I was playing through the first couple of hours of Baldur's Gate EE last night and I had a few moments that made me stop and think about Baldur's Gate 3. i laughed out loud at dialogue choice or a quest I did. One was a thief that keeps stealing from us when we talk to him even though he wants help and the journal entry was written as if we're his psychologist, which was a great moment. the other one was two dialogue choices with a quest about a chicken. Fowl jokes, and something related to that.
It made me realize that I don't remember laughing out loud while playing Baldur's Gate 3 in relation to actual dialogue or quests. I've laughed when I yeeted someone off a cliff, or said "ah yeaa" when i did over 20 damage in a single attack, but I can't remember laughing at a dialogue option or funny quest. Sure, when Lae'zel and I got into an insult match, it was 'sort' of funny, but it played out as just more mean spirited and not "laugh out loud" sort of funny.
Do you guys find the game funny? and does that even matter to you?
It matters to me. I enjoy being an ass to gale and astarion and I'm glad they put in the option to always insult them, sometimes in a string. Sending the dwarf flying off the windmill was funny, kind of. Troll sex was amusing. There's plenty of amusing moments but not really all the way funny.
I don't generally laugh at things unless there's other people involved. Maybe a chuckle at most.
As for BG3 the dialogue with Mattis where you keep bothering him for coin tosses is probably the thing I've found most humorous so far.
To me, Baldur's Gate 3 feels like a new campaign in the same setting as 1&2, but with a different DM, who has a different style and a different sense of humor.
I chuckled at the delirious thrall who wanted my help to kill 10 rats... while we're on a burning Nautiloid flying through the Hells. A nice reference.
I mostly laugh when a party member flubs an easy shot. "How could you miss, you idiot!" Laughing is better than throwing something at the screen in frustration.
Windmill got me, the only one I remember. Other than that just goofing around with a couple of my buddies in multi.
The humor in the game hasn't made me laugh. It's mostly been a contrast to the seriousness of the illithid plotline. It's hard to get out of the zone that we're invested in a serious plot.
Especially with Shadowheart, Lae'zel, Gale, and Astarion being serious most of the time.
It's not important for this game to make me laugh, but I'm hopeful when the good characters are introduced they'll lighten the narrative. Then the humor can shine in Baldur's Gate 3.
When I released the brakes, by mistake, in the windmill I laughed hard.
Nevertheless I don't see the BG series as sets open to humor. So I don't miss laughs.
When I want laughs I search for comedy oriented games (like Zack McKraken and the invaders of mars or Monkey Island).
I did not laugh much in BG3 but thats OK.
The game manages to create a good atmosphere and thats the most importent thing.
They somehow managed to have a very dark setting without making the player feel depressed.
This was a bit of a problem in PoE1 for me. You are going insane, lots of cultists and the biggest attracktion in the first town is a tree with hanged people. This could really pull you down when the only thing that was a bit funny were some comments of your companions.
The best laugh I had lately when playing the beta of Wraith of the Rightious.
Without too much spoilers, imagine a scientist who does a field study on demonic cultists.
When I released the brakes, by mistake, in the windmill I laughed hard.
Nevertheless I don't see the BG series as sets open to humor. So I don't miss laughs.
When I want laughs I search for comedy oriented games (like Zack McKraken and the invaders of mars or Monkey Island).
Oh yeah the first time when I hit accelerate rather than brakes and he went flying cracked me up. I was like WTF!
Other than that just goofing around with a couple of my buddies in multi.
it's funny you mention buddies, I googled "funny moments in Baldur's gate 3" and there was a video, but all it was, was a bunch of people laughing as they killed stuff and each other in BG3, it wasn't actually funny moments in Baldur's Gate 3.
This was a bit of a problem in PoE1 for me.
Yea, PoE was just too dark for me. I don't need to be laughing when i play a game, but I find BG3 a little too serious sometimes. Every conversation is played as serious, even when it's a ridiculous situation. I'd love a silly cutscene where you catch Lae'zel playing with scratch or something just to have her try to explain it or something like that. Sure it would be "out of character" in a sense, but it'd be a nice reprieve.
