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As far as character background, as a DM, I have gotten player involvement to be so much more intense and in-character by session 0 from spending 2-4 hours with each player going over their characters with them prior to it. They are so jazzed to demo their character that its great. What I do is fairly simple. I go every every one of their abilities and show the future paths they can take.

- Ok so you are a rogue. You can dual wield, single hand + shield, move to casting, sneak attack works at range so you can make a totally viable ranged rogue, how are you thinking you are going to want to engage the enemy
- Background - You said you wanted a gnome tinkerer who turned to stealing. There are a few fun places we could go from. There is a place called the High Hall of Wonders, which houses gnomish inventions. Lets say you stole something and had to flee, and you have no idea what you have yet, but you know people are looking for it.
- Where are you from. caves, forests..

You get the picture. By having something during character creation that shows races, primary concentrations, shows you cities with some backgrounds for the big towns and stuff, you pick your city, your background (which would pull from your location). So like you chose Arabel as your starting city, sailor background. You get a little blurb about the docks of the capital and the pirates that maraud in the sea of fallen stars.

If you actually BUILT a character instead of choosing a body and class, I think youd find a lot more buy in for "who" you are even without a "This is what you were doing 5 days before this happened" hard tie-in.

Edit: Play through the start of Tyranny for one version of this.

Last edited by Orbax; 31/10/20 10:51 PM.

What is the problem you are solving? Does your proposed change solve the problem? Is your change feasible? What else will be affected by your change? Will your change impact revenue? Does your change align with the goals and strategies of the organizations (Larian, WotC)?
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Those are all really good points that I think would help a lot of the complaints. More rp in the character creator. I tend to head cannon it as I have done for years, so this doesn't bother me, but I don't see how it could hurt.

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Im honestly more worried that if the story carried next to no weight similar to DOS2, DOS2 act 4 was pretty bad - one decision for all endings, doesnt matter your previous choices other than the companion one. None of the ending variation end up mattering except the clearly evil one, which you can choose immediately before the ending screen. I honestly didn't care for the God king, Fane made a much better antagonist and his motive were much clearer than mustache twirling God king too. I don't understand why God King is clearly crazy and acts sadistic yet have full support of his equally crazy people, i dont know his backstory nor how he became who he is, just that he is an evil blob that will enslave everyone for reasons. There was so little interaction between me and the main villain i simply wanted to move on. I also didn't get why that crazy lady suddently want to be saved from her deal with the God king and why should i care, when shes been crazy and tried to kill me the entire game.

Lohse's story with the demonic doctor was much better - it carried emotional weight, you face the demon multiple times and he ties into the main plot, you needed a major sacrifice to finally defeat him (or you could choose otherwise), and then we celebrated with a beautiful "epilogue" and character development, which she recovers her voice. But the main story feel like inconsequential regardless of what i chose. If a character died there was no impact - you simply dont see their slides. My origin character play through didn't matter because "ONLY YOU KNOW THE STORY!" slide and followed up with again inconsequential 3 line description about our companion. Some of the subplot doesnt matter what the hell you chose the ending slide is a minor difference - you don't even see their impact.

I really hope it wont happen here.

Last edited by Cyka; 31/10/20 10:26 PM.
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Originally Posted by Cyka
Im honestly more worried that if the story carried next to no weight similar to DOS2, DOS2 act 4 was pretty bad - one decision for all endings,

Lohse's story with the demonic doctor was much better

My origin character play through didn't matter because "ONLY YOU KNOW THE STORY!" slide and followed up with again inconsequential 3 line description about our companion.

I really hope it wont happen here.



+1

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I mean, not unlike BG2 then, where you start a prisoner, get broken out, saved by a bunch of powerful wizards and so on and so forth.

Standard starting RPG tropes be standard RPG tropes.

----

As for origin story being more interesting than PC, I think the issue here is that PC character is basically a FFA blank slate. I hope they might be able to spice it up a bit, but I'm not holding my breath that blank slate character's story will match fully developed origin companion with its own very well defined origin story spanning entire game.

