Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Explicit decapitations and Disney squirrels

Spellhold has Tiax in it, and he doesn't have more characterization than "comic relief".

Wacky zany lolrandom comic relief?

To be honest I think trying to go beyond "the originals and BG3 both have seriousness and jokeyness but still ends up feeling different" is an excercise in futility. It just ends up feeling like you're trying too hard to cone up with intellectualist-sounding reasons to lend authority to what in the end is just a difference in opinion.

Personally, I liked the tonality of the originals more than I like BG3. But i also like BG3 a lot more than I liked he tone of the two latest Divinity games, and think it is more like the original BG games than the D:OS games were. So I still think it's an improvement in that regard.

People will enjoy different balances between seriousness and comedy. Maybe BG3 just has a humour that doesn't suit me as much. Maybe they're just laying it on too thick for my taste. Maybe I've just lived long enough that I've grown tired of the same old nonsense wacky humour.

As Barman said. You either die laughing, or live long enough to stop chuckling



That's because they're highly scientific space hamsters, thank you



That's definitely supposed to be a humorous line.

In a mage with PTSD/Schizophrenia is completely within context and tone of the area. It may convey humor, but in reality is actually sad underneath.

I'm definitely on team down-with-the-inconsistencies. The silliness of the squirrels? If you were playing around the table, and you told the DM you cast speak with animals to ask the squirrel what's up, and you got those responses, your DM just did a damn fine bit of DMing.

Alfira as others mentioned is a great example. This stuff brings texture. I'd be disappointed in a CRPG that didn't have some silliness and texture and moments that are less about the story than a kind nod from the story-makers saying "we thought you'd enjoy this."

You're 100% free not to enjoy it. Once you've talked to all the squirrels and cows and whatnot, if that's not for you, now you know, don't bother with them in the future. For me, I think it's a really nice touch, it makes it feel like real D&D when people aren't being too serious about.

A story can't sustain a constant level of rising tension. In other words, it can't go up like a slope. Rather, the tension has to increase like a staircase, one step at a time, then give a little breathing room before going up again. Otherwise, it all becomes overwhelming.

The light moments are little places to relax. Sure, the squirrels are silly, but the bard they're listening to is struggling to write a song about her teacher, who was slaughtered by gnolls.

Anyway, I guess I'm saying it's all a balance in storytelling, and I don't think they're doing a bad job at all. I like that the game isn't afraid to go dark, and I appreciate that the game remembers there's a bit of light from time to time, too.

If you think about it, no matter how stupid conversations with animals are (although they do not differ much from most "funny" moments in older games), it is much harder to come across them than it used to be.
Just don't use animal talk, which most classes don't have access to anyway.
However, knowing Larian, chats with animals are likely to be both the funniest and the most depressing scenes.

The tone of the area is inconsistent. Spellhold is supposed to be an asylum and prison for mages, yet Tiax is parody character. A gnome with illusions of grandeour, never treated seriously by writers in BG1, and BG2 follows on that. Considering Dradeel was a mix of serious and humor in BG1 (his cookbook recipes), interpretations may differ as well.

How come?

The whole theme of the area is insanity and boderline madness which encompasses delusion of grandeur/mania (Tiax), paranoia/PTSD and schizophrenia (Dradeel with his disconnected train of thought and speech). I think it is quite explicit as you go from cell to cell, the different facets of each character and that all of them have madness in common. All conveyed in masterful voice acting with clear variation of prosodia from sentence to sentence. Moreover, just notice the underlying eerie music that establishes the depressing tone. I think it is quite brilliant honestly:

And If you think it is open to interpretation, Irenicus spells out for you

explicitly :

Because there is nothing more to his characterization. If you had him in the party in BG1, he gets treated as comic relief. In BG2 there is even less. A character that is suffering from mental ilness shouldn't be portrayed as only that if they are to have any depth.

It is pretty clear from the video that Tiax is as insane as all others cell mates. All of them have similar lines with different facets of madness. The tone is preserved through music and Irenicus narration, no inconsistence at all.

We all know how Bioware didn't have time to flesh out all NPCs in BG1.

Not an excuse. There is nothing in the main plot that required Tiax to be put into Spellhold. And yet there he is, placed by the writers on purpose.

