How Baldur's Gate 3 Tricks the Player (2024)

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"So, how did you find withers"
"I don't know I didn't find him"
"Yo the baby owlbear was so cool right?"
"I don't know I didn't find it"
"Man the creche blowing up was cool wasn't it?"
"I DONT KNOW, I DIDNT FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO THAT"

damn, the i just realized the real reason why I go to raphaels home in act 3, is because the dream companion tells me not to

My favorite example of this is when Raphael offers you a deal in act three for a magic item, and everyone tells you to sign his evil contract cause you have no other choice, but you can just pull a Davy Jones key stealing maneuver and break into his house once he tells you where it’s hidden.

"Don't go there. It's dangerous"
"I SEE THROUGH THE LIES OF THE JEDI!"

I nearly missed going that way because the message for the Underdark and the mountain pass are the same. Implying that I can not come back.

Alternatively, I died very quickly in Fallout New Vegas because literally everyone told me not to go north.

While I agree with the reverse psychology aspect, I don't understand the idea that players would be trying to "outsmart" the game, if a character that's giving me conflicting information tells me not to do something I personally don't think "hee hee the devs don't want me to do this" I think "So they're probably lying to me and I should check that out just in case."

5:50
To be clear on the Boar, it is a separate Boar than the one from where you find and interact with Astarion for the first time. He sneaks off to hunt it on like- night 2. "But" how do you know its a different Boar I hear someone ask. Simple, you can kill and loot the original Boar. 🤷
The second Boar can also appear in different locations from one playthrough to the next, but always within a set distance from the Blighted Village, not near Astarion's Pod.

6:15
This is literally Skyrim.

Something I love, is that you see a lot of examples of NPC's lying to you, or simply being wrong.
A lot of people can fall into a trap of just believing everything NPC's say because 'well its the DM saying it so it must be true'
But Larian made sure you find examples of NPC's being wrong, or giving bad advise.
Right off the bat on the Nautiloid. Lae'Zel telling you to ignore Shadowheart. But you KNOW she's a companion. She's on the box. You MUST be able to recruit her.
So it sets the bar early that NPC's wont always be telling you the truth, or even the best thing to do.
So when you encounter things like the Dream Visitor, you aren't immediately trusting everything they say. When people tell you to go somewhere, you don't immediately assume that's a lead to interesting loot
NPC's can and DO lie to you repeatedly throughout the game. Encouraging you to think things through on your own.
Hell even the Narrator lies to you when you fail checks. So you can't even trust everything she says

Fallout 4 has a much more direct version of "CHOOSE ONE. What did you pick? I don't care, you're doing this now"

Your first point about limitation by design kinda rings hollow when I searched through hundreds of barrels and crates that Larian covered the map with only for them to be empty, every time.

This video just reminded me how eager Davvy is to kill dogs

I prefer "How Baldurs Gate 3 is a rich world full of engagement rather than a vast, empty, walking simulator hellscape just so the company can add "open world" to the game description." Because every game needs to be that for some damn reason, since so many players demand that without understanding what they're asking for.

3:24 yooo don't hate on the Hingle my Dingles quest!
When I hingled the hollyphant dingle, my dingles were hingled.
Truly one of the hingles of all dingles.

In a nutshell: BG3 is so good because we can be reckless and make stupid choices. Like me and my friends playing D&D.

Nah, when i got to the mountain pass and saw the dragon i said "f*ck it" and took the underdark.
Reverse psychology isn't as effective with me

Exactly! It tries to trick me,
by giving other romance options besides Karlach! *WHEN KARLACH IS CLEARLY THE RIGHT CHOICE AND CANON DAMN IT!*

@MLucaj12 ชั่วโมงที่ผ่านมา ⁺²

For me, whenever I hear, or read, "Don't go this way!", I think, "I bet their hiding all the sweet loot back there those bastards, well not on my playthrough you don't!" Never underestimate the drive to get the shinies.

Larian's figured out how to harness the power of *player spite, and then used it to make us play their game.*

I love brain-worms.

