Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Who Attracts You?

@Zarna I see a disconnect here between what custom characters are supposed to create and what origin characters see. I hope the 'what attracts you' tooltip you mentioned is just temporary, while we test things during early access.

Mysterious Guest: Who do you dream of at night?

Astarion: I fucking dream of Cazador, ok? I have nightly nightmares of my sadistic, psychotic Master!
Lae'Zel: I dream of my Queen Vlaakith and how I will add to her eternal glory!
Gale: I dream of Mystra, brilliant and beautiful.

Mysterious Guest, thinking only of Freudian psychology: Oooh, ok, so you want to fuck your Master/Vlaakith/Mystra. If I show up as Cazador/Vlaakith/Mystra, will that let me know you? Control you?

Astarion: No, you idiot! It will only make me (more) insane with fear and remembered trauma!
Lae'Zel: Lies and deceit! All of it! My Queen would never bestow such favor upon one who hasn't proved themselves!
Gale, lying with a smile on his face... but still taking out some mental lube: Sure, yep, absolutely. And the skimpier the dress, the better. And if you could add some 'I forgive you, Gale!' somewhere in there, that would be great.

If they leave just the 'who do you dream of at night?' part, then the dreams are even better. Because you could be dreaming of a mentor, a sibling, an adversary... stress dreams or reliving fond memories... but since the Mysterious Guest just dons their physical appearance and keeps its own pink and gold toga (identically to the Disguise Spell), the resulting cognitive dissonance can explain some of Tav's reactions.

Tav1: I just escaped a tough battle on board an alien ship, and I just throught I'd dream of my former drill master, grizzled Dwarf with the foulest mouth you'll ever hear... he once threatened to have me cleaning latrines for a month... and now he trailed his finger down my arm and told me he'd make me feel better! *shudders*

Tav2, looking visibly disgusted: I know... That cook on the ship reminded me of my aunt... She always complained about rats getting in the flour... and then she... UGH!

Tav3, looking fresh, well-rested, and eating his breakfast with gusto: I dunno guys, I dreamt of the lass I was to marry. I'd already bought the ring, you know? She told me to accept her, let her in. 'Course I'd do it!

I find the whole concept sort of antithetical to good role play, because it's inflexible, unchangeable, committed in advance when we are in a position of ignorance about any significance, and (as the point has been made) very awkwardly superficial.

I haven't actually seen many of the dream scenes (just one) because I never used the illithid powers (as the game suggests we don't), so I'm not sure how it all plays out.

I feel like I'm not quite the player Larian thinks is playing their game. But that's ok, I still enjoy the combat.

It's like a blind date, where you get to choose the face.

Beyond that, this could be any number of plots. Is this a manifestation from the tadpole? I will wait to see where their creativity takes us.



When I first skimmed the post I got the picture of a "just surprise me" button. The thought is equal parts scary and funny at the same time.

It's just asking for an image of someone your character finds attractive.

Why does everything have to be like pulling teeth?

+1
It's very obviously the tadpole trying to manipulate you. It has no bearing on your character's roleplay, likely just a tadpole poking around in your brain to activate certain neurons that will make you ignore the fact that it's a tadpole. It's a parasite, not a shapeshifting seducer/seductress. After all, the portion of the brain responsible for mediating sexual behavior is also the portion of the brain responsible for the fear response, and it may also be responsible for sexuality in general: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala

First time I booted up BGIII I made a half-elf with long black hair, green eyes and was hoping for scars. Image how hard I started giggling when I met shadowheart on the beach.

If would be pretty interesting if you could choose to make "the one you dream of" doppelganger of one of the companions. Talk about mind games.

Just a quick though on how it could play out better:
We didn't see our companions yet when we create that character, so no copying/ But let's apperance of our companion override that character appearance if we started a romance!

Yeah that makes sense, we wouldn't really know anything about them at that point (except for whatever we get during character selection)

That would be pretty nifty; first they start slowly changing appearance; "Didn't you have green eyes?" and then odd dialogue options start showing up, suddenly they're telling us how beautiful it would be to burn the city down, of course that only happens after we kill that evil clone we found.

