Honestly...Dark Urge is Poorly Written

[Xenon]

I finished a play-through as a Dark Urge paladin. Big mistake. It does not make sense at all. Ok Larian, so you're telling me that I used to be a Satan-incarnate. Butchered viciously thousands of innocents, had lots of fun doing it. Then got backstabber by my looney sister, lost my mind, got stitched together by some necromancer, after which I escaped, found the Light, swore my allegiance to Tyr (or whoever the god of justice is in D&D) and became a noble aspirational hero, protecting innocents and killing ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, all the while still retaining my propensity for sadism...THIS MAKES ZERO SENSE.

And I don't know how you can fix this. The only suggestion I can give is that maybe some options should NOT be available to the players. But even if you do not play as paladin, being a good guy in this game is genuinely unbelievable once you find out that you used to be a monster. And don't nobody dare drawing a comparison with Revan. Revan was a brilliant strategist who had to make tough decisions, he was not a sadist.

But this is not the only issue. I also hate how this story is implemented in Act 1 with my own character's reactions and the lack of reactions from my companions, especially those who are supposed to be "good guys." I just murdered viciously a sweet bard girl and all Gale and Wyll can do is shrug...Come on guys, don't you have a few more questions for me? And again, how about my own reaction? Can't I try to delve a bit dipper into the fact that I, a good guy, just butchered an innocent person? Can't I run around in panic a little? Can't I ask for help? Gale, you're good with magic, I might be possessed, help please? No? Nothing, huh? How about Whithers? There is an option to ask him to bring the bard girl back and he says, "No, she has to weigh on your conscience." Ok dude fine, but can you at least tell me what is wrong with me? You clearly know everything...

It gets better when you kill your love interest. At least this time the team has enough sense to attack me, but that's a bit too little too late.

Again, I don't know how they can rewrite this storyline to make it look meaningful and organic...But the way it is now is bad.

[angelsenvy228]

Yeah, I agree, I'm only at moonlight tower right now, but so far the dialogue options seems very dumb and tacked on for what is supposed to be some extra origin, also the reactions from the group are completely unbelievable. The butler and Raphael seemed like they might lead into something interesting, but every dialogue is just "My blood compels me to kill you" or "I am the Slayer, bow before my evil" It's comically ridiculous and everyone is just like "oh cool bro I guess.."

Shadowheart hates the moon chick but she calls me insane for killing her, even though she helped. Laezel hates everyone but calls me stupid for killing potential allies, even though she hates them and doesn't want to be around them in other scenes. And for an evil origin alternate playthrough thing, it has like no real depth it's entirely just demonic murderer so far at least, it is very lazy and makes me think they have some real degenerate working in their writing staff who is sacrificing cats to Lucifer in their off time and shouldn't be allowed to be near a school zone, the focus group testing for this character arc was just him reading the screenplay to his harem of stuffed corpse girlfriends he keeps in his basement, the feds should really dig up his yard for human remains.

[Wuorg]

It does feel like it could use more fleshing out. I'm not sure I would call it "poor writing," but moreso they bit off more than they could chew. Like, there's a really compelling story to tell here with Durge, and all the kooky over-the-top evilness makes sense (and is fun if you lean into it) as long as you keep in mind that it *is* the god of murder we are talking about here (edit: that is to say, the game doesn't take the Bhaalists super seriously, so neither should we). But the game just has too much going on to really focus on it enough. I think they did the best they could with the game they had (Durge was the last origin released). The storyline would have come out a lot better if the game had been planned from the ground-up to be a story about Durge, rather than possibly being about literally any custom character the player can come up with; with the game as it exists now, I'm not sure they could have done much better, to be honest.

I would also say it is a lot more coherent if you play a Bhaalist Durge.

[AsianGirlLover]

You’re overthinking it. Talk to the Oathbreaker Knight and he’ll explain it to you.

