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voloslobotomyservice · 3 months

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get to know your tav!

tagged by @auspex-author and @lolthslover (thank you!) sorry it took me so long!

meet Divya (she/her), asmodeous tiefling, way of the four elements monk

what is your tav’s…

favorite weapon? her hands (both in unarmed strikes and spells)

style of combat? a mixture of spells from a close-ish distance and throwing punches/kicks. also more defensive? she didn’t learn combat before becoming tadpoled, as she never really wanted to be a fighter.

most prized possession? considering she had no possessions when she lived in the church, she had nothing but the clothes on her back for around eight years.

deepest desire? to become a monk at the temple of ilmater in the city of baldur’s gate.

guilty pleasure? she was not allowed to partake in any guilty pleasures while living in the monastery, but now she can do things like eat a cookie or drink wine or mess around with Wyll without feeling too much religious guilt afterwards.

best-kept secret? before she went to serve in elturel’s church of ilmater, her mother revealed to her that she was not her father’s child. that is why she lacks the tiefling’s signature infernal eyes.

greatest strength? she stays cool, calm, and collected in the face of danger. always thinks before she acts, and tries to limit her damage to others around her.

fatal flaw? she has spent so many years taking on the pain of others, that she doesn’t know how to truly grapple with her own. from elturel’s descent into avernus, being shunned from her church of ilmater, becoming separated from her family, and now being tadpoled, it’s a surprise that she’s about to keep her head on straight. this does eventually boil over, though, and Divya is unable to handle her heavy emotions on her own. (maybe I should write about it? hm yeah that would be fun)

favorite scent? whatever cologne Wyll’s wearing

favorite spell/cantrip? fist of unbroken air. bad guy always go wheee.

pet peeve? when people don’t try to understand the pain some people go through or just dismiss it entirely

bad habit? tends to pick at her nails if she’s anxious/stressed, usually paired with trouble falling asleep

hidden talent? not a talent, but her thumbs are double jointed. gave Shadowheart quite the scare when she first showed them off.

leisure activity? the Forgotten Realms equivalent of tai-chi and yoga, she uses these practices to ground herself and find inner peace

favorite drink? a monk? drinking? you can’t be serious! arabellan red

comfort food? her mother used to make this delicious lamb stew. Gale has tried to replicate it, but hasn’t succeeded yet. mostly because lamb is hard to find.

favorite person(s)?

Wyll: not only is he handsome, but he seems to have a good head on his shoulder and a positive attitude (for the most part). He will also (usually) think before he acts.

Karlach: though they are fairly polar opposite when it comes to their personalities and the way they handle combat, opposites attract, and they work very well together.

Gale: his knowledge intrigues her, she enjoys having long conversations with him about whatever he’s thinking about at that moment in time simply because it’s entertaining.

favored display of affection? quality time, for sure. it’s one of the reasons she and Wyll get as close as they do — he’s always in her party 😉 also physical affection, but preferably behind closed doors or behind big boulders because she gets embarrassed easily

fondest childhood memory? the first time her parents took her to the church of ilmater

anything else you’d like to share?

Divya is a little socially awkward. only speaking to others about their pain and sorrows for around eight years has left her with little to say when her party members come by and have a chat. she is a much better listener than talker.

Her biggest insecurity is her vitiligo. Growing up, the other children in school would call her a cow, which also made her insecure in her body image. She doesn’t eat too much because of it, and up until the events of the game, had most of her body covered to hide her pale spots. If anyone asked about her face, she’d say she was a victim of an acid attack.

She and Darcy, another tiefling tav of mine, were friends when they were children. Darcy is four/five years older than Divya, so she was only eight when Darcy was kidnapped from Elturel. She often wonders if she’ll ever see her friend again.

The Church of Ilmater in Elturel cast her out after the city’s descent into Avernus. They did not want anyone resembling devils in their halls.

Wyll is the first person she has ever been romantically involved with. Here are a few fics about their relationship:

To A Wild Rose - Wyll (successfully) rizzing up Divya

Just A Kiss - Divya and Wyll’s first kiss shared at the camp party

Show Me How - Wyll gives Divya some… pleasure (nsft)

Tagging @rolansrighthorn @dustdeepsea and @my-favourite-zhent give me some tea on your tavs!!! (only if you want to tho uwu )

#get to know your tav #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 tav #bg3 tiefling #tiefling tav #tav: divya #oc: divya

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bara-izu · 4 months

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Hey, I am a person who has never played video games in the short time I have been alive and I don't think I'll start very soon since I get I'm impatient and get frustrated and just google what to do next, but I have been introduced to bg3 through you and I have to say I am thoroughly invested, mostly because well LORE but also your "TAVs" is what it is called I think and honestly ik hallion is gay but god would I like to-

*Ahem, I digress, so I love love LOVE your comics and snippets and I think you have lore in your mind as a fellow lore lover, would you be willing to quench my thirst for knowledge not related to my interests at all, be the stone to the crow I am ????

Ah! im glad i can bring non gamers into loving bg3 as well!! Thank you so much for enjoying my comics and Tav, Halion!🥺 Also he's bi so don't worry about it haha

And i am very invested in lore! Since BG3 is situated in the Forgotten Realms dnd setting it tickles all my previous faerun knowledge and i love deep diving into it. I DO however have to hold myself back from too much deep diving however as im currently in 2 campaigns - Out of the Abyss (one of the early campaigns which is in the underdark) and - Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus (which takes place at the beginning of the year BG3 takes place) So i can't go into those areas otherwise i'll give myself spoilers 😂 I've also Previously played Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage, and Tryanny of Dragons But other lore- love talking about it- as you can probably tell by my rambles...

