Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Halsin Romance, Expectations and Obligatory Poly

I have absolutely no issue with poly, whatsoever. I love diversity as it makes the game a lot more interesting and gives people options. Options are always good. I am no expert on poly relationships either, but this is how I view the situation. This'll also be my last post regarding this matter for a bit because I'll just be repeating what I and others have already said as a reply to what others have already said. Fancy way of saying that the details have all been analyzed and it'd just be repetition at this point.

For me the problem lies in what they have done so far. I agree entirely that problematic relationships make for way more interesting stories. It's why a lot of these stories are so great - while the relationships themselves may not be overly complicated, the circumstances are and the choices given to the player to 'betray' their love interest's trust are great. But they did give us one situation where the relationship itself is complicated, and that's poly between origin companions in act 2 (so with the exception of Halsin/Minthara). I was even quite surprised that none of them are written to be interested in it with one another, considering the conversation is brought up (why bring it up if none are, if not to establish their preference and start the official mono relationship?) - even if I can understand it from a non-writer point of view (difficult to implement in terms of triggers et cetera). But since the conversation is brought up, and they are all written toward mono in these situations (and other situations), that's when them changing their opinion entirely out of the blue later on doesn't work for me. And only because you ask - otherwise you'd never know, because they're not really written to change unless you ask.

Characters need to be malleable to some extent. Player choice should matter, but I do not want to see them change entirely based on what the player does. I'll use the example again of Halsin and betraying the Grove. What they could've done is write Halsin in a way that he will support the player's choice no matter what - he becomes a completely different person then based on whether you play evil or good. One would love goblins, the other would hate goblins. The need for Minthara would be entirely void then, because you have what is essentially two Halsins. This is what it feels like - to me - what they tried to do to the relationships. They wrote one Halsin (and Astarion/Shadowheart) for act 1 and act 2, and then just for Halsin's romance, they wrote a different Halsin (and Astarion/Shadowheart) to fit a poly romance in act 3. But then you don't have the same character anymore. They change their entire romantic interest based on the player's choice, which to me is character assassination. Because you basically get two different versions of the same character and the only thing that triggers the change is your preference, not their preference.

And you could argue that, for example, Ascended Astarion is different from Vampire Spawn Astarion, which is technically based on player choice. But that's circumstance that changes him, not necessarily the choice the player made. He gained power through a ritual that is heavily implied to destroy who he was before, so it makes sense he changed - there's an explanation to why it changed him. He didn't just change because Tav said "change please". The only character in the entire story that we should have such influence over is ourselves. If I want to take over the Netherbrain at the end of the story despite having played a good person the entire game, then I'd be out of character, but that's my decision to make. The companions, however, should be written to remain in character throughout the game, regardless of player choice.