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

Basically the title.
We have discussed on a lot of posts about RPGs we liked and disliked for various reasons. I know that for the last 3 years there's been substantial complaints about Larian's writing. What I find interesting is that none of the problems have to do with plots or premises, but with the quality within the writing itself. I think we can all agree that the character concepts and plots work fine on paper, but something is missing in Larian's executions. What I can say is that the quality of the writing seemed to improve in DOS2 over previous entries, and then in BG3 over DOS2, but we are still a ways away from what everyone would like. What RPGs have the best "writing," what makes it the best, and why/how? Let's try to be as constructive as possible in getting at what is missing.

Couple things that I value in RPGs:

1) versimilitude

Writing in games generally serves to give context and spice up quests and systems. A good writing in games will contextulise "gamey" elements and make them feel natural. It also applies to how character behave, what they ask of us, and how they respond to our actions, cohesion between written text and enviroment storytelling. In a game that is "well written" I expect to not run into a problem of "this doesn't make sense, but that's how game works". This is, of course, not as simple as "good writing" and more of a cohesion between game's various elements. I would point to Supergiant games as an example of studio who is really good in contextulising their designs - even stuff like difficulty modifiers have in-game explanation and acknowladgement. Player's can make game more difficult for themselves for fun, but also have narrative reason to do so.


2) Worldbuilding

In RPGs we tend to explore fictional settings, and are asked to engage with characters who inhabit it, and often make decisions that will impact the characters, I find it important for the game to paint a believable, and engaging setting - a place about which fate we will carry, and where we would be able to understand and contemplate impact of our actions. It includes communicating to the player how the world works and also writing characters so they behave in the way consistant with the world they inhabit. Quests would ideally be part of worldbuilding - if we are tasked to do something, it should feel like we interact with the setting we are in, rather than doing unrelated stuff. Even doing a fetch quest can feel meaningful, if it feels like people who ask for it need us to help.

Having worldbuilding, doesn't mean overwhelming amount of codex entries or lore books. While those can be handy to add additional info for those who want it, the game's plot, character's motivations, and context should be included in game proper.


3) compelling protagonist

Whenever a game has custom or pre-defined protagonist, that protagonist must be memorable and expressive. In case of pre-defined protagonist it means making sure that the game and the player are on the same page as to who the character is, and how much (or little) impact player can have on who the character is. If we play as a pre-made character, player shouldn't be able to do what the character wouldn't do. Even in case of custom protagonist, it is perfectly fine for developer to set up boundries (it is even necessary to do so, due to game's content and reactivity being inherintly limited).

If the playable protagonist is custom he or she still needs to have personality - that personality might be up to the player to pick, but it should be there. In other words, rather then remaining blank through the entirety of the game protagonist personality should be shaped by player's actions and decisions.

In short:

Good pre-defined protagonist: a character who is predesigned by devs and players have access to choices that make sense for that character

Good custom protagonist: a character whose character and ideology gets defined as player plays the game and makes choices

If pre-defined protagonist doesn't mesh with game content, or we never get to define or express character in game than those are poor protagonists


4) narratively interesting choices

A choice in an RPG is compelling if there is a narrative weight to it. A moral challenge for our character to solve, a decision about ideology to make, a side to pick. Ideally each major decision should reveal something about our character as well - examine his or her values. Ideally desisions should be varied as well - games that follow predetermined paths (good vs bad, paragon vs renegade) just aren't terribly interesting as players really make only once decision, and just continue reinforcing it throughout the game. Making multiple, independend smaller decisions is just more interesting that few major ones.

If player is being asked of something, their knowledge should be on the same level as the characters - if we get asked about something that the character would know, but the player wasn't provided with necessary information than that's a poorly implemented choice.

It is hard to judge the overall writing when we only have act 1 and don’t have all the companions, so this is tbd for me! I do think some are a bit harsh on the writing in BG3, though!

In BG3 so far I love the pacing and side quests, which if not done well can make a game very boring. I am also interested in the main plot. I love the amount of dialogue and quests they have given companions as well as class-specific dialogue for the pc! It is too early to tell for choice and consequences. I am fine with and probably prefer some gameplay (or gamey) elements staying separate from the narrative.

Another important thing in good writing is relationships between characters, whether it’s Joel and Ellie or Garrus and Shepard or a pc and a great villain, or a great romance. This is what I think is missing from the companions so far. The companions are individually well-written but need more relationship with the pc and are a bit dark side when taken as a group! This could change when we get the remaining companions and also when more development happens as the game progresses.

Agree with this! I like my pc to have personality. For BG3 I think this might depend on whether the pc is voiced.

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.

