It feels more like Divinity to me, not Baldur's Gate, mainly because of the origin characters. The PC character feels so bland, especially compared to the companions.
We choose a background for our characters (noble, urchin, sailor, etc.) which pretty much amounts to nothing... (at least so far....) And I believe some people have mentioned Larian wasn't including background dialogue because it was too complicated which makes me worried that even in act 2 and 3 our PCs will still be boring.

Not to mention if you choose to play as an origin character all the other origin characters are available as companions but not your custom PC(for obvious reasons) which means the character you create is not integral to the story. Which means their presence in the game is pointless because everything would still work out if they weren't there. (Dragon Age Origins did a great job with this with their 'play as the darkspawn' dlc which showed how badly things would have gone had your warden not been there.)

I know one of my biggest concerns is going to Baldur's Gate and (if playing a Baldurian) having no knowledge of the city and/or nobody there knows your character. That would pretty much force us to headcanon that our PC must've been a recluse living under a rock in Baldurs Gate. Maybe I have nothing to worry about. Maybe Larian will surprise me. I certainly hope so.

Let me just make some things clear though:
1. I do like the the origin characters.. I just wish they were companions only so that more work could be put into the custom pc (Bioware, again, did a great job with this in dragon age origins).
2. To any people who may say 'you just want your character to be a special snowflake': not necessarily. I just want them to feel more like a real character with a past.
3. And in regards to the custom PC's background being left alone for the player to headcanon: I just personally find it immersion-breaking when your character's backstory is not important while all your companions' backstories are. If it doesn't bother you, then you're lucky! Lol

I know it is early access act 1, which is why I am bringing it up. I honestly don't think they will ditch the origins, but maybe some more work can be put into custom PCs so they aren't bland nobodies. (Though if you like playing as a bland nobody that's fine XP)

Thoughts? Agree? Disagree?
(If a post like this has been done already I apologize. I have seen similar ones on Reddit, but none here to my recollection. )

Hate origin characters Larian style. more specifically, hate the concept of origin characters which are also companions. I don't think the two should mix. It worked kinda fine for DOS2 because of the Hunger games nature of the plot, but I don't see any good reason to bring it back

I think this is a matter of perspective.
The origin character backstories are only important to you as a player because you're on this journey with them. You have a front-row seat to all of their trials and tribulations, so they seem more important.
It could be argued that the companions that you don't choose to take are unimportant because if they're not traveling with you, then their importance matters less.
To anyone else that you'd come across, their origin stories wouldn't matter because they have their own problems.
I feel like we have the responsibility as the player to determine the weight of everyone's story in the game. In this case, you're assigning more importance to your companions then you are yourself.

That being said, I'd love to see a game treat our custom character as a special snowflake for once because we've never had that level of depth.
I just don't think we're at that point yet, and we're not going to find it here, so we're relegated to taking a back seat in our own adventure. I understand your frustration.
Unfortunately, we're stuck with limited options in how we present ourselves. I just hope that our choices matter in the long run as well.
If partway through the adventure, someone mentions a decision that I had made, I feel like it would go a long way into making me feel more substantial.

Also, I think it'd be cool if we had a selection of background presets so that we got our own sidequests to pursue.
I hate to use the standard D&D trope, but that whole "my parents were murdered by the BBEG" as an option and then pursuing that would be great.
Not the finest example, but you get the idea.

Even if they just put in ONE personal quest in Baldur's Gate per background choice, that would be rad. And maybe one or two special NPCs who would know your character from your old life, per background choice.

Remember how BG2 had a quest for each major class you could choose? that was red.

The origin charackters are not the problem.
The game would be much better if the custom character was not a blank card, but unfortunately it would probably cause complaints from a certain group of people.
Even in BG1, the character had a story of his own that was shared by each player. It was always a Bhaalspawn raised by Gorion in Candlekeep.
Thanks to this, the character was at least partially delineated and you didn't feel that it was an addition to the world without much connection with it.

