Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Backstories for "Tav"

One thing that is sticking at me is that while all the companions have these deep backstories, the custom character, "Tav," has none. You make a Githyanki and they don't know any Githyanki lore and Lae'zel has to explain it all to them. You play as a cleric of Shar and Shadowheart has to teach them all about Shar. If you were at the table and there was something that you didn't already pick up from researching your character, you would at least get a knowledge check with a high bonus because this is basic stuff that you need to know if you are that thing. Being a druid certainly lets you have knowledge of Sylvanus - but being a Gith or Cleric of Shar leaves you clueless.

So, rather than just the simplified DnD 5e backgrounds, you really should add backstories for different races and classes that you can select separately. They don't need to be detailed and fleshed out like the companions, but if I am a Githyanki, let me pick whether I'm some orphan raised by elves and don't know a thing about being Gith or if I'm well versed or betrayed my queen. Very basic things that can direct how much my character knows and a few dialogue options other than being "Baldurian." Must my elf be from Baldur's gate? If so, is she going to know anyone when she gets there or do we just assume she has neighbors and friends she just doesn't interact with throughout the game? We need something basic here when surrounded by these fleshed out companions.

Agreed, it always struck me as odd that, for example, my wilderness characters (who always take the "outlander" background) would be considered "balduran". Allowing us to choose a bit more about our background would solve that and make our custom characters feel more fleshed out.

Was my rogue with the "criminal" background part of the Thieves' Guild or did he operate as part of a gang or even alone before his abduction?
Was my fighter with the "soldier" background a recruit of the guard or a mercenary company like the Flaming Fists before he got captured?
Was my barbarian an Uthgardt or Reghedmen tribesman? Or did he learn to harness his rage elsewhere, i.e. dwarven battlerager?

That sort of stuff is what is missing to make our custom characters feel complete. Sure, I can use my imagination and appropriate names to convey that, but none of it gets recognized by the game.

During the night time conversation with Shadowheart after the celebration, she even asks you to talk about yourself. There is basically no real answer to this question.

This is why I wish they would drop the origin characters. They put more focus on those characters, when most people would rather just play their own. Imagine if instead all the work that went into those Origin characters, would have been put into actually fleshing out the player's created character. DoS2 had the same issue too.

How do you suggest the game learns all of this for each and every player?

I imagine you're thinking there could be some sort of questionnaire maybe, but even so, how deep could those questions possibly go? How many branching trees of questions would be necessary to capture the spirit of your particular Unique?


Source?

Personally, I'm looking forward to playing the Origin characters.

Fleshing them out how? There are only so many choices you can give a player until the possible permutations get out of hand. That is why custom created characters are unwritten pages. So that the player themselves can imagine exactly who their mc is without contradicting info coming from the game. If anything, Larian should imo remove that we come from Baldur's gate for example.

Or they could leave it, and put a blurb during Character Creation. Nothing elaborate just something around chosen backgrounds. By and large, however, I prefer a custom character be just that, custom. I like having a blank canvas, as opposed to "be sure to stay in the lines" coloring book pages.

It doesn't have to go deep, just a few selectable answers after choosing your "background" feature would suffice. They would apply certain "tags" on your character, the same way we get the "balduran" or "deity" tags.
It would help in forming a deeper connection with our characters, even if it's just something simple like selecting a home region, e.g. Cormyr, Amn, Sword Coast city state (Waterdeep, Neverwinter, Baldur's Gate), Icewind Dale or in case of some backgrounds a organisation, e.g. mercenary company, thieve's guild, merchant guild, etc.
The choices could have some bearing on your starting gear (where appropriate), e.g. getting a flaming fist armor instead of your regular one but that isn't even necessary.

Granted, you can't cover every option, but at least some options should be there.

It doesn't even need to be that in depth. Just having people ask our character about themselves and giving us some optional answers based on our backgrounds would be cool. If someone asked us what we did before the tadpole, then if we had the noble background, we get a few unique answers, like saying we just enjoyed our riches, or we did a lot of politicing, etc. On the other hand if we chose the soldier background, we could answer with say, what battles we fought in, etc. Even if those were the only times the game acknowledged our background (because Larian has said they didn't give background reactivity because there were too many permutations to juggle) that would at least give us the opportunity to flesh out our character and have people react to it.

I'm glad this topic is brought back again. Here we discussed a "questionnaire" system suggested by Niara
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=817381#Post817381

Well, I'm not asking for anything that complicated - I'm asking for the half-assed thing that gives some basic dialogue options only. I understand the problems with everything being custom and the massive work that would have to be put in to fully flesh out 30 new possibilities. Just a simple update that gives some very basic control over the answer to the question "who are you?" This fixes the frustration of being unknowledgeable about everything all the time. Really, it just has to be a couple options per race and class that are basic and just correct current dialogue - no story arc specific to that background.

For additional context, this topic was also discussed in this previous thread.

I agree that, currently, the game provide little reactivity to you being a Githyanki or a Cleric of this or that Deity (e.g. Shar).

