Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Regarding 'evil' character play through

I was watching the Dropped Frames interview from a month ago and because of one of the answers Swen gave about playing as a evil character I felt compelled to write the following rant:
In my opinion the primary reason people usually prefer to play the good guy in video games is of how the games narative and quests are written/structured, not because they neccessarily want to play the good guy. A lot of times you feel like you miss out on content or straight up get punished for being evil, if there's a choice between not doing a quest at all (because why would I help those peasants, I'm evil...) and playing the good guy, I'll choose the latter. There should always be multiple options, entry points and reasons to do any particular quest, be it some selfish reason, potential power gain, some evil plot of yours, or just being the hero and helping everyone.



I haven't played enough to really form an opinion on that in BG3, but in the early access release I kind of already felt that way with the tiefling refugees, I wanted to do the quests, but I tried to be "evil" and just refused everything, because I didn't see a reason to do anything to help, I didn't see another reason either, more fitting to my character, to get involved in any way. Maybe there's some way to work with the druid Khaga to somehow ruin these peoples lives and get some narrative reward for it and I just missed it. In the end, it felt like the game is pushing you more towards the good guy route. Same with those goblins, I feel like the game didn't really give me any reason to hunt down those gobbos, if I'm playing an evil character, maybe to find Halsin idk, but I think it'd be nice to have some other reason than helping the refugees...

Funnily enough, one game I can think of that did a pretty good job in that regard was SWTOR, to give some examples:
1. There's quest line (don't remember what it's about exactly) where there are some people who were used in some human experiment to create smart robots, their brains and consciousness was put into robots basically, you could either go with the good route and shut them down to free them, or you could steal them for yourselves to continue the experiments to gain power.
2. There are some rebels you have to deal with, some mad scientist wants to poison them all and make them suffer in the process, you can either choose to increase the dosage to give them a quick and painless death, you can sabotage the entire thing to help the rebels, or you can go with the crazy dude and make everyone suffer for days before they die.

In this game the evil choices always were rewarding and you could do the same quests, they just gave you different reasons for doing so, depending on your play style.



Interview for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5__muccL1c

I did feel like the game was punishing me for being evil (99% sure I got less loot than my good playthrough, most of the traders are dead and didn't drop all their stuff, good people get a Halsin in their camp and evil people get an altar to the Absolute). There is an evil choice for dealing with the tieflings though, you can go to the goblin camp and talk to the drow and offer to join her in her raid on the grove.

"I didn't see another reason either, more fitting to my character, to get involved in any way. Maybe there's some way to work with the druid Khaga to somehow ruin these peoples lives and get some narrative reward for it and I just missed it."

You sure did. I don't remember exactly what happens, I made a new character soon after, but Khaga asked me to get rid of the tieflings. I said I'd persuade them to leave. I ended up having to kill some of them.

Being evil doesn't always mean being a reckless slaughterer. That's more chaotic evil. There are evil choices that can actually work to your benefit here. For example, as Synaryn said, you can save Sazza and join the goblins. You can side with the druids and/or help the tieflings but ask for rewards every time. You can help the tiefling kids steal the druids' precious idol (not sure if that one is actually evil or more neutral, though; the druids were pretty mean to the kids). Finding Halsin and killing the goblins can be done in pursuit of monetary reward:

Not every evil action is punishing.

Very true, I started with an evil character but I kept being pushed towards the good options since they made the most sense in that situation and there was no alternative aside from going on a random killing spree for no reason whatsoever. The evil options are usually of the sadistical bloodlust killer variant or the rob people for small change one. Instead we need more intelligent power play ones. Not every evil person is interested in wiping out refugee camps or killing kids, there is no advantage to be had in this. It even robs you of trading opportunities or a powerbase and turns you into a target (or it should). What's the point of being evil if there is nothing to gain from it? Evil shouldn't equal stupid.

Evil content is wildly underwhelming, there are very few evil options in dialogue and if you pick the few that are there, you mostly just get ignored and plot-expositioned anyway, Fallout 4-style.
There are no opportunities to be crafty evil, and no reactivity to be murderous evil, and most major quest rewards depend on you making heroic choices and actions.

The few elements that seem like they should allow some evil play is either bereft of it or really bland.
The only thing Evil characters can do with the Hag is get a really severe debuff (to be fair seems like there was a bug, there may have been a point to doing that but I'm not sure what it's supposed to be for now) and in the Goblin Camp you can basically only make an uninformed and uninspired "Sure I'll go eradicate the Druid grove for absolutely no expressed reason or promise of reward" choice, along with a pretty cartoonish torture scene.

I really wonder why they want us to "play evil" when they basically haven't implemented it

Yeah. At times it seems like evil options in this game are just plain suicidal. Especially the primary storyline branching choice to be evil(joining the absolute) in this game seems so suicidal, even if your first encounter with the illithids is onboard the nautiloid, that I just can't think of any roleplaying angle(except suicidal-stupid-delusional PC) to try it out. I mean where's the profit in joining, what appears as, a suicide cult populated with clueless dimwits about to be "perfected" into mind flayers? Serving the absolute also eschews a prime evil motive, namely vengeance at all costs, in favor of slavery to your abusers. Since it seems the storyline branches in a big way based on which side you choose to align with, and choosing to align with the absolute/illithids is something I'd do only to gain access to the content, which is kinda immersion breaking for a whole playthrough.

Hey guys, thanks for the replies, I'll definetly try another 'evil' play through when I'm done with my current.
As I said, I don't really have enough hours in BG3 to properly judge the game, what I said were only my initial feelings and I haven't even finished a run in the early access version. What I wrote was more of a direct reply/comment on what Swen said during the interview about people usually wanting to play the good guy, because I don't agree with his analysis there!

Edit: From what I'm reading, most people seem to agree that the 'evil' choices are a bit underwhelming. I agree that evil shouldn't always mean chaotic 'want to see the world burn' evil, but more a power hungry egomaniac for example, only doing stuff for personal gain. Another game I think did a decent job is "Pathfinder: Kingmaker" imo, it wasn't perfect, but at least the evil options weren't outright moronic.