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

I feel like the easiest solution would just be to say that Tav no longer has a home as we've been assumed dead. Heck, the home could be destroyed. The Nautiloid wasn't exactly gentle when abducting people.

Though I will say I don't see a problem with a former urchin having an upper class home. Urchin implies you were on the streets during your childhood. Assuming you're only 20 years old that could leave you with a few years to amass a small fortune, which isn't that hard for someone skilled enough to take a level in a class. Amassing wealth might take a long time in Medieval Europe but in Faerun it can happen very, very quickly. It's just also very, very dangerous.

Is this something new they have added that I overlooked? I didn't see anything in character creation recently that would indicate this is the default, but I wasn't paying detailed attention either.

Yep, that's the most likely direction Larian will take, in my opinion. Less branching, fewer things to code, etc.


Me neither, but at the point of getting it, it has to be exactly as you said - a former Urchin. At this point the background shouldn't really matter anymore.

Every Tav has [Baldurian] responses, unless you're [Underdark] I think even Gith might get [Baldurian] responses, but don't quote me on that. Maybe someone who rolled extraplanar recently can fact check that for me.

So, no nothing added, but unless we get a customizable city of origin in the character creator, I've been going with that assumption.

Sidenote: the other tavern is the Blushing Mermaid, and a Volo's Guide to Inns and Guest Houses mentions The Blade and Stars in addition to the Mermaid and the Elfsong. So maybe feathering the nest for us.

I recently played a Gith. Gith do not get the Baldurian dialogue options. They get a dialogue option called Githyanki.

Well, that's a question to Larian, how they are going to implement that. But I suspect it will probably be pure flavour.

For example, just like in BG2 and NWN2, we might be presented with 2 alternative paths to fame and fortune: one's bad, and another's worse (thieves vs. vampires and city guard vs. criminals, respectively). Suppose you are doing a criminal quest, and at some point a Tav who is either Criminal, or Urchin, or Charlatan might get an extra dialogue line, such as "Oh, I know that person. Let me talk to him". What happens after depends on how deep Larian will be willing to go down that rabbit hole: nothing, an extra option in quest resolution, extra reward, a place in Thieves' Guild, an additional quest which cannot be unlocked in any other way - the possibilities are endless.

Thanks @cool-dude01

Getting a bit of fluff dialogue here and there, is the easiest and least interesting way to go, it's also front-runner for what I expect to get.

Kind of like when they started giving characters inspiration and xp for completing quests that match with their background.

My remarks were spurred mostly from noticing that while playing an Outlander I still got [Baldurian] responses which wasn't something I would have expected. It's the kind of mismatch that sounds like a good story.

I thought about Outlander in particular. It can be explained that you are an Outlander in a sense that you weren't born in Baldur's Gate, but settled there and spent a significant part of your life in the city to be considered Baldurian. At the same time, your origin still gives you the appropriate skill proficiencies.

Yes, I'm talking from a personal experience.

I was hoping it was an extra dialogue option we could choose like the class ones we get, and if the response didn't fit then we can choose something else.

Not much fun to make a character from wherever (this is DnD, there is supposed to be freedom to make almost anything,) avoid all the Baldurian tagged responses, and then get all the way to Baldur's Gate and find out that no, you are not allowed to be from where you thought you were. I suppose they could add something about the tadpole screwing with your brain but that is rather stupid, would be much better to warn us in character creation that we don't get to choose our home.

I strongly hope the same, i.e. that the game will not force us to be from Baldur's Gate.

Given how much freedom Larian has been giving us so far (cf the non-sensical race-locked dialogue options, or the Astarion scene in Patch 7), I don't have too much faith. But if our opinions count for anything (which is not clear, but let's hope), I'd like mine to be recorded as :

I don't want to be forced to hail from Baldur's Gate, even if my PC is Human. And I likewise don't want to be forced to be from the Underdark if my PC is a Drow Elf.

I seriously doubt that will happen.

Just the existence of the Baldurian tag implies that there will be other tags upon full release.

Well ...
I dont think its impossible tho.

As long as Writers in Larian keep in mind that some player DONT want to be from Baldur's Gate for some reason ...
All they need to do is hide any conversation related to being from the city under tagged option.

Simmilar as they did at Waukeen's Rest ...
Your human can either say: "Grand Duke? Who is that?"
Or: [Baldurian] "Yeah i heard about him."

If picking the non-taged conversation starts the same part conversation as Drow, Gith and other non-Baldurians see ... instead the Baldurian one ... you should be totally able to roleplay non-Baldurian even as a Human, Dwarf, Halfling, Tiefling, Elf or Half-Elf.

The tag will remain there tho ...
Aswell as all those options.

I don't know what is referred to by "that" (in fact, I feel these two sentence contradict each other).

And I don't see how the existence of the Baldurian tag implies much about the future freedom Larian will effectively give us. There's just a Place_Of_Origin variable for each (Player) Character that can currently take the values Baldurian, Underdark, or Githyanki (maybe, I don't remember). Since Gale is to become playable, as per the definition of Origin Character in Larian's game, there will very likely be the Waterdhavian value as well.