#ask izu

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shrimpgoddess · 8 months

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BG3 canon if i was in charge :) [mega BG3 spoilers ahead]

there is currently no official canon of BG3 until we see further expansions or Wizards of the Coast does something with it for DnD. however, as previous BG games have become at least kinda canon to Forgotten Realms, i think we can assume the following backdrop/meta is true:

the rise of the Cult of the Absolute has been happening for the last few years

there is a huge schism in githyanki culture between Vlaakith and its people

Buldur's Gate has suffered a ton of damage from the first Nautiloid attack, the subsequent attacks from the army of the Absolute, and the battle against the Netherbrain

the 2017 DnD module Baldur's Gate: Descent to Avernus is a sort of prologue to BG3 where the players are from BG but end up in the first layer of hell to find redemption for themselves, figure out why the holy city of Elturel got sucked to Avernus, and maybe prevent the same happening to the city of Baldur's Gate. while all DnD modules have many endings depending on your table, BG3 chose that the canon ending to the module is that the city was returned to Faerun by adventurers. Zevlor in the grove basically just explains all of this.

my assumptions/guesses for what is the canon game for the BG franchise and DnD lore:

the Dark Urge is the main character bc they're a Bhaalspawn, which is almost directly connected to previous BG games.

saving the grove, saving the harpers to fight moonrise,

"a heroic adventurer" and their companions saved Baldur's Gate and defeated the Absolute (good ending canon)

Lae'zel saving Orpheus and going back to the Astral Plane to war against the queen. could be a cool DnD adventure in the future

Karlach dying is the canon ending imo :/

Astarion ascends bc he likes the sun

Wyll begrudgingly maintains his pact and becomes the Blade of Avernus to save his daddy and Mizora stays being a hot bitch

Shadowheart goes Selune-mode

Gale is pretty much up to imagination but i think he's got too much ambition to just sit around so he goes back to Waterdeep to see if he can defuse his nuke there and also become a giga wizard with a giga beard for us to encounter in the next game

Halsin stays in the Shadowlands to fix it or whatever

Jaheira and Minsc just stay boolin in Baldur's Gate because they have for three games now

Minthara gets knocked out in the goblin camp, captured by Absolute forces, you rescue her in the Moonrise towers and she joins you bc she realizes she's been brainwashed into the Absolute cult

Raphael dies and Hope gets saved

Lorroakan gets confronted by the Nightsong (assuming Selune Shadowheart is canon), gets his ass beat, but had a failsafe and didnt actually die so he can be in the next game

Scratch and the Owlbear stay short kings (canon)

#bg3 #baldurs gate #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 spoilers #spoilers #headcanon #im correct #durge spoilers #bg3 durge

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lairofsentinel · 3 years

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Ok since Mystra came back in 1487, and the game is about 1494, would that mean she immediately went after Gale? Like she was dead until 1487 so... if gale was 20 or younger, 18 when that happened he would be early 30s? I just want to know companions ages...

Ok, this is a long, LONG answer. I've been thinking about this like a month ago, when I was working on my fic. I will show you the different hypotheses I work with, their cons and pros.

A warning: all this is my personal headcanon and my personal opinion, it doesn't mean it's the “truth”.

[Baldur’s Gate 3 Early Access, Spoilers]

I think you are using some dates a little different or the sources I'm using are wrong.

What we know as canon:

From wiki:

Mystra returned to the Forgotten Realms in 1479 DR. A vestige of Mystra had survived her death in 1385 DR, and was guiding her Chosen to aid in her renewal.

From Forgotten Realm wiki:

In 1479 DR Elminster and Storm restored the Simbul's sanity by feeding her a Blueflame item. After her mind was restored, she charged both Elminster and Manshoon to work to gather all the Blueflame items together, possibly to restore Mystra

Conclusion: Mystra returned in 1479 DR

Another bit of canon: Baldur's Gate 3 takes place in 1492

From Forgotten Realm wiki:

The game takes place as of 1492 DR, and is defined as the "current year", as is stated in a tollhouse ledger. The ledger can be found under the Order of the Gauntlet's makeshift base.

This is one of the “canon” inconsistencies that enrages me, since the game shows it takes place after “the descend to Avernus”, which happens in 1494. Therefore, Larian saying this is placed in 1492 when featuring the ending of the descend to avernus in it, only puts us in a situation with a strong problem in its coherence. I'm just ignoring this by now until Larian corrects themselves. Or they say something on the matter. So far, I will stick with what the game and its wiki show. UPDATE: Apparently the one with problems in their date is Descend to Avernus, according wiki:

Canon material provides two distinct dates for the events described in Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus: the adventure itself, described in chapters 1 through 5, takes place in 1494 DR, according to events mentioned in pages 7 and 47, while the Baldur's Gate Gazetteer describes the city as of 1492 DR (p. 159).

Conclusion: BG3 happens in 1492 DR

Now we are going to proceed to the hypotheses:

Hypothesis one: Gale is around 40 years old.

Reasons: This is my personal headcanon. By the way his face wrinkles, I have the feeling he is closer to his early/middle 40 than his middle 30s. Those crow-feet speak volumes to me. It's true that wrinkles depend a lot of the type of skin you have, your nutrition, your health, your level of stress, and your genetic. There are people who has deep wrinkles in their 20 or a baby-face in their 50s. But statistically speaking, using the average concept of how population gets wrinkles over the years, I'm inclined to think he is in his 40.

If BG3 happens in 1492 DR, and he is 40 y/o, this means he was born in 1452 DR.

Mystra returned from death after 1479, when Gale was 27 years old. This means that Gale's involvement with Mystra happened when he was 27 y/o or older [nothing says that the affair had to happen in that same year, right there after she came back... it could have happened several years later]

Pros: This theory fits a lot more the wrinkles we see with Gale's current age, in my opinion.

Cons: 27 y/o is not “a young man” age in the sense Gale explained during his scene. Also from a design point of view, and considering the amount of stress and fear that Gale has been living during his last decade [at least], he should be displaying some grey hair as well. First grey hair tends to appear [once again, all this is pure statistical observations in the white population] around their 35's. And it's also well known that constant stress tends to accelerate them, so more evidence against this concept: if he is around 40 y/o and lives stressed as fuck as he has explained, he should be displaying a good amount of grey hair. Maybe we'll see them in a future patch? Maybe not. Only Larian knows.

Hypothesis two: Gale is around 35 [30] years old.

