Only so much what you can do as game designer here. Larian did a clever and experienced job here.
There is the Gods, there is acients Gods and there is uebergod Ao at some point reset the balance between Good / Evil.
What licenced titles do is agreed upon with Wizards of The Coast and ultimatly Ed Greenwood on some advisory board in the back.
Any background you do know does only make your paranoia worse. None of your companions would pass a CARLA F BAD check for the position of Hero Of The Realm.
It doesn't really matter if you make biased informed or unbiased uninformed decisons.
No Paladin of Tyr on the player menu is quite telling. Doing always the good and help anyone is a bigger challenge to the social storyline than doing outright lawful evil it seems.
Regarding the Game setting you are in a corner not detailed much before in other games or books. Lore doen't matter to find out about each agent.
Critical is how you approach your teams dirty secrets in face óf a clock ticking in the back.
Certain trigger events are advance their lit fuses. Not the resting at night. Just a typical D&D game mechanic with suspense factor.
Gale is a remote triggered time bomb of unknown alignment
Astarion is lawless monster being fed and raised, a selfish time bomb
Shadowheart is a preprogrammen evil time bomb planted for a reason on someone
Wyll is a remote triggered evil time bomb of an unknown pact
Lae'zel is agent of a conflicted evil racist party clearlly adversary to mindflayers but to outsiders as well
Regarding Shar / Selune a perpetual conflict you face a puzzle with no info. Shadowhearts eveil cult is readily visible any time from character sheet info on right click even before your foirst dialogue.
If you don't / can't recruit her first opportunity she will cross your path again. Easy bet veryone of the companions does cross your path again and again and never give up. Call it DM puppet player strings attached.
So with these motley fool you ride an accelerating cart full of volatile explosive down a ever steeper and faster slope with wild turns.
Enjoy the wild ride and see who falls of the cart with a loud bang one after another.
The tadpole is just an distraction. It's the blanket over the explosives delivery carried into the target.
So will you deliver tot the right places informed or uninformed?
Who intervenes to what end? The plan is hidden from lore and not readable from early clues.
That's key to a good plot. Don't waste your time searching outside of the game. It got no point.
The tadpole bends the loyalities a lot anywas you can't just trust obvious alignments.
The DMs leash binds you. Simple as that.
Second Sundering and Tables of Fate is a constant process of certain gods or powerful wielders of magic rise and fall seeking to break the chains binding them. Same goes for Spellplague.
That's the vents creating the ruins you can plunder for lost artifacts. It doesn't really matter to play the game.
The End of Bhaal spawn you caused in BG2 Throne of Bhaal caused him to be restored. Eventually as rumored by Jergal himself. As far as I know these things go by approval of AO as superdiety.
More relevant short term events:
The archdevil named Zariel laid a trap for Ulther Elthurgard in Elturel after infiltration. Helped by Vampires, Zhentarim and Red Wizards of Thay seeking to weaken Baldurs Gate by preventing a closer alliance via infiltration.
So far pretty much business as usual regarding the factions you meet all over these titles.
The whole city of Elturel was dragged into Avenrus 1st level Hell plane to influence the Blood War. Zariels is the archdevil field commander of the Devils faction.
Along with Tiefling refugees Ulther Elthurgard is on his way back to Baldurs Gate after restoring Elturgard back to material plane of Fearun on Planet Toriel.
Back to Baldus gate and the Sword Coast. You'll finnd out at different speeds depending of what you catch from dialogue, how much you talk with people, use abilities on it or sth even use Talk With The Dead Spells.
Zariel is no friend of Tiamat and her Dragons allied to Githyanki. That's an odd reference in save screens like BG1 told hints about Bhaal.
Plus she chained a Bada Yaga hag sponsored Demon to a rock in the Abyss level of Hell planes. Demons are the enemies of Devils in the Blood War of bad against worse.
Devil rivalries with Bel and Baphomet are known. The only open bet is the hag deal you may engage or not.
They key rule flaw is Wyll not carry the one-eyed disadvantage anyways for the glass eye and his real one with the Goblin.
We'll find out soon if there is a glitch needing review or intention to this fact. Sth may need better further explantion or better concealment.
The permanet Shar / Selune conflict plus Drow and Mindflayer dealings help you sort out things a little. The fandom wiki page for eg has everthing you may wish to know.
Anyones Gods, Archmage, Demon or Devils cooldown period over and about to rise again?
Only guesswork on too many options here, better just play.
