Author: Laura Highcove

How Baldur’s Gate 3 Changed my Life

Laura Highcove

Baldur’s Gate 3 is an amazing game, I don’t think that’s really in debate within the gaming community. But I’ve played a lot of video games, and some of them were even very good. I mean I finished Tears of the Kingdom earlier this year and that was pretty wow. But for a video game, or any other source of media for that matter, to change my life is a high bar.

Talking just straight game-play, BG3 is a masterpiece that breaks new ground and then smashes it to bits with a hammer. The ability to play through the story basically any way you want to, to have your decisions have a lasting effect on events, people, and the world is just ‘mimics brain exploding complete with sound effects’.

None of which would matter if the story you were playing through wasn’t any good. I’m a writer. Story is important to me. I want my horizons stretched, I want surprising, yet inevitable, I want characters that I care about. That game gave me all of this. It also gave me something I didn’t know I wanted, which was to questions my choices, to agonize over decisions, to make mistakes. That is something that no other game has really ever let me experience, or at least not to nearly this extent.

The wildly divergent paths you can take also allows for another unique opportunity, besides just experiencing things differently, it also allows you to see, for the first time what a person’s response would be to different inputs in the exact same situation, allowing you to experience more story/reactions/emotion than would otherwise be possible.

It’s likely no surprise that I identify female and am head over heels for Astarion. But before my mind had really grocked the insane branching paths that were possible through different dialogue choices, I had gone through a good portion of my first play-through, choosing options and getting responses. On a second play through, I knew to dig deeper into the different options, and some of the responses gave such nuance to some of the things Astarion actually said.

As a writer it is impossible (and really, not advisable) to have a character to say everything they’re feeling. If they are even aware of all their feelings in the first place, it’s still just not efficient. But the ability to see deeper into dialogue and motivation by being able to look through the branching dialogue paths was just amazing. I’ve romanced Astarion in two different play-throughs, and both of them felt completely unique.

The branching story lines also allow each character to be that much more developed as a person, and not just a character in a particular story. Shadowheart can kill or spare the Nightsong. Astarion can complete the ritual or not. Lae’zel can remain brain-washed by her cult leader. Wyll can break from his patron. Gale can blow up the world. Karlach, well she’s a sweet cinnamon roll and would never do anything to hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it.

Normally we don’t get the chance to see characters go down these different paths, and it made the characters that much more real (as well as increasing the game’s re-playability) because there isn’t just one ‘right’ path. (Except making sure Karlach’s engine is fixed so she can touch people again.)
All this to say that my expectation of games is forever changed. There will always be something in the back of my head resenting the ‘movie’ style video game story. Whether or not anyone will ever hit anything close to it again, who knows? But now the meta has been changed.

In addition, because of this variability of people’s motivations and actions and such, I have a new appreciation for heroes who are not 100% good. I mean you get anti-heros in stories, but there’s still only that one path. I have been so inspired by the story and the characters in this game that I have written over 90k words of fan fiction, and by allowing myself to write around and be influenced by story and dialogue I did not write, I have felt myself stretching, growing, and changing as a writer.

And I will forever be a fan of this game and the people who put it together with such dedication and love.

My BG3 Characters

Laura Highcove

This is a quick introduction to my current Tavs and how their games went/are going. I have gotten credits, so there will be spoilers.

Avi

I started off my first play through with Avi. He comes from a different story, but I made him a warlock based on story-Avi ’s abilities. I also designed the Dream Visitor off his story-otp. Avi is a tiefling, fae-pact warlock with the criminal background. Since he was my first play through, I had no idea of the storyline, and role-played him as close to himself as I could get while still exploring the game.

Saved Arabella and the grove, killed all the goblins. Basically he did good, but was sarcastic and rude about it, and always asked for compensation. His party consisted of Astarion, Shadowheart, and Karlach.

