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

I prefer to my own person. Live in the world. Dragon Age found a nice way to mix the two together. If the devs are smart, they'll take inspiration from that.

The issue is that Larian's past games make "Origin" characters more relevant to the story than custom created characters.

It really is, bottom line your picking something that removes customization, someone already setup the character or elements of the character for you.

Agreed. It would be really depressing if they give in to the unimaginative people and take away our freedom to make anyone we want. I do think there should be a few basic template options that those people can pick from to make it easier for them, in addition to what we have now. Not everyone wants to play an Origin character.

I agree they shouldn't take away the "really custom" option, but I disagree that all people who'd be interested in a "half-origin" system are "unimaginative". It's not a matter of not being able to come up with a backstory. It's a matter of the game world not recognizing it. It's immersion-breaking if the game treats your character as "has no past", reactivity is very important in an RPG. It's a trade-off system: do I care more about freedom in creating my character's backstory or do I want my character to feel a part of the game world (without resorting to headcanon, which sometimes has to go against what the game tells me)?

So again, DA:O-style origins aren't for "thinking for the player" or "making CC easy and quick"; they're for increasing immersion, in short.

Half-agreed. I wouldn't call people who want an Origin story or Origin backstory unimaginative. And if Larian gives 1-3 options, and they are vague enough, and one of them speaks to me, or I can adapt one of my own characters' stories to fit it, I may well try to do a playthrough with with a slightly pre-determined backstory.

I also agree it's clearly a trade-off here. If the game leaves me total freedom on the backstory and makes no assumptions on it, then it cannot use it and mix it with the global adventure.

But that doesn't feel immersion breaking to me. I can envision a character from a faraway place who was in the Sword Coast because reasons, got captured and infected by a tadpole, went through a whole adventure to get rid of it, messed up with Big Picture World Plans along the way (whoever the Absolute are and whatever their plan is), maybe saved the city of Baldur's Gate, maybe found love, and then will go back to their homeland after that. The fact that the game doesn't imbed My Story into The Story is fine, all the more so if My Story doesn't mesh well to begin with, and The Story can be seen as An Unexpected Journey in the life of my character.

I can still roleplay if I can think : ok, given my character's story and personality, what would they do there, what would they say here.

And if the game can minimally react to my story, that's cool. For instance, the Baldurians (Wyll, Shadowheart, Astarion) can give me more advice about where to stay for the night if I've told them I have never set foot in Baldur's Gate before, whereas if my character grew up there, they might check in their favourite tavern and say hi to the barman.

I'm personally fine with the whole spectrum, from TES-like blank to fixed Geralt. Each of these approaches is valid, if done well, each has its own merits. My point was against dismissing established backgrounds as "unimaginative", not against fully custom characters; I like those too. But it always feels great if a game surprises you with appearing to "understand" who your character is and reacting accordingly. And yes, BG3 already has "traces" of established background.

I did not read everything above, so here are my 2 cents about origin characters:

I play the game with my custum char and consider the others as companions in the same way as BG1+2 or many other games.
This way it feel like playing any other RPG and my companions seem to be more reactive than in most other games which is good.
By reactive I mean comments, suggestion or they like/dislike my actions when I talk to other people or do stuff.

There are 2 problems, at least for me who plays single player only:
- NPC tell the same stuff again when I talk to them with another party member. This can be irritating when you (the player) think: Why do you tell me that? I already did this.
solution: always talk to people with the same char, usually the one with highest charisma and talking skills.

- If your custom char is not the one with highest cha you will usually talk to NPC with another char, This means you are role playing someone else.
solution: Talk to NPC as your main char and role play someone who may be very strong or clever but not the best talker.
OK, this will be hard for me I admit.

Oh ? Where ?

What I've seen so far is only the Baldurian background. It appears as a dialogue option in a couple of conversations. What is cool about this is that, so far, you can either use it (and assume the Baldurian background) or not use it and pretend you are not from the Gate. I don't think I have seen anyone using it directly. I doubt it will stay this way when we reach Baldur's Gate, although I hope we'll have the option at character creation to choose a couple of these non sex-race-class-background tags.

Are there any other such "traces" ? (I have not gone beyond the camp celebration, so please don't spoil me if it happens afterwards).

Well, drow don't have baldurian. They have underdark instead. And I guess druegar and gnome will follow the same treat. As well, Lae'zel has a planar background. And I assume Karlach will too.

The unimaginative comment was more directed to people who complain that they didn't want to have to come up with a full character DnD style. Not to everyone. That is why I would like there to be some premade non Origin stuff for the people that want it, but without taking away the current full freedom we have. Have the Origin characters, the partial version (maybe a bit like DA:O?) and the full custom. Possible issues with this is that people still won't be happy if they add a handful of generic backgrounds since their favourite idea isn't in the list. Also if they take the time to add in more than a handful generics or any at all, then this will take away from other aspects that need work, people would obviously want there to be more dialogue options for them.

Tieflings do not have a planar background, githyanki and warforged do.

As Nyanko mentioned, drow (and potentially duergar and svirfneblin) have Underdark tag instead, and Githyanki have Astral (/planar/whatever). Then we have race and class tags, deity for clerics. I hope they expand a lot on all these, there's a lot of potential in tags.



Got you. "Have the Origin characters, the partial version (maybe a bit like DA:O?) and the full custom." is something I've been suggesting for months. And I'd throw in custom Tav presets, because why not. While I like full customs and don't mind origins, I'd love to have the hybrid option, as it's for me the best of two worlds: has more reactivity and at the same time the character is still mine.

Of course there are also downsides to the hybrid system, but they're mostly solved by having the custom and full origin options as well. (In DA:O I played a human - which I almost never do - because I liked neither Dalish not city elf origins and wanted to play a rogue.)

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Also: guys, PLEASE HIDE SPOILERS. Please. ESPECIALLY if it's datamining.

This is how I feel, too. In my ideal game, it would be somewhere in the middle between these two.

Oh yeah the Elder Scrolls exist. I always forget these games. Well they had a very bland MCs and it was fine, but honestly Elder Scrolls is not a good example for a story driven RPG. At best there are several side quests with good stories there.

Yes but Karlach is different. She has lived a good period of time in Avernus it seems. She might have both.

Were I on Larian's shoes I would make Tav some sort of exiled planer regardless of race. If I remember correctly, all the races have representation in sigil, so just make small background about the MC doing something to piss off the lady of pain, but leave it vauge. Since you're not going back to sigil in this game you are basically a clean slate.

I like the idea, but she would send the MC to the maze as punishment.

Agreed that balance is what is needed. Just enough to make the story I'm telling myself stick. BG got it right -- I was a Bhaalspawn, I was Gorion's ward and other that I was free to make up any story I wanted to tell myself.

Feeling like you are just talking to yourself isn't enough. If I selected "urchin" people should comment on my low born accent. I should be able utter few select curses that improve my chances of getting a positive reaction from the zents and such. And just the opposite for

I get lots of reactions that are unique to my race and class but my background doesn't seem to count for anything. Custom characters need their own unique quest and a stronghold equivalent.



Exactly. My custom character in DOS2 was there to carry Fane's luggage.

The problem with Origin stories in my opinion is that offers less replayability, once you go through a full run with shadowheart you don't want to ever have to listen to her again . And if you don't choose origin characters you are left with a mute custom character with no background story that seems more like a spectator to the story, it feels lifeless and detached.