What would be a good possible storyline for BG3?

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Wizards of the coast are adament in only allowing the most current edition of D&D to be used, when someone is making a D&D game. This means 4th edition. Now what happened in the 4th ed (to the forgotten realms), is that they pushed the timeframe 200 years ahead. Removed a BUNCH of gods as well. Including Tyr and Mystra. Mystra got removed to change the magic system. Basically to make it similar to WoW. Neverwinter and Luskan are completely destroyed as well. Meaning no neverwinter 3. All humans, and possibly dwarves and half-elves, from the BG games, are dead. From old age. this means no Minsc. The Drow elves have been changed alot. Cleric is no longer their favored class. Instead its Ranger. Mostly to make it easier to play a Drizzt clone. A brand new elf race has popped up out of the blue. This one is called Eladrin (not to be confused with Tolkiens Eldarin....or is it?). Dragon-like people have popped up as well. They now live on a brand new continent that also popped up out of the blue. 99 percent of every high-level NPC in the Forgotten Realms, are also dead, or have suffered a level-drain.

With all this in mind, I kind of think a story for BG3 would be as good as impossible. Especially one that follows the previous BG games. That is if the story is to have any sense of continuity. I know I am being negative here, but I am just stating the facts.

 

You make that sound like a bad thing

 

They could find all types of reasons to bring back familiar faces in a BG3. Especially mages. It's called Dimensional or Planar Travel. Many of Faeruns Arch Mages are known to have done this, including Khelben Blackstaff Arunsun(who is hinted to be no other than Mordenkainen from the Greyhawk campaign and also hinted to be the 2nd Khelben, replacing an uncle who still travels the planes), Elminster who traveled to other planes to Fight the Malaugrym for example, The Simbul, Manshoon, etc... any one of them could be brought back. Especially with the use of clones. The 4th edition FR campaign guide doesn't go into detail of the deaths of all the major Arch Mages, as there were too many. There is also Stasis, which could derive from the Divine Magic of an Avatar or High Priest, not Arcane. So, of course they can come up with anything they need to make a background story for the game fit. Hell, even if they created along the lines of 4th edition, there is no way I would a BG3. Bioware has given all of us so many hours worth of gameplay, the costs of the 4 games from one and two does not compare. It would be the least I could do in buying a part 3, even if it's in a 4th edition engine, which I think stinks.

 

The Bhaalspawn story is told. It is over. Any BG3 will be a spin off, not a prequel or a sequel, and will be BG in name only, a shameless attempt to cash in on the best CRPG series ever made. (Much as Dark Alliance, not that Dark Alliance is not a good game, just that it should have been called something other than Baldur's Gate).

One possibility: Your fortieth level PC and his or her paramour (successful romance from the series) are now grandparents and caught up in the cataclysm that changes the world from 3.5 to 4th edition.

For me this would hold no joy. I hate fourth edition with a passion. TSR and Wizards Of The Coast spent nearly forty years between them building up a game world rich in background and culture. WOTC chucked it all in the shredder in the hopes of making us all buy new books and modules. I refuse. I've read over forty books based on the Forgotten Realms, now all of those plot threads have been ended by tragedy, or bent beyond all recognition, just so WOTC can sell more Players Handbooks.

 

I think the only possibility that would make any sense is to assume that Charname chose to become a god (after impregnating the romancee of BG2) and was then killed in the change to 4.0 (whatever that was killed). You could then have all that divine essense plot come back, maybe along with some children of other now-dead gods who, somewhere along the line (maybe the Time of Troubles) had children as well. Imagine collecting a whole party of god-spawn from various gods (Mystra, Bhaal, etc) and uniting them against a cabal of mages and priests who want to steal the divine essense for themselves.

Eh, maybe, but probably not.

 

From what I see, people are jumping in to details way, way, WAY too quickly. Obviously everyone wants the series to continue with the same core of NPCs we're all so fond off, but that arc is dead.

Firstly, the only real way to get a good story going is by finishing the arc. So we need the end result of BGII to get anything going. My opinion is that CHARNAME should have chosen to become deity. Because any other result would kill pretty much any continuity, because you have nothing to really go on if they adapt the game to the new rules (which means new era too).

