Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Attacking the Absolute Cult in Act 1 isn't the Good path, different different bad.

Larian sets up us with a binary choice*, one coded good and one evil.

(*Yes there is a wander off and not make a choice choice, that loses all act 1 resolution content and does not negate that in framing, content and writing this is presented to the play and plays out as a G-E binary)

The Evil path, of course it is evil, you have to attack and massacre a settlement of druids and the teefling refugees including children, who live there. Hands down evil, you get to know the children, do quests for them, they have cute dialogue.

The Good path is, the druids/teefling leaders ask you to, attack and destroy the goblin cult at the old temple. But uh, when you start exploring the old temple, Goblins are crude and coded as different and weird, cruel and unusual but wait, you go round a corner and, there are children here too, you don't get to do quests for them this time but you can talk to them and yeah, thems children.

Is there a 'Good' solution to this one, yeah while you can't get around the grove attack being a massacre, if you're careful and sneak out you can just assassinate the leadership, rescue halsin and get out but.. fail one sneak roll, step in the wrong place, turn a corner, try to sneak out the back way (where the children are) and, that no longer holds up.

And the leaders? the good side leaders, send you to do this on their own will, the bad side leaders are brain washed when the one you can rescue and 'redeem' being open that had she not been mind controlled she would not have given that order. Like sure everyone in the temple camp is evil, because that's what it says on their alignment chart, but the game does not use alignment for characters so even if you ignore, that they are just acting as they are raised to in their culture and not choosing to be 'worse' by another cultures standards, the alignment excuse doesn't hold up. Because they work for the absolute? They don't know it's a giant brain out to destroy the world, and again their leaders are literally mind controlled.


This isn't to say, game bad, or problematic, or anything along those lines just, that I think there's a conversation to be had around the framing in the playerbase, in reviews and in the general culture around the game around Good path v bad path, settlement with people who we can see ourselves in being deserving life and those coded as not like us (although maybe to some players featuring aspects of culture more alike than on the good side due to tropes origins) as it being good(tm) to cut down.
Especially when there are discussions putting moral judgements on players who take the 'Evil route' for being people who want to murder innocents when, the good side asks that of you too so to pretend like, there is a moral judgement to be made at players choosing a 'bad' option (there's not its a vidyagame) but NO equiviliant to those choosing the 'good' option when, they are functionally the same just against differently coded groups. It's cake and eat it too territory, if evil choice is 'bad' then we can't pretend good choice is so different. Both paths are mirrors of each other, both settlements, grove and temple are mirrors, with internal factions, military and economic life, children and animals, they're the same.

We have a binary choice required to receive Act 1 conclusion content and advance the story as intended, pick this side or this side, but despite the deliberate framing, it's not an evil or good choice but just, a which of these rival societies will you end and it just, might be good to remember that and not allow discussion around the game to fall into habit of seeing one path as moral and right, and the other as irredeemable, moral choices. Rather than 'neutral' choices to advance to the story from different perspectives.

The difference between Druid Grove and Goblin Camp is that at the former some individuals are cunts, while at the latter a few possibly might not be cunts. Maybe. And if you squint.
Faerun becomes slightly less of a death world once you kill the vermin at the camp.

Hmm I’ve never had to kill any of the goblin kids. They all run off or disappear. Point taken that a binary morality is being presented. But I don’t think that taking the “good” path means that you have to kill goblin children.

I don't normally kill any children in BG3, even the gith, who can attack you, I try to keep alive.
That said, it is subjective, if you see the goblin camp as evil, but they are roasting a dwarf, when you arrive, treat an owl bear baby badly and torture a young man. So I'd say, that is pretty evil.
Normally, I don't have a problem killing the goblins and their leader. I keep Abdirak, the Maglubliet goblin and the kids alive, because none of them are hostile towards me. And I don't go out of the way to kill every small group of goblins in side rooms, if I don't need to.
But from my point of view, the Absolutists are the enemy,. The first thing you get to see, is a group of goblins trying to attack the grove. Yes, some of them are brainwashed and tadpoled, but they are also a lot more aggressive towards me, than the tieflings and druids ( minus Kagha).