I've been engaged in other games. BG 1 and 2, Vampire.
Hopefully the later content in BG 3 gets us to care.
I did chuckle whilst having an argument with a very petulant squirrel about which trees I was allowed to walk near and which ones were hers...
There have been a few times I've chuckled a little bit while playing BG3 (I don't really laugh out loud usually no matter how funny I find something). On the other hand, I didn't find a lot of the humor in the earlier Baldur's Gate games that funny.
I do enjoy some humor in games, but it doesn't ruin a game for me if most of the jokes fall flat (unless they're like, really, really bad).
I laughed at the squirrels hanging out by the bard. I walked up. She's singing. There are squirrels at her feet. I thought it was meant to be this idyllic scene of her singing and attracting all the wildlife with her lovely voice.
Then I talked to the squirrels, and they're covering their ears, pleading with me to please make it stop.
That said, for the most part, I play the game for the more serious tone. The occasional bit of humor is okay, but I'd have no interest in something that didn't take itself seriously.
I don't personally enjoy Larian's writing. The originals had humor but it was very different in tone.
There are a lot of silly humorous lines in Astarion, Gale that don't fit characters that may turn into mid flayers imminently.
The overall story and characters ideas are great, but the dialogues are poorly written. There are some exceptions though like Laezel and Minthara.
The current animations also do not help. They seem to overutilize their hands/fingers; not very natural.
I laugh from the freedom the game awards me. My first playthtough I went as a lovable greedy rogue with a heart of gold, but now I'm going Evil, and I'm lying, deceiving, killing, and being the worst being I can. I slaughtered the entire goblin village just to rescue the gnome, and then killed him. I got mama owlbear, and when the game went all Bambi with the cub, I killed it too. All my dialogue options are for Deception, Intimidation and similar.
I laughed at Astarian's rejection lines. I don't think the dialogues are poorly written but I think they are much too short.
But the Larian ironic humor isn't my thing at all. When I watch videos of players laughing at goblins being some killed on some surface I feel no desire to guffaw along with them. That sense of humor relies upon an ironic detachment from the game that I just don't enjoy -- for me ironic detachment is the converse of immersion.
In BG2 I liked a) Jan and b) the clever references.
a) Jan was to BG2 as R2D2 & C-P30 were to star wars. Jan broke the tension of a dark, heavy, immersive experience.
b) I just liked playing "I got that reference" with BG2. There were lots of references to Shakespeare, to philosophers like Horkheimer and Sarte. "Animals are attacking Trademeet, it's like nothing I've ever seen. It's like a revolt of nature!" Okay, I see what you did there you over-educated devs you. By the way, why are a couple of MDs making video games anyway? . . .
Now there are some clever parts of BG3 as well -- whoever is writing Astarian is really doing something clever with the man who cannot look in the mirror. Astarian simply lacks the ability to engage in self reflection . . .
Right now I'm hoping for more cleverness and less cheese-loving ironist humor as in: "Haha! Now I'll become a teleporting badger! A now I'm a huge billy goat and I'll yeet the hag into a pit! Success! Put a block of cheese on my head because I'm the king of cheese, haha! Claps backs, punches arms . . . "
Flipping the wrong switch on the windmill had me rolling for about 20 minutes! I even went back and tried it again! When it comes to combat, if I'm not crying I'm laughing. It can be soo one sided. I chuckled when I discovered the Blade of Frontiers eyeball in my inventory. I haven't said anything, given it to him and he hasn't asked, lol. Shadowheart makes a snide comment about light reading in the underdark.
Interesting question. There are funny moments in this game, and Astarion's certainly entertaining, but there's nothing like the journal entries in the first game (which I love) or the various kooky characters (who I also love) or the silly little events/encounters scattered around that gave a feeling of fun, sort of wacky adventure. Larian's games don't have the same mindset.
Do you guys find the game funny? and does that even matter to you?
