Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General If the main hero dies, and you don't revive them, can you still finish the game?

I’ve said this one about a year ago.

Tav needs to be an “origin” character. Cause as you all have said, he currently is just a placeholder to placate us as players. I remember in the OG BG series when WOTC basically said the whole thing wasn’t cannon. The community of gamers went nutso. This is pretty much the same. Your Tav will not be a cannon character. The only ones to be cannon will be the origin characters.
By making Tav an open build Origin character with his own customer dialogue (though admittedly vague and generic) and event situations would he even have a chance of being in the upcoming lore.

Some of y’all have already pretty much said this. What I mean is that like the other origin characters etc, you can play, Tav needs to be an independent option in the game if you don’t chose him at start (choose to let’s say play Wyll’s story. Granted Tav’s story will not be a s fleshed out because he will be basically the default generic character.

The “who are you scene”, could pop up and you would choose to play Wyll, then chose your dreamer, and then either randomly generate a Tav or make one of your own. This way you can set him up as any type you want. Don’t like Asterion? Tav will have been premade as a Rogue. No origin bard? Will Tav is one now. In these cases Tav would not be the main character as you are playing Wyll. But he will fill a vital role as the mystery origin character in the cannon game. Maybe the one that ascended to what ever the ultimate fate that awaits the dragon bor… Bhaal Spaw… uh true souls yeah that one…

Just my two cents.

i would be really surprised if they would made tav-specific backstory. most likely they will follow route of dos games. In case you're up for the story play premade origin character.

let me go on a tangent first.



If you start thinking of a character who the player can play as, and a character who can join your party and be your window into the larger world - those will likely be different characters with different characteristics, interacting differently with player and the world around them, as they fulfill different narrative needs.

That is why I say that BG3 focus on coop (not that coop exists - BG1&2 did have coop, but they weren't designed around it) is detrimental for singleplayer experience.

D&D is a group game - couple players come together to play together a game. Their standing is equal. Bioware didn't do that in BG1&2 - it was a singleplayer experience first and foremost. It simulated social aspect of a table-top, but still make it a single-player experience - your create your character, it is your character's story, and companions join you in your adventure.

BG3 is concieved as coop game, like the table-top - it's expects coop players to be equal (rather than accompanying the host), and because they can play as companions, companions are also written and conceived as protagonist. It is an ensamble cast, rather than a lead with supporting cast, like traditional post-BG RPGs.

This. Is. Not. Bad. This. Is. Interesting.

Where the game falls flat is that now without presence of other life players the game doesn't magically switch to being a singleplayer game, with singular protagonist and a cast of supporting characters - it wasn't written like that. The game ends up in a much harder position of having to fill the void left by absence of living coop players.



Before BG3 ea release I forced myself to finish D:OS2 and have written this feedback. Specifically about companions I have written:


BG3 doesn't have this specific problem as companions this time around are very robust. The problem they have now is that rather than writing "companions", Larian has written "coop player standins" and that is much harder role to fill - and one they can't quite manage to do believably. That is a problem that none other RPG I have played has, because I never played one designer and written like that. That problem still existed in D:OS2 - the companions were presented as your equals and competitors but the only moment of independence was one basic reputation check in 3rd (?) act. This flaw of their design is just much more present in BG3 due to their much bigger presence and charisma, while lack of content has been an issue in D:OS2.

I think DIsco Elysium is the only game I can think of that did independend feeling companions well - Kim kitsuragi will follow you and leads you lead (which is narratively explained) but will refuse to participate in certain activites, will take lead in others, can completely walk out on you depending on your actions. Not that I am suggesting that BG3 should do companions just that - I don't think it is possible due to difference in game's designs - but if you take on yourself to create a believable digital coop partner it is up to you to do so. If you can't, than attempting it in the first place was a mistake.





As such, I can see how making Tav an origin would make sense - origins are actually protagonists, and not having Tav a protagonist makes him narratively lesser than origins. However, in this case Tav could have been erased alltogehter and game could force us to play as one of the existing origins - I think it would be a more honest representation of what the game has to offer, but would even further demolish an illusion that BG3 offers a good singleplayer experience.