Reasons: This headcanon implies that Gale has more wrinkles than the average of people in such age. But then again, we can't assume this is a rule set on stone. As I said before, skin and genetics depend a lot in the way we age. This age sounds adequate for not displaying grey hair yet, but then again, he is under a lot of stress. It would be expected to have premature grey hair under such conditions.

If BG3 happens in 1492 DR, and he is 35 [30] y/o, this means he was born in 1457 [1462] DR.

Mystra returned from death after 1479, when Gale was 22 [17] years old. This means that Gale's involvement with Mystra happened when he was, at least, 22 [17] y/o or older.

Pros: This theory fits a little less in the amount of wrinkles we see with Gale's current age in my opinion. It justifies a bit better the lack of grey hair, even though I prefer the idea that, no matter his age, after the orb event, his stress is constant and that should cause premature grey hair. But this is personal taste.

Cons: 22 [17] y/o is certainly “a young man” age in the sense Gale explained during his scene. I know 17 y/o may sound weird, but we can assume two things: 1) Mystra gave a shit about it [she is a goddess, she cares little for mortal details] or 2) Mystra waited a time before whispering in Gale's ears. Pick the one you prefer. In both cases, 17 and 22, fit perfectly the concept that he was too naïve and young to see the true weight of his involvement with Mystra.

Hypothesis three: Gale is ancient. As a wizard, he can extend his life with magic, artefacts, and potions.

Reasons: This headcanon implies that Gale has lived the Spellplague, and his affair with Mystra happened before 1385 DR and before her death. It could have happened at any age.

In this scenario, since he would be under some magical effect of longevity, we can't even guess his current age, and his few wrinkles [for an ancient man] and lack of grey hair would be justified by such magical effects as well.

Pro: This theory fits well with whatever inconsistency in his design that could suggest or not certain age in Gale's apperance.

Cons: We are completely lost in the timeline, and we cannot make any decent estimation

I personally do not support this theory because 2 reasons:

When Gale narrates the story of “the little silly wizard”, he explicitly says “not so long ago” when he explained his affair with Mystra. On the other hand, when he explains Karsus' folly, he explicitly says “Long, long time ago”. It's evident in my opinion that he perceives the times of Mystra's death as something that happened too long ago, while placing his own youth in a more recent time frame.

If Gale were ancient, he would speak of the Spellplague time in a more dramatic way. Since Magic and Weave are so important in his life, that historical event should have scarred his mind deeply.

Final conclusion

I personally like the idea of Gale being around his 40. It's true it doesn't fit well when he describes himself as a “young man” during his affair with Mystra, but I think his current design fits more to a man in his early 40. If you read my DOS2 metas, you will also know that Larian is well-known to overlook details of this nature or simply ignore their own lore, so incoherence is something I always expect from them, especially when we do analysis with this freak level of detail.

Gale being 35 y/o or younger is also valid since it's an hypothesis that fits much better the concept of “young man”, though he looks a lot more aged than he should be. One could assume this premature ageing is caused by the stress of the Netherese infection in his chest, but in that case it should be fairer to add to his wrinkles a stronger presence of grey hair.

I don't support at all the theory of Gale being ancient.

#gale #gale of waterdeep #bg3 #bg3 spoilers #baldurs gate 3 #baldurs gate 3 spoilers #Baldur's Gate 3

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roll20 · 3 years

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SCAG And You And Roll20, Too

The Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide is coming to Roll20 on December 3rd! To make sure you’re ready for its arrival, we asked DM extraordinaire Dave (of Lost Mine of Phandelver fame) to write a little bit about what makes the book so special, and how it’ll make your D&D 5E campaigns on Roll20 so much better. Take it away, Dave!

I know what you’re thinking: “What the heck is SCAG?”

Don’t worry, this isn’t a health PSA! Don’t click away! The rather medical-sounding acronym stands for the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, a Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition supplement book that’s heading over to the Roll20 Compendium!

No more treacherous paper pages, with their dangerous, sharp, lacerating edges and corners. No more trawling through, looking for the page that you swear had that one thing about the thing if you could just find it somewhere. You know how the Compendium works by now, I’m sure, and how much easier it makes all that messing around.

The Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide is a really useful book, as it combines a few different bits of knowledge into one package. As the title suggests, first and foremost, it’s a sourcebook for this particular portion of the Forgotten Realms. It’s probably the least Forgotten of the Realms, as it has been featured in many of the official novels and games over the years. Many of the published adventures, such as the Lost Mine of Phandelver, Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and parts of Baldur’s Gate: Descent Into Avernus take place along the Sword Coast, so it’s incredibly relevant in all sorts of situations! It provides a lot of information and background for both players and Dungeon Masters to flesh out their understanding of the various territories, cities and factions at play in the area. It’s always really cool to work in the wider world when it comes to running the aforementioned modules or other campaigns within the setting as a way to immerse your players. One of my favorite things is to throw in a reference and have it picked up on, or conversely see a sly cameo from a famous adventurer.

This sourcebook lets you build characters and adventures in ways that are both prescriptive, in the sense that you immerse yourself in the setting by making specific choices, then also descriptive, in the sense that those same choices you make can be put into deeper context by your Dungeon Master. It’s particularly good at helping those of us who want to feel like settings nerds without needing to delve into all those disparate books and Wiki entries. As someone who has spent many, many hours reading the first six Drizzt books for the tiny snippets of references to a specific place that is mentioned in maybe thirty pages, I wish there had been a sourcebook for the Underdark! That’s not all though! The Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide contains exciting new content for characters in the form of class options and spells. The cool thing about SCAG specifically is that some of the options are tied to the Sword Coast itself. For example, the Fighter archetype Purple Dragon Knight references a knightly order that exists within the setting and can offer players a real sense of being tied to the world.

Backgrounds help in this aspect as well. Making your character a Waterdhavian Noble might indicate that you, as a player, want to engage with the politics of the City of Splendors.