Having very clearly coded good vs bad character writing is very par for the course with Dungeons and Dragons especially since it had things like alignments. Characters like Raphael and Mizora are clearly lawful evil for example. Allowing the characters to make clearly distinguished good vs bad decisions was very likely a conscious decision when writing the game so it just feels "Dungeons and Dragonsy" as opposed to something like Divinity Original Sin where everything was shades of grey. And I think they mostly succeeded with this.

One main benefit to this approach to storytelling is it allows the player to think of themselves as their character. Rather than their character as an avatar of themselves. One negative though is the situation is un-nuanced. I think Larian ultimately made the right call to stick closely to very alignment driven characterization as opposed to what they did before with everyone being very morally grey. As Dungeons and Dragons is more escapist pulp fantasy and it's something that attracts people to the IP.

I'm also intrigued by a middle voice here, and trying to drift off the binary shorthand. I think The Dark Urge Origin is the only origin that actually works for me in this game.

For the other origins I feel like I'm hijacking their personality and stealing their agency, so the experience is something between RPing the tadpole itself as a player character, and Last Summer at Marienbad lol.

Basically playing as an origin other than Durge makes me feel like I'm an automaton and the story presentation becomes weirdly robotic and offputting. As if I'd just mindwiped whichever companion to ride around in their body, losing their voice/soul in the process. I think any of the other Origins might have worked if they weren't tied explicitly to a very specific characterization, but what we have is pretty much the complete opposite of that idea. Anyway not the point here. The point was that, at least for Durge the PC is given a sensible reason to bounce on the Grove immediately.

Whether embracing the Dark Urge or Resisting it, after that initial camp scene, it makes sense story-wise for the party to dip on the Emerald Grove immediately. Just pragmatically, like get the hell out of dodge, and that leaves some more room to path through the first act differently than I might otherwise.

Siding with the goblins is both mechanically and narratively pretty unattractive. I've heard it referred to many times as 'chaotic evil' or 'mindless evil' as opposed to calculating or manipulative or self interested evil. Of course nothing actually happens if the Durge player returns to the Emerald Grove after everything is set in motion there, but it's not unreasonable for the PC to think that doing so might result in a comeuppance of some sort. So you get a reason to detour and a chance for happenstance to intervene. You know so maybe Halsin dies by accident, or Minthara survives by accident, and the story veers a bit without being quite so cut and dry.

The characters who are the least flexible for pathing through the story are, unsurprisingly, also the companions with the most rigid sense of morality. So basically Wyll and Karlach early on, because they party break over this one, and attempt to kill us if the wrong stuff goes down. Karlach doesn't care if it was an accident, or if actually it was some random druid who decided to escalate a petty theft into a full on extra-judicial slaughterfest. Tadpoles connecting together doesn't seem to matter. Unlike the Astral prism Guardian interlude with Lae'zel, we don't get to 'show Karlach our memories of what just happened.' Maybe be were trying to hold person or use non lethal damage, or run away so the kids didn't get got, but she just calls us monsters and refuses to hear it hehe.

Intention doesn't weigh too heavily there, which is odd given that both Wyll and Karlach get caught up in something rather similar themselves. It's a bit hypocritical on their part, as characters I mean, but whatever.

If, instead of drawing the binary between Good & Evil, we choose to make one between Active & Passive, the setup is 'walk away and everything goes to hell' or stay 'and play the gift of death' mentioned at the outset by the OP as basically a non-choice. Mechanically it's the worst path of all and story wise the most likely to result in confusing non-sequiturs later on, as the game/dialogue struggles to account for a choice that practically nobody would make.

Anyway again getting sidetracked here, what I was going to say is that the real binary framing is basically...

Wyll/Karlach/Halsin/Jaheira/Minsc path vs the path without those characters lol.

So the choice to be a lonely solipsistic Tav/Durge vs one who gets to actually interact with the companions characters in this game across all three acts.

