Pretty much what the topic says, the main hero, your character, if you choose to just have stay dead, can you still finish the game and if so how does it change?

We'll see, I suppose? At the least, you might get hard locked out of companion interactions dependent on approval, maybe. Though, you could get approval for Lae'Zel by having her talk to Astarion perhaps even then. It doesn't seem like the game /needs/ Tav.

what If I told you your character wasn't the hero?

Your character was always just an addendum to Larian's Mary-Sues, from day one. They are inconsequential and there is no legitimate reason for all these special awesome amazing magical people to be kow-towing to your decisions and following you around like the leader. They mostly exist to be the fall-guy to feed Larian's origin characters the lines they need to spring board off of to make themselves sound more awesome, or to have the final word over.

you can't do that actually. if you control your companion talk to another companion, they would say something like "no time for you. I'll talk to the boss" etc. and you can't long rest or quick travel if your main character is dead iirc.

Next time my MC dies, I won't immediately rez them and see what limitations I face. I'm aware they brush each other off.

That no resting is a game-stopper, you must rest at some point. Yes, I know there's been no-rest runs in EA and someone'll probably do that while speed-running. But I'm talking regular play.

Niara's cynicism has a point. The origin characters are antithetical to each other, it's just that EA is letting them coexist. I'm picking that by mid-Act1 in the real game it'll be clear who can't pair with whom and end of act, a choice made. In which case the MC is the nexus character, the most connected bridge-builder.

Dragonlance novels had Tanis Half-Elven, who was 2nd best to all the other warriors in the party but rose to become both an evil Dragon Highlord thanks to his lover, and good Solamnic Lord Knight thanks to his friends. Of all the characters, his was the most varied, though Raistlin fans would disagree.

There's a decision point in storytelling. Do you define a character, like say Astarion being a vampire, to tell a focused story? Or do you open character options, like Tav, and let adventure path decisions be their story?

I don’t mind my companions having awesome back stories as long as my custom character gets to be just as awesome as them in the game, which admittedly they don’t yet. I’ve found this a problem with other games with strong companions (eg BioWare ones) so I don’t blame Larian for struggling. I just hope they can solve the issue by making our custom characters cooler rather than by making companions more boring. I’m happy to invent an epic back story for my custom character if I really want one, but that’s not going to help unless they can also be as impactful as the rest of the party on screen.

Though of course it’s also a valid choice to play a random joe who has been thrown into a difficult situation and to want to form a party of similar individuals, who then develop their awesomeness throughout the story rather than having it pre-established. That unfortunately doesn’t seem to be the sort of story Larian are going to support in their single player game, which doesn’t really bother me but I can understand why it might frustrate others.

EDIT: Regarding the initial topic, that is interesting. I’ve never tried leaving my main character dead for long.

Other games in this genre handle it by tying your MC directly and intrinsically to the core plot of the game in a way that the other companions are not; this gives them a very good reason to follow and ultimately defer to the main character's decisions - the MC is deciding for themselves how they will approach the issue that personally affects them, and the others follow because it matters to them, or because they think helping the MC best serves their interests, or any other reason circling that - and for the most part this core reason is *more* pressing than their personal objectives, which is why they continue to follow and wait on their personal objectives until the MC diverts time and energy to help them out. The important element that is unique to the player character must outweigh any one individual goal or need of the other companions.

The tendency of other games in the genre doing this, for generations of games, is not an arbitrary decision; it serves an important purpose which Larian's game is currently missing.

Suggesting "Oh the MC will have an important role to play, it's just not been revealed yet" is not good enough. It Needs to be clear and present Now from the outset, as the catalyst for why our other companions are followers and not leaders, and why they are willing to put their personal directives on hold until we get around to them. (NWN2's knight captain is a good example of this principle; the unique element is introduced from the beginning, and while the other companions and NPCs all have personal stories and personal goals and quests, and as important as those things are to them, they recognise that the thing that the shard-bearer has going on is more dire and more important, and so they choose to follow us, help us, and wait until we can all find time together to help them with their own objectives.)

Without this, it's a gaping great plot hole that shatters any hope of immersion in space and story - as a lot of folk around here have been pointing out from day one. "We've all got a tadpole and we all need to find a cure so we should stick together and do that" is a perfectly good reason for them all to stick together, and travel as a party, but it's NOT a sufficient story hook to explain why our player character is made the defacto leader of the group, in amongst all these legendary-epic-heroic individuals... not on its own.

Perhaps they will just treat this game so that every single character/companion is considered the MC, so that all you need to do (if you wanted) is just switch to another character at any point and they are now the 'MC'?

I don't know how else they could solve this otherwise.

You mean, things like the tadpole? More later.


It's currently missing a lot of things, like at least two acts, and whatever is in Act 1 that we haven't seen, and won't see, until the full game launches.


Should they start the game at the end, so you know what's going on? I can't think of a lot of works of fiction, whether they're in print, a movie, or a game, that does that. Some will certainly use a "flashback" mode, but generally speaking, stories start at the beginning, meaning any meaningful information about a character that the story needs to provide will be laid out in the narrative. Of course, then there's the whole "player character" thing. Let's look at some "plot holes" that happen with this:

1. Why is it that my MC, one of two remaining Grey Wardens in Fereldan, is doing all the dirty work, instead of sending out their companions to do it, while making sure they survive?

2. In Inquisition, why is the Inquisitor doing all the leg work, when they have a whole force they could be using? Something that gets touched on with the War Table missions.

3. It's a pretty common observation, across a multitude of games, that the MC is really super important, and yet, they're chasing down some old woman's frying pan...

Regardless of what's in store for the rest of the game, the companions will follow the main character because they are the main character. Very few games feel the need to explain this design philosophy, because it's pretty much understood that games would be pretty boring if all the MC did was sit on a throne and give orders to subordinates. I mean, there's a whole genre of games where this is pretty much what happens, but mostly, no, in RPGs, the MC is the driving force. This isn't a plot hole.


Only for people that haven't played a lot of cRPGs, and don't understand that the PC is the driving force for the main story of these games. For the rest of us, it's pretty much understood that this is how it works. Why would Khalid and Jaheira follow you in BG? They're the more experienced, and should probably assume that leadership role, and yet, you wind up being the leader, and yes, you can alienate them by goofing off instead of taking care of what they believe is important, but shouldn't they have taken the reins from the time you meet them?

This is why we're thrust into the leadership role here. Because once we roll Tav, Tav is the MC, and the MC is always the driving force. This isn't a plot hole, it's an understood game mechanic, and has been for a very long time. You complain about the comps being Mary Sues, and yet, you won't be happy unless Tav is as well?

You know, Robert... I don't think I've ever seen you jump into a thread without doing so seemingly for the sole purpose of being contrary and fractious. What do you get out of it? It's fine if you don't see the problem as being one - but a lot of people do. We're not stupid, we just care about immersion in space, especially in story-driven games.

Your sole comment here boils down to "It's the mechanics, don't question it!" ... which is a valid opinion to have, and which you could have said in a couple of sentences and saved everyone some effort.

We are all aware that the player character is the main character and the driving decision-making force in purely mechanical terms; we are the single player playing the single player game, of course we are. That's the mechanics. That's not the story; that's not the setting; that's not an in-space, in-world reason. It's the out-of-character reason - there is no in-character reason presented, and that's a problem. Having such a reason is important, and good games provide one. BG3 does not... and as I discussed "It hasn't yet!" is not an adequate response; it is past the point where it needs to have done so.

Immersion and consistency in world space matter - and if they don't matter to you, or you've just gotten used to playing games that treat them like they don't matter (in which case, BG3 will be excellent for you, I'm sure...), that's fine - but there are higher calibre games out there that don't do that, and do treat the in-universe story as meaningful and relevant, and any good story-driven rpg should do as much. Most of the ones I've played do.

No, the tadpole is not such a reason; I discussed why it fails to be so above, which you suggested you would address, but didn't. It doesn't serve to justify why everyone with their very important histories and very important personal goals have decided to make those goals second fiddle to the choices that our player character makes, and to designate them, specifically, as the defacto leader of the group. It's a shared danger that serves to keep the party together and justify them travelling and working together as a group, but it doesn't justify making our player character the leader and decison-maker.

Yes, the reason that we are the defacto leader of the group and the others are following our decision-making should be established right away, from the time that others start doing so. That doesn't mean starting at the end and spilling all the beans on everything right away - it means giving a sensible, in-universe reason for an obvious and mundane question (Why are you the one we're all following the lead of?), the lack of which is jarring and immersion-breaking.

I do complain about the mary-sues, though mostly because of the writing, and the way in which our character often exists purely for them to dunk on and to feed them the fall-guy lines that they can respond to, to upsell their own awesomeness... but the complaint here is mainly around such important, established and epic people following our player character and bowing down to their decisions, when none of them have a reason or disposition to do so. That's a problem. The reason to follow our character should put the character at least on reasonably equal footing with the importance of the other characters and their other objectives, and enough above or more urgent enough to make the choice from them of putting those personal objectives on hold and to put their opinions on what we should do secondary to what this other person says we all will do, seem like a reasonably believable and sensible decision. Right now, BG3 does not provide this, and it really should.

I meant in the full game. Once origin characters are implemented, it's possible they might have some kind of approval network among them. Mostly, I believe you'd get locked out of all companion quests and interactions. However, since I can't prove that, let it be said that the option is theoretically there.

Niara, what the heck? What is this attitude? Your posts are amongst the longest on these forums, may be boil them down to a couple of sentences, alright? Something among the lines of "every companion is too cool to my taste"?

The other user gave actual examples of games that failed to create the perfect narrative around the MC's leadership. There will very likely be a moment in any role playing game when your party members stick with the MC instead of doing something of higher value to their made-up story/personality. This derives from the "player factor", because games are played by players, not characters. Especially in a game with a lot of sandbox elements, a player can make erratic decisions, made with the understanding that the world they explore isn't real and there is no necessity for actions that would contribute to a cohesive story. For example, if a player decides for their MC to run in circles for an hour or to go fishing for a week or be rude to a character their MC was always polite with. Some of those scenarios are almost unpredictable and they won't ever be considered to be the ones triggering companion reaction. Thats why your leadership only needs to be explained to an extent, in broad strokes, such as tadpole or the blight and so on. Especially when it comes to the role-playing game, in which you can have additional justification layers of your leadership based on your background, race, class, made-up story etc. I mean, if you want to? Another option is to demand everything worked out for you on a plate with a silver lining.

BG3 does exactly what you described in the previous posts - its plot has a common denominator of the tadpole problem, which creates a purpose for the infected characters to stay together. You say that it does not justify leadership. So you basically discredit your argument about how the games handle leadership, if its not the way to handle it, according to yourself. Develop your thought further if you want to tie those things together.

Also, saying that the fact of BG3 not having its acts 2 and 3 yet, is not important and that it is past some point to solve its problems is nonsense, imo. Acts 2 and beyond can hold the crucial development of the tadpole factor into the attitude/approval factor. As the writers said during the PfH - what started as a forced cooperation will shift towards friendship/rivalry etc.

By the way, before you label my post "arguing for the sake of arguing", let me put it straight. I argue because I disagree with some of your points. I also argue because I don't like people trying to make witty commentary about other people's words.

It's easy to shunt criticism off to the as yet undetermined parts of the plot. Tav could have a much more important plot specific mechanism, making him the clear One True Hero, but that doesn't change how right now, we have a number of main characters who, solely from plot contrivances are following a cobbler who happened to be abducted.

We've had this conversation before of course, it's been two years. Which Origin Character are you looking forward to playing?

I think RPGs have a 'special main character' problem, I don't really have a problem with the Everyman taking the leadership role, but that doesn't abjure the game from the need to establish a logical reason that the big egos we're questing with are sticking around. It's not like it's unheard of for characters to leave the party if they didn't like the direction it was going, in older BG games people would leave if your rep was too high or low, or if you didn't take care of quests in a timely manner.
It follows that someone like Lae'zel would finally get fed up with us if we choose to save the grove before following Zorru's lead; she complains about it enough as is.

This is all a very serious and marvelous conversation. But, since seeing the videos of companions being forced to talk to each other... I'm a true believer in the crack "we made Tav lead because it results in the fewest murders in camp" theory.

Why, when given a blank slate, would you decide that your backstory is just some random average joe?

Here is the backstory for my sorcerer (sailor) - Pavel was a ship’s windcaller, abducted by a notorious pirate because he was the child of a dragon. The pirate raised the half-elf, half-dragon, as they sailed across the oceans of Faerun, becoming bloody conquistadors. But as he grew older, Pavel rejected the violence of his upbringing. He killed the pirate captain who raised him, along with much of the crew. Having made a daring, narrow escape after setting the ship on fire, Pavel barely made it to Baldur’s Gate alive. After arriving, he decided to lay low and recover from his injuries, when all of the sudden- tadpole.

