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Is Baldur's Gate 3 woke or parody of woke?
I am character creation screen - you can choose between body type 1,2,3,4 . After that you can choose between voice 1 and 2 , Your Identity can be Male / Female or Non Binary, then you can hide your clothes (at this point I decided that developers were actually trolling because nudity in D&D BG series was rare to nonexistent) and you can choose your genitals if the default doesn't suit you to Vulva A, Vulva B or Penis A-D ,
So you can make a decent futanari I guess.
Have you noticed that Man and Woman were nowhere to be mentioned and you can't choose your gender? That everything is deconstructed and presented in the most cold, indifferent, clinical way? I don't think that it shows welcoming or acceptance. More like indifference and very subtle contempt while not giving reasons for complaining - the video game equivalent of sliding benches that make impossible for homeless people to sleep on them.
I was thinking of putting this in the fun thread, but does anyone else think (wokeness aside) that Baldur's Gate 3...isn't that good?
I admit I'm a lifelong Dragon Age stan and will defend that franchise to the end (even for its many flaws), but I've played a huge number of 'classic' CRPGs (including both actual classics like Planescape and Arcanum and modern classic-style games like Pillars of Eternity, Shadowrun Returns, Tyranny and Wasteland 3) and enjoyed them all.
I really don't like the writing in Baldur's Gate 3. It feels like fanfiction written by fantasy nerds who have never actually read anything that wasn't genre fiction. The romances are really poor and designed to cater to tumblr horniness (yes, even by Bioware standards), characters shuttle between Marvel-humor and absurdly melodramatic 'deep' or 'sentimental' moments with nothing in between. Everything feels like an in-joke or reference. There's a sincerity there (unlike DOS2) , but it's an insincere sincerity, like the moment in a superhero movie before the final battle when everyone suddenly gets serious and someone mentions that their team is like a family.
I played Hogwarts Legacy earlier this year, and that really is a mediocre game (beautifully recreated castle aside) with very average writing and a dull main storyline. But one thing I really appreciate about it - at least now I've played Baldur's Gate 3 - is that it takes its world, ridiculous and weird and nonsensical and full of a billion plot holes though it is, seriously. People in Baldur's Gate 3 don't act the way humans (or humanoid races who are essentially humans on the inside) do in the situations that they're in.
The world feels very small, and very banal, and very modern, and choices are "moral dilemmas" as imagined by a DM who is very active on the D&D memes subreddit. Maybe this is what many players want, as it certainly provides the experience of tabletop Dungeons and Dragons when played with a dungeon master who collects funko pops and has the poster of every MCU movie in their bedroom, but it falls a little short of the best titles in the genre, which are written by people with wider tastes in fiction.
Playing Pentiment by Josh Sawyer/Obsidian, one gets the sense that this is a game written by a man with a genuine interest in the source material and with a broad literary taste. David Gaider, who wrote Dragon Age, stated that his primary influence in the script and tone was the 1968 movie The Lion of Winter, about Henry II's court in 1183, not high art but of which Roger Ebert said "One of the joys which movies provide too rarely is the opportunity to see a literate script handled intelligently. 'The Lion in Winter' triumphs at that difficult task; not since 'A Man for All Seasons' have we had such capable handling of a story about ideas. But 'The Lion in Winter' also functions at an emotional level, and is the better film, I think."
By contrast Baldur's Gate 3's writers appear YA-fictionbrained. The script lacks a trace of high culture or even midbrow influence. The lead writer was, like many writers in games, an ex-game journalist, one of modernity's more ignoble professions. The emphasis genuinely seems to be on recreating the average nerd DM's campaign in digital form, but the whole point of a professionally produced product is that actual writers should be able to do a better job than some software engineer who writes campaigns in his spare time, so this is little consolation.
