Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Does NOT eating tadpoles matter?

What endings are those? I don't care about spoilers. And what makes those checks so hard?

Minor spoilers, but also disheartening

It's really not any form of coping. I get that you don't get it - but for people who do roleplay their characters - it doesn't matter if the world rewards you or not - you are following a philosophy that is rooted in your being. The world isn't going to reward only good people and punish evil people. Art imitates life and life doesn't work that way.

Look, you need rewards to feel validated. Which means you don't have a moral outlook that guides you. You are guided by self-interest - and or pragmatism - which some people refer to as "evil"*. It's a very common outlook and is probably in the majority.

If being good and wise was easy everyone would do it. My advice is just embrace what you are and follow it to its conclusion. It's not like you have a choice. *shrug*

* No judgement here, I honestly don't believe the term is helpful. Pragmatism is a necessity for survival.

It's literally making the game worse for one group of people. It's not being pragmatic or needing a reward, it's about the game not being as fun for large group of people as for the other with NOTHING in the end for them. Being good and wise in here makes no difference because NOTHING changes and automatically putting Tadpoles into your head is somehow not a stupid and evil choice which it should be.

Like I said, I don't expect you to get it. What you are describing is called an "external locus of control" - the fun of the game is dependent on how the game rewards you for what you perceive to be good choices. Whether those rewards are based in the story or actual power. Not just that but also the belief that others should be punished for what they choose to do - like this is a mother goose fable.

So can you describe what fun is for you? Because to me it sounds like punishing what you see as bad people and rewarding yourself are what you think of as fun.

This. Loving it so far. Plus I also agree on the PC and group being powerful enough to deal with just about anything. I have so many potions/scrolls/magic items/etc that I always win before I even get close to needing many of them.

This video game is fairly tremendous in my eyes. Now, i'm almost 50 and knew life before tech, so that might 'alter' my vision a bit. Ha.

Jesus Christ man do you sound condescending. "I don't expect you to get it". Dude. You are not some enlightened thinker here. What I mean is that objectively it is not a good design because it is limiting content for one group of people for NO good reason. None at all. And not doing anything in return. There is no choice here. I don't know if not putting Tadpoles can even be called a choice since it makes no difference so it is in fact NOT a choice, but delaying using this mechanic until pretty much never. That's what it is. And what do I mean by fun? Tell me... what is more fun? Having content or no content? Which one everyone will say is less fun? Think about it objectively.

This is fallacious. It not only implies all rewards are the same, but that seeing your companions happy and driving -- something you worked hard towards -- is human greed. In truth, there are many different kind of rewards that appeal to different people. You yourself are reward driven. A human that is not reward driven would not play a video game. The opposite of someone with an external locus of control is *not* someone who doesn't seek out rewards -- they are just self determined.

They do what makes them most likely to be *happy*. Your companions being set up for success is a goal of happiness. One you do receive, but don't get to see unfold.

Most people dissatisfied with the ending will precisely not have an external locus of control, because that's the rewarded playstyle. They get dopamine all the time. The game tells you how cool you are. They're not interested in what happens to the companions post ending as much. Someone who seeks happiness in doing good for the sake of good meanwhile, does not get to see if their actions mattered at all. That is not excuseable. There is no justification that makes this a superior choice. It's laziness. A good ending wraps up the threads. A bad ending leaves you standing in the rain, asking "wait, that was it?".

You didn't answer my questions:

What content are you missing? What freedom do you want here? What group of people are limited in the content they can enjoy? What are those people looking for? Can you give me some scenarios and how you feel they should play out to make the content more fun for you? What is the basis for that enjoyment?

Yup. My reaction exactly (and I've read all of @Silver/'s spoilers: thank you very much for them as they're extremely enlightening). It is utterly lousy that using/not using the tadpoles has no impact on anything other than whether you get awesome tadpole benefits or not.

@SoulfulAzrael, I completely agree with all of what you've said. The whole "being good is its own reward, and one shouldn't expect anything for being good" is utter B.S. nonsense. It does not have even a modicum of logic to it, because this is not real life. This is a game. And in a game, everything is about gains and losses, costs and benefits, rewards and punishments. It is truly pathetic game design, based on an agenda to get people to accept that doing bad things is okay.

Both playing good and playing bad should have repercussions and rewards. One door opens, another closes, etc. Larian is really uneven in that department it seems though.

This tadpole thing though? No repercussions choosing to do it or not? I don't think that it's a matter of good versus evil here. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say that Larian decided that the parasite 'progression' system from EA where you had to use the mind control, seek out new powers through npcs etc was to much work narratively, so gamifying brain parasites was a visceral way of giving out upgrades that they could control the pace of acquisition easily by the number of enemies with the parasites. The fact that no sane person would ever put a *second* mindflayer parasite in their brain because it's completely insane is something that's expected to be handwaved away as gameplay and story seperation....even though the entire plot of the game revolves around how bad having one of those worms in your head is.

It's just questionable writing, period. Not really something on the good-evil scale IMO.

