Because of a discussion on Dragon Age Origins that lead into another discussion about how your custom character is shown to have something of their own personality, I've been wondering if there will be a prologue that establishes your character based on the origin/traits you've chosen leading up to your capture. à la DA:O though much more abbreviated, I'd even be fine with something text only.
The history of the origin characters seems like it's already a large part of their stories, has Larian mentioned definitively if they'll deal at all with your custom character's history?

That would be nice but I don't think there are any plans like that. I do really like the idea of starting out as a nobody and being able to play my nobody life for a bit before being thrust into an adventure. It's easy enough to make up whatever background you want but not as fun as to actually get to play in the background.

Doubtful. It just seems impossible to do for this game. Dao had only 3 races and 3 classes, two of those with no significance for the story. Bg3 has many races, at least two of them require specific origin (gith and drow) and then you have many many classes, some of which (warlock for example) also require a special origin. And then you also have the companions/origin characters... As I said, quite impossible, unless they find a good story way to limit the number of possible origins

Larian hasn't said anything about it. In fact, I believe they said they'd once planned on adding dialogue tags tied to your character creation selection - anchorite, hermit, urchin, etc. - but it wound up being too much work.

Still, I'd really, really like to be able to further flesh out Tav McBlanderson's background. Tav McSlightlyLessBlanderson? Please?

I doubt it. The game follows the same narrative template as DOS2, so Larian is likely heavily invested in the "waking up on a beach" theme.

Yeah, sadly being a nobody is antithetical to D&D's mission statement it seems. I realize you also choose your character's background, I can't remember if it's ever come up in dialogue but I suppose it's as good as we'll get in this regard.

There are some dialogue options built specifically for being from Baldur's Gate. Hopefully though they do add more background locations that you can choose from. The problem as I see it in making your character from Baldur's Gate is there will definitely be some disconnect when your character actually gets to the city they are supposedly from and doesn't know their way around because the player hasn't actually been there before. 'Hey Bert... Glad to see you made it back home. Why don't we meet up at your old neighborhood... maybe at the tavern across from where you used to work?" "Ummmm.. Who are you, where's my old neighborhood and where did I used to work?"

This has been brought up before and, sadly, did not get a whole hell of a lot of support.

I hope so

I think it should be the tutorial mode of the game.

Nautiloid in hell should be chapter 1, when the story actually begins.

They don't need to fully spec it out so that a Tutorial prologue is specific to every character class/background etc, it could be more generic. Like here you are at an Inn in Baldur's Gate, where you can kit out and buy a drink, learn the UI by engaging in some focused tutorial stuff. When you leave the Inn is when the mind flayers grab you up off the streets ala opening cutscene. You don't need a whole separate prologue for a warlock or a drow or whatever. All you need is for the character to have some reason to be in Baldur's Gate when the attack happened.

I think making a simple Tutorial Prologue that starts out with the normal "roll up a character and buy their starting gear" pre-game type scenario. Basically a BG1 style start for character creation and tutorial, that cuts to a BG2 style start for the first chapter of the actual adventure (which would be the current Prologue in EA).

Eh, I like determining who I am and what my motivations are and keeping things open-ended.
The idea of wandering around in my normal life for a while before I got scooped up doesn't appeal to me at all.
Escaping from the nautiloid is prologue enough for me.

I understand that but this was spurred by another discussion about how the presentation your custom character wasn't a total blank slate, meaning that your character isn't totally determined by your actions from the start.

It's kind of a part of DND in that you create your own background for your character in Dungeons and Dragons, as well as in many sandbox RPG's in general. For example, the Elder Scrolls series always starts you out as a prisoner, and how Fallout . When you create a character in a D&D campaign, you don't play through your backstory before going into the actual campaign, that stuff is determined by you before you begin playing. You create your character, and give them as much or as little of a history as you want, and then you take over while they're imprisoned on the nautiloid. That's as open-ended as you can get, and anything presented before that only narrows the character's backstory and takes away that choice, or at least complicates justifying how your character got where they are.

Starting off as a prisoner making your escape is the best way to accomplish that, because it's up to you how you got there, and you can shape your character how you like, and make choices based on what your character would do. If they presented more information about your character before that, it would make it much more difficult to justify your decisions throughout the game, or even worse, make you feel like you have to follow a certain path because the game made you believe your character as someone who would prefer one choice over another.

