Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General What Makes Good RPG Writing?

It’s possible to judge the overall writing standard of a novel from page one – from paragraph one, even. You don’t need the entire script to know if you’re dealing with an amateur versus what they used to call a ‘master’, back when writing was actually taken seriously.

This is 2023, and a certain contingent of malicious hacks have completely taken over – that’s just my opinion, and that was what the OP requested. Nothing I write here is going to be objective, nor can it ever be given the topic.

It’s very clear from the opening cinematic that this is Blockbuster-Larian at work, or Marvel-Larian, to be more precise. The writers want to blast you into the stratosphere of ‘epic’: everything is dialled up and dialled up again (and again).
The issue with this furious pacing is that it’s unsustainable. You can’t just keep cranking the story up to another level of ‘epic’, because people will at some stage become fatigued by it.

BG1’s story wasn’t the best, but it had a more intelligent sense of pacing than BG3 – ie, it started small, with just some random guy getting murdered by the Shredder (Sarevok). There were no crumbling cities, no dragons, no pyrotechnics, or portals to hell.

Bigger is not better, but try tell that to Larian’s writers.

BG2 had an even more lowkey opening than BG1, and was a million miles more intriguing. It was sinister and different and again introduced its main villain clearly: here an aloof sadist named Irenicus, who would go on to be one of the best video game villians ever created.

Where’s the villain in BG3? The Absolute?

The childish terminology – The Absolute – already says everything you need to know about the standard of the writing. Whatever about lacklustre names, where is ‘The Absolute’ given any character development in Act 1 that inspires your interest?

Then you’ve the blasé, chill attitude of all the main characters who travel with you, despite having a supposedly ticking time-bomb in their skulls. They’re very relaxed in general, and are more concerned, seemingly, with firing off their various narcissistic quips.

Suspension of disbelief is made difficult as result. The ‘tadpole’ becomes a gimmick, having no dramatic purpose or interesting undertones (a brain tumour, for example – and no I’m not suggesting a fantasy world knows what that is, but it can understand a serious illness), since no one really seems to be too pushed by the predicament.

The devil character is so spectacularly overwritten that it’s excruciating to listen to the voice actor attempt to make something of the campy, brittle lines.

Compare the devil here to Gaunter O'Dimm from TW3, who remains intelligently unremarkable throughout – as the best evil always does.

Think, for example, of the scumbags who drive around your estate, ‘scoping out’ the various houses, to see which one is the easiest target for a robbery. They just seem like normal people, unless you’re canny enough to see there’s something off with their patterns.

Or the shyster who’s trying to sell you a dodgy deal – he’s obviously not going to be flamboyant about it. He’ll try his best to seem like just an ordinary Joe who you can trust. But like Gaunter O'Dimm, his appearance and demeanour are there to throw you off the scent.

A more ‘colourful’ villain can sometimes also work, like campy Kefka from the FF series. But Larian’s BG3 devil is all talk and smugness. Seems more like a dimwit than someone who’s actually conniving/evil.

Lastly, none of the companion characters are in any way funny whatsoever. There’s no Edwin or Minsc (even though they’re wheeling him in, clown-like, Larian-style for BG3). They have no charm and are the kind of bores most would tend to avoid in life.
All in all, I agree with the OP that Larian’s writing continues to improve from eg DOS1 -> DOS2 -> BG3.

But that’s not saying much, is it? It’s gone from below average, to average, to average-and-a-bit. But man is it so much worse than BG2 – and even BG1. It has no ‘magic’ in it, unless you call a Marvel superhero film ‘magic’. In which case, you and I are entirely different species altogether.