Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General No Gen, Pre Gen, Origen

I thought I'd do some damage control for Which Origin Character are you looking forward to playing?

I'm not an expert on forum etiquette but I think showing up on a thread about which origin character will be your first playthrough just to bomb it about why origin characters suck, isn't cricket.

I don't know if it's possible but maybe some of those posts can be migrated here, where we can flame each other in peace.

I'll summarize my pov. Only a fixed number of iterations are possible in a computer rpg, so making characters with a fixed number of variables to work within that structure is more interesting to me, origin characters are written to work within the narrative, pregen characters can work within that narrative, and no gen characters don't, and possibly narrowing down the avenues the story can go down.

+1

As the original poster of that thread, I’m OK with where it went. It generated a lot of dialogue and feedback that may be helpful for Larian to consider for either the original release or for expansions.

I am of the camp that is OK with having the Origin players as an option, but not at the expense of making the Custom players less special in comparison. I’d also like more NPCs available to join your party that are not Origin characters.

That's probably fair, considering you're the OP of that post, but I still can't help but think there are other people who'd like to go into a thread like that and share their excitement about playing upcoming Origin characters.

And that's awful hard to do in the current environment.

Just my opinion.

That's precisely why I don't like origins - because there is reastically a limited amount of reactivity devs can do. What we will get are characters who won't be as well developed as single defined protagonist, while not allowing for the feeling of freedom that traditional RPG aim to deliver.

Don't be mistaken - custom RPG characters also provide pre-written and pre-determined characters. Lines for your PC are all pre-written, and devs need to make a decision regarding the range of the characters supported and their character. However, those lines are written with an ability to provide a range of personalities for the players to choose from. So you get some amount of control and still get a coherent character at the end.

Origin system means that most of the writing needs to be shared between various defined characters and "customs". See BG3 PC writing and you will see it is very bland. If it's anything like D:OS2 custom characters will also be bland, but with unique content to them.

I think they should have either gone with the origin characters system, or custom characters. having both is likely to end up not meeting the potential of either.

There's so many variables that Larian has introduced by letting players play as a wide variety of races (and more are to be expected down the road) and classes (again, more to come), and DOS2 already had a lot to contend with in a rpg where class didn't matter at all for dialogue or quests, and comparatively fewer races and origins characters.

There's just much more major writing, cutscene etc work to be done when it has to be written from the perspective of that character as a PC and as a party member-I'd suspect at least more than twice the work, and it comes at the very noticeable in-game cost of content for the custom PC. Shadowheart gives much less of a damn about your pc being a gith than she does Lae'zel etc.

On the other hand, if Larian had gone Origins-only, they wouldn't have had to worry about having to take into account stuff like the PC being a sorcerer or druid, or a drow or dwarf, since none of the origins are those, which could translate into more content for the origins we do have.

That being said, I prefer custom characters, particularly for a D&D/Forgotten Realms rpg. A big draw to me for the BG+NWN games was making the character 'my own' and customization was a big part of that. Credit where credit is due, Larian has done a lot of work to make sure that npcs recognize your choices in race/class etc-a commendable effort. And yet we see massive resources diverted towards this experiment with the Origins system in a game that encourages a huge degree of choice in character creation. Two goals that seem at odds with one another, and I can't help but feel like those resources would be better served chasing one singular model.

Basically what people are saying above, and what many others have said. If it's better to play as an origin character, then that screws over Tav players. And most people who have played D&D have probably played custom characters. So it's reasonable to come into a D&D game (specifically a BG game) expecting to create your own character. I don't think this is a controversial statement, regardless of whether you believe premade characters are a negligible or significant-but-still-not-majority occurence.

Game with only Origin character(s) = great. I love playing as Geralt and figuring out his story, while also playing my version of Geralt. A lot of work was put into his dialogue & interactions.

Game with only custom characters (with a common chosen one and/or DAO-like backgrounds) = Also great. I can basically define my character however I want given this particular background, and it usually makes sense for my in-game companions to follow me.

Games with Both, like BG3 = Tav gets strictly less content and story-importance than Origin characters, but his existence implies that custom characters are a viable playstyle with just as much content. So it's disappointing when there isn't. But the game also focuses on multiple Origin characters and has to allow for a Tav, so each Origin character and various dialogues can't be as fleshed out as they could be otherwise without requiring a vast amount of extra work.