Or it could just be set in Baldur's Gate at a generic inn, as a separate tutorial.

For those players who don't need a tutorial they could just skip it.

For those who do need a tutorial, say those who don't know anything about D&D character creation or systems, this would be a better environment to learn core mechanics and the UI, since you could introduce each aspect in stages.

A Tutorial needn't award xp, but would be a cool way to kit out your characters starting gear. Could also have a combat or sneak/steal aspect, or basic spellcasting and convo or merchant UI tutors.

But also with nods to class/background/race choices in text convos maybe with the innkeep or bartender or npcs sitting around, that could serve as a background reinforcer in that way. Like maybe if you're Githyanki or Tiefling or Drow someone might pick a fight with you in conversation for a combat tutorial "let's take this outside!" Simple stuff.

Not so much a story arch in itself, but just a point of departure that leads into the actual story. I don't think it would be all that crazy difficult to set up. Its a natural fit with the opening cutscene to do something set in Baldur's Gate just before the attack.

Considering the amount of permutations this would need to satisfy fantasies about "origin stories" of any sort, my personal take on the suggestion is the following:
if we are actually that desperate to blow more money in some way, can we please push some more to use them on implementing a day/night cycle instead of fifteen flavors of tedious tutorial?

Also, "budget concerns" aside, I'm absolutely not a fan of dragged tutorials that get more and more tedious to indulge on at every subsequent playthrough.
DA:O was brought up as an example, and it reminds me precisely the two/three times in the past where I said "I'll try to play it again" and I was discouraged precisely by having to go through those origin stories.

But this is the problem isn't it? Different players have different priorities when it comes to what they want to see more.

Sure, and I will always advocate for MY priorities, because I genuinely think they are the ones that will make the game better.

The origin stories in DA:O are awesome. Especially the dwarf ones.

I don't thing it is impossible. I'll expand. For what I've seen in DOS and BG3, the characters created by Larian like Astarion have labels to identify them. Those labels are linked to their quest, stories and some dialogs.

So you can basically write some stories asocated to quest and a few dialogs and give them labels. Then you let the player creating a custom character choose one of those stories+quest. If you want that the stories make a little more sense with the custom character and felt a little more coherent, you can restrict the selection to choose from depending on race, class and background.

For example: you might want that the story "dwarf heir" only show to the people choosing a dwarf.

So there is a potential technical solution and I would like to see something like that. If that doesn't happen well, it won't be the end of the world. But I would really like to see that custom characters are as rounded as the ones they created. Just as they promised. Hell, they might be already discusing better solutions than the one I said. After all, they are professionals.

People generally hate tutorials, though. One of the first mods will probbably be "skip the tutorial"mod. I don't see them putting a lot of work into a bunch of different tutorial sections that people are just gonna want to skip anyway. Dragon Age: Origins could do it because they had a small number of possible origins, and they put a lot of effort into them. It was part of the shtick and the selling point of the game. The amount of work it would take Larian to implement a bunch of customized tutorials that would satisfy people probably wouldn't feel worth it to them.

I hope there will be a Prologue telling us what we were doing before being taken by the mindflayers, rather than where we came from etc.
To tell a custom made character's story seems like a lot of work but explaining that a character found themselves in Baldur's Gate or in front of the gates before it happened. Anywhere really, anywhere but a spelljammer right away.

Let people arrive in the world first before everything explodes around you. I can see that my character is surviving incredible odds but I can't take it seriously.
Anything but showing higher level content that apparently only serves as a set-piece and not interesting gameplay.

And really work the tadpole angle, dont throw it away by having everyone know about it and not having any escalating symptoms. Mindflayers are great at anything mind related but they can't make the insertion moment of the tadpole a bit more fuzzy to remember, so we can puzzle it back together?

Having people start in Baldur's Gate, teasing players with the city, have them go window shopping and then take it away again. During these first few minutes you can teach the player about the controls and maybe give a few pointers to where one lives.

Or have the player fight something realistic first, a bunch of goblins that don't have more hp and explosives, barely escaping before then being abducted.
Those goblins with explosives are great though.

The start weak right now and for me it's mostly due to not being able to arrive in the world and look around first a little. And surviving the dragon breath at level 1.

