I love being evil in RPGs. In my first Baldur’s Gate 3 playthrough, I not only recruited Minthara and attacked the Grove, I also cheated on Gale and murdered a healthy helping of townsfolk. I’m trying to be good this time (it went horribly wrong before), saving lives across the Sword Coast as a diligent paladin and reuniting long-lost loved ones as I guide the tieflings to the relative safety of the city. There’s just one hiccup: my party.

Right now, I have Gale, who I turned into a necromancer; the power-hungry and irredeemable Minthara, and everyone’s favourite pale elf, Astarion. At every turn, they cheer on insatiable power and sneer at helping those in need. Gale is the closest thing I have to an angel on my shoulder, so you know I’m screwed.

I didn’t slaughter the tieflings to recruit Minthara. I knocked her out, stole her clothes, broke her out of Moonrise Tower, and hoped to god she’d see the light, but she keeps saying, ‘Pwettty pweese, can we kill all the helpless bystanders and take the Absolute’s power for ourselves.’

When venturing into Shar’s Gauntlet, we swiftly convinced Orthon Yurgir to kill himself so that we could plunder his loot and reach the Nightsong. It also fulfilled a deal Astarion made with Raphael to find out what the infernal words etched onto his back meant, revealing a ritual that would allow his master Cazador to ascend to godhood by sacrificing his flock.

As a paladin of do-goodery, I couldn’t abide by such senseless murder and so I vowed to kill Cazador and prevent this bloodshed, freeing Astarion in the process. Then Minthara crept up to me and planted the suggestion that we let Astarion ascend in his master’s place, using that power against the Absolute, which she also wants to use for her own gain.

You can be good in a strict, ‘picking the moral choices’ sense when you have an evil party, but it doesn’t feel good. Every nice deed and heroic act is undermined by the jabs from your companions and the barely hidden plotting. I’m bringing a bloodthirsty murderer who was willing to wipe out a camp of helpless refugees to the most powerful being in Faerûn—I’m either naive, a complete idiot, or so enamoured by my hot drow girlfriend that I’m putting everyone at risk. Hardly the paragon of valour.

Sure, I could swap the evil party members out for good ones like Wyll or Karlach, but I can’t get enough of Minthara and Astarion’s sass.

I’m dangerously close to breaking my oath. And I’m so worn down by the incessant nagging to clutch at every possible opportunity for power that I’m uncomfortably close to swearing off my good playthrough at the last minute. The tieflings made it to Baldur’s Gate this time, but I can feel the dark urge to let Astarion ascend again, even though I’m not even playing as Durge!

It doesn’t help that, while saving the world and being the Captain America of nauseating morality, I have Gale standing at my side with resurrected zombies of those I failed to save or those I brutally cut down. He might not be as into the whole mass murdering thing as Minthara and Astarion, but twisting him into an all-powerful necromancer feels as immoral as everything else.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is excellent at letting you play how you want, carving out your own story to the backdrop of Larian’s tale of mind flayers and parasites. It’s so freeing to be able to play as a good character without swearing off the more villainous party members, but at the same time, having them by my side is starting to rub off on me. Minthara is right. It’d be a lot easier to take down the Absolute with every morsel of power we can grab, but the cost is too grave, and Gale is busy enough digging those up for his experiments.