I never personally interpreted it as a game of the developers and players trying to outsmart each other. When characters tell me that one path is preferable and the other is dangerous, I interpret that as the game telling me “you have two paths, and one of them will probably be harder than the other.” Of course characters can lie or unexpected things can happen, but I never really felt like I was pulling one over on the devs or whatever. It’s a game with a bunch of choices, of course they expect some players to pick A and others to pick B.

*final boss flashbacks intensifies*

I myself played BG3 for 600 hours now, finished 2 honor runs (both solo&grouped) and i am astonished about how my best friend tends to ignore so many things, since his character wouldnt interact with it. Like, once he started playing for 10 minutes, he gets completly involved and basicly gets warped into his character. He literally, reads every book,note,talks to nps 3X just for smalltalk reasons and even picks his longrest food. I adore him for this, he still sees this as something more than a game, he still sees this as an EXPERIENCE! (to lvl3) If u ever feel exactly the same, you do something right. I sadly lost this way of experiencing BG3, its the same when you look behind the DM's screen, you will lose the integrety on the experience.
Dont do the same mistake as me, experience BG3 and get involved in it.. ^^

Where is chat plays baldurs gate? Is the series over for good, or are you planning on creating some more narf narf violence soon?

Was playing the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC but I immediately stopped what I was doing to watch this.

12:00 Yes Jacob, that's why it is called Baldur's Gate, duh!

This is just Eric Cartman's "You can't come" strategy

My only issue with the camera is that I can't change elevation. I can fly! Let my fly up to that ledge!

will you be streaming any more of your narf narf playthrough? i miss it so much! 😭

When the dream companion said “do not go to the githyanki” my first thoughthought was: why are you biased?
Compelling narrative!

I like that several characters have a secret that they are hiding from the party that fuels interpersonal stuff in your party. Not a bad idea to use in a game.

No, no no. See, they scammed me into romancing the wrong character. Karlach, The firey queen, was the only right choice. Anyways, *God i wanna be that blunt~*

@rm256912 ชั่วโมงที่ผ่านมา ⁺²

only issue i have with the camera is the height.

Finally (in Nere's creepy voice)! Someone is talking how cool are map and quest design in the game. It is like an amusem*nt park, which was already the idea in DOS, but everywhere it is the illusion of age/height/whatever else restrictions that you're not actually restricted to bypass at all. And then hearing everyone saying "I'm not supposed to be here, hehehee, I'm breaking it, hehehee"

As a rule-following coward, playing Baldur's Gate 3 as a chaotic neutral character was the best decision I ever made. Something within me has been unlocked, and I crave chaos along with its consequences. Or, as BG3 taught me, THE REWARDS.

Hey cmon, I went to the mountain pass cuz I was romancing Lae'zel. No reverse psychology no Sir, just a broken heart ❤😂😂😂

Loving this new type of content, keep it up jacob!

Most evident with the house of hope literally popping up saying "this is impossible, do not do this"

I was one of those people that saw the signs telling me not to the mountain path and i just listened. Still havent gone to the mountain path(i also havent done act 3 yet, it exploded my PC when i first got there and i havent tried since.) Im probably going to make a new character and have another run through the game, and not skip half if the content because i was being a goody two shoes.

I like how the devs have added things to the game based on people like me.
I jumped from the base of the tower to the top and Ketheric was just like "Who the hell are you? Where did you come from?"
The game couldn't find an instance of interaction since I snuck in there and was never spotted in the Goblin camp either so the game actually accounted for it...
But it didn't originally so it gives me credence to play through the game again to see if they fixed it.

IT WAS STARING ME IN THE FACE THE ENTIRE TIME, HOW DID I NOT RECOGNIZE THAT

I love how I jumped the bridge into Baldur's gate and snuck past the guards and the every character including Mizora kept telling me I should turn around and go to the party but I still had the option to keep going into the city and nobody knew who I was...
Except I HATE that the elder brain makes the screen turn white as I tried to go deeper into the city.
I also HATE HATE that Gortash had no way to know who I was and he somehow knows everything about me when I snuck onto his submarine. Also no waterbreathing alternative to sneak into the underwater base.

