Some people will prefer the wishy-washy notion of being undefined as a character and detracted from the actual world in order to pretend a video game is a TT game where you can actually be whatever you want in the story.
This would be me I think! hehe
From the getgo it's the main thing I wanted out of BG3. Also every 3D follow up that's come along since BG1 first came out, with those Imported custom Portraits and Imported custom Barks. I harped on it then, so I guess I'll harp on it now too.
Like other people I delight in the mix and match character maker concept, where things mostly look good and there is a high degree of aesthetic cohesion. I also enjoy trafficking in the tropes and well established character archetypes, just because it's bound to be more lego here or paint by number, rather than like sculpting your character out of clay. Similar to painted minis maybe or partha pewters, where you just do the best you can with a paintjob to differentiate one Wizard from the next. I'd rather have a nice looking pewter, all painted up proper with some unique safety colors, than whatever jank thing I could produce myself from Sculpey in the oven hehe. Some people have more talent than me for sure, but I'd probably rather watch a decent Actor doing their thing, rather than bumbling around myself and pretending to be a thespian, when I know that's not really in my wheelhouse.
Around the table you could probably say something like, "He looks and sounds just like Will Scarlet from Prince of Thieves" and then do your best Christian Slater impression, doing his best Jack Nicholson impression. Maybe I'd get a vague picture come out the other ending of Saturday Night Live. I want that, but for like the whole Robin Hood playset, to live in (spoilers it was a knock off of the Ewok Village playset!) but whatever right. Then you gotta add on to that "but make it Half-Orc" or make it "Dragonborn" or "same thing, but Will is a gal now" or maybe "Sounds like WIll but looks like Little John this time" cause we need more phenotypes. Then someone else would say, hey wait, couldn't he sound slightly less New York, and bit more old York? Just so everything could come apart at the seams that way hehe.
Probably in much the same way that for BG1 I would use existing illustrations or sound clips which seemed to look good together or work well together as a package (like for the entire party), in order to approximate a character idea. They need more like that in a game like this. Now things are much less abstract, to be sure. We don't just get the static expression frozen in a still image like we used to, but something in motion, fully animated avatars rather than flat paper dolls. Instead of barks we have a whole performance, not just the one liner zingers and a couple scenes, but a whole campaign's worth of cadence and monologuing and gesticulating above the waist - firing off looks of bemusement or horror while they try hit their marks. Like OK I guess this is my character.
It's similar to things like armor transmog or dyes for everything for free, and how that can be a pitfall for cultivating the sense aesthetic progression over time. If the floodgates are total opened right away, we can get washed back out to sea and too spoiled for choice, or where seeming variety ends up all samey samey anyway as it's just knocked down in a tidal wave of bland. If my character's face could just look like anyone's face on facebook (but in chainmail), then it probably becomes pretty meh that way too, as my eyes just glaze over and nothing feels special anymore. BG1 portraits are awash in AI gen portraits now, to the point where if I see something overly glossy and polished like some kind of Frazetta Frankenstein meets deadstock back issues of Vogue Italia, I'm totally underwhelmed. There could be a thousand of them and I'd still feel meh about it. Like I'd rather just have the og Frazetta, even if it didn't fully capture all the little details I might be after. If the AI dialogue is half as jank or half as grifter as the AI art, its sure to blow. I want it curated and to feel bespoke (even if that's largely an illusion), but also by someone who knows what they're doing, and why.
256 faces and basic character tropes to build from - all in the barrel!
HEX code for Characterization more or less. I just want the full 8 bits on that. I know we can't have true color characterization, cause that's still miles away, but I feel like they have to start somewhere. Right now we got about 100 heads in BG3 and that's being very generous to include like all the NPC heads that aren't in the Char creator. Then we got maybe a couple dozen voice sets, probably half a dozen character tropes or dialogue options in any given scenario. Those numbers need to come up to match what we see for the heads and hair. For wardrobe again, maybe half a dozen basic threads to choose from and everything else is a paintjob on top. If they could just get it across the 256 threshold for the uber matrix, I think they'd have something that could hold up over time. Like even if we can't have tactical infinity, maybe we can still get close to aesthetic infinity (mostly because our tastes just aren't as broad as we think probably hehe) and most of the ideas are coming from cinema, animation, plays and popular illustration. We just need the pulps to cover the bases here. It doesn't have to be Dostoyevsky, but you know, more riffs.
