Spoilers below, I want to complain, not ruin anybody else’s experience with the game.
Okay, so. The main reason I play dungeons and dragons? Aside from the sense of adventure and the ability to write my own story? It’s the dragons.
Now my problem is that in any and all official DnD content (and most other media tbh), dragons get absolutely fucking screwed, ESPECIALLY the good ones. It’s why the ability to write my own stories with DnD appeals to me so much.
I didn’t go into Baldur’s Gate 3 with high expectations. I know that the idea of having a powerful force of good that isn’t under player control or completely useless is beyond the comprehension of most game/show/book writers (It’s really unimaginably fucking easy to have one that doesn’t destroy character agency btw, just putting that out there. I can write a whole god damn essay on how to have Big Good forces that aren’t fucking useless while maintaining narrative tension).
All I wanted, in the game that advertises itself on how lets you approach every problem from your own angle and with your own methods, was to be able to share a little conversation with a dragon and make sure they were okay. I didn’t have unrealistic expectations. I know games aren’t made around what one man wants, so I didn’t hope for more than maybe three lines of dialog and an ambiguous ending where they’re free and alive. I’d have been happy with that.
And Baldur’s Gate 3, despite allowing you to spare, or befriend, or protect, save, speak with or at least bring some hope to EVERY OTHER ENTITY IN THE GAME, doesn’t just give none of that to their one dragon that can speak. It actively goes out of its’ way to make it so that the dragon has the absolute worst fate possible, significantly worse than death, will never speak to you (only to another NPC), is killed pre-adventure, has their spirit tortured for eternity, and cannot be saved, helped, or even given a ray of hope. Just. Like. For FUCKS SAKE.
I wouldn’t be so pissed off it this wasn’t such a common thing in games like this! But I sunk 70 hours into this game intending a little interaction with a dragon as my reward, and as far as I’m concerned, I got a flaming pile of shit thrown in my face for making it to the end. It wouldn’t sting so much if they weren’t the only character to get screwed to anywhere near this magnitude. It wouldn’t sting so much if shit like this didn’t also happen so ridiculously frequently.
Please tell me I’m not the only one frustrated with how dragons (ESPECIALLY good dragons) get treated in any form of adult media. Is it really, really so much to ask for a story where dragons don’t get the deck stacked against them so unbelievably hard that even actual gods would be pretty much screwed?
Gotta admit, I only went looking for the dragon because everyone in game said it’d be super helpful, and there’s a quest called “Gather your allies.” My talker had like 20 charisma and expertise in all the charisma skills…I resolved a lot of conflicts without violence. Disappointed to be forced into combat with the dragon by our guardian angel.
Kind of disappointed with all the interactions with our ‘guardian angel’ once their true nature was revealed. Maybe I made wrong choices, but their guidance just seemed…off. Not wrong. Not evil. Just somehow not quite right. Maybe somehow inconsistent with their revealed nature, and pushing towards ex machina, like a number of things I don’t see how I’d have discovered if they hadn’t outright told me. The dragon interaction is part of that not-quite-rightness.
I definitely found the ending to be the least satisfying part of the game. I went straight from the dragon to the final battle, and I think that sequence intensified the less-than-satisfying feeling.
Boy he literally murdered his closest, oldest, and most well-intentioned friend in cold blood, threw the body in a dungeon, and let their soul find no rest for several centuries.