With Patch 8 coming tomorrow to “Baldur’s Gate 3,” I want to highlight how phenomenal of a game it is. This amazing game is, however, not a TTRPG and not for lack of trying.
Larian Studios and their Game of the Year entry “Baldur’s Gate 3” is a stunning RPG that uses the Dungeons & Dragons world and rules to create a massive and dynamic story. It was the kind of game that took a bit of convincing, but after a good chunk of time with some friends and running through the story we immediately got hooked and explored every facet to the world we could think of. There’s some reservations from traditional video game players considering the combat style is a lot slower after being adapted from the source’s Tabletop RPG, but a lot of computerized smoothing allows turns to go a bit faster than they would normally around the table. With a new patch on the way adding more depth and even more subclasses to the game, it’s a great time to jump right in and explore the world as a new or returning player.
This article, however, isn’t about that.
I wanted to open with a lot of praise for the game because, as you can tell, I love it! I’ve sunk 150 hours into it with a couple playthroughs with various people, including one on their coveted “Honour” mode in which a party wipe ends with a game over. I’ve even already reserved space on my SSD to download the newest update and jump right in with my friends yet again. The issue is that this excitement from the game has been finally curbed by a new craving for TTRPGs and the enjoyment of a physical role-playing game with my friends.
I’m sure people are at least somewhat familiar with Baldur’s Gate 3’s source material, but Dungeons & Dragons is a sort of board game usually played with one player acting as a Dungeon Master, or DM, that runs the game’s background and story as the controlling force. The players play and act as their characters, and the DM runs everything else and leads them through the story that is played out. It’s imaginative and nerdy, but my first comprehensive experience with the TTRPG genre has finally explained to me why it is that I couldn’t find my fill within Baldur’s Gate 3. The style and world and combat might be there, but nothing can replace the naturally human aspect of a physical TTRPG.
For that, I’ve turned to Pathfinder 2e—a fork of D&D that is detached from Wizards of the Coast and has a separate appeal of a world with a similar style. About 2 months ago, I entered a campaign with 4 friends and a great DM at the helm as we entered into a story that I’ll be continuing today directly after this article is posted. It’s a distinctly slower process than a game of Baldur’s Gate 3 considering the time we take between sessions to make sure everyone is around and ready to play as well as the planning that goes into it beforehand, but the result is something that became a weekly joy for me. I think that despite the accessibility of Balder’s Gate 3, the lack of humanity in some of the elements is jarring compared to the incredible experience of playing a physical TTRPG.
For example, while Baldur’s Gate 3 has choices that matter and ways to expand your character and their journey, it always ends up trapped within the rules of a computer system that will always come to restrict you in one way or another. I think a lot of us have various headcanons about our own characters that we enjoy enacting in the game still—for example, I enjoyed running a pyromaniac dragonborn sorcerer who’d use their fire to attempt to bust through doors and tear down structures even if the game wouldn’t really allow it. This, however, was sort of the extent of what I was doing. It was a restricted form of storytelling due to the way I couldn’t really bring my own notes to the table and work with the game to allow me some unique homebrew details. It’s this feeling that I think manifested into a fun character I played for my current campaign in Pathfinder, something I’ll go into for a while now if my friends from the campaign PROMISE NOT TO READ PAST THIS POINT.
Good? Good.
My wonderful girl (pictured above, art by Nicky!!) is a Psychic Kitsune by the name of Eccentricity Stillglade, or Echo for short. She’s a bubbly, naive maid with the world barely starting to open up to her as she leaves the manor for the first time after a mysterious loss of memory and melodic note addressed to her. She fights with a knife by her side and a slew of telekinetic tricks, but mostly works to heal and serve her accompanying party as she dedicates herself to protection. As a Kitsune, she also suffers from a need to feed off of emotion and memory in a homebrewed condition that I’ve written far too much on and worked with my DM to finalize. She suffers from many other minor details in a long backstory that leaves her with other minor quirks, such as the voice in her head she hears from beyond the planes of reality that directed her to the starting location of the campaign. As she struggles with the dangers of a world that will trample her and her childlike innocence without a care, she has to find a way to grow up and be the dependable assistant her party needs before they’re swallowed whole by the war that storms the lands.
And all of this is just the surface of this story. Echo’s tale is open-ended and grows with each session as my DM runs us through a world that she has to react to. While I had issues learning to involve myself in shared storytelling and give up an element of control with my original character, I fell in love with the result as she begins to expand and grow into someone I feel is one of my most satisfying fictional characters. It was this element of Pathfinder that made me realize how different it was from Balder’s Gate 3—working with my fellow party members and DM to create something truly unique to me that everyone was excited to see, a feeling shared by my excitement to see all the things my friends had created as well. The creativity of my friends is something I enjoy celebrating, whether outside of sessions when talking about obscure lore or during the sessions as they explain how they attempt to reason with enemy scouts. There’s also an element of creating tension through relationships and how our characters clash and talk, making decisions that others disagree with and going through complex intrapersonal discussions on how we can get along.
An additional note I would love to address alongside it—the scuff of human error also improves the experience of playing the game compared to a computer. Things are set in stone in ways that, while still inspiring creativity with unique ways to solve issues in Baldur’s Gate 3, must still work alongside what the computer expects. There’s no debate or discussion, but just a matter of fact reality that disconnects me from the whimsical nature. The removal of this comes with the cost of corner cases and rolling back rules or scenes to fix issues, but the nature of it comes off as comedic brevity that always manages to feel natural despite the tense nature of situations. I’m reminded of a fun conversation between a fellow player and his DM, interrupting the DM’s description of an arrow dissolving into a mud elemental’s body with a note of its damage being reduced because of the nature of the piercing arrow being slowed on impact. It was then that my player had to remind the DM of the bow’s magical power in which it deals bludgeoning damage for the purpose of resistances. The DM spoke up after a short consideration.
“Fuck I’m lying then.”
The amount of laughter during sessions even during emotional beats never fails to leave me with a smile, but even those moments cannot stop the weight of some of the struggles during sessions from hitting particularly hard. The storytelling and worldbuilding with a select group of friends feels incredible when the limit is non-existent, instead just a suggestion as we homebrew and create our story together in a way unlike any game a computer could ever hold. What a TTRPG is fundamentally transcends video games by bending rules in a way that allows for a world that remains defined but adjustable.
I’ll wrap up by reiterating—I love Baldur’s Gate 3, and highly recommend it to people to enjoy. I’ll be playing tomorrow for sure to enjoy the new things added with Patch 8. But, additionally, I recommend to anyone that has the opportunity to try and run a TTRPG of whatever system appeals so you can enjoy the feeling of what Baldur’s Gate 3 was attempting to replicate. I’m sure some people may enjoy it more than the physical experience of TTRPGs like Pathfinder due to various reasons or faster play, but the two are separate experiences that are not interchangeable and both are worthy of your time and attention.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to step into the big shoes of my darling Eccentricity in a moment and take on the invaders to protect the spirits of our magical lands.