Man I don't know where to start, we clearly haven't had the same experience of BG3.
I don't understand what you find childish about the absolute. I actually like that the fact that it is downplayed during act 1. It acts as a nebulous threat during the playthough and it connects everything together. I am sure later acts will quench your lust for an explicit BBEG.
All your companions have a reason to act the way they do. Laezel is even very adamant to find a cure contrary to what you said. Astarion is enjoying its first moments of freedom in hundreds of years and is happy to use the tadpole for his benefit. Shadowheart is clearly brainwashed to do her mission no matter what. Wyll has to keep his facade of cool. Gale was already a ticking timebomb and is also looking for a healer.
I don' t understand what you say by the tadpole being "gimmick, having no dramatic purpose or interesting undertone" when it is the main motivation and source of power of your cast.
I'll give you that Raphael is a bit flamboyant, but hey, I think it serves the scenes well to imply its powers to the player. Gotta impress your public if you offer a deal for someone soul.
For the funniness of the companions, I had some genuine laughs here and there. More would make them fall in your "corny" basket.

What do you think makes good RPG writing?

I am a simple man. For me the only cardinal sin a RPG plot can have is to be boring. So far I find BG3 solid in that regard. I am eagerly waiting for later acts as the game had plenty of places, people and situations that made me want to continue playing.

Thanks for your opinion, but I didn't find any of that particularly interesting or convincing.

Basically, you like it 'lite'.

Cool for your you dude.

That's not me though for all the reasons you skipped over, cheers.

I don’t want exactly the same things from every RPG but off the top of my head some of the things I’d like from BG3 are as follows. Most of these I think it already does at least to some extent, though there are a number of areas where I’m definitely hoping for improvement.

• A protagonist with well-written lines whose character we can shape and express, and who it feels other characters react and listen to, rather than someone who just asks questions and reacts to others. This includes being able to express our characters’ intentions and motivation in-game, as well as be humorous, serious, studious, action-oriented and so on.
• And on the flip side, there should always be neutral options for our PC so we’re not forced to say something that doesn’t feel true to them.
• A main story that is compelling and exciting without the role of our party in it being overblown for characters at levels 1-12(ish).
• Fun and varied side quests that deepen knowledge of the world but don’t feel like an unnecessary distraction from the main story and aren’t trivial fetch quests.
• Companions with engaging stories who have plenty to say to the PC and each other as they travel the world as well as in quieter moments.
• Deepening relationships with and between companions that have interesting dynamics that can be, but aren’t necessarily, positive (I hate feeling my PC has to pussyfoot around companions while they can be as rude as they like).
• The possibility of different sorts of romantic arcs that feel as though they develop naturally (and don’t require my character having to say cheesy chat-up lines).
• A diverse, memorable and interesting cast of NPCs who seem to have more to them than simply being local colour, quest givers or generic baddies.
• A mix of humour and darker themes that will challenge my expectations and preconceptions, make me think and surprise and engage me emotionally. But when there is tragedy this should make sense rather than the game just not letting us do something that would clearly make sense to lead to a better outcomes.
• Difficult decisions with real consequences. These don’t need to send the story off in radically different directions but I want to see ever increasing ripples from what my party does, and have the ability to play a character of any alignment. (The latter doesn’t mean having a distinct “evil path” for me, but making sure that what there are clear motivations for differently aligned characters to take the options we are given, and we can express those in the game.)
• A feeling that there is a wider world to get glimpses into, and it’s not all constructed just for me, which means things like notes and items to find that tell mini-stories, lore and history we can discover and side characters we can incidentally find out more about.
• Connections to the characters and plot of the first BG games that stand on their own merits for new players but add depth for those who know the old games.

I definitely agree that having the PC voiced will help give them personality. Fingers crossed!

I argued on all your points, and you still find a way to attack me on something I haven't said or implied. You are clearly arguing in bad faith. You may find the Steam forums more appropriate to your kind of discussions.

This exactly. Both very simple and immensely complex.

Per what I've seen so far, I feel BG3 misses the mark. Then again, I don't think the narrative was ever one of Larian's main focuses.

So... if I'm getting this right,

There's not much wrong with the dialogue in the SCRIPT of the Characters? How does what characters (particularly companions, major supporting characters, and major antagonists) SAY as based on the script stack up to what you regard as the best "scripts" in RPGs?

I know there's a lot of love for (older) Bioware on this forum. How does what its characters say differ from what we're seeing?