I learned about halfway through my first run that this game is smarter than I am. It opened up the ability to just, play it like an RPg instead of an rpG. If you get what I mean. You just do what you want and take comfort in that the game has something fun in store for you no matter what decision you make. I'm most of the way through my 3rd full run. I don't even make particularly different characters, no evil runs or anything, just different flavors of hero with different builds. I am going to do a 4th run. No one can stop me. And the game is ready to continue supplying a good time.

It literally never occurred to me for a single second that I shouldn't go somewhere... I just went to Underdark, and when I was done with it I went to the Creche as well. And on second playthrough I just went to Creche first and then the Underdark...
Why would anyone ever choose just one of them when nothing stops you from doing both quests? Open the quest log, do everything, that's how an RPG works.

Me and my buddy cleared the underdark, got to the end, and turned around and did the entire mountain pass.

I know it’s been out for quite a while, but I would love to see more BG3 content. And by that I mean, discussions like this.

We do outsmart the game though. There are dozens of broken encounters. I went through and ran past the first Goblin encounter and wiped out the goblin base before ever talking to the NPCs at the grove or entering the grove once and somehow Zevlor still knew me.
I know that there is only so much they can plan for but they still had a lot of work to do before the layoffs happened.
I love how the game adapted to my gamebreaking playstyle and the game aknowledged that I shouldn't have been able to be where I was, or do what I did, at any given time.
All just exploits, strategy, and glitches, no mods. I even figured out how to freeze time for all but one character although it doesn't always work.

You went to the mountain pass because the game told you not to.
I went to the mountain pass because Lae'zel is one of my favorite characters, and I would do nearly anything she asked (also didn't hurt that she seemed the most reliable source of info on the tadpoles given her race battles mind flayers on the daily)

You're so right! I did all of these things. I didn't trust anyone.
On my first playthrough (playing as Shart) - So I don't get all of the "I don't trust Gith" dialogue and have Lae'zel, Gale and Ast.
Trying to get around the Zentharim traders and main golbin area led me to discover the Selune passage into the underdark before I'd even hit level 3. Purely avoidance of the places the game told me were to go meant that I stumbled on the biggest Act 1 direction for MY origin shadowheart. Which was awesome!
However. The one place it really failed me, was in Act 3 - The game really tells to make a deal with Gortash, or at least find a safe way out of talking to him. And I decide no, I'm absolutely taking this guy down here and now. And I do.
But OH BOY does it really muddy the pacing for Act 3 like that. You instantly skip to the Elder Brain being a front and centre threat due to having two crystals and takes over the Steel Watch. The Gnome, Submarine, Print room and Umberlee areas are either completed, wrecked or basically devoid of anything. Karlach, Wyll and Volo's story come to a near complete halt. And the already bare bones story in the fireworks factory is completely in shambles.
I still had lots of game time in act 3 after this, but having done subsequent playthroughs. That one time the game tells you "it's a bad idea to do this", it really feels like the game did not account for you doing so.
I mean Volo was tied to a chair outside a destroyed factory only the second time I turned up there, with no-one around him.

Wanting to uncover the fog of war on the map was the only motivation I needed.

Summary: A video essay on how in all of us trying to be special, we really aren't. 🤷‍♂️

I tried a short co-op session with a friend on a new save early on when I was barely into Act 2. It frustrated the hell out of me because while I wanted to hear what dialogue would play if I picked different choices, my friend had already played this game for a good 300 hours, so he was just skipping through every point of dialogue.

I know it's not the main point but I've again seen people say 1st or 3rd person camera would be better... no ?
It's a tactical, turn-based RPG where you play a party of 4. How in the world are you supposed to play that efficiently with a subjective camera ? At least without dumbing down the tactical aspects, which are so important to the game and level-design as well as the fact that... you know it's based on 5e rules, which basically lock the genre into turn-based tactical.

I…accidentally did this? I mean my players ended up in jail with an entirely new campaign, oops????