I also find the gameplay disappointing. This is to some extent by default, since RtWP is a vastly superior mechanic for CRPGs than turn-based gameplay (because it allows one to fast-forward through trash encounters and to play at one's own pace). But even by the standards of good turn-based combat systems, Baldur's Gate 3 is poor. A big part of this is because of the direct translation of many 5e mechanics into a game, which is ridiculous since they were designed for abstraction to make tabletop play viable. The combat system has too many actions, too many redundant spells (ability systems in games where the DM can essentially decide what each use of each ability can do are completely different to rules-based video games) lifted directly from the source material. And too many abilities is a big problem, because the biggest difference between a CRPG and tabletop is that in a tabletop game, you play only one character. In a CPRG, you play 4-6, so the logic of combat complexity changes.
A second problem is the incessant on-screen dice rolls, which are ugly and immersion-breaking (the whole point of digital games, some would say, is that they can put this kind of thing behind-the-scenes). A third issue is that D&D itemization is fine for tabletop campaigns where you can carry a handful of items, your inventory is a box on a lined piece of paper and there are three combat encounters in a 4 hour session, but it works less well in a game where there are mountains of loot and players are used to more interesting itemization than +2 swords or things that provide a single-point increase in one stat. The game is also extremely easy, but that's a more common complaint.
There doesn't seem to me an inherent reason why games can't have good writing. After all, at least some mainstream movies have good dialogue and are written by well-read screenwriters, it's not impossible. I think it's something about expectations. Game designers, directors and fans are so used to only consuming genre/fantasy/scifi fiction that they don't even understand what's possible, what's out there.
What does "good writing" look like to you? Some examples from video games would be helpful.
I find the writing of the vast majority of games to be completely forgettable to the point where I ignore it completely. I only bother engaging with the story for a few games that manage to interest me like Disco Elysium or Dragon Age or Mass Effect. I'd say the writing in BG3 is right up there with the DA or ME series if not slightly better. There are basically no complex moral choices since the bad guys are cartoonishly evil, but you could say the same about DA or ME. The good parts about BG3 are 1) each act has an element of mystery as you uncover what's going on between all the characters; 2) there's a wide range of player choices that the game reacts to both in the small details and even in the possibility of changing large plot points; 3) the 6 main companions have interesting backstories with personal growth that feels plausible; and 4) the world is just generally interesting to engage in with stuff like a sly wizard's "read thoughts" or a barbarian's big dumb "DO WHAT I WANT" skill checks never getting old.
If you care about "lore accuracy" then maybe your opinion would change. I wouldn't know since I never bother getting too invested in the deeper lore of any fictional universe since that's almost always a road to plot holes and disappointment. Your other critiques like "people don't act like humans", or "Marvel-humor", or "YA-fictionbrained", etc are fairly generic criticisms that could apply to almost any work of fiction if you squint. They'd at least apply to stuff like the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series.
The combat of BG3 is not great but not terrible. It can be fun in the moment-to-moment in a way similar to XCOM 2, but DOS2's systems were just better designed. Way too much of the difficulty of BG3 is tied up in preparing for fights. Beginning the battle with a sneak attack and coming in with the proper spells prepared can turn fights from "impossible" to "trivial" very regularly. I've been abusing quicksaving and quickloading more than any game I've ever played in my life, but the alternative of playing it straight-up just isn't fun when my characters miss all their attacks due to low ground penalties and debuffs the enemy casted on the first turn.
In fairness, this has happened to just about every DM who's ever tried creating a hard encounter that wasn't just a straight-up curbstomp.
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I've played DOS2 on the hardest difficulty and "100% Alpha Strike mechanics" is my main criticism, though. If you play correctly, you use the first turn to get the higher ground & incapitate the opponent, so the rest of the fight is just wrapping things up. I don't see how BG3 could possibly be worse.
It's kind of surprising how much of a common problem alpha striking is in turn-based games. It's an issue in the XCOM series as well. I can't think of a turn based game like this where alpha striking isn't an overly critical component. Damage is just scaled way too high, and status effects are too debilitating.
Arguably it's true even irl, so I guess it's a case of too much realism.
