I wanted to bring this topic up about custom characters and how they fit in the story due to their also being "Origin" stories and how much effort and resources get put in them by Larian. One of the biggest flaws of OS2 was that custom characters were lifeless and didn't fit in at all. I don't want that problem again, and because of this I wanted to talk about this. Now, as it stands, the custom characters don't really...have a story. Like why are they an adventurer, what were they doing in Baldur's Gate or wherever they were kidnapped before that happen? If you look at some of the recent CRPGs, even the most blank main character have some back story to them to keep them tethered to the world. Pillars had the main character going to a city, and in dialogue you get to pick "WHY" you're going there. Bc you're a mercenary, ur running away, etc. So far I haven't had that chance to do that in a convo with my main character in BG3. In Pathfinder you're a mercenary who ended up on this adventure because you answered the call to go to the Stolen Lands. Even going far back to fallout and NV where you were the courier and got shot (NV not the best example bc its not a CRPG, but it is a damn good RPG nonetheless).

Now I use those games an example because they are amazing RPG's with their custom main characters, but they still feel like they belong in the world because they were doing SOMETHING before the game starts. Before the grand adventure happens. But in OS2, Larians previous game that wasn't the case. You were just on a ship and best I can remember there was never a hint to how you got there or anything. Not even like a selection of dialogue like Pillars 1. You just magically appeared and it's the same here as far as I can tell. You're just...some guy that appeared on the ship and can do stuff. Nothing keeping you in this world. I wanted to bring this to attention to maybe have a discussion on how other's feel about this.

Thoughts? Maybe you like how it is, dislike it, anything? My hope is that if enough people agree then MAYBE Larian can add this or do some change to make custom NPC's better instead of focusing so much on Premade characters in a D&D game (might be a bit too hopeful to think they'll change, but eh). But yeah, thoughts?!

I defintely want the custom PC to have more to their story than they currently do. I've headcanoned a whole background for my PC but I know that doesn't come easy to everyone nor should headcanon be the only tool available for making you feel like you're playing a fleshed out character. I for one really do not like the idea that every character around you has this rich backstory and you're left as an undefined blank whose background is the bare minimum implied by your race and class. Even having a conversation like in PoE1(which I loved tha they let you do) would go a great distance to fixing the problem. It's why I'm honestly low key resentful of the origin character concept; it just feels unsatisfying to think that your character won't end up having their own story beyond the plot of the game yet you have at minimum five other options that will let you explore their own personal quests AND the story of the game.

They won't because of their concept of origin characters.
Origin characters HAVE to have the same story as custom characters.... But they can also have side story.

That's Impossible with custom except if they create many specific quest related to a class/race/pre-defined background. That would mean create something like 5 to 10 "origin stories" only for custom character, which is impossible.

They bring this absolutely bad concept from DoS into BG and just because of it... Custom characters still won't have any specific background or story.

This concept is absolutely bad as soon as you're talking about custom character and it will always be.

Yeah, im not a fan of Origin, I never will be because of various reasons, but I don't even mean having Origin stories like Dragon Age Origins, I know that'a fantasy because that is a tall order. But literally ANYTHING would be better. A single story, like they were doing SOMETHING there, or atleast some mandatory NPC you come across that asks you about your life and you can tell them what you were doing before this like they do in Pillars 1, because that is better then nothing imo.

It's not origin characters themselves that I don't like, it's that if they're going to have them then Larian should be up front about it. Just say "hey, you're going to have a more immersive experience playing as an Origin character, that is what we designed to give you the best experience, but if you want to roleplay a blank slate then that's an option too." Right now it feels likt they want to say the Origin's are bonuses, but that doesn't really hold water when you get more origins and each origin has a unique experience you can't get with a custom character.

Oh no, I get you, my bad.

Me personally I can't stand them, the concept of them ticks me off because they come at a cost. A company doesn't have infinite resources, and the resources that went into making their story in "first person" to make them all playable could have gone towards Custom character, thats how i see it. The origins come with their own dialogue, quests, but that's not the main thing that bothers me, its the fact that they feel like they belong in the world.

