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

Lowkey, Imoen was my sis before it was canon she was my sis, so Irenicus messing with her was all the motivation i needed to want to ruin his day, way more than i'd wanted to ruin Sarevok's.

A huge downside of BG2, though, it must be said, that everything hinges so much on Imoen. Main plot doesn't make much sense if one, or one's character, doesn't much care about her.

(Of course BG3 doesn't even have that, since the whole tadpole plot hinges on -- what? how much i care about my newly born character?)

Whether you as a player care about the character you have created is a question from the player's perspective that you could apply to any game really. From a character's point of view, wanting to survive is a motivation that you could apply to a larger group of characters than rescuing a companion whom your character might not even like.

People, people, can't we all just get along? It's not about whether the game should allow for explicit decapitations, or Disney squirrels. It's about, whether or not, by way of a dark ritual, a Disney squirrel can perform an explicit decapitation, and then place its enlarged nuts in the mouth of a recently disembodied head.
Thankfully, we have such a game. I hope you all now understand the error of your ways.

Good voice acting? Sure. Solid dialogues? Nope. Irenicus writing isn't just cliche, he is simply boring, predictable and extremely lacking any realistic personality. His dialogues are literally a carbon copy of any generic villian dialogue, it's edgy, generic and we are expected to treat his seriously, vene though he's successes are the reslut of him having a huge amount of plot armour until the final battle. How is a guy who's every other sentence is about him being great and others being pathetic isn't artificial and disney humour, yet Kagha is? You also call Wyll generic and apathetic despite him being one of the most conflicted and complex NPCs in all BG games. You honestly make no sense in your criticism.



This. Kerghan as the BBEG is dialogue is amazing, especially when Virgil confirms that what Kerghan says about afterlife is true, and also the fact that you can persuade him to stop his crusade against life makes him much nuanced and empathetic compared to a guy who just wants to kill everyone he doesn't like and get godlike power because being god is cool.



The race twist idea was promising, but the execution was very weird. Irenicus looks like a gym trainer who escaped a BDSM dungeon.

Can we please stop debating the writing of 20 year old games and focus on BG3?

The criticism was about BG3 not knowing what it is at it's core. We have storytelling with mature themes, explicit decapitation and eye stabbing in photorealistic presentation, and then we have cutesy talking Disney cartoon animals and goofy Super Mario -like gameplay with lots of jumping and videogamey elements in an adult RPG.

It's not about having lighter elements or humor here and there. Even horror needs those to be better horror. It's about mixing different styles and genres to the point where the game just feels like a mess without an identity.

Lol. But then again, how else should a fantasy themed villain look ? Especially the one having a personal dungeon ? BDSM stays the timeless style of dungeon decoration, right ? (not really a fan of the futuristic apple and fascist/USSR art inspired style - of 'evil' aesthetics such as in star-wars) And personal development and leadership are surely qualities any good Evil villain who wishes to exercise some control over his subordinates and minions needs, no ? Btw, there's already a personal BDSM trainer near the entrance of the goblin ruins, so BDSM inspired evilness is def considered viable by Larian.

I'd personally wish they'd embraced some of those sweet Satanism references and metal imagery that gave WOTC products (MtG, DnD) their special subcultural flavour to teenage me (and just for triggering and trolling Christian parents associations) , but I guess satanism and extreme metal are not that trendy anymore .

I think it's more accurate to say that you don't know what it is. If characters couldn't jump, people would complain, characters can jump, and people are complaining. In some games, all this jumping around is known as parkour. It's implemented better in some games, AC franchise springs immediately to mind, but it's far from the only series where it's included, and ironically, some of them are pretty successful franchises. The last I heard, Uncharted was pretty popular, and then there's the Tomb Raider series, original and the recent reboot. I seem to recall that Horizon Zero Dawn was pretty popular as well. I played it on PC, and it was pretty fun. Is it ironic that nobody is complaining about jumping around in those, when they don't even have a Jump spell, and yet, here we are? Is the Jump spell unique to just the video game? It's not? Then why is it suddenly an issue, and how is it "videogamey"? If we didn't have the Jump spell and action included, would you be complaining about that?

