Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Does anyone like the Origin system?

Ive googled, but I must be missing something. What is the difference between an origin character and a companion? It seems like a companion that you can choose instead of making a custom character. Which leads me to the most important part of my lack of understanding: If I spend time making a good companion, why does it take more resources to make them an origin?

Origin characters are also companions. The difference is that you also have the option to start the game as one of the companion NPCs and then play through the game as if the companion is your main character. This also means that in the places where a normal companion quest might play out you experience it first-hand rather than second hand [through your companion].
Think of it as playing the game through the eyes of one of the companions.

The term 'origin character' is just Larian's term to describe their type of companions in order to differentiate them from 'classic' RPG companions who only act as party members.

The hints are there, but it's an old game and they are quite subtle compared to what you get nowadays. In one particular case the only way to get a companion to spill the beans is to charm them before you talk to them.

Though imo the best game based on the idea of a "mysterious past" you need to uncover remains Planescape Torment.

Oh yeah, I see your point, I can acknowledge how this seems alien to you. I am fine with playing Commander Shepard's story, I am also fine with the clean slate of the Courier or the Vault Dweller, that makes me create my own story. Or the Bhaalspawn where I follow a certain story, but also shape my character before and during the adventure.
BG3 wants to sort of be all three and I find that irritating. Each Origin has the main quest and a personal issue that seems just as grand. My PC, so far, has just the tadpole. Adding something similarily grand would help, I suppose, but then you are still left with three other characters of the same story importance and relevance as your character. So it is still a group effort.
As said, that is an intriguing and fresh premise. Instead of one protagonist you have four, or more correctly you have a group protagonist. However that group is not an entity. Whoever you chose is the leader and everything evolves around him with little to no input from the rest of the individuals that share the fate. Oh they have opinions, but do not act on them really, they do not debate, there are no consequences and no group interactions.

I'd much rather have regular companions that can not be PCs. Added to that I like my companions to have relatable issues and not some form of Marvel Universe superhero origin story. It really feels like I am playing each of the Avengers' origin story at once, and if I play my PC I am not Ironman in this group, but SHIELD agent No. 17

Right but some people complained that it was a waste of resources. Cool and well-fleshed out companions are part of what makes this game cool IMO. So what additional work needs to be done?

In a different RPG with traditional companions you'd 'only' have to put in development time and resources to let you interact with the companion and experience their companion quest(s) through the eyes of the player's custom character. Basically making the player's custom character an observer to the events that happen to the companion.

The additional work refers to how Larian has to make playing as one of the origin characters interesting enough in order to justify it being an option.
This means that some dialogues will require unique options only available to that specific character. Some problems and encounters will require you to be able to handle them in a specific way that'd make sense for the character in question. Some cutscene sequences like

will have to be recorded, written, animated, scripted and voiced just so the player can experience them - essentially making it 'game content' that exclusively is available if you picked that specific origin character. Now multiply this by every unique encounter in the game and then multiply it again for every origin character who gets unique interactions. It quickly adds up to a lot of extra time and resources. What the people you're referring to are concerned about is whether or not this is a sound investment since they'd rather have the time spent developing or refining other aspects of the game.

I like the idea of it but for Divinity OS2 at least, I felt like it fell rather flat as the stories in that one were pretty mediocre. I did like Ifan's origin story but I think it had more to do with the brooding anti-hero vibe than the actual narrative.
Hopefully they're bringing their a-game for BG3 and improving their Origin stories because it's pretty cool idea (and nice that you don't have to)

I pretty much agree with everything Tuco and Uncle Lester have said, er, written.

To me, our current 'origin' guys could perfectly function as they do now - as damn companions. And it's already been pointed out what a huge waste of resources it is to write, record and code every single permutation for every single origin-would-be-protagonist. Add to that we don't even have all the origins in yet. Also, some of you said that creating your own character for newcomers to D&D might be challenging, if not outright off-putting and how it couldn't be done in original BG games.