It really doesn't matter to me. In fact I prefer to not have pointless things added because someone decided something has to be "funny" for no reason. I have found some amusing parts for sure, but my sense of humour is rather dark anyway.

That said, for the most part, I play the game for the more serious tone. The occasional bit of humor is okay, but I'd have no interest in something that didn't take itself seriously.
This.
It has gotten a chuckle out of me now and again. Particularly on my first playthrough. It is pretty rare for me to audibly laugh at games though, so by my standards BG3's humor has been pretty solid.
My favorite moments:
1. Annoying the crap out of Mattis by making him flip the coin a dozen times.
2. Elbowing Astarion in the face when I caught him trying to snack on me.
3. Finding the bugbear and his lover in the barn.
4. The whole ordeal Gale puts you through the first time he dies.
Plus the general gameplay allows for some pretty funny shenanigans. I admit I did chuckle a bit when I chucked a halfling at his friends.
Yep. If it's comedy you want from your RPG, play a druid or ranger and talk to the animals. Or just talk to lots of people. Especially goblins. Or listen to the background dialogue while you're trading or inventorying or exploring. Or read the books. There is a metric xxx-ton of humour* in BG3 for anyone who actually pauses to stop, read and listen.
*And no, I don't mean Volo
I'm not playing such RPG to laugh. I'm playing to experience / live an epic journey in the FR like I would reading a fantasy book.
BG3's sense of humor does not make me laugh at all and often break my immersion in the story with all these "funny / silly" things.
Of course a bit humor like in the old games is very good but the tone is really not the same. Larian's sense of humor only rely on WTF/SILLY things.
The writing is definitely not good enough for humour to be there beyond physical/crude humour right now.
Actually likeable companions might be a start :O
I'm not playing such RPG to laugh. I'm playing to experience / live an epic journey in the FR like I would reading a fantasy book.
BG3's sense of humor does not make me laugh at all and often break my immersion in the story with all these "funny / silly" things.
Of course a bit humor like in the old games is very good but the tone is really not the same. Larian's sense of humor only rely on WTF/SILLY things.
I differ from this view somewhat. I like a range of emotions, but of course vastly prefer the feel of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings to Monty Phyton and the Holy Grail when it comes to roleplaying. I consider comedic elements in the story and in persistent gameplay separate from one another though. The former is more subtle and requires clever writing (superior to any of the original game I might add). The second is pure slapstick physical comedy, and not only silly, but obtrusively so in the way it's been made core mechanisms of gameplay which in turn affect balancing.
The talking heads in D:OS2 was a moment of hilarity that in a way combines both and made me laugh out loud. One of the highlights of any game in two decades of (casual) gaming.
I laughed once the other day, when in Guts chambers I found some flooring you can shoot out. I did, didn't realise I was standing on it, and fell down. That wasn't so funny, but as my character got up, and I was looking around trying to figure out where I am, I hear a "aaaAAAAAAA-UGH" *THUMP* and Wyll, the idiot, had jumped into the hole after me.
I had to laugh when I saw the label "talkative skeleton" .
Volo's failed praise in the Goblin camp was funny also.
Yea, in general I like the bits of humor.
I have definitely laughed in the time I've played the game and I find Astarion to be quite entertaining.
While humour isn't necessary for me to enjoy a game, I find that its presence enhances how much I enjoy a game.
Volo, Astarion and Abidraak come to the mind, when I'm thinking about the funny characters in BG3.
They made me laugh a few times.
Yes, I do like this game's humor. Off the top of my head, the scenes I found funny were
- Mattis and the coin flip
- Teethlings
- Astarion and the mirror
- The windmill
- "It got a beak, don't it?" pretty much the entire chicken chasing sequence
- The bad fanfiction at the Druid Grove "If I have to read the name Balsin one more time..."
- Volo at the goblin camp, in an annoying sort of funny way.
- 20% of what Astarion says. He's an excellent comic relief. Some standouts include "You can talk to animals!"
- Some of the ways you can roast Gale and Wyll are pretty humorous.