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Most RPGs by same makers follow certain tropes and structures. While similarities are striking on paper, I didn’t feel it when watching a walkthrough - BG3 intro felt quite distinct from D:OS2.

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Originally Posted by Orbax

If you actually BUILT a character instead of choosing a body and class, I think youd find a lot more buy in for "who" you are even without a "This is what you were doing 5 days before this happened" hard tie-in.



Oh yah, I am always in favor of more character creation options. I am kind of disappointed that the backgrounds are so... Flaccid. They just give you skill proficiencies which while neat doesn't do much to really shape your character. Different backgrounds also infer abilities, tools, and other things based on what you picked. They should also definitely provide more dialogue options. If my character is a sailor I should have special dialogue concerning boats and the sea, as an example.

Also just more situations where an NPC asks you about your past with a few different options you can choose. Maybe even one or two race/class/background choices. It feels good to be made to think a little more about where my character came from even if it doesn't matter to the story.

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To play the devil's advocate, it is possible they simply haven't coded in any conversation benefits from the Backgrounds.

Also, Backgrounds (officially) are more than just a couple of Proficiencies. They typically include Proficiencies, Tool Proficiencies, Languages, starter equipment and a Feature of some kind. Now obviously some of these would have less benefit depending on the setting. I mean, if you're an Acolyte in the Deep Desert, the Shelter of the Faithful Feature is probably of next to no use to you.

The benefits are more social than anything, and that takes work to pull off. Doubly so in a computer game. So its on Larian to have a decent number of conversation options where our Background come come into play.

Pillars of Eternity (for example) someone did the math to determine how many conversation checks there were based on your god. Each one had like a dozen over the course of the whole game. Some had more, some had less, but I think on average, most had around a dozen.

So it CAN be done. It's just possible (giving them benefit of the doubt here) they just haven't coded these things into the game yet.

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Originally Posted by Zefhyr
Funyn I was reading the last comment when Wyll spoke to me about his reputation and dragons, etc...
It's true I can't believe this guy can be this famous with THIS level xD

That's the point. Wyll talks on and on about what a great hero he is, but based on how much he talks about it my guess it is just that - talk. I highly doubt that a guy that his biggest nemesis is a lame goblin ever saw a dragon prior to the game events.


Larian's Biggest Oversight, what to do about it, and My personal review of BG3 EA
"74.85% of you stood with the Tieflings, and 25.15% of you sided with Minthara. Good outweighs evil, it seems."
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Originally Posted by Abits
Originally Posted by Zefhyr
Funyn I was reading the last comment when Wyll spoke to me about his reputation and dragons, etc...
It's true I can't believe this guy can be this famous with THIS level xD

That's the point. Wyll talks on and on about what a great hero he is, but based on how much he talks about it my guess it is just that - talk. I highly doubt that a guy that his biggest nemesis is a lame goblin ever saw a dragon prior to the game events.


Can't let these high CHA warlocks pull a fast one on ya.

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Originally Posted by Zefhyr
Funyn I was reading the last comment when Wyll spoke to me about his reputation and dragons, etc...
It's true I can't believe this guy can be this famous with THIS level xD

His patron is in horny jail

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The thing is, creating unique stories is difficult. Because it is inevitable that out there someone has created a similar idea. A century ago.

So, what you do is accept that fact and put your personal spin on things. And yes, its also possible this storyline in EA is just a throw together. I've been in other EA games where the EA story had nothing to do with the real plot of the game.

Would be nice if they'd clarify, and if there were more options.

I don't see siding with Mindflayers being an option, especially since until you realize something is different about your tadpole, you're led to understand that it will kill you. Even then, there is concern that its just a slower process and you're still in danger of becoming a mind munching monster.

There's no way to put a positive spin on that outside of lying to you and not letting you know that you're undergoing ceremorphosis. This would of course fall apart the second you realized that they pulled a con job on you. And why persuade you to help them when they can just throw you in a cage and do it forcefully?

The only way I could see mortals allying with the illithid is corrupt nobles in a city based setting, conspiring to trade over the entire town to the illithid. Which would make you the BAD GUY of course.

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