A 5 companions vs 10 companions binary, which isn't much of a choice. I think they could have shored it up with the Wither's zombies, but they didn't follow the suggestion to key them off the NPCs we meet along the way. I never click the dialogue option "why are you talking like that" because once you do that they all just become Withers. Again making the companions feel like automatons instead of characters with the breath of life. If they were the Zombies of the recently deceased Goblins and Tiefs, that might have been compelling.


ps. sorry forgot where I was heading with that and the reason I mentioned the origins. It's because right now the game weirdly incentivizes the player to play the Origin against type, so for example playing Origin Wyll or Karlach as 'Evil' because that's the only way you're going to see a situation where say Karlach raids the Grove, or Wyll decides to join up with Minthara. But then playing that out is doubly weird, because the character has no voice, so it feels like violating the spirit of the character way more than say changing their class or taking them to the hair salon or whatever, ya know. Obviously the Villains never see themselves as villains, so the origin dynamic kinda muddles it a bit. Or I guess to put a finer point on it, there's a resist the Durge trope baked in (suggested at one point that this might even be the most satisfying sort of run) but there's not really the same thing going on for a 'resist the Wyll', or "say please" for Lae'zel, if that makes sense?

We know what they'd do if left to their own devices, or would if we'd bring them along as companions before doing that, so it's just a strange experience to play that out, and then it also goes without commentary. We don't control the whole party really like godmode BG1 conception, the UI and everything about it keys off the currently selected character, so that also makes it harder to pan out on this one. This is cause you can do something similar by simply "controlling/selecting" a given member of the party temporarily, even when they're not the protagonist, to dodge disapproval or things of that sort. Not exactly the same thing, but similar enough to give me pause. Anyway I think that idea that playing the origin is somehow a richer or more intimate view on any particular character is a little off in that regard. I mean sure, you might get those extra memories or cutscenes for the major beats, but you lose all the other stuff that makes the companion feel the way they would in a normal run. Not sure how fruitful it is, but yeah, I guess good or bad is completely framed around which NPCs are going to break over it, which would be fine I think if there were more NPCs in the mix, but the way it is now if not Good and Evil or Bad and Bad, it's definitely something like which companion is going to start kicking up a fuss about it and then proclaim the Goodness instead of the Villainy, or just being around in Act III to do so hehe.

I don’t think there is much nuance here. Goblin’s are rampaging, pillaging and killing, and are actively looking for a way to slaughter Druid grove. When you visit the camp they are partying after raiding and killing people at Waukeen’s rests - I don’t think it makes them that sympathetic.

That said, yes, they get far more characterisation than your usual goblins would, and as the result makes killing them feel more like taking a life, than just “fighting monsters”.

From storytelling perspective, I think it is a potential hazard - I don’t think one wants to draw attention to how homocidal D&D adventuring is, unless one attempts to create fantasy version of spec ops the line.

Antagonists in later areas felt to me far less humanised, and I do wonder if it’s just cutting workload for later areas, or conscious response to act1 feedback.

As Astarion lampshades in the end, being a hero simply means murdering the right people. Basic P&P morality.

I don't think the goblins are supposed to be sympathetic though, because they themselves know no sympathy. The children in the Worg pens throw rocks at Halsin because he makes funny noises, the one's who killed the adventurer who killed their mother are mostly annoyed because they dreamed of harming her themselves, the goblin with romantic interests are mostly fangirling about the toughest people around and that one guy who is touched by the beautiful language of the dead dwarf's poem, does not dare to admit his fondness because it would make him seem weak. ...

Ever talked to them?

the argument of, it's different because their culture/race deserves it, isn't a good foundation for hatred of the evil path. Like again, this isn't to say the good path needs to be changed, but if it could be considered so we can end the approach many quarters of the community have taken to judging 'evil' path characters and choices, or how the game itself punishes the player so heavily for it, can be put in context of, the game provides 'grey' paths not good v evil.
that argument makes it worse even


is it possible for rescue halsin without it?

Seems like a good natured troll but I'll bite


Eh. Keep on the borderlands was one of my first DnD experiences. They're goblins, they're evil, killing them is good. But if you don't accept that they are inherently evil you can judge by their actions - which are evil. Evil is a physical force in Faerun - that's why protection from evil and dispel evil works.

