class? (this can be done with a story TAV)
Your dialogues? (this can be done with a story TAV)
Quests? (this can be done with a story TAV)
Do you write a biography of your TAV? (this can be done with a story TAV)

There is ZERO downside of having a story TAV to your roleplaying imagination. This has been proven by dozens of RPG games in the last 35 years similar to BG3.

There is however a downside of NOT having a story TAV. You get a hollow tree trunk like what we have now.

For starters, it could just have been exactly like it was in the original BG games, made 23 years ago. Charname was a blank slate, and yet was central to the story of those games. That's all I am asking for, though after 23 years surely Larian could've come up with even more than that. But if it had been just like how Charname was done in the original games, that itself would've made me so much more happy with BG3.

Let's say I want to play an apprentice red wizard who was forced to flee my master and now I've just arrived on the Sword Coast ready for adventure.

Then I start the game and learn that I'm an orphan at Candlekeep. It's only a blank slate within certain confines.

It seems that the "blank slate" character typically has to be an orphan or absent memory. That way a background can be snuck in to make the character relevant to the plot.

And, as far as I can tell, that's exactly what was done with the Dark Urge.

I'm not trying to prove I'm right or anything. I can tell that some folks are searching for something else; I'm just trying to understand what that something else is.

I feel like a lot of it comes down to "Larian could have figured out something that I would have liked more, but I'm not sure what that is." Again, I'm just trying to understand. I say that with all sincerity, not in an attempt to be rude.

I find myself wondering how much the presence of the origin system itself is causing this feeling in players, myself included. As in, I wonder how many people would feel different if nothing else about the writing changed but we just did not have the origin system in place. I have a feeling that part of the issue for people who feel the way I do is that through the origin system we're able to actually see how replacable Tav is. Same with Dark urge. We KNOW that if Tav didn't exist, then Wyll or Gale or Karlach etc could fill that role and nothing would be different, which just makes clear how secondary Tav really is.

As for what I would have done differently, I'd have tied Tav specifically to the story more by having them specifically encounter something early on that cements them as a central figure in the story. Maybe having them get the astral prism and making that a little more significant early on. Perhaps the prism is explicitly what allows us to keep our minds right from the beginning? So literally we are thralls until we somehow come cross the prism and that frees us and allows us to free our companions. So swe see immediatly see that the prism is important and that us having it and being able to wield it is important. So yes technically anyone could have gotten the prism and been in our position, but Tav was still in the right place at the right time, and so was effectively bound to the prism and it won't be separated from her. I think that would have been at least a good start, given that the prism doesn't really matter to Shadowheart's story. It literally could have been anything.

As an aside, I realize as I write this; was it ever really explained why our companions and Tav remained in total control when we first awakened? The assumption seems to be that we were going to moonrise in order to be fully "turned" but that doesn't actually make sense. We're already tadpoled. The tadpoles control and influence minds. If they've been changed and augmented, wouldn't it make sense that they would immediately bring their hosts under control? It doesn't really make sense that we get tadpoled, but have to be brought to moonrise for the control to "take" does it?

My theory on this is that the Emperor is the one who tadpoled us. The Emperor was known to be in charge of the Nautiloid. We find this out from a book in the Vault.

(Some people say it wasn't the Emperor who tadpoled us because the eye color is different. I say it was and that visual differences are the result of changes made after the intro was put together. For instance, Lae'zel and her armor look completely different in that scene.)

Anyway. The idea is that the Emperor was freed once he was in proximity to the artifact. At that point, he rushed to come up with a plan to fight against the Absolute. He began snatching up people left and right so that he could tadpole them and build up his own opposition. The githyanki appeared in the middle of his plans because they were searching for the stolen artifact.

Only a few of the people the Emperor changed survived. The Emperor retreated inside the prism and began helping and directing the characters toward the eventual confrontation with the Absolute.

Snatching people up in plain view like the Emperor was doing was not how the chosen of the dead three were pursuing their goals. It was the result of the Emperor trying to build a force to fight back to ultimately free himself.

The suggestion that process was interrupted by not getting to Moonrise was supposition. That was never the case. The process is not something that's finished at Moonrise. When that possibility is mentioned to Halsin in the worg pens, even he expresses some skepticism, saying essentially that he wouldn't rely on blind luck, or something to that effect.

this is the empahsis, i also clamed the similar post before.

the original characters are meanless onces you put one of them to be the main character, and the one never be his/her "original" since you put your soul into the one and control him/her.
this is, wyll => tav-wyll, gale => tav-gale, karlach => tav=karlach.

larian thinks that "this is a kingmaker game -- anyone can replace tav", but this is acturally "tav is the savior specially designated by AO-- without tav, ragnarok will come".

Is it weird that I liked feeling like I wasn't the only prophesied/chosen one/only hope? I'm comparing it to Skyrim, where the player was destined to save the world and ALL the guilds, which felt a little silly at times. In this game, I liked having a team who were each the hero of their own story. I appreciated having the option of a blank slate character too.

I don't really understand Stevelin's point because it seems to just be headcanon they're discussing like it's fact, but those theories have little bearing on what's actually in the game.

As for you SteelTempest, that's an opinion a lot of people share. The issue isn't that Tav isn't a chosen one or that Tav is a blank slate. It's that they are entirely ancillary and not even really a character. One Tav will end up playing pretty similar to another if you play a good character. I at least found that by the second or third playthrough my Tavs felt quite boring and samey. If you want an example of those same things executed on in a far more satisfying way, I direct you to Pillars of Eternity and the Pathfinder games, kingmaker in particular. Both games have you play blank slates that aren't chosen ones at all, and they consistently keep your story as the centre of the narrative, whereas in BG3 I find that Tav is just a husk you use to interact with the world, and isn't really meant tobe a character.

