I would be disappointed in a bg game that didn't give us a vampire angle. Baldur's Gate was set in the Forgotten realms, but totally dipped its toes into like the Ravenloft and Spelljammer swimming pools too, especially the sequel.
Astarion works well enough for me as a foppish vampire archetype I guess, but I think where it fails to land right now is that they are giving us a vampire totally outside of the usual setting for vampire storylines. Like the fact that we meet him during the day, just posting by the side of the road in some backwater, doesn't really prime me to get all into the vampire aspect at all. I mean it would be about a thousand times more interesting if we met this dude in some kind of context.
I don't know if we are eventually supposed to be meeting all these Origins before leaving the Nautiloid? Like perhaps his introduction could be made slightly more interesting if we ran into him on the ship rather than just boar hunting at high noon post crash. Or you know, if he appeared with an introductory encounter during our first camp rest, at night! lol Or perhaps in the ruins with the skeletons? Or I don't know, but its such a silly cold open that it's hard to take his character seriously.
Vampires need other vampires and gothic elements for it to work for me, like in a narrative with at least some attention to the setting. Daytime vampires feels a bit dated like 1999 to me. What it gains from novelty in daytime settings it loses in the traditional ambiance. Like if they're going to give me a vampire companion, I just want it to at least kick off at night, and be a feature of the night game. Which is something sorely lacking at the moment.
Also, there's just not enough black threads in this game to support a Vampire angle right now for me. Not exactly related to vampires, but I caught Willow again the other night after playing BG3 for a few minutes, and all I could think when watching the film was how we're still totally missing our Mad Martigan or Sorsha or Bavmorda duds here in BG3 hehe.
It just seems kinda wonky to me, to throw out a vampire at us without some more support from the story. He looks like such a deadpan stereotypical vampire, that forcing the PCs to pretend like they wouldn't instantly call him out on it is also a bit straining. I think it would play better, if he owned the vampirism from the getgo, and the banter handled all the "ok here's a vampire" stuff immediately, rather than dragging it out as a pointless "reveal." Then maybe they could get into the more interesting stuff, like who made this vampire and what sort of vampire bullshit is about to crack off. Cause once I'm in a vampire campaign, I start judging everything by a much higher standard. Plenty of boxes that might be checked off there, but we don't get really any exposition or priming or much follow up. I'd rather meet this character in the City, or I guess on the ship, but if it's the latter with some kind of set up going up there. Make it part of the plot, instead of just a thing about the character, and then I'd have more buy in. Each of the Origin companions feels wonky to me, because they have all this character thrown at us with no real support from the story. Right now only Lae'zel seems to make much sense from a plotting standpoint, cause like how else do you get a Gith companion and Gith vs Flayers plotline going on. But the rest feel like they're jumping in from out of nowhere. Perhaps that's not entirely fair to Wyll, since I guess he makes an entrance that fits the generalized plotline. Shadowheart feels like she is making a more sensible entrance since patch 5 and the artifact. Since they changed what happens with her, I now am looking at all the other current companion starts as like placeholders potentially. Astarion and Gale make the weakest entrances I think, and feel the most shoehorned, or like just being dropped in wherever. Those intros could be better
Last edited by Black_Elk; 29/08/21 12:38 AM.