[jonnin]

I will agree that the writing is bad. To me its a very weird side story from the original, and a clumsy attempt to tie back into the older story. I give them some credit for trying to do that, but the total psycho chop up everyone you meet does not fit THAT story -- many of the spawn were good guys, and the urge to cause chaos and seek power did not always manifest at all, and when it did, the choice to direct the energy for whatever purpose was theirs to make. If you are a nutjob, fine, but that isnt because you are spawn, its because something else is wired wrong inside you.

There are two sort of philosophical ways to look at your 'class' in D&D (or more, but these 2 come up at odds a lot). One way is that your class(s) define your whole being and the other is that it is just your skill set and job. BG3 leans toward the first, as seen in how it implemented oathbreaking, but it treats paladins special really. A ranger can murder hobo and kill every animal he meets without consequence, so can a druid -- this should be penalized as much as a paladin is penalized for breaking his ethos. I mean, a rogue can be a scout and locksmith rather than a career criminal. Every other class is just a job, even clerics and monks and such, but paladin got the full bore DM has a grudge treatment. It makes little sense, and here, I dunno if the disconnect is 5e or BG3.

BECAUSE bg3 treats paladins as a special case, I also agree that it should maybe have been blocked from durge or at least locked into OB pally only for durge. If they had implemented all the classes with penalties for behavior where appropriate, or backed off on the paladin a bit, I may answer this one another way, but with what we have, that is my take on it.

[wtiger27]

For myself, it is the best way to play the game. As a Dark Urge and resisting the evil urges to finally redeem yourself in the end.

I have did 3 complete Dark Urge play runs, with the exception of the one case, which you don't get a choice not to, I resisted it successfully the entire game.

[Raz]

The Dark Urge is not sound of mind as they literally have two different identities existing in one body. You find out, if you speak with the Oathbreaker in Act 3 after confirming your Origins, that you've broken your Oath many times, and that he knew you before before you fell. There is also memories you can recover that paint you as having been normal at one point before the Urge awakened, and that they tried fighting against the Urge in their younger years.

The game already establishes that a mind making actions not of it's own choice does not break it's Oath(s) with the killing of the Bard. So likely what happened in the past is that the Urge slowly whittled down the MCs will, causing them to directly make the choice to kill. They'd break their Oath. They'd regain it after having a moment to calm down. Rinse, repeat, until finally they fully fell into the killing madness and stayed an Oathbreaker until Orin gave us "medical treatment" that helped reset them back to their base morals, before the corruption of the Urge, to a degree.

As for your other issues; its already pointed out many times; any time you try delving into your memories, you basically cannot. Not just due to the amnesia, but the Urge within balks at your sympathetic emotions, and good intentions; it loathes them. It will cause you outright pain itself, make you want to vomit, and keep you out of your memories. Obviously not all of them, as there are some we claw back.

Companions not having more questions for us, what more are they going to ask? You physically tell them you do not remember what happened, you were sleep, you woke up and she was dead. What more can they get out of you? What more can they ask? You don't even have the full scope of it, so asking you anything is useless. They do not have the time for an inquisition about a basic stranger. Not sure if people realize, but canonically, all of the events of BG3 from start to finish takes place over a short period of time. It's supposed to be a week or two; definitely shorter than a month. There isn't the time.

Gale may be good at magic, but being good at magic doesn't equate to good and knowledgeable in medicine. Medicine may be tied to Intelligence, but that doesn't mean he knows much about the mind, which, based on discussions with him regarding the mind, he doesn't. He even insinuates he is not good at medicine when we meet him, and he asks if anyone that specializes in medicine is around, hell, a person good with a needle. So asking him to poke in our head wouldn't amount to much but Gale going, "Sorry mate, not my field of study."

Halsin tells us he could dig in our head, but only after the tadpole is gone because with the tadpole present, he cannot tell how much of what is the problem is the worm, or something else within. Not unless he had his full Grove conclave plus a month to study you. We ain't got the time, and ain't in the place for this.

Wither's can't tell you ♥♥♥♥ because he is Jergal. The amount of interfering he is doing currently would normally be illegal and Ao would blast his ass out of existence. Because the Dead Three are risking all of reality, including the gods, Wither's is being allowed to assist us (rather, ordered to) but that does not mean he can interfere with our affairs directly neither. Out and about telling us about our past is off the table because of that.