If anyone find sth a 1000 years ago ot whatever the magic number is, pls post.
No one likes Mindflayers in Nautiloid Spelljammers parked in their yard all too well.
The game doesn't yield info why each companion was plucked from streets of an unimportant small town.
Key question is, why each one of you was on a secret mission exactly there at the same time for the spelljammer to warp in.
And on what signal the Githyanki biz to ambush and track it down came to place.
Everyone regional and off-continent or off-plane seems to have got their preorder ticket for the big party mayhem this weekend on the Sword Coast except you.
Why got you invited to that party first place? As always you are in the middle of it and know little. DM leash of storyline rails here too. No hole in the fence in Act 1 so far yet.
Certainly no braincracking guesswork about everyone evil openly or secretly ships in their minions, weapon and magic for a showdown between gods and godlikes.
As the malicious factions actions happen undercover anyways, discover and unroot them if you wish so but it will only so slightly rock the boats balance.
It maybe worth the XP and loot alone.
Certain well known good factions have their Harper, Bard, Druid, Trader, Gnome, Hellrider, Adventurer and Mercenaries hang out on Chionthar wilderness. They are mildly alert to sth large brewing.
What alignment would plant tadpoles in people and what would lay them dormant with them?
Larian provides the info for the interested user to explore by themselves. That's a valid compromise looking at size and depth of the universe. You can deep dive or just explore and enjoy the story by itself. Anything else woud overwhelm new players. Feel free to google what names and keywords you find in books and texts ingame. What's published hasn't goit the detail level you need as usual in games.
High level lore just get's you down the same slope.
You chose between the 2 gods who sponsor events, Shar and Selune, that are mutally opposed light/darkness dieties.
Dead gods, demons, devils and heroes seek to return for revenge on someone or reset the balance in the Blood War. On first sight you would not align with any of your companions w/o further detail.
You can expect your team to implode along fault lines. Motives are stongly divided about removing or controlling the tadpoles powers from the start.
Can you time these fuses somewhat? Speculative approach ahead for you - good luck.
What road do you personally prefer? 2 will follow and 2 will disdain you choice. They are split by affiliation a second time so you have always 1 single trustworthy ally, one of the half-baked cookies and one on fringe to jump ship running around.
The parcour-de-force doesn't allow you to set them up against each other in circles. You are bound by on timeframe and limited number of options. You can't keep all happy, no matter idling in camp or on the road. You team shares events and your deeds lore at the campfire.
Be it by good intent or survival instinct marginally impacts how you get here and there. Swap avoiding a fight here for get into another there in return.
Someone planted you compnaions as living time bombs to infiltrate certian faction.
If it's rivalry between devils in the Blood War, why not deilver some of them and chose not to on others?
Wyyern poison had it's decisive use case in other minflayer based titles before.
Clock ticks doesn't mean how many times you rest but how many trigger events you ticked.
That's just the same as freeing the female Wizard from Gnolls in time by 4 giving you a powerful companion you miss.
You can't simply sacrifice the least tactical valuable companions subplot. You can't go through encounters alone really well either.
It's about what you are the most willing to sacrifice.
Mage or power.
Rogue or people.
Fighter or allies.
Cleric or ideals.
Warlock or freedom.
The matrix is perfectly reflecting what you bring to the game yourself.
You a cleric diety either repels the fighter or the cleric.
Your a mage either alienates the mage or cleric,
You a rogue either repels fighter ot cleric.
You a fighter either repels the fighter or the cleric.
You a warlock either alienates fighter or cleric.
Central to this is the cleric to heal your team. Who came up with the Shadowheart character is a fairly sadistic DM.
It does autobalance the party to lack skill along the fault line buit into the storylines affiliations. It's eveil DM genious.
Agree / Disagree is not +1 / -1 on the trust scale. The impact of individual actions is hidden. You'll notice approval kicks you to medium but next disagree dpesn't
pull you back to neutral on a companion. Deeds are high / low impact per individual companion.
Background lore may trigger you to attack certain factions unprovoked in the game.
That provokes the strongest reactions on the trust/loyality/morals matrix mechanic.
You can put it as undermining some of you time bombs secret missions.
No matter iff they are aware of them or not.
None of them can be trusted by any means. Reign in you paranoia.
Let's see what decisions you can make before taaking along a certain packe for deivery to any destination.
What clues you can uncover and alter the outcome.
Too early to worry about in the wilderness. This is timed for the showdowns in several factions HQs in Baaldurs Gate or some war camp HQ.