I used tadpoles on him and Astarion, who he was romancing. Avi trusted the Dream Visitor and passed some hidden checks (with no clue what that even was) to be affectionate with the Dream Visitor.
When the Emperor revealed himself, Avi trusted him and took on becoming half-illithid, but when Astarion had such a visceral reaction against it, he didn’t have any of his companions take it on. Also romanced the Emperor. (eyebrow waggle)

I screwed up the Astarion romance at a critical time (again, didn’t know what I was looking for on a first play through), though still role-played a romantic relationship.

This is the only game I’ve gotten credits on, and I chose to save everyone from the Absolute. I ended up skipping a lot of content for various reasons, one was because I just wanted to get credits, but I still spent an amazing amount of hours on this game.

Annalisa

I started Annalisa, drow paladin oath of the ancients before I was done with Avi’s game.

She purposely does good and is kind to everyone, but on seeing the goblins, I role-played her once being a worshiper of Lolth and she told Minthara where the Grove was with the intention to save it all at once. This broke her oath but then I role played that killing the Hag and saving Mayrina allowed her to get her oath back.

Romanced Gale, who is just a super great guy, even if the romance is a little slow cause he has the whole orb thing going on.

Works with the dream visitor because he is a good ally, but refuses to eat any tadpoles or give any to her team of Gale, Karlach (ranger), and Wyll (bard).

Currently in Act 3 finding all kinds of things I never did with Avi. Plan is to still work with the Emperor, but perhaps trying to free Orpheus will ruin that. Might actually take the deal with Raphael, though that will ruin her oath, but if Raphael gets the crown Gale can’t be tempted, which she’s worried about.

Gabriel

My third game is the Dark Urge, which has its own little story-line baked in where you want to kill everything and take joy in it and you can either go with that or resist. I was gonna play it straight bad but realized that wasn’t fun for me, to I restarted with Gabriel, a Dragonborn storm sorcerer who is disgusted by his Urge.

He kills Gale on accident, but saves Arabella as kids and animals are a nono for violence. Then he starts to fear his violence more after killing Alfira without realizing.

He ends up being friends with Astarion through their similar undesirable urges, which turns into a romance. Gabriel is not against the evil option against those that deserve it, but is working really hard to not hurt any innocents.

He is all about the tadpoles and has convinced his companions to use them too. He was super against the Dream a visitor , but is coming around to trusting him.

Now in act 2 he’s learned more about himself, with scant memories about the ’before’ and his allies, Astarion, Lae’zel, and Shadowheart who all trust his judgement. The plan is to actually steal the hammer from Raphael. Though that might change when I see how the Emperor responds to freeing Orpheus in my paladin game. I, myself, love the Emperor and how he will stay loyal to you as long as you stay loyal to him, so I don’t want to piss him off.

And Beyond

I have a lot I still want to explore with this game, but now that we’re two months out from release and I’ve wracked up over 300 hours of play time and 81k words of fan fiction, my obsession has slowed down a bit. I still want to do an evil Durge play-through, another run of Avi where I actually know what I’m doing, a tactician run, and playing as Astarion. I’ll get to them eventually. I also want to get some pictures done of my three Tavs, and I’ve already started designing minis that I might get printed. This game has changed my life in so many ways that I feel like I need another post just to cover it all.

But here’s the briefest of overviews. I hope you enjoyed.

Goals Achieved

Laura Highcove

Since my last blog post, I have achieved my specific, measurable goals! I have started doing 5 minutes of stillness before my yoga and I have been going down to my basement and actually working on writing for an hour, both of these six days a week. I was just going to do them every day, since I don’t have a job right now, but I ended up just giving myself Sundays off to sleep in and blah. I was also having real trouble sleeping for a while that has only just started to fix itself.

But either way, new goals are a success! I am going to keep up with them before I try and add anything new, especially since I’m not getting to the end of my revision of BotN, which means it’s going to be more of an emotional load to edit, and I don’t want to do that AND try and increase my time spent at the same time. But, making downstairs a working zone really has worked, and for the first time in …well ever, I actually have mornings open, which is when I am able to focus the best.

