Originally Posted by Nightmarian
Originally Posted by Wormerine
Originally Posted by Gray Ghost
My problem is that the game kinda signals that it's trying to be Dragon Age, with its free and open protagonist, as opposed to the more defined Mass Effect and Shepard. I think it ends up taking the worst of both worlds frankly.
I absolutely agree with you about PoE. I did multiple playthroughs of both PoE1&2 and managed to roleplay as very different characters, with different background goals and ideologies and they all worked really well.

We will see how BG3 will end up looking at the end. I am still pinning any issues with protagonist and companion writing squarely on the shoulder of origins - you can have blank protagonist. You can have a shared protagonist like Shepard. You can have predefined protagonist. You can have a group of protagonists. Really you can do whatever you think suits your game best. What Larian tries to do, is to do everything at once, and I just don't think this is a feasible goal.

PoE was an exception built from the ground up for that though, so it's a bit unfair. I mean, you could choose who the person you're looking for is from your past (sibling, lover, parent too I think, etc), and that was a constant theme. It was like a literal build your own story simulator instead of you inserting yourself into a preexisting narrative. It imo suffered in other aspects because of that though, such as the main story itself being really loose and unfocused to accommodate this.

I also disagree about Shepard becoming their own person. They were very much a generic middle ground self-insert character that the writers unabashedly leaned towards paragon. Renegade options are all really awkward and 90% of the time result in the same 'good' outcomes outside of specific major choices that are really just story branch toggles than anything else. Not really sure what you guys are considering memorable specifically about Shepard's presentation/writing, and I'd love to hear examples, because I remember Shepard being pretty bland by intent so you could have "your own" Shepard. Compare that to, well, literally anyone else in the cast who was keenly influenced by their history, personal motivations, and mistakes/successes.

Or, you know, compare Shepard to a true fully developed protagonist like in, say, God of War. Kratos' identity as himself is what carries every shred of that story, from his past to his troubled life with his son, to all the consequences of his past actions. That story wouldn't have worked as a "make your own character kind of game," and those are all the reasons he's considered incredibly well-written by many.

You're just never ever going to get that with a self-insert character. Shepard was ultimately designed to merely represent the kind of Shepard we wanted to be. I suggest you look at some retrospective videos if you're ever bored; I love watching breakdowns of plot and so on, and quite a few of them do an excelletn job at breaking down and candidly point out just how flawed Shepard is as a character and how mostly meaningless the paragon/renegade system was. Our love of him came as a porthole and method of influence into the surrounding narrative and companions, and that's what we mostly remember fondly. Our adventures through Sheperd, not Sheperd himself. That's imo what games like this are really good at and why it works well enough for many rpgs to do the same, just like BG3.

You can't really have a player created self-insert character with a strong personality and highly developed presence. It just doesn't work that way, and that's exactly why Tav has so few lines and the narrator is front and center.

Regarding PoE, I compare the two because they're both crpgs, but also because people are praising BG3 for its roleplay and saying up and down how great it is, and honestly, that bothers me because its roleplay is unimpressive compared to a lot of other modern crpgs, with PoE just being a standout example. Honestly I just think this game gets far more praise than it deserves. Its reactivity is top notch, but beyond that, I don't think it does anything other than graphics better than other crpgs. And frankly, it's only better in terms of fidelity. I was more wowed and struck by the beauty of PoE and WotR, with thedistinct style and design they put in, and the effort they put into pushign that style as far as it could go. In contrast BG3 is offering a higher-fidelity look, but it's offering a pretty unimpressive version of that. Hell, when I played BG1 a few months ago, I was more genuinely impressed by Gorion's death scene because I could tell just how far they were pushing what they could do with what they had.

And I would argue that the looser main story in PoE isn't a flaw but a necessary feature that allows it to be the amazing roleplay experience it is. A realization I came to long ago is that the game actually has a lot of potential themes in it, and you're able to choose the one that you want to focus on for your character. For instance in one playthrough I focused on the themes of passion and extremism, and how much can be considered acceptable for the greater good, and when things cross the line and go too far. In another I focused on the theme of responsibility, leaning into the central themes of chaos and order and ultimately transitioning my character from, to use D&D parlance, a spoilt young chaotic neutral noble to a firm-minded, lawful neutral bordering on lawful evil ruler who agreed with and ultimately took the place of the main villain. I think it's a matter of personal taste. For me, I don't care so much about the main story of crpgs. I want crpgs to serve as a vehicle where I can express my character in various situations and build up who they are and how they react to things. It's why Dragon Age inquisition is one of my favorite games. The main story, while thematically strong and coherent in my opinion, is not exactly compelling if you lay out the events on paper. What for me makes it compelling is that it puts my character in a lot of situations where I have to make choices and react to things. I find that BG3 does that to so-so effect thus far, but I'm hopeful based on what's been said about the city thatoncewe get to Baldur's gate, I'll get more of that.

As for Mass Effect, I thinkpretty mucheverything you say is right. when I said shepard becomes a more developed protagonist, I only meant that relatively speaking. Comparing ME1 to ME3, Shepard does show more agency of their own outside of our chosen dialogues options. But no, compared to Kratos its no contest. As an aside, I think people put way too much emphasis on every choice leading to something different. I think it's enough if every choice lets your character be different, and the world notices in small ways that difference. The small changes to dialogue that come as reactions to our choices are enough for me. I don't need every choice to come with some massively game-altering outcome, and I would hate if crpgs only offered those choices and not also the small ones that let us characterize our characters. That's something which BG3 is lacking and I think that the lack of voice acting makes it more possible to ammend that.