In my last post, I talked about Armored Core VI; how good it is, and how it was perfect for me when it came out. Now I want to talk about a game that I love, that has critical acclaim, glowing reviews from fans, and the deepest time sink I’ve ever experienced – Baldur’s Gate 3.

For a little over 2 years I played Dungeons and Dragons almost religiously. Saturday mornings were for catching up with friends, exploring dungeons, and dying… a lot.

My group is a fan of simpler, more dangerous tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs). The real gritty stuff that doesn’t include the fluff of required backstories or forced narrative. Instead, we start with blank characters and discover who they are while exploring a dangerous and interesting world.

For example, I rolled a character with awful stats, like, just the pits. None of his stats were above double digits. I named him Dirst Baeg and chose to play him first because there was a good chance he was going to die very early. Against all odds, Dirst outlived the entire starting party, and when he did eventually get bonked and eaten by a giant ogre, everyone was sad. The legend of Dirst wasn’t who he was before I played him. His legend was built by playing.

That’s why I prefer rules-lite, dangerous, and tense Dungeons and Dragons. That’s why we don’t play DND 5th edition.

For those who do not know, DND can be played however you want to play it. The official rules are written by Wizards of the Coast, but there are hundreds if not thousands of rule sets you can use to add to your game. You can take rules out, adjust stats on the fly, and even write your own ruleset. One of my favorite rule sets is from PROLE. Everything is dependent on coin flips rather than dice and modifiers. It’s simple, easy, and fun!

For my group, Old School Essentials was our favorite ruleset. However, over time our Dungeon Master wrote his own rules that worked for our group. We prefer deadly rules that create real tension in the game. We also prefer that the story of our adventures be created while at the table. Not during character creation or DM prep.

I recognize this isn’t for everyone. They’d prefer a curated story that can be followed by the same group of characters over years of playtime. However, my group is not trying to replicate Critical Role, The Adventure Zone, and other radio-show-like campaigns. Instead, we prefer a sandbox approach to our campaigns.

We also enjoy MAUSRITTER. In short, the easier the rules, the quicker the fun, the better.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is a video game adaptation of Dungeons and Dragons. It uses the ruleset from Wizards of the Coast and adapts it to a video game about adventurers trying to get eldritch tadpoles out of their brains. That’s a super dumbed-down version of the story but it’s surprisingly accurate.

Players start the game by creating a character. There are a lot of options to choose from and most of the options available in traditional DND are present. You get to choose your character’s race, class, and their background. It’s a deep part of the game and you might find yourself spending a long time making your character. You can also choose to play the game as one of the starting party members.

After your character is made, the game kicks off with an incredible action-packed opening that puts your character on a mind-flayer ship that is being attacked by dragon riders. It’s a lot to take in, especially if you aren’t familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, but it’s also a great opening that starts the game with a bang.

After that, you can do whatever you want (mostly). There are several party members to find around the starting area who will help guide the initial parts of your journey and as you discover more of the sword coasts, you’ll find plenty of adventure threads to keep you entertained.

So here’s the thing. This is my third attempt at writing this piece. I’ve been trying to think more critically about my experiences with video games, board games, movies, and TV. Not critically in the sense of being a downer, but critically in the sense of – “What makes this good?” and “Why am I enjoying this?” or even “Why am I not liking this?”. Now that I have 27 hours in Baldur’s Gate 3, I think my thoughts are done percolating… So here we go.

My first play session was 3 hours long. When I ended the night I had made 1.5 hours of progress. I lost half of my playtime because my party got wiped out almost instantly from a trap, and it wasn’t because I failed a perception check. I walked into the mouth of a cave and a statue’s eyes turned red and wiped out my party like we were nothing.

This is how the game was pitched to me;

“It’s just like DND and you can do whatever you want. You’re doing yourself a disservice by not playing it. Oh, you can also talk to animals.”

Most of this quote is wrong. It’s not just like dnd and you can’t do whatever you want. Creating a game that perfectly replicates the experience of a TTRPG is not possible. At the table, you can say whatever you want, ask whatever you want, and do whatever you want. There are no limitations and if your GM is into collaboration, you can even bring things into existence.

In traditional DND my party can talk with the GM and see how effective a plan would be and whether or not it’s possible. Because it’s impossible to replicate this back and forth in a video game, it convolutes what is possible.

I don’t know how to fully answer this. At the time of finally publishing this, I’ve spent 41 hours of my life playing this game and my thoughts are still everywhere. But, I did find one thing that keeps me going back for more.

There’s a lot to get excited about when looking at Baldur’s Gate 3. Unbelievably niche roleplaying opportunities, an incredibly customizable combat system, and a plethora of items to explore.

The concept that makes me keep going back to Baldur’s Gate 3 is the unknown. I don’t know where I’ll go next, what kind of people I’ll meet, what secrets I’ll find, or how I’ll solve a problem. While the game is not as open-ended as DND on the tabletop, it is open in the sense that you never know exactly when you’ve seen it all.

And I want to see it all.