Ok, but who the hell actually thinks that an NPC telling you to not go somewhere is the same as the game telling you to not go there? If the devs designed the area, they obviously want you to go there sooner or later

I listened in my first playthrough, but the reverse psychology drove me mad and I replayed the game

factor drinks are great

I don't agree with this at all. The one and only time I thought I was being genuinely rebellious doing something the game developers weren't wanting me to do was going up by the creche via the path by the path by the goblin camp. This nearly f*cked me over because when you try and go over there when too under leveled, the warning only says just that, that your under leveled and nothing else. I almost got cunked out of of the whole grove questline because they didn't say anything about the story progressing. When I hear someone say *in character* to not to go somewhere, I hear the developers say "please go there"

i think the only other game i've played that does this is jedi fallen order, at the start you have a choice of going to either dathomir or somewhere else that you need to for the story and the game heavily advises to stay away from dathomir. i feel like many players including myself ignored this and went to dathomir first and where rewarded by getting the dual saber early

On my first playthrough (which took 140+ hours) I didn't know I could go through mountain pass and underdark. I actually didn't realize for a few playthroughs 😅

I want a 3rd person over the shoulder camera, the game comes close but I just want to see what's in front of me

Thank you! I've been baffled as to why everyone loves this game, and I, someone who loves D&D, absolutely hated it and bounced off of it hard. My brain doesn't work like this. I see a locked door and unless I have a specific motivation, I'm not going to go through it. Someone locked that for a reason! The game psychology was constantly making me feel bad and abused. And it was confusing as f*ck why everyone else was addicted to it when I gave up after 10 hours. Now I get it. I have the wrong childhood trauma to play this game. That's okay! I'm gonna now stop thinking about it and just play tabletop D&D and be happy for the rest of my life.

one of my peers said baldur's gate 3 is like a trashy indie game where you can't even use 1st/3rd person... I hid and sneak attacked him with my hand crossbows with advantage.

I hope to play this game one day. Seems crazy addictive

WOOOOO NEW XP TO LEVEL 3 VIDEO LETS GO

I was halfway done with act 2 before I remembered that the mountain pass existed.
I decided to save it for my second playthrough.

When will there be more adventures of Narf Narf?

NEW XPTOLVL3 VIDEO LETS GOOOOO

This reminded me how much I miss narfnarf 😢 I hope you bring back the streams!

Yeah I just skipped all of Laezels dialogue on my first playthrough.

The Worm

BG3 tricked me into thinking Vampires are lame when really it’s just Cazador & Astarion.
Edit: sorry Spencer.

Amazing, now to get party members to roll for checks. Any moment now...

i agree with most of this but i still think 1st or 3rd person camera is much better

I had no idea you could blow up the creche. TIL

I will not accept this Baezel slander.

yippee new xp to lvl 3 drop

Oh you can blow up the temple?

there's two different act 1.5s? you don't do both (of the best-designed areas in the game) to levelmaxxxx?

So when I dm i should use reverse pshycolgy on some

Highlight stuff button doesn't highlight everything

I…disagree.
I never thought that ever during my playthrough.

@JawBr13 ชั่วโมงที่ผ่านมา

Brick

Why is the audio quality so bad this time

So let me guesse, that stupid full of traps grave is actually full of important loot and money to not suffer from 85% chance to be hitted by 33 damage attacks from enemys when you have 32 hp max? And i left it because game said dont go there? And because game says dont go there i were getting bugs? I hate it. This game is praised so much, but even now there is bugs, i am sure, because if 5 month ago there were bugs at the very beggining, then there still bugs somewhere.

Hi Jacob. I just started watching the witch light vods (for the first time). You guys honestly made my entire year with the first two lmao. (Also I was absolutely bewildered that Terra was going to have an asshole arc. Did not expect that)

Impressive, it's almost as though the game has put forth challenges and puzzles for the player to resolve in order to enter the place they want to gain access too. what will video games think of next

"Getting a gotcha is not worth it."
I legit uninstalled after the fight with the guardian construct at the Adamantine Forge.