I honestly gave up at this point hoping for good protagonist - the issue I described in my D:OS2 post (PC being neither custostomisable nor pre-defined character) still exists, and I suspect will continue existing for as long as Larian sticks to their origin formula.

What I believe that can be improved upon is how companions feel in singleplayer experience - while origins can be played as or played with, I am not convinced there can't be a better shift in content or player<=>origin dynamic depending if origin is controlled by AI or by player. One could dream about deep systemic changes, but really small tweaks to writing would go a long way in making player<=>origins interactions feel less artificial. It's not about creating actual digital coop player, but creating an illusion that we are interacting with characters with their own volition. That is where BG3 so far fails, while many other (not all!) RPGs succeed.

So I'm a bit confused here. You say that BG 3 doesn't have the "coop buddy stand-in" problem, but instead has the "coop player stand-in" problem? What's the difference? You also claim that the companions in DOS2 never evolve beyond your "coop buddy stand-in", and yet, Lohse can evolve enough that she will sing you a song. One of them can evolve enough to be in a "romance" with the player. How is this not NPC evolution?

Another claim is that the PC isn't customizable? What is meant by that, exactly? Because I know I've spent up to about an hour in character creation, customizing Tav. I'm sure there are others that have spent far more than that. It's been years since I've been in the DOS2 character creator, but I do recall that I could customize the playstyle I was looking for, regardless of whether you were going for a custom or an Origin character. Customs by my own experience, NPCs from videos on YouTube for "how to build x". Here, however, I can spend a lot of time on appearance, class, backgrounds etc., which seems pretty customizable to me. So, what is it that I'm missing here?

Are the Origin characters protagonists, or "coop player stand-ins"? Because you claim they are both here. If they're the latter, why do they have cutscenes at the moment of recruitment, instead of the Skyrim Housecarl "Follow me, I need your help"? If, as you suggest, they exist purely as stand-ins for other players, then they'd go the second route, it would be a lot cheaper to produce than going for any kind of substance whatsoever. I wonder how much they'd save just on producing the cutscenes?

Finally, what changes would you make?

Designing a PC game, especially a roleplaying game, as coop first and not single player, is largely the issue here. Like it or not, there will be more people playing this game solo than in groups. And like it or not, nothing is going to change this late in development.

The strictures of logic don't stop in fiction, if all that is required for you to believe your personal character is the main character of the story is that you are the playing him, then you really don't care about the internal logic of the narrative. But to be clear, I don't know how many more ways we can put it, I think maybe you're on it now, our gripes aren't with the existence of the party, or even Tav being leader, it's the inconsistency between the characters, and their behavior to generic Tav.


I like the idea of switching characters if you die, or chose to write yourself out of the party. I've seen this dynamic in some Rogue-likes and adventure games, where your progress isn't reset, but the character changes if you 'fail'.

Ha! When you put it like that the terminology I used is indeed not very clear. To my defence I have written D:OS2 critique years ago.

As I have written in my post companions in D:OS2 didn't feel like they had much presence or identity. In the last decade companions came a long way - especially Obsidian often uses companions to amplify game's setting or themes. If the game has factions, that there will be faction representatives in your party, giving player an opportunity to interact and be judged by a variety of political believs/species/cultures etc. In general, I also found their story content to be very, very small compared to what I grew to expect, especially from such small roster of characters. Their unique content doesn't really go beyond one short interaction per-chapter. Which considering the length of the game isn't terribly impressive. Compary it to PoE1 or especially PoE2, where characters have lengthy storylines and unique interactions with NPCs.

Yes, companions in D:OS2 do technically have quests or even romances and what is there I liked. But it is very basic, and disjointed and just not much of it considering it's 100hour plus adventure. Yes Lhose sang a song after killing one of the bosses. Oh Whoopie Doo. (sarcasm aside, her quest leading up to it was genuilly good with what must have been the only interesting choice to make in the entire game. Add much more of that and we would have a good companion)

It also doesn't help that D:OS2 really felt like it was built for coop play, and I often felt it necessary to engage in conversation with different party memebers. I ended up talking more with Red Prince than character I was playing as, simple because he seemed better suited for conversing than my PC. The very ability to play as companions felt wrong as well - am I playing as my character or am I not? Is it a team based RPG, like Icewind Dale, Wasteland 2&3 or Solasta or is it singleplayer RPG with companions? The answer is: it is a coop game and if you play wihtout friend you are doing it wrong cause the game wasn't desinged for that.

