Certainly BG3 Early Access doesn't stick to the 5e rules, because they do want to appeal to the primary videogame audience, who do not play TT.
I find the argument that videogame audience wouldn't accept more faithul video game adaptaion to be shaky. Firaxis whole thing is doing very gameboardy games and they have been popular for years. Blizzard made a fortune on a card game. Make the feel good to interact with and add fancy visual effects and wider audience will eat it up.
I would replace "primary videogame audience" with "Larian's established D:OS fanbase".
I don't know, I am tired of game devs/publishers constantly leveraging existing IPs. Get off my nostalgia lawn, Larian.
It's only a shaky argument if you prefer qualitative arguments over quantitative ones. Sure, some videogame players that don't play D&D would play a completely accurate D&D 5e videogame. We know that because a similar cohort have bought other D&D games, some of which were quite accurate. The question is not if anyone would, but how many.
I get the sense that many people want to believe that game ( physical or digital ) companies think of their current player base in an altruistic manner, doing the "best" for their loyal audience. Some ( usually smaller ) companies do, and some can even make it work, but by and large, companies follow the money because they have to, even if they would rather not.
The most apposite example of that is probably the D&D 4e rules. Utterly hated by the player base, but WotC were seduced by a desire to attract the 10x larger audience of digital RPG players who were moving to more action-oriented games and MMOs, so they copied what seemed popular.
Even back in the days of Gygax and TSR, they had the same problems of getting enough revenue from the "loyal" player base, and produced some questionable products before eventually going bankrupt ( including the completely unnecessary, but money-spinning polyhedral dice sets ).
As best I can judge, there are no previous videogames in the party RPG genre ( including Firaxis games like XCOM ) that have had sales that would justify the investment being put into BG3. The only reason Larian can sink the money into BG3 that they are, is because they attracted part of the primary videogame audience with their DOS games, so yes, they absolutely need to be sure they keep those players engaged.
None of this is to say I LIKE the way most games franchises go over time. I have been disappointed by the direction so many games have taken that I've lost count. I've just become sanguine enough to understand why it happens, treat advertising and marketing claims with the contempt they deserve, and not to expect anything more that what I can actually see is true.
The fact that BG3 is the first early access I have ever purchased, that I don't like DOS games, nor the 5e rules, either speaks to the value of nostalgia lawns, or that I am getting senile