Do me a favor and go over this slowly with me, so I'm understanding exactly what you're saying.

To me, it sounds like you're saying you're worried about the extra work. Implying that something magical could be done if not for the extra work.

But you have proof of none of that, right? You don't actually know anything about what's happening with the project management teams, right? You don't know the groups and the deadlines and the internal budgets and the amount of people working on this or that particular project, right?

You have none of that information. So your worry is mostly just this broad nebulous worry. You can't quantify a lack of X because of a focus in Y production.

As such, I would argue that your worry is a fallacious argument.

In other words, for all you know, Larian will deliver across the board. As of now, you haven't seen the Origin play at all, and you've only seen an early access version of Tav play.

Let me come at it from another direction and see if it makes sense to you. Let's say you're talking about Larian making bread and milk. You present an argument that says I might get less bread if Larian is also giving me milk. Okay, that might be true. You don't really know, but it's reasonable that what you're saying might be true. All the same, I may want bread and milk, and I might be okay with a little less bread to get some milk on the side.

Regardless, the amount of bread and milk I'm getting in that scenario is quantifiable.

That's not the case when you're talking about an intangible, though. See? The experience of playing Tav and the experience of playing an Origin character... these are intangibles. Once they reach the level of: "feels excellent" then they can't really get much higher. You can't quantify it the same way.

So it's possible Larian could deliver a product where it feels excellent to play an Origin character and it feels excellent to play Tav. Your insistence that it's one or the other is patently fallacious and unknowable.

That said, even if it was somehow knowable right now, I (and others like me) might be okay with a "good" experience at both approaches because I prefer more options and not less.

Tav currently has basically nothing significant about him. Larian has not made any statements about Tav-specific questlines/interactions (to my knowledge). They might add those things in later parts of EA and/or Acts 2+, but we don't know if they will, so that's ~irrelevant.

We are here to provide feedback on what is presented to us, not what we hope Larian will add.

I don't think pre-generated characters are a bad thing at all. They're great ways to ease the barrier of entry for newbies to the system. But I do think that having the pregens also show up as companions makes for a potentially strained dynamic. Having all these would-be main characters around, in a story that would be functionally the same were they to be the actual main character, can make it so they potentially overshadow the custom character.

Let's leave the speculation of what Larian will actually deliver on out of the argument. History proves expectations are disappointed.

But I'd like for us not check our aspirations for what could be done, I'm most interested in how the medium is best utilized to tell a story. Wormine rightly identified my point, whatever type of PC we'll get, their every interaction with the world is pre-scripted, because we don't have a DM present to change the story with the choices we make, we don't make our own choices in a computer game, we're given them and we choose which avenue of the story we go down, part of the fun is seeing how well the choices and their impact on the narrative are written, and again how well written every choice is in relation to the other one. At this point it becomes a matter of what is best suited to the medium, writing characters with more variables loads the bandwidth of what those avenues of choice can handle, making for shallower interactions, so prefiguring variables beforehand is better.

People aren't happy with having origin characters because they come very prefigured to work within the story, making a custom Tav's lack of history all the more apparent, this is true, there also seems to be a assumption that because we see these origin characters with very present personalities that when being played by us their personalities won't be mutable, that could be the case, but it is just as likely that they'll be blank slates for us as well. Blank slates with predefined histories in the world. Let me put this into an equation, one I'll call the Lando Equation: Han Solo + Cape = Lando Calrissian. PC Tav + History = PC Origin Character. In the myriad threads dealing with this I think there are three camps: People who want no history for their character, because they don't like losing control over their pc or because they like creating elaborate head canons for them; People who want a way to give Tav a history, so that they hold up better to the origin characters as well as giving them a reason to exist within the story beyond being unlucky; and People who are interested in one or more of the origin characters and would like to experience their story firsthand. It's difficult to ascertain which camp is the largest, last year I would have said the first, now I not sure if it's the second.

I think a big problem, at least for me, is that we never get an opportunity to anchor our own PC into the world. We can express our personalities through dialogue, but we don't get a chance to talk about how we feel for the most part. Nor do we get any opportunity to talk about our history, which makes our presence as a random bystander feel more stark as a result.