Well, in my view the quality of the written language (as opposed to the character concepts, plotting and structure) in BG3 is variable but on the whole decent, sometimes being very good, such as most of Ethel’s lines, but at other times clunky and unnatural-feeling. The protagonist’s lines in particular often don’t ring true as something someone would actually want to say. Personally, I don’t think the overall quality of this element is significantly different from BG2 for example, which similarly had high points alongside less successful writing. Though I do think weakness in writing shows up far more when the dialogue is voiced, so BG3 has a greater challenge.

Planescape: Torment is better written in my view amongst the oldies, and Disco Elysium is shaping up to be the best written RPG I’ve played though I’m still in the middle of it.

One of the things that has been done well for Ethel (and Volo for that matter) has been the implementation of a distinct pattern of speech and mannerisms. I've been working my way through Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age 2 at the same time, and I've noticed that the characters tend to have their own speech patterns and speech mannerisms. Morrigan speaks in a VERY different way from Zevran, and both speak VERY differently compared to Shale, and all three differ from Wynne. In DA2, I've noticed the same phenomenon. This took what was already in the writing in BG2 and added voice acting (and better dialogue IMO).

Thinking back to DOS2, while all the characters had different personalities in WHAT they would say, I'm not sure there were dramatic differences in HOW they would say it. A lot of the speech patterns tend to blur together in my memory. Maybe Red Prince was a little different?

In BG3, I think Lae'zel has the most distinct personality and manner of speech. She often switches between her native tongue and common. The other characters, while having VERY different "tone" and "inflection," and VERY different personalities, don't seem to have dramatically different speech patterns when it comes down to mannerisms and the actual syntactic structure of their statements. The structure of dialogue across companions seems to be rather uniform, except for the odd line here and there. Shadowheart, Lae'zel, and Astarion tend to speak continuously without stuttering, stopping, interjecting, or getting flustered, while Gale and Wyll can get choppy in their speech sometimes.

Also a lot of the characters are perpetually horny in banter?

The main reason for my Dragon Age comparisons here is because that series was sort of conceived as Bioware's own "BG3," just without the DND.

Examples in banter (Compare the STRUCTURE of what's being said vs. the tone and word choice):

Disco is special. I had some issues with the latter half, but I think they added some stuff in the Final Cut so it should be better now. I need to replay that game soon.

Interesting. That’s not my impression though I can see why someone might have that view. Lae’zel of course, as a githyanki, is going to be most different but while the others are all from around the Sword Coast so are going to speak in broadly the same way (it would be odd if people with the same first language employed significantly different sentence constructions), I still find they very much have their own tone and mannerisms. Astarion is quite dramatic and sometimes even camp, both in his language and performance, and he has a sort of eloquence that makes sense in light of his history as a noble and magistrate. Gale is more of a nutty professor, amusing and eloquent like Astarion but in a different way, perhaps drier and a bit more sarcastic, and certainly degenerating into verbosity at times. Also like Astarion, his performance is quite physical with a lot of gesticulation, but in more the manner of a charismatic teacher than a performer. Shadowheart’s manner and language is more contained and conspiratorial, often seeking to build a rapport with the PC (befitting a manipulative Sharran) with bursts of defensiveness and sarcasm, especially when challenged. Wyll, as I’ve said elsewhere, I think is really poorly animated at the moment which makes him hard to judge given his weird jerky movements and peculiar facial expressions. But his speech pattern is the most distinctive, with the way he refers to himself (or “the Blade”) in the third person and employs hyperbole and almost bardic language to talk about our plans and exploits.

That said, I would agree that our companions do lack a certain amount of diversity just because four out of five are from the Sword Coast and the three male companions all seem to be from relatively privileged backgrounds, and perhaps this does manifest in the dialogue to some extent. We know we’re going to get Minsc and Jaheira from further afield, but hopefully we’ll also get other companions, camp followers and allies from different races and other locales who might speak in more distinctive ways and with different accents.

I do think, however, that the companions we have already have the potential to be as distinctive and memorable in their own ways as the DA:O companions, but I guess we’ll see how Larian polish and develop them in the full release and who they add to mix things up a bit.

I do think the early banter about someone waiting for them at home comes across as weirdly high school-ish in practice, though in principle asking about someone’s family and who might be missing and worrying about them is a perfectly valid thing to ask about someone you’re trying to get to know. (In fact, it is a bit weird that no one, including Tav, asks early on about whether anyone is worried about friends or family who might also have been caught by the illithids.) And Wyll’s flirting with Lae’zel and then Shadowheart is a bit much, though apparently is included mostly for comedic effect. And Gale is at his worst when sleazing over Shadowheart, though again I’m not sure how exactly to read his interest. Is that the sort of stuff you’re thinking of?

Imagination, creativity, and a command of the written language.


