Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General The Game Fails to Present a Compelling Setting

The manual for Baldur's Gate 2 set the (gold) standard for CRPG manuals.

Oh no, I don't mean UI and / or mechanics. I had some prior exposure to DnD at this point, so this was not a problem.

I mean the story. I felt like a (supposed) protagonist whom both earth and sun are revolving around, but with a complete memory wipe.

Now that, I will say, is odd to me. I also don't like that the game just sort of decides your background. Human? Baldurian. Drow? Menzoberranzan.

Why not have a list of options at character creation like Neverwinter Online? Let players pick where their character is from and at least some sort of basic background based on the background they chose.

Example: I choose Outlander and Icewind Dale. Game gives me a basic background. You are a wanderer from the north, originally from the lands near the Spine of the World. Your travels brought you to Baldur's Gate, only to be abducted from the streets when the nautiloid past over...

... Or whatever. Just something to at least give you an idea of who you are and where you came from.

Probably because this will create a cartesian product of possible dialogue options. It was implemented in NWN2 OC (I definitely remember some NPCs reacting to my background with unique lines), but considering that all dialogues in BG3 are voiced, Larian might not even have considered this, realising how much additional work will be required. it's definitely a railroading, but I can't really blame them for that.

It rubs me the wrong way too when the game forces you to be a Baldurian Human. When I first saw the [Baldurian] tag in dialogue I thought it was a glitch.

They should just leave your origin out of voiced dialogue and give us the freedom to imagine any kind of character we want to play. It doesn't necessarily need to be a part of character generation either. That would just be a whole lot of confusing and unnecessary information especially for players who are not familiar with Forgotten Realms. "What does it mean to be Rashemi or Calishite?" Just leave it blank and let the player imagine their character.

How relevant is it anyway where your character is from? Seems like minor flavor that's largely unimportant in the big picture. Certainly not important enough to force all humans to be from Baldur's Gate and blocking the rest of Forgotten Realms as background.

Have you tryed to pick litteraly any other option?
Then voila! You are no longer Baldurian.

I mean you still are, since you still have the tag ... but nobody knows. :P

Depends ...
Many people believe that in later acts we will wisit Baldur's Gate ... i wonder if we will find our house there.
It will at least give us opourtunity to enjoy our own "Bilbo Bagins returning home, just to find out his neighbours and relatives allready looted all his stuff."

Ok lets say a Baldurian human has a home in the city.

How is "returning home" going to be at all meaningful when you've never been there? You will literally be there and see your "home" for the first time.

For a "home" to have any weight in the narrative you have to be able to be there before you are abducted. You have to be familiar with it and its surroundings and people. Possibly even make choices how your home looks for it to actually feel like yours.

But Larian's strength is not immersion or storytelling, they might go for something like this and think it's great.

Dunno ...
I gues it would be just as meaningfull as when you first time enter a house you just buyed in other game, you just (wich some luck) will not need to buy it ... unless some greedy bureaucrat in town doesnt nationalize all your possessions allready.

I mean its not *you* returning home ...
Its your character returning home ...

Doesnt really matter if that is his own house, city s/he lived in, country or continent.

I mean i dunno, it just dont seem necesary to "spend some time before the game even starts" in there. O_o

First time i entered Breezehome in Skyrim, it was for both me and my character first time we have seen it ... and yet it felt like home allready.
First time my Exile set her feet on Ebon Hawk in SW:KotOR, it was just for me, since she flyed on that ship previously ... and yet it felt like my own ship.
First time i re-entered "my home" in Fallout 4, i remembered that i spend there few minutes before prologue ... and i never felt home there, not even close to how i felt in Red Rocket gas station.

I mean there are other ways to let us feel like home ... even if it will be first time we shall see the house and even if we will be able (and will do) to change everything there.

Well, starting with empty walls might be justified the way you describe, sure. Pretty good excuse, actually, I like it.

However, we still have characters' backgrounds. There is literally no way that the same house, in the same location can be called home by both Noble and Street Urchin. Off the top of my head, in all DnD CRPGs where I've seen detailed cities (BG2, NWN 1 and 2, PS:T and probably some others) there were separate districts for nobility, or at least citizens was segregated by wealth, status or trade (like in PS:T). A noble will never live anywhere close to plebeians.

Which means Larian ought to create at least 2 different home buildings: one for characters with the Noble background, and another (at least one) for everybody else. Not that they will, I suspect.

Once again it will be all about the origin characters getting all the love. Astarion will probably have a lot of content in BG. Your own D&D character, not so much.

I dont think this would be a problem to be honest ...
Where you started and where are you now are two different things. O_o

I mean ...
Look at Shadowheart, she is also an Urchin and she dont look any poorer than any other party member (maybe except Astarion).
On the other hand look at Wyll, he is a Noble (even tho his origin say "Folk Hero") and yet he isnt any wealthier than others (again, except Astarion).

I mean, origin of our characters can be litteraly everything between "this is what you did while Mind Flayers kidnapped you" to "this is what you has ben most of your life and what gave you your most valuable life lessons ... but its long gone".

Imagine a story ...
Boy, orphan, urchin, street rat if you wish ... had nothing, so he was selling himself for anything that would buy him something to eat ... one day he managed to get a job offering, delivering a message. After some time of delivering, he has ben offered by someone to be payd for telling what was inside the message ... and few dozen years later this boy become one of Kings advisers.
Does that ring a bell?
It should ... that is short story of Varis from Game of Thrones.

