The writing is not anything special. What is special is the nonlinear nature of the gameplay and how the story stays coherent around it. It's not perfect but there is not really anything else like it.
This is another absolutely baffling statement people keep making about Baldurs Gate 3.
CRPGs have done nonlinear gameplay narratives for decades at least.
Hell, even Larian's previous games do exactly this same thing. Baldur's Gate 3 has a ton of the same story beats and gameplay structure as Divinity Original Sin 2, even down to starting the game in a shipwreck!
The idea that there's not really anything else like it is just plain wrong.
Look I'm glad that so many people got their first exposure to CRPGs with Baldur's Gate 3 and think they've experienced something amazing.
I think I just finally understand how my Dad felt when my sister was trying to tell him about this amazing band called "The Beatles"
The writing is excellent. The plot is generic. A generic plot isn't necessarily a bad thing either. Some of the best movies follow a generic arc, Star wars the MCU are all good because of the genericness. A lot of people are just snobbish. Not you, but I feel that's where a lot of the judgement comes from.
Dragon age had this a decade ago
> Many don't allow you to just kill every single key character and still maintain narrative flow
I am skeptical that Baldur's Gate 3's scripting is actually this resilient. Regardless, games like Fallout had this sort of behavior two decades ago.
> The writing is excellent. The plot is generic
The writing will wind up seeming better depending on how you play.
Spoiler ahead:
For example, Shadowheart has a big decision to kill or not kill an enemy of Shar at the end of act 2. My friend loved this moment because he let her choose and she chose to abandon Shar because she felt it was wrong, despite all of her firm claims to be absolutely devout. He felt it made Shadowheart nuanced and like she knew the right thing to do despite her indoctrination.
I rolled persuasion to convince her not to kill the person, and it made her seem absolutely player-centric and super easy to convince to turn her back on Shar. It was terrible writing.
But I didn't want her to kill the person. And I was honestly surprised that was her default action if you let her choose.
Vastly different experiences, one seems like good writing, one seems bad.
Fine maybe not the only one. But very very few are like it.
>I am skeptical that Baldur's Gate 3's scripting is actually this resilient. Regardless, games like Fallout had this sort of behavior two decades ago.
No fallout doesn't come close. Fallout is structured so you can't kill critical main characters until it's time. They structure the script in a way where it's impossible. This is way better than putting up invulnerability guards the way most games do.
Bg 3 solves the issue by using replacement characters. You kill off a critical person to early another person will take his place and fulfill his role.
I suspect the developers have some sort of plot hole static checker similar to type checkers that allow them to fill every possible hole.
> Vastly different experiences, one seems like good writing, one seems bad.
You are conflating bad writing with personal preference. Whether a character makes one choice or the other the writers narrate both options the quality of the narration is not what you're commenting on. You're commenting on your preferred choice. Not agreeing with a choice or even not agreeing with writing is not bad writing. For example, I wouldn't call the mien Kampf poorly written even though I disagree with it.
I mean read what you wrote. Where in any of your paragraphs was writing actually commented on? You are commenting more on plot and choices.
Seems like a silly thing to say. Of course what is good or bad writing is a matter of personal taste. I'm not conflating anything.
> No fallout doesn't come close. Fallout is structured so you can't kill critical main characters until it's time. They structure the script in a way where it's impossible.
> Bg 3 solves the issue by using replacement characters. You kill off a critical person to early another person will take his place and fulfill his role.
That's effectively the same thing. One just feels more video-gamey, but the game's linearity
What happens if you kill the replacement? Does it generate a new person to continue? Seems silly to me.
> This is way better than putting up invulnerability guards the way most games do.
That's just, like, your opinion man.
> I mean read what you wrote. Where in any of your paragraphs was writing actually commented on? You are commenting more on plot and choices.
Plot and choices are part of writing, no? This seems seriously nitpicky.
Writing isn't just "the act of putting words into a sentence", it's all of the decisions that led to that sentence existing.
If I complained that the dialogue often sounded like it came from a high school student (Karlach doing fist pumps and shouting "Hell Yeah" whenever she likes something, for example) would you similarly complain that I'm not talking about the "writing" but the "prose"?
By the way, I didn't disagree when Shadowheart seemed so easily swayed. I just thought she was a poorly written character to have her strong convictions overruled so easily.
Same with Lae'zel when she turned on the Gith queen basically because I told her to.
Two characters that never once expressed any doubts about their divine missions, both turned away from them based on a single choice I made.
That seems like weakly written characters to me.