Will any of this be referenced in the game? Aside that he is a sailor, of course not, but that’s okay. I don’t need the game to tell me I’m a super badass. Give me a blank slate and I’ll fill in the blanks myself. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the point of a role playing game, and unless I’m playing a truly stupendously great character (The Nameless One level at least) I prefer to come up with my own character in my head.

Also,

Lae’zel - foot soldier, used to following orders
Shadowheart - acolyte of a religious cult, used to following orders
Astarion - literal slave
Wyll - talks a big game but is clearly a bit full of crap and definitely not leadership material
Gale - has a big ego but doesn’t seem to possess the managerial people skills or the interest in stepping into a leadership role, seems more like a power behind the thrown sort
Karlach - you save her life
Minsc - years of canonical experience following a leader
Jaheira - ditto

I don’t think it’s strange that, given the pressing circumstances, any of these characters would fall in line behind a decisive, authoritative type-A personality.

Lae'zel - Considers herself superior to any non-gith(and lets you know it), already views you as a monster.
Shadowheart - used to following orders, namely her cults, and is in the process of doing so. Using us to help her reach Baldur's Gate is the best the game does to rationalize Tav being leader. It helps if you have Lae'zel along because Tav becomes a mediator between them
Astarion - was a literal slave, probably happy to kill anyone who wants to put him into a subordinate position again.
Wyll - Talks a big game, also the only character who will actually follow through and leave the party based on our choices.

I agree with you on Gale, but mostly because he has the least going on with his backstory. He needs magic items, might as well get in a group plundering tombs.
The problem isn't that they follow us, it's that they complain about our leadership, while not justifying following us. If you think you're going to turn into a Mind-Flayer, and think there's an clear avenue of action, why tolerate a party that goes from one dead end to another while ignoring your objections.

I know we've had this discussion before too Warlocke Just adding your own head canon isn't enough for me, without the game's acknowledgement it doesn't or didn't happen.

We have? That must have been a while ago because I haven’t been here in quite some time. Good memory.

“If you think you're going to turn into a Mind-Flayer, and think there's an clear avenue of action, why tolerate a party that goes from one dead end to another while ignoring your objections.”

Because it’s evident quite early on that something else is a going on, you aren’t in immediate danger of flaying out, and it’s safer than going it alone. It’s contrived, sure, but most games rely on contrivance and don’t address their (to use a popular buzzword) ludonarrative dissonance. I really don’t think all that much more justification is needed besides “this shit is crazy, we’re safer together than alone. This guy / gal is taking charge so okay.”

Party members in BG 1 and 2 would put up will a lot of meandering about too, and while some would leave if you didn’t complete personal quests in a timely manner, there were much more companions because each companion required less work (mo-cap, voice-work, personal quests). Therefore, the game can afford to have companions more readily leave you because you can just go find another. Everyone is free to disagree, of course, but I personally don’t mind this trade off all that much. I’d rather have fewer fleshed out companions. If I want more companions with BG1 level development I can just make my own. 😂

And of course, there is always the option of just selecting party members who you plan on actually accommodating. If I’m not planning on recruiting a party member I usually kill them anyway (especially Lae’zel because she is rude to me, so firebolt to the face it is). I don’t think role playing requires the motivation of real consequences though. I often do it just for fun.

I remember us having some interesting conversations, even if most of the particulars escape me. I do remember head canons coming up quite a bit before on the forum, there are two camps of crpg players that have very different expectations from their characters, and what constitutes customizability.

I think the tadpole is a perfectly valid reason for all of our disparate characters to want to journey together, it's why Tav is de facto leader where I have to eat my ludonarrative pease.

This evident intrigue around our condition is part of the mystery box that I was referring to earlier. The dynamics of the party and our MC might change drastically at the climax of Act 1, but as it is, most of us seem to be treating this thing as a tadpole we can remove, this becomes less and less the case as we draw closer to the Moonrise plot, but it still doesn't change that Tav problem.

There's a reason I hardly play BG 1 compared to BG2, the companions are mostly just memorable catchphrases that I projected a lot onto, so we can agree there. But I don't think you need to say its a trade off to have more companions or better companions. Not to mention all the speculation around having our roster locked in after Act I. Who knows, all the characters you kill or avoid meeting might end up at Moonrise anyway, similar to the end of DOSII, and we'd have less reason for them to subject themselves to our party in the interim.

Your murderhoboism makes my lawful stupid self apoplectic.

In TT there's a trap where the odd player sometimes thinks they're the main character and it causes problems at the table. This is because the game's true focus isn't any one character, it's the _party_.

It's true, the MC isn't a vampire, doesn't have a devil patron, deity lover, lich empress or secret cult mission. MC is more bland and generic. We're no longer playing the Child of Bhaal confronting our megalomaniacal half-brother. (Although there remains the question, why exactly was Tav snatched up? One of many or specific mark?)

Me personally? I'm a little done playing chosen ones, so I've got that bias. I like the world setting where MC dies and things continue... badly it seems.

Back to OP, MC dies and the party can't rest. That's kind of perfect. The huge ego origin characters can't agree anymore and disband. Probably all failing individually.

****

One little doodle I do as a DM is paste character portraits and draw connections to make a relationship map. You can also ring the party with a few important NPCs. The arrows are widened or narrowed to show strength of connections. Anyway, this little activity shows the characters most immersed in the setting, you guessed it - the de facto party (co)leader. The real purpose is to expose weak characters - and work to fix it up with those players.

I feel quite lucky in that the group I’m DMing for right now have a great dynamic. One particular player has very much organically emerged as the group leader, but he is very entertaining and always takes the party on interesting journeys so everybody is more than pleased to let him. He is also a DM and a great improv-story-teller, so it makes sense this would happen.

I do work to make sure everybody feels like the main character of their own personal quest lines which I integrate into the main story though. Gotta make sure nobody feels left out.

Maybe it’s because I’m so used to doing this for others that I don’t mind if my character isn’t explicitly the chosen one. That and when I play in TT groups I always go out of the way to make my characters as ancillary as possible.



Hell, here is a sketch I did of the party I’m currently playing in. I’m the one of the far camera-right. The least qualified to be leader of the bunch, and that includes the rat-man gangster, Charles E. Cheese and the twelve year old with the cigarette and a bad attitude.

I promise there is a valid story reason I am dressed like that.

Murderhobo? We prefer the term amoral-homicidally-indulgent-transient, thank you very much.

Well, you don’t need to choose between more or better companions; better is subjective. But the more energy you spend on each discrete companion means you have fewer total resources with which to design more. Ideally I think it would be great to have 12 companions representing each PHB class. If we did then I think having companions more willing to leave if upset would be better justified. But since we don’t have that, I at least understand the design principle being exercised.

Just like the design decision of having companions wait at camp. I don’t like that. I actually prefer the older BG style of you are in the party or you aren’t. It feels silly to me when I meet somebody in a game and say “you, look like a worthy and capable warrior. Now please go attend the campfire and keep the fire burning vigorously because we’re all going to be exhausted after clearing this den of werewolves.”

But I get why developers do this, so I just kind of find a way to go with it. (Murder unwanted companions)

This conversation made me think though. Does your character need to be the party leader? If I decide to play the entire game doing every conversation as Shadowheart while I cuck out in the background, isn’t Shadowheart really the leader and my character just the group mother hen making sure everybody is getting along and feeling seen? How often does the game force your character into dialogue over whomever you have selected?

1. You're currently on the run from the law so staying in one place is a bad idea in general. Most of the leaders you go to meet have things that need doing before they agree to abide by the treaties you present them. As leader you're also the most capable person to do most of these jobs. Think about it, if you sent your companions out to do any of the quests without you, who would, in turn, lead them in your absence? Alistair explicitly admits that he's not comfortable with leadership and that's why he defers to a new recruit. It's your deciseivness and force of personality and authority as a gray warden that gets the other characters to fall in line. Without you, they wouldn't agree on a leader and they'd just all fall apart.

2. As Inquisitor, you are often going to meet directly with important people in areas. The inquisition is big and important, but also new, so you as its leader often have to be the one to establish a firm relationship with any factions. Plus a big part of your responsibility is to physically go out and close rifts, which still requires you to be present.

3. This is just true, no further expansion.


BG3 isn't really about the party though. If it was, there would be a lot more focus given on the inter-party dynamics. There would be clearer relationships forming beyond what Tav influences. But what do Gale and Wyll think of each other? Gale and Lae'zel? Astarion and Shadowheart? If it were about the party we'd be seeing more clear dynamics like what we have between Lae'zel and Shadowheart. You can say 'this is act one, we've not seen where things are going' but my counter would be; yes, this is act one. Act one should establish the tones and themes of the story. If BG3 is a game about the dynamics of the party as a whole, we should be able to tell that by now. And that's also what I would say to those who think there's gonna be some reveal as to why everyone follows our Tav later in the game. Thus far, 'why does everyone follow us?' is not even a question we're invited to think about by the story. And again because of the origin system, if it were a question, then the answer isn't going to be anything personal to Tav, because it'll have to be able to apply to any of the origins.

Furthermore, we're going to get to play these characters as origins. Will it still be about the party when we're playing as these defined, clear characters? The story thus far is clearly constructed to have one central character, but the central character could be multiple different people.

There's a difference between having an adequate call to adventure, and being a 'chosen one'. Chosen one narratives are generally trite and tired, and I don't advocate for them as a staple - I actually kind of hate them, but that's only at a personal character level, and not relevant.

In a video game, you can give a call to adventure that is sufficiently pressing enough to push the main character into the leadership position; in an ideal situation it would be something that does not depend on the character being particularly charismatic or forceful of personality (because your character may not be), and it should be something independent of class, race, sex or background. This isn't typically difficult to do, and it does not require making the character into a super-special-divinely-mandated-chosen-one.

If you're going to have a collection of companions available for the player to take with them, or as options to pick from for playing, and they'll all be available right away at the beginning of the game, then this reason Must present itself in some tangible way at or before the time of the party forming up and choosing to follow the main character - otherwise you're left with the dissonance of the npcs following the pc for no reason beyond the out-of-character meta of their mechanical need to do so. If you don't want to present the real reason right away, then you need to present stop-gap reasons that justify it short term until your story is ready to present the true reason. Otherwise you have narrative dissonance and broken immersion.

Other games - even the games that Robert suggested, all do this correctly. To my personal experience, all of the fantasy RPGs I've played have presented some amount of internal justification for this, because that's simply a part of telling a coherent story. And to answer neprostoman, No - BG3 currently does not, and it does not even TRY to; it does nothing of the sort at all, not even broad or rough strokes. It literally does not. It leaves us at "They follow us because we are the PC and they are NPCs" meta-game mechanic and it seems satisfied for the majority of the first act to leave it at that. That's not good enough. Act 1 needs to present at least A reason for the player character being the leader and decision-maker, before or by the time important and/or powerful people start following our decisions, in order to preserve immersion and prevent dissonance.

It could do this with the tadpole, if they wanted to; It could, with a little more lore added in in some way to push our character into the leading role - and it could be done with a little bit of extra lore that pushes our character into the leading role no matter which character, custom or origin, we decide to play... but the game Does Not Do This.

“What-about-ism” isn’t in a great argument, especially when one brings Inquisition as a counter example. Yes, there are other games with major narrative issues. But I also don’t want to have to play through Inquisition-like ever again.

Even if every RPG in the past would fail to narratively explain MC’s leadership role, it doesn’t stop being an issue - gameplay and story should be one of the same. If Larian can’t set appropriate mechanics to their story, or doesn’t create the story to match their mechanics it is the flaw in their craft. This is also issue that exists without player’s input so player unrestrained freedoms isn’t even part of the problem.

If Larian’s intend is to create an unlikely band of survivors tied by circumstances, rather than a hero and companions, they are free to do so. But they are far from achieving that goal IMO - they would need to change the power dynamic between MC and companions from gameplay and interaction perspective. The game is confused in its messaging and that’s a problem. Maybe not the game killer, but definitely makes it difficult for me to care for the narrative.

Yes, though Robert didn’t actually address the issue you raised, but quoted games with other potential unrelated narrative issues.

Not even a problem - their status as a Grey Warden is the key to fighting and defeating darkspawn, and forging alliances. Arguably yes, if both Alister and MC died that would be bad, as there would be no one left to defeat archdeamon but that’s not the information characters have for the majority of the game. And no, DA:O companions don’t strike me as a sort of people who would do your job for you. Help out sure, but most of them have reason to see YOU succeed not go on a quest themselves.


