Baldur's Gate 3 will Change the Future of D&D

Baldur's Gate 3 has taken the Internet by storm pulling in nearly a million players at its peak and roughly averaging about 400 000 concurrent players with its incredible success hundreds of thousands of players who have never touched dungeon dragons got to experience it firsthand with Baldur's Gate 3. as someone who has played way too much d d I couldn't help but compare this game to my own home d d games and doing so through this lens Not only was eye-opening for me as a DM but made me realize how big an effect this might have on D D's future so much so that the release of Baldur's Gate 3 may very well be one of the most important moments in D D's history but why is that what makes Baldur's Gate 3 so important well to literally steal words out of my friend's mouth Baldur's Gate 3 is democratizing D in a way that has never been done before to better understand what I mean let's quickly go back in time to before the infamous 2020 back when we used to have to interact with strangers whether we wanted to or not specifically I'm talking about July 15 2014 in the release of dungeon dragons 5th edition this was a turning point for DND as 5th edition marked the change from a rules heavy type of system to a more simplified rules like loosey-goosey style of play simply put 5th edition was meant to simplify the game and make it more accessible to more players while still relatively intimidating I don't know anyone that wouldn't agree with me when I say that the release of 5th edition significantly lowered the barrier to entry for new players and with this new simplified rule set d d was primed and ready to explode out onto the mainstream and it did so in a way that no one could have seen coming on March 12 2015 a small series that you might have heard on aired for the first time on Geek and Sundry and I am of course talking about critical role critical role took the simplified rules of 5th edition and heralded in hordes of new players all interested in d d for the first time ever all these new players were watching these actors play this new game called dungeon dragons which caused interest in the game to Surge to new heights but what does all of this have to do with Baldur's Gate 3 well I would compare Baldur's Gate 3 to another critical role event however there is one huge difference between the two the difference being critical role was more of a slow burn slowly Gathering interest with more and more players whereas balder's Gate 3 seems to be just a single volatile massive event and from this point on in the video there are spoilers so keep that in mind if you haven't already I highly suggest going through this game at least once to experience it for yourself if you want to avoid those spoilerinos there's a playlist in the corner of the video with the cards you can binge watch while you're completing the game but with that warning out of the way let's jump into what exactly Baldur's Gate does that changes the d d landscape as a whole part 1 is to cover how Baldur's Gate handles new players these are the players who are just now experiencing d d for the first time and how Baldur's Gate introduces them to the world of Dungeons and Dragons part two on the other hand is going to be how Baldur's Gate interacts and impacts experienced players or DMS so let's just jump right into it with part one just like critical role Baldur's Gate 3 introduced an easy and accessible way for new players to be introduced to Dungeons and Dragons considering Baldur's Gate 3 is thought to sold around 5 million copies that is a lot of eyes looking at dungeon dragons and even if we assume 80 of those were already DND Enthusiast that still leaves about 20 equaling about a million people who have never touched dungeon dragons for the first time getting their first taste and while getting new players introduced and excited about Dungeons and Dragons may be very important you would think that the 1 million new players who don't know anything about the game or the rules may be a problem but Baldur's Gate does an amazing job teaching the overall mechanics of the game in a simplified easy to understand format one action one bonus action and a movement and the way it does this is so good with the simple click of a button you can filter options based on their cost whether it be an action or a bonus action this makes it incredibly easy for new players rather than having to know what attack is an action they simply click the action button and they're met with all of the potential options for their action and as the game progresses the new players slowly learns more and more about the mechanics of the game attacks cost in action drinking a potion costs a bonus action Etc and yes I know that by raw a potion takes a full action but just for the sake of the argument bear with me for a minute the further the players progress in the game the more they understand not only about their players capabilities but the capabilities of their entire party in Dungeons and Dragons traditionally usually a player only gets to experience one class per campaign but in Baldur's Gate they get to experience other classes and are introduced to the opportunity to learn about each of them individually while this is overwhelming in the traditional DND format Baldur's Gate gives it a simplified way to learn about all of these classes in an incredibly easy and intuitive way s learn that barbarians get rage Wizards cast powerful spells and Fighters can wear heavy armor and more all of this information which for me as a dungeon master took me years to commit to memory was immediately ingrained in my head within a couple of hours of playing this game and alongside learning about all those new classes it also encourages players to experiment with new groups didn't like the barbarians so much swap it in for a paladin why not a fighter try it out this light encouragement and pushing players to try out new characters and classes is a wonderfully delightful way about teaching players new classes in dungeon dragons without it being overwhelming and through this process of testing out all of the classes and meeting all the characters every single person who plays balder Gate 3 has their favorite characters the only right options carlec because I want her to step on if I asked you why is X character from Baldur's Gate your favorite character it would likely have something to do with their interaction with your own character or something about their backstory Baldur's Gate 3 creates stories and subplots within the actual main campaign that make the player care about the characters within the game but the fun part is that a lot of these subplots force you to make decisions that aren't exactly easy to make when I first met carlak I was ready to throw down and send this devil back to the hells only by the end of the conversation I was ready to die for and this is something Baldur's Gate does incredibly well it introduces these fresh new players to conflict and