It is rather something I asked myself often during the dialogs in the game. I mean a typical DnD group consists of more or less equal partners and if there is a leader it is determined at least in some way. In BG3 we immediately become the group leader and it seems that none of our companions objects. Not even if we act completely against their wishes! And I cannot think of any event or ability that makes us so special that our companions decide to make us leader of the group.
When the player moves a character and the rest follows you can interprete this as a groups will, that's fine. But if one character talks and makes actual decisions and he is not especially nominated by the story in some way as group leader I expect his companions to act in one of 3 ways:
- stay neutral
- approve
- disapprove
And with act I do not mean a change in their approval towards the player character but direct intervention in dialog. That is nothing that has to be happen in every dialog but in some it seems to be missing to make them believable.
Here is an example: In the grove there is a dialog with a Tiefling who will be interrogated by Lae'zel if she's in your party. If you go against Lae'zels will and try to be friendly with the Tiefling she will respond very harshly but do nothing in the end. I mean: At that point Lae'zel thinks of herself as far superior to you and sees some kind of abomination in you. And she is just staying behind thinking "Fine do what you want"??? I would rather expect in such a situation that we get an Intimidation check against her and if we fail we have the choice to either led her interrogate him (with approval loss) or she might even attack us.
Or why is Gale not doing anything during the Arabella incident even if we keep quiet and do nothing although he is definetly pissed about it?! If we manage to prevent it he will just say how angry he is but why didn't he react if we choose to do nothing?
Currently our companions often feel like puppets with an approval value who follows us and let us do however we please in nearly every dialog interaction. It would make a huge difference if Larian reworked a few key dialogs like the two mentioned above to really show that our companions are living beings with a personality and own goals. That want to have a word or two to say in what we are doing. I mean they have a tadpole too. It's not as if they are following you for fun...
There is no real reason, but I could find one for a good party:
- Lae'zel is too bossy, contemptuous and agressive. Other party member don't like her and only keep her around for the githyanki cure and her fighting ability. Lae'zel herself said that she needed you only for fighting.
So Lae'zel can't really leave the group as she knows she isn't strong enough, but her relationship with the party is too bad to take the lead.
- Gayle is kind and laidback, so he probably thrust you and let you take the lead.
-Shadowheart is secretive and guarded, and merely using you. Its not in her personnality to lead.
-Astarion is definitly creepy and dangerous. I doubt other party member would thrust him, or even keep him in the group.
-Will could take the lead with his personnality, but because you helped him at the goblin door, he thrust you enough to let you do it in his stead. He seems like a bit of a loner type character too, so if he didn't get along with you he'd probably be on his own.
For a evil party, I think the same hold except Lae'Zel could take the lead (dominant one) and Gayle would probably leave it.
But imo its more like ''hey , its video game, don't go too deep into this''.