Shadowheart has an appease ooption for a second recruit opportunity in the Druids Cove when the initial one doesn't catch.
Mending broken trust appears to be unavoidable at some point but also a luxury you can't afford more than once at best. if possible at all.
No idea if kick Gale out works long term or make him show up later.
This is about how you human player parcel service works. You can eventually bimble or lose a package and reroute the shipment.
No matter what, there will be funny cutscenes and pure horrors waiting for you everywhere.
Besides, I despise people who threaten me sth catastrophic will happen. Usually it's cathartic anyways.
Just some demon pop up to slay or cut a deal with maybe? The faction we need to ask first if they are ok with devils power surge maybe.
All are double agents spy on each other. How do you fit in?
Are you bait, proxy, agent, target, courier, infiltrator, conspirator, investigator, collaborator, secret signal, pawn, dummy or just stumbled into it?
Are you an agent of the Hod of Luck thrown in as a wrench into the gears of other gods well oiled wheelings and dealings maybe?
You maybe the elemnt of chance upending an otherwise perfect fiendish plan of Devils.
Keep in mind it's not a simple heroic plot you play.
So within rails of thee storyline but the good, evil, neutral, lawful or chaotic is yours to chose entirely. There is a team toleratiing eacch path.
But many times over you'll wish for a Mount Doom volcano rift to throw sth in. Let it be items, fiends, gods or companions.
Drop a parcel into the void.
The most fun you'll get out of BG3 is when you commit yourself to always chose true-to-character options. You got to pick Drow option, the cleric option, the skills trained option that fit's your Drov Lolth Cleric best. You can chose if you save & reload or if you got to stick through with any rolls you do. One other funny was is passing all the outlandiish chances on chains of rolls and see where they get you.
I many times opt to go with the most interesting sideplot on such crossroads.
I'm in the process of my evil-true-to-character after my unsusal chaotic-good-fighter quick run. I stop entering the Underdark hitting Level 4 glass ceiling. I see no need to spoil the story to myself in EA.
I understand the need to balance the higher levels by the developers. Next for me will be the true-to-character do-gooder. The game is thin on that approach as it seems to limit towards team compatibility rather than the ultimately heroic self-sacrifce of helper syndrome. Larian seems to have pulled the plug of that notion on purpose and fairly completely reduced it to irrelevant subplots.
You are operating a bickering and bitching motley fool parcel courier service van disguised as street-cleaning service. You mop up some Gobbo cannonfodder for live training missions while you go and deliver the timed bombs.
Your companions qualify as arrogant pesky or selfish naive tryhards. They are useful but expendable pawns. Whose pawn aare a you, how and why?
That mystery is the focus.
Some hints in the story indicate that at least 1 companion (or all / or all but you) have been around to trap the Mindflayer Nautiloid and Avernus was it's expected escape route or where it came form.
It was eventually on a misson that was leaked by a rival or had a trackable transponder signal planted on it. Not too hard to guess by certain individuals very interested in your team.
Someone ancient and well hidden obviously fiddled with the bombs fuses.That Raphael and a short moment inside Averus is a good bet.
He is fairly open about it and some other guy is also pretty sure of the direction of your fate.
Does that help you ? No. Raphael isn't the devils true name. You can bet on Asmodeus, Bel, Baphometor anyone else connected to Zariel. Or any upstart seeking promotion to Archdevil.
Lore can't nail it down. It would be absolutey foolish incompetent by Larian (see Swen Vinkle, Adam Smith, Chris Perkins release date announcement video) if it would.
Key knowledge you want to access to is in the head of Ultther Ravenguard. You want that rather sooner than later regarding the Blood War factions plans.
The game will include Baldurs Gate scenes and boil down towards a great showdown cliffhanger scene there as usual.That's an absolute nobrainer about the obvious, right?
The story basically sets you up in a way you can start as a dull uneducated farm boy with absolutely no clue about whats beyond your village. Just follow down the single road out of your dead end ghost town peninsula for the big city life.
Deliver your packages alive by any road up or under the mountain.Optional mutually excluvive alliances may or may not exist. For matters at hand you seem t be pretty much on your own and outside of traditional faction rivalries.
The leash of your puppet master is a bit lose at the moment.
With Lae'zel it is unclear if her Cult plain eliminates any infected by "cleansing" and her being proven some arrogant naiive ideologically blinded fool.
Chances are it just fails by the mystery as other options. Either gets you in a fight or some deal. Just like all other options. You'll have to go far to the other side and build trust along the way to find a cure.