What a joke, as expected, the central focus of a huge part of the plot is completely meaningless. I've been purposely missing out on content because anytime the narrator said "use your authority" with such emphasis, I purposely avoided using the power because like a rube, I figured there would be, you know REACTIVITY on part of the game. But I guess REACTIVITY only matters for those that are playing like they 'should'.

I have to laugh at people trying to pretend this is a "omg, you just don't get it, this is brilliant to have none of your decisions really matter". Oh yea, that's some brilliant writing alright.

The more I play, the more I seem to only have options to encourage tadpole consumption. There is a notable lack of ability to roleplay my character, and even forced control in some instances.

For example, there's a dialogue with Lae'zel where my only 2 options are:
a) [Persuade] her that consuming tadpoles might actually be good.
b) Speak of other matters
There's no dialogue option to actually agree with her that tadpoles are bad, and choosing option b means that every time I talk to her, option a is prominently displayed again.

Even worse, there's a dialogue with another character. After (neutrally) bringing up the topic of tadpole powers, I was presented with not 1, not 2, but 3 different (simultaneous, not sequential) [Persuasion] dialogue options all of which were attempts to convince them that using the tadpole might be good. And ZERO options to say otherwise or even leave the conversation! I was forced to select one of those persuasion checks in order to continue with the game, meaning that now my character has advocated for tadpole use against my will. The only other option was to load an earlier save, but I want to emphasize that the original dialogue option---"So - about our tadpole powers..."---was neutral.

This extends to things not relating to the tadpoles. In a dialogue with the Gith in the Creche there are 3 different dialogue options to be Evil/Selfish/Greedy, and ZERO options to not be those things or leave the conversation. I was again forced to select one of them (or attack the NPC) to continue, and hope that I failed my check so that they'd tell me to go away.

People in this topic are perhaps being a little bombastic with their language.

I think it would be nice if the game recognized various things in some way, but I don't necessarily expect a reward as such for deciding to not huff tadpoles. Letting the addicts off with a clean detox and no long term issues is both a little predictable and a little disappointing, as it goes against that whole "choice and consequence" thing without really subjecting them to all that much consequence. But Larian is trying to "promote evil" a little bit and they're also trying to push this game into mainstream, so tough consequences were probably never really going to happen. The average player would have fits if their 80 hour playthrough ends in tentacles because they failed to resist the peer pressure and did a worm or two 60 hours ago.

My current character is not a tadpole-huffer for power. She's a chaotic good drow rogue / ranger who got away from Lolth and who has had quite enough of brainwashing and magical mucking about with her mind, so she's not that into stuffing bugs into her brain. And that's really all there is to it. My next character probably will be on the 'poles. I'm building a fiend warlock and what's one more gambit for power to such a person? What is there to lose?

But it is disappointing if Larian messed up the dialogue so players get railroaded into particular paths. Disappointing but not entirely unexpected, given how many branches of dialogue they're working with. Even so, one would have expected them to pay particular attention to the whole "just say no" thing. It is a fairly serious matter and it is something that translates very directly into real world themes.

I think this is my issue with it. There is SO much emphasis placed on resisting the tadpole influence, like you're going to lose an important part of you, and the guardian keeps saying obvious hints about "hey, you should totally use this *wink* *wink*" so much so that you're thinking "Oh ho ho, I see what you're trying to do game, no way, I'm not biting" and then...nope, turns out there is zero narrative repercussions, only what you make up in your own head canon.

I get WHY they let addicts have an easy way out, I guess it's just frustrating that they have more severe consequences for some quests (fail to save a specific npc at a certain fight in Act 2), or choose the wrong dialogue that is impossible to guess without either just blind luck or save scumming a specific companion that drastically changes their story in Act 2 as well, but then for a main story point, just have a "eh, don't worry about it, use it for a while, see how it fits, we'll warn you if you get too far" line.

idk, maybe I got into the hype too much. I guess I just feel stupid for NOT doing specific things (saving SH in the very beginning) just because I thought there would be narrative consequences. Now that the curtain is pulled back, I'm disappointed. It feels very much like I'm playing a video game now.

Yup. <shaking my head in both bewilderment and sadness>

None of your choices matter because you can just pick an option in the late game that makes them not matter?

Oh god it’s DOS2 all over again. WHY? WHO THINKS MAKING LATE GAME CHOICES OVERRIDE EARLY AND MIDGAME CHOICES IS A GOOD IDEA???

It was dumb when ME3 did it. It’s dumb whenever anyone else does it. Respect cumulative choice, not endgame choice.

Yeah, Early Access was much more interesting in how it handled the powers, the dream visitor, the 'dark urges' IMO. More ambiguity, not knowing how far was too far for pushing your powers. But it felt dangerous, like there was consequences for your actions, that you might lose your self to the absolute, or transform into a mindlflayer, or succumb to whatever was causing you to feel violent urges.

One of the biggest complaints I remember from EA was that that there was a lack of urgency that contradicted the story-that you needed to get the parasites out *now*. But somehow there's even less consequence to tadpole abuse, less 'speed is of the essence'.

Bit of a letdown, tbh. Why even use mindflayers, mind control and ceremorphosis as your main theme of the game if the unique threats they present are shoved so far to the back they are barely there anymore for thematic flavor?