After watching Viconia's romance on YouTube, I disagree with you dext. Paladin.
There is a difference between making character evil and stupid evil and it's not the first time being evil is just straight out worse than good / neutral in BG3. It’s like the writers cant write a competent evil, where real life is choke full of that.
You gain nothing by being evil, in fact, you lose stuff and get locked out of quests and rewards with basically nothing to make up for that. You want smart evil? Here are examples from Fallout New Vegas:
-Turning on solar space laser for your own power or distributing the energy to a whole region.
-Making a grieving woman pay to get her husband's out of a warzone.
-Extorting a community for cash with blackmail
-Killing 100 NCR troops and getting their dog tags to the Legion, who give the best rewards in the whole damn game.
In Baldur's Gate 3 evil is stupid, evil characters tend to be brainwashed, stupid or Lunatic and this is coming from someone who never played BG 1 or 2.
I hold no attachement to either Viconia or Sarevok, but what they did to those characters is a slap in the face of previous Baldur's Gate games fans and just Terrible writing in general.
Ps: SerTomato, I posted a link to your thread on Larian Discord, giving you full credit. Just a heads up.
You should play the game instead of watching the Romance video.
The romance is good and it make the character more nuanced. Non-romance character feels less nuanced.
If you play the game:
1. Aerie is either a childish whinny girl who couldn't stop mourning her lost wing or someone who coming to term with his new found flaws.
2. Jaheira is either self-righteous harper or a genuine righteous individual.
3. Viconia is either class A A-hole and a problematic racist or an exciting lover / fish out of the water lover.
Questioning whether you must gain something for being "Evil" in this world is moot. If Shar told Viconia to be a jester, she probably will be a jester, and for what? Nothing. They do it to please their God.
Do you ever ask why Dolor did what he did to his victim? Disrupting the economy? Possibly making Baldur's Gate vulnerable to Absolute influence? And for what? In macro-perspective? Nothing. He did so he can please Bhaal.
It doesn't need to be "Make sense".
In the Real World, God (if He indeed exist) never speak to you directly. God never appear to you directly.
In Faerun, God actively communicate with their follower. Their power apparent from the power shown by their priest and followers.
In Faerun, afterlife is a thing that nobody cannot dispute, especially when Jergal and Kelemvor known to all.
In Faerun, Demon exist, aspect of chaos and evil in material form, not just abstract ideas.
I am sorry, but I'm ignoring your "smart evil" example because... I don't think those are example of smart of anykind. It's not special, because something similar available to you in BG3, of course with more reactivity.
-Turning on solar space laser for your own power or distributing the energy to a whole region. --> instead of indirectly doomed a community, you can actively participate in their slaughter.
-Making a grieving woman pay to get her husband's out of a warzone. --> how many times you can ask for money to help people in BG3?
-Extorting a community for cash with blackmail --> How many times you extort someone/community for an item you posses?
-Killing 100 NCR troops and getting their dog tags to the Legion, who give the best rewards in the whole damn game. --> Picking dog tags to gain 'good boy' point for an evil faction? Why not commit mass genocide to please evil god?
Instead of comparing Baldur's Gate 3 to an "RPG" made for mainstream audience/RPG tourist/"I play an RPG" game certification for Warzone player - let's not insult BG3 and compare it to Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire.
I think Narrtive and RPG is in opposite direction of game design. The more narrative heavy developer control of game, the less player autonomy they can give, meaning less roleplaying.
Deadfire tried to strike "balance" of sort. Narratively it's a fantastic game, nuanced, and nobody are clearly evil nor good (it's still a debate to this day).
Tight narrative making the game feels less RPG. The dialogue rarely mention what class you are. The dialogue rarely acknowledges your race. The dialogue rarely acknowledges your identity/background. --- it's still a fantastic cRPG, but it sacrifices a lot of RPG aspect within the dialogue to achieve much coherent narrative.
BG3 pulling the string closer to RPG, sacrificing coherent narrative but giving player more options to do. So I am not defending BG3 if somebody say they think BG3 hasn't got the best writing.
TLDR:
in BG3 evil is stupid. Okay, so if irl God, say Jesus comes down today, and you as believer commanded to stand with your hand upside down while drinking grimace drink, would you question His intention or not? (I, as an Unbeliever think that is stupid, the point being: perspective, the materialize form of God in Faerun actively conspiring against one another etc.)
