Baldur's Gate 3 - It's Just A Game

This is going to be a very brief post for the extremely good reason that I would rather be playing Baldur's Gate 3 than writing about it, which makes it somewhat surprising that I'm not going to be all that complimentary about it. I don't, so far, find it particularly convincing but, like the other Larian games I've played (Which, now I come to think of it, is really only Divinity: Original Sin 2 and some of Divinity: Original Sin.) it certainly is addictive.

BG3 is much more of a Larian game than a Baldur's Gate game. BG1 and 2 seemed, to me, to be about as clearly conceived as a good fantasy novel. BG3 feels a lot more episodic. It doesn't present a cohesive story in anything like the same way its predecessors did but despite the lack of a clear narrative through-line, it has an immediate impact that pulls you in and grabs onto you like it's never going to let go. 

The other Larian games I played did that, too. The trouble with being grabbed and held like that is that it can be an uncomfortably intense experience, not necessarily a pleasant one, especially when it just doesn't stop.

That's one reason I never got to the end of either of their others. I have just over 90 hours played in D:OS2 but I never finished the game. The story wasn't sufficiently compelling that I needed to know how it turned out and I got to a point when it felt like it was never going to stop so I had to stop it myself. Already, I can sense the same forces at play in BG3.

I only started playing on Friday evening but by the end of Saturday I'd logged more than fourteen hours in the game. I pretty much played all day Saturday which, as anyone who's been reading this blog of late would know, is not something I do any more. Except now I do.

You might imagine that after fourteen hours I'd have made some progress. I have not. That's another trademark of a Larian game. I don't believe in the ninety hours I spent with D:OS2 I ever felt like I was getting anywhere. You just keep going, through more scenery and more fights and it's all good fun until it isn't any more and it's time to stop.

The degree to which I'm not getting anywhere with BG3 is exemplified by my quest journal. After fourteen hours, I have twenty-seven quests (Listed under eight separate categories.) of which I have completed three. My gameplay so far has consisted almost entirely of wandering about, talking to people, agreeing to do things and then not doing them.

There's a lot of talking. A lot more, so far, than fighting, although that may be in part because I can't help being nice to everyone, trying to be diplomatic, seeing everyone's side of the story and ducking out if it looks like there's going to be trouble. If my character, a half-elf sorcerer, has a motto it must be "Can't we all just get along?"

Since every last NPC has at least a line of dialog and the world is very fully populated, just getting from one location to another can take a long time. I started off talking to everyone but I've already put a stop to that, just like I'm not opening every box and barrel any more. Many of the people I meet don't have anything much to say that isn't some flavor of flavor and most of the things I pick up I never find a use for, so it seems better to keep myself to myself and travel light.

I don't know if BG3 is technically an "open-world" game but it sure feels like one. I'm not convinced you can get to anywhere you can see but I'm guessing you probably could, if you had the right spells. You can jump over small obstacles so presumably you could leap, fly or clamber over much bigger ones if you had the spell or item that allowed it.

I don't have any of those yet but a lack of suitable magic isn't stopping me clearing the fog of war from the map, something I keep doing, rather than finishing quests, because it's fun. I always enjoy clearing map fog. Has anyone ever made a game where that's all you do? If not, they should.

The main reason I'm not finishing many quests, however, is because I can't. I can't find the right person or the right place or when I find them I can't get them to do what I want. In one case, I got a stern warning I was getting out of my depth, so I turned back. In another, I found out for myself the hard way so I so retraced my steps back to an easier area and did some leveling-up instead.

Yesterday afternoon, I spent about three hours just trying to find The Pits in the Goblin Camp, so I could get on with the several questlines that demanded it but I couldn't find the damn place even with a walk-through and directions. In fact, the walk-through I followed led me into the Underdark instead, which was very much not where I wanted to be. Or maybe it was, but if the Pits were down there, I couldn't see them.

I did find the Goblin Priestess but I couldn't find any way to conclude my business with her in a non-fatal fashion. Killing her was categorically not my plan. What I wanted to do was make friends with her and the rest of the goblins, who seemed a lot more entertaining company than most of the angsty, po-faced paladins and soldiers who were trying to kill them. Unfortunately, although I had plenty of amusing escapades with my would-be goblin pals, it seemed like everything I did eventually ended with a lot of dead goblins so I'm having to give that plan a rethink..

It is often quite hard to tell what is or isn't meant to be possible. The way Larian structures a dialog tree may be as open-ended and amazing as everyone says but it still has some branches missing as far as my experience goes. Or, if you prefer to think of the narrative as a complex tapestry, even at this relatively early stage I'm finding some loose threads in the weave.