Some of the options are compelling even if you take them out of the Sword Coast context, too. Sun Soul monks are perfect for any player that enjoys that anime fantasy of shooting ki laserbeams, wherever your adventure may be. The Oath of the Crown for paladins is a neat “tanky” option that absolutely and definitely never leads to a deathmatch between two player characters when one is mind controlled by a cambion. I can’t imagine the class features being used in such a situation, even though the character wasn’t super interested in being dedicated to the crown in the first place. Adding these unique character features to your Roll20 Compendium means that they’ll work with the Charactermancer, and that means they will be simple-to-use drop-down options when creating or leveling up their heroes. Likewise for adding the iconic spell Green-flame blade, which I gather is a reference to something or other.

Similarly, you can use the handouts feature to add relevant sections of lore or worldbuilding. Have you ever been in a situation as a player where you realize you don’t even know how many hours there are in a day in Faerun? Bam, handout with all those basics. Months have really weird names too, and SCAG has all those juicy settings overviews. Enrich your adventures on the Sword Coast or the wider world of the Forgotten Realms with this Adventurer’s Guide, then break them down into delicious tiny integrated bites using Roll20. All that goodness is just a simple search box away!

Follow Dave on Twitter, and look for the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide on the Roll20 Marketplace December 3rd!

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everyaccentthesame · 4 years

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BG: DIA. A rationale for bizarre choices in the first chaprer.

Descent into Avernus is a thoroughly confused module. Throughout the first chapter we’re meant to unravel the mystery of what happened to Elturel, but the players have no reason to care about Elturel, and until the very end of the chapter, no indication that devilish forces are responsible, or even at work in Baldur’s Gate. Furthermore, at the end of the chapter the players seem to be expected to leap into hell voluntarily to save Elturel, but are given no indication on how that could possibly be achieved, or why they are the one’s being sent to do the ‘saving’. The PC’s, by the end of the first chapter, will have effectively saved Baldur’s Gate by killing Thalmara Vanthampur or disrupting her plans, job done.

This is a mad, jumbled plot, and near-impossible to work with without massive adjustments. So why was it written this way? Well, some of the blame can be put at the feet of sheer incompetence. There are issues with how the plot of this adventure that no amount of mitigating factors can explain, especially with a project of this size and budget, with dozens of people working on it. These sort of issues are now infamous, and plague many WOTC official adventure modules, forcing DM’s to warp the plotlines to their own ends, and frustrating any attempt to run a campaign ‘straight out of the book’.

Too many cooks spoiled this broth

Some of the blame can also be put on the sheer size of the project. Not in the sense of the size of the book, though that is large, but in terms of the size of the team that worked on it. There are eleven so called ‘story creators’ (an unhelpful title), two story consultants, 15 writers (what separates these from the ‘story creators’ is unclear) and four developers listed in the books ‘credits’. Some of those listed have multiple roles. This could be a classic case of ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’- there are less than 10 pages of actual adventure content per writer. What were they doing? Why were so many needed, when three or four would really suffice?

Its obvious that this bloated team of creatives did not help the adventures structure, and they obviously failed to communicate and create a cohesive story-line together. But the same goes for other D&D modules, which while generally unclear, few were as tonally deaf as the first chapter of this one.

A video-game tie-in, sort of?

The issue, is, of course, Baldur’s gate. As I reflected in my previous post, the module is not about Baldur’s gate, it is about Elturel. And yet the game takes on that name, insists on the players being from there, starting there, levelling up there. Why?

Well, simply put: Marketing. For a video game called Baldur’s gate 3 which set in the forgotten realms setting, using the d&d 5e rules (adapted to a video game format) and is being promoted by Wizards of the Coast, the producers of D&D. It looks like it’s going to be a decent game, and I’m moderately excited about it. But it looks like someone at WOTC, or even Hasbro, saw this as an opportunity to use an official d&d module to market, or try to ‘tie-in’ to this new video game.

Instead of building a new module from the ground up to fit into the game, which seems to feature mind-flayers and planar travel quite prominently (and rather few fiends for that matter), that would complement the new video games themes and setting, they instead have hamfistedly crammed baldurs gate into what seems to be a module they had developed with a different vision in mind.

In addition, it seems the designers, as illustrated in the ‘dungeon of the dead three’ were far too eager to throw in references to previous video games set in Baldur’s gate. Now I love references to obscure pieces of D&D lore, but not if they detract from the main plots and themes of a story.

A tale of two cities, but not really

One of the writers and ‘story creators’, the much loved Chris Perkins, had this to say about the module, in an interview with Inverse:

“I like to think of it as A Tale of Two Cities. One city has fallen under the sway of hell, the other is in danger of suffering the same fate unless you step in and do something about it.“

Given this quote, I’m pretty sure Chris Perkins either has not read ‘A tale of two cities’, as it is quite clear that the adventure does not tell a tale of two cities, it tells two tales, that happen to be set in different cities, or only accidentally referenced it.

The fact is that Baldur’s gate is under no such danger of suffering the fate of Elturel by the end of the first chapter, and the two cities indeed have no other connection, or indeed any connection to each other other than physical proximity. Indeed, the design lead Adam Lee admits as much in an interview:

Todd Kendrick: “How does that bring us to Elturel”

Adam Lee: “So Elturel is connected to Baldur’s gate by the river [chionthar], probably a couple hundred miles up the river is the city of Elturel and Elturel, uh, you hear about it through a courier or through people who are reporting, who say ‘oh my gosh, Elturel has just, been taken, it has disappeared and just become a smoking crater’, and something terrible has happened there.”

That’s it. That’s the connection. Someone comes and tells the PC’s while they’re in Baldur’s gate that Elturel is missing, and they’re, for some reason, meant to care about it. And do something about it. While the rest of the universe, it seems, sits on the palms of their hands, and does nothing.

Conclusion

The fact is that Baldur’s gate inclusion is awkward, clumsy, and unnecessary, and the designers put in the minimum possible effort to make it fit. This is compounded by the bloated size of the design team likely contributing to nobody in the team actually knowing what the overall plot was, or should be. The module seems to have been primarily written with the city of Elturel in mind as the primary hub for the players, and that connection seems to have been scrapped, almost at the last minute, leaving the adventure completely adrift, and condemning it to be even worse than the usual mediocrity produced by WOTC these days.