Barely existent story and herb gathering, with most interesting content happening in the war table has been a common criticism. That said, as a anchor holder, Inquisitor is the only one capable of shutting down tears. He is also half prophet so again, make sense for him to be out doing work more, than hanging out in the keep. Still a terrible game though.


Ah, Witcher3. A for hire odd job man, doing an optional curious odd job as he runs across a grandma and helps her out. The frying pan is even literally there, so it’s not like you go one a lengthy errand postponing a grand quest in the process.

I fully agree with Niara on the matter, but I guess it won't ever be solved in Larian's games because of multiplayer.

How is that handled in BG1/2 EE ? I guess the host is the bhaalspaw while others players are just blank companions ?
Not sure how it works in other multiplayer cRPG but I have to admit that I would not like to play a "blank" follower for dozens of hours.

That said I'm a solo player and as it has been said countless time : all other cRPG I can think of did a way better job at making my character well grounded in the story and the world.
The leadership issue is also a lot more noticeable than it could because most companions backstories are over the top right at the beginning. If Tav is going to be less blank at some point, we should already have clues about it all along act 1 so that its branching out into the story to be equally engaging.

It is not what-aboutism, it is about high statistical probability of ruined immersion applied to players with a certain mindset, which is not applicable to role playing games, but more to books and/or cinema or visual novellas, where there is no interactive elements and therefore high demand for a certain level of logical coherence. Broad strokes are in place in BG3 and they make sense. The specifics of the genre allow plot stretching and interpretive thinking and justify some of the smaller plot holes. If BG3 was a linear visual novella with a set protagonist, plot coherence would become much more crucial. But BG3 is an RPG with a high emphasis on replayability and changeable characters. It is not that kind of game that "plays itself" but the one where you are free to justify your leadership as you see fit, according to your character's lore. I am all in for more dialogue options to help me project that lore onto the world, but it has nothing to do with other companions being interesting and unique. They are unique, yes, but they are also flawed. And that is what makes them interesting and not at all Mary Sues.

Niara, the other games do a better job at justifying leadership because they have a much more linear structure to the plot. Dragon Age has a character creation system, but it forces you into the shoes of a Grey Warden/Hawk/Inquisitor. BG3 doesn't force you to become a plot-navigating tool right from the start. You play not as a "new recruit of this faction" but as your character with their own story put into the crazy circumstance. It needs a different approach to develop on the plot issue, I think. The mentioned games' experience is not very applicable.

I would argue that we don't have the choice to justify our leadership according to our character's lore. The game never asks us to justify it, it just assumes we're the leader and that's it. Everyone treats us as the leader of the party, it's never really called into question. Sure we can create all kinds of headcanons for our characters - I am a big supporter of that - but as far as this point is concerned, it doesn't matter if we make our character the lost heir of a far off kingdom, groomed from birth to be monarch or a country bumpkin who was working as a caravan guard and is used to taking orders. We'll both be equally the leader. You think the Dragon Age games aren't a good comparison, I'll bring up a game that I think is a perfect comparison; pillars of eternity. In that game you start off as some random traveller. At the very start of the game you get to talk to someone about the specifics of your past, at least some of them. And then going forward, you pull the party together yourself. Everyone follows you because right at the start they agreed to follow you for whatever their reasons are. They all have their own things you agree to help them with, and in turn they're helping you with an explicitly personal problem. You don't realize the full scale of the threat until a while into the game, until that point your problem isn't anymore important to the wider world than any of your companions' problems are to them, so it wouldn't make sense forone ofthem to want to take control. Not so here, where most companions have their own opinion on how to fix this problem afflicting all of usand no reason not to try and take control.

Maybe it's just all you remember? I mean, I remember being dragged for pages by you and GM for agreeing with something GM suggested, with a caveat, instead of just yelling "YEAH" at the top of my lungs and grabbing a pitchfork. That does seem to be something that gets people dragged around here, or, perhaps suggesting some things they found that were positive about the game, and having their thread derailed because "squeaky wheel"? This may hurt your feelings, but I didn't come here to join a faction, I came here, when I do, to discuss the game. This may be shocking to you, but it's possible to disagree w/out having to be "contrary or fractious".

My point isn't that it's a mechanic, don't question it, but it's a mechanic, have you been on the forum of almost every cRPG that's ever been made complaining about it, or is this a special case? I notice you ignored my examples, maybe they were too "contrary and fractious" for you to address? To be clear here, as well, the thing that is so important to the narrative that it gets a cutscene every time you meet a new companion isn't a good enough reason for the companions to follow you? From a purely pragmatic standpoint, that seems like a relevant enough reason to me. Do I team up with this stranger that's sharing the same problem I have to find a solution, or continue to fumble around on my own? Maybe it's just a better grasp of subtext, instead of pragmatism?

Then there's the root cause of the resentment of the companions, right? The whole "but they can be the main character" argument? Except that, once you roll Tav, they can't. Additionally, once you pick one of them to be the main character, after release, the rest of them can't. My usual counter to this is that even if they couldn't be the main character, or if Larian completely backpedals on having them selectable as the main character, they'd still have to have stories associated with them to make them interesting, unless you're looking for Skyrim level companions, that simply exist to fill a role and to marry? This is usually met with something along the lines of "but Larian needs to provide backstory for Tav, instead of allowing the player to do it", completely missing the point of a blank slate character. I've said this before, but this is the first time I've ever been to a game forum where the argument is "I want to play the GM's character" instead of "I don't want to play the GM's character".

Why is it that, in Dragon Age Inquisition, Cassandra, Varric and Solas are following your lead at the beginning of the game? You were, a short time ago, a prisoner, suspected of killing the Divine, and yet, all of the decision making is left to you. Cassandra is notorious for being headstrong, and yet, she defers to you. Why? After the destruction of Haven, it's clear why, but up to that point, it's "Main character syndrome". This isn't some Larian construct that needs to be dragged at every oppurtunity, but an established RPG trope. Some games handle it better than others, Mass Effect, for example, since even with nothing else, Shepard outranks them. Even in Inquisition, there's the Mark, but really, at that point you should be an asset, not the leader of the whole faction. Yet, you're the de facto leader. Nothing gets done on the War Table in Haven until you authorize it. You can sway things in Haven, such as how Leliana deals with a traitor in her ranks. Not bad, for someone that was recently in chains, eh?

The same thing happens here, in a narrated cutscene even.

I do hope this will be addressed once we arrive in Baldurs gate. I find the subject difficult to judge without having the full game.

What I haven't seen anyone mention in skimming through the last page is... well. The tendencies of mindflayers to form a hive mind. Even lone mindflayers who break free from the elder brain's subjugation are destined to evolve into elder brains themselves. (If I understood that lore video?)

You know where this is going :P

In absence of any evidence otherwise, I like to sit on my conspiracy theory. Mostly because everyone thinking "wow, I'm feeling so fine and myself right now!" while under the thrall of some hive forming instinct is hilarious.

For the record, I don't actually /think/ it's true. But, it's how I entertain myself when Tav has 9 charisma.

There's also the influence of the artifact at play, at least it forces Shadowheart to stalk us, driving her mad if we refuse to journey with her. If maybe there were some more subtle clues in that direction i'd certainly be mollified.

You know... since... when we don't have shadowheart in the party... the artefact senses the player in danger...

It is clearly already in our heads. They should really work with it more.

Don't forget the video of Swen lamenting what contortions railroading the artifact into the party was causing the writing process. If it's that important, turn your problem into an asset.

Also check out the A Theory if you haven't. Fun speculation

Has anyone done any testing with scenes like where Lae'zel runs away to meet with the gith patrol ..... and see how that functions if she's the only living party member?

Looking at how the game handles stuff like that, or the post-grove battle party at the camp or the asterion bite scene might be good to see how the game handles a dead main character.

I kinda suspect you would get a game over since you would have no living party members in the first instance and that the game just grabs a random party member to do the speaking in the case of the latter. Some scenes probably just don't trigger at all, like romance scenes.

Anyways, The game is set up like DOS and DOS2 so that everyone is a sorta a main character, both from a story perspective and to a lesser degree- a gameplay one. This presents a lot of hurdles IMO that Larian has to work with. In the original BG, if you did multiplayer IIRC the other player had no say in dialogues and pretty much just followed the 'primary' player's lead, so the story was still oriented around a singular main character. Not the case here. BG III seems written such that barring special 'character moments' events and dialogues are more oriented around addressing the party and the tag system of whomever is the 'speaker'.

I kinda suspect that aside from the inability to initiate conversations with other party members, the game will hardly notice the MCs death. The perspective of certain party member scenes might change if only one party member is left alive. You can already initiate conversations/cutscenes with npcs with your non-MC party members.

Anyways, I won't add any more except to say that I'm not a fan of this system as it is in BG III. I feel like it is going to have similar shortcomings compared to DOS2 in that while it may have a more robust tag system, the game being unfocused in regards to the main character, particularly if you roll a custom character. Too much has to be surrendered to make the Origin system work, to make the multiplayer work the way they intend.

I do have some confidence that Larian will work in a 'Tav-exclusive' storyline at some point. Hopefully, maybe. Since IIRC they did mention they didn't want to have that particular same failing as DOS2 did with their custom MCs.

Fair point that Larian’s approach of making a number of potential origin characters who are also companions, and giving high priority to the multiplayer experience, leaves them with multiple characters tied in the same way to the plot and therefore no compelling reason for the player character to be the leader. I hope they can actually make a virtue of this, and I for one would be totally up for a single player experience in which “my” character isn’t obviously the leader (at least to begin with) but is convincingly just one of a party of individuals who have been thrown together by circumstances.

It’d be a tricky illusion to pull off, given BG3 isn’t a game like IWD or Solasta where the player is effectively acting as the party rather than an individual, but would need to have elements of this where they step into the shoes of other party members or direct the party’s story as a whole, without losing their identification with their insert character. But I do think BG3 sometimes almost pulls this off, and it is the way I try to interpret this initial act: not as the rest of the party members following the lead of my main character but as the party as a whole (more or less) agreeing on a course of action.

I will easily admit the way EA plays doesn’t always make perfect sense when read this way, but if Larian could find a way to fix their problem not by giving our main character reason to be the leader early on, but by *not* making them the leader at least until that had been earned, then for me that would be a more interesting and novel dynamic.

I'm torn about this.On the one hand I do think that a game made like that would be interesting, genuinely. But for BG3 in particular, I don't really like the idea because our custom characters are already pretty nothing presences to the plot. That sort of dynamic would only add more emphasis to the origin characters at the cost of making our custom characters even less important than they already are. If we're not even the character everyone defers to to make decisions, then what's to keep Tav from faiding to the background compared to everyone else?

Also just from a technical angle, I don't think trying to implement that at this point would be a good idea at all. I think for a system like that to work, it has to be envisioned and implemented from the ground up. And for it to work with a custom character, that custom would need to have their own 'thing'. Their own motivation that's either directly tied to the main plot or seperate to yet still influenced by the main plot, same as the companions. Otherwise their reasoning for following or not following any given option that the others provide boils down to 'I don't want to.'

I think the problem can be illustrated thusly- the origin characters each have more narrative weight, you could call it. They each have stuff going on around them that impacts the direction of the story. Our Tav doesn't have that. Nothing about any Tav you can create will fundamentally alter the ability for the plot to happen. Tav is always incidental to the story and the plot. No matter what backstory you create for your Tav, they don't bring any of it into the story. They can just be plucked out and narratively speaking, any ofthe companions could step into their place. To tie this back to the question of the thread; we know for a fact purely because of the presence of the origin system that if Tav dies, then narratively, one of the other companions can just step in and take their place and nothing will change.


I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you're refering to when you say this. I mentioned a couple different things in my post.

A completely valid preference, of course, but for me I think it would actually increase the sense of connection of my custom character to the plot if, rather than have this dictated up front, a core element of the story was how they came to be the hero (or villain) and the leader of a powerful group that defeated their foes … or how they came to alienate everyone and die a lonely and ignominious death … or somewhere in-between . And I do think that there is a trade-off between the freedom to make whatever character we want and how connected their background is to the plot, so having their in-game connection being what happens in the course of the adventure maximises that freedom while still allowing us to give our custom characters a personal story that we can tie into their imagined pre-game history.


One problem I have with the story setup so far is that sometimes it seems that it has been envisaged that way, but then in other ways it treats our character as the leader from the start. I’d say that Larian need to jump firmly into one camp or the other rather than what currently feels like half-arsing this element, but I’m not sure that it would be technically much more difficult to go one route rather than the other. In fact, I think a lot of stuff that would be needed to make my preferred option work would be beneficial anyway, such as: making our custom characters a stronger presence on screen, making them less purely reactive in conversations with party members, better writing of the protagonist’s dialogue, continuing to add content that reflects our characters’ races, class and background and having multiple ways quests can be achieved that can suit different characters’ stories, showing the party interacting more as a whole rather than having so much mediated through our player character, and having our party more vocal and involved in dialogue and decisions while adventuring.

