Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General D&D 5E popularity

Hehe. Nice image, @Hawke! It's why I just auto-ignore certain posters.

For those of you, like me, who are big into the outside of combat roleplay-heavy elements of RPGs, you should check out Disco Elysium, releasing next week. It's an indie game that is receiving lots of praise in review after review.

Yep, there are a lot of parts where brains are needed. They will sustain the plot to keep it moving forward to its conclusion. This plot may eat upon your brain and puzzle you.

Same experiences with me. In all my D&D TT games back in the day every DM I played with and myself as well when I DM'd, we always used house rules to get around what we considered to be tedious and unrealistic combat. But more importantly, in virtually every game, combat was very decidedly secondary to the non-combat parts of the game. We'd even go several weeks worth of playing without a single combat encounter, with intrigue and political machinations and puzzles and the like being what the game was all about. As such it was your choice of all the non-combat skills and abilities and feats as well as your non-combat equipment and consumables that really mattered. We even enforced characters' "knowledge" skills, known languages, and ability to read and write.

These are the things I hope BG3 will have a whole heck of a lot of, and if so then even if I don't like their combat system as I expect I won't, well, no big deal.

That's not an unreasonable position, but IMNSHO the combat in PS:T was rather lacklustre, so without the story/writing the game would have been entirely forgettable. While I've seen the 'book' criticism before, I don't think I've ever seen anyone recommend the game for the combat (not that it comes up very frequently any more in general gaming discussions).

I still see it come up fairly often with some gamer friends who I'd view as the pretty "hardcore" variety (by which I mean not self-styled) and they still consider it one of the all-time classic RPGs because of its story. The only time combat is mentioned is to point out it's not that great, as you say...

Im fairly sure Divinity Original Sin was recommended almost entierly because of its combat

That's certainly not why I recommended it: the reason why "I am not a fan of TB" wasn't a huge big deal is because combat is only a part of the game.

Looking at recent games I have played: Greedfall: yes, plenty of combat and preparing for it, and I'm rubbish at it; but it's a game that also has lots of atmosphere, story, intrigue and lore, which are more interesting to me. Shadwen: which being a stealth game is specifically about avoiding combat. A Plague Tale, also stealth but with heavy focus on story and adventure too. Some combat but it plays a fairly minor part. What Remains of Edith Finch: pure storytelling adventure, no combat.

At least two of them are games that will leave a lasting impression on me; possibly all, time will tell. None of that was down to combat. And none of the reason that Original Sin (and Divinity II before it) are a couple of my personal "four star" games is due to combat. It's down to what else they had to offer.

You need a good mixture of both combat (action) and story for an RPG. You might as well play Frogger if there is no story and Read a book if there is no Combat (action in the game). Hopefully, Larian will deliver a GREAT game that has the perfect combination of both story and combat (action).

Not necessarily. Undertale, To the moon and the aforementioned PST, Age of decadence,Tides of Numenera, etc are perfectly categorized as RPG, more than many. And could have almost zero combat if you like it that way.

That said, It would be a pity if they do not make use of the fun combat in D&D5e if they make a game in the SW setting, but it would be interesting if also make use of other mechanics like the skills, the factions, the RP-oriented missions and more things that you can enjoy outside combat.

Yes I agree. BG3 is going to have a lot of combat for sure. But this argument that if a game has lots of reading you may as well read a book etc. is a straw-man argument. A video game is interactive. A book is not. That is a fundamental and huge difference.

to the moon is the oscar bait of video games.
Age of Decadence is a very different kind of RPG that scratches a very different itch.
Correct me if im wrong but istn age of decadence that kind of RPG that kills you on hard social dice rolls?


and its not a straw man argument. There are interactive books, they tend not to be high literature, but neither are video games.

Disco elysium came this week too. Looks like an amazing RPG game. It is dialogue-based and they promised that you can solve most quests with no combat involved.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/632470/Disco_Elysium/

its got a cool artstyle i give it that. but ive learned to stay away from RPGs that boast about beeing able to solve things without combat.
Nine times out of then, these games have an "lets have less actual content" button if youve got the apropriate stats.

Youre kind of missing my point here. Im not saying that the games that do dialogue choice based gameplay dont do it enaugh, im saying dialogue choice based gameplay isnt actually what non combat RPGs should be based on.

Yeah I mentioned it myself in one of my earlier posts in this thread. It's a true RPG in a sea of action/combat games pretending to be RPGs.

I've been playing this for a couple hours. I'm liking how hilarious it is. The amount of humor is almost stupid and it's pretty well done too. So far, anyway.

Please keep posting observations from your play-through. I especially want to know how their personality system actually works out in the game. I really love their game mechanics. My only source of hesitation on getting the game is that I tend to only like games that use a medieval setting rather than a contemporary setting. But maybe, hopefully, this game will be different for me.

Man, the game is hilarious. Your character is absolutely insane.

Creative and savoir fair are not super-useful but they are very fun options in every dialogue. 'Everyone thinks you're fucking insane and you probably are' from what I know"
My character just convinced the lock of a container to open itself because I took that advice from my tie. Clever tie.
Then I reached a game over sitting in a very uncomfortable chair because of a heart attack.
Also, I am a master of "The expression" now.
I love the game so far.