Aside for the fact that most of this is flavor, I have mostly two problems with this idea:

1- The abductions shown in the cinematic intro aren't supposed to be happening in BG, but in the surrounding region away from the city.
2- I expect our first arrival at BG to be something that the game wants to surprise and awe us with. A "crowning moment" for our previous efforts during the campaign. Starting a tutorial sections there would dull the moment (and the impact of that moment) considerably.

They stated in an interview that there´ll no specific dialogues for backgrounds, sadly, IIRC.

Yes, that's why I made the Goblin example, assuming that would happen outside. I know that abduction can't happen in BG. Having players leave Baldur's Gate thinking they go on aregular adventure. And what and adventure it's going to be.

I think the tutorial should be slower and more believable, where it happens I don't mind so much.

Agree though that Baldur's Gate should be a moment of awe. Just as Avernus or a spelljammer should be. Giving all of BG "away" in the beginning would lessen the experience though, for me included.

There doesn't need to be an different prologue for every class background and race, there can simply be a one-size fits all scenario that through dialogue acknowledges these things and lets you understand better who your character is, and establishes some character traits that come into play later in the game, such as you're the type of person that will fall over in amazement when they see a dragon, or you have a snarky personality because those are always one of your dialogue options. A part from the Drow and Githyanki I can easily see this happening, you're in a caravan/tavern people ask you where you're from, where you're going and why, establishing your home , your background and some of your personality.

some of these things I wouldn't expect to be as customizable for a Drow, how many hometowns can we realistically choose from for a Drow, the logistics of a Drow MC are still difficult for me to fathom, the Githyanki on the other hand are pretty straightforward considering they're all fighting these nautiloids already, and a prologue would be great for introducing us to such a foreign culture.

Like the Solasta option? altruism, greedy, sarcastic etc

You seem to know a lot about Drow, how would you solve it? Does the city of origin has to be more than just flavor? Whould "has been living above ground for a while" and "hasn't ever seen the sun" be something that drow players be interested in? Just how different would your gameplay look like coming from either city?

The prologue doesn't have to be the origin setting of the character but provide for a stage where this can be played out. The interrogation in witcher is pretty alright, just have the mindflayers mentally probe the character and the player answers questions, in addition to the character creator. This way the character creation happens even more in game.

Or include it with quick-time events, similar to the option to deal with the argument that ensues in BG3 right after the gate and you can punch either character (dm: "ok, roll an attack, you miss and now look bad" - love it)

I don't know a lot about Drow, especially whatever they've changed since 3e, but there's the Capital which all the big houses have a piece of, and where Lolth resides, then there are other smaller cities that are usually dominated or solely under the control of a specific House. I've always gotten the sense that there isn't a lot of room in the Underdark nor a very large ecology to support urbanisation, so the number of cities between all Underdark races is very dear.

As for Drow being a part of above ground society, I've never heard of that, not just because they suffer under sunlight and most people would kill Drow on sight, but because it's tantamount to heresy to leave Lolth's domain permanently, the ones that do go rogue like Viconia and Drizzt are exceedingly rare and don't usually last very long ( I personally wouldn't use Drizzt as a template for anything but what do I know), but I'm sure someone who's more in the know could expand on this.


This is very much what I was think of when I brought this up, I think my mentioning Dragon Age made people think I wanted something as extensive and story relevant as the origins in that, but just anything to establish the custom MC a little, so that we're not flatfooted when trying to roleplay them would be nice.

I especially like your Mind-Flayer mind probe scenario, it sounds like a great way to establish some things for your character with out the possibility you're just bullshitting to get on someone's good side. a RPG pet peeve of mine


I haven't played Solasta but I think I follow, what I'm referring too is more that the custom character has a personality already set, from when they do a comedy fall when they first see a dragon on the nautiloid to the way they physically react during dialogue and cutscenes. There are also a few character archetypes (dare I say alignments!) that most of your dialogue choices cleave to, that are fine, but put together with the rest of the presentation make the custom MC less of a blank slate, i.e. my interest in a prologue.

This is going to be an important point for me, roleplay-wise. If my [Baldurian] has no house, no family, no friends, no connection to the city at all, I'm going to avoid making any future [Baldurian]s so the disconnect no longer exists.

I love the mind probe idea, that'd be a great way to close out a Tutorial.

I'd again stress that the tutorial should be separate from the main story mode, a separate launch I mean, an option that can be skipped if desired. But really it could be a cool extension of the character creation process if they built it out a bit.