Larian has promised that custom characters would feel less generic and have a much stronger connection both to the world and the storyline in BG3 as opposed to DOS2. But so far into the early access, I feel Larian hasn't delivered on this promise beyond uncommon occasions where your race, class or deity has a minor effect on social interactions. Certainly nothing that can compare with origin characters.

But then again, I think the premise of comparing your custom character to a fully fleshed-out origin character - though understandable is ultimately unfair. Demanding the game flesh-out the player character similarly, would simply open up for way too many variables and a great deal of content most would be automatically locked out of. Or it would force a background story on the PC that many would object to. So unless Larian makes the storyline develop more around the player character as in the original series as opposed to around all companions, I foresee little improving in this regard.

Well, if the custom character is, canon, a Baldurian, then it stands to reason that all the stuff related to their personal story would start when they actually get to Baldur's Gate. Right?

That would be fine. The problems start when you choose a gith or a drow as mc. what then?

Good question.

As a Drow you come from the Underdark (possibly the same is true for other less standard races)

I have to admit, while I'm onboard with most of Larians design, I feel Origin characters have the biggest potential to blow up badly.

Consider, it can go a couple of ways.

You have limited budget and time, so you're going to spend that time trying to tell half a dozen stories instead of a single, well written story.
How much extra work does generating "origin" characters create? What kind of payoff do you get for all that extra work?
Are people really going to go back and replay each origin character to see how the story changes?
I don't know. I guess we don't have the stats from DOS2 to see.

It seems to me that origin characters are far more interesting to have as companions than to play as.
Wouldn't it have been a better use of resources to flesh out those characters?

Obviously it's their game and their vision, but yes... I don't have high hopes for this feature.

It's really hard to do something like that when you have so many options... I wonder how would they pull it off if at all. but anyway I kinda like my Yu Narukami mc as he is. It just feels so refreshing to have a straight man around all the crazy guys at camp. some responsible adult.

Yea, I don't mind the origin character system as long as I can customize the character in the end, like in DOS 2.

That being said, I prefer a protagonist or 'special snowflake' character.

KOTOR, BG1/2, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, etc all felt more impactful as stories than DOS did, to me at least, because I had a much bigger connection with the character (and even companions in some of those), I was playing. In dos 2 I didn't care as much.

So far I have never really felt any sense of urgency in this game to remove the tadpole or really ever gave a shit about the custom character.

Maybe they could fix it by giving us a chance to choose from a couple of background stories with a bit of gameplay like Dragon Age, but honestly I wouldn't count on it.

On the flipside you can always completely make up your characters background in your head to be whatever you want. My guy is going to be a bald ass warrior priest of Sigmar (paladin in game) that out of nowhere wakes up on a different universe, on a nautiloid ship, and now has to take it upon himself to cleanse the lands of anything that is not a human, dwarf or elf

I concurr. I feel like part of the character creation could be leveraged to make a background too... kinda like mount and blade bannerlord, or even warband, where you have like a text choose your own adventure sort of thing, where stuff happens to you, and it shapes your character. To explain, I shall write a short synopsis:

Where were you born?
Baldurs Gate
Waterdeep
Amn
Silverymoon

Choosing baldurs gate, the dm voice would say, "you grew up in the bustling port of Baldurs gate, from the shining Castle district to the rundown docks district, the city was your home"

This would grant you the "baldurian" tag

As a young person, you:
Apprenticed under a craftsman
Lived on the streets
Attended balls and duties of a squire
Trained with the city watch
Learned under the city huntsman
Spent your days delving into the nearby countryside
Etc....

