D&D 5E Baldur's Gate 3 AMA

[Raduin711]

Second person future tense is the only artistically daring choice.

The gypsy woman says, "After you walk through that door, you will meet... [entirety of the plot of Baldur's Gate 3 proceeds]
You: Wow! what an adventure! I can't wait to get started. But what if I go through that other door?
Gypsy woman: None of that will happen.
You: hmm... [walks through other door]
[Baldur's Gate 4 Logo appears]

 

[pukunui]

I'm thinking more from prose writing, not necessarily game writing. I suspect they're trying to make it feel literary.

Perhaps, but this isn’t a book. It’s a game. I want to feel like I’m in the now, not playing something that’s already happened in the past.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Oh I think all the interesting playable companions and Race/Class/Subclass/ Background combos suggests that this game is designed with extremely high replayablity.

Depends what you mean by "high". Would consider myself a fairly hardcore Baldur's Gate fan, but I have only actually completed the game about four times. I've only actually completed Pathfinder: Kingmaker once, but I have 789 hours logged on Steam. There aren't enough hours in a lifetime to play this type of game through "lots" of times.

I did see a statistical analysis (sorry I don't have the reference) that a small majority of players of games of this type never reach the end at all, with most of the rest completing it once. The number of players logging multiple completions was in the less than 1% bracket.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Ugh! Why?! It is so off-putting!

Game developers discovered an issue when they first started doing fully voiced dialogue. Most people, when they read "hear" the words in their imagination, so the protagonist would appear to say everything twice. Also see Galaxy Quest computer. They have tried multiple solutions for this issue. Sometimes everyone is voiced apart from the protagonist. KOTOR does this, and you barely notice you don't know what Revan sounds like - he/she sounds like you. In other games, such as Witcher 3, what the protagonist actually says can differ significantly to the dialogue option text. This can lead to the "I didn't mean to say that!" issue.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It's just not the way things are generally written. Past tense is so omnipresent that present tense sounds weird.

The Hunger Games novels use third person present tense narration. I found it quite jarring.

 

[pukunui]

The Hunger Games novels use third person present tense narration. I found it quite jarring.

They’re first-person present tense, which reads just fine to me.

Also, I write all my D&D recaps in third-person present tense. It makes them feel more like they’re happening now than something that happened in the past.

As I’ve said, my issue with this game’s use of past tense for the player dialogue options is that they’re mixing the past tense with a present tense activity. It just doesn’t compute.

Imagine you’re DMing a game at a table and you say, “The NPC tells you that the princess is in another castle,” and one of your players replies, “I told them I wasn’t going to go there and walked away.”

That would seem pretty jarring, wouldn’t it? You’d expect your player to say, “I tell them I’m not going to go there and then walk away,” wouldn’t you?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

They’re first-person present tense, which reads just fine to me.

I think it's largely what you are used to. I think the tradition of writing in the past tense probably comes from the early modern novels which where often written in the form of journals and letters.

Also, I write all my D&D recaps in third-person present tense. It makes them feel more like they’re happening now than something that happened in the past.

???

But it did happen in the past!

Imagine you’re DMing a game at a table and you say, “The NPC tells you that the princess is in another castle,” and one of your players replies, “I told them I wasn’t going to go there and walked away.”

That would seem pretty jarring, wouldn’t it? You’d expect your player to say, “I tell them I’m not going to go there and then walk away,” wouldn’t you?

But that's not what actually happens. You might select I told them I wasn't going to go there and walked away from the list of options. But what the protagonist actually says is "I'm not going there", and then there is an animation of them walking away. The change in tense avoids repetition. It's like The Name of the Rose movie, where we have a past tense narration from Old Adso over events depicted as unfolding in the present.


It's probably worth noting that the original Baldur's Gate made quite extensive use of 2nd person present tense, particularly in the dream sequences, although "You must gather your party before venturing forth" is probably the most famous now.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Baldur's gate 3 isn't a novel, it's a role playing game. On the tabletop 2nd person present tense is very common when the DM describes what happens in the game to the players, while players tend to use a mix of 1st and 3rd person present tense when stating their character's actions. Playing D&D in the past tense would feel really weird.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It's not a novel, but it's also not a tabletop game. In many ways modern CRPGS are closer to movies than either novels or tabletop games.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Yes, but most of the major characters where killed off.

Minsc and Boo are around, Viconia should be around, Edwin could be around, Coran is around, Aerie is around. Xan should be around, Jan should be around, Kivan should be around.

A fair number of characters could show up.