But yes, I think it's a symptom of wanting to keep fights short + games often being designed around casual players. If damage is scaled so that the fight is ~5 turns with a poorly optimized casual build, a well designed build will just OHKO everything, and increasing the difficulty will rarely adjust things appropriately but also often introduce other problems.
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I agree, the writing seems significantly above average for a CRPG. Characterization is a bit weak for non-companions, and I do agree with the complaint that the world feels too small. But compared to most of the dreck you see nowadays, it's really quite good. (Still, when the "fate of the world" is at stake, I'm level 9, and Elminster dips into my camp to say hi then leaves, it feels a little silly.)
The big defining feature of Larian games is the way they try to simulate everything: you can throw a bottle of water to put out a fire, or throw somebody off a cliff to kill them, or pickpocket your enemies Big Sword before the fight. If anything, it's like Skyrim as a CRPG. There are pluses and minuses to that, and honestly, I would prefer an old-Bioware or Obsidian take on the gameplay, but it's still fun.
The most recent CRPG I'd played was Wrath of the Righteous, which I liked more, if only because it had a really defined identity of its own. That, and Pathfinder/3.5 is strictly superior to 5e.
Larian games don't quite feel like Skyrim to me, which has more of an open sandboxy vibe with less emphasis on story. It feels more like a CRPG version of New Vegas, where the plot is a critical aspect, but the player is given wide latitude on how to engage with it. The game does a good job reacting to specific player actions and the ultimate resolution can go in many different ways depending on the player's decisions.
I can't speak for rafa, but I would have said everything she did, so I'm answering too. New vegas is what I was going to bring up for 'better writing' - imo bg3 pales in comparison. Disco Elysium would also work, and I am confused that you are lumping them both in with mass effect and dragon age, which is the level I would put bg3 on, they are imo pop-rpgs.
The best writing in video games is also the hardest to access - it's like story and every other aspect of a game are negatively correlated. For the best of the best, basically it's if or bust. Nothing with graphics compares to anchorhead or the counterfeit monkey. Add some graphics but streamline the gameplay and you get visual novels - and once again I'd say no crpg can compare to umineko, or steins gate, or even something like raging loop. Basically I think you nailed it re larian's approach to games, they want to simulate everything, and so they put the story on the back burner. In my books bg3 is closer to dishonored or weird west than bg2, which didn't have the best story, but was light years ahead of bg3. PST is the king of that crowd, but even icewind dale had decent writing (when it came up). Then we had mask of the betrayer, which redeemed nwn2's story, and tyranny (which deserves more love). Pillars of eternity was overly convoluted, but it was better written too.
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With the partial exception of Dragon Age Inquisition (and maybe Mass Effect 3’s Citadel DLC), Whedonesque dialogue is largely absent from these games. I guess to some extent Morrigan might have aspects of a Whedonesque character, but in many ways she doesn’t. Most important, the first two Dragon Age and Mass Effect games take their settings very seriously in a way absent from almost all modern Marvel movies. That’s not to say they’re without cringe dialogue, of course. But it’s cringe in the way high schoolers writing fiction is cringe, in its overuse of tropes or over-sincerity about the scale of the characters’ difficulties, not because it’s trying to be serious AND make fun of itself at the same time, which is the biggest hallmark of bad modern writing.
I really hate BG3’s companions, they’re all zany, wacky eccentrics with a Deep Secret. There are usually a couple of companions in a BioWare game like this, but there are also plenty of more ‘normal’ people.
They're not so bad.
The magical fascist sky murder ape. Not zany, no apparent deep secret, kind of sad really. Very ugly, but that's what illusion spells are for.
Shadowheart isn't zany or wacky.
Astarion is a sleazy lecher but not zany or wacky, doesn't seem to have a deep secret.
Karlach is a little zany but honestly seems like a mostly what she appears to be, a cheerful yet essentially decent blood knight.
