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

How is that any different than any game that isn’t like IWD? I don’t see what you mean. Almost every RPG has recruitable companions made by the “DM.” Why does it matter whether hypothetical players who don’t actually exist are jealous of you?

Even in Baldur's Gate, all the NPC companions had more backstory than the player character. The main character's entire background was, "Ward of Gorion, grew up in Candlekeep." That's it. Every NPC had a more detailed concept and history than that.

I like origin characters. I am agree with most opinions about that our story should occupy much more place in lore.
But asking "why origin character?" is seems like me little bit unfair. I was really enjoy when playing origin companions along with me. Their story are mostly thoughtful and enjoyable to discover.
And game looks more uncontrollable and serious while there are people that actually their story would not intertwined if you doesn't exist. They have their own weightiness and ı can feel if ı push myself that they are actually my co op partners in an existence way somehow.


I just mean that ı dont want to be responsible for every characteristic backlines in the game, so ı need that origins to feel more alive in game.

I see it this way. If there is a trade-off between the investment in the custom character and the origin characters, then I would want all that investment to go into the custom character, to make them more reactive to the world and the world to them, voice them, customize them, give them race, class, skill, and background reactivity, a good story, etc.
If there are separate budgets, then I don't really care. I am not going to play origin characters in this game anyways, so I am just not going to benefit from that feature, but I will also not loose on the character that *I* want to play. And if I want expanded backstory on the origin characters, I am simply going to read about them from someone else who liked the feature and played through their stories.

If you give the custom character a good story, it won't be a custom character anymore. At best you'll have to choose between a number of consistent paths.

And i really don't understand the 'give them class, race, skill etc'. The origin characters have the same features than our pc. Astarion can bite people twice a day, that's all. Almost all written lines of dialog are made for the pc, even if origin characters can say it if you made them speak instead of you.

I don't see any trade off between origin characters and custom ones. Except maybe the first have very personal quests, but all the rest of the world is the PC personal quest.

I read you can make a party of custom characters if you feel than recrutable NPCs betray the feeling of a tabletop game?

I meant race, class, and skill reactivity - i.e. more options for Dwarves, Halflings, Tieflings, Elves. Right now its skewed towards Drow characters. Also Dragon Age Origins did it well in my opinion with origins. You had starting stories, but you were not defined as Shadowheart the Half-elven priestess of Shar on a Special MissionTM. You could have been a male or female Cousland, a warrior or a rogue, and you had no mission aside from loosing your family and being forced to join the Grey Wardens. It all depends on how much is defined, and not far from being a sheltered kid raised by an old sage Gorion in the library fortress of Candlekeep.
And I don't know how they allocate their budgets. If the origin characters have their respective separate budgets, and the custom character has its own, then there is no trade-off. If there is a single budget for playable characters, then there is a trade-off in how much could be invested in which options.

The question of separate budgets isn’t really relevant. Larian sets their budgets how they see fit, and if not one way they could always do it another way. They have that choice. Furthermore, every feature in every game comes at the cost of some other feature. That is just a reality of prioritization and scope management. It is also important to understand that budgets are allocated based on expected return of investment. If a feature is scrapped it doesn’t necessarily mean that money will just be reallocated if the sales are expected to diminish. I’m not saying that is what will happen here, just that it is more complex than the impression you seem to have.

A more relevant question is: how much extra work goes into making origin characters as opposed to normal companions? The origin personal quests are still in the game regardless of who your main character is. What you get from playing an origin character is a bit of extra content that comes from seeing these quests ,and maybe some others, through their perspectives. How much work is that? Impossible to say at this point. Larian seems to think it’s worth it, and we can assume that if they found origin characters in DOS2 were a waste of resources then they wouldn’t be doing it again.

I'm sure we will be able to go through origin characters' quests by playing a custom character.

I agree with this thread. I'm not a fan of pre-made protagonists who only end up mogging your custom one. These types of games for me mean me and MY adventure. Not [x] existing character and me playing theirs. However, my biggest issue is not pre-made protagonists in itself, as to how little your own custom protagonists feels like when compared to them. It makes me wonder what is even the point of playing your own character when they have zero roles compared to origin one?
DA:O did a great job in making your character feel important, while also telling the story of other characters. Your Warden had a backstory. You lived through their origin. That origin, later on, will come into play in your future events. It helped with making your avatar feel like a character that belongs in this universe over just pure blank slate (despite them being the silent protagonist).
So, far, the only "difference" ea offers when it comes to your character is if you play as Lolth-sworn drow. The game then mentions what happened before you got taken in by mind-flayers.

