Let me start off by saying: I didn't read every message in this thread. I didn't even read some messages. In fact, I read less than 5% of the messages in this thread. As such, I'll likely end up posting something that someone else already said. So, if my statements seem repetitive, take that into account. I'm giving my opinion based solely on the thread title.
The first "modern" D&D game I played was Neverwinter Nights, back in...well, a while ago. Now that I think about it, long enough ago that it's probably not considered "modern" anymore. That game was real time/"active pause" game play. I enjoyed it. BG3 has a number of elements that remind me of NWN; a LARGE number of things. Prior to NWN (both one and two), I played a game WAAAY back when I was still in high school (late 80s) called "A Bards Tale", which was turn based. As it was late 80s, the Internet, or even networked gaming, wasn't really a thing. I enjoyed that game too. The main difference I see is: can I easily stop the game if I need to take a bathroom break?
NWN server/Internet game play did NOT allow you to pause. If you needed to take a break to answer the door and get your pizza, get a soda from the fridge, or use the facilities rather than soil yourself, you would need to drop out of game and then eventually log back in, meet up with your party, and rejoin it. While I haven't had the chance to play on a game server yet, I can easily get a break and not worry about returning to a pile of dead party. I couldn't do that in NWN game servers, even the one I created for myself (I created a server that had true random encounter, so...yeah...a pile of dead party). It seems to me I can take a break with BG3.
I'd think that, if you want to compare to D&D, being able to take a short break is part of the game. Imagine needing to do a bunch of work to continue your table top game every time someone needed to answer the door, take a phone call, or engage in anti-soiling measures? Granted, you have that when you log off for the evening, but everyone has that when you end a game session anyway. That ordeal is always expected in the table game when the session ends, but having weekend long sessions isn't as easy when you need to break down and set up again (log off and log back in) for every tiny pause.
I think the game should be available to the larger audience, myself included, for a WHILE before deciding on whether to change from turn-based to real time. My preference, as I'm older and slower, is that BG3 stay turn-based. I could play it real time, but I'd rather not.