I did chuckle, but not at game's humor, but at awkward and buggy cutscenes. Generally, Larian humor makes me cringe or roll my eyes, or unsure if it is intended to be funny or not, and that's one of the reasons I got along with BG3 better then with O:OSs.
The humor in the game hasn't made me laugh. It's mostly been a contrast to the seriousness of the illithid plotline. It's hard to get out of the zone that we're invested in a serious plot.
Especially with Shadowheart, Lae'zel, Gale, and Astarion being serious most of the time.
It's not important for this game to make me laugh, but I'm hopeful when the good characters are introduced they'll lighten the narrative. Then the humor can shine in Baldur's Gate 3.
Yea, we need a good, drunk, wise cracking, thinking he's gods' gift to women, but he's not, BARD. I think that would be hilarious! Not even a companion, just one you meet up with periodically. :P
The one that got me last night, was from Astarion, "I'm so tired... How do people do this all the time?" Something like that. The whiny tone is what got me. :P
I actually did laugh the other night at some of Astarion's responses during the dialogue about the best way to be killed. I'm not sure if that's new (I've only played on Patch 3 previously) or if I just missed it the first time, but it surprised a laugh out of me.
I appreciate games that don't take themselves completely seriously. A bit of ridiculous humour here and there can be fun, and I always appreciate characters with a sharp wit.
However, the thing that makes me smile the most in BG3 is seeing the dog wander by in the background, happily wagging his tail, when I'm in the middle of a serious conversation with a party member. Thank you for that, Larian. Even when the world seems like it's about to end, I still have my dog.
I laughed a lot in bg3. Although not very positively. I laughed at the cheese homebrew combat system that they call DnD. But after enough super Mario jumping encounters with grenade throwing goblins and other weird stuff it gets to the point where laughing is replaced by sadness.
So larian really delivers a full spectrum of emotions.
Going from wow how beautiful, to man that sounds awesome, to wtf?, to lol how ridiculous, to omg not another fight please.
No...i scream and yell that they are 95% accurate and my guys work on about 38% success...They do mondo damage and I do low to middle...my healing potions at 2d4+2 give ne 4-6 on the average...So no there is no laughing only despair and agony. There is hardly any sound for communication and no matter what I do in settings even conversations set at 100% I don't hear anything but garble. No laughing here sorry.
In general: yes

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Because of BG3?: Also yes

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I personally enjoy Larians writing style. Shadowheart for example is someone who makes me smile, because I am a sucker for ironic and sarcastic humor.
One of my fav moments is at the goblin camp. If you speak to the worgs after covering yourself in sh*t... Always makes me laugh.
Oh yeah, speaking of the goblin camp, remember that silly goblin who goes "tribe?"
That made me laugh.
I think that the "It's terrible. I hate it." Is one of the most well-timed comedic scenes I've seen.The build-up, anticipation, and punchline are delivered with just the right delay.
I appreciate humour, even though I rarely laugh out loud. Sometimes I find humour in games is inappropriate, and sometimes I really want a game to be serious and it is not.
But BG1/2 set the tone for the series to include humour, so I expected it in BG3, and, in general, I feel the level in BG3 is fine. The wide audience means that the writing team cannot write niche, overly sophisticated humour, unless it seems normal prose when you don't understand the reference ( Terry Pratchett was a master at writing good prose that was only funny if you had a particular knowledge and world view ).
BG1/2 had some humour I really liked, but didn't really set the bar all that high with Noober and Jan Jansen. BG3 is certainly no worse than its predecessors, and has had me smiling at times.
Volo's Complete Guide to the Behavior of Nymphs got a chuckle out of me. Also the True and Impossible Adventures of Tenebrux Morrow Vol. 3.
I'm a hopeless D&D lore nerd
Do I laugh?! Quite hard not too with these epic cinematic dialogue face reactions.
The future memes will be strong with this one.
Good writing matters to me and even though BG3 has "humor" it's cringy rather than funny just like in DOS so no I don't laugh. I grin occasionaly when something actualy satisfying happens in combat.