Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Why can't we have a fully voiced protagonist??

I had the same impression while trying to play as an Origin character, where they just felt like automatons as the leads, because I had already experienced the various companion dialogues and interjections in the TAV runs. Taking on the role of an Origin was basically like some scene from that flick Last Year at Marienbad...



Except in this case, where I'm trying wake up Lae'zel and Shadowheart, just so they'd remember and deliver their right lines lol, but then those lines also don't actually get delivered. It's odd, cause even though the concept of Origin protagonists didn't grab me at all initially, I figured that their purpose in the game would be to scratch that sort of itch. Like for a fully voiced protagonist I'd probably just choose Lae'zel 100 times in a row, but since her dialogue isn't voiced that way it just feels like a lesser experience than Lae'zel as a companion.

I also would wish for D&D CRPG that had a fully emotive character design suite. I thought maybe they'd try to pull it off for some sort of Re-Tales of the Sword Coast expansion, a BG4, or maybe a NWN3 follow up, something set in the Realms using the same party based approach or same game engine (or at least one that was similar enough for the continuity to hold.) NWN 2002 felt like a completely different game than BG2, which for me was pretty disappointing cause I love BG1/2. I think BG3 is actually a better Dungeons & Dragons game than BG1/2 or NWN were, at least in the one respect that they made that D20 feel major, and the emergent party-based antics do feel like a core part of the experience. The combat and encounters in BG3 are all very entertaining, with most of the surprise factor and novelty coming from that for me, rather than from immersion in creating my own character concept and seeing that realized before me on screen. Mainly cause I can't really create most of my character concepts in this one, instead I have to lean into what the game is giving me and then come up with something that gels. It reminds me very much of showing up to a session and rolling a brand new character on the fly based on the campaign and the DM or who else showed up to play that day, as opposed to crafting a really personal or unique character concept beforehand, arriving with a notebook full of tables and charts and mini bios complete with painted portrait. BG3 also does a pretty good job of striking that tricky balance between servicing the blighted actor theater kid type D&D player and the armchair general wargamer type D&D player, which are sorta different demographics I think, but both good to have on board. Just anecdotally I feel like there are D&D players who show out because they want to adlib with their friends focus on character and story and go light on the mechanics, and then there are other D&D players who show out more for the dungeon crawling nuts and bolts, but sometimes they drift inexorably together when paired up. In the BG context I'm sure I'm more the latter than the former, like I just need some "It Shall Be" barks and I'm pretty content with that lol, but BG3 is a nice marriage of both sensibilities for the most part.

It does seem limited though by the fact that we can have Bafta winning companions doing the Talkies in technicolor right next to us, but then we're sorta still stuck in the Silent Era as the protagonist responding to whatever like mimes. It's a weirdly solipsistic experience that way, like everyone else is hitting all their marks and their cues for high drama, but Tav/Durge/Whoever as Origin just doesn't have the same thing going on as the Companions do in that regard. Maybe someone will come along and really knock the emotive character creator out the park. The sort of thing where the Player Character is in the director's chair on that stuff. Pitstop did very impressive work for BG3, they could probably figure it out if it was like all hands on deck with sufficient zots going into such a thing. I think whoever pulled that off for a cRPG set in the Forgotten Realms would have the golden ticket for sure, but it always falls somewhat short of what I'd wish. This game came very close though. I think they could have pulled it off, but it would have required some sort of DM screen mode or a module maker suite, or the sort of thing where the player is given some of the same tools that the game's developers/cinematographers/technical artist are using to create their memorable NPCs or to set an archetypal character vibe. I'm sure it's tough because material that is particularly excellent they'd want to showcase and reserve for their characters, rather than carving it up into fragments and making it more Tav exclusive. Sorta the same thing where a particularly cool outfit or haircut or face or voice would go to a companion to make them feel all extra, when I'd want that same approach taken for the Tavs. Or just the whole idea that 'even if only 1% of players experience it - it's still worth it' but taking that spirit into the custom character creator.

A daunting task, surely. It's the sort of thing that would probably command a budget in the millions upon millions to execute well, and even then they'd need the full ensemble theater, like the trope troope, to bring like every single thing they know to the table, about how to breathe life into a character concept. Just to get all the constituent elements. Then someone to figure out how to gamify that in such a way that the player can use it and incorporate into the character "build." I still don't know what that looks like, no one has done it yet. The scale up there is probably pretty close to insane, but I liked what Larian had going. It felt like just the right amount of cartoonish and irreverent for my aesthetic sensibility, but I also want like x256 for all the options, all the everythings, whereas right now it's more like x12 or x24. Maybe the next one will actually dwarf it after all, but that's the order of magnitude. 256 heads, and all the Orbs of Dragonkind! Guess we'll have to wait and see again. Hopefully it happens someday. Who knows right!?