Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Is BG3 bad for the genre?

I had a somewhat similar impression. I have 10 Durges going right now, one for each dragonborn/draconic sorcery lineage and each Alignment more or less. They are effectively all the same character, one Din with 10 variants, just to see how different I could make it feel for each out. A tetractys-Din or something along those lines hehe. I've been using pretty much the same visualization which is a riff on my favorite dragonborn head - this one...

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/OGdZJw

They all got the same patina for the scales, black in the look though that's just cosmetic. I change the eye colors too, which to me would be something like a new age-y aura or whatever - subject to change - and of course there's the option for that 11/1 split on the lvl spread to mix things up along the way. I tried to keep it simple, cause many Durges die with honours on the road to Baldur's Gate, and then they have to try again for the endless Groundhog's day. My char creation process is streamlined, and my dream guardian is always the same - the default.

Jah Din and Nah Din have both crossed the finish line. Bah Din is pretty far along and about to make a run for the Netherbrain. Xah Din keeps dying cause he's a Poison Dragon Sorcerer (poison spray has gotta be the best cantrip since True Strike lol). You get the idea. The idea was to make it about the choices more than the mechanics, though I left some wiggle room to not get too bored, with flavor coming from the lineage or the 1 lvl dip. For the most part I followed the lore, in that the metallic dragons trend towards good and such, but not always.

I find that more than anything else, what makes each run feel distinct is party comp and the choice of companions in the active party, more than say the choice to play it good/evil or lawful/chaotic. Frequently the dialog options will give the same results. Or if they are clearly going to give different results this comes mostly from the meta, and the whole character is a meta character. The RP in this case is to reconcile the meta with what is happening, stuck in a time loop. I wouldn't go down this road, except that it sorta works for my BG sensibility, as like a DARK comedy. Anyway, the choices and different feels, those tend to come down to who's along for the ride, as I can then key off that for the little stuff. I think to capture the spirit of roleplay I'm after what is required would be way more during character creation, and early branching.

I keep guessing that maybe my initial responses to those early dialogue options might have further reaching consequences, you know like whether I curse whoever did this to me, or try to remember my name, whatever happens with Us, how I respond to the first corpse, the choices made vis a vis Alfira/Quill. Whether Minthara gets to come along, or things of that sort. Most of my special dialogue prompts coming from Class don't seem to have an impact, other than which lines get read immediately afterwards. Sometimes the Medicine check coming from the Haunted One background will open up a new dialog branch, but it doesn't really do what I was hoping, which would be to change the direction of the quest or open up new questlines, and things of that sort. It's iterative sure, but not quite in the way I thought it might be. Once I strip away all the cosmetic features on the surface and just get right down into it. I also feel like the cosmetic options just aren't all that different really, but I've been hung up on that for a long ass time. I think the zots need to go into char creation stuff, starting equipment, entering fields that have meaningful impacts on what sort of story then gets delivered. A little matrix of things that happen near the start, which then define what's going to happen later.

I think this is why I liked Durge more than Tav or the Origins, because Durge wasn't a totally pre-established companion Character in the way that the Origins were handled (Durge has a default visualization the same way Tav has Generica the High Elf Tav Barbarian, but it's not set and the portrait display in the initial menu shows the mysterious anybody figure.) This is the sort of thing I want from a Custom character in a BG style game. Like clearly they're never going to give me what I really want with all the bells and whistles to make every PC feel completely unique (What I'd want from D&D) but there's enough there to keep me interested. Although I've done it now like almost a dozen times, and there's only so much there that gives a real branch. If that makes sense.

In the moment though, I do find the approach to the encounters is pretty variable, even with all the meta and trying to choose the road not taken, and I think that is what I find appealing, even if this sometimes requires a suboptimal path or a break with RP where I have to headcanon something to make it work to my satisfaction. I think they could also do more on this front with early itemization or perhaps things like one off companions/familiars, the sort of stuff that becomes character defining rather than switched out when you meet the next thing. I think the place to set up the big branches should all be in the first Act, and the stuff that happens in Acts II and III should diverge more widely based on whatever went down earlier at the start of the game, or even in Char creation.

ps. Oh and one other thing, which is more QoL, but I had to give all my Dins a different prefix for their names, because it's really difficult to determine who's who from the loadgame files if I don't do this. It would be so much more convenient if I could pull up a character sheet to see what's going on in that save instead of just a screenshot.