Baldur's Gate 3: Dungeons & Dragons For The Uninitiated

Luke explores how Baldur’s Gate could help D&D newbies.

- Luke Greenfield

I have played through various campaigns and characters in Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition for about two and a half years now. I got into the hobby just before it saw a huge surge in attention thanks to the popularity of shows like Critical Role, and thankfully, I had a group of friends in my hometown that were willing to show me the ropes. Since then I have gone on to play a plethora of different tabletop systems, from a Comic Book Superhero based TTRPG called Sentinels, to a game system set in the world of Dragon Age. During this time, I have joined a Tabletop RPG society at my University, which has shifted to an online presence due to COVID. Alongside this, our Discord server has seen an increasing number of newcomers who all want to try a tabletop game (usually D&D), but have never had the opportunity to do so before, and find the whole process rather confusing. With Baldur’s Gate 3 arriving in Early Access in late 2020, the game’s virtual take on the Dungeons & Dragons system means there have been many eyes on it, even from people who have never heard of the videogame franchise before.

After about 15 hours with the game so far, I have come to two solid conclusions. First, the game has an incredible amount of detail already and I’ve not scratched the surface of the current content. Second, that Baldur’s Gate 3 is the perfect tool for people wanting to get into Dungeons & Dragons, but find themselves put off by the complexity of character creation and understanding lore.