But I am not a writer and so could well be underestimating the challenge involved, or the frustrations players might feel if their characters weren’t established as the leader of the group from early on. And, given that we’re now only a few months from release and the game’s dialogue trees are clearly hugely complex, I’m sure that whatever direction Larian have already implemented into their full release is now pretty much locked in, so all we can do now is keep our fingers crossed for our own preferred solutions!

They agree to follow you, because of the tadpole. A cutscene plays every time we meet one of them, with a tadpole interaction.

I guess, instead of leaving us with a narrative "out" for the main character dying, they need to just run a "Game Over" screen and take us back to the last save, because it's sure leading to a lot of misconceptions about why it's there. Someone posted earlier in this thread that if Tav's dead, the other companions won't talk to whichever companion you're currently controlling. I think they said it was "I'll talk to the boss"? Yeah, it'll suck for those of us that do understand why it's there, but it sure seems like subtlety and nuance are lost w/out it. Although, it would be funny to start reading the posts from those that sincerely believe that once Tav is rolled up, they're replaceable, when their romance subplots won't play out because they chose to leave Tav dead. So maybe, just for comedic value, they shouldn't add the "Game Over" screen?

Nah, I definitely still want it to be possible for my party to resurrect my dead PC with a spell or scroll or go back to Withers at the camp to get him to do it.

I think it would be quite a fun feature if the game could continue indefinitely if our main character died, but not enough to want Larian to put any significant resources into this. I’m happy for inability to remove our dead PC from the party or to full rest with them dead to act as the push to resurrect them if that’s what the story needs. Or indeed for the party to limp on and complete the game but without any meaningful interactions between them if that’s feasible with the existing game mechanics and someone particularly wants to play that way.

Though it might also be fun to have some specific dialogue between our party members the first time our main character dies, in which they give their views on bringing us back and more or less grudgingly agree to do so .

The tadpole moments always read to me as just your minds melding because the tadpoles are reaching out to each other, and serve as a way to force the issue of people who might not share their tadpole situations sharing their tadpole situations, not as a sign that our character was imposing some kind of psychic will on the others.

As for the game over thing and the narrative 'out', I've never liked that the game just goes on after Tav dies. Maybe I'm just too used to how games typically handle main character death, but it just doesn't feel like it fits. Bringing Tav back afterwards is just needless hassle and I feel like actually coming back from the dead should warrant some kind of reaction. It's one thing if, on the death of our pain character the game ends, that just goes along with the time-honored assumption that when we die in a game, it's not actually canon. But this game makes it pretty clear that each death is defiitely canon, thanks to this and to the whole Gale situation, and if they're going to do that, there should be some reaction. Also it bothers me that despite us seeing tadpoles leaving the body after death, nobody really voices that as a potential solution. I think it wouldn't be a good solution, but if death and resurection are going to be canon things that the characters perform, it feels wrong that no one at least talks about it. Overall that aspect doesn't really feel like it adds anything and it introduces too many cracks in return.

That’s a good point, and given that revival and resurrection are valid parts of D&D 5e (and therefore should be in the game, and an option for my PC, in my view) it does feel as though the possibility of death and resurrection to get rid of the tadpole should be addressed at least in a conversation. I think it should be fairly easily dealt with, however, insofar as the tadpole has access to your thoughts and therefore would be aware that the intention was to resurrect you and so could decide to wait rather than abandon the corpse. Well, assuming the tadpoles are aware and can think, anyway. I’ll admit to much haziness about the lore on that point!

EDIT Btw, I do think bringing characters back to life is too cheap in EA and hope that it will be made more difficult and expensive in the full game, with penalties more in line with 5e, once we have the alternative option of more party members or mercenaries to replace dead companions.

The game being very casual...flippant even with player/party member death is another thing. Like there are more consequences to getting Volo's surgery then there are gettign your brain *eaten* by the mindflayer in the crashed ship. Hell, asterion will even tease you about him accidentally killing you the next day, and Gale has lines basically amounting to 'boy, the Fugue plane sure is dreary'.

And of course we even have a certain hard-to-ignore skeleton chilling in camp who provides resurrection for bargain basement prices.

Other games (including D&D games) treat readily available resurrection magic (or even just bringing back KO'd characters at 1hp at the end of fights) more as a gameplay/narrative break that's necessary for play, but not narratively acknowledged. They also typically give you a game over if the main character is killed off (if there isn't a revive at 1hp at combat end mechanic) for narrative purposes.

BG III treats death narratively as an inconvenience. Something you have a chuckle with your friends over later. It also has a loose definition of 'main character', with the player's avatar's main distinguishing feature being that they are the default conversationalist/centerpiece of cinematics and cutscenes. Combine these, and the significance of the player avatar as the 'protagonist' of the story feels rather lacking, IMO. Particularly if you are rolling a custom character, since you don't really get anything in the story that's unique and created specifically for your character that Origins don't get.

Same, we have access to too many "Scroll of Revivify" : Tav and several companions have each a couple of them from the get-go, everyone can use them, Withers can resurrect any party member for cheap and several vendors sell the scroll as well (I think Withers constantly have them restocked in his inventory).

I'm hoping that this (and the abundances of food supply, potions & co) is only to make EA easier, so players can focus on other aspects of the game to give feedback on.

Very good point.

I don’t mechanically object to Larian’s implementation of death - while dying is a bit harder in BG3 than it used to, a game over popping out because our PC has fallen have been annoying in BG1&2.

RPGs in general have been avoiding sudden death for a while now - be it by splitting health/endurance in PoE1, Injury system in PoE2&DA:O, maiming in pathfinder games, or most post Bioware RPG removing penalty of falling in battle all together. And by an large I see those changes as positive.

However, keeping death, but treating it like “falling in battle” does have a negative impact on how engaging the narrative is. Very quickly deaths have the impact of a Groundhog’s Day Death montage.

Yeah, that's more directed to the "Tav is totally replaceable, see, because you don't have to resurrect them" crowd. Although, now I'm curious if you could even try the tadpole removal dialogs w/out Tav/the main character. If not, and I'm betting that's the case, then the game's going to come to a screeching halt pretty fast.


The tadpole moments provide a reason to work together, you know, removing it. Especially for anyone that knows what it's supposed to do to them. That we, as players, know it's not a really big deal yet shouldn't be factoring in to whether or not the assorted cast would join forces to find a solution to their mutual problem.

I'm curious why you've been treating "We should travel together" as a phrase synonymous to "I'll follow you and defer to your decisions". Those are two different statements with two different meanings. The tadpole provides a reason for everyone to travel together and work together; everyone agrees with and acknowledges that (meaning everyone involved in this discussion thread). What it does not do, however, is provide a reason for the main character being thrust into the leading and decision-making role. Shadowheart saying "We should travel together" is not a synonym for her declaring you the leader and agreeing to put her opinions secondary to your decisions. Wyll saying "We should team up" is not a synonym for that either, nor Gale's "You and I need to find a healer" (indeed Gale's dialogue, given his personality, comes off very much as him assuming the leadership role). The tadpole is an element that everyone shares equally, at the moment - there is no internal story beat that pushes the player controlled character (whether that be an origin character or a custom one) into the leading position, to justify or explain the deference that they all drop into counter to their various self-directed and headstrong personalities. That's one of the things that numerous people here have found jarring and damaging for immersion - and a thing that most other games in this genre make some degree of effort to address.

I have definitely gotten the eye surgeries with party members and not Tav before (since I didn't want to debuff my main character) I just initiated conversation with a party member I didn't care for instead.

Personally, I'm most curious how the game handles character-specific scenes when party members (such as the MC) are dead. Liek if you fight off the goblins at the gate to the grove, find the dead boar, kill all your party members except asterion, then recruit another one (lets say, Lae'zel) do you still get the bite scene? (with Lae'zel?) Would you still have a dialogue option about how she found the boar (even though she would havve no way of knowing?)

Anyways, I think it would be better to reserve game overs for stuff like the Asterion bite scene and the mindflayer eating your brain. Just have characters revive with 1hp and a debuff until you long rest.

Don't know how to handle stuff like bottomless pits and lava, since obv you can't just stand up from that and in fact your body might even be in an inaccessible place-even Larian I think struggles with that even with how casual it is with resurrection- there's even an npc just for recovering characters who die like that in EA right now!

You mean "some" other games? I gave you a list earlier, am I wasting just as much of my time typing this as I did that? Hell, I even acknowledged this "other games doing it better", maybe even in the same post. For better or worse, this trope is a very real thing, and it's going to be a thing whether it's Tav, or Shadowheart as the main character. Pick your poison, the "Player Character Syndrome" is a very real thing. Even in some games where there's an eventual reason, such as Dragon Age Inquisition, initially, there's no reason for the main character to be making decisions, and yet, you still do. After you meet Leliana, the decision on which route to take to the temple is on the main character. Why? Nothing is decided on the War Table in Haven w/out your approval. Why? Why aren't you reporting the results to the staff, instead of having the staff bow to you? By all rights, until you seal the breach, you should be a subordinate, but you're not.

As I said previously, this makes sense in Mass Effect, since, in so far as the human crew is concerned, you outrank them, and everyone else is on your ship. In Inquisition, you're in chains, and suspected of destroying the enclave, which resulted in the death of the Divine, but they're following your orders like you're an established military leader. Why are Varric, Cassandra and Solas all level 1? I mean, there's a movie about Cassandra's exploits prior to the events of Dragon Age 2, that explains how she became a Seeker. Presto, however, and she's level 1. If you played Dragon Age 2, you know Varric should be much higher than that, and Solas talks a lot about his experiences, so there's not much chance that he should be level 1 either. Yet there they are, all conveniently leveled to the main character. It's all down to the same reason the companions follow you here, "Player Character Syndrome".

So tell me, would you rather they all just rejected you outright, made their own party and left you on your own to sort it out? That would be an amazing game, wouldn't it? Hey, maybe they should decide the main character by forcing everyone to fight it out the first night in camp, last person standing wins. That would be great, wouldn't it? Is it something that's going to have to be repeated every time we meet a new recruitable character? Of course, it would also have the potential to nullify the player choice to have Tav, instead of an Origin character, if Tav doesn't win. Alternatively, Shadowheart follows you because you freed her from the Pod, or tried to, if you did, or saved her on the beach. Lae'zel has already proven to be insufficient to lead, or she wouldn't have needed rescued from the tieflings. How'd your initial conflict with Astarion go? If you schooled him, and then accepted him, would it be surprising that he'd follow you? How many are already following you when you meet the others? If you've already got 3, would it be surprising to think anyone else would follow too?

I haven't read all the of the posts in this thread, but I would say that the games you mentioned at least have SOME reasoning as to why the MC is calling the shots. In Inquisition, even though you're in chains technically, it's very obvious from the start that they don't really think you're the big bad, and mostly treat you as "okay, show me what happened" and you're not just a random nobody off the street.

Baldur's Gate I and II all have good reasons for why the characters start following you, Mass Effect, even more so. WotR, it starts as survival, but quickly turns into the player is the chosen one sort of thing, so that makes sense.

Baldur's Gate 3 though? There's nothing other than 'we're in this together'. But there's no reason why the companions would not just talk amongst themselves and decide to ditch the MC if they wanted to. It's just the obvious, "this is the player character, so they are the leader", which some people find lacking.

Of course, the problem is that the player character CAN'T be someone special, because the game is designed around the origin characters. They'll never be more than the origin characters, because the game has to be beatable in coop without Tav.

I don’t think BG3 handles companions much differently than BG1&2 does - companions join your party and in exchange tend to have requests of you. Laez asks you to locate crèche, Shadowheart I suppose just wants to protect the weapon and having bodyguards is convenient. Wyll joins you under he condition you help him kill Gobbo leaders (while having further more selfish agenda agenda), Gale hopes you will find on your adventures artefacts and feed them to him.

Honestly that is all fine and on the level of other RPGs. But of course, the issue is origins - because they don’t only see you as a help in achieving their own problem, you also all share tadpoles and have divergent, strong opinions on how to go about it. If companions were written more softly - suggesting a direction, but being hesitant to making decision themselves that would be fine. Alas, they scream and belittle player for not doing what he tells them but they never behave in a way that would be believable. They don’t leave, they don’t try to convince you or anyone.

I think if companions were more aware of each other, it would solve a problem - for example a scene where companions bicker about what to do, and then they turn to Tav to take a side. Of course, extremely open nature of BG3 would be a problem - one gains companions at unpredictable intervals with no early progress gate to schedule such scene with all or most companions present.