To that I say, yes you could do it: https://i.imgur.com/FmZpQWA.jpg

Yet not a single one of these characters was an origin a'la Larian creations. They are just templates for you to pick from if you can't be arsed to come up with your own. I don't think anyone would complain if Larian gave us a bunch of templates to pick from, who would have pretty much the same beginning as any custom. And leave our current origins as extra fleshed out companions. And I'm sorry if my entire post is oozing hostility towards origin characters, I hated the concept in DOS2, and I hate them in BG3 as well. I want, like so many of you, to create my own character and their backstory, I don't want to play someone else's character, it's actually one of the reasons I haven't played the Witcher series as of yet (even though I own them all - got them gifted to me actually). I've read the books though, being Polish and all, it's a rite of 'passage'.

Origin characters go in the bin with multiplayer and super-ultra-hard difficulty modes as stuff I'll never touch, and in my ideal world, Larian would've invested their time/resources elsewhere. But as long as they put out $60 worth of fun content for my custom, solo, EZ mode self, I don't care much about the rest of it. If they're passionate about these things - and if they're profitable - more power to 'em.

Me, I favour the way DA:O did it. It gave you a place and grounded the character in the world without impairing your own characterisation of them. That's the balance I'd like to see more games strike and developers explore.

D:OS2 and BG3 just feels like they want me to play somebody else's OC (do not steal!) and that doesn't interest me at all. It would be better if they went straight up action like the Witcher games do if that's what they want to do.

Good point about the templates - I think it would be a good idea to add them regardless of origins.

As for The Witcher games - I'd encourage you to give them a try. I did a Witcher marathon (books+games) a couple of months ago and I have to say that I think the games actually have better story. (TW3 suffers a bit from being open world, and I personally didn't like the later acts that much, but it's still not bad). I can't say whether you'll have a similar opinion, but imo it's at least worth a try.

This is OBJECTIVELY correct.

As long as I can change the appearance then yes, I enjoy the system. I will definitely play through the game as Astarion sooner or later. Changing the appearance and having the ability to choose what I say is enough to make the character, well, me, so to say.

The system is really not so different from them being normal companions you have in many other rpgs, except you can choose to play them, I know people complain that the origin stories are cooler than the default character, and while that is true it is the same for other RPGs as well. Morrigan is much more interesting than my warden, Saverok/viconia/xzar(and so on) is more interesting than my bhaalspawn. I think a lot of these rpgs would have had similar complaints if you had been able to choose any of the companions to play as instead, just like you will be able to in bg3.

I would still really like to see an origin system like in Dragon age origins, that added quite a bit of flavor to the default characters but in a game with so many races and classes, it would not be an easy task.

I prefer the "pre generated characters " method, this is not final fantasy, or dark alliance

Don't care for it, and likely never will. I want to make my own character, not play someone else's. At least in an RPG.

To be entirely fair, though, that says nothing about the quality or the objective value of such predetermined protagonists. I don't care for Witcher either for the same reason, and it's widely lauded as the best RPG of the decade.

Agreed.
I would much rather they made the main character backgrounds have impact in the story even just a little. The guild mechant back story could get you a slight discount very CERTIN merchants if they were also conected to the guild, maybe access to certain items not available to others. Certainly picking the Noble background should give you more dialogue options whenever you're talking to someone your character thinks should care, like maybe at the tollhouse or with the flaming fists (leaving out spoilers).
On one of my playthroughs I picked Githyanki with a noble background and Lae'zel still talked down to me constantly, just seemed kinda jarring. Seems like a wasted opportunity is all.

i probly wont choose to play as origin characters and while i dont mind the concept, i just wish that i didnt feel that my own custom character was so bland, disconnected, or unimportant in comparison from a mechanical gameplay perspective. ive posted this before, but i feel like custom pcs just arent tied or significant to the bg3 narrative - the whole story feels like it could function with my custom pc never surviving the ship crash, as all the origin characters (and apparently a number of other npcs) also need to resolve the tadpole narrative (even if its not as time sensitive as we are led to believe during the prologue/early gameplay) as well as their own personal backstory plot which the custom pc characters dont even have game mechanics for (at least from what ive seen in ea so far).