Custom characters don't. That was an issue in OS2 and its the same here, like...why was i there when i got abducted? It's like my character appears out of thin air, they have no story until the game starts, compare that to every other CRPG where even the most "blank" character has atleast something to make them feel like they used to be of this world.

Exactly, and that's my point; if Larian is going to devote the majority of their resources to the custom characters, then their advertising of the game should reflect that. Let players know that it's a game where you play as one of a selection of pre-made characters OR a blank slate character you make yourself that has no real story before the start of the game. In contrast look at Dragon Age: Inquisition. You don't play out your background in that game, but you get a whole line of off screen inquisition missions that involve people from your backstory and you get numerous opportunities to talk with your companions about your past. Something like that for BG3 would be amazing.

A simple conversation about who you are and what you were up to pre-abduction would be easy, with choices based on your chosen origin. Even better if your party comments on it now and again. "Come far for a street rat, haven't you?"

I don't have any interest in ever playing an origin character. I didn't in D:OS2 and I very much doubt I will here. Some more about "me" would be nice and it doesn't need to be a lot.

I love the Witcher series, playing Geralt...

BUT give me a game where I can create my own character and I absolutely will, because in an RPG game where i can be who I want to be then that is the most important thing to me.

So yes, absolutely yes to MORE options for custom characters when it comes to story. I may well play an origin character at some point, but my main play throughs will always be with my character!

The issue is also the whole thing becomes exacerbated when you play multiplayer with people who also want custom characters. Yes we can role play over a mic or whatever but the interaction with the world loses something.

Even Witcher 3 had this quality questionnaire scene asking you how you played events in the previous game in order to know how you impacted the world. Yes I know BG3 isn’t a direct sequel, so that doesn’t work here but my point is that CDPR wanted you to at least define the world in W3 based upon how you played W2 so that it was still “your Geralt”.

I want to be able to choose a region/city to be from the beginning which would have conversation effects. I really enjoy the shout outs to all the different regions of Faerun that you usually don't get in most Forgotten Realms games. Rashemi for example. I would love to make a Red Wizard of Thay or a Calamshite Rogue and even a Halruuan Wizard.

Dialogues about our character's past is my favorite idea so far. This could be extended based on the backgrounds we choose in the character creator. There could be more backgrounds themselves and they could have a short but detailed description (like in Aurora, a character creation program for D&D sessions).

I started a character who in my headcanon was a human, baldurian, lawful good cleric of helm. I've gotten specific options referring to all these tags and absolutely want to be able to play more exotic characters the same way.

Speaking with Astarion of Baldurs gate, Gale of being human, many conversations on religion because of cleric (other stuff as well from "lawful priest" tag).

My favourite was I've actually gotten to say prayers dedicated to Helm and characters respond with unique lines regarding him and his clergy!

This is great for fleshing out one's own roleplaying and I hope other backgrounds like Thay, Rashemen, Calimshan, Icewind dale and even Planescape backgrounds for those of us so inclined will be implemented in subtle ways.

And the small dialogue section about it doesn't seem like a big idea to implement either. I do hope Adam or some other writer looks into Custom characters to improve them.

I'm playing a drow and so far I've gotten a couple fun references to it. I haven't made it to the Underdark yet but I'm excited to see how things go down there. Also as an aside, I'm playing a female Seladrine drow ranger who I headcanon as being a bounty hunter who specialized in hunting down and killing Lolth-sworn drow.

Yeah, I started as a drow and THEY got way more reactivity and dialogue then a tiefling did (havent gotten that far with either so maybe it changes for tiefling), but for me it still doesn't change that my char just appears on the ship and doesn't answer as to what we were doing prior to this "invasion".

+1 to all this.

I did my first play through as a half-elf and felt very disconnected from my origin.