Do we really get a way to express our personalities? Nobody really acknowledges the way we behave especially beyond a distinct interaction.

Well, we certainly get to say things in ways that imply personality. But yeah, we don't get a lot of long term acknowledgements of our behaviour I don't think. Y'know, I'm really struggling to figure out exactly what I find lacking about the treatment of our character in this game compared to Wrath of the Righteous, which I love and which also has our character appearing in the area kind of at random. Though in that game, the first thing we can say pretty much is why we're there. I think it might just be the writing. The dialogue choices we get in wrath have a lot of personality to them, a lot of opinions being expressed and companions react to those opinions and our actions constantly.

If you combined the Tag system with a personality point system, akin to WotR and PoE, you might get to something that would actually create a character personality system worth a damn

Yeah, totally. The tag system alone feels like it's got a lot of potential. I won't judge that too harshly since this is still early access. And some kind of reputation system would do wonders. I think at this point that a reputation system is the biggest thing that classic alignment has to offer for a D&D game.

Your entire argument--as presented earlier--is that you're worried Larian won't be able to devote enough resources to Tav because they're also focusing on Origins.

If that's not basing an argument on a crystal ball I don't know what is.

If your altered position now is that we should just provide feedback on what is presented to us, then we haven't been presented with Origin characters that we can play as the main character yet... which means we can't really comment on them as *the* main character yet.

Which means, do you enjoy playing Tav? I do.

*

That said, I'm coming back to a world where I can think about the future.

In my opinion, worrying that the Origin characters will ultimately overshadow Tav is barking at the moon.

Of course they will. The writers know the Origin characters; they can provide a story that caters to them.

For instance:

Larian could devote 100% of their resources to just Tav.

And Larian could devote 100% of their resources to just Origin characters.

And if you could somehow compare the results of both: the Origin character version of the game would be better. Again, because the writing can cater to known characters way better than it can try to satisfy a thousand different blank slates, each created by some player with some different idea of what's cool and fun and jazzy.

Again, it's just the nature of the beast. No amount of barking at the moon can change it.

In my opinion.

Many folk are not okay with that, and wish to voice that they are not; that they do not wish for that to be the case. That is the feedback they are offering. I would personally appreciate it if you'd refrain from attacking anyone who says as much, please.

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On the topic of defining and fleshing out our characters, and others discussing whether and how we do or could get a chance to really do that, here's this for though:

We undergo a great many interesting events throughout the early game, but wee never get to comment on them. We can decide for ourselves how we feel about various things, but we never get a chance to tell The Game this. In some of these cases, we get engaged in conversation with our companions, where they characterise themselves and their opinions on the matter - where they get to show us how they feel about these events and develop their characters... but we never get to do this in return - it's all always about them.

It could be otherwise.

Some of you may have read my suggestion in a couple of places about how an intro and game tutorial could run in a way that blended with the current opening sequence, to give us a chance to learn basic mechanics and define elements of our character at the same time. - Well, that doesn't need to stop outside of the intro. Sequences that let us define elements of our character that the game can remember should continue, more regularly in the early game and increasingly sparse save for major events as the game progresses.

One very good example is the Tadpole Dream. After one of the dreams, the game, though Shadowheart, tells us that we gave in to our 'lover' and were intimate with them. We don't get to decide on this score, it's just the statement of fact - Nothing we say in the dream itself changes this, apparently, and if we deny it, Shadow tells us that they all saw and were all aware, and that they all know what happened.

So, this... and, to Larian, in case you're reading... Just a note... This is a Fucking Massive Violation of our character. Because here's the thing: If I am playing a character that would not willingly choose to share intimacy with pretty dream stranger who is incredibly creepy in their advances, and then I do so anyway, it doesn't matter that it's 'just a dream' and it doesn't matter if they 'made me feel willing at the time' with whatever dream influence was used... that entity is not just a figment; they are a real, actual entity, with real actual intelligence behind whatever they're showing us, and that entity just raped me. But we don't get to react or respond in any way that tells the game how we feel about this. We're just blank, while Shadow condescends to us about our 'choices'.