Despite your claim here, that's exactly what it's about, otherwise you wouldn't point out some comedic elements in your "dark" game. I'm left wondering, what is it that you expected a dialog with a squirrel to be like? My forum name is based on what I was doing in real life when the internet first came out. I travelled around a lot within a hundred miles or so of my current location, playing guitar at Renaissance Fairs, and charity events. I even have a piece featured in a 9/11 memorial in a NWN module. I would rehearse in my back yard, and you'd be surprised at the amount of wildlife that would hang out to listen, including squirrels. Seeing them around Alfira didn't even phase me, because I've actually seen it happen. I've never talked to them though, it wasn't an idea that I found attractive, figuring it'd be focused on how they needed to find nuts, or something similar.

I'm analyzing BG3 as I see and experience it. And I think you're off the mark here and thinking in weird extremes.

No one is asking to take jumping away from the game as you seem to assume. There's simply a difference between jumping over a gap or out of a fire (as you can do in D&D) and jumping 20 feet high to reach a high ground platform (like you can do in BG3 but cannot do in D&D). And the Jump spell is a completely different thing altogether because it's supposed to be a superhuman magic jump. You are only looking at the big picture while I'm talking about details.

Same with the talking animals. No one is saying they shouldn't communicate when you cast Speak with Animals. But again, there's a difference between animals speaking like they are characters in a Disney cartoon with human-like intelligence and animals communicating in a more primitive way like.. animals would.

And what does this list of action games have to do with a turn based D&D CRPG?

I realize others are bothered that it doesn't feel consistent, that it's a hodgepodge of genres, and I think I get where you're coming from with that, but I I'm really super okay with the overall stylistic feeling(s) in the current form. It's like Vaudeville, and I like Vaudeville. It's got the serious stuff, a musical number, comedy that varies from the dry to the absurd, a sexy-times act. Sure, it's all over the place. It's like The Muppet Show for grownups, but with more emphasis on the serious than the silly. For a lot of people, being able to compare a AAA RPG to The Muppet Show or Vaudeville is a colossal negative, I'm sure. But I like the novelty of it, and I like the variety.

I don't think it's any coincidence that Alfira, Statler-and-Waldorf squirrels, and the harpies are all basically in the same area. Three completely different beats you'll hit just about the same time. If that's off-putting for you, then it's off-putting for you. I really like it.

They are all video games, with "videogamey" stuff in them. The horror, right?

Yes, I am looking at the big picture, because the big picture is what matters. I want the whole game to succeed, not a conversation with a squirrel. I don't care what happens in a TT game, I'm not playing in it. I didn't go "Ooo, it's 5e, I have to buy it", I went "ooo, it's BG 3". With the caveat that "it's also early access, so things are subject to change". They could have run with 3.5, and it wouldn't have mattered to me, the edition doesn't matter, the title, and it's legacy do. If it fails to live up to that once it's released, I'll be right there, stating that in no uncertain terms, but it won't be because I didn't like an optional dialog with some squirrels, or an implementation of Jump.

I don't care about the squirrels, but Scratch is adorable and the way you can talk with him is part of the appeal. I'd not like to see that changed to some "primitive" communication imitating animals. It doesn't feel out of place to me in a fantasy game, because while you consider it Disneyesque, animals being attributed human traits is a tale as old as fairy tales themselves.

Larian isn't the only game developer making use of it. In Pathfinder WotR has an optional dragon companion which could come straight out of a Disney movie. At the same P:WotR can be a very dark game, with graphic descriptions of torture that surpass anything in BG3. And yet the mythic path where this dragon is available is very popular, with the dragon companion well received.

Larian has added those "pet Scratch" or "pet owlbear cub" moments because very likely, thanks to the data they gather, they know what percentage of their playerbase enjoys that. Not everyone will, some like you would prefer a more realistic approach, but I don't think it's true for most players.

To be fair, dogs (and certainly dragons) have levels of intelligence much closer to the level of a human than a squirrel. I'd be more surprised if a dragon didn't speak in full sentences. It'd be cool if certain animals in BG3 spoke in more complete sentences, whereas other more primitive animals only conveyed base desires and/or spoke in fragments.

I am not so sure about this, I'd have to do some reading before making a statement.