The tie-in isn’t even that worthwhile, in the end, Baldurs Gate 3 has suffered repeated delays and has only just opened up a public alpha. Fucking morons.

In my next post in this series, I’ll actually be constructive, and I’ll be discussing how the adventure could be better, and what I would do differently if I were running it again. I actually like a lot of the adventure’s themes, and I think that with just a little effort, it could be a brilliant experience, to run and to play.

#d&d #dnd #d&d 5e #dnd5e #d&d5e #baldurs gate: descent into avernus #descent into avernus #baldurs gate #baldurs gate 3 #rpg #review #rpg review #dnd resources #rpg resource #mistakesweremade #notbymetho

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entergamingxp · 4 years

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Baldur’s Gate 3 Interview — David Walgrave Shares Game Details and Reflects on Obtaining the IP from Wizards of the Coast

February 27, 2020 4:15 PM EST

After getting a look at Baldur’s Gate 3, we chatted with Larian Studios about what to expect from this long-awaited sequel.

After watching a three-hour presentation on an alpha build of Larian’s Baldur’s Gate 3 at a preview event in San Francisco, I had the privilege of interviewing Larian senior producer David Walgrave about the Dungeons and Dragons-based RPG which Larian plans on releasing in early access this year.

We chatted about everything; from the game’s tone, inspiration, and relation to previous Baldur’s Gate titles, to the implementation of the Dungeons and Dragon‘s tabletop elements and rulebook. I also asked Walgrave questions about the gameplay I saw, including information on the game’s multiplayer and difficulty settings. Ultimately, the game holds very true to the lore, creativity, and RNG elements that characterize Dungeons and Dragons.

Josh Starr: Both the Baldur’s Gate and Divinity: Original Sin series are regarded as definitive CRPG experiences, but are still quite different games. How much are you looking to reconcile the Larian style with long-time Baldur’s Gate fans? Are you trying to go for a middle ground, opting for something more akin to BioWare’s work, or sticking with what Larian knows and does well?

David Walgrave: Oh, wow. So, obviously we know our own strengths and weaknesses, and we always take our strengths into the next game we develop. So, over the last 10 or so years, there have been certain pieces of technology and philosophy that we identify as core Larian and take into our next project. For example, when it comes to technology, a lot of stuff in our games follow systemics, so it’s really more of a simulation than anything else. We used to do this because we were a very small team, and if you work with systemics, you get a lot of gameplay for free. But we started noticing that a lot of this free gameplay was also creating a lot of fun, and creating a lot of different experiences for different players. So, everyone that was talking to each other about our games had different stories, which is really cool. So, that’s technology.

The way that we organize dialogues from a technical point of view has also been kind of the same for the last couple of years. There is some technology that we have and reuse, and there is also some philosophy that we have and reuse.

One philosophy we call N-plus-one design. This means that if there is a door that’s closed, you need to be able to open it in different ways. You can burn it down, you can start hacking it down, or you can just open it with a key if you find a key. But then a designer will say, “What if the key got lost?” Then you need to be able to unlock the door. “But what if you don’t have lockpicks?” Well, you can maybe jump over it, or maybe you can teleport through it with a spell. We always think of different ways to approach things. Not just doors, also quests. We even stopped calling quests, “quests” because we think of a quest as a simple task like, “Hey, I lost my boots, can you please get my boots?” We don’t do that anymore. We call them situations. That’s from a design philosophy point of view.

“…we started noticing that a lot of this free gameplay was also creating a lot of fun, and creating a lot of different experiences for different players. So, everyone that was talking to each other about our games had different stories, which is really cool.”

So, there is a lot of Larian that’s going to be in Baldur’s Gate 3. On the other hand, we also like Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2, and certain things that they did in them. They did things that we have been trying for the last few years to do ourselves. For instance, if you like Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2, what you will recognize is not just the Dungeons and Dragons terminology, vocabulary, and ruleset, but also the emphasis on your character, the emphasis on the party, the emphasis on your companions, and the emphasis on how they react to things that you do, how they react to each other, and the relationship between them.

One of the biggest things that we think Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2 players still remember is all of the different companions that can join you. They have very outspoken personalities, and they also react to each other in specific ways. That is something from the originals that we really really wanted to have in Baldur’s Gate 3.

JS: I’d like to touch a bit more on the relationships between characters. In the gameplay presentation we saw, I noticed that many of the characters developed gripes with each other or with the player-controlled-character. To what degree can you improve or destroy the relationships you have with your companions?

DW: Completely. They might start attacking you, which is not actually that bad, because if they attack you then they are still part of the party, I think. But they also might just leave your party, and then they are gone. Meanwhile, on the other end, when they really like you, and the choices you make, there are romance options. So, you can go to the extreme in either direction.

JS: While we are talking about characters, fans have, of course, been asking about the whereabouts of Minsc and Boo, and if they’ll return. Are there any other favorite characters you’d particularly like to bring into Baldur’s Gate 3?

DW: Well, I know that our writers are planning to have cameos with characters that you will recognize from either the previous games or from The Forgotten Realms novels. I have my own personal favorites, but I don’t know if they’ll make it into the game or not.

JS: Have you spoken to any of the original BioWare or Black Isle teams about concepts, and how you might best approach development on a new title? Are any of those developers involved? Are there any plans or considerations to involve the Bhaalspawn or Bhaal, or do you plan to tell a story of your own within the setting?

DW: No, we haven’t. With Baldur’s Gate 3, we are creating a story completely of our own in the Baldur’s Gate setting.

JS: With the game being a story of Larian creation, would you say the tone of the game is leaning more towards Divinity or Baldur’s Gate? There’s body horror present in the reveal cinematic, but are you intending to make a darker game than before? What kind of humor, if any?

DW: I think, and it should have become clear from the game’s intro movie, that it’s a pretty dark tone. We also think that it’s full of serious topics; we said this about [Divinity] Original Sin 2, and I think that in Original Sin 2, we introduced pretty serious topics. I think that Baldur’s Gate 3, because of the setting, characters, and themes that we are trying to include, it is going to be very serious and dark.

