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I am a fan of the RPG genre, played games such as Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Fable, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Witcher and I saw Baldurs Gate 3 on Steam recommendations. I dont played dungeon and dragon games before, I wonder how many of these players are on the forum?
I have a theory that for many, Baldurs Gate 3 will be the first game to open up the Forgotten Realms universe for them. I liked this universe - a very rich lore, and I'm interested in learning new things about it.

How does the dungeon and dragon community feel about the neophytes who came from other RPG games but had no business with DnD before?
The reaction of those for whom BG3 also became the first game on DnD is also interesting.

My first impression was that the game took the best stuff from Dragon Age Origin and gave even more freedom, but has heavier mechanics which you need to understand




Minthara is the best character and she NEEDS to be recruitable if you side with the grove!
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I think it's great to introduce new players to the world and lore of Dungeons and Dragons.

I think BG3 will be the first decent, AAA game made in the D&D universe in a long time.
I'm hopeful that they'll enjoy the game enough that they might decide to give the tabletop system a try.
I suspect Wizards of the Coast are hoping the same.

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Played:

Cadash
Gold Box Games (Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness, Gateway to the Savage Frontier, Treasures of the Savage Frontier, Champions of Krynn)
Eye of the Beholder
Dragon Strike (sort of a dragon flight simulator set in Dragonlance)
Dungeon Hack
Temple of Elemental Evil
Pool of Radiance (00s version)
Icewind Dale 1 & 2
Baldur's Gate 1 & 2
NWN 1 & 2
Demon Stone
Sword Coast Legends
Dungeons and Dragons Online

probably a handful of other D&D CRPGs....I've had fun with....most if not all of them....I have Menzoberranzan and the Ravenloft games sitting around somewhere as well, but haven't played them yet (I'm fearful they haven't aged well)

I had had hopes for Sword Coast Legends, but it decided to just pay 5e mechanics lip service...it was still a fun game and if anybody was still selling it I'd suggest playing it. But it marketed itself as something it wasn't and thus failed. Hopefully someone picks up the license and offers it for sale again at a reduced rate somewhere, but I suppose that might be a legal quagmire. It was fun, even if it wasn't really D&D.

The Gold Box Games weren't my introduction to the game (That would be my brothers) but they were the first chance I got to play D&D (my first RPG was Champions 1st ed) and I played the heck out of them (I was starting to get fatigued with them when the Krynn stuff came out though)

BG3 is significantly closer to 5e mechanics than BG1&2 were to 2nd ed (BG1&2 were already experimenting with mechanics we'd see in 3rd ed....such as dropping racial level limits, the sorcerer class, a couple of other things).

People coming into D&D from BG3 will probably be more prone to use options that usually get overlooked, like shove and grenade-like projectiles.

It's also so far a decent-ish primer into the Forgotten Realms setting and current point in the timeline. I worry a bit about over-use of dice in conversations as encouraged by this game, but that should be easy to figure out.

I'm going to be happy to include this in the list of D&D games I owned and have played.

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I got into D&D through the original Baldur's gate so... welcome! I hope you love the game as much as I do

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Originally Posted by Quietwulf
I think it's great to introduce new players to the world and lore of Dungeons and Dragons.

I think BG3 will be the first decent, AAA game made in the D&D universe in a long time.
I'm hopeful that they'll enjoy the game enough that they might decide to give the tabletop system a try.
I suspect Wizards of the Coast are hoping the same.


I completely agree. I think it's great. The more the merrier.

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Originally Posted by OneManArmy
I am a fan of the RPG genre, played games such as Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Fable, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, and I saw Baldurs Gate 3 on Steam recommendations. I dont played dungeon and dragon games before, I wonder how many of these players are on the forum?
I have a theory that for many, Baldurs Gate 3 will be the first game to open up the Forgotten Realms universe for them. I liked this universe - a very rich lore, and I'm interested in learning new things about it.

How does the dungeon and dragon community feel about the neophytes who came from other RPG games but had no business with DnD before?
The reaction of those for whom BG3 also became the first game on DnD is also interesting.

