Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Will there be a Prologue, before your capture?

Aside for the fact that most of this is flavor, I have mostly two problems with this idea:

1- The abductions shown in the cinematic intro aren't supposed to be happening in BG, but in the surrounding region away from the city.
2- I expect our first arrival at BG to be something that the game wants to surprise and awe us with. A "crowning moment" for our previous efforts during the campaign. Starting a tutorial sections there would dull the moment (and the impact of that moment) considerably.

They stated in an interview that there´ll no specific dialogues for backgrounds, sadly, IIRC.

Yes, that's why I made the Goblin example, assuming that would happen outside. I know that abduction can't happen in BG. Having players leave Baldur's Gate thinking they go on aregular adventure. And what and adventure it's going to be.

I think the tutorial should be slower and more believable, where it happens I don't mind so much.

Agree though that Baldur's Gate should be a moment of awe. Just as Avernus or a spelljammer should be. Giving all of BG "away" in the beginning would lessen the experience though, for me included.

There doesn't need to be an different prologue for every class background and race, there can simply be a one-size fits all scenario that through dialogue acknowledges these things and lets you understand better who your character is, and establishes some character traits that come into play later in the game, such as you're the type of person that will fall over in amazement when they see a dragon, or you have a snarky personality because those are always one of your dialogue options. A part from the Drow and Githyanki I can easily see this happening, you're in a caravan/tavern people ask you where you're from, where you're going and why, establishing your home , your background and some of your personality.

some of these things I wouldn't expect to be as customizable for a Drow, how many hometowns can we realistically choose from for a Drow, the logistics of a Drow MC are still difficult for me to fathom, the Githyanki on the other hand are pretty straightforward considering they're all fighting these nautiloids already, and a prologue would be great for introducing us to such a foreign culture.

Like the Solasta option? altruism, greedy, sarcastic etc

You seem to know a lot about Drow, how would you solve it? Does the city of origin has to be more than just flavor? Whould "has been living above ground for a while" and "hasn't ever seen the sun" be something that drow players be interested in? Just how different would your gameplay look like coming from either city?

The prologue doesn't have to be the origin setting of the character but provide for a stage where this can be played out. The interrogation in witcher is pretty alright, just have the mindflayers mentally probe the character and the player answers questions, in addition to the character creator. This way the character creation happens even more in game.

Or include it with quick-time events, similar to the option to deal with the argument that ensues in BG3 right after the gate and you can punch either character (dm: "ok, roll an attack, you miss and now look bad" - love it)

I don't know a lot about Drow, especially whatever they've changed since 3e, but there's the Capital which all the big houses have a piece of, and where Lolth resides, then there are other smaller cities that are usually dominated or solely under the control of a specific House. I've always gotten the sense that there isn't a lot of room in the Underdark nor a very large ecology to support urbanisation, so the number of cities between all Underdark races is very dear.

As for Drow being a part of above ground society, I've never heard of that, not just because they suffer under sunlight and most people would kill Drow on sight, but because it's tantamount to heresy to leave Lolth's domain permanently, the ones that do go rogue like Viconia and Drizzt are exceedingly rare and don't usually last very long ( I personally wouldn't use Drizzt as a template for anything but what do I know), but I'm sure someone who's more in the know could expand on this.


This is very much what I was think of when I brought this up, I think my mentioning Dragon Age made people think I wanted something as extensive and story relevant as the origins in that, but just anything to establish the custom MC a little, so that we're not flatfooted when trying to roleplay them would be nice.

I especially like your Mind-Flayer mind probe scenario, it sounds like a great way to establish some things for your character with out the possibility you're just bullshitting to get on someone's good side. a RPG pet peeve of mine


I haven't played Solasta but I think I follow, what I'm referring too is more that the custom character has a personality already set, from when they do a comedy fall when they first see a dragon on the nautiloid to the way they physically react during dialogue and cutscenes. There are also a few character archetypes (dare I say alignments!) that most of your dialogue choices cleave to, that are fine, but put together with the rest of the presentation make the custom MC less of a blank slate, i.e. my interest in a prologue.

This is going to be an important point for me, roleplay-wise. If my [Baldurian] has no house, no family, no friends, no connection to the city at all, I'm going to avoid making any future [Baldurian]s so the disconnect no longer exists.

I love the mind probe idea, that'd be a great way to close out a Tutorial.

I'd again stress that the tutorial should be separate from the main story mode, a separate launch I mean, an option that can be skipped if desired. But really it could be a cool extension of the character creation process if they built it out a bit.

