Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General who do you think the new origin character will be?

Yep.

Cassandra is a prime example of how "virtue" is relative. One person's paragon is another person's intolerant authoritarian. Which is why moral absolutism is being dropped from D&D.

If you want other examples of good characters, I'll point you to Pillars of Eternity. Look at Eder. He was just a simple, good dude from a farm who eventually sticks with you because he cares about you. He wants to do the right thing and maybe has some trouble figuring out what the right thing is. His plot isn't even about some great moral struggle, it's about getting closure for his brother and grappling with his feelings over how his brother died and what he feels about that. Or Sagani. She's a dwarven ranger who's had to leave home, her husband and her children for years in order to fulfill a cultural tradition. She's patient, sassy, thoughtful, warm. Her arc is about deciding what's worthwhile in life and whether it's culture and service to the broader community, or her family and those around her. With your contribution she can either return home and become a pillar of her community who's remembered by them for generations, she can rededicate herself to her family and focus on them, dying surrounded by her children and grandchildren, or she can become a nihilist who comes home to find she's missed most of her children's lives and she eventually throws herself into hunting until she dies alone in a blizzard. I could go on. These are what I call nuanced, complex characters. They're both good people, and their plots aren't about if they'll go down a good path or become evil. They're about grappling with deeper philosophical questions about their lives and ideals.

Eder is like Minsc. He is too stupid to think about moral complexities.

Sagani may well kill herself for no good reason.

I'm not the one that mentioned Cassandra as an example and I'm not talking about religious fervor or authoritarianism either.




"Superman" is a textbook case of Paragon, for example.
And while I'm not the greatest comic book fan, in general, I can tell you that the only people who immediately disqualify Superman as "inherently boring" are the ones that never bothered to read a good story.

This whole "Good/Evil" character debate is off topic.

If this bone really needs to be chewed on some more, can one of you make another thread? Seriously, I just want to read speculations about a new character, not this stuff.

It really isn't, though?
It's a side tangent, but it's absolutely not in conflict with the main topic.

Eder writes himself off as boring, but he's perceptive in a lot of ways and actually very thoughtful, especially regarding people. He's observant too. I wouldn't be surprised if he was told a lot when he was young that his brother was the smart one and ended up internalizing it so now he just assumes it as fact. He can be dense about stuff but he's a far cry from Minsc who I believe is literally brain damaged. Listen to him talk about Gilded Vale and you'll realize that he very much grapples with moral complexities. He just does it in a tongue in cheek sort of way a lot of the time.

As for Sagani she does it because she's been ground down by nihilism and a belief that the cultural practice which kept her away from her family and everything she cared about for years on end didn't matter. What has this got to do with anything?



I agree. It's on topic in as much as it's a discussion of the new origin and how we feel about them and why we feel that way.

According to several real world religions, suicide is an unforgivable sin. Which would maker her, but those value systems, evil.

I see them strictly as companions, since I won't play them as PCs. The most fun in D&D is making your own character from scratch.

The question was, if that dragonborn serial killer is another evil / morally questionable character and around that topic was the good/ evil topic discussed. Imo this is an important part of new companion discussion.
And giving examples, how good aligned character conflicts can work without the edgelord trope is in line with it.
Because let's be honest, the origin companions are heavy on the edgelord front 🤷

That's deep. I can't believe no one has thought of the concept of relativism before.

The serial killer in the video isn't really evil then. What one considers brutal murder of innocent people someone else may consider blowing off some steam.

Hannibal Lecter kills people for having bad manners.

That seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Okay let's slow down. What is your argument here? What is your stance? Because if you're going to be talking about that, then a more salient point is that she and every companion in every rpg is evil because they do a whooooolllle lot of murders. So on what ground is this discussion taking place?

That's a perfectly valid position from the point of view of a pacifist. I'm certain plenty of the people killed in PoE where just doing their jobs, and will never see their families again.

Moral relativism isn't a new idea, it's a self-evident truth.

I'm asking what your position is. What point are you trying to make in this discussion? By bringing up these points, what are you trying to say? I'm trying to establish this so we can have a constructive discussion and we're not just talking past one another.

A self-evident truth.

To fools.

I don't believe my position is any more valid than anyone else's. But I do react badly to people who try to impose their moral values upon others.

WHO is the next origin character? That's why I'm in this thread. To speculate and to hear theories about who the new origin might be.

Getting into a sophomoric debate about what good means and who's really good and Larian only cares about blah blah etc etc... all of that is anything but speculation and anticipation. All of that can be bemoaned in another thread. Just my opinion.

Resorting to insults indicates a lack of any valid rational argument.