I think they probably anticipated that if they made a really compelling protagonist fully voiced, that the response to that decision would have been, 'this is cool but it doesn't feel like Dungeons & Dragons.' The reaction to the Origin characters before we even saw what that might look like was basically 'thanks but no thanks.' I mean they did it anyway, but at least there was some lip service paid to the idea that the Custom character has to be in the lead role somehow - so that Tav wouldn't be a walking joke standing next to Lae'zel, or completely eclipsed by Shadowheart. They did alright I suppose. The illusion of choice isn't really dispelled until you replay the thing a few times, although that's sorta the whole deal with BG right? It has to be a game that is replayed again and again and again, or else it's not really Baldur's Gate. Baldur's Gate isn't that game you complete in 200 hours and then say wow, I've seen it all, and move on to the next game. It shouldn't be surprising at all if I find myself lingering here, because that's just what I do with BG games. I think they should probably have focused on trying to do what they did for the Origins but without tying those storylines to a specific character.
Githyanki Warrior might have been any Githyanki Warrior. Daughter of Darkness might have been any Cleric of Shar. Blade of Frontiers any Warlock. And then they just do that for a couple dozen Archetypal Character/Class briefs. Computer games have to be step into the "Role" rather than innovating it. So basically where we chose a "Role" to play for the game, and everything then keys off that to make it feel like the main and most consequential choice we could make. In this one, a lot of the roles can just be swapped around and those which can't are gated by Origin with a preset visualization. I'm sure it's why Durge is probably more popular than any of the other Origins, just because we can do the mix and match and try to own the look, but still that's only one role really. Generica d'Tav the High Elf Barbarian doesn't have anything even close to that. It's kinda no surpise that if I have 1000 hours, it's probably all Durge-y runs by this point. Least there's something to hold onto there, where the story feels unique, but the visual and sound isn't Gated. I like the default Dark Urge visualization and sounds, but never use them. The opening Origin Monologues don't do anything for me. I'm glad they exist I guess, cause I know new players don't necessarily want to lean into customization sometimes, although for me that's the entire appeal of the genre. Even if I'm not creative enough, I still like to try! hehe
Ramble ramble, but to be consistent I don't want a fully voiced protagonist, unless they can give me at least a dirty dozen. On top of the regular companions I mean. Then it would feel like parity maybe. Right now we got like 6, and they're all preset Origins. I love them all as companions, but never play any of them as the main, cause that doesn't feel BG to me hehe
ps. Oh also, and cause I'm easily distracted over here, like just string theory for my attention deficit cosmos, but it's the idea that they might somehow make the character Voice and rhythm and all that present more like a palette. Or if that's too far out or synesthetic, just the idea that if the roles are scripted you'd also get some kind of advanced draft of that script, with the arcs in broad sketches and more to go on upfront.
The Origin monologue idea isn't bad, but there is no input from the player. If you had some trees and branch options, some colored orbs or some kinda new agey aura crystals where we pick a predisposition and a style. Like then the challenge would be to make that matrix and figure out what it looks like, to satisfy most if not all comers. I just think it needs something much more than what we've seen on display, although this game moved things in a direction where I could start to see it now. Like how Creating a more expressive character from those initial inputs would be really rewarding even if it didn't land every single kickflip that it could still put on a show where we're more the casting director and cinematographer/voice coach. Not to bag on Gale overmuch, like of course it probably does need to be Dostoyevsky somehow too, but like seeing his Origin monoglue play out, I could easily get into that as a Wizard basic plotline. All tied up with Mystra and Elminster in the weave, racing against the clock, but where it's happening to us instead of a companion, since we chose that role and added some notes. Picked that part to play from among those scripted and then make it our own. The Gale, instead of Gale, or whatever, although I generally think the definite article is kind goofy in a name hehe. I don't know like it kind grates on me whenever they do that too much, which I guess the Blade of Frontiers is a bit of a send up on. For the Bioware long shadow of it, we started with Charname and Nameless One, then went into the various Hawkes and Shepards, and most are like that now. We have Tavs here, which didn't grab me till I learned it was a dog and then I was immediately on board with that, it could probably be whatever as long as it was at least pick 6. Although you wouldn't just have The Geralt right. Of course not, that's definitely definitive right there. Like that one stands alone hehe. But anyway, something along those lines, but within a BG. Keep the actors working just forever? Like on retainer?
