Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Less Narrator, more Companion Dialogue

This is just a thought that struck me recently, but I think the game would benefit more from character interaction than constant narrator scripts.

For example, instead of the narrator saying to you something like, "You see Astarion for what he really is, a vampire spawn, a creature of sanguine hunger," have someone like Gale observe the scene and say, "By the stars! Why didn't I see it before. He's a vampire spawn!"

Then Shadowheart adds to it, speaking in an awed tone, "A creature of sanguine hunger."

Then, maybe they could discuss the situation together, as a party. "We should destroy him at once," says Shadowheart. "He's undead. He'll prey upon us."

"I don't know," Gale replies. "The tadpole seems to have altered him considerably. He can walk about by day, and he doesn't seem to have the abilities of a vampire spawn. You know, he can't climb on walls, and he seems to be vulnerable to poisons and unable to regenerate his health. In fact, he seems almost like he's alive and not undead at all."

You know... more of companions discussing things and less the narrator just putting everything from the MCs perspective.

Of course, the downside is that you might not have Gale or Shadowheart or anyone else to react. So either, some things like that would be missing, or Larian would need to cover possible companions AND narrator at the end, if there is no one to react.

Constant presence of narrator, I think, is pretty intentional as it's a voice of our DM. Not sure if it is the most natural thing to have in a PC game, but it was rather entertaining in D:OS2.

Hmm. Good point. Sometimes I forget how many options there are in this game. I suppose it's true that it would require a lot more voice acting and therefore a lot more money.

They could just forget the narrator for everything that is not really meaningfull and replace this with real dialogs ?

I really don't like the concept of a narrator everywhere in the game. I'm fine with it when you end an act, to have a break after (or before) important event... But I hate having so much break everywhere.

They have enough money to show us what she's saying. I'm writing a story playing BG3, not listening one.

In this particular scene? No ...
Whole camp is suppose to sleep, you awake just by accident in right moment.

But if you mean that we should have option to wake everyone else before our conversation starts ... that is different matter, and i would give you +1

I don't mean just that scene. I mean in general. There needs to be more dialogue between characters. Right now, it's just more of an MC show with Narrator doing a lot of the talking.

So, let me give you another example of what I mean. You find the Book of the Dead in the library of the Dank Crypt. You are holding it. Instead of the Narrator saying, "This is a list of names, but of what?" Gale is standing behind you and he says, "Hmmm. Looks like a list of names, but of what? Maybe if you let me look at it, I can determine more." Then you have the option of letting Gale examine the book and use his Arcana skill to decipher what the list of names is.

Or maybe it's Shadowheart who says it and you can offer it to her so she could use her Religion skill... or whatever. The point is, there isn't enough party interaction and dialogue and using other party member skills.

I love how in Pathfinder when you need to make a skill check, the game automatically chooses the character with the highest skill bonus to make the check. It isn't always just your MC making every skill check. Your other party members will make the check if they have the higher skill.

So I'm just looking for less Narrator and more party interaction. There still needs to be Narrator, mind you, for those events where it is necessary, but maybe some of the other party members could start conversing a bit more instead of or in addition to the Narrator.

I get you, but i simply like Narrator ...
She is descriping inner thoughts of your character, the less you get her the more dull your own character will be. :-/

I would like to have more interaction with party, but honestly ... not for this cost. :-/

But i still believe there is potential in this suggestion ...
As we said in first example you could wake up your party and cause a little fuss around that situation ... then there would be no need for Narator, but she will still remain there for those of us, who would like to keep this situation more private.
In second example the same, you could either give the book to whole group for examine like "hey look here i found something" ... or you could examine that yourself ... i would even love to have option to choose wich member of your party will make that diceroll (Arcana?) check to identify what is in the book.

That seems just right to me, after all we are GROUP od adventurers, it would be really nice if Larian start to threat our party as such instead of one individual and three followers.