Did a playthrough as a Drow and the game made much more reference to that backstory.

Honestly, the dream would be a full on origin story a la Dragon Age Origins, though I understand it's inefficient. The minimum should be the Pillars of Eternity early conversation laying things out. It wouldn't be hard to do as part of the "Who are You" character creation. The Tadpole asking you questions and such.

The lack of character backstory will feel really odd once the full game releases and we can enter Baldur's Gate. Unless you're playing a drow or githyanki, that's supposed to be your home city - a place where your pre-tadpole identity should matter as much as what you've done throughout the game. Ideally, there'd be NPCs who already know you, organizations who'd be more willing to help you on quests, and the general sense that you existed before the mind flayers scooped you up. I know this would mean limiting our characters to a handful of backstory choices, but I'd be more than happy with the tradeoff.

Yes, exactly. Tadpole could be one way, probing the character's mind for some background choices. There's even some background options in the D&D Player's Handbook that could be incorporated: personality trait, ideal, bond, flaw. And Pillars style dialogue where party members ask a few questions relating to your chosen background would work quite well and it'd be relatively easy to add. Even if the answers are not used anywhere, this would give the custom player character a much better sense of identity and history.

The tadpole asking is a good idea.

Hell it would help if the background (the actual background options) had some dialogue. Like you picking Noble and then Astarion like "oh we must move in different circles" like...what? Why is there no Noble option to counter that?

I agree there is a real lack of flesh in the custom character. You don't feel like you are a part of the world like the Origin ones.
I won't play with an origin character ever, for me they are just good npcs. I loved playing with Viconia, Aerie, Minsc etc.. but i wouldn't have played any of them as main char. So sad Larian put so many ressources into Origin char instead of custom -a bad thing herited from DOS2 - but i hope they'll correct it for the full release.. Anyway

I LOVED Dragon Age Origin origin's stories and the impact each had on the game. That's the dream I guess. It's probably too late for them to implement this kind of prequel to the game.. Even just quick scenes maybe as flashbacks during sleep at the beginning ?
If not that, at least a conversation with a npc/tadpole would be a nice thing to add. But if it had no impact in dialogues options that would be sad.

But also, it would be great to meet people your custom character knew from their past. A good thing to add to the immersion feeling...

Did Larian mention anything about adding a character creation option for "ambitions / aspirations"? I think there could be so much potential with something like this. Imagine a list of, say, 5 general goals you can select from whilest creating your character, such as "seeking an artifact of great power", or "looking for a long lost sibling", or "becoming a renowned hero". The actual plotline stemming from these aspirations can be canned and filled in as Larian desires, with the typical twists and turns we come to expect from Larian's plots. Whatever they feel would make an interesting narrative.

This would add so much life to the custom characters, putting them on the same level as the origin characters and increasing the replayability exponentially.

It seems extremely unlikely. As far as I know, they aren't doing dialogue tags for the Background because that would be too much additional stuff to do, so ambitions/aspirations are certainly also too much.

The issue is they've spent so many resources on making the origin characters playable, that, once again, the custom character is lack luster.

It's a philosophy I fundamentally disagree with. If you're playing DnD, it should be your pc...not one created for you

A big part of the problem with the Origin characters, one that DoS2 didn't have, is that their personalities are directly tied to their class. In Divinity 2, if I want to play as Fane but would rather be a heavily-armored warrior than a squishy wizard, that's no problem at all. But if I want Wynn to be a cleric of Ilmater, well... the dude's a warlock. It's fundamental to who he is.

I love playing paladins and bards in tabletop D&D. But unless Larian adds Origin characters who are paladins or bards, I'm gonna have to make a custom dude if I want to play one. Even then, what happens if the Origin character is a paladin of Bane or something because they thought that would be more interesting than the goody-two-shoes paladin of Torm I'm wanting to be? In a setting with so many aspects to every character choice, it seems kinda... selfish, maybe? Kinda selfish to tell your players, "You can pick from one of these concepts that we think are cool, or have a less fleshed-out experience so you can do something you think is cool. Nerd."

