And if it's valid to look at the kernels of evidence suggesting that it isn't and latch onto that, then it's equally valid to misunderstand the evidence or just not trust it
And vice versa.
100%, exactly my point.
My point here is that I don't think that within the game, misunderstanding the evidence we've given really is a valid, accounted for way to play. I'll go into way down below.
So in order to enjoy what the game has to offer, I have to play in a way that I find narratively unsatisfying. Because I don't like playing characters who are dumb or smug or reckless
Well those were obviously just examples i picked bcs they are easy ... i see no reason to spend hours and hours trying to create some supercomplex character that could go this path, since people would still just say they dont like something about them.
The point was ... you create your characters ... you want them to do *X* ... then you find out some way for them to do it.
And if you dont ... well, i gues then i asume this kind of play was not ment for you. :-/
It sucks i get it, but thats just how it is ...
If you complain about being hungry and someone offers you an apple, dont complain that you wanted hotdog ... either you are hungry and therefore eat an apple, or you are not really. :-/
I just dont like when people claim there is no valid option ... thats simply not true, there is many perfectly valid options, they just dont like them ... but that dont erase their existence.
I have played lots of crpgs (not most of them, but a lot, especially newer ones) and have never run into this issue in those. In Pillars of Eternity, I had no trouble playing as a depressed monk in self-imposed exile as punishment for crimes she committed in an effort to liberate her citystate from tyrannical rule. I even wrote in-character journal entries for her where she reflected on the events of the game while also considering her past and how that colored her. I was even able to give her an arc of eventually rising above her past trauma, forgiving herself, and regaining her sense of purpose. That was my second playthrough. In my first, before I understood the full breadth of the game, I played a scholar who over the course of her game comes to realize the dark corners of the world and by the end of the story establishes herself as a spymaster to take care of her new home. In WotR I played as a tiefling who overcomes her anger and the trauma of past oppression to become a literal angel and prevent others from suffering as she did. But in Baldurs Gate 3 I can't find a satisfying way to play as a character who takes the tadpole threat seriously. Please, give me the complex character path that allows me to engage with the story and not miss out on companion interaction, story stuff and all the things that make a game like this interesting without also playing a dumb, or smug, or reckless character. I am inviting you to, because I clearly need guidance and I don't like disliking things. I paid for this game, I want to enjoy it.
The game very effectively establishes the tadpole and threat of transformation as the main threat, and finding a healer as the main goal of the game, at least at this point. At the same time it also gives us hints to undermine that urgency
And you dont like it?
I quite honestly do ... a lot ... nothing is certain, you can be as confused or dedicated as you want and its all perfectly valid.
Thats why i said to Niara that we all are making asumptions.
Again, I don't think that playing a character dedicated to the tadpole before anything else is truly a valid, supported idea. Again, I'll get to it below.
Like the whole Aunt Nettie plotline. That starts with two random dudes accosting an old lady.
*Ethel.
Nettie is that Dwarf Druid ... Halsin's apprentice.
Anyway that questline actualy starts in the Grove, where she sells her "lotions and potions" ... you can tell her after some dialogue that you have tadpole, and she offers you her help ... if you accept, she invites you to her home in the forest where she went to "prepare things".
Meeting her and those two guys are basicaly middle of that quest.
Thanks for clearing that up actually. I feel like I've heard Aunt Nettie elsewhere, I'm probbably gonna be wrackig my brain on that for a while.
If Larian wants us to take it slow, then they shouldn't have started the game so urgently. Instead they give us a big, scary ticking clock that they then have to walk back. And they're doing at best a mediocre job of that.
I dont really think they do ...
I mean, i obvously dont see into head of Larian writers, but concidering everything we have ... it seems to me like Larian dont really want to push us to anything ... they offer us options and let us play however we want.
Same model you can see with Long Rests ... it could be much more restrictive, easily ... but instead they decided to let us pick when and where we want to rest.
This is where I get into "I don't think rushing along is actually a valid way that Larian wants us play" stuff that I'd been hinting at above. Larian clearly wants to push us to rest less, and the proof of that is one glaring thing; the party banter system. If we want to engage with our party, we HAVE to take long rests and ignore the threat of the tadpole. Otherwise we are simply locking ourselves out of that content. And if we miss it in this part of the game, then based on how other games work (which is a valid metric to measure with because this is a part of a pre-existing genre and medium with its own conventions and tropes, and I don't think Larian has given us a reason to give them the benefit of the doubt that they're trying to do something super unique) we're likely gonna not see those plotlines develop in later acts.
Companion interaction is a big part of a crpg like this, and ideally you're gonna want players to want to spend time with those characters. They could have not tied companion scenes and long rests the way they have, but they did. It's a choice they made, and they made it for a reason. As a result, if you initially take the urgency of the tadpole seriously, you miss out on scenes that should on paper be things you want to see. Ultimately, where you see Larian trying to give players freedom, I just see bad writing. And Larian has given me know reason to think better of them and give them the benefit of the doubt. In fact they've provided several other instances of bad writing that make me more inclined to include this under that umbrella. To name a few; their failure to provide a breadth of dialogue options for our characters, something you've complained about several times; the fact that our created character is typically treated as just a rube for other characters to show off their characterization against; the seeming fact they don't seem to care about world building or providing the players with context; their permutation madness to try and make the mystery box work; and Astarion's bite scene if you let him drink too long and actually drain you. All instances of bad writing that leave me unwilling to give them grace on this issue.
Edited to fix quotes
