Those who're still saying "it's an option just don't try it if you don't like it" either didn't bother to read what the other posts say, or they did but somehow the messages just escaped them right after. It's not that this system exists is the problem, but that because of its existence, other things get compromised, in a bad kind of way. Especially when a bland and might-as-well-not-exist non-origin character makes you feel like you're getting punished for not playing Larian's precious origin characters.
That is based on the assumption that without origin characters you'd get a more interesting main character. I don't find this argument convincing, considering how generic the protagonist in original BG1 and 2 games is, even though those games had no origins. That is because BG1&2 had very little character reactivity, which BG3 already has more of.
You do realise that there is another game with origin characters called DOS2, right? Made by the same people who are making BG3, as it happens. How did origin characters work out there? And gating dialogue behind particular stats or class options is hardly the make or break of whether the story is focused or a scattershot thing.
Obviously, stat-gating of dialogue options is not a budget thing but a design thing. It was done here and there in IWD, because what else could they do to make the game feel a bit more role-playish? It was done *a lot* in Planescape Torment, because it fit the theme and the game had a ton of stat increases. It wasn't done much in BG, and I presume it was because they didn't want to make dialogue trees explode but they also didn't want to limit characters too much, just because their wis stat was one point short or what have you.
But I did notice something curious recently. Right now some of the dialogue options here and there have tag "Baldurian". We can't decide to be from Baldur's Gate when making our character, but some of the Origin characters are. So already it seems like there's just going to be more interactivity and reactivity when we pick Origin pregens rather than playing our own characters.
