There's a difference between "Volo is a plagiarized version of Dandelion" and "Volo's role in BG3 would be vastly different without The Witcher/Dandelion's popularity."
I'm pretty sure @Abits is arguing for the second point while most others here (@robertthebard, @Merry Mayhem, @Dexai, @Firesnakearies) are arguing against the first point.
Even though Volo is original and not a dandolion copy, I highly doubt he would have been in the game if it weren't for the Witcher 3.
Why not, he was in BG 1 & 2? I doubt the Witcher has much to do with this.
About Volo in BG - I played a lot of BG and I had to check the wiki to find out where can you find him in game. What I'm saying is that his roles in the early game was nothing, just a short cameo. He wasn't a character. Just a cool NPC. Bg3 did much more with him. I would claim they gave him a role similar to the one dandolion has in the Witcher - a non fighting companion that is there for humour.
Volo exists in FR regardless of Dandelion's existence. That's not really up for debate.
However, Larian made a
decision to include Volo as a decently big part of BG3 (instead of a brief cameo as in BG2) and
also to give him this personality/character type of a "goofy chronicler that gets themselves into trouble." It could be easily argued that, without The Witcher's popularity, Larian would not have implemented the version of Volo we see in BG3, either reducing his role in the game or making him more competent/less bumbling.