Someone of equal power like the Elminster gang. Few Sword Coast plots are decided differently.
Lae'zel maybe less of a time bomb but a useful sharp multitool to protect the delivery.
Someone in Avernus appeared to have had an opportunity and placed a bet on you to thwart an upstart rival and put him back into his shoes.
As Player you can guess that or explore some Forgotten Realms lore.
You fell in a nice featherfall on return to Fearuns material plane. There is a hidden sponsor seeing to that you make this delivery alive.
How much of that in and out of hell was scripted for you or your team? And who where the co-authors of this muppet-play if any?
The why you can't find in the Forgotten Relams lore. It's just happening now and certainly "under NDA" between Larian and Wizards Of The Coast.
Ever wondered why the publisher chose Wizards Of the Coast?
That's you best answer to this. Expect no shortcuts or sspoilers ruining the game being out there.
Does it matter if your job descrition becomes more clear?
I don't think so that it matters if decipher it early or late in the game.
Each and every of their titles storyline was crafted well enough by the Studios team that i never mattered a lot what you knew when.
They are Pros in story design. It mostly ended in a surprise fight if you didn't. Another surprise suspense cliffhanger twist in the plot.
Each time get's better and better in it's mechanics to provide for rails to a story to develop.
They did sth new apparently - a party majority of neutral and evil members.
A nonheroic storyline specifically tailored towards that to play out.It's genius creativity to craft the missing set of mechanics to drive that logic of trust/loyality. To be confident in being able to reverse some proven mechanoics and turn them around 180° degrees. It's a big balls gamble with millions of USD at stake. Admittely a fresh take on bring story-driven RPG to the shops main floor again. This is bent to be a genre redefing title with massive impact in the fanatsy community.
I enjoy being part of exploring that EA.
Lore may slightly spoil the plot for you but it certainly gives you no ingame advantage whatsoever.
You may get trinkets for searching certain corners more thoroughly. What many experienced players habitually do when constantly challenging their ingame limitations looking for shortcuts, loot advantages and exploits.
Usually you could pickpocket or burglar subplot rewards anyways undetected opposed to where you trigger alarms on main plot loot.
Online spoiler pages are fully of that. The have their reason the crowdsource what get's you out of being stuck.
Lore makes for Easter Eggs only by definition of game balance concerns and fairness for new players.
That's what it all boils down too. Decipher the job description and spoil a tad bit of story suspense and some trinkets of loot.
it's your personally prefered trade-off doing things outside of the game Larian can't keep you away from. Your feelings about that secret success sauce may differ from mine.
Doesn't mean you can outsmart the game and they consider you try fair game. Like any DM does with his players.
No way to cut your leash ny lore found yet. That's rather good news, no?
You are the useful idiot expendable drug courier who did someone a favour and took unknown bagge though brided airport security. Now your plane crash landed at destination and you need to pass a few more gates towards delivery of your cargo.
That's all about where you stand by sum up of ingame info and published info equally well. it's all there in clues to find. Everybody digests and processes that detail level differently by different tools.
You can get to this coonclusion by many ways. It just better explains why you can't do certain things like avoid evil mebers on your team. They all are. You liekly are or have to compromise a lot harder. Anyone is treacherous, corrupted, selfish or extraplaner w/o alternative. There is no bunch of lawful, neutral or chaotic good hang out to join you click the hero button though.
Crunch you brain by whatever means and draw your own conclusion. This is just my 50 cents about 2 Act 1 surface runs of EA summed up with no spoilers.
All is pretty obvious if you map it faction by faction. You can chose the mosters to feed. they will blow up harder and make good for the ones blowing less hard and left behind.
I don't thing you can create any disbalanced net positive / negative balance apart from some of your very very own preffered choices.
Cut the all strings of any muppet isn'tin the concept of the puppet master directing the play.
The events added to the Forgotten Realms lore won't leak out of the Larian or Wizards Of The Coast studios doors early. They are bound by NDA magic and someone would lose their soul to the Devil Bankster on the matrieal plane of Earth in the Wall Street of New York. They are Pros in that regard of forming devilish long pacts with fineprint and footnotes in Arial 6.
EA seems to be all about put this to a thourough test of it's bounds.
Hells, if Larian pays me for it i would rig the UI to a Tricentis TOSCA automated test database engine license for fun.
Last edited by vonTreppenwitz; 05/01/21 06:12 PM.