Like if I'm a pirate to have the background established.Or sure if a noble, then when you get back to Baldur's Gate you should have some vendetta or house drama. Or an acolyte who has an association with some church in the city. Things like that. Outlander types might have a different set up stressing the out of doors angle. The mind probe would be a great way to dish out the char race/class/background choices, in an extended dialog at the end with consequences later on for the main story. That's what I would hope for. But I agree the spelljammer is a weird way to handle a tutorial. Tutorial should go through all the game menus and abilities, and a merchant for the starting equipment ala classic D&D form.

There should be some tension around what you choose to buy at the start. Like do you want to make sure its arms and armor, or a healing potion and scrolls? Money should be tight enough to make some choices there. Or oldschool where rogues have less starting cash than tank types, but get a chance to steal or rake to make up the difference. I think the analog should be as an extended char creation tutorial (e.g. Candlekeep), rather than prologue to the prologue. If that makes sense

This. At least get to what we saw in PoE. Better yet, allow us to choose a story that equals that of our companions but is open enough that we can fill in the blanks. Otherwise we are bland in comparison. Holy mission for Shar, Former lover of a God, 200 year old Vampire spawn and Tav McBlanderson, proud Member of the Baldur's Gate Cheesemongers guild. Tav needs a story boost.

Waaay back in the Ultima Series you would start by answering some questions about your life and those questions would become real in the game. It would be nice to see something like that return. Or a diary, or a magic mirror, or whatever those elven memory stones are called . .

I know "enough to be the equal of the companions but also fairly open" is not an easy request to fulfill but somehow BG did it.

This exactly.


You are not required to use these dialogue options. Pretty sure I won't have any characters from there so I will ignore that option. Just like most games where you would ignore the mean option if trying to be nice.


How would you make this generic scenario though? There are so many options for everything in DnD. A demeanour tag would help, perhaps even a home area, not every surfacer comes from Baldur's Gate. Lolth Sworn Drow (and perhaps non Drow Underdark dwellers) should simply have Underdark tag as the home area. Not a real need to go more specific than this. Demeanour would be best, most likely a Drow isn't going to show weak emotions at the sight of anything.


Surface or Underdark would have different reactions to a lot of things. There are already a lot of dialogue options for Lolth Sworn, haven't played the other but I would expect them to have similar options to any surfacer.


Too many variables in backgrounds to do this. Also, why do we have to go shopping? Many, if not most characters would have some basic armour for whatever they were doing before.



Your character is only bland if you make them that way. I have full backstories for 4 characters that would make sense for being a level 1 adventurer (I hate level 1 super awesome characters) and although I don't know exactly what was happening to 2 of them at the exact moment of abduction, it is probable that they or the tadpole blocked those memories. I am actually glad the companions have proper backstories, otherwise they become followers rather than companions.

I would be ok if they added some basic generic options for people having a hard time making a character but only if we could have the pure custom character as well.

I played through the EA with 2 different seldarine drow, and they do have different dialogue options to Lolth-sworn, mostly little bit generic dialogue that 'you see red eyes, you run' and other little ways of diffusing tension and such situations, but that's about it. Oh and you also have a unique dialogue (just like the Lolth sworn) with those 2 spiders in gobbo camp, but it's obviously quite different.


But I agree with the overall notion to make custom characters a little bit less generic. I don't mind being a blank slate, but not to this extent. I like the mind probing idea, but do we really need to be mind probed? We start off with a goddamn tadpole in our head, right in the beginning of character creation an ominous voice (the tadpole ofc) already asks us: who are you?

What would be nice is, after pressing the venture forth button, we'd get some sort of short movie/slideshow actually stating who we are, what we did etc (something similar to the 'genesis' DLC that Mass Effect series had). Tie our backgrounds somehow into that, our race, our class, make some choices unavailable to other races/classes/backgrounds. If you choose to play as an origin, you'd also have this small slideshow, but you would obviously unable to pick anything, you'd just be shown what Astarion or Gale did before getting snatched away. That way, people who wanna skip it, can just ram spacebar like they do now and people who actually care about a little bit of story of our customs - can actually have small character defining choices if they wish to.

As long as something like this was only optional, like a character template for those that have a hard time coming up with anything. Leave a true custom character for the rest of us. There are more than enough games out there that tell you who your character was.