But as you may have noticed during the presentation, there is also still humor. However, it’s not the typical Larian humor anymore. This is a bit of a different thing. Also, because it’s Forgotten Realms, it has its own lore, it has its own stories and backgrounds, and we’ve got to keep those; we are trying to keep the tone of Baldur’s Gate.

JS: How does the music and art direction complement the dark tone and themes? Are they key things that you try to include early, or something you fit into a developed framework?

DW: I am a producer, so I don’t know too much about art direction. But when it comes to art direction, we do have photogrammetry in the engine now, so the art direction is very realistic when it comes to nature: rocks, trees, and all that. We are also trying to put realism into everyone’s armor and weaponry. So, I think our art direction from the beginning has really been more realistic.

Music is only written after we finish a certain part of the world, and then designers and writers talk to the composer and discuss what is happening in every small region of the world. Then he starts composing stuff that really fits into that section of the world. But music is also very dynamic, so when combat starts the music changes. If you’re losing a battle, music changes. When you’re sneaking, music changes. So, it’s very involved.

“With Baldur’s Gate 3, we are creating a story completely of our own in the Baldur’s Gate setting.”

JS: How connected are you intending to make the plot of Baldur’s Gate 3 with prequel tabletop module Descent into Avernus?

DW: Very, because everything that Wizards of the Coast writes concerning D&D rules or Forgotten Realms lore is something that we need to know. We need to make sure that we don’t do anything within the game that contradicts the lore. It also makes a lot of sense, not just from a writing point of view, but also from a consumer point of view for Wizards, that what we put into the game is very recognizable.

In Descent into Avernus, something that’s currently happening is that the Tieflings are now refugees and they are fleeing to Baldur’s Gate. Within the gameplay presentation, you could see the Tiefling refugee camp that we explored. That’s something that came directly out of Descent into Avernus.

JS: In general, when people see a new game released with a numbered title, that can be very daunting for potential new players. What is Larian doing to make Baldur’s Gate 3 more attractive and accessible to a new audience?

DW: Obviously, you don’t have to play Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2. Though, it is a sequel. The 5th edition ruleset of D&D in Baldur’s Gate 3 is 100 years after what happened in Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2, so people in the game know that as history. But as a player yourself, you don’t really need to know any of it.

To make sure young people play it, we’ve made the game look very nice. When I first saw these numbers, they were a bit shocking to me because, for some reason, I kept thinking we were making RPGs only for thirty and forty-plus-year-old people. But most of the people that are playing our games are in their twenties. I think that’s because we are using a tried and true formula, and we are introducing it to a new audience. We are trying to make sure that our game looks attractive, that it looks nice, that it looks 21st-century, that it looks appealing.

With Baldur’s Gate 3, when you see the cinematics or something like that, you’re immediately drawn to it. What 20-year-old people might not want to play is RPGs that still look and feel like it’s 1998. There are things that we love from the ’80s and the ’90s, and we are putting those elements into our game, but it’s 2020, and we want to make the game look like it’s from 2020. There are more than 300 people working on this game, and it needs to be a triple-A experience. So, if we limited our audience to this group of 42-plus-year-old-people, then we would have a very small audience.

JS: That tried and true formula you just mentioned is, of course, the Dungeons and Dragons formula, and it’s been stated Larian has been making an interpretation of D&D rather than a straight port of the tabletop systems. With that said, how are you adjusting that formula for the game? How many of the options for races, classes, abilities, etc. are you trying to include? And what kind of flexibility are you hoping to incorporate?

DW: We are actually trying to implement the D&D ruleset as close to the literal meaning as possible. I think that if you know D&D and you play our game, you will recognize about 95% of everything that’s in it. However, some things just don’t work in a computer game, so we approach them from a different angle so that it is still in the game, but in a slightly altered form that works in the game’s format.

For instance, one of the things that we don’t do from the 5th edition is called reactions. When I say we don’t do it, I mean that they are in the game, but not in the way they are in the handbook. When you’re playing tabletop, you actually interrupt someone else’s turn and say, ” I am going to play a reaction.” We don’t do that because that would take the speed out of the combat. We are always trying to make turn-based actually as fast as possible.

However, reactions are in the game, they’re just automatically executed. For instance, if an attack of opportunity triggers, your character will just automatically attack of opportunity. So, the thing is still in there, but we might have changed it a tiny bit.

There are things that we left out. But usually, that’s just magic spells that are simply too wild because Dungeons and Dragons is so free-form and out there. There is a spell called “Wish” where you can make any wish. You could just tell your dungeon master, “I wish I was a pigeon.” You can come up with crazy ideas. We didn’t put that in. Sometimes, we did put it in, but we just thought of the five most-wanted options.

JS: Touching more on what you were just talking about with spells and game balance, when balancing the power of player abilities and classes, do you try to keep things relatively even, or are you okay with disparities? Lots of options with some better or less situational than others, or a more tightly curated variety?

DW: We are implementing things based on how they are in the book. So, if they are a bit skewed in the book, then that’s how we are going to implement them. What we are trying to do is make sure that every class is a lot of fun, and has many different and unique ways to have fun. For example, implementing the fighter in a computer game is a bit of a challenge because we want them to still have interesting choices to make.

“We are actually trying to implement the D&D ruleset as close to the literal meaning as possible. I think that if you know D&D and you play our game, you will recognize about 95% of everything that’s in it.”

JS: In the gameplay I saw today, I noticed the game seemed very difficult. Swen appeared to be struggling at points, even though he’s played this segment dozens of times, and already knows many of the different environmental combos. Are there different difficulty options available or is it meant to be a learning experience where you adjust after developing more knowledge?

DW: We will have difficulty settings available. We always do that because as difficult as the game sometimes seems, some people think that they can really cheese anything. Because of the way that the systems and simulations work, you can really use the game against itself. So, some people are really good at that and then start saying, “The game is way too easy because there is so much stuff that I can abuse.” But we really like the fact that people can abuse the systems against themselves. It’s part of what makes the game so cool. But there will also be a story mode difficulty so that you can go through the story without having too much trouble during combat.

