I asked my husband to give me an early birthday present: Baulder’s Gate 3. He said he was surprised I hadn’t pre-ordered. I stuck my tongue out at him because it was the most mature response I had.
I haven’t had a tabletop game all year. The only regular game I had kept hitting bumps and the Game Master (GM) finally called a hiatus. The anxiety of looking for a new gaming group (especially because I’m sitting here going “I can only game for like 3-4 hours on these specific days/evenings/times”) feels beyond daunting.
But I miss it. I have found excuses to pull out and use my dice for things. “What game do I want to play” or “what book do I want to read” or “which chore am I doing next” can all merit a die roll.
This game. The intro scene literally had me squealling in excitement, “I wanna ride a dragon!! How do I get to ride a dragon?!?!”
I’m glad my husband wasn’t home at the time. He would have laughed at me and made me self-conscious.
Character creation was good. Not brilliant, but really good. I am a gamer who knows how to make D&D characters, but I wanna do it in my order. Spells are picked last. Like Last-last. Honestly, for anyone who hasn’t made dozens upon dozens of characters in bunches of systems both class and points-based… it was a good introduction to character creation. My complaints are totally nerdbrags.
The option to pick my genitals freaked me out a little. Like it asked “are you ok with nudity” but I was not expecting that level. I really wish they had phrased the question a little differently, “nudity in this game may reach US-Rated-R levels, are you comfortable with HBO or Starz level nudity” would have given me context to make a better informed decision. I’m about 6 hours in the game and no one has been nude yet, so I’m still not sure what that’s about.
Again, 5 hours in, I still feel a little rail-roaded. Again, this is a “pushing my glasses up my nose so I can look down with appropriate disdain,” good gaming would be more open world in the plot. I’m full of shit on this one, the first hour or so is linear and then it does open up a bunch. I can see where I have the option to go “full good paladin of goodness and light” or “evil dark and plan to devour the world” with variations in between.
There is a plot. That is a good thing. This is not actually a tabletop with a GM trying to improv around some crazy players. The plot is fine, at least so far everything has been predictable (nothing shocked me in 5 hours).
There are a few things I haven’t figured out yet. The map rotates and I hate it. I want my mini-map to be locked North. But when I rotate my camera around my character, the map rotates too. It means I constantly have to look at the full map to figure out which cardinal direction I’m really going in. Again, this is the stupid-details level complaint I have.
This game is so good for my love of three things:
Baulder’s Gate (I still have my CD’s of Baulder’s Gate the original and I have played it so many times). Like I plan my character creation depending on which of the other possible characters I CAN have in my party. The Love is deep and real and not many games have made such a place in my heart.
Tabletop roleplaying. I love RPGs. I love the dice. I have horrible die luck, but I love it nonetheless. I prefer points-systems to class, but the class systems are classic and when I can’t do points, a fair and reasonable second place.
Fantasy. I love a good fantasy world and for all the flack (justified or not) D&D gets, the Forgotten Realms are quite an interesting world. I would love to see Larian studio get to build in another realm (Scarred Lands or Deadlands or 7th Sea or Orïsha) with or without D&D as a backdrop system (all the ones I mentioned except Scarred Lands would require a system adjustment).
In other words, this game is great. I am loving it.
Dream by Day 