I’ve decided I no longer want to be a hero. Through a lifetime spent playing games I’ve amassed a swollen backlog of tedious do-gooders. And, at the same time, there’s nothing attractive about being nakedly evil: it’s vulgar, unfulfilling, and usually quite stressful. Thankfully, the complexity of Baldur’s Gate III offers richer possibilities. In an act of pure arrogance, I decide to cast a protagonist in my own mold, with all the same distracting inadequacies. He’ll be an inveterate coward who is somehow a people-pleaser, and grotesquely self absorbed at the same time. He’ll agree to anything to make himself look dashing, then go to despicable lengths to avoid actually doing it.
It’s important he looks right. In the end, I settle on the combined qualities of Lord Farquaad from Shrek, Humperdinck from The Princess Bride, and a barista who sighs when you order a chai latte. I think about giving him an honorary title, which he neither earned nor inherited. This is based on a story I once read about a druid who tricked out his pet with deception skills and tuxedo then renamed