I personally really enjoy the "blank slate", in that the whole adventure doesn't actually revolve around me - I'm just a random, but resourceful, adventurer who got scooped up from the streets and tadpoled. My main gripe with the previous BG games (and many other CRPG:s) was that character creation "freedom" was an illusion, your character wasn't who you imagined it to be, it was a plot element. Never liked that. Hence, I loved the Icewind Dale games a lot more than BG, and I love that Tav is not a central part of the plot in BG3. If you want your backstory to take the lead, you have a generous choice of origin characters.

However, something that annoys me is that Tav has not a single voice line beyond the generic CRPG grumbling. Dialogues should have been voiced, and some race + class + background combo conversation options could and should have been worked into Tav's interactions with the companions. Yes, more work but it should have been done. Actually I think one reason many feel Tav is so underwhelming is that the companions are origin characters and as such chat a lot between them and thus seem a lot more developed and interesting to the mute Tav.

For me it's not just about Tav not being central to the plot, it's that Tav isn't a character. I found roleplaying in BG3 to be the most disappointing experience I've ever had in a crpg and that is not hyperbole. Several games have done what BG3 have done in this area and done it far, far better. I also categorically disagree that Tav should have been voiced. I think that too much voiced dialogue in a crpg, especially for the main character, is a bad choice that makes the games worse. I want to be able to imagine my character saying lines specifically how I want them to be spoken. Not just that but voiced dialogue ends up limiting the scope for dialogue options and reactivity because then adding even an extra line to refer to a past choice costs exponentially more time and money. I understand that's a matter of taste, but having Tav not be voiced is one of the few choices I think was entirely correct from Larian.

I get your point and agree to some extent, but in a game like BG3 where every single word spoken (by every single entity, regardless of importance to the plot) is voiced - having your own main character not say anything aloud comes off as weird, and I believe it contributes a lot to the character feeling bland and empty to many.

Another thing, related somewhat, is that I still marvel at the omission of a gruff warrior voice for Tav. So in a way, Tav's muteness is a blessing for players of half-orc barbarians and the like...

Honestly, game shouldn't have had origin\tav characters, and it should have been dark urge only, with a lot more focus on dark urge story, choices and options. As it is, all of it feels unfinished, and origin characters - what is even the point, there's not enough to them to justify playing as them. All of these characters work better as companions, rather than pc

Well, I would've been okay with a 'limited' blank slate as you suggest here. In fact, I have posted multiple times that what I would've liked is a second Dark Urge, one that was entirely 'good' and a beacon of light. In fact, and I say this in the context of agreeing with a lot of what @Gray Ghost said in the post after yours, the perfect solution would been to have Tav the true blank slate plus multiple Dark Urge Concept options, and no origin companions. Those companions could've still existed, just as non-origin companions. As @Gray Ghost correctly identifies, the main problem here is that Larian was almost-obsessively focused on creating and then pushing us to use their origin characters. And so the whole game is built around the idea that although you can play the game in other ways, the *best* experience within the game can be attained ONLY by playing as one of Larian's Chosen. And not only is this something I refuse to do per personal preference, it also just pisses the hell out of me as a matter of principle.

I will NEVER ever play BG3 as one of Larian's origin characters. Period. Not even if I replay the game a thousand times. So then I am guaranteed to NEVER ever have that *best* roleplaying experience from the game. And *that* is total crap.

This I agree with, 100%. I still enjoy the game a lot, but the fact my character's interactions throughout are very undeveloped compared to the origin characters does piss me off. My Tav mutely lumbering along while the others chat and bicker back and forth is frustrating, I feel left out. I absolutely love each and every one of those characters and how they work as companions, but I will never play as one of them, that's just not the way I play rpg:s.

While I understand the sentiment, I have difficulty understanding how this could be implemented in a way that was compatible with every backstory that people can create for their Tav. I already have issues with the game giving me a Baldurian tag based on my race, and I think canonizing more encounters/traits for Tav would be even worse on that front.

Call me overly simplistic, but my understanding was that Tav was the option for players who wanted a completely open-ended PC, and Dark Urge was the option for players who wanted a PC who was still a custom character but was tied into the world and had an established questline.

...though I also think people are overestimating how developed the origin characters are as player characters, cough cough. I haven't had a chance to play everyone, but in all the origin runs I have done, it starts out very reactive in early Act 1, and then drops off significantly. I'll consider Gale an exception, but the rest aren't brimming with unique content.

I agree, but I think the problem is that a lot of people don't want the graphic violence of the Dark Urge, yet still want to be an integral part of the story. Also I think that marketing messed up when they promoted Durge as evil, so many folks who don't play evil won't even consider it at all. I know I started maybe ten Tavs, getting frustrated with each character because she was so disconnected from the story that was supposed to be a continuation of the previous Baldur's Gate games. Then I researched the Dark Urge and realized that's what I should have been playing from the start.

In the previous BG games, you have a backstory, an evil one (unbeknownst to you), but you are able to build your character the way you wish, and avoid the horror while also being the main character of the story. Larian failed to to this on so many counts -- the custom character is too generic for most players, and the Dark Urge is too horrific for most players.