My first impression was that the game took the best stuff from Dragon Age Origin and gave even more freedom, but has heavier mechanics which you need to understand



Oh you sweet summer child, speaking of Dragon Age , the new fallouts (post 2) and Mass effect as if they were classic RPG's or a reference point.
I would say that every one is welcome to try and join, but my problem with many new games, especially RPG's are dumbed down, in order to fit the taste of many lazy and spoiled gamers of the post 2000's.

I think BG 3 has a huge legacy to stand up for, and until now, it did not really deliver, not mechanics wise, not story wise and not char wise. It is still not really a representative of D&D, or of oldschool Rpgies, its still a "new age" pretty dumbed down version. Right now Solasta is much more of the "Face of D&D" then BG 3 is.

And no... Dragon age is not the legacy, nor any of the other dumped down rpgies. And its not me saying it should continue that legacy, its the dev's by giving it that name. It has a potential to be a great game , but will it be a classic or memorable... that is left to be seen.

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Originally Posted by Darthmansour
Originally Posted by OneManArmy
I am a fan of the RPG genre, played games such as Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Fable, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, and I saw Baldurs Gate 3 on Steam recommendations. I dont played dungeon and dragon games before, I wonder how many of these players are on the forum?
I have a theory that for many, Baldurs Gate 3 will be the first game to open up the Forgotten Realms universe for them. I liked this universe - a very rich lore, and I'm interested in learning new things about it.

How does the dungeon and dragon community feel about the neophytes who came from other RPG games but had no business with DnD before?
The reaction of those for whom BG3 also became the first game on DnD is also interesting.

My first impression was that the game took the best stuff from Dragon Age Origin and gave even more freedom, but has heavier mechanics which you need to understand



Oh you sweet summer child, speaking of Dragon Age , the new fallouts (post 2) and Mass effect as if they were classic RPG's or a reference point.
I would say that every one is welcome to try and join, but my problem with many new games, especially RPG's are dumbed down, in order to fit the taste of many lazy and spoiled gamers of the post 2000's.

I think BG 3 has a huge legacy to stand up for, and until now, it did not really deliver, not mechanics wise, not story wise and not char wise. It is still not really a representative of D&D, or of oldschool Rpgies, its still a "new age" pretty dumbed down version. Right now Solasta is much more of the "Face of D&D" then BG 3 is.

And no... Dragon age is not the legacy, nor any of the other dumped down rpgies. And its not me saying it should continue that legacy, its the dev's by giving it that name. It has a potential to be a great game , but will it be a classic or memorable... that is left to be seen.


Classic cRPG are dead, only PoE 1 sold more than 1 mln copies.

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Well... becase they came out 20 and 30 years ago, ofcourse they are pretty dead in sales, that makes sense no? most those who play or played them already have them. POE is the only *new RPG* with a style close to classic Rpgies and it did pretty well. So Its obviously not dead and there are still people who would like to play RPG games and not dumbed down games.
I dont think anyone one can really call themselves RPG gamer without playing at least POE.

And ofcuorse things need to change and you need to get on with the age, but that doese not mean making a souless AAA game. There is a balance needed between classic and new, otherwise, the new is forgettable.

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My impression is that BG3 is still too D&D-ish to appeal to non-D&D fans, while not sticking close enough to D&D rules to appeal to half of the audience they should have. People that wanted a tactical, turn-based game and are ok with the DOS2 mechanics will probably love it. People that wanted a more PC specific translation while retaining the D&D feel seem to dislike it. Right now there's a lot I dislike about BG3, but I do see potential.

For me, the great divide was between isometric 2D games like BG1/2 and POE (technically 3D I guess) and subsequent games like NWN where studios tried to leap into 3D and more action oriented gaming. There's definitely something lost in terms of tactical play and party management when you make that leap, but there's also a lot of benefits in that you gain a wider audience of people that just want to play an action RPG. I think BG3 is so close to bridging this gap in a way that hasn't happened since the original NWN, but they're still falling short. Possibly because of their attempts to also appeal to console audience which would lack the ability to party manage like a PC player could, and I think also because they want to carry over their unique DOS gameplay elements that are controversial.

I really hope they dump the DOS gimmicks and focus on creating encounters that can be solved using D&D mechanics, and then that they improve party management issues that have been a problem since DOS1. Technically, I don't think there's anything stopping Larian from making this a great game, but I think it's management and design decisions that they've chosen poorly on, and they might be trying to be too much to too many people to really focus in on what they need to do to make a great game.