That may change when I get a job again, but for now I’m enjoying it and trying to solidify the habit so that if I have to start writing in the afternoon or evening, I can still keep it up. My goals remain the same, 1 hour writing and yoga/stillness 6 days a week. If I get through another week or so with this, I’ll think about increasing my goals.

New Year and New Goals

Laura Highcove

New Year today. 2023. In past years I’ve talked about how the new year doesn’t mean much for me in terms of goals, that I’m just continuing to do what I’ve been doing, etc. This year’s a little different as the end of the year was rather rough for a variety of reasons. And while I very regularly have times when I sit down and refocus, make new goals, this refocus happens to be on Dec 31 (when I’m writing this). So it almost seems like they’re New Year’s Resolutions. I could think about them that way if I wanted to. Either way, I’m making new goals while a number of things about the future are still undecided.


At times like these, it’s important to have overall focuses. The things I want to do more than anything else I could do. And I already have those goals:


One is to improve my health. I already have scheduled walking and riding times each week, and I also have started doing yoga every morning. Those are all pretty established at this point, though I would like to add some sitting in stillness. I like when my mind is quieter and more under control, and that takes practice.


The other goal I have is my writing. This one got put aside at the end of the year because of Christmas things and other things. Many things! But it is always at the forefront of my mind. One of the issues I have is that my ADHD makes it very difficult for me to sit down for extended periods and work on my writing. It’s something I’ve struggled with for years. I am working with my doctor to find an ADHD medicine that works to help my focus, but until then I have to soldier on the way I always have in trying to find techniques that help.


My latest idea is a new working area. I think my habitual behavior around my computer and computer desk are too solidified at this point, so I’m going to try and turn downstairs into more of a ‘focus area’. When I’m down there I do tend to be focusing on tasks like my plants or woodworking. It’s a new thing to try and I’m feeling good about it.


And because measurable goals are always important. I want to do 1 hour of writing a day, six days a week (not sure which days yet), and I want to do 5 minutes of stillness a day before my yoga.

Christmas is Imminent

Laura Highcove

I find myself with a sudden influx of time before the holiday, which is quite nice. Mostly because I still have woodworking projects to do for Christmas presents, and doing woodworking is hard when you have to go outside and it’s only 30 degrees. But, this also means I ended up with some extra time for getting through my BotN list. Again, I keep being surprised with how …together/neat, the end already is. I suppose part of it is the stories I’ve worked on most recently are the end of my Storyteller series where I had three and then like nine povs, and that tends to make things rather …complex. The end of the first book of the Storyteller was rather neat and only had one pov. This book has two, and really by the end has really drifted back to just one. Just an interesting thing to notice.

Plans for the coming week include Christmas, with a healthy dose of travel, and woodworking. If I have time I’ll get to some writing, but truthfully, I’m not going to push it. Honor your reality. At least out the window it looks like it’s shaping up to be a nice day, even if this weekend is going to be horrendously cold.

I wish everyone out there a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday for whichever holiday you celebrate (or don’t). And in general, I hope you have a good time with family and/or friends. I’ll see you in the new year.

Achieving Goals

Laura Highcove

Did the list for chapters 6-10. There are some things to work on but that’s the next step, right now I’m still just taking stock of what still needs to be done. For the most part, the story seems really solid. I mean I’m not saying it’s perfect, but it feels far more together than I was expecting. Really, only the final two chapters are a ‘mess’, and I expect to have a little trouble when I get there. I think this story has just come together really well and that makes me happy. I’m feeling good about getting this Rough Draft done so I can get it out to beta readers and see what an actual audience thinks.

Making Plans

Laura Highcove

So I know a lot of you have been waiting for an update. Sorry about that, got a little distracted by things. I had to play the new Pokemon game after all. My husband and I managed to beat it in eight days, but we had some nice vacation time in there that really helped. I had Violet for anyone who was interested. Poor game was pushed out way too early, which is a shame because it’s such a good game despite all that, so it would’ve been so amazing if it were polished.