Like if I'm a pirate to have the background established.Or sure if a noble, then when you get back to Baldur's Gate you should have some vendetta or house drama. Or an acolyte who has an association with some church in the city. Things like that. Outlander types might have a different set up stressing the out of doors angle. The mind probe would be a great way to dish out the char race/class/background choices, in an extended dialog at the end with consequences later on for the main story. That's what I would hope for. But I agree the spelljammer is a weird way to handle a tutorial. Tutorial should go through all the game menus and abilities, and a merchant for the starting equipment ala classic D&D form.

There should be some tension around what you choose to buy at the start. Like do you want to make sure its arms and armor, or a healing potion and scrolls? Money should be tight enough to make some choices there. Or oldschool where rogues have less starting cash than tank types, but get a chance to steal or rake to make up the difference. I think the analog should be as an extended char creation tutorial (e.g. Candlekeep), rather than prologue to the prologue. If that makes sense

This. At least get to what we saw in PoE. Better yet, allow us to choose a story that equals that of our companions but is open enough that we can fill in the blanks. Otherwise we are bland in comparison. Holy mission for Shar, Former lover of a God, 200 year old Vampire spawn and Tav McBlanderson, proud Member of the Baldur's Gate Cheesemongers guild. Tav needs a story boost.

Waaay back in the Ultima Series you would start by answering some questions about your life and those questions would become real in the game. It would be nice to see something like that return. Or a diary, or a magic mirror, or whatever those elven memory stones are called . .

I know "enough to be the equal of the companions but also fairly open" is not an easy request to fulfill but somehow BG did it.

This exactly.


You are not required to use these dialogue options. Pretty sure I won't have any characters from there so I will ignore that option. Just like most games where you would ignore the mean option if trying to be nice.


How would you make this generic scenario though? There are so many options for everything in DnD. A demeanour tag would help, perhaps even a home area, not every surfacer comes from Baldur's Gate. Lolth Sworn Drow (and perhaps non Drow Underdark dwellers) should simply have Underdark tag as the home area. Not a real need to go more specific than this. Demeanour would be best, most likely a Drow isn't going to show weak emotions at the sight of anything.


Surface or Underdark would have different reactions to a lot of things. There are already a lot of dialogue options for Lolth Sworn, haven't played the other but I would expect them to have similar options to any surfacer.


Too many variables in backgrounds to do this. Also, why do we have to go shopping? Many, if not most characters would have some basic armour for whatever they were doing before.



Your character is only bland if you make them that way. I have full backstories for 4 characters that would make sense for being a level 1 adventurer (I hate level 1 super awesome characters) and although I don't know exactly what was happening to 2 of them at the exact moment of abduction, it is probable that they or the tadpole blocked those memories. I am actually glad the companions have proper backstories, otherwise they become followers rather than companions.

I would be ok if they added some basic generic options for people having a hard time making a character but only if we could have the pure custom character as well.

I played through the EA with 2 different seldarine drow, and they do have different dialogue options to Lolth-sworn, mostly little bit generic dialogue that 'you see red eyes, you run' and other little ways of diffusing tension and such situations, but that's about it. Oh and you also have a unique dialogue (just like the Lolth sworn) with those 2 spiders in gobbo camp, but it's obviously quite different.


But I agree with the overall notion to make custom characters a little bit less generic. I don't mind being a blank slate, but not to this extent. I like the mind probing idea, but do we really need to be mind probed? We start off with a goddamn tadpole in our head, right in the beginning of character creation an ominous voice (the tadpole ofc) already asks us: who are you?

What would be nice is, after pressing the venture forth button, we'd get some sort of short movie/slideshow actually stating who we are, what we did etc (something similar to the 'genesis' DLC that Mass Effect series had). Tie our backgrounds somehow into that, our race, our class, make some choices unavailable to other races/classes/backgrounds. If you choose to play as an origin, you'd also have this small slideshow, but you would obviously unable to pick anything, you'd just be shown what Astarion or Gale did before getting snatched away. That way, people who wanna skip it, can just ram spacebar like they do now and people who actually care about a little bit of story of our customs - can actually have small character defining choices if they wish to.

As long as something like this was only optional, like a character template for those that have a hard time coming up with anything. Leave a true custom character for the rest of us. There are more than enough games out there that tell you who your character was.

I can't see there being a prologue, and a Mind Flayer ship tutorial, and a beach section and more tutorials. That would make the early game drag on.

I can't see Backgrounds being more than just bonus skill specializtions, because they will never match the player's ideas.