There are 13 backgrounds, so it would not be practical to give dialogue to each of these. HOWEVER, there is a different way to approach this. Mass Effect 1 did an excellent job of giving your character a backstory based around a single event and how your character handled it. Basically it was a famous battle that people knew about and you picked if you were the hero or tyrant of that battle.

Doing something like this for BG3 would allow Larian to create only 1 background for custom characters involving some kind of event. "Oh, you were the person at Baldur's Gate when X happened." That gives one story for a custom origin. You then answer questions (such as telling things to the tadpole like suggested earlier) to define how YOUR custom character interacted with that event.

So, 1 origin for all custom characters that you then define for yourself. Even with multiplayer, these can make characters somewhat individual. Each define for themselves how their character responded to the famous event, and the world responds to them in kind. Otherwise all the unique interaction goes to the gith and drow (or Origin characters).

I want my custom Drow character to be the runaway survivor of her house, who got captured by the illithids and is now seeking to amass followers and power so she can return and crush the rivals who tried to kill her, establishing her own personal Noble house in the process.

Currently, watching as she gets horrified by the slow, agonizing death of a tiefling child, or looks sad/like she pities something, rather than reveling in their misery or outright laughing or anything else like that, is kind of immersion breaking for me, to the point that I felt absolutely no regrets about putting a helmet/mask on my characters face, just so I wouldn't have to see the nonsensical expressions judging how she should be responding *for* me.

Larian says they want people to play evil characters, and put in 'all the evil companions' first, but if this is all they have so far, then it's practically nothing, as even though the companions mostly pushed me towards doing evil things, just for their approval ratings, the game's storyline, quest distribution, and character interactions/dialogue all push you towards playing a good character in spite of that. Even Shadowheart, the devout cleric of an Evil goddess, was disapproving of a number of actions I took, despite playing evil to the best of my logic/abilities, and was approving towards random good-aligned actions.

The custom characters need more than just a [Noble] tag to outline their backstory, which I'm pretty sure would be how Larian would prefer to do it. Just adding in one reply in select conversations that only appear if you have X 'origin' that you select when making your character, in addition to the proficiencies you get currently. They can still add in sections of the game that happen before the current EA starts though, they did with OS2, after all, even if I personally have low faith on that ever happening because of how disappointing game companies can be (And yes, I know game development is really hard, and there's an impossible number of things I don't know about the processes, but I can still be disappointed with the results when I'm not delivered what was promised).

They keep talking about how they want it to be 'As true to Tabletop as possible' so why can't they have individualized segments for going over the background of your custom character for each origin, race, and class, in varying degrees of combination? As has been said previously, Dragon Age: Origins already did something kind of like that, and it's a game over a decade old, so if you're telling me technology hasn't advanced to the point we can get even more detailed backgrounds for our characters than just a singular tag that *might* add a single line of dialogue every hundred-thousand conversations, then I call shenanigans on that.

Having 5 custom origins takes the same resources as having 5 "origin" characters. It is not impossible. People are already offering ways it can be implemented like adding tags for those stories. It is a choice of what do you want to develop, choices for custom characters or more "origin characters" that cater to Larian's tastes instead of player's.

Now, Larian said that custom characters won't be penalized as opossed to the origins, so I would hope that they are looking for ways to make playing a custom character as good as it is to play one of the origins. You should be penalized for liking custom characters over the origin characters. And right now it feels as if the story is about the origin characters, not the custom ones.

On the other hand, it is possible that you are only allowed to play custom characters right now because they are gathering info that would be used to create the custom tags. I hope this is what happen.

To be honest i don't even understand why they would make the Origin characters a thing. Like, i pick Astarion and then what? Become group leader based on his pissy nature and pretend it makes sense? Pick Lae'zel and refuse every sidequest? Maybe Gale or Shadowheart would work, but after playing EA it seems like this is a story that pretty much requires the classic main char formula

Yes I really think they need to do something there with non-origin characters. It would be great if on character creation in addition to background we could maybe have an option to select some sort of generic background storyline.

