Weekly Update - 110

Thank you ROBYN for upgrading your subscription from $10 to $13!  Was that to bring us to an even $150?  Thank you so much!

Comic this week?  Yes!

Drawing: Page 139,140

Playing: Baldur's Gate 3 (omg you guys, just omg I love it, thanks for the recommendation, Quinn!)

Ramble:

Well, I guess I can talk about Baldur's Gate 3 since it's been on my mind so much this weekend!  This ramble will stay safely in the general realm of game mechanics and storytelling and not delve into any story specifics so I can keep the spoilers to a minimum.

I have written a lot of these rambles about villains in storytelling and the nature of evil in fiction.  Anyone who has followed me for awhile knows that I love complicated villains and grey morality in fiction.  I'm also a huge fan of roleplaying evil characters or antiheroes and my goto "main" in any given RPG is a necromancer.  Something that I love about Larian Studios and their games is how they handle roleplaying an evil character.  It's so much more than just giving you the option to be evil or to do evil things.

Compare it to like, Skyrim, which is, shit, an 11 year-old game now? But it's the only other open-ended free-roaming RPG I can think of at this very moment -- though I'm sure there are plenty of others, and probably better examples of this done both poorly and well.  You can do evil things in Skyrim, like stealing and murder and... joining the Dark Brotherhood... or becoming a vampire.  But the impact of these choices is severely lacking.  The choices exist, sure, which is more than can be said for many games, but they are largely superfluous choices.  You can become a vampire, surrender your soul to join the ranks of the living dead, but aside from a mild desire (it's not even really a NEED, unmodded) for blood, a slight sun allergy that doesn't even really matter and some cranky faces that are sometimes plastered on NPCs when they look at you, there is no real cost to gaining all the powers it grants you.  You aren't giving anything up.  You are simply gaining more power because you can.  (There's another discussion to be had about allowing a player to be/feel OP in a single-player game.  Nothing is so simple blah blah blah)

What it comes down to is, Skyrim has options so that you can PRETEND to be an evil character.  But it leaves that fantasy entirely up to you, the player, as there is very little in-game support for doing so.  If the guards see you do a crime, you can end up fighting them or pay a fine or end up in prison. But if no one sees you do it, or if you buy your way out of prison, that's the end of it.  Case closed.  Nevermind the fact that you murdered the Jarl's wife in broad daylight in front of him and all of his guards.  You pay a 1000 gold fine and are off again to do whatever you please!  You never feel like you are struggling with the morality of your choices.  There's never a time when your choices come back to bite you (not really counting the mercenaries that sometimes try to ambush you on the road, since that happens often enough anyway, regardless of what you do.)  Couple that with the fact that story-critical characters are just straight up immortal, making it so you can't even mess with the narrative if you wanted to. Nothing in the game ever reinforces the sting of betrayal or remorse, because the game assumes that no matter what happens, you will be playing a hero.  You can kill every non-immortal NPC in Skyrim, but you will always be the Dragonborn and save the day.  (something something limits to storytelling in video games, nothing is so simple BLAH BLAH BLAH)

Larian does things very, very differently, and it probably explains why the development of their games takes so long.  AFAIK they are not a small studio by any stretch, and while their games can sometimes lack the polish of a lot of major published titles, they make up for it in the depth and richness of their content.  In their games, they attempt to provide story paths for every possible major player choice.  It doesn't just come down to branching paths either, it comes down to multifaceted, criss-crossing, practically dynamic or reactionary branching paths based on who you talk to, what you say, where you go and what you do, which can happen in practically ANY ORDER.  There seem to be a few core narratives that could be followed, but their components are also complexly intertwined so that you can progress partway down any or all of them if you so choose before deciding on which path to commit. If you kill a story-critical character, either on purpose or by accident, you don't necessarily fail their quest. That character's important role will fall to their second-in-command, perhaps, a different NPC with a different attitude that stays in a different place.  If you speak to that character, you will hear the pain in their voice as they realize the loss of their leader and the heavy burden that now falls to their possibly incapable shoulders. Larian does this thing very, very well, possibly better than I've seen it done in any other game.  Likewise, you can forsake all these NPCs and be evil instead.  If you choose to play an evil character, there is a story path you can follow that leads you down that route and puts an end goal ahead of you.  Indeed, from what I've seen so far in my short time in Baldur's Gate 3, there are... multiple story paths for being multiple different KINDS of evil character, both willfully and not.

But what I love most about how they handle it is that they make your choices MEANINGFUL.  Choosing to play an evil character is an impactful choice, a satisfying one.  You aren't just aimlessly being evil because the option exists. They give you a goal.  You indicate that you might want to play an evil character through some of your actions and choices and Larian goes "okay, if that's what you really want, here's a goal for you to chase... but it's going to cost you."  They fill you with regret for what you are doing.  Your actions have lasting consequences.  You see it in the interactions with your companions and in the interactions with the quest NPCs.  If you do evil things, you will see your companions struggle with their decision of choosing to side with you.  One of them will openly discuss leaving because they can't stomach the idea of remaining by your side while another one gets drunk to try and forget the atrocities she helped you commit.  And it hurts to see them this way.  It hurts to look into the eyes of the person or people who trusted you and tell them that you willfully choose to side with their enemy.  It hurts to see the psychological impact of your decisions on your companions.  It even hurts when your more evil-inclined companions praise your decisions, because you know they are really awful, awful people and receiving their praise is honestly kind of insulting.  It's enough to make me second-guess my choice to side with the bad guy.  It makes me really struggle with the decision to proceed down the dark path I've set my character on. And I LOVE THAT.

I think that normally, the reason you can't be evil in most games is because it trivializes the challenge of the game.  Siding with the evil faction seems like a good idea, right?  The good guys are often the underdog, facing impossible odds, so if you sign up with the bad guys, you'll have the advantage!  Join the winning side!  Just waltz right into the evil fortress and sign on to be second-in-command to the Master Evil Dude.  Seems safe, right?  Stay cooped up in the Dark Fortress while sending your Hordes of Evil Minions out to do all the work for you!  

Larian addresses this by reinforcing that the evil faction is - shockingly - evil.  They are not to be trusted, no matter how loyal you are (or how loyal you pretend to be.) The evil faction is mired in corruption and betrayal. You may gain the benefit of being allied with a nigh-unstoppable evil horde, but at the end of the day, they see you as just an expendable pawn, a tool, to be used and discarded the moment you stop being useful.  The path to glory inside of an evil faction is long and difficult.  It is only by siding with the good and the honorable are you treated like an indispensable and irreplaceable hero from the very start.  The good guys rely upon you, they NEED you to save them.  I love that dichotomy.  It makes the choice to be good or evil even harder.

And I think it's completely awesome that Larian builds their games with this incredible complexity and freedom of choice.  They leave the choice up to you.  You can be the hero, if you want to be a hero, but if you are tired of playing a hero (because most other games force you to play a hero and there are an absolutely EXHAUSTING number of choices for that path), you can be a villain instead, and build for yourself a very different, sometimes distressing, but no less gratifying tale.