Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Which Origin Character are you looking forward to playing?

This made me wonder what a game would be like if you played from every origin characters perspective, they'd really need to make sure they established the characters well beforehand but it would be an interesting exercise.

I am just an n=1, but I quit DOS2 halfway thru when I realized how much content I was missing by not playing an origin char. I was annoyed and have no desire to play any of the others.

I either want a single well written protagonist (e.g. Geralt), a complete blank slate (e.g. Skyrim), or a semi defined customizable character with a great crew (e.g., Dragon Age series). I really dislike the DOS2 formula. Interactions with my crew feels like a constant billboard screaming at me to “try one of these origin chars”. It is a fame fighting itself.

But it is what it is. I will only play a custom char and naybe 5 years from now I’ll get bored and try Asterion so I can try out super evil. Msybe. (Probably not)

I think the original BG games and Dragon Age nail what it means to be a protagonist in a CRPG.

You have freedom to create any kind of character, but you have a unique connection to the story. Your companions are important, but there can be only one protagonist in a story. Larian is trying to reinvent the wheel and use four protagonists. It's more like a competition who gets the spotlight, and the custom PC will lose.

If I had to choose: Lae'zel and Gale
Lae'zel because I enjoy roleplaying as slightly-dumb (or naive/brainwashed) fighters who eventually realize something that shatters their world.
Gale because it will be interesting learning about and solving his problem from his perspective, along with possible future interactions with Mystra.

SH and Astarion would be fine, but I'll never do enough playthroughs to make it past the 1-3 Tavs, Lae'zel, and Gale.

Never Wyll. Wyll's a filthy liar and way too full of himself considering his actual skills.

Custom all the way, then romance with Shadowheart

OK hearing about how Origin characters are better treated storywise as a custom made character in Divinity, makes me a bit worried tbh ( and it makes me never want to touch those games ever). I find the companions already too loud in BG3 and they always have the last word on you. This is so annoying. I want my custom character to be the spotlight and the companions are the support Crew, like in aforementioned games like BG 1&2 and the Dragon Age games.
By all means, let there be origins, but don't make them outshine a custom character.

I would also like to add in all my years of mingling among the D:OS2 fanbase, I can probably count with two hands the amount of times I've actually seen people encourage new players to play as an origin over a custom due to legitimately enjoying it, rather than a completely backhanded comment about how playing as a custom is an outright inferior experience.

None.

Unless you can completely change their appearance and editing their level 1 choices. In that case, it's like choosing a backstory other than "generic," but if we have to play the characters as presented, I'll stick to making my own.

Honestly I think those that think playing as "origin" characters are going to offer anything other than a slight diviation from the plot will feel let down. If they use the same formula as DOS2 the origin characters will have few short side quests to resolve their "unique" personal paradigm. Astarian will kill vampire master, SH will deliver the McGuffin and regain memories to find "shocker" she was a brainwashed Salunite, Gale will get orb thing removed etc. etc. Maybe they will get a unique power or item upon completion. Bottom line is DOS is alien to D&D they are not compatable. It is a bit like comparing Disney to Manga, yes they are both animated but one is for babies the other is for grownups.

BG2 story was amazing, it didn't need hamstrung McGuffin story bummers like "the tadpole did it because we can't be arsed making a day/night cycle" or utterly unlikely floaty Gith box of destiny that does stuff because we cannot write cogent stories with 50 yearss of D&D lore to bounce off. It is amature almost like the new star wars movies, almost but nothing deserves that comparason, sorry Larian that was a cheap shot. It is the "This will never happen....until it does...dum dum dummmm!". Hey wouldn't it be cool if the main character gained superpowers for no apparent reason, motivation or effort....No not really.

DOS was original and fun to play but it didn't have 5 decades of lore history and evolution to consider when writing a story. Look what happened to CDPR with cyberpunk 2077. They went form the most trusted game dev in EVER! To the most villified in one game cycle. The same will happen to Larian if they turn BG into a cheezy DOS clone. Mark my words.

I don't think this will happen but we are not there yet. Try and cater to everyone and you please nobody. Pick a side.

Oh I dunno.... the Kingdom Hearts manga is pretty good value... Donald Duck has never had so much serious and meaningful characterisation before.

IDK, Sweden here takes Donald Duck very seriously...

Also you can't compare one company thst focused directly on children's products to the whole field of Japanese comics and/or cartoons. There are many types of manga focusing on different audiences, including age.

Most of what gets famous outside of Japan certainly aren't for grown-ups, though. It's mostly children's and teen boys' manga as far as I know.



Hupp hupp One's Own People represent!

Perfectly said. Agree completely.

The difference I see between the DOS origins and the BG:3 origins is that in DOS they seemed like an afterthought, no one's personal storyline really fit into the main storyline, they kind of just happened, they didn't even really interact with each other, such as you might expect between Sebeille and Ifan or the Red Prince. I don't think that's really the case with BG:3 because everyone's personal problem seems to be related to the main story in some way, Shar is clearly a big part of the story, She and the Gith are looking for the dodecahedron, Netherese magic seems to be at play with altering the tadpole bringing in Gale, Hell has another role, we find a lot of soul coins, fallen paladin's in service to Zariel and we've learned that the Justiciars fortress was destroyed by a Hellish host, bringing in Wyll and possibly Astarion, for some reason I think there's a connection between Raphael and Cazador, also the Hag we'll be meeting in BG. None of this means it will be any good of course, but unlike in DOS I see at least the groundwork for a more interesting story.
I don't think there's a problem having a story with multiple protagonists, a fellowship of heroes, and having a bunch of egos butt heads throughout the story could be very interesting.

