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

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

"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"

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

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

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."

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

For me, whenever I hear, or read, "Don't go this way!", I think, "I bet they're 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.

The old saying about videogames "If you're facing enemies, you're going the right way" is all too true in BG3

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.. ^^

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

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

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

i always read the game's "hey don't go in there" as the good game design that it is: to make me wanna go in there. and then i talk to other people who just listened and didn't go in there. my friend skipped getting gale for a long time because upon being told that the portal was dangerous, she went "huh, better avoid that", while i went "oh the game is screaming at me to check that out immediately". i'm not saying i'm smarter or anything, i've missed other obvious things my friends picked up on right away, i just think it's funny.

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.

For a good chunk of act 1 I didn't long rest at all cus all the characters were stressing the urgency of finding a healer in 3-5 days. So i bum rushed everything

I feel like the original idea behind rpgs was “let’s try to make a ttrpg into something playable at any time” so this feels like the true evolution of early western rpgs

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

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.

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.

I disagree Jacob. I didn't take all the roadblocks as the Devs saying "don't go here" but instead just part of the natural world building. It's not "don't go to the Mountain Pass" but instead "make sure to take Lae'zel because it'll make things a bit easier since you won't have to fight every step of the way". The astral companion warning you about going to the Mountain Pass is because you're literally bringing the one thing the Githyanki are looking for directly do them, OF COURSE it's telling you not to go there. Every locked door made sense because who ever locked that door clearly wanted to keep people out in general, not specifically you the player. The trickier the lock, the more closely guarded the secret is. Sure, player sees a locked door or chest they instinctively want to figure out how to open it, but that's a gaming thing in general.

i love how larian did raphael. the entire game hes been teasing u and reminding u of ur inevitable doom. he toys with u, sometimes saving u from danger and other times ignoring ur pleas completely. but in act 3, when u meet with him in sharess caress, he finally gives u the contract. at that point, players either r annoyed at the emperor for tricking them or maybe want to explore other possibilities before deciding who to save and who to kill. when raphael drops that the hammer is in his house of hope, the player feels like a million bucks with a plan in mind. u think a devil wouldnt dumb enough to drop where the most important maguffin would be but raphael is so egotistical that he does. players already skeptical of the emperor would want to explore other possibilities. now the player is hunting down ways to get into the hells bc damn it they want to outsmart fox finally. (if im remembering the quote correctly). once they finally get into the house of hope, everyone tells them not to touch the big glowy orb with the hammer inside but the player goes nuh uh and now u have best fight in the entire game to witness. u can even tell raph straight to his face he doesnt last long in bed, which finally makes him tick
all this was bc u, the player, were frustrated at this devil always being one step ahead and were frustrated at being pawns in these otherworldly beings games. the game put u in this position but dressed it up as u coming to this conclusion. u were the one to talk to raphael in sharess caress, u were the one to spot his freudian slip, u were the one to hunt him down and steal the hammer. the game only gave u the tools to come to that conclusion. it laid the foundation and was confident enough to hide one of its best encounters in mystery and struggle. other rpgs would have made a big deal out of going to the hells and outsmarting a devil. but larian was confident that the players would find it themselves. they were confident that player motivation is stronger than any outward motivation any game could give. larian makes it personal and that is the best type of motivation.
uh yeah anyways great video. i agreed with everything. larian is just so good at making games

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.

Jacob: It's reverse psychology
Me: There's a ton of XP there. I have no other reason

Its a double sided thing. On my first playthrough, it was really cool that it seemed all my choiced had consequences, and when I didnt do what someone wanted, it led to something. It really made me love the game. On a second playthrough however, it really just made it dissapointing that it turns out it doesn't matter. Almost all your choices lead to the same broad outcome.

totally true but also there is nothing more cathartic than having all the NPCs saying "you cant do this" and then seeing them realize you can in fact do it. having a boss be all intimidating and confident only to realize you payed withers to respec your entire party into monks so you can hit him with 50 collective unarmed strikes before his turn is peak story telling.

the most clever sh*t Larian studios does was let you design your "Guardian" your secretly giving the game a great tool. A face that you trust and appeals to you specifically. It uses that against you , made it really hard to doubt your guardian. And turns out that was the master plan all along , to gain your trust and support. I thought i was creating a wifu, bbut how wrong I was.

What I appreciate is that, as a player who sees a "Do not enter" sign and goes "okay, best not to enter" (and almost missed Gale completely because of it), Larian accounts for us by adding a good narrative reason to do the creche instead of it just being this big lure for players who want to see how powerful they are or see what's so big and scary. Lae'zel isn't beloved to your companions, but they counter the emotional issue by making what she's suggesting a very reasonable and informed solution to your problem - so instead of it just being "The game's telling me not to go, so there's no real reason for my character to want to go except to see what's over there, which will probably kill us if we try" it's a much more compelling "There seem to be a lot of reasons not to go, but Lae'zel has been more informed on this issue than anyone else we've met, and she's had a consistent plan that hasn't changed right from the very beginning" and you have to decide if you trust her more than the Dream Visitor and why. There's very few of those choices that aren't double-led in some way - the circus gets players who want the reverse psychology with the ghoul, and then everyone else by making your companions excited to see the fun. One of the only things I couldn't justify at all was my lvl 1 character with 0 skill in magic approaching a malfunctioning waypoint that looked like it would blow up any second!!