my impression of dnd was always to create my own unique character and go from there as i was never much a fan of playing using dm progenerated character sheets which is what the origin characters feel like. even more so, if feels like bg3 is much more heavily programmed/weighted to mechanically interact with the dm generated origin characters than the custom pcs, which i suppose can be understandable from a game development standpoint, but it can be frustrating as someone whom prefers to make my own character instead of using someone elses character sheet.

related, ive seen other posts in the forums requesting the ability to customize the origin characters or companions on either creation or recruitment, and while i think that leveling post lvl 1 the player should be allowed to select feats, ability increases, proficiencies, multiclass, etc for recruitable characters as they prefer, being able to fully change classes, ability scores, proficiencies, etc. for these origin characters at creation doesnt seem like a good game design and a waste of already applied resources. why would larian, after having their writers create these unique origin characters and devoting time and resources incorporating these characters to fit within the bg3 narrative, then turn around and allow players to change all their development choices? idk, as someone that doesnt see real rationale for such a game mechanic (particularly considering the other common feedback topics here that id rather be given attention) it would just frustrate me and somewhat reinforce my impression that larian's vision of bg3 doesnt really align with what i was expecting for the IP, which is fine - they are the game studio, but also makes me wonder what larian really intends to do with ea and the community feedback - ex is ea just general balance tweaking and class/mechanic implementation or will some more 'significant' topics cited in the forums like party lock and size, combat balance, camera/party controls, act/narrative progression, overall custom character experience/immersion, inventory clutter/management, dice roll tweaks/ui, improved/interactive character sheet, camp location and rest mechanics, etc also be implemented? im pulling for larian and bg3, i just hope we learn more in the next big update

All the origin/companion stories are, are side quests.

The main quest (the game) happens regardless of what character you choose to play or group with.

In the older BG games, you had templates with stats/names/and if I remember a generic story assigned in the bio....so those are basically origin stories...except in those games they did not tie in side quests based on the characters...if anything the older bg games were lacking in diversity and uniqueness of the main character even more so than bg3....as EVERY character you made was the adopted ward of some great wizard who gets thrown into the mix and is someone special....

At least now you are some random person thrown into the mix because you are someone special (custom made) and/or you are also some warlock who lost your village as a boy and made a devil's pact you regret, a mage who holds the end of the world in his life/death, a cleric who was spurned by one god and brooding with the opposing god, a vampire minion who is abused and spiteful and wants to free himself, a failed warrior from another plane who struggles with proving herself and being one with her people again or becoming a lone wolf and joining the rest of the world....etc....so as you do the main quest you also learn about the lore of the game unique to that character...which is supposed to create replayability, but that is subjective to each player.

I'm not into origin characters either and likely won't play one . . . but a lot of people do seem to like them and I think its good for people who aren't into the effort it takes to create a character. And this will increase sales . . . which gives Lairan more money to make the game better! I actually don't think the work to make the companions also origin characters is all that much effort, not in the grand scheme of things. So I think its a win for the game overall.

Multiplayer is rare in these types of RPGs and again appeals to lots of people further expanding the player base. Its also a requirement for the D&D sandbox they plan to eventually add to the game.

As for difficulty. In the past Larian has basically had Story, Regular, and Hard modes . . . again different options is nice. I often like to up the difficulty when I do a second playthrough. One of the things I loved about the DoS games is that Hard wasn't just more hit points or damage but that encounters were designed differently, with new or additional monsters. It was a whole new play experience and brought surprise to the game even after you had played it once. I assume Larian will do the same thing again.

I give Larian a lot of credit for going outside the box and offering all these options!

Thank you for the explanation!