Being decisive and making the right choices. A person who does that would naturally rise to the position of a leader is most groups of strangers. Why did the NPCs all submit to letting the Bhaalspawn assume leadership in BG1? The same reason. Nobody in the party knew their heritage until towards the end of the game.
This is a very good point
counter-point, everyone followed the Bhaalspawn because games are poorly written; with the unwarranted assumption that you are the protagonist. In other words you're the protagonist because you're the protagonist...
I also would like to point out that very 'decisive' people who go around saying they're making 'right' choices are as liable to find themselves leading only themselves.
BG3 never gives you the option to go around announcing that you are making the right choices, so that isn’t applicable. As it is, you either make the right choices in the eyes of your party and the express approval or at some point they will leave. I see no problem here.
I'm glad you also see it as poor writting.
One thing BG3 does do is establish pretty clearly why none of your companions should look to you for leadership, even if you are an 18 CHA martinet. But unless I've misunderstood something, this isn't a topic about what BG3 is doing right or wrong, it's a topic about what we'd like to see it do, and RPGs in general, in this case I would actually like to see more thought given to party dynamics, beyond you are the Chosen, they follow or leave.
Originally Posted by Warlocke
Originally Posted by Sozz
What genre is that? RPG? Then I'm not...I thought you were in favor of more narrative freedom ;p I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at here.
How many player driven, narrative focused, party based RPGs can you list where you don’t play as the leader? The central conceit of this genre is that you are making choices that direct the story as well as tactical choices to one extent or another. This sub genre of RPGs could accurately be called leadership sims. If you don’t want to play as the leader then you are playing the wrong genre of video games. It’s like wanting to play a WW2 FPS where you don’t shoot guns.
There aren't many player driven narrative focused party based RPGs that don't cast you, pro forma, as the leader, but this isn't a discussion about what games are it's about what I would like games to be.(and for a record there are a few at least if you get into the text-only levels of game, and maybe some game mods too) and just to be clear, not being the leader is not the same as not having any narrative agency. I agree with you that the reason people play these games is to experience interactive storytelling, you're given scenarios and opportunities to effect the outcome through your choices, none of that is mutually exclusive with the above statement.
That said the point I was really making there was how limited the concept of player freedom could seriously be treated in video games. I'm not sure a custom mc gives you more freedom than a origin pc, I suspect it just takes things away, and from what I'm hearing a lot of people are happy to head-cannon their way into a better story.
Originally Posted by Warlocke
Listen, I’m not bringing this up to be a dick since I know you aren’t doing this on purpose, but I’ve noticed that you have a habit of asking somebody a question and then replying to the answer with “that’s not what we are talking about,” but it is what the topic—at least tangentially—is about because YOU are the one that asked the question. I’m not trying to convince you of anything, I’m just being polite and answering your questions. Being told that my answers to questions you asked are irrelevant is so aggravating it makes me not want to respond to you at all.
That and dropping random bits of Latin into your sentences to make them sound elevated. Literally on the first day of law school they told us never to do that. Lawyers eventually learned that it just annoys people. XD
There's nothing eleveated about talking about game design :p but I'm glad you told me I was being abrasive. I would like better if you explained to me how it is connected, I want to be convinced, otherwise I wouldn't be in a forum talking about these things. ....ipso facto, ergo, mutant mutandis...carthago delenda est etc. there now maybe I've got it out of my system...