We Could use this conversation to convey to the game how we think our character feels about this intrusion and violation; are they deeply hurt and upset by it; do they feel violated, raped even; was the worst part of it the theft of their free will and the forced compulsion of their mind to act in ways they wouldn't? Are they just annoyed and upset by it, and think the daisy is a nasty piece of work whom they have no intention of interacting with further, but aren't particularly scarred by the unpleasant inexperience? Are they perhaps fine with it, because in the end, it was just a dream, or so it seems, no matter how unwilling their participation in it was. Are they perhaps more upset by Shadow's accusations and assumptions about how they feel about the encounter, rather than the event itself?

Those are just some negative experience options that we could inform the game of, which may alter how we can respond to the daisy in future dreams if we have any. That might be one branch, out of several: a dialogue tree with the interviewing companion where we can first indicate whether the experience was negative/non-consenting, neutral/just a bit of fun, or positive/wilful/enjoyable, and from that as they ask us further to elaborate, we can describe more closely how we feel about the event.

Showing the game, and the game world, who we are as characters is such an important part of the game experience because it helps create that feeling of a living being, existing in a living world, and connects us to it through a character that we genuinely feel like we are communicating the definitions of, and being seen. Even if some, or even a lot, of those decisions don't have notable impacts on the game - as long as enough of them do, what matters is getting the chance to tell people, and being acknowledged for it.

Even before that - we never get much chance to talk to other companions about how we, as characters, feel about this whole tadpole event - more chance to communicate to the game, by way of our companions, how we as a character feel about that and think about that, would go a long way.

They have a perfectly good narrator to allow us an interior dialogue. I've put this elsewhere enough times, but it's a pretty important thing for rpgs to be able to establish who our character is

I would like to see them do a couple things sooner rather than later. First just release one of the Origin companions as a playable MC (if that's the ultimate intention), so that people can evaluate the experience of what that actually entails, instead of just having it hang over everything in EA like an ominous cloud.

At the same time (same patch) allow for recruitment of Companions that are not Origins characters from the large pool of viable NPCs that already exists in the game. This would take pressure off the Origin characters to carry all the weight and all the wait during EA, and shift the dynamics of Act 1 into something that I think would be more flexible and also feel a bit more like BG. In both BG1 and BG2, virtually every area on the map that the player progressed through during the first third of the game housed NPCs that could be recruited into the party. So in BG2 practically every district of Athkatla had a recruitable NPC. In BG1 the road to Nashkell and then Baldur's Gate had the Player encountering recruitable NPCs just about everywhere along the way. BG1/2 companion NPCs didn't really need to blow our socks off, most just had a couple barks and a simple plot in, so allowing a similar recruiting scheme to exist in BG3 would be a nice call back to that. I think it's a big idea that's missing right now from BG3. If they put a system like that in place, then the MC could find other companions that don't quite overshadow them in the same way, and it would allow for more experimentation not just in characterization for the party, but also nuts and bolts builds. Showing the player many different types of possible characters with different builds backgrounds/class/aesthetics etc. I think it would help the custom PC to stand out, if for example there were a couple clerics or warlocks or fighters floating around who weren't the Origin exemplars. Every available class should probably have 2 examples among the recuitables in addition to the Origins. Don't have Astarion be the only rogue, give us a Sazza too and the Hooded Tief, that sort of thing. Don't have Gale be our only Wizard, give us 2 more. If the only Warlock we meet is Wyll, then playing as a Warlock yourself doesn't feel particularly special, but if there were another pair of Warlocks somewhere that we could recruit from among the NPCs, then it suddenly feels less like Wyll's exclusive territory and rather more open, if that makes sense. For class archetypes, show us 2 B-team examples for every A-team Origin example. The recruitable NPCs could bolster each of the existing Origin classes that way, simply by having a couple other types floating around among the more regular NPCs for points of contrast. I think they should pick a dozen NPCs and promote them to recruitable status to start the idea off.

Finally while this is going down (same patch) allow for the Creation of a full custom party like Icewind Dale, and introduce Character import/export into the mix. Doing this, you'd basically have 3 very distinct approaches to a party based rpg going on simultaneously, so the game could cater to different preferences or just whims in the moment, and remain engaging that way. Unlock Lae'zel or whoever to be a flagship for the Origins concept, but do it while all that other stuff is going on. I think the concepts might actually reinforce each other, and do a bit of bridging there. Like a win for all sides along the origins divide, win for replay, and it would just make the game feel more expansive overall.