Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Please, Larian, kill the narrator voice in BG 3...

This game is based on Dungeons and Dragons. The “narrator” is the Dungeon Master describing what’s going on. Doing so allows it to feel like the tabletop while also allowing Larian to not have to create a cinematic to “show what’s going on”. If they want to throw in a mute option….okay? Again, they are trying to make this FEEL like DnD. It isn’t jarring to have the DM describe something. I personally love it, and I love the job the voice actor has done. The reason it isn’t a character from the story talking to you is because it is the DM. No offense intended, but it feels like a lot of complaints about this game stem from people not wanting a video game to be based on DnD while insisting on playing a game made specifically to be based on DnD.

Personally I love the voice, however I get where those who don't are coming from, it seems the obvious solution is to provide an option to mute.

This voice is a Larian peculiarity as well as the terrible group navigation and the possibilty to speak to animals and the dead. They transfered the mechanics from DO:S to BG. They even set a worm in your brain to get this telepathy mechanic as well as the voice (this is 100% Larian and not BG). I do not like this much especially the group navigation. But i have to accept this. For that I get the possibility of the (in D&D 5e not that) complex class system which allows me to play different class combinations as well as a decent graphic. We have to take what we get

I don't find the voice that annoying, but adding a mute option is an obvious choice. That said, what I DO mind is the voice essentially telling me what MY character is feeling. No. It's an rgp. Get the fuck out of my head thanks.

this vioce could be the dungeon master so it's ok.

They are? Can't really say that they have succeeded so far. Feels more like they wanted to create another game based on what they like with DOS, just picking bits here and there from DnD to be able to pass it off as a dnd game since that was the premise for the license.

Apologies for the off-topic rant.

It is really hard to satisfy the DO:S, BG and D&D fans at the same time. I am not so familiar with D&D 5e but they sould not do too many changes to the ruleset. Played DO:S 2 for a while and for me the game looks like DO:S 2 (UI, group navigation, telepathy). But to be fair even in BG they did not implement the D&D rules of this time to 100% correctly.

Without turning this to another "this is not a dnd game"-thread I just want to respond with that I completely understand that you can't fully convert the TT game to a digital platform. Missing a real time human DM is a big part of that. And as far as I know, no company has really managed to translate for ex the resting system well. And yes, a little bit of homebrewing is not only acceptable but even expected. So they can give their personal touch on it. Emphasis on little. First and foremost you'll get a deep understanding of the game system you'll have to work with. Then you'll work on overcoming the limitations the new media format brings and find workarounds. After that, you can add some extra for fun where you find the original system is lacking.
And that, is not what Larian is has showned to be doing so far. As for pleasing DOS fans when this game has nothing to do with that game series, I better keep my mouth shut. There, I think it's better to leave it at that.

Like I said, my rant was off-topic but the moment was just too tempting to give up.

This may very well be true, although I think part of the appeal of the CRPG over the Pen and Paper experience, is that in the former the "DM" is able to retreat completely behind their screen, and disappear into the aether. In a CRPG, if well executed, the DM simply becomes the Game, with no discernable separation.

Is that better for people who want a simulation of the Table Top experience? Maybe not, but absent an active DM participant to truly embody the game, they're going to hit that wall that separates story-time narration from active play at recess. BG1 had very limited narration, only at the start of the game and during the new chapter headers. Everything else was conveyed in-world and in-character.

That said, I love this voice actress so I don't mind when I hear her speaking. I actually look forward to it. She can read lines to me all night, and I'd never complain hehe. If I could choose her voice for my MC, so I could just pretend that its my character's inner monologue, I'd probably do that. Even though that goes entirely against everything in D&D, and would pretty much dispel completely my sense of unique characterization. But I don't have much of that right now anyway, alas.

They seem to have eschewed the most important component of a D&D game here in EA, which is Player Character customization and creativity. They seem to be prioritizing many of the wrong things in my view, if the goal is to create a D&D experience that is in any way true to the spirit of role playing. If they were on target, we'd be seeing most updates and patches focusing on the Character Creator. Instead they have given us role casting or role auditioning, or really just spectating like a member of the audience rather than part of the troupe on stage.

Still, it costs me nothing if others want the option to mute her vocals and just read the text, or even to remove the narration text entirely. Put it in the game settings and move on. There are so many things that need to be done before I can consider this a satisfying Baldur's Gate or D&D game. We're not even out of the valley yet. I can barely see the summit through the clouds. Even though I like the first impression, there's lot of climbing yet to do.

