Baldur’s Gate 3’s narrator Amelia Tyler recently told our own Jade King in an interview thather earlier take on the narrator was much, much meaner. Tyler’s voice accompanies you through your journey, guiding you through every roll, whether that be a success or a failure. She’s an objective observer, commenting on your actions as they happen, for the most part. That wasn’t the original vision, though – Tyler described the old narrator as “enjoying watching you [****] up” and that the interpretation was based on Scar from the Lion King.
Unfortunately, this got taken out during early access and was replaced with a gentler DM, one that felt less like “another person challenging the player” and more like “a voice in their heads their entire life” that is “totally on board with whatever choices they make”. That is, until you roll a critical failure – that still gets you roasted.
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I can see why the developers went in a different direction – Tyler says this would have been too “exhausting” for players over a long campaign, and I agree. Spending 100 hours in a game getting bullied mercilessly by the narrator could wear thin quickly, especially for people who are brute forcing the game in order to finish as quickly as possible. Some of us are into getting made fun of, I’m sure, but the vast majority of people are likely going to find it grating after playing for several hours straight every day for weeks.
Still, I’ve found myself wishing I’d had the chance to experience the game with that narrator. It’s quite rare for me to dip into games that are still in early access because I prefer a more polished gaming experience, but I have friends who have already been playing Baldur’s Gate 3 for years and sunk hundreds of hours into Act 1 alone. Those people, who have had a direct impact on what the game is today, experienced Tyler’s first swing at BG3’s narrator and got the full ‘mean DM that loves watching you fail’ experience.
It would be truer to my experience, though hopefully not to everyone’s. PlayingDungeons & Dragonswith one of my closest longtime friends as a Dungeon Master means that I hear a lot of evil laughter every time I roll a die, whether or not I succeed or fail. There’s a lot of taunting, in general. “You’re going to fail again,” they might say, as I’m holding a d20 between my sweaty palms, followed by gleeful laughter when I do actually fail. When I roll a critical failure, which happens a lot because I am very unlucky, they might crow, “You are so [****ed]!” When I succeed, I get a begrudging, “Fine, you succeeded… this time.” My DM relishes in my suffering, as did Baldur’s Gate 3’s original narrator.
You’d think I’d be sick of it, but I kind of love it. Probably not 100 hours of it, but I still wish I’d had the chance to experience it in Baldur’s Gate 3’s early access. Unfortunately, there’s no way for me to go back in time and get mercilessly bullied for my failures, but I guess I can always just go back to my friend’s house for D&D and get that experience there.
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