Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General What else do you think Larian is keeping a secret?

Having sympathy for someone like Astarion is quite subjective. I get why you and some others may feel that way, but I have zero sympathy for him. Ditto for SH. In fact, I find it very difficult to relate to any of these characters and find all them to be utterly detestable and unlikeable.

But making evil characters not really evil after all (it's what passes for character "depth" these days) and having them be "redeemed" is the biggest RPG cliche and trope out there nowadays. It's what's in fashion, so I guess it is to be expected that that is how each and every one of Larian's characters have been written.

Yup. Go figure.

It's why if I ever play this game, any of the evil characters that I don't take with me in my party I will not just let them go but will make certain to kill off so that they cannot come back to mess with me later on in the game. Larian claims they want their players to be able to play the game their way. Let's see if *my* way of wanting to play the game will be honored by Larian's writers. I suspect not, but let's see how it goes.

I think it is entirely possible, with Larian, that you will get your preference here. My only question is whether this will be *the* option for how his character ends up, or if it will be one of multiple possible endings. I would certainly not want this ending for his character, and would consider a very opposite-to-this ending to be what is appropriate. But will that be possible in my game? I'm not convinced that will be allowed by Larian.

Astarion is evil, not stupid. He is trying to not get himself killed or brought back to his master. Take him and go murder or do act of cruelty and see how he enjoys doing that. He loves bloodshed and killing people. He's ultra happy after you help the Goblins wipe out the grove. He's how chaotic evil should be role-played instead of the acting stupid murderhobos too many people believe evil is supposed to act like in D&D.

Which is really the entire problem with the discussions in this thread. Way too many people think:
- evil = murdering everything that move
- good = helping people and being nice
- neutral = money, money, money

That's not how D&D define the alignments. The D&D alignment system was based off virtues. Lying fall under evil, even if you are doing it for a good cause under D&D alignment system.

I think Shadowheart is a actually different ballgame to Astarion. Sure there's hints that she's a brainwashed Selunite, but it's only that, hints. So based on what we know of her, she's a willing Sharran cleric and has participated in all the misdeeds that one would expect. So from that perspective I don't think there's any reason to hold back judgement for her. Although as an aside to that, the game really doesn't explain what Shar is and just how evil her worship is. As someone unfamiliar with the lore, I didn't really understand how truly evil Sharrans were until I got to the underdark and saw the description of that dark feast thing, where they would kill a selunite or good god worshipper each day for however long. So I think that with Shadowheart the game's biggest flaw is that it fails to communicate that Shar is genuinely evil and not just 'dark and morally ambiguous, but still posessing a valid role in the cosmic order'. As for Astarion, he's absolutely an asshole and if left to his own devices I have no doubt he'd run amok as an ammoral menace, killing and ruining and doing whatever it takes to amass power, but I also think that based on what we know about his character, there's nothing about him that suggests he's irredeemable. If you take into account the fact that he literally was powerless to resist Cazador's thrall, then as far as we know he's actually not done anything evil before we meet him. Not by choice. He likely would have just gone on as a normal magistrate had he not been turned. That being said, if you don't like him, you don't like him, and you don't need to justify why. I don't particularly like him either, but I'm also a bleeding heart who loves hopeful stories and believes everyone deserves at least one chance at redemption, even in real life. Though I think a fun twist on his apparent character trajectory would be if he was just an asshole even before he turned. Maybe he was actually a corrupt magistrate, he was beaten by people harmed by his corrupt rulings, and Cazador's treatment only amplified his prior terrible traits. I think that would be quite a fun reveal.

Regarding what's in fashion though, I feel like the fashion nowadays is sort of the opposite, making it that seemingly good characters are actually morally compromised and having the lesson be that 'nobody can truly stay clean in the real world, and the grown-up way to look at the world is to accept that everyone is kinda bad.' I think real life has been giving people a cavalcade of evidence that things suck and nothing will get better, so stories saying 'hey things don't have to suck and people can change if they do the work' is a refreshing message in the face of that.