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PSA: Highly controversial opinions incoming.

In my experience there are two types of neophytes.

Type A is genuinely interested, wants to learn, is happy to receive advice and criticism and understands a lot of the unspoken rules and precedent that already exists in the community. These people are great and you usually can't tell them apart from people who have been a part of the community for a long time.

Type B doesn't care and is seeking some kind of validation. They don't care what anyone has to say or why certain choices where made. They do not care for the fantasy genre and more often than not are high fantasy luddites or the type of people that cannot separate reality from fiction. These people consider being given advice to be a slight, will ignore anything that doesn't suit their viewpoint regardless of evidence or reasoning and do not care for the quality of the finished product as long as it includes their criteria which tends to have nothing to do with the finished product.

Type A is great. The best Type B can bring is death to the hobby so we can rebuild it from the ashes with more privacy and actual gatekeeping although I imagine if they where aware of how heavily they are being gatekept at the moment it would be another social media fiasco.


Originally Posted by Darthmansour
Well... becase they came out 20 and 30 years ago, ofcourse they are pretty dead in sales, that makes sense no? most those who play or played them already have them. POE is the only *new RPG* with a style close to classic Rpgies and it did pretty well. So Its obviously not dead and there are still people who would like to play RPG games and not dumbed down games.
I dont think anyone one can really call themselves RPG gamer without playing at least POE.

And ofcuorse things need to change and you need to get on with the age, but that doese not mean making a souless AAA game. There is a balance needed between classic and new, otherwise, the new is forgettable.

As a backer for PoE and a classic CRPG fan / tabletop nerd PoE didn't seel well because it was mediocre at best. It tried to appeal to the new crowd while throwing the old crowd under the bus but didn't tone down the high fantasy enough to appease the prior while not focusing on strong writing to appease the later, losing most of both in the process.

Most fans of older games don't care about things changing. We care about the writing being awful, about everything becoming homogenous, about high fantasy being toned down and down and down to match reality reducing it to low fantasy and low power etc

Last edited by Argonaut; 23/10/20 09:29 AM.

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You guys know that Kingmaker exists, right? And while I do not know the total sale numbers especially now after the console release (hardly anyone does for games as they are usually kept secret) all the reports say that it was a success and imo much closer to Baldurs Gate than BG3.

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Originally Posted by Argonaut
PSA: Highly controversial opinions incoming.

In my experience there are two types of neophytes.

Type A is genuinely interested, wants to learn, is happy to receive advice and criticism and understands a lot of the unspoken rules and precedent that already exists in the community. These people are great and you usually can't tell them apart from people who have been a part of the community for a long time.

Type B doesn't care and is seeking some kind of validation. They don't care what anyone has to say or why certain choices where made. They do not care for the fantasy genre and more often than not are high fantasy luddites or the type of people that cannot separate reality from fiction. These people consider being given advice to be a slight, will ignore anything that doesn't suit their viewpoint regardless of evidence or reasoning and do not care for the quality of the finished product as long as it includes their criteria which tends to have nothing to do with the finished product.

Type A is great. The best Type B can bring is death to the hobby so we can rebuild it from the ashes with more privacy and actual gatekeeping although I imagine if they where aware of how heavily they are being gatekept at the moment it would be another social media fiasco.


Originally Posted by Darthmansour
Well... becase they came out 20 and 30 years ago, ofcourse they are pretty dead in sales, that makes sense no? most those who play or played them already have them. POE is the only *new RPG* with a style close to classic Rpgies and it did pretty well. So Its obviously not dead and there are still people who would like to play RPG games and not dumbed down games.
I dont think anyone one can really call themselves RPG gamer without playing at least POE.

And ofcuorse things need to change and you need to get on with the age, but that doese not mean making a souless AAA game. There is a balance needed between classic and new, otherwise, the new is forgettable.

As a backer for PoE and a classic CRPG fan / tabletop nerd PoE didn't seel well because it was mediocre at best. It tried to appeal to the new crowd while throwing the old crowd under the bus but didn't tone down the high fantasy enough to appease the prior while not focusing on strong writing to appease the later, losing most of both in the process.