Dragon Age is an good spectrum of MC customization, Origins because they devoted a whole section of the game to defining who your character is, a section of the game that would change radically based on your race class or gender, meant you could understand not only the world you're in but how your character fit into it, it made roleplaying the PC later much more satisfying. DA:II stripped that back quite a bit, but it still hand a very defined backstory upon which you influenced the nature of your Hawke Act to Act, then DA:I where it was almost nonexistent, the backstory reduced to a blurb underneath selecting your race, and only was significant once or twice during dialogue, and again during the map minigame (time sink). I think most people would agree that Origins does it best but I still think that a compelling defined backstory like in DA:II was head and shoulders over Inquisition where half-way through the game someone says something to remind me "Oh, right, I grew up as a noble"

The custom PC will lose out as long as they don't receive a backstory. Either make one, let us choose one, or we'll have to be happy with the generic_hero, who will be significant to the story only because they have a special tadpole and happen to be played by you.

There's also no problem whatsoever in having pizza, fish, steak and chinese for dinner. =)

Exactly the meal I had to snack on while watching Lord of The Rings.

I do think the best path forward imo would be to keep the origins as they are, just remain as recruitable companions rather than characters you can start as, and double down on a MSQ (Main story quest) for the custom character the player makes, where each companion they cross path with can have their own little story/interest in the world for a different take and PoV into the MSQ, but the MSQ being focused mainly on the custom character(s). That'd be more in line with older Bioware games (Think being the Greywarden having Morrigan and co at your side in DA:O).

That'd be the most cost-effective way of meeting a compromise of both worlds I think, where current work wouldn't need to be scrapped, and where the custom character can feel special and not insignificant compared to Origins (which is the main complaint that I'm able to boil most comments about it down to, where it feels bad / FOMO to be a custom character compared to Origin.)

It may help mending the individual desires/expectations of those that want one singular protagonist too, while allowing for a fellowship fantasy for those who prefers that. Which might be more in line with D&D, being a party of different protagonists. I can't think of a TT campaign of the top of my head where there's been only one player and a DM playing a campaign together.

Aren't these two paragraphs somewhat incompatible? The first paragraph seems to turn Tav+Companions into just that, Tav with the main quest and companions as followers. Whereas the second emphasizes D&D's "party of different protagonists."

I think the best fix is to add personal storyline(s)/quest(s) for Tav. Currently, Tav & Origin characters all have tadpoles and are heavily involved in the MSQ, but all the Origin Characters are more interesting because they also have sidequests and backstories.

One way of doing so is to add DAO Origins Stories for Tav. Tav gets the DAO-style background options and returns to that area later in the game, while each of the Origin Companions still have their personal quest. And party members are still "MSQ protagonists." This would require more work than simply scaling up Tav's importance in the MSQ, and I'm not sure how such this would work with multiplayer...do all players participate in the same background quest??

It's a somewhat vague parallel with Lord of The Rings, and the fact that you can have multiple protagonists in a story, or even groups of people acting as a story narrative as a protagonist out of several in a larger story, and work fine; While providing my take on how I'd personally do/want to see it done. The last comment of D&D usually being a party game of multiple protagonists is, like you say, incompatible as a tongue-in-cheek point to illustrate that arguing for a protagonist and arguing for a faithful D&D experience is also 'incompatible'.

Hence, my preferred solution is what I view to be a somewhere-in-the-middle compromise, with player main character being one custom character per player (multiplayer lobbies), and the rest of the party be companions (currently known as Origins). But I suppose I was unclear. That's what I mean by MSQ being focused on the custom character(s) - Namely to have a main quest line that is... Well, the main quest line. And since you (in my take) could only ever start a game as a custom character in character creation, the MSQ would always be the Tav story, just like you say.

Not sure what you're saying exactly, but I think we agree?

Oh my goodness, I hope not.

I *really* want to play as the origin characters, starting as them and letting each of them be the *main* character on various play-throughs.

To me, that's WAY more interesting than trying to push a custom character into the main role. I'd rather play a character with an actual backstory that the game acknowledges, instead of a backstory that's kind of just in my head. There's so much more a story can do when the story knows the character and lets you make moral decisions and such. For instance, how would the world react if Astarion was a good guy who wanted to save the tieflings versus Astarion being a bad guy and wanting to join the goblins.

With multiple origin characters to choose from, I get multiple backgrounds to play in a game that actually acknowledges the unique background.

Instead of me playing my blah drow who once upon time did blah thing, or so I vaguely sometimes imagine in my head.

Not exactly, but we're vaguely heading in the same direction. I'm advocating for all Origin Companions (and Tav) having tadpoles and being *equally* a part of the main quest, but Tav has an additional sidestory that helps make Tav more distinct and fun to play. Similar to how Astarion has the Cazador backstory and quest. Tav would have [insert quest here depending on your chosen background]. This is the most "party-based-D&D-like" to me.

I wouldn't be opposed to your idea (Tav = The Protagonist). Most crpgs do this. But I think it's very unlikely that Larian will scrap their Origin Companions idea and prevent you from playing as them and/or make it so they don't also have tadpoles.