Originally Posted by Wormerine
Originally Posted by Dez
To echo the Opening Post, yes, the very concept of Origin Characters feels so antithetic to a Dungeons and Dragons experience. Expectedly, there were many threads about it back in October-December. I guess it would work if a JRPG like FF7 proposed you to play as Cloud, or Tifa, or Barret. But DnD is pretty strongly about creating and roleplaying your character, so it feels weird to have the GM (Larian) hand out character sheets.

I mean, I guess it would have been all fine if they had just made 1-3 of these OC, spent the rest of the resources on improving the roleplay across the board, and communicated more details about their plans for Custom Characters.
There is a benefit to Origins that Larian won't be willing to give up - for a Coop it's a brilliant solution. You can play it singleplayer, you can play it coop - friends can drop in & out as campaign progresses. You companions can be inhabited by coop friends, and they can be companions once they leave.

I get that, but that decidedly feels like exceedingly a cumbrsome way for someone to actually experience the main story and companions. To offer a counterpoint, I doubt that even the most avid of coop players will play it multiplayer the first time around and if they will do that, they are most likely a coordinated group that already plays DnD together as is and therefore will want to create their own characters regardless.
Even if I was playing with DM, someone elses campaign I would still want to create my own character the only person it inconveniences less is the main player, but again, it will hardly be immersive if people are just dropping in and out.