Not full blown origin companion story, but at least some sort of semi-custom story built by Larian with some unique questlines.

Or heck maybe you could get special quests based on your selected background like if you select Entertainer then maybe a bunch of quests here and there where you get to perform before audience.

+1
I also feel the custom character needs more background, relevance and purpose.

I loathe the fact that Larian have wasted resources on Origin characters.

It's fantastic that they are proud of their characters, but let us enjoy them through their side quests, dialogue and how they interface with our characters and their decisions.

As much as I'd love DA:O style origin stories, I realise it's probably an unrealistic expectation. A much simpler approach that I'd prefer is to see considerably more class, race and (particularly) background specific dialogue options. I played a Hermit in my first playthrough and don't remember a single Hermit specific dialogue option. More background dialogue options will make your character feel so much more alive and grounded in the universe, whilst still leaving players room to make up their own origins/backstories. It could also introduce considerable replayability, exhibiting how different NPCs react to different backgrounds through different playthroughs.

The difference between a Drow and non-Drow playthrough really highlights the potential character-specific tags have in creating a reactive and replayable experience, and I want to see more of it.

Origin characters are not inkeeping with the spirit of either D&D or Baldur's Gate, and the fact is, their existence will be constraining the depth of our custom characters.

I played a Half-Elf Ranger and did have a surprising amount of RANGER specific dialogue options. These mosty revolved around animal interaction, or at the Grove, but at least it makde me feel a little like a Ranger. Although sometimes the Ranger options didn't seem as enticing as some of the other rolled options... I can't remeber the specific example, but there was definitely a moment (possibly with the Owl-Bear) where I didn't feel as though the Ranger option was the best one, and that felt odd given that my knowledge as a Ranger should have given me a better option.

Minor quibble on Ranger dialogue aside... it is a little grating that my silent & oddly eanimated custom character is so wooden in comparison to the Origin characters. I feel worse than generic because the Origin characters have an abundance of whacky backstories and flamboyant speeches, that make me feel like irrelevant Joe Average. Worse, I am trying to figure them out, but no one gives a toss about me (as is to be fair, usual in these games). Even during the scene with Shadowheart I felt it iwas a fleeting one liner, yeahhhh 3/10 for effort on that front. I mean you are trying to make a "getting to know you over a bottle" conversation seem organi, but I am being the perfect date by essentially saying F all and allowing Shadowheart to say the lot. Oh what a good listener I am.

Now I appreciate it is a real chore to give background options within dialogue and story quests, but this for me is fundamental for making me want to play a custom character and I most certainly do. Usually you get round the issue by being the "Chosen One", so that dominates ,but if you want a more tabletop experience where everyone is kinda just in the same boa and equally relevant, then it stands out that much more.

I would rather it stays like it is now, this is a DnD based game. You are supposed to fill in the blanks on your custom character for more freedom to rp. Other games like DA and the ME series had limited types of backgrounds and you were essentially told who your character was. There are way too many options in DnD for this to possibly be covered in this game. I would find it extremely unimmersive to be told to play within some limited selection of stuff.
Most likely there are more dialogue options later on, we have only seen a small area of the game.

This is my opinion as well.

There's no reason a custom character can't be as cool as an origin. Through dialogue options, we could pick an aspect of our background that is not class or race specific. For instance, you have a mission to to hunt down X item or person. Or maybe you want to redeem the name of your family/organization. Those are two easy examples that could have custom origin quests and stories that would fit any race/class combo.

Let the player choose from 2 or 3 possible backgrounds/motivations, then write some story and quests that tie into that.

P.S. Give a reason why the PC is the group leader. Currently the companions all have compelling reasons to be the party leader, but they follow you instead because the game told them to. This needs to be addressed, and custom origins would be a great place to insert that.