Most fans of older games don't care about things changing. We care about the writing being awful, about everything becoming homogenous, about high fantasy being toned down and down and down to match reality reducing it to low fantasy and low power etc

I agree with you, POE was mediocre at best compared to classics, and ofcourse we are unhappy with awful writing and everything else you said, but I am realistic and understand that things have to change since its a business. However, its better to try influence for a better game and product then just say why it is not as good as the classics, although totally agreed there.

Kingmaker I did not play, but from what I heard, the writing and chars are pretty bad, its not only about gameplay and mechanics, classic RPGies had souls. And had excellent writing.

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@Darthmansour
I am not against things changing but in this case things changing in a meta sense(i.e representation) are being used to justify things being diminished in objective quality(i.e writing quality) and when you confront people with this they fall back to logical fallacy and weak flanel excuses.

To give you a simple example of this, elves have been humanized to the point of losing everything that made them unique and original(without including the fact that all elves are derivative of nordic mythology in the first place) which directly impacts the high fantasy and writing elements. This sacrifice was made for the sake of representation so people can self insert with a high fantasy race despite the entire point of the high fantasy race being that you cannot self insert with it and must find relation with them through their characterization such as their moral stances as well as see the abject differences between them and humanity which is used to elevate some ideas while denouncing others. To put this in very simple terms, objectivity exists in art and the people who denounce this are extremely uninvolved and unskilled in these sections of art.

The writing in kingmaker wavers, but character writing is VERY strong.

Last edited by Argonaut; 23/10/20 10:12 AM.

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I don't like the writing much in Kingmaker. It's too childish for my taste. When I was a teenager, it was exactly how we played D&D. But now that I am grown up, I prefer storylines and quests like The Witcher 3. And I am glad BG3 offers cornelian choices and more greyish decision than only black or white.

I didn't finish Kingmaker though, cause I got bored very quickly. Maybe it gets better after hours of gameplay. But I couldn't stand some dialogues and the way you would navigate on the map. So I stopped playing.

I don't say it's a bad game. But it's definitely not for me.

Last edited by Nyanko; 23/10/20 10:29 AM.
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I'm curious what one would consider "dumbed down" in current RPGs. And there is no doubt that Mass Effect, Fallout 3, and Dragon Age: Origins are reference points that had a massive effect on the genre.

BG1&2 and IWD felt like improvements over the Gold Box Games
NWN1 & 2 and Temple of Elemental Evil felt like improvements over BG1&2 and IWD
This feels like an improvement over NWN 1&2

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Originally Posted by Argonaut
Originally Posted by Darthmansour
Well... becase they came out 20 and 30 years ago, ofcourse they are pretty dead in sales, that makes sense no? most those who play or played them already have them. POE is the only *new RPG* with a style close to classic Rpgies and it did pretty well. So Its obviously not dead and there are still people who would like to play RPG games and not dumbed down games.
I dont think anyone one can really call themselves RPG gamer without playing at least POE.

And ofcuorse things need to change and you need to get on with the age, but that doese not mean making a souless AAA game. There is a balance needed between classic and new, otherwise, the new is forgettable.

As a backer for PoE and a classic CRPG fan / tabletop nerd PoE didn't seel well because it was mediocre at best. It tried to appeal to the new crowd while throwing the old crowd under the bus but didn't tone down the high fantasy enough to appease the prior while not focusing on strong writing to appease the later, losing most of both in the process.

Most fans of older games don't care about things changing. We care about the writing being awful, about everything becoming homogenous, about high fantasy being toned down and down and down to match reality reducing it to low fantasy and low power etc


I guess I may be an out-liar when it comes to Pillars of Eternity, because the ONLY significant complaint I have about that game is the loading times. I loved the story, the characters, the mechanics, it did a decent job with assigning AI to other party members. It scratched every itch that I had with Baldur's Gate nostalgia, but without me having to deal with 2nd Edition D&D limitations or mechanics (looking at you Thac0).

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I'm biased about NWN. To this day, it's the best D&D inspired game I have ever played. I have put thousands of hours into this game.