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

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

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

"I want you to feel special, you ARE the hero of this story, your choices MATTER" wow...great writting approach honestly, is very humble, cool and wholesome when you stop and think about it!

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"

*final boss flashbacks intensifies*

10:50 "I'm so smart!" [Literally misses a lever to open the gate right next to it, and the fact that sneaking doesn't trigger the light blasts]

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

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.

6:15
This is literally Skyrim.

I love brain-worms.

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.

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

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

7:41 I love the user experience on mobile of having to use the “rewind 10 seconds” feature, rewatching the video up to that point, and then frantically trying to press pause on the one frame of text so I don’t miss it again, but then sometimes missing it again and having to start that process all over. It really keeps the flow of the content going and isn’t a needless frustration at all for someone otherwise enjoying a video

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.

That reverse psychology for the mountain pass didn't work on me, I can't read and want Lae'zel wants, Lae'zel gets.

BG3 is the chill GM who gives the party a stern look as they debate visiting Unnamed Halfling Village, but actually has NPC sheets, maps, and loot tables prepared in case the party decides to visit Unnamed Halfling Village anyway.

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

Honestly by the time you actually get to the city the game is named after, you're so checked out that you just want to see the credits roll, and do what the Emperor tells you to do.

I like how Baldur's Gate 3 is basically one massive point and click adventure game, and I love it for that.

13:30 it IS really cool. Breaking games by ”being clever” or finding worm arounds has been a long standing of games in general, from breaking a game with its own mechanics using unauthadox combinations of stuff to flat out hacking the code to find stuff.
One example I love is “missing no” a bugged Pokémon you can get WITHOUT cheating or doing super weird stuff, unintentionally a unique secret. Coz secrets are fun to discover, and being given a locked door is how you turn something mundane into an interesting secret.

11:48 that’s so cheeky. Everything is a door for blocking the way to urge exploration.

Excellent insight, Jacob. I'll have to try translating that strategy to the tabletop.

i think that getting around the bright neon "do not enter" signs npcs and world building have put up is incredibly fun in bg3 bc theres like a bajillion different ways to get around each of them. could be as simple as carrying around some featherfall scrolls/potions or maybe an explosive barrel, maybe you wanna take a more complicated route by bringing along a specific companion or disguising yourself, maybe you just wanna cleave your way through the npcs to reach your goal of exploring more! theres so many ways to get stuff done and you can CHOOSE which way you wanna do it and theres not really a wrong way unless youre not geared up for it or are under levelled

I played with a Freecam mod + WASD walk and it was a straight up upgrade from the base game, I agree with the rest of the video.

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.

"Your dream companion is telling you..." -- for a second there, I thought you were referring to Gale.

6:30 I have to agree. For a game to get me to finish it at all, is an achievement. And hearing all the different stories of the same game is insane and really fun.

Lol, act 1 i went to the mountain pass and then the underdark. I just wanted loot and levels, no psychological plays that work against me here. Also, Bae'zel is the best. she's a sweetheart on the inside.

". . . What about that shadowy place?"
"That's beyond our borders -- you must never go there."

The thing I love about BG3: 10:48 has a lever literally to your right, and the devs give you a more ingenious way of getting past besides just... pulling the lever that you missed xD

Ever notice how so many open world games treat the quest log more like a "to do" list? That's what this reminds me of

I love larian, even in Divinity Original Sin 2 the whole game is spent being told what to do by authority figures and literally gods, then you realize none of them have your best interest in mind so you just start swinging whether you're told to or not

"Do not free the gith prince"
"...youre not my mom."
like a puppet on a string

I laughed entirely too hard at 3:22 and I don't know how to feel about that

When game tell you to do and you do, railroaded. When game tell you not to do and you do, agency. Even though in both cases, you're doing what the DM/game devs want.
This is the core of DnD and tabletop RPGs as a concept. And Larian really nailed it.

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.

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

For me, it also baits me into exploring and interacting by inserting the dumbest dialogues
"Sad-is-tic? What's a tic got to be sad about?"

