My expectations for BG3 are bound to not be met. Don't get me wrong...I'm very much looking forward to this game but there a certain things/expectations I can't help but have when they describe this game as wanting to be as close to a PnP experience as you can get on a computer game using 5E rules. I've been itching to play D&D again and this, I hope, will allow me to scratch that itch. But, the few unfortunate things that I have seen are kind of big deals to me. I hate the thought of team-based initiative, I hate the linear progression...being forced through the maze on the correct path without being able to wander (open world), and I hate, absolutely hate, that with all the tech games have today they aren't taking advantage of random encounters and auto-generated instances. This, to me, destroys replayability as on run #2 you will know where every monster is, what every monster is, where secret door/buttons/levers are, etc etc etc. Even just a few randomly generated instances (random layout and random monsters based on the different CR tables in the DMG would be perfect) would be enough. I'm still going to buy EA and hopefully love the game...but those are big things for me.
I don't disagree with the appeal (or more accurately, the idea) of having such variety through subsequent playthroughs, but I do find the idea of fusing the PnP experience with an open world somewhat at odds. Yes, you're of course free to go wherever you want in a PnP session, but the DM generally does, or at least should have a story for you follow. For example, if the next lead in the story is to go visit a certain castle in the north, but you decide to just go wandering south instead, would that really make sense? If I were DMing a session and a player did that, I expect I would let them wander for days until they became like Michael Scott trying to imitate Bear Grylles, or let them run into a group of bandits who shakes them down for all their worth. Point is, even though you
can go anywhere, it doesn't mean you should. The wilderness isn't a theme park with obvious and guaranteed exciting locations every few miles. Translating to a game, it seems true of a PnP session to have a linear progression. If a game could be large enough to facilitate actual exploration (e.g. at least 100 times the size of The Witcher 3) with no obvious markers (or even maps) that led you to first discover/research leads and such, then okay cool, I guess. I think most people would find that too much work. Best just to follow a story and dispense with a candyland version of an open world. This probably isn't going to be a popular opinion, I expect.