Also just finished 1899, a new show on Netflix, and I’ll be putting up a review for before too long. Short answer: Really enjoyed it.

And even with all that, I’ve been working my way through my BotN Draft 0, figuring out what things still need to be fixed to get a solid rough draft out of it. The beginning of the story is so polished so there’s not much to do there. The end will need a lot of work I’m sure, but I think I have a good structure.

For those of you who have been asking, yes, I am still going to be putting up Chapter 1 of BotN for your reading pleasure. I just want to get through this pass and make sure there shouldn’t be any major changes in chapter 1. I don’t think there will be, but such is the life of an artist. I’m going to tentatively say look for it at the beginning of next year.

I am also looking into restarting my visual novel adaptation of The Law of the Prince Charming. In case you forgot, you can go read it in full (or have me read it to you) here. Or you can wait and see when I get that up and running. My idea its to use some AI art, but I’m not sure how well that will work for consistent characters. If anyone has any experience with AI generated art and/or has any suggestions let me know.

Draft 0

Laura Highcove

I finished Draft 0 of Blessings of the Neriel yesterday. (For clarification, I define a Draft 0 as a draft that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Those are the only requirements.) I was having so much trouble making myself sit down and write, and when I did sit down I just didn’t know what to do.

I sat down and wrote out everything else that needed to happen for the book to be done, and it was like, not very much. So I opened a new document in Scrivener and wrote the following:

“I am so resistant to/terrified of finishing this story. That’s okay, be terrified and write anyway. Make this the absolute worst trash you’ve ever written, use psuedo code, use clichés, break the fourth wall. Do your worst and get it done.”

And that’s what I did. I wrote each scene I had in my list. When I had accomplished the thing I was supposed to and stalled in getting from place to place, or from scene to scene, I just put a line break in and started writing the next thing. I called out issues I’d have to fix later and ignored them. I ignored scene plot holes (A lot of stuff happens at the Kismet Building, let me tell you.) and just wrote. And I got to the end. Is it good? No? It it readable? I mean technically since I used English words, but in terms of story, no. But is it done? Yes.

Still Missing Goals

Laura Highcove

So it’s 10pm on November 2 and I still don’t have my goals hashed out. I wrote both yesterday and today, but the goal I set for myself this morning ended up not being possible. I went into a scene I thought would be an easy edit, and ripped it to shreds. The next scene I still don’t know what’s going to happen in it.


There’s a lesson in here somewhere about ‘keep at it’, and ‘keep revising your goals’, and you know what? Right now I am just over it. I put in my time today and I’m done.


I mean this isn’t given up forever, but while I could continue pounding on this for the next hour trying to finish it, I think that would do more harm than good. Done for today. There is tomorrow.

Tripping Before NaNoWriMo

Laura Highcove

My plans were very much affected by life. I started off alright, only I underestimated …well everything. First off, there are a lot more emotionally draining scenes at the end of this book than I thought. There’s a lot going on, and obviously this is the point where everything is going wrong in order to make things seem the most dire. In addition to that, I had two appointments on Wednesday, one for the dentist which is just never fun, and another one that I knew would be emotionally draining. So I took it easy Wednesday, planning on getting back to writing on Thursday. Only there are some things going on at work that either on their own, or in addition to the events on Wednesday, made it so by the time I got to Saturday I was so completely and totally out of fucks.


As you may have guessed, that means I got very little (I did get some) writing done. I am still in Chapter 13 in a scene that is emotionally difficult to write, followed by a scene that is technically difficult to write. After that maybe I will get to a few scenes that are mostly together and less draining.


However, you may noticed, as I have, that NaNoWriMo starts the day after tomorrow. And the free time I have Monday morning is taken up by a rescheduled horseback riding lesson. So the short of it is, I can’t finish Draft 0 by November and it would be irresponsible to try. I will get some done, obviously. I think I can get through Chapter 13. Right now, I think I’m going to just get what I can done today, since I have other things I want to do as well. And I’m going to spend my first day of Nano figuring out where I am and then making some new goals.