Oh, I thought about that. If Larian will go this way, that will be the excuse they might end up using. One little problem however:
That's an entire human's lifetime. My character can't be that old, unless they are an elf. And any human who managed to acquire such wealth and influence in a shorter time span should be recognised by both Flaming Fist and Duke's advisor on sight. After all, they do recognise Wyll!

Because of this discrepancy, I think the opposite approach is much more likely to be used: a Noble whose father / brother / etc. has lost their family's fortune through careless investment, lawsuit with their neighbours, reckless gambling, courtesans, that special Calimshite "spice", take your pick. Losing money doesn't require much skill, and as such doesn't raise questions. It will, however, raise some eyebrows, because in medieval-based setting (which DnD is) nobles cling to their status even when they have lost everything else.

So, sure, Larian can try to make us believe that our Noble MC actually lives in that dilapidated excuse for a house, but it will be very, very far-fetched.

24y isnt entire humans lifetime ...
Nor is 36, 48, or 60 ... and your character can be litteraly anythng in between all of them.

You are taking it from wrong end ...
If you will look long enough, you allways find some way this or that will be impossible ... instead try to think about how to make it possible.

In FR, average human lifespan is the same as ours. Characters look about 25-30 years old, so for human characters their looks should correlate very closely to their actual age. If they spend 24 years on building a fortune, they should have started - pretty early, yes. And such a remarkable individual definitely should be recognised by Duke's advisor on sight, because Baldur's Gate isn't that big, population-wise. It's not a Shanghai or Mexico City.

Ragnarok, stop nit-picking at my words, please, it's not funny anymore. The topic doesn't worth it. I don't even understand which point you are arguing for. I'm pretty sure that, whatever goofy nonsense Larian will come up with, their fanboys will swallow it regardless.

Maybe human ...
But there are others living inside Baldur's Gate.

Elves, Gnomes, Dwarves, Halflings ...
Not sure about the last one, but the others are living at least thrice as long as humans ... also character creator is not even yet complete, as we were told by Swen there will be more options in full release and since we CAN create white haired characters, its quite possible that there will be possibility to create mid-aged human at least.

I see no relation to if capable person will or will not be noticed by Duke ...
For one, even him was kidnapped by the cult ... and for two, we are talking here about if someone with Urchin backstory can possibly own the same house as a Noble ... and i say they deffinietly can.

I will say that if they want to sell us on the feeling of our character returning home (and note that I say this hoping that they actually don't go through with this whole default Baldurian thing) then they're going to have to lay some kind of groundwork or it'll fall flat. If they don't want to sell that feeling, then it's totally fine. honestly though, I'm becoming steadily more convinced that they've changed their minds about the Baldurian thing. Sure we have Baldurian dialogue options, but if our being Baldurian was really going to be a major aspect of our character, there would probably have been some unmissable occurences within the story to acknowledged that, maybe allusions to what's waiting for us as a character in Baldur's Gate, possibly running into someone we would know about from the city, something along those lines. If we look at the origin characters, their side quest things have all been seeded and started in this first act, which is what a first act is meant to do, establish stuff, get the various conflicts rolling. The fact that no Baldurian stuff has been established for us makes me think it's not coming. Or if it does, then it'll just start in act 2, which would be poor writing.

I feel the lore books are the first step in the right direction. But like others said I feel it can really be expanded upon.

I think a Compendium for all flora/fauna, geography, factions etc once you happen to run across the "lore" books. Better yet, have more unlocks of knowledge through RP options through dialogue to have an extra incentive Would be a much welcomed addition. Having a nice Map of the Sword Coast to get an extra visual I think could also add more to "where the heck am I" feeling.

"You have failed this setting!"

Or 5th Edition D&D for that matter. As I said elsewhere this is a generic Larian RPG with a very THIN layer of D&D whitewash, while advertising as much more so.

So, because I'm nearly 60 now, I'm dead already? My, won't the people around me be surprised. It's going to be really hard to meet my mom for lunch tomorrow too, since by default, she's older than me, and so must also be dead already.

All the "you can't be Noble and a Street Urchin" crap is cracking me up too. Maybe because I'm fresh out of running a Human Noble rogue in Dragon Age Origins? Maybe I'm remembering my Dwarf Noble rogue? I'm not sure why people want to place all these limitations on themselves, and then blame game developers for their own short sightedness? Like the comment above that's going on about how the Origin characters are going to get all the love if Tav is rolled, completely ignoring the fact that the main game's storyline is Tav's story, if there is a Tav. If there is no Tav, it's irrelevant. The main game must progress and will through whichever Origin character one chooses to play as. But it will also advance, and add depth to the Origin characters, if one plays as Tav.

I've already read the "but they put all this time into the Origin characters" spiel, and I look back at all of the games with companions and wonder if this is the first game with companions that those posters have played. Just a few, off the top of my head, where the comps have some rather detailed backstories: Dragon Age et al, Mass Effect et al, Kotor et al, Fallout 4, Baldur's Gate et al, including the current offering. Go ahead and play ME 2 and skip the companion missions, and see what happens, it's fun, really. "But you can't play as them" is irrelevant, when you're playing Tav. Reading all the stuff about shoehorning characters into a backstory, I'd think it would be a relief to have Tav not be shoehorned, but hey, it's the internet...