In summary what I tried to express by "coop buddy stand-in" is that the game doesn't feel right when playing singleplayer - like a coop partner is missing. You know how you can often take a multiplayer game, and still play it by yourself - like Overwatch, or SWAT4. It plays single player, but it feel wrong and an important chunk of the game is missing without fellow players. You can do a lot of stuff in D:OS2, but no one will react to it, because that that left up to coop player. For the vast majority of the playtime companions are just there standing around, and having no worldview, thought or opinion of their own. That's is how I felt about D:OS2 - companions weren't convincing as NPCs, had very limited content and didn't interact with player much, and it felt like other people should be controlling them.


The difference with Baldur's Gate3 is that characters DO have a lot of content, and DO have strong opinions and DO want to do things that you might not want to do - like your coop partner would. So unlike D:OS2 were you are left with inanimate husks of companions, characters in BG3 are chock full of unique content. In that way, Larian has addressed the very complain that I had (if I remember correctly from D:OS2 post mortem companions were shoved in at the last minute, so the final result is not surprising). Their written role, however, is not of companions (supporting cast to give feedback to YOUR actions, and act as YOUR window to a larger world, like in Obsiidan RPGs) but of coop players - Laez, for example, has same story as you, but also opinion on how should you proceed. As such companions in BG3 feel like attempt to replace coop partners, rather than provide companions for a singleplayer experience, and they fall short in that regard. Still an improvement on D:OS2, no doubt about that.



RPGs come in two flavours - customisable character (BG1&2, Fallout1&2, Arcanum, Bloodlines etc.) and pre-defined character (Mass Effect, Witcher games). D:OS2 and BG3 actially allows for both, it just doesn't do neither well (I can't speak how BG3 plays as origin for obvious reasons).

My complain for playing a custom doesn't come from character creation but from game content itself. For example there have been many complaints about cutscenes that make your Tav do things that the character you are rolepaying wouldn't do. That is a very surface level example, problems run much deeper (including lack of ability to express your character's intentions, class options projecting archetype rather just the skillset that comes from the class or lack of ability to express what your character thinks etc) but I think it easily illustrates the conflict BG3 runs into.



Yes. If there are 4 coop players they are all protagonist - or they form an ensamble cast (I don't know if there can be more than one protagonist per story). In absence of coop players companions fill that void, rather than being companions to YOUR story like in other RPGs.


Realistically for BG3? What I mentioned - write in a reason for companions to defer to your judgement. Write them more softly with uncertaintly as to what to do next, or have a scene when they argue and allow Tav to pick a direction for a team as a neutral observer. You know standard stuff RPGs have been doing for over a decade now.


More theoretically for future titles: if Larian wants to keep using Origin system - make "companions" feel more like independent beings. Have them be characters player can ally with, than pokemons player collects and equips for battle. Classic companion system doesn't work if they are not written as side characters of your story.

Or: ditch origin system, and create companions handcrafted to be just that and a playable character handcrafted to be just that (be it custom or pre-defined). That of course, would bring Larian titles more in line with the competition and it might not be the most interesting direction to take.


On a side note, I can't help but to notice that you keep bringing up games I just don't have high opinion of: Skyrim, D:OS2, Dragon Age: Inquisition. It could be that our basedline of what RPG should be just differs a lot.

Who is the story about then? Which of the Origin characters do you believe has sufficient ties to the story to be the "main character" no matter who you decide to play as? All of them can die. You can wind up in possession of Shadowheart's box. So, none of them seem to be "main character" material. Which RPGs are you playing, or have you played, where the main character was something/someone other than the character you rolled up, or the party, in the case of IWD/Solasta? If we're going to run with logic, which NPC is it that can take all the agency away from the player? What is it that defines "main character" if it's not the character you're playing as? Even in games like the WH example, you're still playing the main character, because if you wait around for the bosses to do the game, you'll be waiting a long time, and since a "main character" is the driving force behind gameplay, I'm left a bit puzzled by who you think that is. Or, I was.

