BG3 idea - based on a ToB ending I never got - SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER!!!

BelgarathMTH

So, I was just thinking about a run where (do NOT read this if you don't want any spoilers regarding ToB endings and romances!!!

I romance Aerie, turn her down for sex in SoA, and finally sleep with her in ToB. Then, we have a baby together, and our baby is born, such that we get the Aerie romance epilogue at the end of ToB. That epilogue states that our first love child is a son, and that we have a second love child, a daughter, after Charname refuses godhood, helps Aerie find both the Avariel and her parents, and the two of them live happily ever after raising their children.

What if we take this rarely gotten ending as canonical? It seems to me a perfect set up for a sequel that tells the story of the "Son and Daughter of the great Charname, the Child of Bhaal who threw the portfolio of Murder back into the pantheon, unclaimed, lived out his mortal life with Aerie doing mortal things, and caused the gods to make war."

I'm not sure if that could tie into the 4th edition Spellplague or not.

But, I find the idea kind of interesting.

Malicron

I'm not sure I'd call that a "rarely gotten" ending. That's how my games usually end. And I remember reading somewhere that originally all of the romance endings were like this, specifically to provide a hook for BG3, but for some reason it was scrapped.

shawne

It runs into the same problem as every other BG3 proposal that immediately follows ToB: not every player 1) used a male protagonist, 2) romanced Aerie, 3) gave up godhood. You'd basically be forcing a very specific storyline on a game where the player has a measure of agency - the same mistake the novels made, in other words.

BelgarathMTH

@shawne, not every player used Imoen, Khalid, Jaheira, Minsc, and Dynaheir in BG1 either, and yet, BG2 assumes that you did.

Malicron

belgarathmth said:

@shawne, not every player used Imoen, Khalid, Jaheira, Minsc, and Dynaheir in BG1 either, and yet, BG2 assumes that you did.

And one of the most requested changes to BG2:EE has been a way for the game to detect that you didn't use them and change the game accordingly. If Baldur's Gate 2 were made today, I'm certain it would feature something similar to Mass Effect 2 and 3's save game import system, but the technology simply didn't exist at the time. As a result, the devs took the (still contested) choice of deciding what you did in BG1.

Lord_Tansheron

Not sure what the point of this idea is. That ending makes about as much sense as all the other alternatives. Canon is what our Corporate Overlords tell us it is, and it sure doesn't involve Aerie anywhere. She's about the only girl Abdel *didn't* bend over in the "canon".

Also, since Aerie is just a small part of a wide roster of NPCs, making her an integral part of the story is just not very likely.

Anduin

I like... But as we already know BG3 is based on the mummified remains of CHARNAME after his/her request for a Viking style funeral right went drastically wrong when he died a thousand miles from water, with no boat, and no matches, and no memorised fire spell, and he was thus entombed under a pyramid (they ran out bricks to make a hexagonal prism). The corpse then was accidentally dismembered. But they managed to sow spare arms legs and body so no one would notice...

Anyway...

The real problem begins when a rogue resurrection spell cast by a wildmage hits the pyramid...

Imagine Abdels surprise when he wakes up a bearded female dwarf...

shawne

belgarathmth said:

@shawne, not every player used Imoen, Khalid, Jaheira, Minsc, and Dynaheir in BG1 either, and yet, BG2 assumes that you did.

The game also allows for the possibility that you didn't by giving your character dialogue options that imply he or she never met Jaheira or Minsc before. It's not up to today's standards in terms of persistent choices and consequences, but at least it's there in some form.

Corvino

@Anduin you most definitely have an idea there. If I may suggest reincarnation rather than resurrection though, I think we may have a recipe for intrigue.

rdarken

You have a baby with Viconia, too, don't you? And it's reasonable to assume a female protag would have had one with Anomen.

Heck, it's reasonable to assume any protagonist would have eventually had a baby if refusing godhood. Or even if accepting godhood (Bhaal child, CHARNAME child)

karnor00

Lord_Tansheron said:

Canon is what our Corporate Overlords tell us it is, and it sure doesn't involve Aerie anywhere. She's about the only girl Abdel *didn't* bend over in the "canon".

I can't believe you've actually used the words Abdel and canon in the same sentence!

Abdel and cannon perhaps...