Me playing baldurs gate 3: ahh help I've been tricked lol

True and omni-pilled.

You're forgetting the people that do everything through spite. "Oh I shouldn't do this thing? F*ck you, I found this goblin and I'll kill God if he tries to stop me".
I am people.

Did they predict that i got bored af during the temple of shar

It did not trick me, I always decided I was going to reject the narrator.

W vid as usual

god i hated this game. And Durge was cringe as f*ck

I actually didn't like this. The whole time I played I was worried about making the best choice that will end up resulting in the best outcome for the story. I was always spending hours and hours doing every single quest and exploring every single inch of the environment just to make sure I didn't leave behind any loot, no matter how useless. the reverse psychology in the game really messed with me because I didn't know if the game wanted me to do that or if it was telling me not to do that or if it didn't matter and of course I have no idea what any choice actually means for the story because every single "choices matter" game has your choices matter but you dont know what the choices will actually do until they come into effect hours later and by the time they actually do something its at the point where loading a save would be too long ago and you'd have to throw away hours and even days of your life to go back even though you already have thrown them away by making the choice two real life f*cking weeks ago and yeah, I get that that's part of the point "oh you have to live with your mistakes" and all that but that's STUPID AND UNFUN and maybe this is just the game promoting replayability but no way in hell am I going to do another playthrough after all of the sh*t I had to do already even having not made it out of act 1 just so I can have a slightly different story and outcome and I guess just rinse and repeat for thousands of hours with more and more playthroughs until I finally get an ending where I left no loose ends and got all the special loot just so I can be somewhat satisfied with the game. Larian said (not a direct quote) that they found that players like finding one small thing that leads to larger and larger scope and opens up many different quests and areas to explore (like the boar to astarion to vampire or waukeens rest to secret base in the shed to underdark) but I HATE that I hate opening new threads in an areas I went to to tie them up I hate having mote and mire large areas in which i have to scour for loot I hate hate hate hate it i hate it hate i hate it aahahsgghgghhaaaaaaggg I just want to go to a place in a video game and do what I wanted to there and be done with it and yeah this can be done well but only when used sparingly (there's a few examples in Skyrim that are pretty good) but not when roughly 70 percent of buildings enter have a secret area that leaves to a cave complex its really annoying and it gives me a headache and all of this is one of the reasons i stopped playing baldurs gate the other ones being that it takes up too much file space and it barely runs on my computer i really want to play mire of theis game but i just CANT i Can't i reallt do wanna see past act 1 Im stinnl in that monastyr and i didny even nkow you coukd blow it Up but i wanna do that and i wanna see the rest if the game i wanna see alk the thiga ai saw in yourube clios and pc gamer articles but I just can't do it anymore 😭😭😭😭

Nah, actually a rare dislike from me.
Let me explain.
I agree that the game uses reverse psychology to get you interested in lots of cases.
But the "Bet the game didn't think of that!/I'm outsmarting the game!" is so dumb.
NOONE believes they outsmart the game. Unless it looks graphically incredibly buggy, players WILL BE AWARE that whatever they did is something the developers considered and accomodated BECUASE THERE IS A PATH THERE THAT THE PLAYER OBVIOUSLY TOOK!
This is not a table top RPG where we throw the DM off and the DM needs to improvise.
This is PREPROGRAMMED! Thus every player should be aware that they are NOT outsmarting the devs. They are making choises within the confines of the game.
Yes, the games design is cool, but your conclusion that any reasonable person would actually believe themselves to outsmart the game is genuinely baffling to me.
Noone thinks that what they did is somehow something the devs didn't consider. Otherwise the thing they did literally wouldn't exist in the code.
It's a videogame. It's preprogrammed. You won't do stuff the devs didn't consider unless you're bugging/glitching/sequence breaking/you get what I mean.
TLDR: You're right about the game design, but you are TERRIBLY WRONG about claiming that players would believe they somehow outsmarted the game. That statement makes no sense if you literally just think about what a video game is for 2 seconds.

Hey Xp to level 3! Also
First