My Life as a Drowid, 1: Who Are You?

"I'm just an ex-con trying to go straight and get my kids back."

- Bender the Robot's crowd-pleasing wrestler persona

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Spoilert: as this series is both commentary and a playthrough summary, expect a few first-act spoilers for Baldur's Gate 3.

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(edit: Fuck Drizzt.)

 

It's late August, when an old man's fancy turns to Faerun. Being still relatively new to DnD 5e, I won't bother moving away from my standard Wizard / Druid preference. Having already created a wood elf party in Solasta with myself as Druid, I was edging toward something short and wizardly, but my jaunt through early access indicated drow might be major players in this campaign. Also, the focus on Illithids (especially on hard difficulty) makes me want something with a high will save... or WIS save, whateverthefuck 5e uses. And I just happen to have a combo in mind that's always intrigued me.

Werwolfe, drowid extraordinaire, at your service.

I mean, the Underdark has a fully thriving ecosystem, the management of which should supply an albeit narrower niche for druids adapted to under-ness and dark-ness. And, seeing as drow males are already frequently relegated to the status of pet mages on a leash, it should suit my support caster preference just dandy. Stands to reason the wealthier mistresses must have some use for shroomers and umber-wranglers, and the "spore" subclass cinched the deal. Infectious glory unto Her Legginess Lolth!

 

I don't want to completely replay my Kingmaker mystic theurge though, so instead of Lolth-centric poison spells, I'll likely steer more toward creepy-crawlies, rocks and vines. No light spells! - and as little fire as possible. For central companions, the gith bitch is a must, plus a little peek at the roster suggests I may be able to recruit the drow ambassador to the goblins. Plus maybe the obligatory rogue? Shadowheart picks too many fights with Lae-Lae. The wizard and warlock transgress my No Filthy Hu-Mons rule. Eh, play it by pointy ear.

 

The campaign starts much like my barbarian from the preorder did, especially as druids have lost much of their personality by the loss of their animal companions. (Hell, if any core class feature were done away with, it should be the shapeshifting, but that's a lengthier discussion on its own.) At low levels at least, playing a druid now just feels like an armor-gimped cleric with no turning.

I will concede that race, class and skill checks are so far quite frequently integrated into convos, talking to many animals, up to the point of my drow being able to take some quintessentially drow-ish actions like murdering a goblin child for talking trash at me. Let me restate my appreciation for Larian's sheer work-hour investment, at least thus far supplying an impressive array of gameplay flavors. They sure saw me coming:

also a critic third and a fashion victim fourth

Combo dialogue options crop up far more regularly than in most cRPGs. Sadly, the very next encounter also shows that no amount of effort will compensate for skewed priorities:

To set Kagha up as antagonist and 'proper' druidism as benevolent flower power, I got fed four redundant options, all to refuse punishing the little brat who tried stealing a prized artifact crucial to a community's last line of defense. Eventually, even unmasking Kagha's motivations results in the dialogue dangling the possibility of siding with the shadow druids (which would certainly be in my interest) only to pull it away at the last second. This pattern seems to be repeating constantly. While you can make violent or diplomatic decisions (perhaps with some impact on your playthrough, remains to be seen) anyone can make those decisions with variations in flavor text. The odd infanticide aside, drowids don't do things differently than other class/race combos; they do the same thing on different pretexts.

Now, granted, that's still a lot more than DnD games used to offer. Plus, given most of Larian's potential customers think "RPG" means either an MMO or Diablo-clone action game where your character's background influences nothing beyond what color l4z0rz you shoot at the space-goblins, I might have to provide some context for my eventual point. Let's see...

- and neither's she, but who's counting?

 

That's from Kingdom Come: Deliverance, one of the most beautifully immersive games I've ever seen. It achieved that status in no small part by portraying the cognitive and behavioral restrictions inherent in its medieval setting - a world where everybody knew their places. (Usually at the bottom.) Though linear, its quests felt meaningful for characters' awareness of their circumstances. By definition, most don't get to be exceptions to the rule. Peasant or foreigner, lord, priest or refugee, its characters actually stay in character.

BG3 on the other hand makes a deliberate point of nobody's background constraining them in the slightest.

The first time you meet ogres, they're led by a smart one.

The first drow you talk to is a religious convert, as are the goblins discoursing in grammatically complete patois.

Even the second Illithid you meet is a benevolent healer - a fucking mind flayer! (Not to mention his hobgob bestie.)

Everybody's an exception! Everybody's a precious little unique snowflake! Everybody's oh-so-goshdoggoned speshul I could just wring their posturing necks!

The stupidest though would have to be the tieflings, who snatch the plucky misunderstood minority relay from the Drizzts I was afraid I'd be stumbling over. Guess the elfemism treadmill keeps spinning.

"And that would be bad."

Dem devilspawn's jus' reg'lr folks like yew'n'me, a-yup, jes a-tryin' a git by in this here big crazy world, salt o' tha urth, ah tell ya. (I guess sulfide salts count?) It jumps the shark though on meeting your companion Karlach, whom you're sent to hunt down as a violent criminal -

 

"how could I possibly be wrong and attractive at the same time?"

 - only to of course not only spare her (despite not really denying the nebulous charges) based on nothing more than having an honest face, but furthermore let her convince you to butcher a trio of paladins she claims are false. Based on what evidence, you ask? 'Take my word for it, I'm horny!' (And yes, of course she turns out to be right despite the utter lack of evidence or justification; she's a pulp fiction heroine.)

And yes, obviously Larian did none of this by accident. This is very much not a case of incompetence or phoning it in. BG3's writing (while not exceptionally daring so far) is both skillful and amazingly detailed without ever dragging. These are competent and aware professionals merely giving the audience what it apparently wants, following a trend that began decades ago with denying the sexes are different and ramped up significanly with Drizzt and every munchkin wanting to play a reformed badass from an evil race. The politically correct spin on devilspawn as misunderstood victims of circumstance just follows naturally on the heels of past pretence.

 

Except games have rules and the rules lend relevance to our choices and our gains. Sure, biology may not be destiny but it does skew most aspects of one's mentality. An exception here and there, okay... but when everyone's special, nobody is, and instead of immersion you start feeling like NPCs are just cheating their way off-script left and right. You un-suspend a great deal of disbelief via the impression that everyone's playing Calvinball with D20s.

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P.S.: As a good counterpoint to BG3's tieflings, take Pathfinder: Wrath of the Rightous' arguably best-written character, Woljif, who not only portrays the chaotic neutral archetype surprisingly well, but teeters believably at the edge of his demonic heritage.