Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Companions: Origin vs Non-origin

We will see how it will be in 1.0 but a common complain in EA is the feel that the game isn’t about our character. Thinking of Tav as a player insert to watch actual characters seems to me like a fair way of thinking of it.

Well, the truth of the matter is that custom Tav is the only playable character who does not exist in the game unless we choose to create them. The origin characters as well as DU exist within the game no matter if we're playing as them or not, so they always get to be important to the game and its story. But Tav is not important to the story, and CANNOT be important to the story by definition, because we can have playthroughs where Tav doesn't even exist.

DU does not exit if not chosen, as far as we know.

Also, your character *can* be important without existing beforehand.
Yes, other people can take his place. Does not mean Tav can not be important if existent.
There are options no PC aside from Tav & DU can take.

There are race tags not chosen by them. And if I understand it correctly, their class tags also do not change, even if you change their class.
So the class-tags are also unique to Tav/DU.

But even aside from that, the Main Character is *per defenition* important to the story. Even if that character would not exist if not chosen as a Main Character.

This does not make any sense. How can a character that may not even exist in the story be important to the story? If a story can be told without a particular character's existence, then that character is not important, by definition.

This is why 'Tav' is NOT at all the same as 'Charname' because although Charname also could be defined by the player in whetever way they wanted, Charname as a person always exists in every playthrough. But Tav may or may not exist in the game world. That makes Tav expendable and superfluous to the game's story.

Because every story has a main character.
The Story where you chose Tav is a different story than when you would not chose Tav.

Let us say you chose Wyll as an Origin character. Tav does not exist. Thus Wyll is the Main Character and has the character development of a Main Character. He is no longer the "Wyll" that was defined by his past. He has new options for development.
Thus the story is fundamentally different than when you would chose Tav.

Because in that case, Tav is an influence on Wyll, but Wyll is still bound by his past.

Tav does not exist if you do not chose that "origin", true, bis the *lack* of Tavs existent has an effect on the story.

This can be seen even more with Dark Urge. That Character also does not exist if not chosen as a Main Character. But DU can also do things, achieve things, no companion can. Again, the lack of DUs existence changes the story.


Can we have a Story without Tav or DU? Yes, obviously. Will it be the same story as with either of them? Definitely not.