I'm certain that some Baldur's Gate 3 fans would love to only control your main character and let the AI handle your companions in combat. And there is now a mod that allows for such a thing.
It stems from your character being a blank slate that you act through. They don’t bring much story with them, just your headcanon and whatever you enact. It’s a true RPG in that way. I think that’s part of the reason people end up going the horny route, it’s a means of placing yourself in the story and becoming part of all of these fantastic characters. The main character is only as interesting as you make them.
It’s possible to do much more though in terms of giving your character a backstory in a CRPG though.
As an example, Dragon Age Origins had a different solo mission at the beginning of the game for almost each race/class combination, and the choices and relationships you develop during those missions can come up in the main story.
As another example, Tyranny started the character creation process with a brief text-based choose-your-own-adventure story. The choices you made there not only influenced stuff that happened to you throughout the story, it also affected your starting relationship with certain factions.
Edit: like what if they did a small backstory mission depending on the background/class you picked which ended when the nautilus appeared and abducted Tav? That would be great and would make the city of Baldur’s Gate feel more like home, which it’s meant to.
I’d welcome that. Honestly, something of the sort may eventually end up in the game at the rate updates have been coming out. Feature creep must have been a constant worry given what BG became in the end.
I get the feeling that the level of popularity was a bit of a surprise, and that its warranted expanding some features beyond what was initially planned. I can see a lot of features becoming massive time sinks with diminishing returns otherwise.
It stems from your character being a blank slate that you act through. They don’t bring much story with them, just your headcanon and whatever you enact. It’s a true RPG in that way. I think that’s part of the reason people end up going the horny route, it’s a means of placing yourself in the story and becoming part of all of these fantastic characters. The main character is only as interesting as you make them.
It’s possible to do much more though in terms of giving your character a backstory in a CRPG though.
As an example, Dragon Age Origins had a different solo mission at the beginning of the game for almost each race/class combination, and the choices and relationships you develop during those missions can come up in the main story.
As another example, Tyranny started the character creation process with a brief text-based choose-your-own-adventure story. The choices you made there not only influenced stuff that happened to you throughout the story, it also affected your starting relationship with certain factions.
Edit: like what if they did a small backstory mission depending on the background/class you picked which ended when the nautilus appeared and abducted Tav? That would be great and would make the city of Baldur’s Gate feel more like home, which it’s meant to.
I’d welcome that. Honestly, something of the sort may eventually end up in the game at the rate updates have been coming out. Feature creep must have been a constant worry given what BG became in the end.
I get the feeling that the level of popularity was a bit of a surprise, and that its warranted expanding some features beyond what was initially planned. I can see a lot of features becoming massive time sinks with diminishing returns otherwise.