Baldur's Gate 3 is a game filled with choices.
Choices that have consequences.
Just like what it's based off of: Dungeons and Dragons
At the heart of any unforgettable Dungeons and Dragons campaign
is a great Dungeon Master.
It's their responsibility to guide you on a grand adventure
and make sure the world reacts to your actions
in a way that feels natural and unplanned.
It's collaborative storytelling between the players, the world and the DM, orchestrating
it all so every action, choice and consequence feels like it really matters.
Now, that's tabletop D&D, but that sense of freedom and roleplaying
isn't that far removed from its video game counterpart...
Baldur's Gate.
The Baldur's Gate franchise is built on capturing the tabletop
play style, and Baldur's Game 3 is no exception.
Operating on D&D's latest fifth edition ruleset.
For developer Larian Studios to truly that D&D essence
It has to evoke that
collaborative storytelling relationship between the player and the game.
But somewhere early in the making of Baldur's Gate 3
the game's dungeon master made a very small decision
that sent its development into a cascading spiral of problems
that has been a big old challenge to solve, and all it involved was getting you
the player to acquire one very specific item.
SWEN: This is a story about a literally insane amount of versions of the story
of how you're going to get this bloody box.
That is Swen, he's the Dungeon Master, or director, rather, of Baldur’s Gate 3.
Since he's not sitting across from you
at a kitchen table for every role of your dice, Swen and his team
instead had intricately design the game to account for every possible outcome,
every possible choice you might make.
I try to figure out for players interesting things to do,
and then I try to predict
how they're going to be doing them as if they figured out the solution
but I've prepared everything for them so that when they figure out their solution,
they get a reward that is better than what they expected.
These solutions and rewards that Swen has created, are referred to as permutations,
the possible variations of a choice
you make, the branching outcomes of chance and possibility with every choice
leading to other choices, most of which are determined by the role of a dice
A small example would be touch the brain, don't touch the brain,
pull the brain out, try to kill the brain, fail at killing the brain.
Now you have to fight the brain.
To larger repercussions that can have
a ripple effect down the line, like choosing to help someone, betray them,
Kill them.
Let them join your party.
And so on. And so forth.
The choices you make are completely up to you
because a good Dungeon Master never says no.
It takes your choices and runs with it, except in very, very rare occurrences.
Like when Swen decided you needed to have this box.
Well, sort of a box.
[SWEN] I keep on calling it the box, but it really is an artifact.
But it used to be a box. [KURT] In the game.
It's called the Mysterious Artifact.
But yeah, it's a box.
It belongs to a character named Shadowheart.
The box might be the key to the overall story,
but it's also tied up in her story to. [Shadowheart] The artifact is being hunted.
And so I'm being hunted.
[KURT] And so one way or another, you're going to need to get the box from Shadowheart.
[SWEN] We very rarely have things that you must experience,
but it's really important that you get this artifact. [KURT] For Swen and his team,
The objective became getting the player to receive this item as naturally
and as elegantly as possible without ever forcing the player to take it.
It had to feel like it was the player's choice in order to maintain this idea
of player freedom.
At first, the possibilities to have this box
come your way seem pretty straightforward. An easy
Solution would be to just position Shadowheart in several places
that the player
could potentially run into her. One point the tutorial area of the Nautiloid
and if not there, then there's a chance to cross paths with her on the beach.
And if not there, then there's a chance to cross paths with her in Druid’s Grove.
and so on and so on.
[Shadowheart] I was starting to think I was the only survivor.
[KURT] It started with very basic permutations.
A: You invite her to your party.
Great. Problem solved.
You have the box.
It is in your party [Shadowheart] Right then.
Lead on. [KURT] B: You can kill her.
Take the box.
Morally wishy washy.
But hey, you still got the box, way to go.
But what if you don't meet her?
What if you walk past her, you don't talk to her.
And if you do, you don't invite her to your party.
What if you choose to jump off
a ledge and injure yourself rather than cross paths with her?
What if you just don't like her and want nothing to do with her?