The room has a door on one side.

or

You walk into the room and notice the smell of burnt cinnamon in the air. To your left is a sturdy wooden door, though it is showing its age it still looks strong. You wonder if it is to keep something in, or out. The floor is littered with the leavings of a hastily eaten meal of bread and moldy cheese. There is a single flickering wooden torch in a rusty iron sconce half way up the wall that is opposite a sturdy wooden door. etc

This is the exact problem, I think. Even with a more 'serious' tone, Larian's writing tends to go maximalist.

That can have its own charm, but it pretty much kills off any chance to establish stakes and atmosphere - and in general it feels like a poor fit for a level-one DnD opening to introduce the player to the setting and story.

When I was playing the first sequence of BG3, I kept thinking that a BG2 (or Icewind Dale, or Mask of the Betrayer, or any of the earlier set of DnD games) might have set up the story more gradually, like this.

The PC awakens in the darkness of a crashed mindflayer ship, freeing themselves with a gasp from a defective pod. All around them are bodies - mindflayers, thralls, and others. It's eerie, and dank, and strange down here. Most of the machinery is broken, and a few vicious scavengers are skulking the wreckage. The PC also has a horrible headache, a feeling of weakness and pain, and doesn't know why.

Gradually, they must navigate the dangers of the dark crashed ship, find their way to the exit and daylight, and en route they encounter a couple of other former prisoners who reveal that the PC has been tadpoled and is at risk of being turned into a mindflayer.

Now, that's not fine art - but I would call that good RPG writing. To me, that much slower pacing is a chance to establish atmosphere and mood, and to engage the player with the PC's situation by building up the mystery one piece at a time. (What's happened to the PC? Why are the mindflayers dead? How did the ship crash and where are we now?)

It establishes a clear sense of place and starting after the crash gives the game a chance to build up the weirdness and alien-ness of this ghost ship environment, which then means that the escape to the surface will be all the more satisfying when it comes - a real sense of relief that rises out of the contrast between the empty, dead ship and the living outdoors.

And it gives the player a clear understanding of their own vulnerability, too, the sense of being alone in the dark and having to scavenge their way to freedom surrounded by the corpses of their far more powerful captors.

By contrast, BG3 has the PC wake up on a crashing ship with fire everywhere. There are imps and thralls and red dragons and intellect devourers and big red devils with giant swords, and we're in hell and now we're not in hell, and everyone immediately knows what's happened with the tadpoles so they just shout at you to follow them, and-

-and there's a frantic busyness to that storytelling that kills off the atmosphere and mood right away.

It feels harder to take the PC's plight seriously or to be intrigued in finding out more when there's so much going on. There are too many threats and no sense of how dangerous they are to the PC. And we can't fully appreciate the strangeness and creepiness of the illithid environment when everything's on fire and crashing all around us.

I'm not being specific enough; that's on me. I agree with everything you have written in the first part. What I mean is that if you look at the written scripts for the characters, the structure of the sentences across companions are fairly similar. Like [adverbial clause][addressing noun][adjective] etc. Every character has their own personalities and manner of speech for sure, but they are fairly homogenized in the syntactic and connective quality of their speech. When I have more time again, I will go through the scripts and write it out.

My point about being horny is that it's (proportionally) a LOT of flirting from Wyll and Gale for characters they've only just met... on a Nautilloid... with the only common factor being tadpoles in their brains. The two of them (and the responses from the other characters) come across as being aggressively down bad in an inconvenient time. I wouldn't mind if that flirting occurred AFTER a romance is budding between two characters, but if it's the first banter to occur since they fell from a Mind Flayer's ship, it seems a bit too aggressive.

Idk if I were in that situation (falling out of an otherworldly ship after almost having my brain eaten with a parasite trying to take over it and the only common bond to my comrades being the parasite, and escaping hell, and not being cured yet), I think I'd have other things on my mind that don't involve flirting with the local Cleric of Evil Goddess and the Predator from Predator.

Ah, I had thought that was only part of your point and you were also talking about differences in mannerisms and the way they spoke more broadly.

I agreed on that specific point about syntax, but as I said I would put that down to the four other than Lae’zel all sharing a language. Different sentence structure to me usually just comes across as annoyingly affected unless it has a rationale, usually in the form of different first languages or at least different dialects.

So, if you think about DA:O, we have Leliana from Orlais, Zevran from Antiva, Sten who is Qunari, Oghren from Orzammar, Shale from a long time ago, and so on. They are a more geographically diverse bunch than the companions we currently have in BG3 so different grammar because of different languages and dialects makes more sense than it would for our four Sword Coast natives.

Or perhaps I am still misunderstanding your point?