Originally Posted by mercurial_ann
Originally Posted by Niara
Thanks for the mention MrFuji ^.^

To those interested, here was the throw-together of the concept (Written with pseudo-Larian style and dialogues ^.^):


((The screen is black))

Narrator: The stinging fades, and the memory of it passes swiftly from your mind. You feel disoriented; your senses are dull and you can't tell where you are.

Voice: “You are home; you are safe. You grew up here. Look around you; tell me what you see.”

1) Just a single, isolated homestead, in the middle of nowhere... but it was home.
2) This is the little village where I was born...
3) This is the city I grew up in...
4) This is my island; the roll of waves is home for me.
5) The mountains where I trained... the order.
6) We moved around a lot, but wherever it went, the caravan was home for me, really...
7) [Githyanki] My creche, where I first drew the blood of my clutch mates to survive...

((Player picks 4. The screen fades in to a nondescript island setting, with white sand beaches, a small township and the dazzling blue of the sea of swords. The scene shows people moving about the little township, while the character stands on the beach, looking out to sea. The details are indistinct at this stage.))

Narrator: As your vision clears, you realise where you are.

Voice: “Yes, home. You're safe here; you can relax. Remember what it was like, growing up?”

1) Heh... I was always a bit of a trouble-maker. If there was mischief, I was probably at the centre of it.
2) I liked to keep to myself, and enjoy the quiet moments. People said I was always daydreaming.
3) I always like to try to help out where I could, even when I was little.
4) I had so many friends!
5) I was such a terrible flirt, even back then. It got me into trouble sometimes.
6) I remember the grazes and the bruises. I was always scrapping, or picking fights.
7) [Githyanki] T'ch, relaxing was for the feeble. I learned to praise Valkith, follow orders, and slit the throat of any who got in my way. I made my first kill when I was a yearling. I remember it. Vividly.

((Player picks 1. The people in the scene grow more defined. The player is then free to walk around and talk to people. The other NPCs greet the character by name, and respond to them in styles based on the previous answer, but generally all friendly and positive – treating the PC as though they are still a youth. The PC is able to engage in a few various conversations that let them respond in a small handful of ways that help define their character a little more; the game can remember these - these do not create restrictions, but rather can open up extra options later on.

-Movement tutorials, social interaction tutorials, skill check tutorials and inventory management tutorials are presented here (the exact skills presented might be from a pool of a few options based on the PC's answers – if they are a daydreamer who goes exploring, they might make athletics and perception checks, for example, but all choices will cover stealth, slight of hand and persuasion in some form, at minimum), while the player explores the town and is guided to talk to a few specific npcs. After this is done, a new NPC runs up to the player, indistinct; game movement slows before they approach the PC.))

Voice: “There was someone very important to you there, wasn't there? Tell me about them...”

1) My sister was always looking out for me...
2) My brother and I were always close...
3) My best friend
4) There was this one girl...
5) There was this one boy...
6) I don't really really think of anyone from back then any more.
7) [Githyanki] My Kith'rak trained me hard. I tried to kill them and assume their position many times. At each failure, they taught me to try harder.

((Player picks 1, and the game fades into the character creator to let them design the figure, who then comes into clarity when they confirm it and finishes running up to them. The figure's dialogue is a culmination of several of the options picked so far, as well as providing a (possibly fictional – this is a tadpole dream, after all) vector away from 'safety' and to Baldur's gate, or to a location within it if the character is a Baldurian))

“[PlayerName], There you are! I swear, Targon is going to give you a hiding if he finds out it was you who let his chickens out and spooked them.” She sighs. “Or, I guess, if he can prove it, since he thinks it was you already. It was you, wasn't it? You're... Oh, never mind, come on, there's no time! The ship to Baldur's Gate is leaving in ten minutes, and if we don't go now... you're not going to make me wait another three months to go birthday shopping, are you? Come on!”

((As the player follows after the figure, the dream begins to break apart; storms and violent weather set in and aspects begin to tear and shatter. Glimpses of Nautiloid themed matter begin to glimpse through, and as the dream loses cohesion, we crash out into what is now the current intro. It could give the subtle, hinted at impression that if this process had completed smoothly, we might have eventually woken up in BG with no real knowledge of our infection, possibly, if that is indeed the case.))


This was just a quick rough up of the concept - the idea is that these details would draw from a restricted set of possibilities that are meant to represent "As close as the tadpole can do in a short amount of time", so it's in-universe going to be not quite right, to cover the game's inability to perfectly map things for every individual player, but it still lets them define some things about their character that can potentially come up later. It also lets the game potentially set up some specific character protagonist hooks.

For those who don't want to define their characters even this far, there might be options to not answer, or non-committal answers that leave the space grey and undefined even up to the point where the dream fails - but this would likely just mean that the game cannot set up any hooks or elements that tie your character to the world, since you didn't give it anything. The core idea is that in universe this is the tadpole trying to create a convincing narrative to cover over your infestation, while out of universe the mechanical structure is both a tutorial for the player, but also a chance for the game to learn about the sort of character you're playing.
That's awesome! Tnank you
I hope Larian will do something like that

Me too. Considerable work, but it would REALLY add flavor to our characters. Having forced backgrounds really messed with me when I created my Drow sorcerer con artist. It didn't fit the background I had in my head at all, and I simply had to pretend it didn't pop up. Same with my human druid woman from Icewind Dale. Just because she's human doesn't mean she's from BG.

Last edited by GM4Him; 24/06/22 12:04 PM.