This could then tie you to someone in the world, someone we could meet later in the game, and again could give you a tag, such as your background tag (acolyte, noble, folk hero, etc.) And give a little more flavor to your character, so, selecting spent your days delving into the nearby countryside, the dm would announce:

"You spent your days trying as hard as you could to avoid the hustle and bustle of the city, preferring instead to roam around the countryside with your best friend (insert name here). One day, whilst exploring the forgotten mines near the cloakwood, you discovered that the mines were infested with goblins, that had been capturing passers by on the Coast Way. You and your friend yelled a rallying cry, and took the goblins by such surprise, they fled, leaving behind thier captured prizes. You freed the captives, who were being prepared to be sold to slave traders. Such was your heroism, and daring, that word of your deed spread through the city." (Gain the tag Folk Hero)

This could be done for literally every option, your profession, your background, and all your tags, to give you more of a feeling of belonging in the world, and tying you to people and places. This is just what I would do. Though, I understand that might be a royal pain, its what i want :p

im not a huge fan of the origin character approach for alot of the reasons others have mentioned here, but mainly i feel like a players custom character (which i would also argue is the 'classic' dnd/BG choice v dev written pcs) currently feels underwhelming/underwritten compared to the origin characters who all have their own narrative/story and unique story driven mechanics, in addition to the shared tadpole plot - that apparently isnt all that special as it appears fairly easy to pick up given the number of other true souls you run into

ive posted this before, but as ive played through there is nothing that makes me feel that my custom pc is integral to the bg3 plot, to the point where i feel like if your custom pc never survived the ship crash in the tutorial the whole story of bg3 would still be able to continue on regardless

Actually, i fail to understand the concept of origin characters. How are they different than companions in previous Baldur's gate games or any RPG? Maybe it's because i didn't play Larian games before? They have backgrounds, banters, approve your choices or not, we will probably have quests related to them etc... Nothing new. We will be able to play them as the PC, fine. But as spectacular as they are, i will still be the one who decide which quest complete, how, who live and die, and since i can't walk a minute in those savage lands without bumping into something linked to Baldur's Gate, i have no doubt i will be well known in this city even i don't have the bladurian tag.

I also hope Larian will do something meaningfull with our classes, our differents tags, but i most of all hope they will make our choices as player after the character creation relevant. More than once when i played BG 1 and 2 i found myself asking to all those NPCs freaking out about the fact i was a Bhaalspawn and all that stuff : 'Dude.. You do realise all i did was just what any entropist lvl14 could do? Except some low level spells in addition?' No need to say how i was pleased to find totally useless Bhaalspawns sometimes If BG 3 can make me feel i had an impact on the world, the story, included the one of my so charismatic companions, without having to make me by birth the Chosen One... I would say it will do better than its predecessors on this point in particular.

So, yes, they need to use those tags at their full potential, as many games did before. Or at the same time (Solastaaaa^^). But there is no problem from my point of view to be 'just' a common mortal leading a band of amnesic, vampiric, Mystra's ex-bf, common folk, wannabe dragon rider... companions. It just happens that i am that good, wich is the feeling most rpg's are supposed to procure

I think along the same lines of you. In previous BG games, as with most RPGs, you are the pivotal character and all of the other companions just circle in orbit around you. I love that in BG3 every companion feels like a hero (because they potentially are) in and of themselves, but nevertheless my character is still the glue that holds them all together and becomes the deciding force.

I also do not want my character’s backstory elaborated on too much. A big part of D&D for me is coming up with that myself. BG1’s backstory was fine, but I’m happier with my protagonist being a blank slate. My imagination has already filled in the rest.

Yep, I've said this before but the origin characters make you feel like you sat down at a table and the DM forced everyone to use his pre-made characters but you. . It'd be a total control freak move and nobody would be fine with that. (plus everyone at the table would be jealous that you got to create your own character so they'd all secretly be plotting against you.)

How is that any different than any game that isn’t like IWD? I don’t see what you mean. Almost every RPG has recruitable companions made by the “DM.” Why does it matter whether hypothetical players who don’t actually exist are jealous of you?

Even in Baldur's Gate, all the NPC companions had more backstory than the player character. The main character's entire background was, "Ward of Gorion, grew up in Candlekeep." That's it. Every NPC had a more detailed concept and history than that.

I like origin characters. I am agree with most opinions about that our story should occupy much more place in lore.
But asking "why origin character?" is seems like me little bit unfair. I was really enjoy when playing origin companions along with me. Their story are mostly thoughtful and enjoyable to discover.
And game looks more uncontrollable and serious while there are people that actually their story would not intertwined if you doesn't exist. They have their own weightiness and ı can feel if ı push myself that they are actually my co op partners in an existence way somehow.


