If you’re reading this, it’s because A) You want to know about Baldur’s Gate 3 the video game – which you can read and watch more about in our
Baldur’s Gate 3 preview, and maybe B) How Dungeons-&-Dragons-y is Baldur’s Gate 3, really? That second point is what I’m going to cover. If you’re a D&D nerd like me, you might be wondering about things like passive perception, initiative, how a video game could possibly handle the ‘Wish’ spell, and how Baldur’s Gate 3 connects with the tabletop – you know, that good nerd stuff.
So let me answer the big question the best I can: Baldur’s Gate 3 is very Dungeons-and-Dragons-y. Lots of video games over the years have tried to capture the insane unpredictability – and I hesitate to say, soul – of Dungeons & Dragons by the sheer muscly breadth of their systems. Most have failed, regardless of whether they’re good or bad video games. It’s not really about that.
[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/02/27/2-hours-into-baldurs-gate-3-and-were-sold"]
If you play D&D you know that it’s more than just a bunch of cool parts bound together in a player’s handbook or monster manual, and recreating those parts alone can’t necessarily make the whole. Like a sweet, shiny clockwork golem, the cogs can be in place, those gears can whir, the pistons can surge chaotic fire through the frame, but it still doesn’t have a soul. That’s because Dungeons & Dragons is more than just dirty twenties and nat ones and plus-two loot for your action-surging fighter. There’s this intangible, honest creativity that can’t easily be programmed or rendered – if at all. It’s a thing that only seems to materialize between collective imaginations if you’re lucky enough to tap a vein of it. So, with that long-winded perspective gleaned, with everything I’ve seen firsthand and learned directly from the developers, I can say Baldur’s Gate 3 is looking like it’s damn close to lighting the spark.
Measuring the Intangibles
Whenever I try to explain why it’s hard to recreate the Dungeons & Dragons experience, the easiest example I go to is the arcane schools of magic and the mind-bending shenanigans they offer.
You've got spells like Firebolt, Fireball, Haste, Dimension Door, Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, and Meteor Storm – all fairly straightforward, right? Then you’ve got things like Minor Illusion, Major Image, Suggestion, Phantasmal Killer, Legend Lore, and Wish leaning on the intangibles of collective creativity. How do you plan for that?
“Well, thankfully we actually have a lot of experience doing this sort of thing from Divinity: Original Sin 2],” said Matt Holland, Combat Designer on Baldur’s Gate 3. “As for the intangible ones, like Wish, for example, we do have to give you a limited option of things you can do.
[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=%22If%20you're%20worried%20about%20not%20having%20enough%20access%20to%20options%20and%20the%20spell%20lists%2C%20don't%20worry.%22"]
“Depending on the situation, you never know what the options are going to be. Maybe that is your ‘win’ button. But similar to Baldur's Gate II, there are some really snarky and funny interactions you could have with that.”
In BioWare’s Baldur’s Gate 2, casting Wish essentially gave you a list of options to choose from based on your ability scores. In many cases, you had a shot of completely screwing yourself over, and with a poor enough check, you were almost guaranteed to harm more than help. It wasn’t quite the limitless fountain of power you can get away with at the table, but it was pretty entertaining, with a diverse list of options to choose from. And that was in the year 2000. The prospect of a Larian-crafted set of possibilities are, well, pretty exciting for a video game of which they’ve only shown two hours and still managed to touch on vampires, devils pitching contracts, a red-dragon-riding-gith squadron, Illithid interplanar travel, and a somehow smarmier version of Volothamp Geddarm.
[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/02/27/baldurs-gate-3-opening-cinematic-in-4k"]
“We're thinking really long and hard about which spells we're putting into the game and how we want to adapt them into our system,” Holland said. “Even something like Mage Hand, which was really difficult. We weren't sure how we were going to do it, but it ended up being so that it's [like its own] character that can push things and throw things and all that.
“Obviously you won't see every single spell, but there's really a lot that you get to play with. There are still spells that we are working through and trying to get the design written out for in our system. But yeah, if you're worried about not having enough access to options and the spell lists, don't worry.”
