How George Ziets would make BG3
SorcererV1ct0r
Member Posts: 2,176
"George Ziets is an American video game designer best known as the Creative Lead for the 2007 PC title Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Ziets
Much better than the low level 5e kobold slaying that BG3 will gonna be. I an not saying that BG3 is bad. Only that this sounds so amazing...
RPG Codex wrote:I’ve always thought that the struggles of a new FR deity could be pretty interesting. Think about what the Bhaalspawn would be up against:
- 1) few or no followers in a setting where a god requires worship to survive,
- 2) no divine portfolio to speak of, and
- 3) a fortress / headquarters that is still floating somewhere in the Abyss – not friendly territory, even for an evil PC.
Under those circumstances, I think a divine campaign would be a battle for survival. It’s suggested at the end of ToB that Cyric and his allies will be coming after you (whether the player is evil or not) because Cyric took over Bhaal’s divine portfolio. The player, as a nascent god, would be facing off against some powerful deities.
Terrible odds? Yes. But that’s great for a story hook.
Initially the player may just be staving off imminent disaster as Cyric and his friends move quickly against the player – several strong deities against a relatively weak one. I could imagine the player being forced to abandon the Throne of Bhaal and going on the run across the planes. The player’s goal would be to gain followers (faith=power), usurp the divine portfolio of another god, and carve out a base of power in the wider multiverse. Your journey could take you to some of the planes we’ve never visited in a CRPG – Mount Celestia, Limbo, and Mechanus, for example – as well as revisiting old favorites like Sigil, though seeing the City of Doors through the eyes of a minor deity could be a very different experience. In a divine-level planar campaign, the player might stir up a civil war on Mount Celestia, conquer a layer of the Abyss, or assemble an adventuring party of divine avatars. Ultimately you’d take back the Throne of Bhaal, smack down Cyric and his friends, and establish a place for yourself among the pantheon of gods.
Mechanically, it seems like a critical resource would be your divine power, which would rise with your number of followers (humans, divines, demons, or whatever), the extent of your notoriety and influence, and the importance of your divine portfolio. (The concept of divine rank could conceivably replace character level.) You’d create avatars to go adventuring in the various planes, so death wouldn’t force a reload. And as you travel the planes, you might learn ways to change or improve the traits of your avatar, or to create multiple avatars, each with different shapes and abilities, useful for different situations.
That’s just some quick brainstorming, but I think a divine-level BG3 could be a lot of fun, and the Bhaalspawn’s story could certainly go on if developers wanted to pursue it.
source : https://rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=8728
Much better than the low level 5e kobold slaying that BG3 will gonna be. I an not saying that BG3 is bad. Only that this sounds so amazing...
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and before someone says " but neverwinter nights 2 has nothing to do with 1.". the neverwinter nights games was never about one adventurer but telling different stories.
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Broken in what aspect? How many games allow you to play as a deity in ascension?
As much as I hate DOS3, you keep making this argument that has no basis in fact. Everything we've indicates the opposite. That the party will be fighting and killing things way above what should in their level range. Things like Intellect Devourers and Mind Flayers. There's tons of reasons to hate the game, but "low level kobolds slaying" is not one of them. Its also incredibly obvious that you have never fought smart kobolds. I recommend you look up "Tucker's Kobolds" sometime.
On another note, I still don't like this concept for a hypothetical BG3. I NEVER pick the divine ending to ToB. All of my charnames stay mortal.
Again... I didn't see any kobolds on any of gameplay footages Larian showed so far. Stop with this silly argument, please.
With Mindflayers and other nasty creatures nerfed to be deadly as kobolds...
Again, when you make low level D&D you have two options
A ) Kobold slaying campaign
B ) Putting a CR 20 Balor in plane of fire against a lv 10 party and requiring a lot of gimmicky/meta knowledge to win like ToEE did
Larian is picking ultra powerful mobs and nerfing then to low level. Which combines the worse of both aspects of low level gameplay.
Do you know other game who did it? Sword Coast Legends. You can face liches at lv 6...
LV cap on act 1 = 4. Meanwhile, on NWN1/2, you after the tutorial is on lv 3 and can reach mid level on end of chapter 1.
A ) Kobold slaying campaign
B ) Putting a CR 20 Balor in plane of fire against a lv 10 party and requiring a lot of gimmicky/meta knowledge to win like ToEE did"
This is objectively wrong.
A) True, in BG1 you also kill hobgoblins, orcs, ogres, skeletons, zombies, ghouls, ghasts, slimes, spiders, wyverns, basilisks, flesh golems, and some more. So it's hardly a "Kobold saying campaign".
A BG3 made decades later where you start at an obscenely high level would be terrible. You're not going to hook a sufficient number of players with a game like that. I don't understand why people can't look beyond their own experiences and put themselves in another gamer's shoes. If you're playing an unfamiliar game where the opening fights are something like Abazigal or even worse, how is that going to be fun?
If it’s decades later, and it doesn’t follow the same plot lines as the first two, it shouldn’t be called 3 period.
Give 5 different developers a chance to pitch BG3, you’d probably get 12 distinctly different stories out of them. The one in this interview is just one of them. I personally don’t like it because it isn’t canon that Gorion’s Ward ascended, however, take this concept on its own, in its own IP, I personally think it is brilliant.
It is not like the divine Bhaalspawn has to pick up Bhaal's Murder portfolio in order to remain a demigod. Otherwise Finder Wyvernspur, too, would be a god of rot and decay just lke Moander before him. There is realy nothing stopping the player character deity-to-be to seek out new portfolios in other parts of the multiverse more fitting to their alignment or personality. Which in turn would allow for excellent plot flexibility on such a hypothetical, non-Larian BG3.
Luckily WotR's Mythic Paths are kinda like that. Albeit instead of becoming a deity people are able to become a gold dragon, an angel, a demon, a lich, a walking hive mind, a chaotic good outsider, a lawful neutral outsider and fey-like existence. That game even allows for renouncing all these paths and becoming a legendary mortal instead. So yeah, a similar approach with all kinds of divine portfolios would have been a fantastic conclusion of the ascended Bhaalspawn.
This is a good point. 5th edition makes it even more complicated because there are no canon epic level rules in the game(that I'm familiar with), and a level 20 5e character is more nuanced (in general) that most equally leveled characters in 2.5, to say nothing of the staggering number of possible multiclass options.
My point was focused on the practical realities of making and selling games. Investing the resources to make combat, art, dialogues for an epic-level adventure isn't cheap. I dunno, I think studios might pitch diverse ideas about BG3 today but absolutely no studio would pitch this idea -- because it would be a sales disaster that would bury them.