So if BG 3 aims at being a better NWN, I am all in. But I don't know if NWN and BG can be related in terms of improvement over another though, cause it seems the fandom is quite distinct on these two games.

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Originally Posted by AnonySimon
Originally Posted by Argonaut
Originally Posted by Darthmansour
Well... becase they came out 20 and 30 years ago, ofcourse they are pretty dead in sales, that makes sense no? most those who play or played them already have them. POE is the only *new RPG* with a style close to classic Rpgies and it did pretty well. So Its obviously not dead and there are still people who would like to play RPG games and not dumbed down games.
I dont think anyone one can really call themselves RPG gamer without playing at least POE.

And ofcuorse things need to change and you need to get on with the age, but that doese not mean making a souless AAA game. There is a balance needed between classic and new, otherwise, the new is forgettable.

As a backer for PoE and a classic CRPG fan / tabletop nerd PoE didn't seel well because it was mediocre at best. It tried to appeal to the new crowd while throwing the old crowd under the bus but didn't tone down the high fantasy enough to appease the prior while not focusing on strong writing to appease the later, losing most of both in the process.

Most fans of older games don't care about things changing. We care about the writing being awful, about everything becoming homogenous, about high fantasy being toned down and down and down to match reality reducing it to low fantasy and low power etc


I guess I may be an out-liar when it comes to Pillars of Eternity, because the ONLY significant complaint I have about that game is the loading times. I loved the story, the characters, the mechanics, it did a decent job with assigning AI to other party members. It scratched every itch that I had with Baldur's Gate nostalgia, but without me having to deal with 2nd Edition D&D limitations or mechanics (looking at you Thac0).


This is about the same for me. The loading times were a bit ridiculous....it also had severe darkness spikes, which (with current climate of the world) is why I haven't delved into the sequel yet.

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I have been playing D&D for almost 30 years. But nowadays I find myself disliking D&D more and more. By this I mean D&D rules and mechanics. 3.5e of D&D is the best D&D edition for me, and I don't much care for 5e. I also am very much NOT a fan of the D:OS games and found them to be terrible games. So I am here purely as a huge fan of the original BG video games and especially as a diehard fan of the Forgotten Realms setting, which is my favorite fantasy setting by far. I am passionately into FR lore and have almost all the 3.5e FR source books and almost all FR novels.

As for recent cRPG games, I love the PoE games and P:Km. These are awesome games and the true heirs to the old classic RPGs. And for the record, P:Km sold very well, well over 1 million. I also love the Dragon Age games and consider them to be part of the cRPG genre.

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Originally Posted by Nyanko
I'm biased about NWN. To this day, it's the best D&D inspired game I have ever played. I have put thousands of hours into this game.

So if BG 3 aims at being a better NWN, I am all in. But I don't know if NWN and BG can be related in terms of improvement over another though, cause it seems the fandom is quite distinct on these two games.


I tend more toward NWN2. Mostly because I favor 3.X over 2nd ed and NWN2 came with a wider range of available races to play.

And to be fair, most of the improvements I see are in general tech rather than specific game development deals. But I do love the inclusion of jumps and shoves quite a bit as it gets closer to my tabletop experience than any prior game. Also the harpies flying was great. Maybe a few more lines of development along and we can get actual 3D environment with flight or maybe even underwater adventures...that would be great. Get a Ghosts of Saltmarsh CRPG in development.

Anyway, to be fair with NWN1&2, both their original campaigns were mostly showcases for what you could do with the assets in the game in making your own stuff. NWN's OC really overstayed itself, though it was fun, it felt quite a bit longer than it was or needed to be. NWN2's campaign wasn't as bad at that, and even though it was 1-20 instead of 1-15, it felt shorter and felt like it moved better.

In both cases, the story thread held together better than it did in BG1 which feels a bit....unfocused...I guess is the right word. There's the overall plot about who killed Gorion and what the secret about you is, but most of what you do is sort of wander over the map and do random things. Where as, there's some of that in NWN/NWN2 but most of the bigger quests hold some connection to the central story.

I am not comparing this to Shadows of Undentide/Hordes of the Underdark or Mask of the Betrayer though. I'm holding off on that. Those expansions feel like they're entirely their own games.

Last edited by Thrythlind; 23/10/20 02:56 PM.
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