I can't see there being a prologue, and a Mind Flayer ship tutorial, and a beach section and more tutorials. That would make the early game drag on.

I can't see Backgrounds being more than just bonus skill specializtions, because they will never match the player's ideas.

Heaven forfend our RPG takes its time building character mood and setting...

That's what the actual game and companion interactions are for.
NPCs gradually opening themselves up to you is way better than you just being infodumped everything within the first minute of meeting someone.
In the event that you're referring to the player playing as one of the Origin characters there's going to be an introduction video to the different characters in the character creation menu. This should be sufficient to give you an idea of who the character is, what their personality and what their motivations are.

NPC's gradually opening themselves up to you, and the plot of your adventure slowly unfolding as you go are very different things from what I'm talking about. Your character, the setting, and specifically the custom MC who doesn't have the benefit of having a bespoke backstory to slowly incorporate into the tale, are.
A Prologue doesn't need to deal with anything pertinent to the plot of the game, but it can go a long way to set your expectation about what kind of world we're dealing with, as well as your custom character's place in it, heroic or not.

I'll use the two previous BG games.

Baldur's Gate: you get a VO setting the stage, you're an orphan living a monastic life with your foster father, you go around meeting people, allowing you to get a feel for what your character is like and introducing you to the world, this ends when you're waylaid by some baddies who murder your mentor and set you on the path of adventure.

Shadows of Amn: completely out of left field after your triumph at Baldur's Gate we meet our hero after he's been captured by a mad scientist, who subjectes him and his friends to torture, after an indeterminate amount of time you escape and rescue (or not) some old companions, Irenicus's dungeon lets you establish what kind of character you are, tells you this story will be incorporating more darker elements into the high fantasy before putting you into a completely foreign city.

I know people like to vent at having to play through Irenicus's dungeon but that only really became an issue to me after I understood your character is only ever going to be a cipher in this game, so your choices don't really matter, and because at that point I've played the game so much I can go through it blindfolded. Shadows of Amn had a tutorial too, which deals with your capture I think, I only played it once well after finishing the game multiple times, so I can't comment.

Compare with BG:3, you awake in a Illithid pod, are implanted with a tadpole, then go on an adventure to get rid of it. With the origin characters it will no doubt be different but if you play a custom character don't expect to have a personality that isn't established by other characters.

You are told who you are in those games. With this one you are free to be whoever you want. You are able to develop whatever personality you want, it isn't going to be established by other characters unless you let them. That is what is so great about this game, you can use whatever your imagination comes up with. Why do you wish to limit this?

There is a sweet spot. And I acknowledge that it's a place that hard to reach. BG2 found that place. IWD didn't, neither did DOS2

You want to have enough of structure to allow the imagination to stick. Just like with glue -- if you want something to stick you need to prepare the surface first.

Granted I can go through IWD imagining that I'm the son a god of death and that my enemies are standing in the way of my destiny. I can go through DOS imagining that my character is also an immortal but one that supported the God King and that really resent Fane. But that's really throwing lots of ink at a blank canvas.

Not easy I grant you but it can be done.

I would have liked to them not to assume we are from Baldur's Gate, but as stated by many of you [Zarna giving the most examples] that you can choose other options that ignore [Balduran] dialogue options. Waterdeep, Neverwinter, Amn, Tethyr, Calimshan, and even Westgate (if it still exists that is in 5E Faerun) would be nice to have as places you are from. As it stands if you pick the general options you can say you are from any where, but for now at least you are (if you aren't playing a Githyanki or Drow) assumed to be Balduran.

Personally, as has been noted above, I would have liked a prologue to set up those details than being snatched in the pod and creating from there. However, it does take a lot of effort to get mechanics as well as story to mesh well. It is not an easy challenge and I try not to be an apologist, but making games is hard work never mind trying to make a compelling story.

As it stands in EA, I am HOPING, they will expand upon character's origins a little bit more. If anything maybe a Faerun like text option in dialogue for those that don't want to say they are from Baldur's Gate. Githyanki at least get [Planar] option on some choices. Perhaps some lines could be added to Faerun native races to allow for more traveled characters.