The clash comes from how hard companions try to seem independent and opinionated - is it ludonarative dissonance? Game tells us that we travel with equal or superior to us characters who are untrustful to us and will go their own way if they feel our company doesn’t benefit them anymore, and yet gameplay wise they are clearly our puppets to control.

There are a bunch of ways they could fix the break; turning the conversations slightly differently would be all it would take, or they could indeed use the tadpole to single out the player character (origin or otherwise) as having some sort of extra nudge that inclines them to need to be the decision-maker for the party. More conversations between other characters, with the opportunity for the player character to mediate might also be a good move, and be another way in which we are conveyed as the decision-maker. With the characters defined as they are, there needs to be something to counterbalance it to make their deferring to the player character make narrative sense, or at least to have a narrative excuse until a bigger, more direct reason reveals itself.

In NWN2, the reason you lead the group is because the element of the plot that ties to you is unique to you, and it's a little bit more pressing than the objectives and needs your companions have, and you don't have the option of ignoring it - it's not relevant or related to your personal character backstory, apart from the predefined elements of it. Before that comes up, however, in the intro stages of the game, you're still the player character party leader, without everyone being aware of this bigger plot point. The game still justifies you leading, until the major reveal, with some dialogue that sets up the idea that, for whatever reason (that you're free to define), your character has sort of always been the instigator or leader in your small band of friends. It's a small extra couple of lines that ties that up in a believable way, and it's not hard for games to do, if they care. It's smoothed further by having early companions that have personalities that are supportive and friendly, and who want to help you with what you need to do - the more headstrong and difficult characters show up later, when the importance of what you're doing is enough to outweigh their independent characters without drowning them.

==

Because the short questions get the point across. It's really hard to justify not being a subordinate in Haven, until after you seal the breach, and give them a reason to follow you. It's hilarious given that the reason they'd follow you now is given in the cutscene after they find you, and before you head out to find Skyhold. It's even more hilarious when you take Cassandra's dialog when they're making you the Inquisitor into consideration: We need someone to lead us, someone that has already been leading us. Roughly paraphrasing there.

I'm not looking for a party full of Skyrim/Fallout level companions, that only exist to provide support and to marry. I much prefer them to have something going for them. I have run suboptimal parties more times than I care to count in party based games because I liked the companions I was using over the other choices. The first half of that last paragraph was indeed being facetious. However, the last half lays out valid reasons as to why they might want to follow you. You see, there's a reason that I haven't been here every single day since the launch of EA. I don't want other player's agendas messing up my experience with the game.

Now, what is it that I'm arguing against? The idea that Tav is replaceable, once rolled, as the main character. The idea that there's no reason this cast would follow Tav. I understand why you think this is fractious, but that doesn't mean that you're right. As I see it, the reason you believe this is that if the developers read a post that runs contrary to your agenda, they'll ignore your agenda. It's not like I have no reason to believe this either. I distinctly remember you derailing a thread about positive things that Larian has been doing because you had to be a "squeaky wheel".


Which you posted in response to this:


Who's "fractious"?

I don't think anyone here needs any additional help determining the answer to that question, Robert. Thank you.

You are absolutely correct, the person trying to convince someone not to let negative posters run him out of his own thread is the most divisive person on the forums. Surely everyone can see that, right? Right?

The more I reflect on "but they can be the main character, so bad", the more mystified I am. I played DOS 2, as a custom character on my first playthrough. I didn't realize until I came here that there was anything "amiss" about that. Of course, I have played lots of CRPGs with party based systems, and the vast majority of them have interesting companions, so when the DOS 2 companions were interesting, I just thought it was par for the course for this kind of game. I had no idea that it somehow adversely affected my experience, because it really didn't. The main game was my character's story, and the companion stories were side quests.

When I play Skyrim these days, it's heavily modded. The vast majority of the mods I use are custom companions, because the mod authors gave them interesting stories, some more so than others, to be sure, and interesting dialog. Some can play music for me, or sing to me, while others can read me books. That is very interesting and provides a better reason to use them than cannon fodder, or as stewards for Hearthfire content. So, when I see that we're going to have interesting companions here as well, I'm not disappointed, but happy. It means, at the very least, that I will have another reason to replay the game, for the different companion interactions, on top of choices in the main plot.

So, I don't buy into the penis envy that is "but they can be the main character". I also don't get the "but Larian needs to give me a reason to play as Tav". There's a whole host of reasons, including different race/class combos, let alone anything that comes up on launch with multiclassing. I neither require, nor desire for Larian to lock me into a specific character or build, which may well mean that I have lots of hours into this game, with multiple completions, before I ever get around to actually playing as one of the Origin characters, assuming I ever do.

I suppose we just appreciate and expect different things from an RPG Robert, as you keep bringing RPG titles that I would consider narratively inadequate: Inquisition, Skyrim, D:OS2 are not titles I would never use as an example of good narratives in RPGs, and I expect better from an RPG, especially a self proclaimed sequel to BG1&2.

In a roleplaying game, I am asked to roleplay a character - so build a character in my mind and try to act as him or her in game. If relations between my PC and companions don't make sense, Interaxtions between my PC and companions collpase. Game sends me mixed signals narratively and mechanically, and that prevents roleplaying. How can I roleplay? The game is being a bad *acting" partner, pitching you a scenario but than not following through on that.

Except that the scenario I painted out doesn't just include Skyrim, or Inquisition. I mentioned DOS 2 because it has the same situation with the companions, you can play them as the main character if you choose to. I never saw it as a problem then, and I don't now. However, the "the story is the main character's story" happens in every RPG, except for, off the top of my head, both IWD games, because there we made the whole party. So, because there's no good character interaction in those, they aren't good narrative games? Then there's the whole "what happens with the companions in Act 2"? What about Act 3? In the epilogue? How much are you expecting to get in Act 1? Or is it the "but Tav doesn't have a personal story" thing? The entire game is Tav's personal story, if one rolls Tav up after launch. If that's bad story telling, then it's pointless to compare this to any other game, because they're all bad. The main campaign is always the main character's "personal story". It's more than a bit odd that this wasn't a problem in any other games. But here, where the initial battle cry was "but DOS 3", it's suddenly a major problem?

It's one thing to not like the companions. That's a very subjective thing, and people are going to be all over the place. I despise Alistair in Dragon Age Origins, for example, while he's fairly popular around that community. It's another thing to dislike them but say "but they can be the main character, and Larian shouldn't have done that, and shouldn't have spent the development time creating their stories". This is an argument that I've seen on these forums, after all. To the point where "game developers that make interesting companions always give them something" is a rote argument. It's interesting that I point to Skyrim specifically because I don't want these companions to wind up like the Vanilla companions in Skyrim, that exist to be cannon fodder, or stewards, and to marry one for a shop in one of your houses. They have no intrinsic value beyond that, and that's what "Larian shouldn't be spending any dev time on them" will deliver. No thanks.

If you had played one of the origin characters first in DOS 2 you might feel differently. Playing again with your 'generic' character, you'd see all the places where your character was left out, or contributed in a less meaningful way to the story. As I suspect people might feel if they play Tav the second time.

You've got to see the difference between a game like Arcanum or Dragon Age, and Icewind Dale or Solasta; one has a story about your character, and thematically linked to your companions, and the other just occurs to a party of characters who contribute nothing to the story apart from determining if it happens or not. The story of BG3 looks like its going to be about the origin characters, but it only 'happens' to Tav.

I think that’s well put. The question is what we want to do about it. Games that make the story more about our custom character tend to do that at the expense of our freedom to make that character whoever we want. That’s true of the original BG games, where we had a pretty fixed origin story and were limited in the sort of age our characters could sensibly be considered to be, even if we had flexibility about race or class. Even something like DA:O, much as I loved it, gave us a reasonably limited set of origin options to pick from. I like that BG3 gives us far more flexibility and wouldn’t want that reduced.

On the other hand, I don’t want our companions to be more boring or less connected to the story, as their backstories are potentially a great source of interest and engagement. The ability to actually then play the story as one of those companions is not a must-have for me, but I do think it’s a nice idea and wouldn’t want this to be ruled out not because it would be a bad experience in itself but because it could make another experience seem worse in comparison.

So, for me, given that I don’t want to compromise either my freedom to play whatever Tav I want, or the connection of my companions to the plot, and kind of like the idea of being able to step into those companions’ shoes if I want to in later playthroughs, what is left?

Perhaps I just have to accept the existing trade off between flexibility versus plot connection, but I hope not. There seems to be plenty of opportunity to make what “happens to Tav”, or rather what Tav does, in the story satisfying enough to even the scales, particularly if Larian continue to refine the opportunities to roleplay our classes, races and backgrounds. As I’ve already said in this thread, I don’t think Larian have quite hit the mark with EA but it feels like there are some improvements they could make that would get them there without totally overhauling their approach.

I could see it being kind of neat if player character death meant rerolling a new character inserted in to the narrative at the same point like playing at a table, but otherwise the ergodic nature of player agency within a videogame negates that possibility. When playing at a table, agency is shared with the whole party; when playing at a computer, agency is entirely in the player's hands, so it is far more practical to have a save system than a reroll system.

I never liked Larian's approach to "origin" characters for the very reason mentioned above: it's not Tav's story, it's not MY story as a player. I really have no agency over the narrative.

Warhammer 40k Darktide does something similar where the story is actually about the NPCs who send you off on missions, and you're just a reject prisoner doing grunt work for them. Doesn't work there very well either.

I know it's been said to death ... but BG2's companions are a platinum standard that have yet to be matched in any game since. We've all been seeking that level of interaction since and it's not there.

Let me try again.

The problem is that in BG3 it is not your main character's story, and yet the game plays as if it were. If you change written character dynamics in your games, but not adjust gameplay dynamics than issues appear that haven't been there before.

In BG1&2 the game's story is YOUR story, you are the protagonist and all companions act as SIDE characters to your story. BG3 is different and acts as an ensamble cast - but relations between player and companions aren't the designed for the purpose of the singleplayer. That something works in one title, doesn't automatically work for a different titles if core mechanics of the narrative have been changed.

D:OS2 shares a lot of issues with BG3, as in broad strokes it is more or less the same game. I definitely DID have issues with D:OS2, specifically with origin system, but this particular issue is less prominent as companions are lesser. They have very little narrative presenceand for the most part act as mercenaries with occasional story bits. I was never under an impression that any of my companions in D:OS2 had strong opinions about anything - they were there, had things they wanted to do, but for example none of them strongly campaigned for a particular way to leave the opening prison island.

As I said earlier, if companions in BG3 were written just a bit less forcefully, or narative found some excuse for them to turn to Tav and say: "We can't agree or anything. Those are the options, you decide and for the greater good we will fall in line, even if we will hate your guts if you won't choose our option". BG3 could address it narrative dissonance in many different subtle ways, they just can't be asked to (at least based on what we have access to).

No one asked here to gut companions or rewrite them. Just to make Tav vs companions dynamic a less jarring. Sure, gameplay will demand cetrain contrivances. It is your writers job to make those contrivances feel natural and ideally an extension of the story and themes.

Except the only game on that list I haven't played is Arcanum? The origin stories in DOS 2 were side missions to the main game, which was my character's story. The only thing I'd be missing are the companions that don't follow you onto the ship, and I'd be missing them either way. Since it's possible to get the "real" ending to the game, no matter what character you play, whether or not the comps can be the main character doesn't matter. The only thing that changes are the side quests you have available, since they're dependent on who you bring with you. While the Red Prince's story is very important to him, if you don't bring him on the ship, the game plays out the same way, minus his side content. The same applies to all of them. That was my biggest complaint about DOS 2, and something that I absolutely hope doesn't get repeated here.


BG 3 absolutely is your main character's story. It doesn't matter if it's Tav, or Shadowheart, whomever is the main character owns the main campaign as their story. Again, how much of the story and consequence do you expect to get in Act 1? As to why they'd follow you, I've already listed off some reasons why they might. I picked up on them straight away, playing the game. How do people that continue to go on about how "bad" the narrative is miss them? Maybe they do so because they missed them?

1. Before you could rescue Shadowheart from her pod, did you at least try to? That might be a reason she'd follow you, wouldn't it? Now that it's possible, if you rescue her, that would be a reason why she might.

2. Did you rescue Lae'zel from the Tieflings? That might be a reason she'd follow you, don't you think?

3. Did you win the wrestling match with Astarion? Even if you lost, what stops him from killing you? The tadpole.

4. Speaking of the tadpole, I've been told that it's narratively insignificant, or isn't sufficient reason for them to follow you. Given the examples cited here, and considering the life and death nature of what's going on, according to everything the characters know at the time, how is self preservation not a sufficient reason to agree to follow whomever the main character is.

