I always chuckle when i think of the "choice" between an origin character and a player made one.
"Would you like a super in-depth backstory origin character with awesome dialogue, looks and connections to the entire story written in??!! OR would you like a bland, boring no backstory character with generic cusomization with no connection at all to the story? :("
You may see it that way, and that's fine. I choose to be more positive and see the player character/Tav/OC/whatever as a blank-slate character to which you bring your imagination and your own backstory - just like to any DnD game. You make it up when you start playing (choosing your background), or you make it up as you go along (roleplay). You are saying you don't want to use Origin characters that are pre-written and pre-integrated into the story - but you don't like NOT having a pre-written pre-integrated character? So, which is it?
Plus, Patch 5 adding the background story Inspiration quests is helping to flesh out your character each time - it's not just a stat boost at character creation anymore, it DOES connect them to the overall story.
I suspect that this will primarily be a single player game for the vast majority of players. It is not unreasonable to expect such a game to actually try and build around whatever protagonist character the player has chosen. It then becomes a problem if one has to choose between a fairly dull character that the player creates that barely ever has interactions with the world or a pregen that Larian made which has a whole fuckton of additional interactions with everything.
That was the problem with Origin characters in DOS2. And that's why DOS2 stats for origin characters are useless. But at least DOS2 wasn't D&D, so going pregen was only really annoying. Going pregen in a D&D game is awful. The whole point of D&D is to create your own character. Make some stuff up, go wild, dream big, the world's your oyster. And the whole point of 5E was to make that even easier, to make it much simpler to figure out who your character is supposed to be and what they can do. What's the point of using 5E rules if they're going to directly and intentionally design a game to discourage players from making their own characters? What's the logic in that, aside from trying to compete with CDPR in terms of pissing off the fanbase the most?
It is hard for me to convey in words just how big an affront it is to me to play with a pregen character in a D&D based Baldur's Gate game. It has nothing to do with the characters Larian make, either. Those characters could be good or bad, amazing or flat out awful, it really doesn't matter. It's the bald-faced violation of the fundamental principle of D&D that ticks me off. Using pregens is the antithesis of what D&D is about. It turns the role-playing game into an adventure game where you're out to discover who their character is, rather than acting out who your character is.