We could start seeing "They Approve" whenever we use the tadpole, talk about a game gaslighting you, radical.

Because the world is wide and not everyone is you.

It was a rhetorical question.

In other words: it is my opinion that people are actively being difficult over nothing.

Tav doesnt really have a backstory like our companions - Astarion with Cazador, Wyll with Mizora, Lae'Zel with Vlaakith, Gale with Mystra, SH i dont even know who with, to select their nemesis/god/teacher/influencer/whatever you can come up with. So the best guess with the CUSTOM character to add someone that would haunt their dreams in order to twist them to do what it wants, would be the person they find physically attractive.

Its just a simplification to avoid specificity, and we as players can come up with whatever we want. I don't see a problem in this.


I use mods to create them on some playthroughs. Its really creepy in game.

I like the idea of a tadpole-romance bait-and-switch though. Suppose you reject the tadpole-dream-lovers advances and then romance a companion. The tadpole should take note of your romance and try to adopt the companion's appearance instead to trick you in a dream. Like...
"I'm so glad I found you. What is this dream place?" the Companion-Tadpole says.
"Let's get out of here before it comes back. Let me in."

What's with the foregone conclusion about the tadpole being the dream persona?

I wouldn't say that people are being 'difficult' - They're expressing a distaste for how it's being handled at the moment, and suggesting things that would make it more palatable, that's all. By far a bigger problem is the way that the dreams themselves are invasive, creepy and, if you don't choose the head-over-heels dialogue choices, downright rapey... and yet, despite them being that way, everyone around you, including your character, acts like they were temping and appealing and seductive... and you absolutely cannot, in any way, act or suggest that they weren't or that you didn't find them so. There's a huge dissonance there, and if they fix that in a good way, then my complaints about building the daisy will be much reduced.

I know. I am expressing the point that whinging on a forum because not everyone thinks the same as you is hardly going to change anything, or contribute anything.

Same goes for my post 😉

It's a fundamental (mis)conception that Larian has around role playing games and agency. They wouldnt even have non origin stories if people didn't complain, you would just be playing out their interactive novel.

You have to try and let it go as much as possible, because they do it in lots of places.

Edit: which isn't really to say there's a huge problem with this. But it can be done better than Larian does (like say Disco Elysium's interactive story).

Well yes, and I doubt they are supposed to be anything but this. You have an alien worm in your head that is being held dormant by some other force, and that is trying to break through that force to eat your brain and turn you into a squid face, by playing on your deepest psyche and influencing you to use the powers that will bring you closer to the squid face state. Its not meant to be sunshine and rainbows, its actively trying to corrupt your character.
This reminds me of BG2 dreams, where Bhaal's essence in your character took on the visage of your greatest nemesis and tried to coerce you into eventually giving in and unleashing the Slayer.


That i can agree with, but i honestly dont know how it could be written, that the tadpole is corrupting your character, without your character falling for its brain shenanigans.


I think custom Tav is done pretty well, and leagues better already than custom Godwoken. But you have to take some creative choices that will railroad player character in some way for story-telling purposes, and for them to have a more powerful effect. I.e. Morrowind dreams play on your previous established relationship with Dagoth Ur, BG2 on your ptsd from Irenicus, etc.

Edit: now that I think about it, it would be fun if the dream person’s appearance is eventually used on some npc that is supposed to be from our past. Either an ex-lover or a close friend, would have a stronger impact.

Aight if it's not the tadpole, it's something using the tadpole as a conduit for communication. But the tadpole is what's in there. You only get the dreams when you use the tadpole. I never use the tadpole (except 1 playthrough), so I never get the dreams. I'd assume the causal mediation there is the tadpole as it is the only factor in the emergence of the lover. That's what's up with the foregone conclusion about the tadpole being the dream persona. Also, the person encourages you in the direction of using the tadpole, and whenever you use the tadpole, you can feel it squirming in your head with delight and you get more dreams. It's not a foregone conclusion, but it seems like a strong suggestion.

A part of me thinks it's the sentience in the artifact. That maybe the artifact interrupted the typical tadpole process because of its proximity to the characters at the time of infection, which is why the characters aren't like the other true souls.