Baldur's Gate 3 - the modern 90s game

[HoloDust]

LegitHyperbole said:

HoloDust said:

Actually, a lot of official 5e Campaigns are much, much bigger in scope than BG3 (Storm King's Thunder probably being the largest), even though all of them are fairly linear, just like BG3. Maybe linear is too harsh, but they are funnel based at best, which means no matter what you do in certain parts of the game (giving you freedom of choice), you'll end up at the same place that serves as starting point for next "chapter". This type of Campaigns started back in 80s with D&D Dragonlance line - and that's why you have clear divide from that point on, with official D&D owners pushing for more linear "Campaign books", instead of Setting books and smaller "Modules" that you can plug into any world, like they used to do.

Honestly, I feel kinda bad for anyone who thinks that BG3 style is "tabletop" experience (and anyone who has similar tabletop experience), since, while technically somewhat true, it is quite a subpar experience, given how much you're limited in whatever you do in it. You don't actually need large worlds to have fully open ended gameplay at the table, a small island is more than enough, but if you populate it with interesting things, few factions that have opposing goals, and one or two underlying mysteries that permeate that world, you got yourself all the ingredients for actual living and breathing adventuring world, instead of theme parks that is BG3 and Larian games.

BG3 succeeds brilliantly in certain aspects - it is really good mega-dungeon crawl (which it really boils down to), its choices, no matter how much smoke and mirrors which don't matter much in the long run, are interestingly made, its immersive sim aspects are well incorporated, though somewhat limited.

Where it fails is being actual BG sequel, being D&D 5e game (it is 5e adjacent, at best) and being fully-fledged CRPG.

But I said all that already in that review a year ago, and depending of what aspects of the game you care for, you will like it more...or less.

Yeah I know what ya mean, open but funneled down linear paths at times. 

Tbh, I don't really know much about table top gaming outside of YouTube Let's plays. It caught me interest in my adulthood and I don't have any friends to play with. With love to get a group together or find a group at some point. I can see you're point about it being more freeing than Divinity/BG3 but for us lonely souls Divinity and BG3 are the best we're gonna get. 

Well, you will find the group much easier if you learn to GM - there is perpetual shortage of GMs for right about any system, so buying into "build it and they will come" philosophy is good starting point. Dragonbane boxed set would be a good choice for that, it is fairly rules light spin on Runequest, and packs pretty much all you need inside the box, including campaign and cardboard minis for it. D&D Essentials Kit is another similar product (though without cardboard minis), which is probably the best way to get into D&D 5e currently, if you want that. Or maybe wait til next year for new Starter Set for D&D 2024 eidition, they are updating Keep on the Borderlands, classic from 1979, which served as an introductory adventure for new players and DMs, written by Gary Gygax himself, to serve the same role in that Starter Set. If you want more wacky take on old D&D (and you like Pirates of Caribbean premise of mixing real setting with fantasy), Pirate Borg is excellent choice for that (comes with a short sandbox-style campaign in the book).

Other option is to try out some of the virtual tabletops (Roll20, Foundry, Fantasy Grounds...) and try to find a group there that has GM (unfortunately, can't really help there, never played virtually).

As for CRPGs, try Arcanum - this is still considered, among core CRPG fans, one of the best CRPG ever made - it is not without its flaws (all RPGs that are not tabletop suffer from inherent faults that are not really solvable, until we have full AI GMs), but it is game that every CRPG fan should play.