Heaven forfend our RPG takes its time building character mood and setting...

That's what the actual game and companion interactions are for.
NPCs gradually opening themselves up to you is way better than you just being infodumped everything within the first minute of meeting someone.
In the event that you're referring to the player playing as one of the Origin characters there's going to be an introduction video to the different characters in the character creation menu. This should be sufficient to give you an idea of who the character is, what their personality and what their motivations are.

NPC's gradually opening themselves up to you, and the plot of your adventure slowly unfolding as you go are very different things from what I'm talking about. Your character, the setting, and specifically the custom MC who doesn't have the benefit of having a bespoke backstory to slowly incorporate into the tale, are.
A Prologue doesn't need to deal with anything pertinent to the plot of the game, but it can go a long way to set your expectation about what kind of world we're dealing with, as well as your custom character's place in it, heroic or not.

I'll use the two previous BG games.

Baldur's Gate: you get a VO setting the stage, you're an orphan living a monastic life with your foster father, you go around meeting people, allowing you to get a feel for what your character is like and introducing you to the world, this ends when you're waylaid by some baddies who murder your mentor and set you on the path of adventure.

Shadows of Amn: completely out of left field after your triumph at Baldur's Gate we meet our hero after he's been captured by a mad scientist, who subjectes him and his friends to torture, after an indeterminate amount of time you escape and rescue (or not) some old companions, Irenicus's dungeon lets you establish what kind of character you are, tells you this story will be incorporating more darker elements into the high fantasy before putting you into a completely foreign city.

I know people like to vent at having to play through Irenicus's dungeon but that only really became an issue to me after I understood your character is only ever going to be a cipher in this game, so your choices don't really matter, and because at that point I've played the game so much I can go through it blindfolded. Shadows of Amn had a tutorial too, which deals with your capture I think, I only played it once well after finishing the game multiple times, so I can't comment.

Compare with BG:3, you awake in a Illithid pod, are implanted with a tadpole, then go on an adventure to get rid of it. With the origin characters it will no doubt be different but if you play a custom character don't expect to have a personality that isn't established by other characters.

You are told who you are in those games. With this one you are free to be whoever you want. You are able to develop whatever personality you want, it isn't going to be established by other characters unless you let them. That is what is so great about this game, you can use whatever your imagination comes up with. Why do you wish to limit this?

There is a sweet spot. And I acknowledge that it's a place that hard to reach. BG2 found that place. IWD didn't, neither did DOS2

You want to have enough of structure to allow the imagination to stick. Just like with glue -- if you want something to stick you need to prepare the surface first.

Granted I can go through IWD imagining that I'm the son a god of death and that my enemies are standing in the way of my destiny. I can go through DOS imagining that my character is also an immortal but one that supported the God King and that really resent Fane. But that's really throwing lots of ink at a blank canvas.

Not easy I grant you but it can be done.

I would have liked to them not to assume we are from Baldur's Gate, but as stated by many of you [Zarna giving the most examples] that you can choose other options that ignore [Balduran] dialogue options. Waterdeep, Neverwinter, Amn, Tethyr, Calimshan, and even Westgate (if it still exists that is in 5E Faerun) would be nice to have as places you are from. As it stands if you pick the general options you can say you are from any where, but for now at least you are (if you aren't playing a Githyanki or Drow) assumed to be Balduran.

Personally, as has been noted above, I would have liked a prologue to set up those details than being snatched in the pod and creating from there. However, it does take a lot of effort to get mechanics as well as story to mesh well. It is not an easy challenge and I try not to be an apologist, but making games is hard work never mind trying to make a compelling story.

As it stands in EA, I am HOPING, they will expand upon character's origins a little bit more. If anything maybe a Faerun like text option in dialogue for those that don't want to say they are from Baldur's Gate. Githyanki at least get [Planar] option on some choices. Perhaps some lines could be added to Faerun native races to allow for more traveled characters.

Just my suggestion though, I'm not sure how much extra work that would entail development wise. I think it is a little late to have them go back and add a Prologue before the capture. I think that is pretty well set with no hope of changing. Just keep in mind we are only seeing roughly 20 hours of game play so things might be more impressive down the road as it is revealed. Right now I'd just like to see them release some other classes to test. Paladin, Monk, and Sorcerer is kind of what I'm looking forward to. Also the Assassin sub-class. Anyways, that is off-topic.

I like a lot of some of your suggestions, but just be mindful there is only so much they can fit in or they'll gain the Cyberpunk 2077 curse.