Originally Posted by robertthebard
You mean "some" other games? I gave you a list earlier, am I wasting just as much of my time typing this as I did that? Hell, I even acknowledged this "other games doing it better", maybe even in the same post. For better or worse, this trope is a very real thing, and it's going to be a thing whether it's Tav, or Shadowheart as the main character. Pick your poison, the "Player Character Syndrome" is a very real thing. Even in some games where there's an eventual reason, such as Dragon Age Inquisition, initially, there's no reason for the main character to be making decisions, and yet, you still do. After you meet Leliana, the decision on which route to take to the temple is on the main character. Why? Nothing is decided on the War Table in Haven w/out your approval. Why? Why aren't you reporting the results to the staff, instead of having the staff bow to you? By all rights, until you seal the breach, you should be a subordinate, but you're not.

As I said previously, this makes sense in Mass Effect, since, in so far as the human crew is concerned, you outrank them, and everyone else is on your ship. In Inquisition, you're in chains, and suspected of destroying the enclave, which resulted in the death of the Divine, but they're following your orders like you're an established military leader. Why are Varric, Cassandra and Solas all level 1? I mean, there's a movie about Cassandra's exploits prior to the events of Dragon Age 2, that explains how she became a Seeker. Presto, however, and she's level 1. If you played Dragon Age 2, you know Varric should be much higher than that, and Solas talks a lot about his experiences, so there's not much chance that he should be level 1 either. Yet there they are, all conveniently leveled to the main character. It's all down to the same reason the companions follow you here, "Player Character Syndrome".

So tell me, would you rather they all just rejected you outright, made their own party and left you on your own to sort it out? That would be an amazing game, wouldn't it? Hey, maybe they should decide the main character by forcing everyone to fight it out the first night in camp, last person standing wins. That would be great, wouldn't it? Is it something that's going to have to be repeated every time we meet a new recruitable character? Of course, it would also have the potential to nullify the player choice to have Tav, instead of an Origin character, if Tav doesn't win. Alternatively, Shadowheart follows you because you freed her from the Pod, or tried to, if you did, or saved her on the beach. Lae'zel has already proven to be insufficient to lead, or she wouldn't have needed rescued from the tieflings. How'd your initial conflict with Astarion go? If you schooled him, and then accepted him, would it be surprising that he'd follow you? How many are already following you when you meet the others? If you've already got 3, would it be surprising to think anyone else would follow too?

I haven't read all the of the posts in this thread, but I would say that the games you mentioned at least have SOME reasoning as to why the MC is calling the shots. In Inquisition, even though you're in chains technically, it's very obvious from the start that they don't really think you're the big bad, and mostly treat you as "okay, show me what happened" and you're not just a random nobody off the street.

Baldur's Gate I and II all have good reasons for why the characters start following you, Mass Effect, even more so. WotR, it starts as survival, but quickly turns into the player is the chosen one sort of thing, so that makes sense.

Baldur's Gate 3 though? There's nothing other than 'we're in this together'. But there's no reason why the companions would not just talk amongst themselves and decide to ditch the MC if they wanted to. It's just the obvious, "this is the player character, so they are the leader", which some people find lacking.

Of course, the problem is that the player character CAN'T be someone special, because the game is designed around the origin characters. They'll never be more than the origin characters, because the game has to be beatable in coop without Tav.