I'm basing my statement about squirrels ~entirely off of the fact that IRL we have domesticated dogs and googled statblocks says the 5e squirrels have Int=2 and Mastiffs have Int=3. On the other hand, I have seen videos about squirrels participating in obstacle courses to get food, so who knows really...

Dragons, unfortunately, are not real so we can't really do any research besides reading 5e lore & statblocks, almost all of which I've seen show that dragons have humanish or better levels of intelligence.

The best reference for "videogamey" gameplay here are all previous D&D CRPGs.

They didn't have surreal jumping, arrows exploding into huge acid pools or exploding barrels everywhere. And in my opinion a more realistic take on combat benefits those games considering the kind of stories they are telling and the kind of tone they are setting. Previous games have been more consistent than BG3.

Ah, but BG1 had this wand of polymorphing, which could turn people into squirrels. Perhaps BG3's rodents are the descendants of such unfortunate characters.

TBH, I'm not a big fan of Larian's silliness either, and many cases, it feels rather cringeworthy imo. But I also don't feel like it's the end of the world, or that the silliness ruins the game...for me at least.

Except that there is much more depth. The intricacies are always in the approach.

Not only David Warner’s portrayal of his arrogant dismissive indifference is a piece of art, but so is BG2’s narrative.

In his laboratory you can find references of how he struggles to overcome the dread of the curse and how desperate he is to restore his nature and the “love”/memories he once had. As someone who already lived enough in an eternal penitence you can feel his sadness or ,more appropriately, emptiness from the delicate mistress room dedicated to keep his memory of Ellesime to the twisted clones he created to emulate her. And how much he dedicated his life to restore this primitive feeling. A subtle masterful construction of the character.

Through his journal you can see how they develop the character further in what I consider outstanding writing:


And David Warner at the end of the game delivers one of the most meaningful lines with extraordinary voice modulation:


That is great writing in my book (along Spellhold sequence and many others) and he is one of the most conflicted villains ever made.


Now that I am playing patch 6, it is really noticeable how bad the writing is. Sentences feel disconnected, there is a lack of flow on dialogue. (and that is not because of cinematics). 90% of Astarion lines are infested with humor, Gale's introduction is an embarrassing sequence of dialogues, and yes, Wyll has this bland personality/dialogues that blends in with regular world NPCs, making him one of the most forgettable companions in history. And every single NPC you encounter makes jokes that you still are not growing tentacles or talons. There is very little to save in BG3 and mostly comes from Lae'zel.

Why are you arguing over details that don't matter to you, then? Seems like a waste of time and space. Larian asked for feedback and trying to shoot it down isn't useful to anyone.

Oh my... Great and outstanding writing? Most conflicted villains ever made? I mean everything can be considered art from a certain point of view and BG2 has some decent writing, but great? And Irenicus himself isn't even decent, he's at most mediocre writing. The " I do not remember your loves" bit feels so generic and immature, that if I didn't know beforehand that it's from Bg2 I would've assumed it was some overemotional teenager writing to their former sweetheart. And calling his diary outstanding writing when it's on par with an average fanfiction? Irenicus isn't conflicted, he's literally as one-dimensional as possible, he was a beloved and respected elven mage who decided to become god, killed a bunch of other elves, got punished and... decided to become god again with even more murder. Where is he conflicted? The guy is a total and complete jerk. The way his "love story" with elven queen is written it feels like there never was any actual love, but common passion, that simply faded, yet Irenicus is too immature to act like an adult about it and makes a big deal about having feelings in the past and not having them now. He never shows any regret, remorse, guilt, he never implies that his crimes are commited for some greater good or that he has any kind of coherent plan for when he achieves his goals. That is bad writing. When a genius megalomaniac elven wizard who is at least two hundred years old is written as a bitter angry immature teenager, that's bad writing.


And Lae'zel is one-dimensional, generic and boring. Will has the best writing because he is written like an actual human being. He wants to be hero, but only because for him it's a coping mechanism to deal with his insecurities and issues. He suffers from low self-esteem which he hides behind a facade of arrogant bravado, he wants to be loved and respected by his peers, but he also needs to feel that this love and respect are well-earned. The fact that he got his powers from a pact with a demon makes him suffer from an imposter syndrome, he is ashamed of his dealings with Mizora, he suffers from his need to lie and understands it, but is too afraid to stop lying. Wyll is an interesting and complex character.