It's great that you love hearing the narrator read the narration text, and I'd never think of depriving you of hearing her sexy, sultry voice that no doubt keeps you awake at night...;) But the way Larian previously handled the narrator reading the narration was ideal since those who wanted to hear the text read back to them by a nonPC could hear it (your group), while those who didn't want to hear it read back to them for various reasons could simply turn it off and read the narration text themselves, much faster, and far more in keeping with the game's content (my group). Larian had it nailed--and then reversed course. And the result is the forced narration, which takes choice out of the picture. That doesn't work, imo.

So it's only a matter of how the narration text is delivered to the player, and giving the player a choice of hearing it read by someone not in the game or simply reading it at his own speed silently--usually much faster than the narrator can speak it. Giving players the choice is what I recommend Larian returning to--not removing the narration text from the game.

Again, it's baffling, because Larian had solved the problem brilliantly in D:OS2 by placing the narrator on a single thread that could be modulated independently of all other spoken dialogue in the game. That was carried forth by the first few patches of BG3 EA, only reversed to D:OS2 status as of patch 5, I believe. Why?

I just find it strange as this issue became quite heated in D:OS2, IIRC, and putting the narration on a single thread independently controllable by the player solved it completely--everybody was happy, etc. Just can't figure the reversal, and I hope the Devs will change it back to having the narration on a single thread for independent modulation by the player.

Yes, apt description! You've nailed it...;)

One other small thing is that narration is a classic device used in books--novels, even short stories. But in a book, the only avenue of communication the writer has with the reader is the written text--there's no other way to advance his themes or story or setting--except through the written word. In computer games, fortunately, we have all manner of other mediums that are available to push concepts, stories, settings, emotion and more. Elements like character animation, sound effects, spoken dialogue, musical scores and themes, such that words convey only a fraction of the content imparted.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that in a colossal work like BG3 we might even do away with the classical narration completely and not miss it!

I would miss it.

For me, the narrator is great which keep my concentration on the story. Imagine if the narrator is removed, you will find yourself reading the texts exhaustingly, and finally, you will get tired of the narrator's texts and start to skip them all. But if they also remove the narrator's texts, it is hard to know all the information from the current scenario, since the information provided by the conversation is limit.

Anyway, to provide an option to mute the narrator to some people who dislike it is not harmful, but I don't think this should be at the top of the list since they still have more bugs to be fixed urgently.

Personally I think a missing narrator to be one of the flaws of the storytelling of many computer rpgs -- the original BG games among them (as far as I remember, aside from the chapter and dream narration there is none -- in dialogue at least). Games like BG3 and Owlcat's Pathfinder games benefit greatly from having a narrator to inform you about the "author's intention" in scenes.

I'm fully with you on the option to mute or unmute the narrator, or control it's volume. But I wouldn't want it gone at all. Especially since these:

...Aren't close to being fine enough to compete with the narrator at this point. They all have their place. Just imagine the "Illithid influencing" scenes in-game right now: up until this patch (or Patch 5?) they didn't have the Mark appear on them visibly when the narration said it did, which was a bit confusing, but the narration still made it clear what was happening through context. But imagine the same scenes without the narration, even with the Mark being animated... It would be needlessly mystifious and much more confusing.

That's why a narrator is needed. To convey things to you that mere visuals and sounds cannot.

I am personally biased on the matter. I played DOS 2 to the death so having Malady narrate BG 3, it's pretty awesome if you ask me.

A narrator should never be telling you what you are thinking or feeling. Otherwise they can be helpful, although with a video game I think we can use our own eyes rather than this. This still doesn't change that some of us prefer to read rather than hear for whatever reason and the mute option needs to come back.

As far as I've noticed the game only does this when there's supernatural influences afoot. In which case it totally should tell you how (the mind-flayer is making) you feel.



Sigh.

Personally i love the narrator inclusion , but hes not asking to remove it , just to be able to turn it off. im all in for options to suit all playstyles, it would make Larians work so much easyer and please so many more players if they just put in options for most things, this would also go better in line with pen&paper d&d where every GM is different, so yes Larian please let us have options/settings to tailor our gaming experience.

This is a computerised version of DnD.

The narrator is the DM.

You can't mute the DM.

Keep her voiced, I love her interjections.

I love the voice. But I guess I am not everybody. A mute option would be fine for those who do not like it.