Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Meaningful Backgrounds For Custom Characters

Maybe they can check Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 ?
You have many options to define the personnality of your hero in dialogs, but there aren't a specific answer for every possibilities...
Having more realistic and voiced custom characters doesn't mean you need to add many pathes to the actual game's answers.

This is definitely not the less ideal way...

I also have to OP's feelings.
Custom characters need something different than just an "origin story".
I'll go further because I think that whatever you're playing an origin character or not, the character you choose need a main quest in which we are different.
I also have tons of fun playing DoS2 but this is why I think Origin characters are not that good actually... Without another layer in the player's story, it looks like you're playing the story of everyone and that's nott I want in a RPG.

I don't know if they planned something for BG3 but I really hope the character is going to have a unique background (and why not an "origin" custom background, one does not prevent the other)

So override whatever character player has created with pre-determined identity? (you are a Wizard, Harry! I mean a Bhaalspawn)

BGs are not great examples of backgrounds and reactivity... partially due our past and future being predetermined. Whatever, roleplaying is happening it is mostly in your head. The biggest streak of brillaince in BGs is that whatever character you want to play and roleplay as still works because of how fatalistic the Bhaal spawn heritage is. There are definitely examples of reactivity, but I don't think that's BGs strongpoint.

I don't think lack of hand-crafted reactivity to our backgrounds is a problem in itself (Arcanum is one of those great RPGs where as far as I remember the background had numerical importance), but I didn't like origin system in D:OS2 and I am scepting about in BG3.

BGs was great because it figured out how to make a party based RPG focused around a single protagonist - a perfect PC RPG, with optional coop friends but no need for them. Simulate social table-top experience, rather then recreate it. As genre evolved it become more sophisticated allowing for tighter worldbuilding and thematic exploration with companions reflecting the world and responding to our roleplaying choices, rather then just accompaning us along the journey.

Source in D:OS2 and tadpoles in BG3 give me a sense of a chain tying coop buddies together rather then something to build our character around. Not something to confront, not something to think about. Those are plot devices not a plot itslef. RPGs generally gives us a certain pre-determined character arc, and the trick is to make this arc as flexible as possible to accomodate as wide of a range of characters as possible. Larian, however, opted in D:OS2 for couple really constrained (and in the end rather unexplored) characters and blank slate option which lacks direction and definition. I wasn't a fan of neither of those options (mostly played with origin characters, as I knew beforehand that customs are simply weaker)
[I apolgise if any of Larian writers stumble on that. I try to express myself as well, as I can, but I am afraid I am out of my depth when discussing narratives and writing]

In that regard, I´m perfectly ok with the "Origin Characters" way.

All the party have the same importance in the plot: any of them could share the same maladie, all are chosen, all have a plot, if one dies it´s not game over because the others could still make it.

It´s refreshing that for once the world does not seem to revolve around a unique and special chosen one and a few sideckicks that follow him for various reasons.

What's the problem with your story being predetermined in a RPG ?
That's exactly what RPGs are and BG1/2 did it well because it's enough, but not too much. It drives the story but it has no real consequences during the game : your characters and your party are what you want them to be (speaking about alignement, RP, reputation, classes, voices, talents or spells...) during the time the story take place.

I agree that everything ise too much focused on charname in BG1/2, leading to strange feelings about those companions that sometimes follows you to death whitout real reasons.

But having a higher layer for the character you're playing doesn't mean your companions don't share a part of your story and have real personnal reasons to travel with you.
You could easily be the only Bhaalspawn while everyone have a tadpole in the brain giving strange powers for other reasons...

Origin characters are like the side stories of BG1 and 2... and that's great but you can't only have that and an entire exact same main story for everyone if you want the player to feel personnaly involved in the story.

If having the same level of character background detail and interactivity with the world as the "origin" characters means only being able to select from a short list of such backgrounds pre-generated by Larian, I'd be okay with that. My issue with the origin characters being forced on us is not so much their backgrounds as it is the mechanical elements of a character (race, gender, class, ability scores, skills, equipment choices, etc.) and the aesthetic elements (the character's physical appearance). It's these things I want to have complete control over, and not so much the background. So why not allow us to create our custom character as we want, from mechanical and aesthetic standpoints, and then mate that character with a Larian-generated background option selected from a short list of available options? Seems like a perfect compromise.

That's something I think about writing my previous message but that means they would have to create many version of the same story to fit the player's choices. Howe could you have the same "origin story" whatever you're playing a drow or a human ? A man or a woman (don't forget voice acting), an bad or a good character etc...