I really hope this post comes across in the constructive way in which I intend it, and if it just seems condescending instead my sincere apologies in advance . But it does feel like we’re at an impasse and going round in circles here, and possibly importing preconceptions and frustrations from earlier debates on similar topics rather than addressing what we’re each saying today.

I’ve not seen anyone say that the game, and specifically the common challenge of the tadpole, doesn’t give the party members a reason to band together. As far as I can tell, the debate is about party dynamics once they do, and specifically whether the game does a good enough job of explaining why the player character is in fact the “main character”, particularly when they’re a custom character. I suspect that almost everyone would also agree that there are some initial events that could, in some playthroughs, move us in the right direction, including things like saving Shadowheart or if Tav happens to be the sort of character who would be able to make peace between the very different personalities among the rest of the companions.

But some folk (myself among them) don’t think those initial moves do enough to make plausible the party dynamics we see in act one, which have everyone pretty quickly apparently following the PC. We also maybe have a stronger preference that the game gives us a good story about if and how our player character comes to lead, whereas others are happy to make a bigger imaginative leap and accept it. Those of us who do see problems disagree about how serious they are (I certainly see them as less serious than others do), as well as on the diagnosis of the underlying cause and certainly on how best to fix them.

I think, though, we should probably just accept the fact that at least some folk don’t find the party dynamic in early access compelling while others are okay with it, and take it from there. It’s feeling pretty futile for those who don’t think there’s a problem to try to persuade those who do that there’s actually no issue, just as much as it’s hopeless for those of us who see some issues to persuade those who don’t that they’re wrong, but it kind of feels as though that’s what we’re stuck doing.

And apologies to the OP, as all of this is strictly speaking off topic, but as it’s interesting and they’ve not objected I hope that’s okay!

Thanks @The_Red_Queen I feel like I can’t get with Robert on the same wavelength to communicate as to what the problem is, not to mention to discuss if it is a problem. I will be signing off.

In Lae'zel's mind, SHE's the main character. Her personality is brash/arrogant/self-concerned, so even saving her from a cage imo isn't sufficient reason for her to defer to Tav as the leader. Why doesn't she try to force Tav to follow her, especially if/when Tav avoids the Creche? "You there, [lowly human], you saved me removed a slight inconvenience. Now you get the privilege of following me."

Similarly, Gale clearly knows much more than non-spellcaster characters (he says as much when you meet him) and is also arrogant. Sure, there's strength in numbers, but initially there is no reason to follow Tav over one of the other party members or take the lead himself, especially if Gale thinks he knows more about what is going on.

For the other 3 party members...Astarion is sheltered and probably beaten down into a tendency to submit, SH is a tsundere who's missing memories, and Wyll is incompetent (mechanically->I think he's knowingly "faking it until he makes it"), so it's just barely acceptable that they all defer to Tav.

Basically, it feels like you have to headcannon things in BG3 to explain why every single companion is blindly following you. Whereas in other games, the MC is usually given some sort of special power/calling/authority/tie to the story, which helps explain why you have followers.

Alternatively, if there were more consequences for not doing what companions wanted (e.g., quickly going to the Creche), then I'd be more okay that companions initially follow Tav. I really like that Wyll will leave if you side with the goblins.

Plainly, Tav isn't the protagonist. Tav is shell to give people customizability while the writing is in the origin stories. Because of this, Tav is always ancillary to the events of the group other than direct interpersonal dialogue which is all discovery about the companions anyway, and eventual relationships. And the fact that his is how all Larian games work, I don't see this one being any different.

+1. This is the truth. The story here is more like Icewind for Tav, but like Dragon Age for companions. Which means your Tav is ultimately nothing more than a tag-along who does dialogue sometimes.

*Clutches head in despair*

It’s of course totally valid to feel this way, but can’t we accept that these are personal opinions and it’s okay for other players to feel differently? Talking in absolutes this way we’re never going to be able to have a constructive discussion. If all we want to do is restate our immovable opinions in opposition to others, then it feels as though we’ve already done that to death. Apologies for getting frustrated. I’d probably better bow out of this thread, too.

*Dejectedly trails offstage following @Wormerine*

If you disagree that's fine. I'm not going to yell at you or anything. I'm just agreeing with the position about the vibe I get from the story. My view is that you could continue the story without Tav, but Larian won't let you, not because Tav is integral to the narrative, but because Larian sets the mechanics around the player. Everything progresses with Tav as proxy, and yet if this were a novel, you could erase every reference to Tav and the story wouldn't be any different.

We've had conversations about this on the forum at great length before, I posted a link on page one to one of them.

You can be the main character, and the protagonist and still not be the leader of the group. I know we've been conditioned to conflate the two, which I suspect is why robert keeps talking about why our Tav is the main character and leader as though they are synonymous, but they don't have to be.

Okay, you just caught me before I logged off .

I can sympathise with this view, and I know you’re far from alone. I was just getting grumpy after my earlier post about the fact we seemed to be stuck at an impasse about people continuing to talk about facts and truths as opposed to views. I mean, obviously we all know that actually we’re right, but it usually makes for a more constructive discussion if we at least pretend others’ perspectives have some merit .

I’ve already said my two penn’orth about the story and party dynamic in this thread so I won’t repeat my position but, having poured oil on troubled fire, I really will ban myself from it now.

No one is stopping you from disagreeing with me. Nowhere does anyone say that my perspective is right, in fact it's usually the opposite.

I'm so sorry for dragging you back in as you're trying to leave, but you have a point. I think we just say statements, and the "It is my view that," is usually implied (but of course everyone has to be right... I AM ALWAYS RIGHT!!! :P )... It leads to absolutist language, which is not helpful. I respect that you may feel differently. It's entirely possible for two people to look at the same thing and come away with fundamentally different impressions. I guess that's why we have a forum, so that we can engage dialectical process by which we come to some semblance of agreement. Not on everything, but on some things.

So, as I sit here typing this, all of the characters, in every game I currently have active save files in are doing the same thing: Absolutely nothing. If I were to log in right now, and wait for Lae'zel to lead us to the creche I could go make a sandwich, feed the cat, take a shower, maybe go for a ride on my motorcycle out to my brother's house, about a 30 minute ride one way, and when I got back, we'd be in exactly the same spot we were in when I left. Surely, if this were truly one of the companion's stories, they would take the steps required to advance it. But they can't. They rely on us, the players, to make those decisions. Whether we follow the plans of one or another of the comps or not, whether we're the leader of the group or not, everything is based on what we, as players, do.

It's not a movie, or an audible book, where if we leave it on, it will play out until the end, and it would be really boring if it were. This is what "Player character syndrome" is, the result of the game requiring input from the player, through the main character. Whether Tav is the leader or not, it's Tav, through us, that decides what happens. So, we get our consequences, and the comps decide you're not taking it seriously enough, and leave the party. What then? There's certainly precedent, Khalid and Jaheira will do it if we don't go to Nashkell soon enough. Minsc can attack you for not rescuing Dynaheir soon enough. Sten will attack you in Origins if you're too busy with side quests to tackle the main objective, in order to wrest control of the party from you. So, what do we do for the rest of the game if all of the companions bail? Because, quite frankly, what else is it that they're going to do? Attack the main character? If they've already left the group, you're now a party of one, and if they kill you, it's Game Over.

Why does Larian need to justify your character's existence, or explain why you're the one making the decisions for the group? Wouldn't this have the affect of just creating another Origin character, with the only difference being you get to decide what they look like, and what class? Isn't that part of the problem in the first place?

Regarding leadership, I think combat command is being given a big discount here, particularly how both Lae'zel and Shadowheart both show appreciation after initial battles and Wyll can't contain his awe.

MC _is_ the battle commander, no matter where they lead from. For me personally, I would definitely defer to a proven combat winner; A) you live, B) you get better, and C) look at all the better gear and resources you're accumulating.

(And this harkens back to my early TT D&D where one player would have a character noticeably higher level and you'd base party tactics around that.)

I'm not arguing that Tav has more story than origin characters, but I am saying that whoever MC is seems to be considered combat leader in-game.

Sideplot Burden

We seem to be treating the lack of an involved side plot as a disadvantage, but actually Tav doesn't suffer sideplot burden. That's Tav's notable strength.

Astarion looks at the party and sees everyone wanting to get rid of the tadpole. Gale knows none of the others want to give him powerful magic items. No one has much inclination to see Shadowheart safely to Baldur's Gate. I could go on.

Because Tav doesn't have an involved side plot competing with the main story, they're the common denominator. The closest natural ally to all. Maybe everyone doesn't agree with Tav, but they definitely don't agree with each other.

****

It'll be interesting to see origin characters as MC. Will they have a harder time keeping the party together? Will they be able to complete as many companion subplots as Tav?

I'm hoping not. I'm hoping that Tav, and only Tav, is the MC that can complete breadth of side plots.

BG3 doesn’t have neither real time clock, nor in game time - so yes, if you are not playing the game than the game is not be played. A better example would be a book that you need to turn the pages off and read it to “progress”.

I don’t know what any of what you have written has to do with writing issues, which is what was being discussed. That a book requires turning of the pages, doesn’t mean that the characters in there don’t have to behave in believable manners. That a game relies on player imput doesn’t mean that it’s characters are absolved from criticism… which seems to me what you are trying to argue.

I’ve said this one about a year ago.

Tav needs to be an “origin” character. Cause as you all have said, he currently is just a placeholder to placate us as players. I remember in the OG BG series when WOTC basically said the whole thing wasn’t cannon. The community of gamers went nutso. This is pretty much the same. Your Tav will not be a cannon character. The only ones to be cannon will be the origin characters.
By making Tav an open build Origin character with his own customer dialogue (though admittedly vague and generic) and event situations would he even have a chance of being in the upcoming lore.

Some of y’all have already pretty much said this. What I mean is that like the other origin characters etc, you can play, Tav needs to be an independent option in the game if you don’t chose him at start (choose to let’s say play Wyll’s story. Granted Tav’s story will not be a s fleshed out because he will be basically the default generic character.

The “who are you scene”, could pop up and you would choose to play Wyll, then chose your dreamer, and then either randomly generate a Tav or make one of your own. This way you can set him up as any type you want. Don’t like Asterion? Tav will have been premade as a Rogue. No origin bard? Will Tav is one now. In these cases Tav would not be the main character as you are playing Wyll. But he will fill a vital role as the mystery origin character in the cannon game. Maybe the one that ascended to what ever the ultimate fate that awaits the dragon bor… Bhaal Spaw… uh true souls yeah that one…

Just my two cents.

i would be really surprised if they would made tav-specific backstory. most likely they will follow route of dos games. In case you're up for the story play premade origin character.

let me go on a tangent first.



If you start thinking of a character who the player can play as, and a character who can join your party and be your window into the larger world - those will likely be different characters with different characteristics, interacting differently with player and the world around them, as they fulfill different narrative needs.

That is why I say that BG3 focus on coop (not that coop exists - BG1&2 did have coop, but they weren't designed around it) is detrimental for singleplayer experience.

D&D is a group game - couple players come together to play together a game. Their standing is equal. Bioware didn't do that in BG1&2 - it was a singleplayer experience first and foremost. It simulated social aspect of a table-top, but still make it a single-player experience - your create your character, it is your character's story, and companions join you in your adventure.

BG3 is concieved as coop game, like the table-top - it's expects coop players to be equal (rather than accompanying the host), and because they can play as companions, companions are also written and conceived as protagonist. It is an ensamble cast, rather than a lead with supporting cast, like traditional post-BG RPGs.

This. Is. Not. Bad. This. Is. Interesting.

Where the game falls flat is that now without presence of other life players the game doesn't magically switch to being a singleplayer game, with singular protagonist and a cast of supporting characters - it wasn't written like that. The game ends up in a much harder position of having to fill the void left by absence of living coop players.



Before BG3 ea release I forced myself to finish D:OS2 and have written this feedback. Specifically about companions I have written:


BG3 doesn't have this specific problem as companions this time around are very robust. The problem they have now is that rather than writing "companions", Larian has written "coop player standins" and that is much harder role to fill - and one they can't quite manage to do believably. That is a problem that none other RPG I have played has, because I never played one designer and written like that. That problem still existed in D:OS2 - the companions were presented as your equals and competitors but the only moment of independence was one basic reputation check in 3rd (?) act. This flaw of their design is just much more present in BG3 due to their much bigger presence and charisma, while lack of content has been an issue in D:OS2.

I think DIsco Elysium is the only game I can think of that did independend feeling companions well - Kim kitsuragi will follow you and leads you lead (which is narratively explained) but will refuse to participate in certain activites, will take lead in others, can completely walk out on you depending on your actions. Not that I am suggesting that BG3 should do companions just that - I don't think it is possible due to difference in game's designs - but if you take on yourself to create a believable digital coop partner it is up to you to do so. If you can't, than attempting it in the first place was a mistake.





