
Despite occasionally indulging in the popular videogame critic pastime of making wild predictions, I am not, I must confess, a soothsayer. As hard as I have tried, I am entirely incapable of peering into the future. This is unfortunate for many reasons, but for the purposes of this article the one I am going to focus on is how it makes character creation in most RPGs a bit of a pain in the arse.
Broadly, I love making RPG characters, whether it's yet another alt in an MMO or a new hero (or more likely a villain) in a chunky singleplayer RPG. I will often spend an inordinate amount of time fleshing them out, poring over starting traits, potential backstories and ability scores. According to Larian, players have spent a combined 8,196 years in the Baldur's Gate 3 character creator, and I am not remotely surprised.