I was until I got to this: "but BG2's companions are a platinum standard that have yet to be matched in any game since", which makes it really clear to me now. This "platinum standard" has not only been met but surpassed. Hell, it's been surpassed in an MMO, let alone in SP RPGs. swtor's companions, in the vanilla game release, are as good or better than BG 2's comps. You can do more with them, and they're at least as reactive to what you do. Sith Warrior can turn a comp to either the light or the dark side, and the contrast between the two variants is mind blowing. Dragon Age Origins has the best companion I've encountered in gaming. His writing is so good that I absolutely despise him as a person. Yet, I find that I love him as a character, because he managed to generate that much animosity from me. KotoR and KotoR 2 had really good companions too. Mass Effect has great companions, over three games. So, when you say "but BG2's companions are a platinum standard that have yet to be matched in any game since", I'm not sure what you mean. Unless it's actually "nobody has written characters that I like more than those", in which case, I get it, it's not like this is an objective thing, people are going to like what they like, and more power to you.

would you change anything about Baldur's Gate 3?

I think the thing you're missing is that you're equating the mechanical main character with the narrative main character. Mechanically our custom character is the main character in that they're the character we the players embody, and they're the vessel through which we effect the story. But narratively, they're not the main character. The story isn't about them anymore or any less than it's about Gale or shadowheart or Wyll. If we assume that the origin system is gonna work basically the same as in D:OS2, then any of the origins can step into the mechanical main character spot. If we pick them at the start of the game, they'll be mechanically our main character. It's going to be their choices that propel the story forward. They'll be able to do everything Tav does, and Tav's absence won't makea substantive difference, since Tav doesn't have any deeper connections to the plot. Our Tav doesn't have any special skills that make them a unique asset to the group, they just happen to be the character chosen by the player. Any other companion could step into Tav's place if they're chosen at the start of the game.

If you think about it narratively, the actual story makes a bit more sense. Not the plot ncessarily, but the story. Wyll is a character that has to struggle with his morality as he not only seeks to free himself from the mindflayers, but from his contract with the devil tht the mindflayers also captured. Shadowheart stole an artefact that has a direct, significant tie to the parasite and keeping people safe from it. Lae'zel is a githyanki, raised from birth to fight this enemy. Now she's found herself alone on an unfamiliar world, forced to work with those she deemed lesser in order to survive and perhaps prove herself worthy in the process. Astarion has to struggle with whether he wants to risk finding a way to subdue the tadpole in order to maintain his newfound freedom from the master who tortured and enslaved him. Gale is the only one whose side plot really is (so far) entirely divorced from the tadpole plot. But you have all those, with plots and pathos built in, that the game will actually react to. And then we have Tav. An entirely empty shell that can be removed from the story without anything being lost.

This. Tav is just Random Nautilus Kidnap Victim #9872398. Insert Tadpole to Play.

That ain't me, boss.

Maybe if you read what I said more carefully, I wouldn't have to constantly restate my argument to you. There are some interesting ideas going around here stymied by our attempts to cajole you into making a cogent point.

If I had to choose one character to be the "main character" of this story it would be Shadowheart. Like so many RPG MCs she has amnesia, like so many MCs she finds herself with an ancient artifact of great importance to the story, and like so many MCs she has been given a definite objective that promises adventure and intrigue. But don't get me wrong (again), with the exception of Gale, every origin character has a pretty clear connection to the overarching plot, Shadowheart's connection is just the most clear in the EA. Gale's connection will probably become more clear as we play, what I wouldn't wager on is Tav doing the same.

Of course this has nothing to do with what I was talking about, I'm tempted to just quote my post again, just to see what would happen.

You guys really need to watch who you're quoting.

"BG2's companions are a platinum standard" is something I wrote, not Sozz.

For me Tav feels like the main character. I would also be happy to have some quests specific to Tav if they wanted to add them, though!
For me there is a big difference between Mass Effect and Witcher because in Witcher there is no customization for the character and in Mass Effect you can pick gender and appearance.

Yep, sorry about that, it came out of the spoiler tag, and I didn't notice.

