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I didn’t really care for Baldur’s Gate 3.
There’s a lot to it that is really enjoyable. From what I can tell (I have very limited knowledge of how traditional tabletop role-playing games work in practice), it seems to capture pretty well the play of the real game, complete with all sorts of interactions that allow for out-of-the-box thinking. It has interesting characters and engaging writing. It’s a really big game with lots of choices to make.
My dislike of this game is born from a particular way in which I engage with these kinds of games. When I say “these kinds of games,” I mean in some small part lengthy RPGs, but more specifically the very “crunchy” tabletop dynamic.
My approach isn’t unique – I think there are plenty of others that interact with these mechanics in the same way. I also don’t really know what the proportion of players is that interact in this way. It could be a small minority, it could be a big group.
But I wanted to sit down and examine that mentality in relation to these games. Perhaps if nothing else, it helps to catalogue a thought process that can be circumvented or dealt with. Maybe there is a perfect middle ground where complex tabletop mechanics can be integrated without triggering the mindset in question. Perhaps there are ways to sand down the rougher edges. Whatever the case may be, I feel like it’s useful to put this into writing.
When I first drafted this essay, it was meant to be a statement against these kinds of mechanics. But the more time I have had to wrestle with this topic, I think it doesn’t really serve to think of this all as a critique. A game like Baldur’s Gate 3 is not, at a fundamental level, for me. And that’s fine. Demanding that every game cater to my whims serves no real purpose.
Setting the Scene
Perhaps it might be useful to cover a bit of the discussion surrounding this topic.
Near the time when BG3 was going to leave Early Access on Steam and be fully and properly released, an article was written on July 20, 2023 that offered a core bit of advice: don’t play this game with a min-maxing philosophy. To boil down the arguments: rather than trying to perfectly complete every quest and save scumming to get optimal outcomes, just let things roll and enjoy the journey.
The author talks about their own experience with similar games and how min-maxing left them feeling disappointed: they were so powerful that the final boss was a pushover, and the lack of challenge robbed them of any sense of triumph. And this feeling – and the argument that springs from it – is certainly valid. We need to think about how much pushback we want from a game and how much challenge we are willing to put up with, and we can sometimes play games in ways that are counterproductive – in our pursuit of one goal or another, we cease to have fun.
That article then spawned a bunch of discussions about min-maxing and save scumming behavior more generally, both supporting and opposing the author. The response that stuck out the most to me was from developer Josh Sawyer, a designer and director for games like Icewind Dale, Fallout: New Vegas, and Pillars of Eternity (all of those, and especially the first and last, being direct comparisons to the games in question). Specifically, in one video he talked about the incentive structures in place because of time: failing means a loss of the player’s time as they may be required to re-complete anywhere from 20 minutes to multiple hours of content. This being compared to a tabletop experience, where failure may be accommodated by the collaborative aspect.
In Search of Lost Time
I think one thing missing from the discussion is the amount of time that needs to be spent on the whole ordeal. Various players will likely not get to the end of these games, just starting over again to try out different builds or getting as far as they can before dropping the game. A number of others may attempt to see as much of the game as possible in a single run. And others may play through the full game multiple times to experience as much as possible.
And the problem is that all of these engagements take time. A lot of time. On the high end, perhaps well over 100 hours. And we’re not necessarily talking about 100 hours total, but 100 hours per playthrough.
Those wanting to experience as much of the game as possible before setting it down are going to be pushed towards poking at every nook and cranny of the game. Every quest needs to be completed “optimally” both because you might never revisit it, but also because it could provide valuable experience or items that will prove useful later.
A failed check is more than just a bad roll: it’s content that you’re missing out on. It’s a potential questline, a potential reward, a potential bit of story that would be interesting to hear. Without knowing what we’re missing out on, the incentive structures push players toward interactions that maximize content. Did you fail a roll? Did you win a battle but lose one of your party members? Just reload your last save and try again.