I just mean that ı dont want to be responsible for every characteristic backlines in the game, so ı need that origins to feel more alive in game.

I see it this way. If there is a trade-off between the investment in the custom character and the origin characters, then I would want all that investment to go into the custom character, to make them more reactive to the world and the world to them, voice them, customize them, give them race, class, skill, and background reactivity, a good story, etc.
If there are separate budgets, then I don't really care. I am not going to play origin characters in this game anyways, so I am just not going to benefit from that feature, but I will also not loose on the character that *I* want to play. And if I want expanded backstory on the origin characters, I am simply going to read about them from someone else who liked the feature and played through their stories.

If you give the custom character a good story, it won't be a custom character anymore. At best you'll have to choose between a number of consistent paths.

And i really don't understand the 'give them class, race, skill etc'. The origin characters have the same features than our pc. Astarion can bite people twice a day, that's all. Almost all written lines of dialog are made for the pc, even if origin characters can say it if you made them speak instead of you.

I don't see any trade off between origin characters and custom ones. Except maybe the first have very personal quests, but all the rest of the world is the PC personal quest.

I read you can make a party of custom characters if you feel than recrutable NPCs betray the feeling of a tabletop game?

I meant race, class, and skill reactivity - i.e. more options for Dwarves, Halflings, Tieflings, Elves. Right now its skewed towards Drow characters. Also Dragon Age Origins did it well in my opinion with origins. You had starting stories, but you were not defined as Shadowheart the Half-elven priestess of Shar on a Special MissionTM. You could have been a male or female Cousland, a warrior or a rogue, and you had no mission aside from loosing your family and being forced to join the Grey Wardens. It all depends on how much is defined, and not far from being a sheltered kid raised by an old sage Gorion in the library fortress of Candlekeep.
And I don't know how they allocate their budgets. If the origin characters have their respective separate budgets, and the custom character has its own, then there is no trade-off. If there is a single budget for playable characters, then there is a trade-off in how much could be invested in which options.

The question of separate budgets isn’t really relevant. Larian sets their budgets how they see fit, and if not one way they could always do it another way. They have that choice. Furthermore, every feature in every game comes at the cost of some other feature. That is just a reality of prioritization and scope management. It is also important to understand that budgets are allocated based on expected return of investment. If a feature is scrapped it doesn’t necessarily mean that money will just be reallocated if the sales are expected to diminish. I’m not saying that is what will happen here, just that it is more complex than the impression you seem to have.

A more relevant question is: how much extra work goes into making origin characters as opposed to normal companions? The origin personal quests are still in the game regardless of who your main character is. What you get from playing an origin character is a bit of extra content that comes from seeing these quests ,and maybe some others, through their perspectives. How much work is that? Impossible to say at this point. Larian seems to think it’s worth it, and we can assume that if they found origin characters in DOS2 were a waste of resources then they wouldn’t be doing it again.

I'm sure we will be able to go through origin characters' quests by playing a custom character.

I agree with this thread. I'm not a fan of pre-made protagonists who only end up mogging your custom one. These types of games for me mean me and MY adventure. Not [x] existing character and me playing theirs. However, my biggest issue is not pre-made protagonists in itself, as to how little your own custom protagonists feels like when compared to them. It makes me wonder what is even the point of playing your own character when they have zero roles compared to origin one?
DA:O did a great job in making your character feel important, while also telling the story of other characters. Your Warden had a backstory. You lived through their origin. That origin, later on, will come into play in your future events. It helped with making your avatar feel like a character that belongs in this universe over just pure blank slate (despite them being the silent protagonist).
So, far, the only "difference" ea offers when it comes to your character is if you play as Lolth-sworn drow. The game then mentions what happened before you got taken in by mind-flayers.