Lying falls under law. Good and evil is about the intention.
Law/ chaos is deontology, and good/ evil is virtue ethics.
You CAN lie to spare somebodies feelings etc, but essentially you are breaking the unwritten rule of always speaking the truths, which is necessary for society to function.

Think of Kants famous murderer at the door thought experiment.

You can somewhat blame Larian for this way of thinking. In BG3, a significant (arguably the dominant) reason to go with the "evil" route is essentially "I like murdering innocents!" (Or, "I'm willing to murder innocents for the chance to sleep with a hot drow babe.")

I strongly disagree with your last statement. Lying is not an inherently Evil thing in D&D. If anything, it's an inherently Chaotic thing to do, but I wouldn't even go that far. Lawful characters can lie, as long as they're still following their code. E.g., a Lawful Paladin lies to a criminal, saying that their sentence won't be that harsh, resulting in the criminal surrendering peacefully rather than fighting and possibly harming innocents. The Paladin then turns the criminal over to judges and advocates for an (appropriately) harsh sentence: "Criminals must pay the appropriate price for their crimes. And they don't deserve the truth."

D&D put lying under evil, along betrayal in Book of Vile Darkness v3 (that's 20 years old I know), probably because you gain something from it.

Law/chaos is society/stability/order vs individual/change/chaos. It's just structure vs freeform. In fact, the original TSR version of lawful was very basic: creatures of habits with predictable reaction. It had nothing to do with following actual laws/rules back then.

Larian isn't to blame. The goblins path is the story evil path, aka the path where the bad guys (the Absolute) win. It's not the path evil characters must take to show they are evil. A cleric/paladin of an evil god or any evil characters who aren't interested in become lackeys to the Absolute has zero reasons to join up with Minthara and her gang. They should just ignore both groups and move on, but as an evil cleric/paladin massacring the goblins and their leaders is a much better approach since destroying other gods worshippers is part of the job. That it save the grove is just collateral damage, but then you can also kill the grove and the goblins so...

Paladins with Oaths of Devotion can't tell lies, "tell no lies" is one of their oath. They are based off the classic pre-5e Paladins. A Paladin of Vengeance would just chop that criminal's head off instead so no need to lie there either....

Hm... makes sense I suppose, though I wasn't really speaking in terms of DnD. I don't really have a DnD brain, as prior to BG3 I never touched any sort of DnD so I don't look at characters through a spreadsheet of oldschool RPG alignments and what they're supposed to be according to them. I look at characters in a videogame just like any other and make my observations based on them as a person, which is why to me none of them are bad people.

I also do not think Larian wrote them with oldschool alignment in mind and to me the whole old-school alignment RPG thingy was always kinda meh, an arbitrary RPG gimmick.

That's my point. Most evil characters wouldn't actually want to join the cult, yet Larian clearly advertised that path as "siding with Evil" and representing what evil characters would (want to) do.

Okay, sure, but a.) you're focusing on the "Paladin" aspect, not the "Lawful" aspect, and b) there are other paladin orders - your point just proves that some Paladins won't lie.

Replace Paladin in my example with Ranger or Fighter or Wizard. They can still be lawful and lie.
Or, Lawful Paladin with Oaths of the Watchers would perfectly fit my example -> lawful and able to lie, if it's for the Greater Order.

'nobody can truly stay clean in the real world, and the grown-up way to look at the world is to accept that everyone is kinda bad.'

Yes it can be a little disheartening to realize all humans have a mix inside them. The issue was explained way back in the 1966 Star Trek episode, "The Enemy Within", wherein Captain Kirk gets split into two entities due to a transporter malfunction. One split avatar was modest and rationale but rather weak-willed, whereas the other was primal and fearful but also strong-willed and rather lusty. In the end, the two halves come back together in their proper balance, guided by Kirk's intellect and choice, and all the wiser from the experience.