I do, however, hope that Larian will not impose specific backstories upon our Custom Characters. More precisely, I would really like the option to play a Fully-Custom Character, not just a Semi-Custom Character (in the sense I stated in the previous thread). For instance, I don't like that non-Githyanki, non-Drow characters are forced to be Baldurians.

I don't think that, for a Fully-Custom Character, the backstory should be a main point of focus. What should count about the PC is who they are and the choices they make. What they are made of, what they really value, and who they become.



I'd be quite favourable to that.

Yeah, that would be completely sufficient. Whether it is determined through actual dialogue or simply something chosen during character creation (my prefered method) doesn't really matter.


Yeah, I really hate that. Especially as it doesn't even remotely make sense for characters with the "Outlander" background. That's why I advocate the option of selecting a home region, that would give us a tag that can be recognized in dialogue.
Basically a similiar feature to how one chooses a background in the Neverwinter MMO (only that in the MMO it is purely cosmetic and just just gives you a title to display).

A fully fleshed out background or even a short story arc isn't necessary at all. If I want to play a pre-defined storyline I always play an origin character (which I am unlikely to do admittedly).

Are they though? I know there are dialogue options for a Baldurian, but you are not actually forced to take it. I never took it in any my playthroughs and just picked other options since none of my characters were from Baldur's Gate. Does the game actually assume your are or is it just a flavor text thats left to us?

This is not known at this point.

It is true that you don't have to select dialogue options that acknowledge that you are Baldurian. So you might roleplay a (non-Drow, non-Githyanki) character that is not from Baldur's Gate ... for now.

But Baldurian is a tag written on your character sheet.

If we are in Baldur's Gate in Act 2 or 3, it is very conceivable that an acquaintance will recognise us, which will force us to be Baldurian (or build our head-canon where this NPC did not recognise our PC). It is also very possible that our PC will speak or act in a way that betrays some familiarity with the city (ruining our personal backstory if that involved having never visited Baldur's Gate).

On a related note, I remember Swen mentioning that in the full release version of the game, the Custom Character will have a Backstory (thus, it will likely be a Semi-Custom Character, not a Fully-Custom Character). Whether there will be one or more Backstory to choose from, and whether one choice will be "Blank", I don't know. But it seems relatively likely that a Custom Character will be canonically considered to be from Baldur's Gate.

I don't think it's realistic for the backgrounds to be filled in game to any depth, you just have to approach this from a RP perspective: pretend the options that game presents you that are inconsistent with your background story don't exist.

If you're playing someone who doesn't consider themselves Baldurian, then just don't select that option when it comes up.

Having said that there are some obvious areas that need to be added for responses. If you're a priest of Shar you need extra options for SH, and if you're Gith you need some with LZ. Other key points will be relevant too.

But they need to just be the key ones, and related to the character creation options. Expecting to be able to add detailed backgrounds beyond this is unfeasable - just RP it.

Well you say something quick and easy why not implement it… but then remember if this late in development they are all the sudden told “oh by the way look through ten thousand+ lines of dialogue (dos 2 reportedly had 1 million words of voiced dialogue) and make sure players with this list of tags would know about this information and edit it in and record voice lines for responses”

It just simply isn’t going to be that way as nice of a feature as it probably would be.

Now when AI starts being used to make games maybe maybe…

OP, I completely agree with you.

Perhaps the only way to have our custom PC be "special," or even simply relevant, in this game will be to kill off every single one of Larian's cherished "origin" companions. It would be awesome to be able to see exactly how much character interactivity and relevance there are in the game if there were no origin companions in the game. But of course this cannot be tested in the EA because you'd have no party with which to play the game.

I have to say, though, that I absolutely LOVE the idea of playing BG3 with every one of the "origin" companions killed off. That would represent the *perfect* form of the game.

Im affraid this is just how it is ...
No game will ever be able to simulate any character we can make ... unless we create AI, and if we do there is quite high chance (acording to Science-Fiction) we will have different problems, then.

Thats why our Custom PC will allways be blank page, so we can imagine anything we like ...
Yes, there is odd option to ask Shadowheart about Shar, even tho you are Sharite yourself ... it may seems odd, unless you realize that as a Sharite, you can test her, or that you should not reveal this fact about yourself easily (like wearing her symbols on plain sight for example )
Yes, there is odd option to ask Lae'zel about anything around Mind Flayers, or her culture ... simmilar reasoning.

I believe the REAL question here is why do you pick those dialogue options? O_o
As far as i know, you dont have to pray about neither ... its only one of several options ... for people who want to play it this way ... the best you can do, if you dont want to play this way, is to avoid them completely.

I will give one answer to this question, which I think is the most valid answer to this question. What if it's your first playthrough, and thus you potentially have to choose options like those in order to get context for what's going on. Say if you choose to be a cleric of Shar on your first playthrough, so you don't really know that much about Shar and you don't have any other way of getting that information. Same with playing a Githyanki. I'm certain there will be a good chunk of players that want to play gith because of how cool they look. Which I feel demonstrates the game failing to provide our characters with ways to know what our character should know about the setting.