*The dark is familiar, but not comforting. It is a struggle to sink into your trance, weaving together memory, ambition, and purpose.*
*The vision in your mind is simple: a stone altar to Lolth, the knife upon it bloody with sacrifice.*
*Fire spills across your thoughts: dragon's breath. The tadpole slithers, twisting deeper into your skull.*
*Your head is about to burst. The memory consumes your mind, corrupting the trance.*
*Hell surrounds you, flames licking at your body. The tadpole in your head convulses.*
(post-check) *The flames fall away, a mere illusion. You sit the dark again, beside Lolth's majesty.*
*As the trance stabilizes, your breath deepens. Be it a cure or cage, something must be done about the tadpole.*

This is the only time your character's background is being mentioned. So, perhaps there will be a certain plotline for a custom character too. At least it is implied so in Lolth-sworn's case. I hope it will because if not, then honestly there is no point in even having a custom character option other than playing around in character creator to see what look you can give to your desired race.

Maybe my statement was confusing as it was meant to be a jokey remark as to how all that would go over if it occurred at a table top game IRL. In this situation it's like the developers are the DM's.. They've created their version of a perfect party and they want you to play with their characters. They've allowed you to create a character but ultimately it doesn't actually matter how your character fits in with their perfect party because their characters are all meant to be played as main characters.

I agree it doesn't work for me.. It worked in Divinity (even though i never used them) but in D&D making your own characters is pretty much the main aspect.. Why would i want to play something someone else made.. Pretty poorly made too i might add.
I feel Solasta has the right idea we get to make all our characters from scratch the way we want to make them..

I think it's better if the player comes up with it himself. There is a risk that Larian will write a backstory that players will not like (especially drow lolth - half will resent that the character was too cruel, half that not cruel enough, and so on), plus it's a lot of work that can be invested in companions. Don't forget that you can choose a companion as the main character at the beginning of the game! Then you will have a rich background.


But I support some differences, unique lines of dialogue and everything along those lines

I agree with OP, and this post really sums up the issue 100%. My character is a ghost of a character, a vague presence who has no substance.

It's not just like sitting down at a table and everybody else had to play the DM's pre-made characters. It's like sitting down at that table and the DM doesn't pay any attention to anyone that isn't playing one of his pre-made protagonists. I would leave such a table as fast as I could.

Origin characters you either love or hate them. And since there isnt much choices...
In the wacky world of DOS you can go crazy and it works well as a game. But in the more serious BG world...it feels odd, trying to mimic a movie/drama with cinematic dialogues.. The <acting> falls flat, borderline on funny the way everyone moves and your character reacts...People say its immersive...I just hate it, makes me facepalm half the time. Guaranteed memes treasure in a couple of years, this will not age well.

I wish Larian would just stick to regular top down dialogues and add 10x more content and atmosphere with these resources.
Oh well, everyone just wants cinematic cringy sex nowdays.

I understand the concept and I do not need a personal backstory for the PC. I concur with others here, that the origin story of BG1 was not much either. One issue I see with origin characters in regards is that they each are annoyingly special plus they additionally share the same origin story as the PC, which is marketed right now as the driving force. This is like Jaheira, Khalid, Minsk and Edwin all being Bhaalspawn, too.
One other problem is the character writing. They are all annoyingly annoying. There is not one I genuinely like, they do not like to share their story, they only come out with it, when there is no other option and even then are awful persons about it. And not even funny and awful like Edwin, or dumb and sympathetic like Minsk. Or crazy and awful like Xzar or Tiax.
To make things worse, they rarely interact with the player on the way, and it is usually to critisise his actions and patronise him. It is also awfully inconsistent. You can romance characters or have a polite conversation in a special cutscene just for them to go back to be awful in the next dialogue. Why is that? Because recording voices is costly. So this is immersion breaking. Apart from the player's choices usually being bad they have nothing more to add, they are rarely constructive, always destructive in their feedback. This would be bearable if there was one person like this in your party, but Lae'zel, Astarion and Shadowheart share that trait, and Wyll/Gale show this destructive character, when the other three are surprisingly quiet. Their origin characters are plain crap in conjunction with the PC.

This will likely only get worse after Act I, if you really have your party locked or some companions might become unattainable afterwards. So you might be stuck with people you do not like because the party make-up demands it.

