It's kind of a part of DND in that you create your own background for your character in Dungeons and Dragons, as well as in many sandbox RPG's in general. For example, the Elder Scrolls series always starts you out as a prisoner, and how Fallout . When you create a character in a D&D campaign, you don't play through your backstory before going into the actual campaign, that stuff is determined by you before you begin playing. You create your character, and give them as much or as little of a history as you want, and then you take over while they're imprisoned on the nautiloid. That's as open-ended as you can get, and anything presented before that only narrows the character's backstory and takes away that choice, or at least complicates justifying how your character got where they are.
Starting off as a prisoner making your escape is the best way to accomplish that, because it's up to you how you got there, and you can shape your character how you like, and make choices based on what your character would do. If they presented more information about your character before that, it would make it much more difficult to justify your decisions throughout the game, or even worse, make you feel like you have to follow a certain path because the game made you believe your character as someone who would prefer one choice over another.
This exactly.
There are some dialogue options built specifically for being from Baldur's Gate. Hopefully though they do add more background locations that you can choose from. The problem as I see it in making your character from Baldur's Gate is there will definitely be some disconnect when your character actually gets to the city they are supposedly from and doesn't know their way around because the player hasn't actually been there before. 'Hey Bert... Glad to see you made it back home. Why don't we meet up at your old neighborhood... maybe at the tavern across from where you used to work?" "Ummmm.. Who are you, where's my old neighborhood and where did I used to work?"
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
