Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Why origin characters?

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.)