Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Tav vs Dark Urge for a 'good' playthrough

I'm pondering what to play on my first run and "a generally good-leaning custom character" is all I've settled on so far. I've been wondering about the pros and cons of the default Tav and the new customizable origin, the Dark Urge. Personally I didn't like the idea of origin characters in Divinity, but I find the concept of the Dark Urge fantastic because it's a essentially a blank slate with tons of reactivity. I wonder if the origin is better suited to strictly evil characters who go all in on the whole thing, or if it's possible to have an equally satisfying playthrough while resisting the urges at every turn.

My main worries here are twofold:

• Will Tav feel underwhelming by comparison because they lack the same level of reactivity?
• Will the Dark Urge lead to moments where we can't avoid committing some kind of atrocity that would be unsatisfying for a good-aligned character? To what degree can we keep the shadow looming over us at bay?

I know these are questions we likely won't know the answers to before launch, but maybe there's some insight that I'm missing? In any case it's food for thought and I'm curious, what are your thoughts on Tav and the Dark Urge in general?

In the panel from hell, Sven mentioned that the players were, in general, going to try to resist the temptations.

I suspect they probably put in something for that possibility, considering that they know most players will go that direction and play "good."

But we won't know anything until we have more information, unfortunately.

I'm interested in this as well.
I've originally planned on a Chaotic Good Bard as Tav. Then I saw the panel from hell and figured, Dark Urges might be fun for a good character. But what if it's too extreme of a disadvantage to try and get these urges under control? What if I fail in some very important dialog?^^°

I don't think you will be able to do a "good" Dark Urge. From the RockPaperShotgun preview :


https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/ba...-dark-urge-takes-over-you-can-only-react

Larian really did make the most psychotic origin possible.

I think there is absolutely a good way to play the Dark Urge. You try your best to always resist the voice, and if and when bad stuff happens and you wake next to a pile of disarticulated limbs and flesh you react with horror and dismay. I think the idea of playing a fundamentally good character tragically chosen as new avatar of Bhaal of whatever is going on is really compelling. Can’t wait to try it out.

1. I don't think so. The Dark Urge has the ability to be very distracting. It doesn't allow pro-social backgrounds and you may be, in practice, locked out of romantic relationships and companion plotlines. The Dark Urge is the star of the show and has no need for any of that.

There might be towns/places hostile to you as well, which denies you even more content.

2. Yes, because I currently believe the Dark Urge isn't actually a person. They're a fragment of some dark power. Larian may be baiting us with the Bhaal theory, or they may not. However, if it's not Bhaal, it's not necessarily something less evil.

Yes, I suspect even taking the path of resisting the Dark Urges will get pretty dark. Though I guess there's an argument that desperately fighting against an unknown darkness inside ourselves in some ways requires more goodness. Certainly goodness would be harder earned!

I definitely got the impression that resisting the urges was a totally valid path, but I'm not sure whether you then end up missing a lot of what makes the origin compelling.

Personally, I'm going for a custom Tav in my first run, and expect to be broadly satisfied with how they are connected to the world and the reactivity to their race and class, with any gaps supplemented by my imagination. For me, the flexibility to play a character I create from scratch myself is more important than having the game tell me a story specifically about them, but totally understandably preferences do vary.

The good news is that we can have it all. If we're tempted by the Urge but are worried it will get too dark, we can always give it a go, and then if it's too much restart with a custom character. I imagine that it'll become reasonably clear fairly quickly what we're letting ourselves in for!

My go to theory for the moment is that it's not Bhaal, but Bhaals power. He's a quasi deity. Less powerful than as a god, but where did that power go? Either it full on possessed someone (Dark Urges) or it was fragmented and those fragments possessed multiple people. I guess that power has kind of an own will, testing Dark Urges or multiple people on who might be worthy to become food for Bhaal to make him powerful again or to replace him.

But I still think you should be able to play him as good. Trying your best that is.

That was my initial reaction, but after seeing some of the newer interviews etc, I'm questioning that assumption. I guess we'll just have to try it and see!

Yes, it's very compelling in this way. I just don't think it necessarily has a good ending. Or that it allows all the merits of a good alligned playthrough, I suppose? It's less competition for Tav than a whole new take on the story

Honestly after reading some of this I'm a bit worried that the Urge might end up getting out of controll for the player playing him. Which can be fun if you are into it, but at the same time you end up in the place where you don't know what you are doing and what you get yourself into. And I guess it might not be the best playthrough for those that want to experience a lot of the world and companions since the Urge seems to slaughter everyone he can.

Restarting is an option if the origin turns out to be too edgy and wacky, but I guess if it happens 30+ hours in I would probably stop bothering with the game and only return to it at a much later stage.

So for me now the idea stays - multiplayer game to create a Dark Urge origin character and the actual main character as Tav - to both see if Tav is really such a let-down as it seems and at the same time to have the option to kill off the Urge if that character gets too extreme and I stop being interested in it. Hopefully I can then continue the campaign with Tav alone if necessary.

That might be true, Dark Urges HAS to be different enough from Tav to make it worthwhile and I trust Larian to have done that.

Initially once they announced the Dark Urge at the PfH i thought, not custom Tav but that is my first play through. Resisting the Dark Urge and resisting the tadpole seemed like a great play through. However as stated above as more came out about the origin i switched back to custom Tav. From my vantage point too much player agency is removed on the good evil pendulum with this char. It seems like no matter what, you will do some evil things no matter how much you try to resist overall. I will still probably play a resist playthrough eventually but being forced to do things like killing the squirrel without the opportunity to resist (even if we fail the opportunity i would expect to see the opportunity presented) makes it mean that custom Tav is my preferred good playthrough.

I'm making no specific plans for my initial TDU playthrough. I'm just going to go with the flow of the story and do what seems like makes sense, without any plans on what I want to happen

A lot of people seem to be assuming a very limited amount of player agency with a DU playthrough. That is antithetical to Larian’s design philosophy. From everything I have heard and read, you end up alone and powerful if you sublimate yourself to the urges, but the choice to do so is always emphasized. Even if at times you do black out and have agency removed, I can’t imagine they would, for example, capriciously kill off party members or take significant story decisions out of your hands.

If the rps interview is accurate it will incentives you actually using wyll as the party face. Imagine trying to go save Arabella and end up killing her.

Oh wow. Okay, thanks a lot, this answers my second question so much more than I hoped.

So it's clear. The Dark Urge won't just be about experiencing the urges and choosing to resist or give in; sometimes the Urge will simply take over and we'll have to deal with the aftermath. This sounds incompatible with a traditional good character and trying to resist will likely end up tragic and messy. Either way that's very good to know ahead of time.

Dammit. I wanted to do a Good Urge before spoilers on the game made it online, but it seems like Tav might be more my speed if I don’t want involuntary murderhobery on my first run. Oh well.

I get people’s reluctance. Personally, I think it’s going to be a very fun unique experience in an RPG being completely paranoid in every interaction about the very real danger of losing control.

But also, I’m not doing a first playthrough. I’ll be doing several playthroughs simultaneously, so I always have a different experience to bounce between.