As such, I can see how making Tav an origin would make sense - origins are actually protagonists, and not having Tav a protagonist makes him narratively lesser than origins. However, in this case Tav could have been erased alltogehter and game could force us to play as one of the existing origins - I think it would be a more honest representation of what the game has to offer, but would even further demolish an illusion that BG3 offers a good singleplayer experience.

I honestly gave up at this point hoping for good protagonist - the issue I described in my D:OS2 post (PC being neither custostomisable nor pre-defined character) still exists, and I suspect will continue existing for as long as Larian sticks to their origin formula.

What I believe that can be improved upon is how companions feel in singleplayer experience - while origins can be played as or played with, I am not convinced there can't be a better shift in content or player<=>origin dynamic depending if origin is controlled by AI or by player. One could dream about deep systemic changes, but really small tweaks to writing would go a long way in making player<=>origins interactions feel less artificial. It's not about creating actual digital coop player, but creating an illusion that we are interacting with characters with their own volition. That is where BG3 so far fails, while many other (not all!) RPGs succeed.

So I'm a bit confused here. You say that BG 3 doesn't have the "coop buddy stand-in" problem, but instead has the "coop player stand-in" problem? What's the difference? You also claim that the companions in DOS2 never evolve beyond your "coop buddy stand-in", and yet, Lohse can evolve enough that she will sing you a song. One of them can evolve enough to be in a "romance" with the player. How is this not NPC evolution?

Another claim is that the PC isn't customizable? What is meant by that, exactly? Because I know I've spent up to about an hour in character creation, customizing Tav. I'm sure there are others that have spent far more than that. It's been years since I've been in the DOS2 character creator, but I do recall that I could customize the playstyle I was looking for, regardless of whether you were going for a custom or an Origin character. Customs by my own experience, NPCs from videos on YouTube for "how to build x". Here, however, I can spend a lot of time on appearance, class, backgrounds etc., which seems pretty customizable to me. So, what is it that I'm missing here?

Are the Origin characters protagonists, or "coop player stand-ins"? Because you claim they are both here. If they're the latter, why do they have cutscenes at the moment of recruitment, instead of the Skyrim Housecarl "Follow me, I need your help"? If, as you suggest, they exist purely as stand-ins for other players, then they'd go the second route, it would be a lot cheaper to produce than going for any kind of substance whatsoever. I wonder how much they'd save just on producing the cutscenes?

Finally, what changes would you make?

Designing a PC game, especially a roleplaying game, as coop first and not single player, is largely the issue here. Like it or not, there will be more people playing this game solo than in groups. And like it or not, nothing is going to change this late in development.

The strictures of logic don't stop in fiction, if all that is required for you to believe your personal character is the main character of the story is that you are the playing him, then you really don't care about the internal logic of the narrative. But to be clear, I don't know how many more ways we can put it, I think maybe you're on it now, our gripes aren't with the existence of the party, or even Tav being leader, it's the inconsistency between the characters, and their behavior to generic Tav.


I like the idea of switching characters if you die, or chose to write yourself out of the party. I've seen this dynamic in some Rogue-likes and adventure games, where your progress isn't reset, but the character changes if you 'fail'.

Ha! When you put it like that the terminology I used is indeed not very clear. To my defence I have written D:OS2 critique years ago.

As I have written in my post companions in D:OS2 didn't feel like they had much presence or identity. In the last decade companions came a long way - especially Obsidian often uses companions to amplify game's setting or themes. If the game has factions, that there will be faction representatives in your party, giving player an opportunity to interact and be judged by a variety of political believs/species/cultures etc. In general, I also found their story content to be very, very small compared to what I grew to expect, especially from such small roster of characters. Their unique content doesn't really go beyond one short interaction per-chapter. Which considering the length of the game isn't terribly impressive. Compary it to PoE1 or especially PoE2, where characters have lengthy storylines and unique interactions with NPCs.

Yes, companions in D:OS2 do technically have quests or even romances and what is there I liked. But it is very basic, and disjointed and just not much of it considering it's 100hour plus adventure. Yes Lhose sang a song after killing one of the bosses. Oh Whoopie Doo. (sarcasm aside, her quest leading up to it was genuilly good with what must have been the only interesting choice to make in the entire game. Add much more of that and we would have a good companion)

It also doesn't help that D:OS2 really felt like it was built for coop play, and I often felt it necessary to engage in conversation with different party memebers. I ended up talking more with Red Prince than character I was playing as, simple because he seemed better suited for conversing than my PC. The very ability to play as companions felt wrong as well - am I playing as my character or am I not? Is it a team based RPG, like Icewind Dale, Wasteland 2&3 or Solasta or is it singleplayer RPG with companions? The answer is: it is a coop game and if you play wihtout friend you are doing it wrong cause the game wasn't desinged for that.

In summary what I tried to express by "coop buddy stand-in" is that the game doesn't feel right when playing singleplayer - like a coop partner is missing. You know how you can often take a multiplayer game, and still play it by yourself - like Overwatch, or SWAT4. It plays single player, but it feel wrong and an important chunk of the game is missing without fellow players. You can do a lot of stuff in D:OS2, but no one will react to it, because that that left up to coop player. For the vast majority of the playtime companions are just there standing around, and having no worldview, thought or opinion of their own. That's is how I felt about D:OS2 - companions weren't convincing as NPCs, had very limited content and didn't interact with player much, and it felt like other people should be controlling them.


The difference with Baldur's Gate3 is that characters DO have a lot of content, and DO have strong opinions and DO want to do things that you might not want to do - like your coop partner would. So unlike D:OS2 were you are left with inanimate husks of companions, characters in BG3 are chock full of unique content. In that way, Larian has addressed the very complain that I had (if I remember correctly from D:OS2 post mortem companions were shoved in at the last minute, so the final result is not surprising). Their written role, however, is not of companions (supporting cast to give feedback to YOUR actions, and act as YOUR window to a larger world, like in Obsiidan RPGs) but of coop players - Laez, for example, has same story as you, but also opinion on how should you proceed. As such companions in BG3 feel like attempt to replace coop partners, rather than provide companions for a singleplayer experience, and they fall short in that regard. Still an improvement on D:OS2, no doubt about that.



RPGs come in two flavours - customisable character (BG1&2, Fallout1&2, Arcanum, Bloodlines etc.) and pre-defined character (Mass Effect, Witcher games). D:OS2 and BG3 actially allows for both, it just doesn't do neither well (I can't speak how BG3 plays as origin for obvious reasons).

My complain for playing a custom doesn't come from character creation but from game content itself. For example there have been many complaints about cutscenes that make your Tav do things that the character you are rolepaying wouldn't do. That is a very surface level example, problems run much deeper (including lack of ability to express your character's intentions, class options projecting archetype rather just the skillset that comes from the class or lack of ability to express what your character thinks etc) but I think it easily illustrates the conflict BG3 runs into.



Yes. If there are 4 coop players they are all protagonist - or they form an ensamble cast (I don't know if there can be more than one protagonist per story). In absence of coop players companions fill that void, rather than being companions to YOUR story like in other RPGs.


Realistically for BG3? What I mentioned - write in a reason for companions to defer to your judgement. Write them more softly with uncertaintly as to what to do next, or have a scene when they argue and allow Tav to pick a direction for a team as a neutral observer. You know standard stuff RPGs have been doing for over a decade now.


More theoretically for future titles: if Larian wants to keep using Origin system - make "companions" feel more like independent beings. Have them be characters player can ally with, than pokemons player collects and equips for battle. Classic companion system doesn't work if they are not written as side characters of your story.

Or: ditch origin system, and create companions handcrafted to be just that and a playable character handcrafted to be just that (be it custom or pre-defined). That of course, would bring Larian titles more in line with the competition and it might not be the most interesting direction to take.


On a side note, I can't help but to notice that you keep bringing up games I just don't have high opinion of: Skyrim, D:OS2, Dragon Age: Inquisition. It could be that our basedline of what RPG should be just differs a lot.

Who is the story about then? Which of the Origin characters do you believe has sufficient ties to the story to be the "main character" no matter who you decide to play as? All of them can die. You can wind up in possession of Shadowheart's box. So, none of them seem to be "main character" material. Which RPGs are you playing, or have you played, where the main character was something/someone other than the character you rolled up, or the party, in the case of IWD/Solasta? If we're going to run with logic, which NPC is it that can take all the agency away from the player? What is it that defines "main character" if it's not the character you're playing as? Even in games like the WH example, you're still playing the main character, because if you wait around for the bosses to do the game, you'll be waiting a long time, and since a "main character" is the driving force behind gameplay, I'm left a bit puzzled by who you think that is. Or, I was.

I was until I got to this: "but BG2's companions are a platinum standard that have yet to be matched in any game since", which makes it really clear to me now. This "platinum standard" has not only been met but surpassed. Hell, it's been surpassed in an MMO, let alone in SP RPGs. swtor's companions, in the vanilla game release, are as good or better than BG 2's comps. You can do more with them, and they're at least as reactive to what you do. Sith Warrior can turn a comp to either the light or the dark side, and the contrast between the two variants is mind blowing. Dragon Age Origins has the best companion I've encountered in gaming. His writing is so good that I absolutely despise him as a person. Yet, I find that I love him as a character, because he managed to generate that much animosity from me. KotoR and KotoR 2 had really good companions too. Mass Effect has great companions, over three games. So, when you say "but BG2's companions are a platinum standard that have yet to be matched in any game since", I'm not sure what you mean. Unless it's actually "nobody has written characters that I like more than those", in which case, I get it, it's not like this is an objective thing, people are going to like what they like, and more power to you.

would you change anything about Baldur's Gate 3?

I think the thing you're missing is that you're equating the mechanical main character with the narrative main character. Mechanically our custom character is the main character in that they're the character we the players embody, and they're the vessel through which we effect the story. But narratively, they're not the main character. The story isn't about them anymore or any less than it's about Gale or shadowheart or Wyll. If we assume that the origin system is gonna work basically the same as in D:OS2, then any of the origins can step into the mechanical main character spot. If we pick them at the start of the game, they'll be mechanically our main character. It's going to be their choices that propel the story forward. They'll be able to do everything Tav does, and Tav's absence won't makea substantive difference, since Tav doesn't have any deeper connections to the plot. Our Tav doesn't have any special skills that make them a unique asset to the group, they just happen to be the character chosen by the player. Any other companion could step into Tav's place if they're chosen at the start of the game.

If you think about it narratively, the actual story makes a bit more sense. Not the plot ncessarily, but the story. Wyll is a character that has to struggle with his morality as he not only seeks to free himself from the mindflayers, but from his contract with the devil tht the mindflayers also captured. Shadowheart stole an artefact that has a direct, significant tie to the parasite and keeping people safe from it. Lae'zel is a githyanki, raised from birth to fight this enemy. Now she's found herself alone on an unfamiliar world, forced to work with those she deemed lesser in order to survive and perhaps prove herself worthy in the process. Astarion has to struggle with whether he wants to risk finding a way to subdue the tadpole in order to maintain his newfound freedom from the master who tortured and enslaved him. Gale is the only one whose side plot really is (so far) entirely divorced from the tadpole plot. But you have all those, with plots and pathos built in, that the game will actually react to. And then we have Tav. An entirely empty shell that can be removed from the story without anything being lost.

This. Tav is just Random Nautilus Kidnap Victim #9872398. Insert Tadpole to Play.

That ain't me, boss.

Maybe if you read what I said more carefully, I wouldn't have to constantly restate my argument to you. There are some interesting ideas going around here stymied by our attempts to cajole you into making a cogent point.

If I had to choose one character to be the "main character" of this story it would be Shadowheart. Like so many RPG MCs she has amnesia, like so many MCs she finds herself with an ancient artifact of great importance to the story, and like so many MCs she has been given a definite objective that promises adventure and intrigue. But don't get me wrong (again), with the exception of Gale, every origin character has a pretty clear connection to the overarching plot, Shadowheart's connection is just the most clear in the EA. Gale's connection will probably become more clear as we play, what I wouldn't wager on is Tav doing the same.

Of course this has nothing to do with what I was talking about, I'm tempted to just quote my post again, just to see what would happen.

You guys really need to watch who you're quoting.

"BG2's companions are a platinum standard" is something I wrote, not Sozz.

For me Tav feels like the main character. I would also be happy to have some quests specific to Tav if they wanted to add them, though!
For me there is a big difference between Mass Effect and Witcher because in Witcher there is no customization for the character and in Mass Effect you can pick gender and appearance.