However, you avoided my question entirely. Who is the main character, if it's not the character that one rolls up when they start the game? Which games have you played where you're not the main character, outside of IWD/Solasta, since those are Main Party games instead of a single protagonist. It's only logical that you would have an answer to those questions, yes?


I can't be missing it, because they're the same character. Unless there's a character in the game that will play it for us, and make any and all decisions, then we're it. Which character will make the decision on whether we side with the Druids, or the Tieflings in the Grove? Which character will make the decision on whether or not we side with Mintharra? Even if all we're doing is "following orders", such as Commander Shepard in Mass Effect, it would be hard to argue that Admiral Hackett is the main character, wouldn't it? Tav is an "empty shell", also known as a blank slate, because it's supposed to be up to the player to fill in the blanks. Once upon a time, in the world of RPGs, this was the ideal, and now it's more like "we need the developer to define our character for us".

Someone else asked if I'd change anything, and yes, I would. Astarion's vampirism would be out the window, as written. It makes it really hard to take him on some quests, since they involve splashing around in running water, and he tends to take damage from that. It will also make it really hard to run him as a main character, since there are areas of the map that he won't be able to actively participate in because of running water. That's just in Act 1, I have no idea what's coming after, or even what's missing from this chapter. Narratively, I have no idea, because I don't know what the rest of the story is, or how it is going to play out. I'm not having any issues identifying who the main character is, so I don't have any issues with the party having something other than just filling a role in my party.


Very much this last part for sure. It's no wonder people think I'm daft or something if they can't tell the difference between Geralt and Commander Shepard.

Take a gander at the third paragraph. Then take a look at the next paragraph, the one where I say that, who the main character is, isn't, and hasn't been, the issue or topic of my posts.

Now you tell me who you think the main character is and why, then I'll ask you to justify why you think it's Tav, and you'll say it's because you're playing him, and we can get a few more pages out of this thread.

Stories where the protagonist isn't the most important person to the story, probably qualify as post-modern, because they subvert classic narrative structure. Very view stories in videogame media are that interesting (or interested). Not many are any good to begin with. You might make a case for Disco Elysium, because the story's point can change based on what you personally find the most important plotline, but that's a stretch.

What might qualify elsewhere. The Great Gatsby? Blade Runner 2049? The Baxter? I never read Ender's Shadow, but stories that retell the main events of other stories from the perspective of side characters is in the same vein. Which brings Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead to mind.

You missed the important part of my post, which is that as far as the story I'd concerned, any of the companions we do now could do those things if we decide to choose them at character creation. Sure if we choose to play a Tav then Tav is the one making the game decision, but if you choose an origin character, then Tav never exists and the story does not fundamentally change. If you removed Shephard from Mass Effect, the story simply would not resemble itself at all. If we select Tav to play and then they die sure, we can't continue the story. But we don't have to select Tav, and we would get to play the same story but likely with new content.

Wouldn't a MC be defined by screen time, number of dialogue lines and driving the plot?

Playing Tav, I don't feel they're second to any of the origin characters. If anything my Tav tends to limit side plots as a distraction, albeit Lae'zel's creche solution is compelling and SH's artefact a revelation.

First off you can have more than one main character, I don't think they need a certain amount of screen time or dialogue. I'm sorry I put us onto a little bit of a tangent, the fact that this is coming up is because of how Tav feels compared to the rest of the characters with relation to the story. Seeing Tav as a side character in his own story is an unintentional consequence of having to interact with other characters who are experiencing the same story but with more areas of contact.

I'm sorry to bring up the other thread a third time, but I think the idea behind having a party of origin characters is interesting, it's potential is to tell an adventure story with a fellowship of characters. It could be like Lord of the Rings or The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and maybe it will feel like that if you play an origin character. But playing like Tav doesn't feel like it puts you on same level as the origin characters.

Robert brought up how the origin characters' personal stories in DOS 2 amounted to side-quests, but from what I remember they were enmeshed with the main narrative, if you can't avoid it while doing the main plot I don't know if it qualifies as a sidequest. I think the same will be true, more true, for the origin characters in BG3, mostly because we've already been given the arrows pointing to how every companion might be tied to the central plot.

Regardless I've never considered side plots to be a distraction, I'm sorry games put in more content to distract you from mainlining the 'real' story :p