The three kids killed someone and are bragging that this is their first kill. Imagine finding this in your neighborhood -- would youth excuse such actions? Even if you are nice to 'eight' he says he wasn't all that upset about the death of his parents. If you take Lae's advice and beat them a bit they will surrender and, yes, killing them at that point is an evil act.

While I don't think EA Wyll was right to kill the windmill goblin after he surrendered I think his statement after that is right. If you let this goblin go he's going to kill more innocents and the blood of those the goblins kill is on your hands.

Yes Halsin always takes a swipe at one of the two goblin kids who are showing themselves to be evil.

So while there are exceptions to the rule - like the goblins in IWD and SoD - the rule still stands. These goblins killed Miri and bunch other people gathering for a wedding. Even if they were freed of the Absolute they would be doing the same thing in the name Maglubiet.

So I clean out the goblin camp and blighted village and I feel like a hero when I'm doing it. Even if I didn't save any of the kids from the grove I probably saved another wedding party.

What does the room look like when he frees himself? That is if you leave the area to explore the Underdark after killing the goblin leaders but before freeing him. That's not a rhetorical question, I can't remember if there were corpses or not.

I don't disagree with the OP that the choice is a bit black and white, and would more interesting if the choice was difficult.

And let's be clear: the goblins we meet in BG3 ARE evil. You find them tormenting a gnome. You go the Camp and they are celebrating the kills and kidnappings in Waukeen's rest. They are actively trying to find a group of people minding their own druid business so they can destroy them. They are roasting and eating a person. They sell people into slavery and one of the bosses tries to drug and enslave Tav. They are tormenting a baby animal, Halsin, and an adventurer after killing his friends. Of course Halsin will kill the goblin children who were throwing sharp rocks at him! If you go to Mountain Pass without killing the bosses, he's dead in his cell -- the kids killed him. The bosses are tadpoled but the goblins are not, making them fully responsible for what they choose to do.

Those are not actions that are just part of their culture. They actively harm others and enjoy it and it's certainly not something we'd just excuse in RL. "Oh that serial killer? They aren't bad, they were just brought up that way."

A good portion of the druids are racist xenophobes and ineffectual to boot. They are hard to side with. But even Kagha fundamentally just wants the tieflings to not be her problem so she can lock off the Grove from danger.

This is all an excellent point. Sure the goblin leaders are mind-controlled, but not all the goblins are. They don't have to roastand eat the dwarf, they don't have to enjoy what they do. They're evil by most decent standards and while genocide isn't a morally spotless choice, it's the choice that's justifiable in this context, the opposite choice simply is not. There is a question of HOW you would make this choice more difficult? Let' look at thisfromahighlevel. You have minions of the main antagonist, an antagonist that is not meant to be at all sympathetic. This conflict is meant to be our first look at the greater antagonist and the threat they pose. So I think that this could go one of two ways, remembering that this first conflict is meant in part to show how great the threat is. First is what we have here, the minions are cruel and evil and showcase the evil of their master. The second approach (as I can see it) is that the minions are all decent folks who have been mind-controlled into evil entirely. I think that in that iteration the most likely way things play out is you have a choice between freeing the goblins in a way that sacrifices the tieflings/grove (I think keeping them as goblins is a good call here. They could have been a tribe that wanted to be more peaceful and mind their own business, but were enthralled, so it seems like they're typical goblins but if you look beneath the surface things get more complicated) or saving the tieflings and killing the goblns. I don't think this is inherently better than what we got. Yes it's a harder moral choice, but harder doesn't automatically mean better.

Firstly, I remember reading that Larian framed act 1 the way they did to get players comfortable for the darker turn things take in act 2 and beyond. I think setting up those expectations and then showing how complex things can get later is a valid choice. Secondly there's a broader story point to consider. Ifthey went with that approach, then they can't have the "infiltrate the cult" option since by freeing the goblins, you're breaking them from the cult. If they wanted to preserve that option then they would introduce an option for letting the goblins stay controlled, which then in itself becomes just the fully evil option, because there's no way to justify killing innocent bystanders and leaving a group mentally subjugated.