Secondly, since I have NO clue what the backstory to the new rules is, it's kind of hard for me to get a story going with that in mind. But we could always build something off of a church dedicated to CHARNAME after he chooses divinity. What type of deity? No clue. Gotta figure that out.

Thirdly, now that we have the setting (more or less), we need to get the protagonist a situation. Maybe he's the son/daughter of a priest from that church that has been mysteriously assassinated and forces Neo-CHARNAME into adventuring and finding out why (original, I know ). The place where you start could be Baldur's Gate (or some major event happens there) so we can keep the name and coherence at the same time, not to mention re-visiting the place would be fairly awesome.

But in the end, no divine powers, just regular adventuring, picking up cool characters, great dialog, humor, epicness, whatnot. And, OBVIOUSLY, references to the past BG games and that great feeling of nostalgia for all the core gamers.

Anyone think this is at least a good start?

 

4e sucks

I don't know about everybody else, but I really don't enjoy anything later than 2nd edition rules. It looks to me like WotC are basically being killjoys, and I think an entirely new game ought to be made by an independent company, maybe set in the Greyhawk universe/multiverse. Gygax's writing kicks the arse of mostly everything that has come out of the Realms; so why not something that follows the story of the epic PnP modules? Village of Hommlet all the way up to Queen of the Demonweb Pits? Who else wants to see the characters Gleep Wurp the Eyebiter, Fonkin Hoddypeak, Beek Gwenders of Croodle and all the rest, fleshed out fully, interestingly and above all with the humour and wit they deserve??

Or maybe even something that details the ultra-powerful wizards Mordenkainen or Tenser. I don't know, I suck at storylines, I just have ideas I'd like to see expressed. (...And not screwed up with the awful 4e ruleset!) Whatever happens, it's got to start off ordinary, level 1 (maybe even an optional level 0 section, where CHARNAME develops his/her personality and attributes even more extensively) and lead up to extraordinary high levels of power (40+?) where the character and co. take on the very Gods themselves - a story that really gets your character involved in an open-ended history and setting, preferably spanning the entire world and multiple planes of existence. I'm talking about a BIG game.

 

If BG3 came out with 4e rules I probably wouldn't play it. I've had my first taste of 4e a couple days ago, and it doesn't play any different than World of Warcraft imo. It just isn't as fun as 3rd or 2nd edition.

 

I believe BG3 should not based on the exploits of the Bhaalspawn, because as far as canon is concerned the Bhaalspawn was Abdel Adrian, that wretched character from the Philip Athans book adaptation.

BG3 should be a new story. I wouldn't mind if it was steeped in BG2 references - a strong connection to the previous game would be pretty much mandatory for the 3rd installment to succeed - but the BG2 elements should be there merely to influence PC's/NPC's actions.

 

It wouldn`t work. Anyone making d&d games now have to use the current set of rules (has to do with Wizards of the Coast, and some rights stuff). In the Forgotten Realms setting, they killed Mystra (godess of magic), and things basically went to hell. The setting skipped 200 years forwards, and magic is now completely changed. Meaning if you are going to make a game set in the Forgotten Realms setting, they will have to set the story to after the magic system was changed. Something called a Spellplague happened as well, people dying all over the place etc. So since its at least 200 years after BG2, all of the human characters will be dead, and most likely alot of the others as well. If they include the older characters, it would actually be lame, since its "lore-breaking". Any possebilities for a good BG2 sequel got ruined when wizards of the coast made the 4ed rules and messed up the Forgotten Realms setting. Sad, but true.

 

You really should blame the realms for that as that is their MO in edition changes. Edition change is followed by a big event in the realms to explain every minor change almost no matter how small. That is why Bhaal died since 2e no longer had assassins so they made up a reason for almost all assassins to die along with their god. When they did 4e Eberron they changed little outside of mechanics since Eberron doesn't care about trying to explain those things. This is shown in how they handle books. In the realms the books are considered canon whereas in Eberron the novels are only canon in that particular novel series (not even canon in other Eberron novels unless the author wishes it). It is a culture difference to be sure. If the realms did not care about trying to show the mechanic changes in the fluff then they would likely not need to implement things like the spellplague or the avatar crises.

Oddly IWD and IWD2 are an example of them using a campaign in the realms that took place during a time of a previous edition but uses a future editions mechanics so they could make a game like that again if they wanted to but as we know they gave the rights to Atari and that is never a good thing...