For example, while I was wandering around the Goblin Camp, talking to dozens of goblins, ogres and orcs, along with sundry none-too-fussy hired hands, more than one of them mentioned they were holding a Duke, who they'd captured on a raid on an Inn. Granted, no-one mentioned the Duke's name but when I ended up at the smoking ruins of that same inn a while later I got dragooned into a rescue party, breaking down the door to save "The Duke" who was supposedly roasting inside.

No-one wanted to listen to me trying to tell them they were wasting their time because he wasn't there so,  rather than get myself and my party burned in the futile attempt, I withdrew and left them all to it. Later, when I was back at my camp, a couple of my companions berated me for not doing more to help, which seemed a bit rich, given they were there when the goblins told me they had the Duke under lock and key! 

To top it all off, one of the reserve team, the bunch that hang about the camp, hoping to be picked, revealed himself to be the said Duke's estranged son, something he'd been keeping very quiet about up to then. There was no opportunity for me to tell him about his father's true whereabouts. either. I just had to listen to him beat himself up and all I could do was ask leading questions about their relationship, not tell him where the damn Duke actually was.

It may be that this is my misconception. Perhaps there were two Dukes at the Inn. I'll never find out if I can't get to the blasted Pits. I suspect, though, that it's just one more example of why Baldur's Gate 3 is an extremely entertaining game but a very unconvincing and awkward way to tell a story.

[Edit: As soon as I logged in after writing this I left the camp and found myself back at the Inn, where the fire was nearly out and the rescue efforts had ended. I spoke to a guard, who was looking at the marks showing someone had been dragged away, possibly the Duke, and the option came up for me to tell them I knew the Duke had been kidnapped, although it didn't let me say how I knew or who'd told me. The guard just assumed it was now general knowledge. Whether this NPC was there the first time or whether they only appear when the fire has gone out, I could probably tell if I reloaded an earlier save but honestly I'm not that interested. Either way, I can't give the information I have to either the authorities or the Duke's next of kin so it doesn't much seem to matter.]

Although a lot of the publicity revolved around the intricacies of the story and the way the player could take things in almost any direction, I don't recall as much discussion of the mechanics of adventuring in Baldur's Gate 3. There does seem to have been considerable effort expended on filing the rough edges off the usual RPG experience. 

I started by accepting the offer to have any overly sexualized or violent imagery suppressed and chose the default difficulty option, both of which choices indicate a willingness to tailor the whole experience to the taste of the audience rather than sticking to a strict narrative convention. So much for the broader approach. The small details are equally amenable to customization, albeit less overtly so.

To pick one small example, there's the Send To Camp facility that lets you move items from your backpack to a chest in your camp, remotely. I one hundred per cent appreciate and welcome the ability to clear my bags with a few clicks. It's a massive boon for playing the game enjoyably. It's purely presented as a game mechanic, though, with no attempt to embed it into the lore.

Solasta, a rather similar if less celebrated game, came up with a much more lore-appropriate way of handling the practical problem of how to get your heavy loot back home from the dungeon. In that game, there's a guild of scavengers who follow adventurers around, offering to go in once all the monsters have been safely disposed of and bring any remaining loot back to base - for a percentage of the profit. You just sign up with them and then check in with their representatives in towns you visit and pick up your money or the actual items, should you want any of them.

 

That may be a little far-fetched but it's within the bounds of believability. The BG3 solution is pure gaming convenience, as is the whole camping deal, for that matter. In other games where you need to take a night's sleep to rest your health, you have to go to inns or pitch a camp of your own. In BG3, I can go back to my camp at any time, from anywhere, instantly. 

Somehow there's always a camp nearby, even though I never set one up, and I magically appear at it just by clicking a menu option. Then, when I've had a good night's sleep and got all my spells back, I just click another button and I'm back exactly where I was the day before. I'm not for a moment suggesting I don't prefer this to having to walk back to an actual campsite but it very much reminds me every time that I'm playing a game not having an adventure.

What's more, when I meet people along the way who might be useful additions to the party, they always conveniently volunteer to meet me at my camp later, even though I couldn't tell them where it is. And then, even if I never let them join my team, they hang around waiting for their turn and acting as though they're somehow part of the organization. 

Don't these people have lives to get back to? Do they have infinite patience? And why am I the one in charge, anyway? Because I'm The Player and this is A Game, of course. Thee can be no other explanation.

It is possible all of these and many (Many...) other curious or unconvincing foibles will, at length, be explained in lore-appropriate ways. Certainly they could be. Any world that has magic as a part of the natural order is amenable to all kinds of unlikely ways of doing things. I suspect, however, that it won't be the case here. 

I'm not surprised Baldur's Gate 3 is such a popular game. That's because it puts being a game far ahead of anything else. Which is fine. That's why it's so compulsive and appealing to play and also why I'm going to stop writing about it now and go play it instead.