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

I tend to not enjoy open games as much, since i know they're finite. As in, when playing d&d with your friends, you actually can go anywhere and do anything, so you have to decide on what actions and paths to take.
But, in a videogame, you can't actually go anywhere and do anything, there's a finite amount of stuff that's been done.
So if i see a path, i want to go there. It's not about choice or objective anymore. It's just because i know it exists, so i want to see it. There's stuff there, why wouldn't i go ?
This isn't a very fun mindset. Instead of "I was going somewhere and then on the way this cool unexpected event happened", it's "I will walk everywhere and trigger all the events, because i expect them to exist."
Cool video, first half hadn't me convinced but the second half with the arguments for the game driving motivation through an effect of "reverse psychology" is a pretty interesting observation.

This video is just an essay on why it pays for game developers to have a psychologist on board to help trick players into doing exactly what you want them to do.

My favourite bit of larian misdirection is them trying to convince you Gale is a competent wizard when truly he is a perfect cowboy themed wild magic barbarian. Well played larian, well played.

10:49 there’s a lever in that room to open the gate. You can see it in the footage by the candles. The escape attempt is on par with players not opening a door for 4 hours.

That's pretty well how every one of my DnD games have gone; the GM tries their utmost to outline how bad of an idea something is, and the players do everything in their power to do it any way.

This is a really fun video and I think it makes a really compelling argument!
For me though, I just go to the places the game tells me not to go because it's another place I can go, and I am incapable of not exploring every possible nook and cranny. It's why it takes me hundreds of hours to do a single playthrough of a game

One if the greatest compliments I’ve gotten as a DM was when one of my players told me that Gimblebock & friends were NPCs I would’ve made

the point about the ceiling is the same about not being able to swim. After a while you get used to it and it's a non-issue.

Some stellar writing, man..👌🏻this is the next big title I'm gonna be picking up. Played the trial on ps+. Can't wait till I have a few free days. Gonna dive deep with this one.. 'preciate for the BG con without spoilers..

Hell yes.
When playing Numenera I found a holographic head projector. It nodded approvingly when pointed in one direction, or had a panicked expression when shown the other way. Our party made it a priority to always go where the head was losing it the most. :)

I'm really thankful for insights like these.
I'm still trying to figure out how I went from being excited about the game in act 1 to not caring about the story nor the characters and ultimately not finishing the game halfway through act 3. Despite the fact that I've been playing DnD for years and having fun with it.
There are a few reasons I uncovered, and having watched this video, I believe another reason might be that I simply do things in the game because I'm a completionist to a certain degree. And being told not to do most of the things that you come across while you just want to scratch them off your to-do list is tedious. I believe my approach to the game wasn't the best for the kind of game it is. Makes me somewhat sad that I didn't end up enjoying it, but it is what it is.

Oh my first playthrough, I went in blind as a D&D player who doesn't play many video games. I was low key panicked the entire game, missed several companions, and didn't even see half of Act 1 because every NPC told me I was going to perish at any moment. I learned those were dirty lies. Now, 1200 hours later, I'm still able to find things I haven't seen yet. It's the best :D

This reminds me of the lady who walked her dog by a bush that randomly had a pie in it one day. Now every day the dog walks by the bush he needs to check it just in case.

9:37 Some people talk to the Ogre outside the Shattered Sanctum and interpret his dialogue a denial of entry and never try to enter the Sanctum through the main door... A friend of mine did literally this. I couldn't stop laughing when he told me.

Game told me to NOT ATTACK GORTASH WHILE HE IS STANDING THERE TAUNTING ME. 3h later and multiple reloads I finally lured him out of the keep and killed him on the balcony. Now the whole castle is hostile and I can't move forward to the lower city. I had to strategize, use my limited brainpower and use most of my consumables to fly around the keep while invinsible to get there. It was amazing.

I feel like Matt Mercer actually does something similar on CR.
He basically says "Oh.., that's gonna be difficult to do, but if you really want to, good luck!"
Then the players proceed to dig a tunnel ACROSS THE CONTINENT into the most dangerous area they know!
It's a great motivator for sure!

I had the exact opposite experience, and I took the game's word that I shouldn't do what it told me not to. I assumed that I would go back to it later, after I was stronger, but it never happened.

I don't know that I would say it's reverse psychology so much as just challenges for the player to over come. You could say that enemies in a hallway in a corridor shooter are reverse psychology telling you "not to go that way"

The difference is that with a game, you don’t feel bad for avoiding the perceived intended content that the DM probably put a lot of work into.

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.

Getting into the carnival is best when you are Fey Warlock. Your patron just goes full Karen.

Ah yes, the “how to meta all your immersion and enjoyment away” guide. We all know devs have tricks to funnel us into the content, but still take the game at face value, because it’s more fun.

Wow I didn’t realize how this got me, thinking about it when the skull tells you not to go deeper in the gauntlet of shar I thought “Who are you to tell me to go away” and pushed forward

honestly, i saw the message at the mountain passage and that told me this is where the game wants me to go so I'mma go the other way.

The only failure of this style is evident in the creche. A player who is motivated to remove the worm and trusts laezel will find themselves at low level surrounded by dangerous npcs, and one failed dialogue check away from a softlock