Based on this thread, it is not clear to me how Larian regards good & evil. Their approach certainly is not simplistic, which keeps things interesting. So I would look for some defining traits which will probably evolve over time. For example, our characters may come to realize that true evil does not forgive.

Those writers in the PFH gave some good insights into the increasing complexity in the moral struggle the closer you get to Baldur's Gate.

I'll watch them again once my BG-overdosed brain has had some sleep...

This is a very interesting thread, and I hope that I'll have some time in the next few days to add more of my own thoughts.

I may have mentioned it before , but I really like BG3s character writing, and I like our companions.

I am not a big fan of the alignment system, I think it is too simplistic, too black and white, and I like that Larian seems to have taken a different, and in my eyes, more complex and realistic approach.
I love that we meet nuanced characters who have their strengths and weaknesses, their histories and experiences that influence their actions and behaviour.
I can imagine different directions of character development for each and every one of them. Maybe our Tav's actions and behaviour towards them might also have an impact on where their stories are going. I hope so.

Personally, I like to play a kind and sympathetic Tav, who might not always agree with everything a companion says or does -and who will say so-, but who will emphatize with them, listen to them. I like the gradual, slow development of relationships between characters, it feels very natural to me. Like Crimsomrider said, it's a reward all of its own, to see the relationships go from a rough start (for some companions) to something more like friendship. I think I am most curious where Astarion's character development might lead, especially with the kind of Tavs that I am playing.

I am very late to the party, I could not watch the PFH live and I am watching it right now. I like that there was a focus on the writing process, it was very interesting and very promising. The complexity of the relationships between characters (not only the romantic ones) are what makes this game really stand out for me.

Regarding the actual topic of the thread, I honestly can't help feel that between the reaction system revamp and the oathbreaker paladin, the potential stuff Larian could be saving for release has gone up considerably. I had more or less given up on the idea that they would do a proper reaction system, but now that they have, I can believe pretty much anything is on the table now. The only thing I think is truly not gonna happen is D/N cycle and a change to the movement mechanics. And the roleplay of the oathbreaker paladin has me hopeful that come release, we'll see an updated act 1 with more options for broader actual roleplaying (as opposed to just 'screwing around and finding out').

The big stumbling block with the overland day/night cycle seems to be that the writers have forced a hard line to be drawn so that nighttime is camp time, for all the complicated interpersonal drama to occur.

On one hand, it is heavy handed. But on the other hand, camp drama is a huge and appealing part of the game.

(Also, when I did tramping and camping, nighttime was definitely rest time.)

I think the only major things left are a day/night system (which is unlikely), a way to pass conversations and skill checks to other party members, and multiclassing (we've had no word on that for a while).

I don't know anything about D/N cycle or the conversation skill check thing, but they did say from the start that multiclassing would be a thing, so I just figure that until they say something to the contrary, it's gonna happen and is simply being saved for full release.

I think that for me the biggest stumbling block is the implementation of camp scenes. I firmly feel that a) some scenes and exchanges should just happen out in the world. There are a couple that do, but I think there are a few more camp scenes that could happen on the road instead, and b) we should be able to trigger more than one camp dialogue at a time. Especially when it's not a party-wide scene like the whole 'feeling sick' situation. And of course Larian needs to do a better job of keeping the scenes from being so easily missable. That's such a glaring problem that I'm hoping it's something they're working on behind the scenes.

Same. Really not a fan of resting and story being so tied to eachother and requiring spamming.

Same. The very frequent resting, in order to not miss any dialogue, undermines the sense of urgency to find a healer.
I think it's a pity that so much dialogue can be missed when we take a more "realistic" amount of rests. I don't want to miss out on any part of the stories, and I like the dialogue scenes/voice acting/animation a lot.
There are some dialogues that could also happen on the road, and I see no reason why we shouldn't be able to talk to more than one companion at camp.

I won't have the time to start a new game before the weekend, but I am very curious if this has changed.

As for a Day and Night cycle, I would like it, but it is not a must for me.

I am very pleasantly surprised by the new reaction system, I can't wait to see Counterspell in action.