I suppose you like narration or not. I remember many people complaining about narration in Pillars games, while personally I thought it added to the experience. Same with Planescape. I don't think it is incorrect to point out, that having a narration should be redundant, especially in title with such high production value as BG3. It might make sense to point out that Astarion is a vampire in table top setting, and even in top-down cutscene-less games like Infinity Engine games.

But here we have a "cinematic" experience, with big focus on presentation, and yet, there is still a need for a narrator to describe things? Isn't it what cinematic's are for? Perhaps, it's just part of BG3 identity crisis.

Personally, I didn't mind narration, but found other excesses to be, so far, a waste of time and resources. We will see how it will be going forward. It is not impossible, that if cinematics start contributing more, Larian will start cutting unnecessary descriptors.

I would rather have narration than a voiced protagonist, personally. However, I will never disagree with a call for more companion interactions! 😊

I honestly don't mind the narrator. I think I just want more party interaction.

Second having the narrator mortar the PC's sparse dialogue.

i like narrators, but i do not want a narrator to tell me what I'm thinking and feeling. Fuck off with that mind reading nonsense.

Ah, but the narrator is the Absolute... The Tadpole

It doesn't matter if the narrator is set up as a present and active participant, and that they are theoretically inside my mind and can see what I'm thinking or feeling: The game itself doesn't actually know that, can't know that (unless I tell the game so), and telling me that my character is thinking or feeling something that she is not is never the right thing to do, in any circumstance, short of making it explicitly clear that it's an influence coming from outside of your character's self. Even then – the narrator is only telling you about an influence, and an emotional or thoughtful external pressure that is trying to make you think or feel a certain way – it still cannot intrude upon the space of what your character, personally, would actually think or feel.

A narrator can describe a scene, and they can even illustrate impressions and sensations, but what they cannot do is tell the player how they, or their character, actually thinks or feels about something - that's cutting the player out of the roleplaying game and disengaging them and their agency, as well as utterly annihilating their ability to immerse in the game's situation as their character.

This is something that BG3 does very wrong, currently.

Niara sums up my thoughts, it's as if we're cut out of the whole process and the narrator is telling us how we're feeling when we didn't choose to feel that way.

+1 to that. I think, to sum it up, less MC voice and less Narrator, and less facial expressions from the MC. Let the player imagine their own character's responses as opposed to having the game dictate them.

I think it's more, choose one way to go. Either make Tav a blank slate (and able to support your roleplaying) or make him a character, one who makes facial expressions, and has a distinct, possibly mutable, voice.

And either way, more narrator, RPGs need a way to express the internal, or else we have no way of knowing it as a player. If we were able to affect our character's internal life a little, through the narrator, it makes establishing our character's traits and motivations less of a guessing game.

Terrible idea.
If I agree with Niara's answer, I totally disagree with you here.

Less of everything for the MC would even make him more disconnected to the world and the story.

This is a story driven RPG, not a sandbox.

Our character should be a part of the story even more than now... he should have a voice even if the players choose the answer (and the tone or the facial expression eventually, god bless alignment).

Considering SH's new patch 5 story it looks like origins are once again going to be the main protagonists while Tav is just gonna be a blank useless slate in the story of BG3.

A narrator that does not decide what you think or what you feel does not mean that your character should never feel anything.

Lol.

Well. Ultimately I'd love my original idea of more MC voices, alignment, facial expressions based on alignment, etc. I'd love more dialogue and character interaction than narrator.

For example, when opening the Book of the Dead, I'd rather have a die roll secretly done by all party members. The highest roller who makes the DC tells everyone it's about a list of gods, once dead now alive. Whole pantheons reborn. You know, like Gale tells everyone, not the narrator, or maybe SH makes the highest roll and says it.

That would make the party more like they are working together instead of so disjointed.

Yeah something like that would be awesome but if Tav has the highest roll, he should definitely say something with his voice and have facial expression