Rephrased in terms of these tags, my request is :

• I want to be able to freely select my place of origin. For instance, I want to be able to create a Human from Waterdeep or the Underdark, not just Baldur's Gate.
• I want the list to have a bit more options than just Baldurian, Waterdhavian, Underdark, Astral Plane.

In the worst case scenario, I'll settle for the value "Other". Ideally, I could just freely write the name of the place I'm from. With the understanding that, whether I end up with Other or Silverymoon, the game will not be able to refer explicitly to it.

You wrote: "I don't want to be forced to hail from Baldur's Gate..."

I wrote: "I seriously doubt that will happen."

The proper way to parse this is to look at what you wrote, which is that you don't want something happening. And then to look at what I wrote, which is to say that I don't think it will happen.

In other words, I doubt the game will force you to be from Baldur's Gate.

There's at least a year, maybe even a year and a half before this game has a full release. Clearly a lot is going to change between now and then. Some things are obviously not finished, like the Baldurian tag options, and some things are probably just placeholders for the moment.

Ah, ok, I see what you meant now.

I agree that there's plenty of time left, so a good number of things might, and hopefully will, change. But, if the game ends up releasing before June 2023, then we are past the half point of the EA period, and the list of things that have not significantly improved is a lot more impressive, to me, than the list of things that have improved.

More importantly, Larian's previous game, D:OS2, was famous for their Origin Characters that had access to more tags than Custom Characters. And in BG3, we have an Origin Character that is a High-Elf and also a Vampire Spawn. And there is a Noble Human Warlock that has Proficiency with Rapiers (if this has not changed). These are both characters combinations that we cannot create.

So there's nothing at the moment that makes me think that it is more likely than not that we will eventually have the freedom to create a Waterdhavian Human. Hence my request.

I think the point is that if everyone (Not Underdark or Gith) is given a [Baldurian] tag then why have the tag at all, unless there will be other tags in the future. Of course why give us options not to use it either, it's just a backwards way of doing it. As though it'll never be important enough to dramatically affect dialogue or the story.

If you are given a [Baldurian] tagged responses and some generic responses, either you (the player) are deciding with your choice if you're from BG or not, or if every option is valid (i.e. you're Baldurian) you're choosing an option that is generic for the sake of being generic.

Some games let you flesh out your character with some expositionary dialogue but I it doesn't seem like BG:3 will be like that.

Well you character needs to be from somewhere ...
And if talking goes either to question where you are from, or someone is talking about THE place you are from ... your character needs an option to respon to that.

Tags obviously help developers to recognize wich character should be able to respond to what ... (im not sure they are visible in patch 7 tho)
So the tag "is there" so your character "can be" a Baldurian obviously.

And you have option not to use it ... so your character "can be" anything else.

And its not working only for Baldurian ...
You are totally able to get through whole EA as a surface dweller Drow ... by simply not picking even a single dialogue option marked as [Underdark].
Not quite sure how to explain non-planar Githyanki tho.

I don't like this.

If I see the dialogue choice, it tells me something I shouldn't know if I'm *not* Baldurian.

For instance, Rolan could be lying about Lorroakan even existing. But when I see a Baldurian tag saying something like "I've heard of him," then I know Rolan isn't lying. Well, Rolan could be lying about having an apprenticeship with him, sure, but I know that Rolan isn't just making him up altogether out of whole clothe.

Later on in the conversation I have another Baldurian tag, saying something about how Lorroakan isn't well thought of.

Or during a conversation with Wyll, I can pick a Baldurian option where I've heard of him. That tells me he actually has a reputation in Baldur's Gate, which I wouldn't have known if I weren't from Baldur's Gate.

Sure, you can argue that I should role play not having that information. But I'd rather just not have the information.

If I'm not Baldurian, I don't want to see a Baldurian tag in my dialogue options.

Well ... i dunno where are you from, but in Czech we have one historical person so famous, so almost litteraly EVERYONE has heard about.
His name is Jára Cimrman.

Funny thing tho, he never even existed.

You know what i mean?
Sure, even i doubt that Larian would create imaginary Wizard just for the lols ... even Gale coments on him, so this is almost certainly not the case ...
But the point is, just bcs you have "heard about somebody" doesnt really mean anything.

Yup.

Im quite sure there will be some tag removal mod at least ...
And i certainly do believe it would not be too hard for Larian to allow us to simply remove the tag oureself while creating the character ... but i hardly doubt there will be any other tag to pick. :-/

So the easiest way for Larian to handle this is to put a row of cities or locations in the character builder where you can check off a box. Seeing as there are dozens of cities and thousands of villages on Toril, 'other' would definately have be one of those selections. I mean, not only could a character origin be Maztica, but it could literally be another prime material plane. or limbo even. It would likely depend on how important Larian felt your characters origin is, but since they seem to be the ones instigating this conversation with these tags...

If they set it up in the character generator, then the game could exclude tags that weren't relevent to your character such as Baldurian.