Real Time Stop
“What do you do?” If one question could define Dungeons & Dragons, I think it’s that. All at once it’s a call to action, an invitation to creativity, and an assurance that this story is made up of the infinite possibilities knocking around your collective imaginations. That’s a tough concept to tackle in a video game for two reasons. For one, you need time to stop for a moment, to figure out what you want to do, what you can do, and the best way to go about it. But you also need time to have a sense of continuity so the consequences of your actions or inaction can be adjudicated and therefore meaningful.
That’s why Baldur’s Gate 3 is introducing a fusion of real-time and turn-based that’s similar to Divinity: Original Sin 2, but more in line with the six-second rounds of Dungeons & Dragons. When you’re not in combat and exploring, time flows freely. When you’ve rolled initiative and turns are declared, you drop into turn-based combat – it’s roughly the same balance as Divinity: Original Sin 2. But that grey area between the two is where Baldur’s Gate 3 shines.
[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=You%E2%80%99ve%20broken%20into%20some%20poor%20cheesemonger%E2%80%99s%20shop%20to%20rummage%20for%20soft%20cheese%20and%20hard%20profit."]
For example, playing Dungeons & Dragons, let’s say you’re in a village and you’ve broken into some poor cheesemonger’s shop in the dead of night to rummage for soft cheese and hard profit. How chaotic of you. Suddenly you hear a groggy thud followed by a series of shuffling footsteps on the weathered boards above. What do you do? You ask, “Is there somewhere I can hide?” There is, in fact, somewhere you can hide. There’s a barrel that smells of fermentation or a corner beyond the offensive bright rays of the full moon where a deep shadow calls home. You make the decision and roll for Stealth. Then the footsteps – and what sounds like a large club clacking against a hard surface – begin to drift down the staircase from the second floor. They’re loud, and they’re getting louder. What do you do?
[widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=baldurs-gate-3-gameplay-screenshots&captions=true"]
These call and response moments of tension are some of the best parts of Dungeons & Dragons, and in Baldur’s Gate 3, they’re manifested in a real-time pause mechanic. In situations where you’re not in open battle, but you need to plan each action or segment of your movement, you’ll smash that pause button and begin to map out a daring and deft series of commands and then advance the turn, allowing the round to move forward before you plan the next six seconds. It’s incredibly cool to see it in action and taps that same vein of tension.
“I think the big thing you guys are going to notice when it comes to that gameplay is how good it feels to play a stealth character,” Holland said. “You know that you get to move, and then the world gets to move for six seconds, and then you get to move again. Really plan it out and it just adds a whole other dimension to playing that character. Divinity: Original Sin 2 was a lot more finicky, and you really had to time it well. It just never felt as good as we would've wanted it to, and with this system, it feels just amazing.”
All Four One
Baldur’s Gate 3’s most apparent shift from the familiar rules of Dungeons & Dragons is the initiative system. It’s actually not a departure from the rule book, but Larian has opted to use the Side Initiative option – look it up, page 270 in the 5e Dungeon Master’s Guide – for better team cohesion. At the table, I prefer the standard rules: players roll, monsters roll, everyone goes in turn. And to be honest I was a little taken aback when I spotted this variant in play in Baldur’s Gate 3. But, actually, it makes a ton of sense considering the communal elements Larian is baking into the game.
Side Initiative essentially boils down to each side rolls a d20, the side with the highest roll wins, and everyone on that team goes first in whatever order they choose. On the upside, combat is faster, and it allows for some really creative combos and powerful group tactics. On the downside, characters that optimize for high initiative rolls don’t get any of those benefits, and it allows for some really creative combos and powerful group tactics. That means the side that goes first has a really good chance of unbalancing the action economy by focus firing one or two targets or dropping a bunch of utility spells to immobilize or debuff opponents before they get to go. It’s a double-edged sword.
[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=Side%20Initiative%20in%20Baldur's%20Gate%203%20is%20a%20small%20change%20that%20really%20captures%20the%20D%26D%20spirit%2C%20namely%2C%20spirited%20D%26D."]
However, here’s why it makes sense in Baldur’s Gate 3: cooperative multiplayer. Larian is pulling the two-player local and four-player online multiplayer nearly straight from Divinity: Original Sin 2.