The problem occurs not because the game fails to provide the player with backups. You might have a wide selection of possible companions to establish a party, and losing one member is not a huge deal, as they can be replaced by someone else. A properly balanced game shouldn’t require the player to complete every single quest – in fact, completing everything may lead to you being overpowered and making much of the game a cakewalk. The issue here is not these games constrain what players can do and force play into a specific mindset.
Rather, it is the overall system of knowledge (or lack thereof), options, and constraints imposed by the players themselves. If I have thousands of free hours and only a few games to play, then I can take my time. I could easily experience a game’s content through multiple playthroughs and make each one feel “authentic” and “natural.” If I have far less time and more to get through, I may want to make sure that my one playthrough gives me as much as possible.
I don’t really know if RPGs can really satisfy both types of gamers, but the deeper games lean into tabletop mechanics, the more they slow things down and encourage what we might generally call “powergaming.” The more that the content of the game itself is blocked by any element of randomness, the more a player will feel that they need to resort to techniques like save-scumming or looking up quest guides. RPGs in general can run into problems of demanding massive amounts of time that encourage this type of gaming, but tabletop mechanics tend to slow things down in a way that multiplies the amount of time involved in just casually playing.
There are ways to fight this problem. The less time a game requires overall, the easier it is to take advantage of choice. A facet as true for the genre as it is for this specific mode of interaction. But if players are being locked out of certain quests, they can more easily accept that locking if they know that they can revisit it “soon.” That a new playthrough won’t involve a time investment of multiple weeks.
Within a real-life tabletop setting, the point of these skill checks is to become a springboard for collaborative storytelling. A check fails, and the Game Master helps to weave a story around that failure. If things are going bad, the Game Master can also introduce elements to help players. The focus is on adjustment. This may not be a universal rule for these games, but is a common element that comes up in discussions about these games.
But video games are currently constrained in this regard. A designer can try to account for a wide variety of possibilities, but each array must be approached largely in isolation. I can predict a failed check and program the game to respond appropriately. But as we add in more failures in succession, I can’t account for that. All I can do is give you the opportunity to reset.
And it’s also necessary for the video game to make adjustments based on what it is unable to do. Where tabletop experience can excel in a sense of collaboration and spontaneity, video games are much more limited in these respects. RPGs operate via a set of fairly rigid rules programmed into the game, and the narrative progresses according to a fashion that is predetermined by the authors. The different ways in which these mediums can and often do treat “failure” pushes players into different modes of interaction.
Concluding Remarks
I mentioned at the beginning that my initial reaction to Baldur’s Gate 3 was to say that this crunchy tabletop design was bad. The reason I backed off from that conclusion as I gave it more thought was that I realized I had no good basis for why I wanted to make that claim.
Probably to put it most simply, I wanted to like BG3. I was a big fan of the original games in the series, which were built off of tabletop mechanics but implemented in a much more streamlined manner. All of the dice rolling and so took place in the background, and it felt like a video game, rather than a board game you played with a controller.
But I don’t need to like BG3. That it exists in the way it does and so many people find it fun and engaging is a good thing. There are plenty of other games that I can play instead that fit closer to what I want from the medium. Some people do enjoy those crunchier mechanics, and they should be able to have those games and have fun with them without someone coming in to demand that the game be changed to conform to their standards.
What do we do with the above information? Perhaps someone wants to make an RPG with crunchier mechanics but is worried about people engaging in save scumming. Although based on the support for BG3, this might be something that we shouldn’t be concerned about. As long as the game itself is fun, people will engage with the game in a sort of “authentic” way as intended.
But let’s still presume that a designer wants to create a wider appeal. Maybe they want to get someone with my mindset on board.
I can’t say for certain how you go about that. But perhaps by understanding the psychology behind this behavior, it will be easier to tweak mechanics in a way that can achieve this goal.
Abstracting Games 