The concept of origin characters is a little weird. These are the NPC companions, why would they also be playable as the PC? That just seems really unnecessary.

I think it's supposed to be more efficient. Instead of creating six origins and than after the player picks one he won't see much of the others for the whole playthrough (like in Dao) you can choose one, and the others appear in game.

The problem I have with it is that it makes party interaction really restricted compared to other games of that type

In the end they still are just regular companions, bar the one you choose. Didn't BG have custom characters as well for multiplayer with a made-up bio? It just appears that someone in the dev team thought this was a good idea, his personal choice and the rest can not or do not want to change it, like someone's pet peeve. Also not much additional work goes into it. It could work well, it just appears cumbersome to design a system this way and poor character writing naturally interferes with this system more.

IMO just scrapping them as playable PCs and keeping them as NPCs, then putting a lot more effort into the custom character choices impacting the story/narrative would be a much better way to go. Your race, class, background and tags should impact the game in meaningful ways.

I think this is the issue. Don't get me wrong, Larian has pretty good writers but this kind of writing is very complex and you need to write many different dialogue lines to accommodate different scenarios and make these lines work with each other. And I think Larian has much to improve in that regard. The biggest problem with Larian is their tendency to just do things because they like them or think they are cool without putting serious thought into how

Pretty much. Especially since playing as origin character is character assassination in a way when you think about it. All of origin characters have already pre-defined personalities/alignments/beliefs. Playing as them and putting them in the shoes of PC just doesn't seem right to me. Imagine playing as Lae'zel and making her the most selfless and softest person in the world that likes helping people even though that is not even close to how she is. Being Shadowheart who is completely trustworthy of Lae'zel, agrees with her and is good friends with her. Or playing as Wyll and helping goblins against tieflings even though Wyll would never do such a thing. It's just weird and doesn't work well for me at all.

I kinda agree with the most of u on this, guys. When they announced they will be using origin characters, I was not happy about it (as it undermines the character creation aspect of the game that is, for me at least, a major draw of a DnD inspired game).

On the other hand, I am curious to see the background-stories integrated into the narrative for the origin heroes (though I am slightly jealous cause my custom hero will never have the dream scenes and the internal narration the origins pcs will have, like Wyll getting feedback from his patron).

I am really hoping Larian will include a bigger quest line (depending on the background and the race tags like Balduran/Underdark/Planar) that better incorporates the custom heroes into the game world. It would be awesome if we could actually meet people in Baldurs Gate who recognize us and have pre-existing relationships with us.

If they'll restrict the number of possible custom origins into Baldurian/underdark/planer it is more than possible to have a compelling story line for custom characters. But if I had to guess I'd say not a chance. The word "restriction" is a dirty word in Larian studio.

I´m fine with any mechanics that are different from other CRPGs so I´m willing to give the origin characters an opportunity.

I´m planning to play a custom character first. The option to watch the story unfold in the eyes of one of your companions in later playthroughs I´m sure it will spice up the reruns of the game.

My issue with them in Divinity is that it felt like you got more of a story if you played the Origin Characters over the Generic one.
This doesn't seem to be an issue in BG3.

I don't really see WHY we should be allowed to play the companions as a main character. It seems a little pointless to me. Which is why I don't really mind that we can. I won't use it, but to each their own.

There is a tradition for premade characters in DnD though, it's done in some modules, but rarely do they have elaborate backstories. Usually it's there for the balance and the stats etc.

But again: I won't use it, so why do I care. It seems they know that custom characters is the main concept here.


I saw someone mention that they'd like personalized quests based on background you choose. I don't think I'd like that, as it would set my characters backstory and personality in a sense. In 5e the backgrounds are mostly there to help you write your backstory, and also give you some suitable bonuses. I'd like it if it gave some conversation options, but not really much beyond that.
I like that "my story" is written though gameplay choices, not by someone at Larian before the game starts.


What I hope Larian don't do is "lock" the companions full story to a playthrough with them. Part of a companions job is to give you a side story that you help that character out with as part of your main quest, and the Main Quest is YOUR story that the companions help you out with.