JS: During the presentation, there were also a few brief mentions of the multiplayer mode. Could you describe that mode a bit more, and specifically how it differs from the single-player experience?

DW: There are two different types of multiplayer when you start a game. Let’s say you’ve been playing for half an hour or 17 hours or whatever. Your friends can just drop in and out, and they’ll take control of one of your party members. This is very nice because the hard thing about multiplayer is if you always need to start on time, and someone can’t make it that night, then you’re kinda stuck. So, that’s one possibility. Then you also have multiplayer where you say, “Okay, let’s take on the game together from the start.” So, you and your friends – up to four people – basically start together in character creation, choose your characters, and play from there.

In multiplayer, you can basically do all of the same things that you’ve seen. You don’t have to stick together, but it’s recommended because combat is going to be pretty hard. You can do all sorts of things behind everyone’s back. If you’re the first person to start talking to someone, you might have a certain impact on the entire world and the others in the group don’t have a say about that.

Multiplayer within our previous games was actually very popular because you are in a party, and if you have a party member that’s not agreeing with you, you can actually help each other in combat because you both think differently. Multiplayer for us is a big deal because even if you just prefer single-player, all of the things that we are doing to make multiplayer work actually have a positive impact on the single-player campaign because of all of the different ramifications that we thought of. So, we have a convenient drop-in option, as well as a more traditional group D&D experience available.

“I didn’t know if we ever thought we would land the IP because we asked Wizards of the Coast five years ago, and they said, ‘No.’”

JS: From everything I’ve seen, you guys have created a video game that is very true to the D&D formula. Earlier you stated that you guys were creating your own entirely new story. So, what influenced you guys to use the Baldur’s Gate name in the game? Did you have a specific story idea in that universe? Are you guys big fans of the games?

DW: I think that Baldur’s Gate 3, for all of the RPG developers in the world, is like the golden grill. A lot of people have been asking for it, like, “We want to do it, can we please do it.” So, it’s not strange that it’s something we wanted to do, but we knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I didn’t know if we ever thought we would land the IP because we asked Wizards of the Coast five years ago, and they said, “No.”

So, at first, they said no, and then we released Original Sin 2. They played it themselves, and they really liked it. They liked it because they thought that it was a computer game where the freedom of creativity in Dungeon and Dragons really came forward. So, they said, “If anyone can make a D&D game like Baldur’s Gate 3, it’s you guys.” Then they said, “It’s okay, you can do Baldur’s Gate 3.”

We actually work together with them on writing the story. So, Swen came up with the main idea that you have a tadpole in your head and your going to turn into a Mindflayer, but for very big decisions we talk to Wizards of the Coast.

Larian has announced that Baldur’s Gate 3 will enter early access in 2020 before it has its full launch on PC marketplaces and Google Stadia. This isn’t shocking, as they took advantage of early access to help finetune their more recent games like Divinity Original Sin 2.

Editor’s Note: All images were provided by Larian. Some portions of this piece have been edited for clarity’s sake.

February 27, 2020 4:15 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/02/baldurs-gate-3-interview-david-walgrave-shares-game-details-and-reflects-on-obtaining-the-ip-from-wizards-of-the-coast/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=baldurs-gate-3-interview-david-walgrave-shares-game-details-and-reflects-on-obtaining-the-ip-from-wizards-of-the-coast

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thomasroach · 5 years

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Baldur’s Gate 3 Interview with Larian and Wizards of the Coast

The post Baldur’s Gate 3 Interview with Larian and Wizards of the Coast appeared first on Fextralife.

Catching up with Larian Studios Founder Sven Vincke and Mike Mearls of Wizards of the Coast and Creative Director of Dungeons & Dragons, we had a few burning questions in mind in the wake of the news that Larian Studios are working on Baldur’s Gate 3. The studio is well known for its Divinity Original Sin series, and we wanted to find out exactly how this whole thing fell into motion. It was Sven Vincke who originally approached Mike Mearls with the interest of developing BG3, but as we found out in this interview, a lot went into this collaboration.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Interview with Larian and Wizards of the Coast

We knew fans would be eager to know how previous games would impact Baldur’s Gate 3, whether it would continue the story or use different time frames like their Divinity games. Vincke explained that there have been “several instalments of Baldur’s Gate involving the Forgotten Realm’s lore so you have Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2, as well as the tabletop campaigns”, with the newest one called called Descent into Avernus releasing on September 17th. Baldur’s Gate 3 will take place after these events “[meaning] you are going to see plenty of references to things that happened in city in the past” as well as seeing settings from BG1 was based on the Forgotten Realms, along with references to events that happened in the new campaign Descent into Avernus.

Vincke assures that this will be a new story for fans to enjoy, with “several characters from the campaign” so you will see some familiar faces if you’re fan of the series. We had a number of questions pertaining how their experience with Divinity would influence their development with Baldur’s Gate 3 as well further details features, multiplayer and more.

FL: What rule set will you be using?

Vincke: Based on the 5th Edition because we ported all the rules to the computer game and looked at what worked and what didn’t work. There are somethings that don’t work for video games. But there is also the aspect if you’re playing tabletop, the game master and imaginations is a large part of it. There are things that are just not described in the rule set that you could do and we obviously have to make it work inside of the video game, that is something that we have to add on top of it.

FL: Are you planning to add anything that you had done with Divinity to that, or will it be straight Dungeons and Dragons?

Vincke: No, if you are in combat you say “I take the table and I throw it at him” right so that is something that we have to describe in the video game also, that’s an interaction with the environment, things like that you will see we have gone quite far.

Mearls: We don’t have specific rules for all those interactions, its up to the game master to extend those rules.

FL: How linear are you planning on making it?

Vincke: It is similar to the original Baldur’s Gate, and especially in Baldur’s Gate 2 it has a really cool mechanic that I really liked and I referenced a lot throughout Divinity Original Sin to the team where it had earn I think it was 20,000 gold to be able to take a ship, that was the type of freedom that was present there which we offered in DOS and you will see in BG3.

