Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Please Rethink PC Origin Characters

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.

This isn't as much of a gotcha as you think it is. Everyone knows that things that could be done to flesh out customs is being sacrificed for the origin system. Larian doesn't have to outright say it, but considering how game dev usually goes, we know that there is a serious chance that this is happening.

Like I've said, customs only have a Baldurian tag/background right now. Literally nothing has changed from day 1 of EA on this front, and there's no signs that this is actively being worked on, from how the dataminers are completely silent when it comes to this category. So again, I wouldn't be surprised if BG3 shipped out with the background tag system either being dropped entirely or customs are locked to being Baldurian only. The effort that goes into making sure that Gale for instance can take the role of the main character could have instead gone to expanding dialogue trees for all of the potential backgrounds, to the point where a custom Waterdhavian character can talk to him and get a lot of unique dialogue, and indirectly expand Gale's characterization as well. Ergo, massive missed opportunity.

Probably the greatest irony of the origin system as we've already seen it in DOS2 is that it actually took away a lot of reactivity in the end. In the need to make sure all of the party members there could take on the role of main character, not only did customs pull the short stick there, but the true worst part of it all was that they outright sacrificed actual party banter and reactivity among the party itself. It is no surprise that people fear the same thing happening to BG3 in the end. With the logic that we're supposed to fill in all the blanks ourselves if we choose to play as a custom character, are we suddenly supposed to come up with our own party banter if we choose to play as an Origin character too?

DOS2 largely avoided this criticism by attracting an entirely new audience to the cRPG genre that didn't have any defined standards or expectations to begin with. BG3 has the eyes of new and veteran fans of the genre alike, resurrecting a franchise that has lain dormant for some 20 years, along with much of the new audience trying out other cRPGs since. That's why the criticism on this front is so much louder this time.

Also, the background inspiration mechanic is a neat gameplay thing, but it doesn't really do much from a narrative standpoint. 1 inspiration point for picking options that fit your background. Neat, but it's more gaming the system rather than actual nuanced roleplaying.

Concept of a good custom PC isn’t new. It is a computer game - content is pre-made and therefore limited. One can create only a character that the game allows for. Whatever character you create for the table-top, the DM and other players can respond to. It is not so in BG3. Sure I can imagine who my character is but in general The game either ignores things I communicated (lack of reactivity to backgrounds) or doesn’t provide many opportunities to express it. It should be a constant back and forth - you as a player get a wide selection of things to choose from, game when appropriate reacts to it.

I can imagine I am playing a character in minecraft, but it doesn’t make it a good RPG.

Every RPG will decide what range of characters players can roleplay as - some will be more limited then others. Instead of making as deep custom character reactivity, Larian opts to create multiple pre-made characters.

How so? I am in my second playthrough, and I don’t remember triggering it once for my main character. I am sure I did, but gain of useless (at the moment) resource is hardly a replacement for unique character development. If I didn’t watch the video, I don’t think I would be aware that just “quests” exist - I would be just confused why my companions are given inspiration points are random intervals.

That's still not it, Alexandrite. What people are saying is that, they don't like how other things are getting compromised (bland non-origin character, non-existent party banter, narration issues) because the origin system exists and because the devs want to promote that system of theirs. Personally, I can live with "a blank slate character that has nothing that makes them more special than everyone else", but not having party banter is a big disappointment. I find the way your "party" feels and interacts within itself in DOS2 is disappointing. I won't complain about the fact that I don't care about the origin characters, but I will say that it is disappointing that this whole origin system compromises other things that I do care about.

What many of us want is something that makes you feel that your custom character matters, that the story exists because the character exists. In BG1 you were brought up in a peaceful and quiet place but suddenly that peace is disrupted because someone wants you dead, but you don't know why. And based on conversations with NPCs and the journal you get the feeling that something big and ominous is going on and you're somehow involved in it; you just don't know how. All that context makes you feel you're special - you, and not any of your companions. This in no way means you're a "pre-written" character, and prevents you from being able to act how you want, make up your own personality, and choose whatever dialog choices you want. In DAO you're special because you're a Grey Warden and it's made clear by the game that without you Alistair alone most likely wouldn't be able to do much. In DAII you're just a dude but the game also makes you feel you're special because of the circumstances in which the companions come to you, the impact you make to their lives, and how the game makes you rise into the hero. In DAI, well, no need to say much here cause in DAI you're the chosen of freaking Andraste who almost literally holds the fate of the world in their palm. There is a reason for you to care about the character you're playing.

In DOS2, my constant question for my non-origin character is, "What if I didn't exist?" As a non-origin character all you do is helping the origin characters beat up the bad guys along the way. You can be replaced by any hired mercenary and the story of the origin characters will unfold the same way. Only 4 of you survive the prologue but there are 7 of you including your non-origin character, so chances are the world would still be completely fine if your custom character didn't exist. There isn't a story about my own character.

Thank you for this example and well articulated point. This is so spot on, and is a perfect example of one of the ways the custom char gets shafted by Larian’s strange obsession with these origin chars.

