If you want to play non-Baldurian, all you need to do is not picking [Baldurian] choices ... that sounds quite acceptable for me. O_o
Exactly.
I don't have citations to show but I have seen it mentioned that they do want to give custom characters special background stuff relating to being Baldurian. They certainly talk like being Baldurian is meant to mean something in particular.
I really hope they don't force this Baldurian origin on us. They should keep it the way it is now with dialogue choices, because a proper custom character should have the freedom to be from anywhere.
As far as I am aware, no matter what you pick - you'll still have the Baldurian tag. Which is *not* fine by me. ESPECIALLY if it turns out that this is gonna be forced upon us once we reach the city (like people recognizing PC or anything similar).
Personally, I am the type of player that prefer having a blank background, as far as the game is aware. Since you cannot 100% custom tailor your background (like you can with a DM), there is always going to be details that feels off and that can be game-breaking for my experience since that is one of the biggest reasons I cannot play Origin characters at all. I play Origins as maybe just-fun play-throughs, but they are NEVER my first choice.
I get that a lot of people feel differently and that they feel disconnected if their character has no story elements or past to refer to - but for players like myself, the less details the game tries to imagine about my past the better - because that means I will have 100% freedom to conjure up whatever my heart desires.
That said - I really do want some kind of in between option for those who don't quite wanna go full origin, but neither is satisfied with being a 100% blank sheet. I hope Larian can find some way to please at least most of the player base in the manner. ... However, as it is right now I am *extremely* salty about the BG-tag on my character as I suspect that Larian chose our characters to be from Baldur's Gate for a (story) reason - not just to enable some flavor conversation "just in case". And if it turns out that we actually DO have a past forced upon us, then I will be anything but happy. :[