That would lead to very generic stories while origin characters can have a background story that fits their races, their gender, their pre-determined personnalities and maybe their classes (that wasn't the case in DoS about classes because every origin companion can handle every classes).

That's why I talked about another story layer for the player's character.

Yes I agree with what you're saying about a separate layer. I agree that reactions based on things like race, gender, class, etc. should be separate from background-based reactions. I'm adding my idea to yours, essentially.

I’d say generally yes, but some combinations could just be incompatible. You probably couldn’t have a Githyanki being in the upper class of Baldurs Gate society for instance.

That's a good point. Some types of backgrounds would indeed not be suitable for certain types of characters. Hmmmm ....

So then you would have to have exclusions on each background relative to race/class. Somewhat more complicated, but still doable. It just comes down to whether you think this complex a system is worth the resources. For me, that's a definite 'yes,' because the extent to which I am able to customize my own PC determines the extent to which I am able to identify with my PC, which determines the extent to which I feel immersed in the world and connected to the story of the game. So my entire chain of enjoyment of and fulfillment from the game begins with my being able to create and customize my own PC. The origin characters just don't give me that. But I cannot abide a situation where my custom PC is in any way "lesser" than an origin PC or where I won't get the "full" roleplaying and interactivity experience from my custom PC that I would've got from an origin PC.

The backgrounds usually are too vague to fit any character: They use labels like "Noble" "Criminal" "Charlatan" "entertainer" "hermit" "sage" "Acolyte" etc

If a githz is a noble does not have to mean he´s a noble from baldur´s gate, that could simply mean that he´s from the upper military caste of the Githzyanki instead of one the g'lathk.
If he/she was an entertainer that could mean he/she was a gladiator or a dragon rider in the gith society.
If he/she was a criminal he could mean he simply have a friend on the githzerai, worship a god or have a flumph pet (or at least he does not kill them on sight. BTW. What the blue blazes, githzs!!! Who does not like Flumphs ?) . That would be "crimes" in githyanki society.
If he was an acolyte, since there´s no formal religion for the githyanki they could be one of the knights of the lich queen Vlaakith.
If he was a salilor that meant he could be a former crew of a spelljammer or one of the Far Travelers.
etc etc

Nothing. It's just BGs aren't a great examples of defining your character with custom backgrounds, and I don't think BG1&2 approach works when you go for mainly a coop RPG like Larian does.



So essencially Origins from Dragon Age, rather then pre-made characters from D:OS2.

On a side note, in D:OS2 you could change character class and their looks to some extend (not the race though). I don't know if the same will be true with BG3. Especially in some cases background seems to be tied the the character. Perhaps at least some range of flexibility (like companions in Deadfire having couple options available) would help. In addition, with multiclassing we still have a pretty wide control over our character even if they start with certain class on lvl1. The weak point of D:OS2 was a lot of freedom but little reactivity or response from the game. Therefore pre-made characters had a bit more meat to them as they had at least some scripted responses.

Yeah, I wondered about this elsewhere.

So you could play Shadowheart as a rouge mechanically, even if everyone treats her as a cleric. It’s bound to break some immershunz, but some people wanting more flexibility could be happy with that. Best to have a big warning saying how much it could break the story.

Maybe worth Larian considering, but if not, it’ll probably be one of the first mods anyway.

I don't doubt this. But that affects the origin characters just as much/just the same, right? All I'm saying is, whatever is being done with the origin characters, give us either the same thing or at least some other equivalent of it. Don't throw up your hands and say, "Sorry this is too complicated and cannot be done, so you players going with custom PCs have to accept something lesser than the origin PCs." I'm sure Larian can find a way to do this, if they're willing to put in the effort to do it.

Also, a couple of you keep mentioning multi-classing. Where/when was this confirmed? This is a hugely important feature for me, and thus far I was under the impression we were NOT getting multi-classing.

Here is a link to a general overview of Backgrounds and how they complement the classes in the game.

Backgrounds and Classes for Best Build.

Just to help the new players and get them acquainted with DnD 5E.

Isn't it a core part of the 5e SRD?

It seems like the class system has become so open in 5e that it is more akin to choosing from a palette of features. All you seem to need is 13 in the primary stat(s), meaning you can easily create a character that can select levels from all 12 base classes ( if that's what you want ).

Sure. But I recall from the initial reveal in February Swen saying they had not yet decided on whether multiclassing will be available.

Not for EA, but for final game yes. If that is so important for you then a quick google wouldn't hurt, no? If that's too much work, here is AMA and here is quote:


Back to backgrounds. If I remember correct custom characters will be Baldurians. Surely there are at least couple backgrounds Larian could come up with - merchant, member of city guard, local artist, local noble etc.