Why a Video Game RPG Can't Tell Your Character's Story

A tabletop game master can do one thing a video game RPG can't: change the story to fit the character you brought. A video game offers the branches its writers built, however many there are, and your character walks whichever of them fits best. At a table, a good GM hears what your character wants and fears, and the world answers that. Baldur's Gate 3 shows the gap, because the hero you design yourself gets the least story of anyone in the party.

This post is part of our guide, Can an AI Be a Good Game Master?.

What Does a Tabletop GM Give You That a Video Game Can't?

A tabletop game master gives you a world that reacts to who your character is. When your character turns down a reward out of pride, or spares an enemy for a reason nobody planned for, a human GM can let that choice change the people around them and where the campaign goes after it. A video game RPG can respond only in the ways its writers prepared, so a choice nobody prepared for has nowhere to go.

I play tabletop games, and that reaction is what I keep coming back for. I think of a video game RPG as just a tree of choices. The tree can be enormous and beautifully written, and you're still picking among branches someone else grew.

Say your character is a disgraced knight who has sworn never to draw a blade on a holy day. At a table, a GM can build a whole evening around that oath: a fight that falls on the wrong day, a rival who knows about the vow, and a priest who offers a way out at a price. A video game can't know about the oath, because the oath exists only in your head and on your character sheet. The same holds for a fear of deep water or a debt to a cousin: a human GM can use each of them every session, and a video game has nowhere to put them.

Why Does Your Own Hero Get the Least Story in Baldur's Gate 3?

In Baldur's Gate 3, a custom hero gets less story than any Origin character, because the personal stories are written for the characters Larian Studios created. The seven Origin characters, Astarion and Karlach among them, come with written backstories and personal quests, and any of them can be played as the main character. A custom hero, whom players call Tav after the game's default name, has no personal quest of their own.

The Dark Urge is the one exception. It's a customisable Origin with its own story, so you can design how your hero looks and still get a personal quest. That story is Larian's, though.

Larian's writers did what a video game has to do. A game is written before you play it, so it can only write stories for characters it knows about in advance, and your character arrives after the writing is finished. A tabletop GM writes during play, with your character in front of them.

Why Do Players Turn to an AI Game Master?

Players who want a game run for them, me included, turn to an AI game master because it promises the one thing a video game lacks: a GM who reads what you wrote about your character and answers it. In my experience, an AI GM is good at that part. It reads your character's oath or debt and writes a world that responds.

I tried for a long time to make an AI GM work. On paper, a GM who answers your character is the missing piece. In practice, my games kept breaking in the same few ways, and those failures are what the rest of this series is about:

• An AI GM forgets. The person who owed you a favour, the vow you swore and the lead you meant to follow drop out of the story. Why AI Game Masters Forget Your Campaign explains why and what fixes it.
• An AI GM gives its secrets away. A mystery needs an answer decided before you start guessing, and the AI GMs I used rarely had one. Why AI Game Masters Can't Keep a Secret covers mysteries and hidden plots.
• An AI GM plays your character for you. The GM starts narrating what your character does and feels. Why Your AI Game Master Keeps Playing Your Character looks at how to keep your character yours.

If you're testing an AI GM right now, six questions to test any AI game master will show you quickly where it stands.

How Does Fable Smith Build the Story Around Your Character?

Fable Smith builds the story around your character, and the world answers what your character does. Each adventure is shaped by what you told it you enjoy and what you want less of, so it suits you and there's still surprise in it.

Fable Smith is vivid where it matters: a world that moves, and a GM who knows what to show you. Bring the disgraced knight, and the people he meets want things of their own, some of them at odds with his oath. When he walks into a temple a month after he saved its priest from a mob, the priest remembers. If he ignores a lead, the world carries on without him. Your character stays yours: the GM never speaks, acts, thinks or feels for your character, and every post stops where you'd decide.

Fable Smith plays fifth edition (5e), Draw Steel, MUNE or a freeform story with no rules system. Today you play on your own, with the GM in your own Discord channel, and you play by posting in it, like play-by-post. Fable Smith is in a free closed beta. It's slow, since a turn can take minutes, and it still makes mistakes sometimes.

Want a game master who builds the story around the character you made? Join the waitlist for the free closed beta on the Fable Smith page.

Sources

• bg3.wiki, Tav, for Tav as the default name players use for a custom hero, and for a custom Tav having no quest of their own.
• Larian Studios, About, for the seven Origin characters, their written backstories and personal quests, and playing any Origin as the main character.
• PlayStation Blog, Introducing fully customizable Origin character The Dark Urge in Baldur's Gate 3, for the Dark Urge as a customisable Origin with its own story.
• The Forge & The Fable, Fable Smith, for every claim about Fable Smith.