Just my suggestion though, I'm not sure how much extra work that would entail development wise. I think it is a little late to have them go back and add a Prologue before the capture. I think that is pretty well set with no hope of changing. Just keep in mind we are only seeing roughly 20 hours of game play so things might be more impressive down the road as it is revealed. Right now I'd just like to see them release some other classes to test. Paladin, Monk, and Sorcerer is kind of what I'm looking forward to. Also the Assassin sub-class. Anyways, that is off-topic.

I like a lot of some of your suggestions, but just be mindful there is only so much they can fit in or they'll gain the Cyberpunk 2077 curse.

Nah, I disagree .You are "assumed to be Balduran" only in the very moment you pick that specific option, for how I see it.
It's the in-game moment you are offered the chance to stick to your "head canon" and say "Oh yeah, that's me, totally a Balduran" or say "Nope, my character biography no one will ever care about says I'm from [insert exotic place here]".

Good point. I only said as such due to the Character Information tab in the game that marks you down as Balduran, but you are very much right. It is how you perceive your character that counts not the opinion of others.

I'm not sure I'm following this.
Do you mean that, unless you choose that option, it isn't canon information? I can see that being true for matters of opinion, such as how you respond to someone worshipping an evil deity, but with such things as race, and place of birth, is that really a matter of head-canon?
Or do you mean that, because the particulars of the custom MC are so variable, any choice involving their backstory might as well be inconsequential because the game will only ever pay lip service to it?

Edit: I've also been operating under the assumption that only being Baldurian was a EA limitation, like our current race selection.

Is the tag even already there before you pick that dialogue option? I didn't bother to check, but if the answer was "no" it would implicitly address a lot of things.

That is why I'd suggest a separate Tutorial that is self contained and launched from a separate menu, and which can be skipped if desired.

Of course it drags if you try to extend the tutorial into the Mind Flayer ship and then onto the beach as well, that approach is inefficient. It stalls the story launch, screws the pacing, and gives only a piecemeal tutorial at best, since you can't cover everything when the tutorial is set... on a crashing Nautiloid.

Some things you could do in a more standard Tutorial that would be helpful...

Movement and Cam control
Action tutorial to highlight stuff like jump, hide, dash, throw, etc with prompts and situations for each.
Extended Combat tutorials, both solo and grouped, first with an emphasis on basic attacks/actions advantage, shoving pinning dipping etc, but leading into more nuanced support stuff.
Extended Non-Combat or Pre-Combat tutorials, for buffs, healing or stuff like stealing, or convo related like guidance or friends etc.
Spellcasting more generally, with spell prep explaining what cantrips are or how they're different from spells, also consumables.
Hotbar tutorial (and hopefully a spellbook tutorial, if it ever gets its own UI element.)
Resting tutorial, to explain short rest vs long rest or the camp dynamic.
help downed PC and restoration tutorial (someone gets dead)
Map, Mini Map, Journal and quest tracking tutorial.
Leveling tutorial. Like lvl up a temporary companion, so players can get a sense of how that works with some throw away tutorial NPC companion, low pressure decision.
Equipment and Inventory management, send to group/camp, Barter etc tutorial.

The reason to have PCs buy their starting equipment is primarily because its entertaining and traditional for lvl1 adventures, but also to help introduce the game's internal economy and establish its floor... But again, mainly as an excuse to tutor the new player on Inventory and Equipment management, Barter or Merchant menus and skills related to them.

In its current 5e incarnation we have...
Fighters and Priests 5d4 × 10 gp
Rouges and Wizards 4d4 × 10 gp

But in an actual tutorial level you can play it up even more by class archetype or background, if you put that at or near the end of the tutorial.

Right now there are only what, like 10 backgrounds in this game? Is that really "too many variables" to manage?

I mean this is supposed to be a AAA title isn't it? This isn't lunchtime cafeteria fare lol, they should put in the work. Currently the game assumes a high degree of familiarity or prior experience with D&D or maybe Divinity systems, and doesn't do a whole lot to introduce and explain them. I think they should carve out a separate space for this, separate from the main game I mean. Again so that the tutor beats can follow on one after the next until everything is covered, without intruding on the actual story and getting in the way for a returning player or re-rolled toons. If its separate, then its easier to make optional. There for people who need or enjoy it, skip for those who don't/

The tutorial shouldn't bleed into the main story such that players who already know all this stuff have to muddle through it again and again in each replay. Certainly not once we're on the beach, that's way too far into the game for tutorial stuff to still be happening. There's no need to reduplicate, if its covered in the tutorial it could be removed from the current EA prologue, streamlining it so the prologue pacing isn't bogged down by the need to also serve as the tutorial.