Yep, sorry about that, it came out of the spoiler tag, and I didn't notice.

However, you avoided my question entirely. Who is the main character, if it's not the character that one rolls up when they start the game? Which games have you played where you're not the main character, outside of IWD/Solasta, since those are Main Party games instead of a single protagonist. It's only logical that you would have an answer to those questions, yes?


I can't be missing it, because they're the same character. Unless there's a character in the game that will play it for us, and make any and all decisions, then we're it. Which character will make the decision on whether we side with the Druids, or the Tieflings in the Grove? Which character will make the decision on whether or not we side with Mintharra? Even if all we're doing is "following orders", such as Commander Shepard in Mass Effect, it would be hard to argue that Admiral Hackett is the main character, wouldn't it? Tav is an "empty shell", also known as a blank slate, because it's supposed to be up to the player to fill in the blanks. Once upon a time, in the world of RPGs, this was the ideal, and now it's more like "we need the developer to define our character for us".

Someone else asked if I'd change anything, and yes, I would. Astarion's vampirism would be out the window, as written. It makes it really hard to take him on some quests, since they involve splashing around in running water, and he tends to take damage from that. It will also make it really hard to run him as a main character, since there are areas of the map that he won't be able to actively participate in because of running water. That's just in Act 1, I have no idea what's coming after, or even what's missing from this chapter. Narratively, I have no idea, because I don't know what the rest of the story is, or how it is going to play out. I'm not having any issues identifying who the main character is, so I don't have any issues with the party having something other than just filling a role in my party.


Very much this last part for sure. It's no wonder people think I'm daft or something if they can't tell the difference between Geralt and Commander Shepard.

Take a gander at the third paragraph. Then take a look at the next paragraph, the one where I say that, who the main character is, isn't, and hasn't been, the issue or topic of my posts.

Now you tell me who you think the main character is and why, then I'll ask you to justify why you think it's Tav, and you'll say it's because you're playing him, and we can get a few more pages out of this thread.

Stories where the protagonist isn't the most important person to the story, probably qualify as post-modern, because they subvert classic narrative structure. Very view stories in videogame media are that interesting (or interested). Not many are any good to begin with. You might make a case for Disco Elysium, because the story's point can change based on what you personally find the most important plotline, but that's a stretch.

What might qualify elsewhere. The Great Gatsby? Blade Runner 2049? The Baxter? I never read Ender's Shadow, but stories that retell the main events of other stories from the perspective of side characters is in the same vein. Which brings Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead to mind.

You missed the important part of my post, which is that as far as the story I'd concerned, any of the companions we do now could do those things if we decide to choose them at character creation. Sure if we choose to play a Tav then Tav is the one making the game decision, but if you choose an origin character, then Tav never exists and the story does not fundamentally change. If you removed Shephard from Mass Effect, the story simply would not resemble itself at all. If we select Tav to play and then they die sure, we can't continue the story. But we don't have to select Tav, and we would get to play the same story but likely with new content.

Wouldn't a MC be defined by screen time, number of dialogue lines and driving the plot?

Playing Tav, I don't feel they're second to any of the origin characters. If anything my Tav tends to limit side plots as a distraction, albeit Lae'zel's creche solution is compelling and SH's artefact a revelation.

First off you can have more than one main character, I don't think they need a certain amount of screen time or dialogue. I'm sorry I put us onto a little bit of a tangent, the fact that this is coming up is because of how Tav feels compared to the rest of the characters with relation to the story. Seeing Tav as a side character in his own story is an unintentional consequence of having to interact with other characters who are experiencing the same story but with more areas of contact.

I'm sorry to bring up the other thread a third time, but I think the idea behind having a party of origin characters is interesting, it's potential is to tell an adventure story with a fellowship of characters. It could be like Lord of the Rings or The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and maybe it will feel like that if you play an origin character. But playing like Tav doesn't feel like it puts you on same level as the origin characters.

Robert brought up how the origin characters' personal stories in DOS 2 amounted to side-quests, but from what I remember they were enmeshed with the main narrative, if you can't avoid it while doing the main plot I don't know if it qualifies as a sidequest. I think the same will be true, more true, for the origin characters in BG3, mostly because we've already been given the arrows pointing to how every companion might be tied to the central plot.

Regardless I've never considered side plots to be a distraction, I'm sorry games put in more content to distract you from mainlining the 'real' story :p

Even the most nihilistic of postmodern literature has a concrete protagonist, going all the way back to Roland Barth.

Nowhere did I say you're not the protagonist. This is more a question of what kind of story you're a part of than being in a story.

I think the confusion is from what can't be translated from a video game to a movie, or book.

Anything written down in a script or a novel isn't incidental, even if it's purpose is purposelessness(x5). But because the script of a video game splines out, atemporally sometimes, you get incidental dialoguel couple that with a character unmoored to the story being told, you can actually have meaningless dialogue.

"I'm sworn to carry your burdens" That's so vague it could be used after giving her a sweet roll, or it could be after fighting a pack of werewolves. For Tav, you're partaking in conversations that other characters have more meaningful dialogue to say, but Tav gets, [Baldurian] Yes, I've heard of you or [Baldurian] No, I haven't. After which, because these options are made to be so vague, the following dialogue doesn't even need to account for which you choose. If that happened in a novel or script, it would be considered poor writing, but because it happens in a video game, we get threads on forums about what the nature of character customization is.

Does the ability for Geralt to change his hair cut and grow out his beard make him the same as Commander Shepard. It seems like putting a wig on it is all that is required.

This AND that

I'm genuinely not feeling Tav as a side-character in my play throughs.

Patch 9 play-through Tav (Baldurian noble oath of devotion paladin) was straight line consistent. The oath break near the end was a friendly fire kill because of hubris. Humbled, he re-swore the oath to take better care. Events in play defined his character, which was close enough to how I envisioned him.

When I say side plots, it's not at all in a negative sense. But in-character that's how my Tav regarded them (at least until forced to truly reckon with them).
- A noble knows they need to spend gold for power, so gifting magic items to placate Gale was highly unusual, but a cost was expected. (Baldur's Gate Patriar houses pay well for a personal wizard.)
- As a fellow warrior, my paladin recognized Lae'zel's undeniable combat prowess, so he entertained her lead, etc...

We're using 'side-quest' a bit loosely here too. We're kind of talking about story threads or different facets of main plots. With a different Tav, I pick and omit side quests.

tav is the only character, which does not exist if you play him / her. the story itself does not position tav in the centre as it is done in other games like me, da, kotor. where main character is in the centre of the story. here it is different, and story is around group of characters and not your character. well at least in EA, however they used the same formula in dos games. So i doubt they will change it. People tend to use or do what they doing well and it is always tough to change

I really like that fact. First, I do not know any player who has spent time to make his own character to not hurry up to resurrect him. Second, I absolutely HATED how in the original Bg1 and Bg2 if your protagonist dies, you can not resurrect him like the others. No, you have to reload. And play your character like a total coward to avoid reloading. What's worse is that many games of the genre followed that example. I am really thankful to Larian for changing that in BG3.

The problem here is that the script for a video game is even more complex than the script for a movie, or an outline for a novel. The reason being that in a novel or a movie, the consumer of the media isn't making any choices at "flashpoints" in the story, but instead, those choices are made by the author. If Player 1 always chooses Path A for any "flashpoints", points in the story where a choice must be made, then they're going to get one story, while Player 2, that always chooses Path B will get another one. The main story will always progress to the "Ultimate Goal", but the way it's arrived at can vary, according to choices made along the way.

These outcomes can have significant weight, who survives to get to the "Ultimate Goal", or be largely insignificant, [Baldurian] dialog choice or not. But in a novel, or a movie, it's always going to come out the same way, regardless of what the consumer may want, because the outcomes are predetermined by the author. Each branch of the story, Path A, Path B and any other Paths that may exist, have to have their outcomes determined, along with what happens if Player 3 is all over the place, and Player 4 is also all over the place, but is choosing the exact opposite of Player 3. This is the complexity of having just 2 choices at the Flashpoint, what if there are 4? It also ignores Player 5, who is also all over the place, but in a different way from all the other players, and you can carry that out for a long way, depending on how many choices are available at each flashpoint.

What choice can I make at the beginning of the Witcher games that makes Geralt other than Geralt of Rivia? Meanwhile, Shepard can be Earthborn, a Spacer, or a colonist. All three change the game. They change dialog at the very beginning, and add unique quests to the game, that you won't get on the other Origins. Where are these "origin" options for Geralt? Then, there are 3 separate service records you can choose from. Where are these for Geralt? Is there an option to remove the Butcher thing? No. Geralt is predefined and will always have the exact same past when you load in to play. So when I say "I don't want Tav to be Geralt of the Forgotten Realms", it's what I mean. I don't want Larian telling me who Tav is, I want to decide that for myself. If I want to play a predefined character, I can choose one of the Origin characters.

What's the problem? Having different outcomes for different input is related to the point I'm making, but with regards to a origin and non-origin characters, we're talking about how these characters interact with those choices. The [Baldurian] dialogues are an example of the illusion of choice that becomes worse in a game where you can have a character who isn't written to the story and one who is.
Let's take your example of Geralt. Now if The Witcher were BG3, you'd have Geralt, Triss, and Dandelion on a quest to find a cure for the tadpole...and Jan Kowalski he's the leader of the group, he doesn't have any connection to the Absolute (who's Jennifer in this scenario) but he will be taking the lead in any dialogue between her and Geralt.

As for Shepard, so these three backgrounds for Shepard makes him totally different from Geralt? The three childhoods Shepard can have are a fun, they come in a few times in the story, but they hardly constitute a dramatic difference from a character like Geralt. Most people didn't even play the first two Witcher games, so you might as well treat them as the three backgrounds for Geralt (not that 3 didn't do fuck all with them)

The point that was being made about Geralt and Shepard is that they were predefined characters, with personalities and points of view, as opposed to Tav, The Dragonborn, etc.

That said no one expects a tighteness of a good movie script in a video game. Is it really too much to expect for written text in games to support and be supported by gameplay?

...and that was my point. You claim there's some confusion about how this works, so I demonstrated that there's no confusion, on my end, by laying out exactly how it works. The confusion comes in with your comparison of Geralt and Shepard, which tells me everything I need to know. Thanks?

If you really wanted to clear things up then maybe contribute to the discussion.

I checked out the Magic Mirror of the necromancer for Tav. It gave 3 possible entries:

1) I see my loved ones safe and sound.
2) I get the tadpole out of my head.
3) I see my enemies suffering.

Yeah, that's pretty generic all right. Covers all bases though.

Actually, now that I think about it, the origin characters don't even mention the tadpole? That says that Tav above all other characters is defined by getting it removed.

I must admit I didn't read all six pages, so take my two cents on the weight they have:

This game will always have a problem in justifying the leadership of the MC for the simple reason that this is not a Single Player game: this is a co-op game that CAN be played as a single-player, not dissimilar to a game such as Wasteland 3.

Like it or not, Larian is trying to recreate the experience of a DnD table, in which the "leadership" is typically shared among all the players or, following the Wasteland 3 example, among the two rangers.


Since, potentially, all 4 members of the party may be played by 4 players, I think there are only two available choices:

1) At some point in the plot, there is a reason why one particular character is elevated as the leader of the group leaving the others at his commands (knight-squires relationship), de facto making one character more important than the others;

2) A leader is never elected, allowing each player to feel equally important.

I don't really know, for this kind of game, which solution is better.


In my headcanon, my Tav is the leader of the group because the other characters would constantly be bickering together without a "third party" taking the decisions amid all the contradictory inputs and strategies on how to move forward. Btw, this is the reason why I will always play as Tav, because if I would play as any other OC and put myself to roleplay as they would, there would be no reason for me to follow anyone or any reason for them to follow me.

At the end of the day, I try not to put too much attention on this narrative inconsistency (we can find it in almost every single game out there) for the sake of playing the game. Imho there are many more immersion-breaking features in the game right now (I still cannot cope with the always available fast-travel, even in the middle of an enemy fortress).

It'd be great if there was some sort of group companion dialogue that showed this type of thing. SH and Lae'zel arguing, with Astarion adding snarky unhelpful comments and Gale getting exasperated at the lack of progress being made. Gale, SH, or Lae'zel (depending on who you have the most approval with) then turn to Tav and ask for their opinion...a bit more arguing...ending with a compromise that they'll follow Tav because otherwise the party is deadlocked.

Something like that. It would be a bit more complicated to do this for multiplayer, but eh I'm sure there's a reasonable way that isn't to complicated to implement.

You say like it or not, and I don't like it. Again, it just reinforces the fact that this is a multiplayer first game, and all design decisions have been made for multiplayer to work.