Custom chars should be the lead protagonist and thus central to the story. This cannot work when your entire team is a potential lead protagonist. They all vie for attention and completely do their own thing with some random halfhearted interaction with the lead sprinkled in. The party dynamic…one of the hallmarks of great rpgs…is completely fracked by this design choice.

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.

Don't underestimate this deep dive comment into Dos2's design philosophy.

The very important aspect of the system that origin opposers
Sometimes forget to mention is that even if the origin system didn't hurt the custom MC at all, it is still very harmful to the focus of the story and the party dynamic.

Luckily for me, Saito already gave many dos2 examples so I don't have to delve into that.

I can just say more generally, that the way the origin system works creates a situation in which the game has no real main character, whether you are playing a custom or an origin character. This fucks up the way characters in the world treats your group and how your group members treat each other.

Until this thread, I hadn't really thought that much about how the Origin characters impact the dynamics of the party as a whole, but now it's got me thinking; what do these characters actually think of each other? We don't get that many insights into that. We know that Shadowheart doesn't like or trust Lae'zel at all, but in return, how does Lae'zel really feel about Shadowheart? We can assume she doesn't like Shadowheart back, but is it active dislike or just casual disdain and Shadowheart doesn't really warrant a thought in her mind? What does Gale think of Wyll, and vice-versa? We do get some insights there, like Wyll being interested in having sex with Lae'zel, but only brief lines. They tell you their impressions of the other characters sometimes, but I don't think we ever hear what Lae'zel or Shadowheart think of Gale, for instance.

Compare that to any Dragon Age game. Origins gives us the psudeo-maternal bond between Alistair and Wynn, the constant, subtle distrust Alistair feels towards both Morrigan and Zevran. Let's not forget the climax of the game and how Alistair and Morigan each play into that in an absolutely crucial way which defines the state of the ending both in the macro sense of how things conclude and in the personal sense with what your decisions around them say about your character. DA2 has Varric and Isabella's unique approaches to being elder sibling figures to Merril and looking out for her. It's got Anders and Fenris constantly clashing over their ideology and the vastly different worldviews their individual lives have left them with. Inquisition has Sera and Solas's frustrations with each other over their thoughts on what it means to be elven. Cassandra's respect for Blackwall and her sense of betrayal when the truth comes out about him. Varric and Cassandra's strained relationship from DA2 and how that slowly develops into a genuine friendship, with Varric even going back to finish a book series he would otherwise have been done with for her sake. EVEREYONE has feelings about Cole and what he is, and his final companion quest hinges on his relationship not just with the Inquisitor but with Varric and Solas, two other companions who each have differing ideas on what he can and should be. That quest would not work if you didn't believe that those three cared about each other.

Especially in the latter two games, your party aren't just your companions, they're companions. They interact and are part of each other's lives and stories just as much as they're part of yours. But I'm not confident we're going to see that in BG3 thanks to the priorities of the Origin system. And I don't think it's actually the lack of a central character that does this to the narrative. I think that in principle, the idea of a crpg where there isn't a central protagonist but instead an ensemble of equally important protagonists CAN work and be interesting, it could even work with players making a custom character. But the Origin system doesn't make an ensemble cast of equally important protagonists. It makes a cast of characters that could all potentially BE the single most important protagonist. They're not making a story about an ensemble cast, they're making a story about a central protagonist where they don't actually know who the protagonist is going to be. Even looking at D:OS2's story, the idea of a story about a bunch of people who could potentially all ascend to godhood and have to compete for the privilege is an interesting idea. It's the kind of story that should hinge on the dynamics of the group, what they feel about each other, what they feel about their situation as a result, all of that. But instead from the sound of it, because they all had to potentially be the central character, there wasn't the capacity to SHOW that interaction, to let them have feelings about each other. Instead whichever character the player chose became the central character and the focus of the others. Because since they all have to be able to stand alone as the main protagonist, rather than truly exist as a group of protagonists (as well as having to deal with the fact that any random two or three companions could get killed off after act 1), the writing can't have their stories rely on the presence of each other. And the result is each Origin being an island unto themselves, with thewider party not truly mattering. It makes no difference to anyone if Fane isn't there, or Lohse or the Red Prince. Their stories will go on just fine no matter who's there, because they don't matter to each other.

I would like to see a way to build your own character's backstory more. I like making custom characters but it just feels weird to have a character poofed into existence with very little to be said about their history. Even something simple would be nice, where there are more dialogue options to talk about your past. I would like more than that, but I'm not sure what else would be feasibly possible to implement.

Exactly. Why would anyone want to play a custom character that has been intentionally made to be a crappy game-playing experience? If you set up a choice between two options where one of them is indisputably superior, and then you find from your surveys that people "preferred" the (intentionally) superior option, that doesn't say anything at all about whether people actually liked the "preferred" option.

I mean, crap or not, even if they do the Origin characters amazingly in the story, dialogues, etc. I won't play them, I didn't in DOS2 where even the story was written around one of them, I def will not do it here for the simple fact that I like freedom. Yes, freedom, my character may not get an amazing lore deep background, etc. But I will be able to make any class, race, the appearance I want. make choices that I want based on the kind of character I decided to play.