how the players react to this conflict is incredibly important to where the story goes later on be honest with me for a minute when you first met Shadow heart you wanted to tell her to pound sand and that she was a cult worshiping lunatic right well if you did that shadow heart might have decided to leave and you might have a little bit of a difficult time later on in act two point being this is a decision you made pretty much immediately when you're thrown into the game and it impacts something about 20 hours into the game teaching players consequences of their actions whether they're positive or negative is one of the most important lessons any new player can learn and Baldur's Gate 3 does that incredibly well while the game doesn't get the rules completely perfect the overall experience of teaching players dungeon dragons is easily a 9 out of 10. but dungeon Masters don't necessarily need help learning the rules so how does Baldur's Gate 3 impact them just because dungeon Masters are supposed to be masters of the rules doesn't mean that they can't learn something from this game as a DM Baldur's Gate 3 was an incredibly eye-opening experience for me for a few reasons mainly the game helped me realize how of a DM I actually am and I mean that in the best way possible let's just go back to the characters for a minute while these characters help invest players in their stories they also provide wonderful examples for creating unique and interesting stories within a game for example karlak a tiefling turned devil forced to fight in zariel's Army who later escaped and is now constantly on the run to keep from the archdevil's control while it's obviously a crazy example of a story it is a great example of NPC motivations why things happen in the world what caused NPCs to feel a certain way or down a certain path these characters are fantastic albeit extreme examples of creating motivation within the world of d d and these motivations is just another example of the overall World building done within Baldur's Gate which is arguably the most important skill of a DM some other examples of World building are things like Side characters like visible thorm who runs the tavern in the shadowed lands or the ghost child Oscar or rather Oliver who just wanted to play hide and seek while some of these characters are simply just fun moments others are opportunities that Baldur's Gate 3 takes to build upon the main story nearly everything in the game that you do progresses the story of your character in one way or another and this is something that DMS can easily take a lesson from while there is a main overarching story there are branching paths that the character can take to get through to find your way to that final climactic ending the best example of this is when you can either take the mountain path towards the gift crush or you can go to the underdark In Search of Char's Secrets both of these decisions impact your story and how you get to the end and this is exactly what your players want to experience in d d making their choices matter while at the same time progressing the story in ways that they might not even know about when I completed the game for the first time I had no idea that Charles Gauntlet would progress the story I went there because I wanted to try to convert Shadow heart to Saloon but but when I got there I realized that it had a huge part to play in the overarching story and I felt an even greater need to try and convince Shadow heart to the ways of saloon and all of this culminated in an amazing cinematic event with the Night song with some difficult checks on my end to convince Shadow heart that Char is a nut job and I was rewarded for stepping out of the box and making a difficult decision which kind of brings me to the Crux of the video why is Baldur's Gate 3 going to change the future of d d well the entire video I've talked about how the game teaches players DND right it introduced a massive influx of new players and taught them the basics of the rules and provided examples for Dungeon Masters to learn about interweaving Stories character relationships and World building it did this all while you got to experience your own unique path and story in this epic tale of your adventure to conquer evil but what does that change for the future d d well I honestly think it's for the community to decide this could very easily go one of two different directions one more positive and one more negative it goes without saying that Baldur's Gate 3 will influence a huge amount of new players to try d d for the first time and alongside that they may even attempt to DM their very own campaign but as great as Baldur's Gate 3 is it's not super complicated sure it has levels of depth and lore specifically if you read all the books like I do but the main story is pretty easy to follow this makes it incredibly accessible for new players or even new DMS to feel empowered to create their own story and this is where the community must decide as much as I hate to bring it up because of the negative stigma around it this may go away similar to the Mercer effect regardless of your opinion on critical role or the Mercer effect however I doubt that since the medium in which new players experience bothers Gate 3 is different than critical role obviously but the way I hope this will go and honestly believe it will go is not so much something that will happen but more of a call to action to veteran d d players it falls upon us the ones who have been here for years sharing our passion for the game with others to help Ferry these new players into the wonderful world of Dungeons and Dragons we need to welcome these new players into the game and lift them up empowering them to weave their own fantastic stories take these new players in and encourage them to create then I guarantee we will see a d d Renaissance the likes of which we've never seen before so I suppose the whole video really comes down to more of a question than anything else are you gonna sit there complain about these new players who don't know what they're doing and hold on to your old books for dear life or are you going to be passing the torch to this new generation of players fostering this hobby for years to come and for everyone's sake I severely hope it's the latter thank you very much for watching I hope you enjoyed and I will see you on Friday [Music]

Channel: This Crits!

Views: 2,432

Keywords: Dnd, Dungeons and Dragons, Roleplaying, Tabletop, Critical Role, DM, dungeon master, Pathfinder, 5e, fifth edition, 5th edition, dungeons, dragons, tabletop, gaming, roleplaying, game, rpg, d&d, guide, review, dice, dungeons and dragons for beginners, dnd storytime, dnd stories, d&d 5th edition, Beholder, dungeon master tips, dnd 5e, role playing game, matt mercer, matthew mercer, vox machina, game master, crit role, mighty nein, One D&D, One Dnd, D&D one, Dnd One, critical role

Id: r2vKk-b2udI

Length: 13min 4sec (784 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 29 2023