#.... maybe i shouldn't start thinking about the horrifying implications of playing as an origin character

[skyberia]

Ok so this sounds ignorant, but I haven't played BG3... You can play as the party members? I thought that you could only play as your self-insert! How does that work?? 😵

yeah! it's a super interesting feature, at the beginning of the game you get to a character creator where you can make a custom character OR you can pick one of 7 "origin" characters, which are (mostly, with the exception of one) the companions you get along the game!

when you play as one of these characters you get custom dialogue options that match the character's personality and backstory, as well as some special scenes and completely different interactions with your companions. so for example, in a normal playthrough with a custom character astarion can approach you and try to bite you as you sleep. but if you play AS astarion, you get a scene where you wake up in the middle of the night after a bad dream where you're reminded of your "master's" rules (about not being allowed to drink from "thinking creatures" and so on) and you can decide to bite one of your party members to see if you're still being forced to abide by those rules. another example: one of karlach's main traits is that she is perpetually on fire and can't risk touching anyone else without burning them, so if you play as her it completely changes some romance scenes. where in a custom character playthrough you'd get a sex scene, with karlach you'll instead get the other character mourning the fact that they can't touch you at all. things like that

but besides that the game doesn't really lock you into making choices that are "in character" for them so you can just do whatever you want. turn the morally good hero character into a bastard who murders innocents for fun. make the evil gay elf do good deeds for others out of the kindness of his heart. World's your oyster no matter how horrifying the implications are. it's great! makes the game where one single playthrough can take you 100+ hours weirdly replayable! this has been ruining my life lately