Playing as an Origin character it just won't be the same thing. You go and change any of the origin and it will be odd (At least for me), Having the option to change their classes (which I doubt) will be even weirder, changing races or even appearance it's not a thing too because they have their iconic looks thrown at you on every loading screen, etc. It just feels fake. So, With all said, I don't think I personally can even try playing without the freedom of creating my own character, even if it will be diminished in the story.

But I do understand those who like the origin system, and that they are using DOS way of storytelling instead of conventional RPG where you, the player, is the "chose one", and companions are just that, companions.

I think that is part of the problem for me. Unless the origin character has unique dialogue for that conversation, then you just get the generic dialogue that a custom gets. Why play as a premade if you still have to define your personality in the same way a custom character has to. I understand your decision to play a custom, my problem more comes down to the fact that origin characters get everything a custom gets and more.

Also small note on the second point, you're right in that we probably won't be able to change class or the like, but DOS2 lets you change the appearance of the origin characters so I imagine they will here too.

We did not see a lot of origin characters fans here or on reddit since the EA launch, TBH.
People that like origin characters often like them because Tav is a hero that has nothing interresting to say, chosen one or not...

I saw more than a few. And I saw someone here saying that the only or most people who like origin characters are newcomers to dos2 that don't know anything else. And from my experience it's not true.

I assume the Main reason you don't hear them as much is that since they are happy with the way things are, they are less incline to come here and participate in a discussion that most of it is a rather harsh criticism.

Well, I just said that I understand them liking it. My only hope is that on the final product Larian finds a middle ground to make the custom character interesting as they are doing with the origin ones. But regardless, my opinion about my choices on Origin and custom MC won't change.

While I agree with most of the arguments for not being particularly fond of "Playable Origins" as a concept and I voiced that dislike myself several time in the past months, I think people should be a bit more careful before taking the specific angle of blaming this game of lacking "inter-party dynamics".

Both because this is actually an aspect that even in its current form this game ALREADY handle better than DOS 2, and because they are in fact adding more party banters and companions interjections in dialogue with every patch, so far.
The last one being probably the most generous in this sense.

And when I played with a modded savefile and a larger party I had several chances of listening to several banters that often involved even three companions at the same time... Or referenced previous ones between other party members.

So, credit where credit is due.

That's fair.

I have hundreds of hours in DOS2 over multiple plays. I never touched an origin character until the last two runs.

It was crazy to me all the NPCs and things I came across as a custom party that had triggers and additional conversation, particularly with Ifan, Lohse, Sebille.

Larian is flat-out lying by saying you're getting an equivalent experience in their games without taking custom party members. There's also, at least for DOS2, an imbalance between characters for content.

Already, it seems for BG3 Act 1, Shadowheart is the star. Now it may not be this way for the entire game, but it feels that way now.

I will be forced to eventually do origin run just to get the full experience of the game as Larian intended, which is unfair to me. I shouldn't feel like if I choose one or more characters over another that I will have a lesser experience

I'm on the boat of our PC feeling really lackluster right now, but I'm not opposed to Origin Characters. I think this is honestly more of a situation where Larian needs to balance the amount of PC interaction with the world, because the more I play the more I feel like I'm the third wheel to the main story.

Sure, I might be leading the party choices, but in the end it's still extremely Origin-char centric, which is not what I want. I got BG3 because of the fact that it was marketed as a PC-customizable experience, not because I wanted to play or see through the lenses of Origin Chars. While I see the appeal of OC, it doesn't set it apart from any other open-world RPG that focuses on a pre-made protagonist that I could have bought instead if I wanted to play something like that. And for the arguments about it being the same as DnD where we mostly come up with everything and should -- if I wanted to play DnD straight up, I would have. If I'm going to go through the trouble of creating a whole backstory on my own, I'd just go play actual DnD where player experience is left to total imagination since there'd be an actual live DM and other real life players to help tailor the experience. But BG3 has neither of those to make the "leave your PC up to your imagination outside of the game" really fly. It's not fun that way, at least in my opinion, and it's inconsiderate of players outside of the DnD scope.

As for the solution, I don't know. Even though I am enjoying BG3 right now, the approach to PC is a pretty big letdown. They really should invest more in PC immersion than Origins, imo.

Its a gimmick. Not the reason I bought the game. I want to build my own characters and decide how they go through the world. Origin playthroughs don't make much sense to me, who has the time to be shoehorned into a pre-existing build (most of the stats on them don't make sense as it is) when you can plan your own, when the time comes, multiclassed character??
If they don't add more origin characters I doubt I'll touch any of their stories as I don't like them as characters anyway. Well, Lae'zel is the only playthrough I'd have an interest going through since she is obviously the most alpha character of this pretty band of misfits and if I can be on the dealers side of those snappy remarks all the better. But even that would dry up quickly, probably before the end of Act 1, dropping the said playthrough and making my own gith. Githzerai are the superior ones anyway.