*The dark is familiar, but not comforting. It is a struggle to sink into your trance, weaving together memory, ambition, and purpose.*
*The vision in your mind is simple: a stone altar to Lolth, the knife upon it bloody with sacrifice.*
*Fire spills across your thoughts: dragon's breath. The tadpole slithers, twisting deeper into your skull.*
*Your head is about to burst. The memory consumes your mind, corrupting the trance.*
*Hell surrounds you, flames licking at your body. The tadpole in your head convulses.*
(post-check) *The flames fall away, a mere illusion. You sit the dark again, beside Lolth's majesty.*
*As the trance stabilizes, your breath deepens. Be it a cure or cage, something must be done about the tadpole.*

This is the only time your character's background is being mentioned. So, perhaps there will be a certain plotline for a custom character too. At least it is implied so in Lolth-sworn's case. I hope it will because if not, then honestly there is no point in even having a custom character option other than playing around in character creator to see what look you can give to your desired race.

Maybe my statement was confusing as it was meant to be a jokey remark as to how all that would go over if it occurred at a table top game IRL. In this situation it's like the developers are the DM's.. They've created their version of a perfect party and they want you to play with their characters. They've allowed you to create a character but ultimately it doesn't actually matter how your character fits in with their perfect party because their characters are all meant to be played as main characters.

I agree it doesn't work for me.. It worked in Divinity (even though i never used them) but in D&D making your own characters is pretty much the main aspect.. Why would i want to play something someone else made.. Pretty poorly made too i might add.
I feel Solasta has the right idea we get to make all our characters from scratch the way we want to make them..

I think it's better if the player comes up with it himself. There is a risk that Larian will write a backstory that players will not like (especially drow lolth - half will resent that the character was too cruel, half that not cruel enough, and so on), plus it's a lot of work that can be invested in companions. Don't forget that you can choose a companion as the main character at the beginning of the game! Then you will have a rich background.


But I support some differences, unique lines of dialogue and everything along those lines

I agree with OP, and this post really sums up the issue 100%. My character is a ghost of a character, a vague presence who has no substance.

It's not just like sitting down at a table and everybody else had to play the DM's pre-made characters. It's like sitting down at that table and the DM doesn't pay any attention to anyone that isn't playing one of his pre-made protagonists. I would leave such a table as fast as I could.

Origin characters you either love or hate them. And since there isnt much choices...
In the wacky world of DOS you can go crazy and it works well as a game. But in the more serious BG world...it feels odd, trying to mimic a movie/drama with cinematic dialogues.. The <acting> falls flat, borderline on funny the way everyone moves and your character reacts...People say its immersive...I just hate it, makes me facepalm half the time. Guaranteed memes treasure in a couple of years, this will not age well.

I wish Larian would just stick to regular top down dialogues and add 10x more content and atmosphere with these resources.
Oh well, everyone just wants cinematic cringy sex nowdays.

I understand the concept and I do not need a personal backstory for the PC. I concur with others here, that the origin story of BG1 was not much either. One issue I see with origin characters in regards is that they each are annoyingly special plus they additionally share the same origin story as the PC, which is marketed right now as the driving force. This is like Jaheira, Khalid, Minsk and Edwin all being Bhaalspawn, too.
One other problem is the character writing. They are all annoyingly annoying. There is not one I genuinely like, they do not like to share their story, they only come out with it, when there is no other option and even then are awful persons about it. And not even funny and awful like Edwin, or dumb and sympathetic like Minsk. Or crazy and awful like Xzar or Tiax.
To make things worse, they rarely interact with the player on the way, and it is usually to critisise his actions and patronise him. It is also awfully inconsistent. You can romance characters or have a polite conversation in a special cutscene just for them to go back to be awful in the next dialogue. Why is that? Because recording voices is costly. So this is immersion breaking. Apart from the player's choices usually being bad they have nothing more to add, they are rarely constructive, always destructive in their feedback. This would be bearable if there was one person like this in your party, but Lae'zel, Astarion and Shadowheart share that trait, and Wyll/Gale show this destructive character, when the other three are surprisingly quiet. Their origin characters are plain crap in conjunction with the PC.

This will likely only get worse after Act I, if you really have your party locked or some companions might become unattainable afterwards. So you might be stuck with people you do not like because the party make-up demands it.

The concept of origin characters is a little weird. These are the NPC companions, why would they also be playable as the PC? That just seems really unnecessary.

I think it's supposed to be more efficient. Instead of creating six origins and than after the player picks one he won't see much of the others for the whole playthrough (like in Dao) you can choose one, and the others appear in game.

The problem I have with it is that it makes party interaction really restricted compared to other games of that type

In the end they still are just regular companions, bar the one you choose. Didn't BG have custom characters as well for multiplayer with a made-up bio? It just appears that someone in the dev team thought this was a good idea, his personal choice and the rest can not or do not want to change it, like someone's pet peeve. Also not much additional work goes into it. It could work well, it just appears cumbersome to design a system this way and poor character writing naturally interferes with this system more.

IMO just scrapping them as playable PCs and keeping them as NPCs, then putting a lot more effort into the custom character choices impacting the story/narrative would be a much better way to go. Your race, class, background and tags should impact the game in meaningful ways.