The Bone Man is aware that fate is not a single course, it's a multi-forked road. He cannot tell us anything that will alter our fates. Telling us about the Urge would alter how we handle it. We have to make the choice(s) ourselves, and in denying Bhaal his victory (which I am betting all of the Gods assumed would never happen) gave Wither's some wiggle room to interfere since he said he was vouching for us with what authority remained.

Oathbreaker is not going to tell us, because our actions are our own. He preaches this up and down, left and right. He will never tell us something that will influence our actions. Telling us who we are without us coming to that realization would influence all choices. Isn't what he is about.

Now, all of this being poorly written, or poorly given to the player; cannot argue against it (I am perfectly fine, even happy with the writing personally, but I can still see where people would have issue with it). A lot of this I picked up after multiple play-throughs as an Oathbreaker and making different choices, therefore a lot of the reactions/information I got I wouldn't have known in my first play-through. This also is the limitating nature of the story and all of the choices at play as well. There is just too much ♥♥♥♥ happening for them to account for all the permutations people are expecting.

[Oonayah]

I imagine Durge in the throes of Bhaal's influence is like deep depression. You can be a good person before, you can be a good person after, but when you're in the middle of living with depression you no longer really remember how to be yourself and you can be really awful.

Regarding paladins and Durge, in 5e they don't swear themselves to the service of a deity as they did in past editions. Instead they are bound by an Oath; your word is your bond and it's as binding as any devil's contract. Your power comes directly from your Oath, from your word, and that's why breaking it is so devastating. It's like cheating on your spouse - you're still married after but you've just done the unthinkable and there are massive consequences.

A paladin can also be a follower of Tyr, can choose to bind themselves to power through their Oath, and can use that power to serve Tyr. But Tyr isn't the source and if you should disagree with him or the mortal representatives of his church, you won't lose your powers as a paladin.

Compared to a cleric, who makes an actual lifestyle choice to devote themselves in service to the doctrine a single god and a falling out with that god or their clergy means being stripped of all the gifts previously bestowed. This is why Shadowheart, upon rejecting Shar, will tell you she's not ready to discuss what it means that she still has all her cleric abilities - the Nightsong had told her what belongs to Shar, Selune has equal claim to, and it's clearly true.

[MadArtillery]

Gale being chill, honestly he's just a good guy when it's convient for him, not so much the generic good guy. He is honestly the one who liked my morally dubious sometime very murdery dark urge playthroughs consistently. They make a good couple. I've been absolutely loving my dark urge so I hard disagree feels great. I think they did a good job balancing being omega evil vs trying to resist some and even playing in the middle. It's surprisingly easy to get the rewards of full evil without ever actually being full evil so you don't even have to suffer mechanically to toe a grey or even hero leaning line. Inspirations are generous either way, along with... other things.

[Raz]

Originally posted by MadArtillery:

Gale being chill, honestly he's just a good guy when it's convient for him, not so much the generic good guy. He is honestly the one who liked my morally dubious sometime very murdery dark urge playthroughs consistently. They make a good couple. I've been absolutely loving my dark urge so I hard disagree feels great. I think they did a good job balancing being omega evil vs trying to resist some and even playing in the middle. It's surprisingly easy to get the rewards of full evil without ever actually being full evil so you don't even have to suffer mechanically to toe a grey or even hero leaning line. Inspirations are generous either way, along with... other things.

Yeah, the only actual goodie two shoes is Karlach and Wyll out of the main origins. Gale can be convinced to stay with the party if you slaughter the Grove and Tieflings. Karlach and Wyll cannot.

[buttawise]

you're poorly written

[Frezmo]

dont deep it bro just kill ♥♥♥♥

[Maj. Grumpy]

Love the Dark Urge play. Especially since it's so well written.

[Xenon]

Lol, I love how this post of mine was discovered by peeps more than a year after I posted it.

Appreciated all the thoughtful responses.