Yeah.
So they started working on ways to entice the player.
Like making it very obvious
Shadowheart has an item of importance while shrouding it in mystery.
[Shadowheart] There's no story.
None that you're entitled to here anyway.
Just forget you ever saw it.
[KURT] But what if that wasn't enough?
Here's one way to think about it.
Imagine playing the legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time
and just never picking up the ocarina
or just avoid meeting Zelda altogether.
And yet the game continues on. The box in Baldur’s
Gate 3 is what the ocarina and Zelda are to Ocarina of Time.
The simple task of enticing the player with not only the box, but the character
Shadowheart started to completely unravel.
It led to what Swenrefers to as “permutation insanity”
Our entire design is built around your ability to recover
from a catastrophe by doing things that the game allows you to do.
And the box is a good example of that because
it involves just a couple of mechanics.
You can kill her.
You can steal from her, and you can move the object.
These three things in the hands of a devious player
caused a tremendous amount of permutations
that we need to cover. [KURT] Between the tutorial and the opening area
Permutations to meet Shadowheart and receive the box are in the dozens alone.
It only gets more complicated as the story goes forward.
All of these possibilities need to be written, voice acted, animated,
and scripted. Scenarios that included Shadowheart or didn’t.
[SWEN] There's somebody who has to write all of this dialog.
His name is John,
and he just keeps on asking questions about the box and well,
what in this case and what in this case?
And the cases just kept on adding and adding and adding and adding and adding.
I was like, Oh my God, I don’t know. It comes from the sky.
It falls on your head. I don't know anymore.
I don't know anymore, but it's too late now.
You need to get the box and Shadowheart
she cannot live without the box.
So the box has to be there.
There's now
hundreds of permutations in the game with some more elegant than others.
You may find yourself playing
BG3 in very rare permutations where suddenly you can fall on your knees
and you're going to need that box and Shadowheart is going to pop up
I'm here with the box in my hand.
Use this box to protect you, and you say, Who the hell are you?
I followed you and I saw you.
So it's really ridiculous dialog
that really doesn't make that much sense, but it works.
I mean, somehow and you it's a very confusing moment,
so it might still change, but at this moment that's the best that we have.
[Shadowheart] You were lucky.
I managed to catch up with you when I did.
We're both lucky, in fact.
[KURT] All Things Considered, Swen never went against
the principles of a good Dungeon Master. In his design,
He never wanted to say no to the player - to give you all this freedom
and then snatch it away with a bottleneck that forces the item onto you.
Like a good DM
he's not railroading you down a specific path,
but that isn't without a great deal of hardship in having integrity
in the game's design.
[KURT] I feel shame. I guess I couldn't come up with something better.
I mean, like it because this one is really my doing.
It's not a team.
Like I was the one that the idiot
that came up with this thing with the box doing it
and I'm giving it to Shadowheart.
I know my intentions were noble, but my, my, my design was flawed.
This is permutation insanity. [KURT] As of this video,
Baldur’s Gate 3 is still in development but available to play in early access,
which means the box problem isn't completely solved yet.
[KURT] How many actual man hours do you think have gone into this? [SWEN] In the box?
I don't want to know.
I don't want to know how much man hours
went into it because the pipeline that's behind these things is really big.
It's the scripting and the writing.
But then there's a voice recording,
there's a cinematic design, the lighting, the VFX, the SFX,
everything that goes with its cinematic animation, motion capture, cleaning.
I think if they're going to add up everything it's
going to be quite a few man-months, if not man-year,
just because of flawed design.
[KURT] Some games are set paths.
Stories meant to be experienced as the creator had intended.
All other games invite you to craft the story with it,
but in doing so, a lot of responsibility is put on the makers to make sure you feel
that sense of agency in a story
that really has already been meticulously laid out for you.
Or you can just Shadowheart in the opening
15 minutes of the game, see the box eventually invite you to your party
and just never wonder for a second that there was any other possibility,
let alone hundreds. [SWEN] It was a very small thing
that we just wanted to give you the box