If you play a fighter/mage you don't need anyone else, no? And with the cloaking spell Laezal isn't disgusting to look at and realistically would probably be easily persuaded it's not good for her life expectancy or mission to look like one of those impossible murder assholes from beyond the sky who swoop around the multiverse on their red dragons and behave like special forces: ask questions first, torture if not answered execute later.
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I don't really know what you mean by this. I tried looking up what Joss Whedon has worked on and there's not much of a clear pattern I can discern. From Toy Story to Firefly to The Avengers, he's worked on a wide range of things. I'm guessing by your earlier comment that the Avengers (or Marvel movies in general) would be the main thing here, but I'm still not quite sure what you mean by this.
I remember ME1 taking its setting very seriously since it was setting up this whole new universe. The other games from the ME and DA series still tried to stay within their settings... but so does BG3.
Again, I'm not sure where you think BG3 is doing this. Do you have some examples from act 1? Where is the game making fun of itself?
For me, these are parts of the characters are quite enjoyable since they add a degree of mystery at the beginning while connecting to the broader strokes of the story later on. After thinking about it, I would agree that the "I'm locked in a bad deal with an asshole god" trope is overused since it applies to half the cast, but there certainly companions without that. Lae'zel doesn't have this, nor do the alt companions like Minthara, Halsin, Jaheira, or Minsc.
It's his signature way of mixing comedy with drama. The plot is serious, but the characters keep cracking wise.
Is that all?
Well in that case, that gets pretty close to saying "don't have levity in serious works, period", which I'd strongly disagree with. Part of what made things like Breaking Bad and Disco Elysium great was that they dealt with really serious topics while also being fun and almost goofy at some points. The lighthearted moments were needed both for contrast and to not wear out the viewer. There's an art to doing this of course, as wisecracking during a serious moment can do a lot more harm than good, but the alternative of just being serious or negative all the time to the point of being hard-boiled and grimdark certainly isn't good either.
No, it's not that at all. It's closer to "please for the love of god, react to danger with literally anything other than a sarcastic quip".
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It's not that it's bad per se, people loved Buffy, I personally liked Reaper, which is very much whedonesque in character. It's just that you can't have everyone in a movie be a smartass all the time. Things can get so bad that the straight man of the cast makes a bitter joke or the resident clown finally shuts up. Maybe someone is two different people at work and with friends and the change in his tone shows how the relationship between the characters changed. People complain that the MCU movies are tonally flat: everyone is equally snarky almost all the time.
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writing in games is a bit harder to nail because it also has other expressions - it is heavily interwind with the worldbuilding and art direction.
Planescape Torment, Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 1&2, God of war (2018), Portal, (Portal 2 was also brilliant in parts - mostly the old world), Kotor, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodline, Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver and Soul Reaver 2 (defiance was shit, blood omen 2 was strange), Dragon Age: Origins, Silent Hill, Red Dead Redemption, Witchers, Batman Arkham Assylum and City, Riddick: Escape from butcher's bay (the final act was a bit weaker though) and many more. I would also throw Saints Row IV and Leisure Suit Larry love for sail in the mix. Any quests of old.
I think for any piece of writing, the big things for me are: characters that are well rounded and have a stake in the outcome, a universe that acts like the rules of the universe are sensible and doesn’t have specific things that only heroes can do without explanations that make sense, world building that’s fairly consistent and thought out, a plot that moves on its own logic without too many coincidences or people doing things ‘just because’, and consequences both for character (or player) choices or world events.
But really most movies and TV shows cannot do this, so it doesn’t shock me that game writing sucks as well. I feel like the general writing ability of professional screen writers and game writers has fallen off lately.
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Hmm, I'm looking right now at the introduction scene for ME2 Jack and then again for BG3 Karlach.
Neither is really outstanding but my perception is that Karlach is sort-of-YA adjacent, maybe it's the funny fuck word that I did not expect while I was sort of surprised that it takes a while for Jack to swear. Need to think about it more, seems like Jack and Karlach is a interesting pair to compare.
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