I haven't played all the races, but everyone I have is tagged Baldurian from the start, except the Gith and a Lolthsworn.

After doing a little search this is the best I could find on the matter, from an reddit AMA There's still plenty of leeway either way from this eight month old statement (further afield? does that mean the Underdark races, or someone who wants to be from Calimshan?) but I think the fact [Baldurian] is Tagged! makes it variable, otherwise it would be unique in that regard, no? I'm too afraid to go into the Datamining thread to see if there's something there...pity me.

There should be more tooltips for these type things but this can be easily done on the ship or the first instance of something (like with the Help action or the first visit to a shop.) Should be able to turn this off in menu options as well.



The trade/barter thing should definitely be made more clear but I am pretty sure none of us were abducted while on a shopping trip, buying gear would make no sense. It is ok for DnD but nearly all the video games I play have started you off with basic equipment or nothing.


Yes it is.

Take the Criminal background as an example. Were you in a guild or freelance or something else? What type of criminal were you? Thief, spy, enforcer, bandit, murderer, gambler or something else. These are only some ideas but I don't want to write a whole page on this. How would you incorporate these into something for everyone? The typical version is being a thief and part of a guild. Completely immersion breaking for someone who wants to be a bandit and may never enter a city, or an infiltrator who would never steal. Some options in dialogue would be fine, you can simply not pick them if they don't apply, but using this in a tutorial would be horrible.

I have said many times that they should maybe add custom templates for people that have a hard time coming up with things but leave the current custom option for the rest of us.

If its text based I can't imagine it being all that hard. I mean how long did it take you to brainstorm that one for the "criminal" background? pretty much every potentiality you just laid out could be presented in convo with an NPC at the end of the tutorial. An Innkeep or barmaid or anyone really could step in to present the Qs for the background branching. Not as directly as you just laid out like "what kind of criminal are you?" but in essence exactly that. You can cast a broad net and build out the background aspect in text convo and in that way have a template conveyed in a more natural way. By putting it at the end of a tutorial, and reinforcing the idea that the tutorial and custom character creation are bridged concepts.

Anyone who isn't interested in the Tutorial can just advance their character straight to the Prologue on the crashing ship with the default equipment.

I think there is certainly a way that all this could be built into the current Prologue, but then I think it would weigh it down from a pacing standpoint, even if you're skipping past every tutorial prompt. and just trying to blast through the encounters. I'd rather be able to skip the whole thing at that point and start at the beach.

Takes no time at all to come up with this stuff really. The problem is you have to do this with each background, race, and class. Then mix the combinations: race/background, class/race, background/class. Then all 3 together. Then hope you didn't miss something. Even more combinations since they are apparently adding the stupid alignment tag. All of this takes time and budget. I think they could use a few custom templates with a small paragraph of backstory (examples: Tiefling Urchin Rogue, Wood Elf Outlander Ranger) and then leave the free option we have now as the real custom one.

To answer, since I just started playing the intro again as a human, it clearly says Balduran in the character information tab on the ship starting off. At least for now, all are considered from Baldur's Gate that are not Drow (Both are considered not of BG) or Githyanki. That may change further down the road, but for right now that is the default, but as you did say, you don't have to pick those options and still say you aren't from there. It is after all just a tag on a character sheet.

Modern tutorials seem to go by a philosophy of, assume the basics are known, introduce non-basic functions slowly, reinforce those once or twice after, they're perfectly willing to do this well into the game, for a lot of the same reasons people seem to want to avoid adding to the nautiloid level, it makes the story artificially paced, catering to very meta-game constraints.Setting their gold to zero and kicking your PCs out into the harsh world also gives them an appreciation for the economy and their inventory...and it's quite entertaining too. The only real problem I have with this is how it adds nothing to the actual game, if it's stand alone, merely for the purpose of training newbie to D&D or CRPGs, then why not just let them learn from the game they'll be playing? And story-wise, why put time into a stand alone tutorial level that won't matriculate into the actual narrative of the game?

In a different tutorial/start scenario though? or dialog with the tadpole in the character creation screen? You could have the narrator comment on choices made in the character creation part as well.

