Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Patch 6 Destroyed Player Agency with Astarion

Yes, for me the word " forced" in the game is associated specifically with Astarion's romance (and Astarion himself is "required" to be forced to give up the ritual). The rest of the romance in the game is rather just overly intrusive (sex-crazed Halsin, Tav-hungry companions, brothels, incubi, illithids, etc.), but it can all be safely avoided. In the main plot and side quests I didn't notice any moments where they tried to directly force me to do anything, there are quite a few different choices to make. The only time in the side quest when there was a similar feeling was when the game made me behave politely with Oblodra the first time I met her, no matter if you are a thrice evil DU, there is no evil roleplay in this quest, not a single even rude line towards this NPS is not provided, this is a bit of a contrast to other NPS who have done nothing bad to me, but I can be rude to them (for example, Mayrina, whom I personally felt truly sorry for, there are a lot of mocking and rude lines in the dialog for her, you can laugh at her misfortune, and in the dialog with Oblodra I am a priori a graduate of the Institute of Noble Maidens). Funny how even that NPS with the reduced roleplay when interacting with her is also relevant to Astarion's plot.

Personally, to me, the phrase "forcing the player" means rail narrative, where the player has no way to choose an appropriate cue and they are forced to say something they would never say of their own volition (as in the romantic dialog with Astarion). Or, when there is only one single possible action in a certain situation ( kneel silently, with no way to talk to Astarion about it or react in any way to the check passed, the player has to rethink and understand this scene on their own, realize the sacredness of this action, etc., but specifically in the story the player is forced to kneel). The scene with receiving the tadpole is not such for me personally, because here objectively there can be no other way out, here it is physically impossible to do anything, so Tav's helpless position is logically justified. With Astarion, by the way, even at the beginning of the relationship there is some forced element - the player is not given the opportunity to try to define the relationship, to tell anyone about it, to talk to Astarion about the relationship, that is, the player is forced to think that it is not a relationship, but "just sex". If the player does not accept such a model of relationship for themselves, and instead fell in love with Astarion and therefore agreed to his proposal, the player may not understand such a message of the game, at the first playthrough it seems that the relationship with Astarion for some reason is hidden from everyone, but the reason for this is not labeled and explained.

But, of course, everything has its degrees and limits. All of the above points can still somehow be accepted, okay, flaws happen, it's not critical, overall the game is great. Tav's remarks in the romantic dialog are terrible, but it's still just bad script quality, it's not traumatizing, facepalm - it's safe for the psyche, unlike the reaction to trigger scenes when watching traumatizing content. That face in the kiss is going over the edge because in those scenes the player is no longer just being forced or taken to the rails, there is emotional damage being done to players, people are being hurt by it. Yes, the 12 lines that befits a good RPG are still there.


Same here. Well, except for D&D, after all, D&D isn't forcing anyone. You can safely use convenient rules and mechanics in your game and ignore new canons, like what kind of monsters vampires should be, if this approach is not interesting to either the DM or the players (I remember our DM reading out loud the rules for Dungeon Master on the topic of evil games, where it says that evil players must lose, and we all laughed about it). D&D is about a perfectly designed game world and usable mechanics, the rest is up to you. And to suddenly introduce traumatizing scenes into a game under the pretext of "showing a true vampire from D&D 5th" when previously a game had a wonderful, player-pleasing homerule that was working, and the rest of Astarion's plot had stayed the same - that kind of inconsistency and chaos is something no good DM would allow in his game. Only if they privately dislike a particular player, want to pick a quarrel with them and remove them from the table. Patch 6's kisses are a gross example of inconsistent development. Dear Larian, please fix this. Modders should not do the work for developers.