FL: Can you create a save based on the actions based on your actions in the previous games Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2?

Vincke: No, as they are closed chapters.

Will BG3 have multiplayer?

Vincke: From DOS1 to DOS2 you saw a lot of change how we handled multiplayer. So from DOS2 to BG3 you will see an evolution on how we handle it. The party is a very big focus this time, the slogan of the game is “gather your party”. BG2 was very party focused, they had a lot of mechanics for that time, how they handled the party. So expect innovation in that direction. Yes it will have co-operative multiplayer.

We did asked more specifics on the mechanics of parties and how many would in a party but Vincke was not willing to share exact details at this stage.

FL: What engine are you using, is it the same as DOS2?

Vincke: It’s the next generation of our own engine, Dragon Commander was 1.0, DOS1 was 2.0, DOS2 was 3.0 and Definitive Edition was 3.5. Now we are heading to 4.0, a completely new shift, we’ve upgraded the engine, there’s a lot tech that has been developed for quite some time.

FL: In regards to the artstyle of the game is it going to be similar to Divinity or are you guys going in a different direction?

Vincke: You’ve seen the teaser trailer? That sets the tone.

FL: In terms of camera angles, are you going to use the top down isometric view or go with the approach that you had with the definite edition of DOS1?

Vincke:[Laughs]You’ll see.

FL: How long can we expect the game to be in terms of gameplay?

Vincke: I expect players to spends 100 hours, if they go through everything. We’re making it a more a length to what we had in DOS2, its hard to tell until everything is done but I would say approximately 100 hours.

FL: Are you going to keep the traditional D&D classes, will you maintain this or expand upon it?

Vincke: Yes. If you know D&D 5th Edition and start Baldur’s Gate 3, you will know what to do.

FL: Will you be able to take sub-classes like in other D&D games?

Vincke: Yes you will.

FL: Will you have any famous D&D players appear as Easter eggs in the game?

Vincke: No comment.

FL: This is a hugely anticipated sequel, how much pressure is that and how do you deal with that?

Vincke: Well there is obviously a lot of expectations, people have been waiting for this game for a very long time. We try not to think of the pressure, we focus on making a good of a game as we can, our team is very very talented. We have Dungeons & Dragons we have Wizard of the Coast helping us, the collaboration is very close, we also have the funding to do this also without the publisher pressure as we are doing it ourselves. We have all the ingredients to make a really good RPG, we could still fuck it up, but there’s a really big drive and passion within the team to make it really good, more so than what we saw with DOS2. For a lot of the members of our team, their first RPG was Baldur’s Gate. There are a lot of tabletop sessions going on continuously in the offices and the different studios, so there is a lot of drive in this.

This is what we’re trying to do with BG3, the video game is the game master we’re trying to give you as much possibility of doing things just like you would be able to in a tabletop, that’s literally the drive behind what we do.

FL: In Divinity Original Sin you added a Dungeon Master mode, are you going to add something similar to that?

Vincke: No comment.

FL: Are you going to have modding tools?

Vincke: No comment.

FL: What platforms will it be released on?

Vincke: PC and Stadia.

So far PC and Stadia are the only platforms announced for Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian were unable to comment on whether it will be open to further platform in future.

FL: What is your publishing time frame?

Vincke: We have a time frame we’re looking at, we know people have been waiting on this game for sometime, they will probably will wait a bit longer. We need to get it right, we won’t release it if it’s not right. This is a game we want to play ourselves also, so it’s something we’ve been waiting for ourselves for a long time. We are going to try really deliver on it, we’ll see how much time it takes. We announce now because we to want to talk with the community, really understand what they are looking for, match it against our vision of what we’re doing, then together evolve.

FL: Are you going to do an early access?

Vincke: What we are not doing is a Kickstarter. We will announce when the time is right.

FL: How do you guys know that Larian was the right studio?

Mearls: I was involved in the business side of things, once the deal was signed. It was funny because when I first was told “oh we’re working with Larian” I was running many DD campaigns, there was one DD campaign I was running, I asked people at the table if they were to make Baldur’s Gate 3 who would you want to make it? They all answered Larian. So that told me we were on the right track. I remember when we first started working together, started collaborating, it was just a natural thing. On a creative level I think we have very similar attitudes towards roleplaying games whether they be tabletop or digital computer RPG, and I think we also have a similar sense in idea of developing the community. Roleplaying gamers, it’s funny, we each tell our own story but I think like the role of telling our own stories together, that there just a natural sense of community. That’s what happens when you bring people together in a tabletop, or even in a video game, the idea of sharing what you’ve done or playing co-op. So I think its kind of reflected in how we work together, it feels like almost this adventuring party getting together and plotting out the next great D&D story.

One of our first meetings we just laid down a map of the Sword’s Coast in Baldur’s Gate, “what if we went here? What if we went to this location?” It just felt like a natural design jam, it just felt like the D&D team, it didn’t feel like outsiders coming in, it just felt natural. There’s stuff mechanically where we were thinking of making a change to one of classes of the tabletop game, so I sent email over to your side [Larian], Vicke said “oh we have something very similar, we’re already thinking of implementing”. Theres even some part we were working on in terms of the lore, that’s going to be coming back from the game to the sort of core of D&D, that might influence future tabletop stories. It feels very collaborative, if this wasn’t part of my career it would be something I would be dying to know about, it feels like a very natural partnership.

Divinity Original Sin has been spiritual successor of Baldur’s Gate, it has the same agency, you can do so many things in different ways. From talking with both Larian studios and Wizards of the Coast, this seems to be a match made in heaven. Baldur’s Gate 3 appears to be in very good hands, not only taking inspiration from the previous titles, but adding their own uniqueness with their story as they plan together the next great adventure.

If you enjoyed this interview be sure to check out the Baldur’s Gate 3 wiki which will keep you up-to-date with all the latest information as it unfolds.

The post Baldur’s Gate 3 Interview with Larian and Wizards of the Coast appeared first on Fextralife.

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