Personally the option with the tavern is still my favorite, the mind probing just suits the current narrative better, which is compelling in its own way,




Hadn't considered that one could lie when giving those answers heh. Lae'Zel would also be a good point to ask some questions about the player character's past.



I don't remember but doesn't the character roll a wisdom check for the cowering? like later with the gith gang? I get it though, would be nice to see the character's traits define how the tutorial plays out more



The tutorial can be included within the main story and doesn't have to be as stiff as in baldurs gate if you ask me, its already quite alright.
It worked for me in baldurs gate but I thought it was a bit like running a course that was set up just for that day, the entire candlekeep section.
Going through all of the menu might be a bit much, some things like crafting can wait quite a bit, otherwise people just skip most of the tutorial.

The skipping of the tutorial would be an issue if there are character creation selections to be made

I like the background specific tutorials! great place to be picked up by mindflayers as well.



what's that option?



Oh yeah, I totally forgot that the entire character creation already kind of is a mind probing

I wonder what style Larian will go with when doing the origin exposition in character creation, DOS2 was pretty neat with the little introduction every character had. It doesn't translate well into custom characters so I hope they choose more of a collage style, a slide show like you suggested

I think the biggest hurdle to adding anything before the start of the game is how they've intercut the opening cutscene -> character creation -> the attack cutscene -> player control. They've put a lot of time and money behind them so anything like what we're talking about would have to work around them, such as making the character creation segment more extensive, involving a slightly more in depth look at your background, city of origin, and personality, possibly through more extensive interaction with "who we dream of". Even having a sequence with you in the pod talking to the other prisoners "between the bars" doesn't quite work considering you could be any origin character. The easiest way and least compelling is doing everything retroactively, which leads into the next point.
This point to me has been a real Achilles' Heel of RPG characterization for a while now, the way people develop their characters is through their actions and interactions with other people, The way you act might seem pretty straightforward but the motivations behind them aren't, consider our Grove-Goblin conflict, you don't need to be good to help out the Tieflings, your motivations can be totally selfish or altruistic, but the only way for the game to know that is through explicitly having your character talk about it, either with your companions or with themselves. This causes a problem, because your companions can like or dislike you, a whole system of min-max approval/disapproval gains take over from the role playing. Are you saying that because you believe it or because you want them to like you, are lying to them because you're a deceptive person or because the game rewards you for doing so. It's a game design that rewards the PC who is one of those high-functioning sociopaths, they don't have a externalized personality because all their interactions with other people go through these machinations. That's why I liked the mind probe scenario because it gets around the retroactive character building that is in play right now, which is subject this paradigm.

To give a few examples of this I found in the EA:

If double crossing Zevlor, he asks you why!?! you respond by saying, all hail the Absolute....what? does that mean I'm a true believer now? Am I just saying that to be shitty? I couldn't tell you.

Astarion comes upon us at night, revealing his need for blood, because I think he's a dreamy bad-boy I can 'fix', I let him 'neck' with me, the next morning the camp knows his true nature, and inquires into my disposition, I make clear, privately, that if anyone catches him sucking someone's blood, he's to be killed, I then ask Astarion if he'd be interested in a repeat of last night....what's going on here, am I trying to murder him the hard way? Am I just saying what I think everyone wants to hear? ...Am I jealous? Bite me sempai!

Like I said, pet peeve

It only takes over from the role playing if the player lets it.

But yeah, there is an issue in that the expressed preferences of the PC may not indicate anything more than the PC's desire to avoid some conflict with certain NPCs. CRPGs don't have enough options where we can have the PC say something which is flagged as a lie.

lol...huh - wait, does that mean we're really the tadpole?

By that logic no interaction between me and the game needs to take place, it can all be done on my end. That isn't a dig, that's what you have to do with a lot of older games. It's perfectly valid, but it's not what I find interesting about narrative RPGs.
At the end of the day you have to come to terms with the fact that the computer DM only has a limited number of moves to make, but making a compelling and adaptive world for you play around with is what I want from these games.

Wait, what? My point was that the PC should be able to lie to the NPCs.

The point I was trying to make here is that you can't lie in a game that doesn't distinguish between the internal and the external.
I thought your point was that you as the player had to pick up the slack for the internal.(I'm choosing this option but in my head-canon, I'm really just avoiding conflict)
sorry if I missed it.
...yes, we should be able to lie, that's much more succinct that what I did...