Tiax? What about Minsc? A whole companion character that is just a huge immersion breaking comic relief. And they put him right into your face in BG2 prologue so you won't miss the cringy small giant space hamster nonsense.

Yeah, sometimes I think I may have played a different game when some of u guys talk about how gritty and serious the original saga was. You mean with the popcultural easter eggs with gay porn stars and stuff, yeah very dark fantasy. Not buying it.

Both the original saga and the Forgotten Realms setting in general is filled with silly humor.

Times have changed and games have evolved a lot in 20 years. I don't think you can directly compare the original games to BG3.

In the original games many silly things leave room for interpretation or can more easily be forgiven for being cringe because the whole thing looks much more like a game with crude pixel graphics and a very limited top down camera. But when silly things are rendered in photorealistic 3D close-ups with full voice acting in BG3 it's much more in your face.

I just wish the direction of BG3 was tighter. It's a bit all over the place with different teams doing whatever they like rather than being directed towards one vision and stylistic choice.

If there's too much silly and goofy in gameplay or writing the main plot, which is actually quite dark, will lose it's impact because everything will just feel like ha-ha. This happened to me in Divinity, I just didn't care about the story because the gameplay was what it was. You have to be very subtle with the lighter tones and humor when you're telling a story like BG3. Disney cartoon characters or combat is a no-go. For me anyway, I need to stay immersed and these pull me out of it.

I agree, but that's just Larian DNA. That 'tighter direction' and 'stop being THAT silly' wishes of yours are in direct conflict with how Larian seems (from the limited sources we have) to work internally.

I don't think you can please people. I remember about 2-3 months ago reading the topic that the game is too dark and not enough (for lack of an idea for a better definition) "fun"

This is especially disturbing when it's optional content that needs to go because it "breaks my immersion"...

My personal impression is that there is something going on which I nowadays call "the heavymetalization of games". Everything has to be dark and "mature" (as if housework was NOT a mature work), with the claim that something is "mature" only meaning "mature = dark, brutal, cynism, no colours, murder, dirt, blood fountains, violence, and especially violence". Nobody is actually interested in the fact that washing dishes is a "mature" work.

What "mature" here means is an highly idealizd form of "what people believe is mature".
Dishwashing and dirty diapers is not a part of this highly idealized form of the term "mature".
Cleaning up after someone had been vomiting after drinking too much isn't considered "mature" as well.
Bringing the own family member into hospital after a severe injury after curring trees' branches isn't considered as "mature" as well.
Trying to help the own child after it has been bullied isn't considered "mature" as well.
Trying to help the own grandfather or grandmother after he or she has been diagnosed with Parkinson or even with Dementia isn't considered as "mature" as well.
Researching where the own grand-cousin died in the last war and where he might be buried is not considered "mature" as well.

But rolling heads are.

See the gap between both ? Between Reality and the idealized version of "maturity" ?

REAL "mature" problems do NEVER appear in games. NEVER.
Except for Divinity 1, because it had dish-washing.
Over which a LOT of people moaned.

What was so immersion breaking about him? He seemed to react to his surrounding in an appropriate manner, and knowing nothing about DnD, I always assumed Boo to be a normal hamster, whom simple-minded Minsc imagines to be something more. The closes thing to immersion breaking I can think of, are things characters say when you click on them - "Yes, oh omnipresent authority figure?" - no doubt a left over of RTS genre, and not the best fit for BGs. And definitely there were things I couldn't stand - like the taking sword.

Lightharted yes, but especially BG2 didn't feel like it was taking piss so often, as BG3 does. Crude and clumsy at times, yes.

Using gaming analogy BG1&2 remind me more of the original Mafia - clumsy and unpolished, with some really bad references and jokes, generally lighthearted but with genuine attempt to tell a good gangster story. BG3 feels more like Saints Row to me - just a whole lot of snark and piss taking.


Never played BG1 with anyone else then "BG2 starting party", so I am rather unfamiliar in Tiax. I do remember him sticking out in the Spellhold. So it comes down to: BG1&2 was also bad at times.

What is "optional content" exactly? I don't remember, any "Wild Wasteland" perk, that filters stuff out.

What I find funny about Minsc is that getting him out of the cage is basically about getting him angry enough to bend the bars. And yet the guy had a frontline view on the main character being tortured by Irenicus, and somehow this didn't make him angry at all.