It's not silly because there's no point in talking about writing quality if 100% of it was opinion based and wildly different among everyone. Obviously we're talking about a common shared opinion on what good writing is. What I'm saying, again, obviously, is that your opinion, is NOT part of the shared opinion. But do I really need to spell it out? No. This is pedantry. Details only alluded in response to your mechanical retorts. You're fully aware of what I'm saying here but likely were unaware of what you're doing. It's fine I'm redirecting the conversation back on course.
>That's effectively the same thing. One just feels more video-gamey, but the game's linearity
Of course it's effectively the same thing. It's like saying python is the same as rust if the program output is the same. As for the linearity, there's more branches in the BG3 version, but less branches in the fallout version. Generally though the branches for both games converge on a single ending. But even BG3 here as many many more permutations on that ending. It's uncountable I believe.
>That's just, like, your opinion man.
No it's the shared opinion. Which your opinion is not a part of. Man.
>Plot and choices are part of writing, no? This seems seriously nitpicky.
Nope it's not nitpicky. You can have good writing for a shit plot and bad writing for a great plot. Bad writing includes things like grammar, poor word choice, miss-spellings poor descriptions. Plots can be made without writing. For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIPV1iwzrzg This is an example of a plot with no writing.
>Writing isn't just "the act of putting words into a sentence", it's all of the decisions that led to that sentence existing.
Those decisions don't have to lead to writing. See above. writing is about conveying the intent. The act of conveyance is complex and nuanced. It can mask and influence the intent. For example the English translation of popular wushu novels just don't carry the same weight in the US as they do in China.
>If I complained that the dialogue often sounded like it came from a high school student (Karlach doing fist pumps and shouting "Hell Yeah" whenever she likes something, for example) would you similarly complain that I'm not talking about the "writing" but the "prose"?
Prose is part of writing. But prose refers to like the "flavor" more. Writing in general also encompasses structure, detail, descriptions outside of the flavor. Like for example imagine you have chatGPT generate a picture of a flower. Then you have chatGPT generate the same picture of that flower but as a water color paining. Two different flavors. But the angle of the camera and the time of day of capture and the details in the foreground or the background would be the "writing". Plot requires a middle beginning and end which most pictures don't have but some pictures can have an aspect of it.
>By the way, I didn't disagree when Shadowheart seemed so easily swayed. I just thought she was a poorly written character to have her strong convictions overruled so easily.
It was probably by design. They wanted a feel good story where she ended up taking the redemption route. In that case I would say the plot was also excellently designed. I think although they allow for the existence of alternate paths, they have the choices designed in a way where you are a bit funneled down a most probable path. That path is shadowheart being redeemed. It just wasn't designed for the kind of high brow ultra realistic character studies you seem to like. If you want something catered to your tastes try Disco Elysium if you haven't already.
>Same with Lae'zel when she turned on the Gith queen basically because I told her to.
It's done purposefully as I said. There's still randomness here. I only got all the characters to do what I want because I was save scumming like a mad man. The save scumming is permitted which is ALSO a design choice. The plot is engineered well, but likely not for you.
>Two characters that never once expressed any doubts about their divine missions, both turned away from them based on a single choice I made.
I believe most people were supposed to Fail that persuasion check with shadow heart. I saved scummed it like crazy so I got passed it like you did. But the algorithm wanted to bend the path in that direction anyway. You COULD convince her to kill, but you might have to save scum that too. It depends.
We have no common ground for a discussion to matter.
Have a great day.
To explain I only raised the temperature because you said what I said was silly and because you mocked me with the whole, "man" thing. Did not appreciate that all and I thought it was fucking rude. Wasn't that offended by it though, but I did raise the temperature in kind.
Just saying all this in case you're leaving because of that. I wanted to explain my side. If you're not leaving because of that please ignore. Good day to you too either way.
There is a difference, and it's important. If you think someone is silly, then you won't respect anything they say. You can respect someone's opinion and still think they say some silly things.
I do not think you are silly. I apologize if you got that impression.
I do think you have a very different perspective of what makes for good writing than I do though, and I don't think there's any point continuing to discuss the matter. That's all.
CRPGs have done the illusion of nonlinear gameplay narratives for decades. Baldur's Gate 3 simply has a vastly more polished version of it, rather than paying lip service like recent, mainline RPGs - anything from Bethesda for example.
Actually, kinda worse than that, because good and evil are more-explicit in BG3.
It presents an illusion of much greater depth than it actually has.
(I did enjoy it, and finished it, but have found much of the praise for it more confusing than something I can relate to)