It’s no surprise that a game based on Dungeons & Dragons would do a tremendous job with how it handles roleplay, but to this day, Baldur’s Gate 3 remains a whole different level, setting a near-impossible standard for open world fantasy developers. It’s even funnier when you consider that Baldur’s Gate isn’t a wholly open world, especially as you’re locked out of everywhere else come Act Three.
It’s been nearly three years since Baldur’s Gate 3 came out and took the gaming world by storm, and since its release, there hasn’t been a game that comes close to how roleplay is handled.
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I’ve been playing D&D for years, and there hasn’t been another game that perfectly captures its essence during dialogue and actions; you can truly do or say just about anything. The chaos and beauty of it all is only emphasised when you play multiplayer, and at that point, the roleplay is the most authentic it can be, apart from playing the tabletop itself.
There is no other RPG, much less game, out there that has the role-playing down like Baldur’s Gate 3 does — and the game is all the better because of it.
Create Anyone From the Ground Up
Nobody is Set in Stone. Not Even Companions
When you start the game off with the character creator, you already have a mountain of options to choose from. There’s the obvious — how you look — but your entire build is started right there; classes (and for some, subclasses), backgrounds, and spells are picked out depending on what the player wants to do this time around. There is a ton more as you level up throughout the game (or all at once with the assistance of mods), such as feats and equipment, and it only adds to the uniqueness of your character in each file.
It’s not just you, either. While your companions all start a certain way, once you get Withers (who you can pick up early on), you can rebuild every single companion from the ground up much in the same way (or just build different hirelings). And as you go through and play their quests, the different decisions you make will absolutely rewrite the entire experience. Play as Shadowheart and make her a paladin, for example, and you will still have exclusive, Shar-worshipper dialogue, but flavoured for the class.
As a matter of fact, the core of the game (which is, in fact, authentic roleplay) all stems from your decisions and dialogue, less so your various builds. Then again, on harder difficulties, being able to talk your way out of an encounter is a lot more life-or-death — only reinforcing the importance of your choices.
Of course, while D&D games can only account for so much, there are so many different pathways you can take with Baldur’s Gate 3 that will change how your story ends — and if you want to be technical, with every single change that can happen, there are over a thousand endings you can experience. While developers couldn’t consider every single possible outcome, they could consider most decisions that people would choose.
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This isn’t even considering how different everything is if you were to fail a dice roll, especially during particularly crucial moments that define where the story goes. Just saying, things can only go so well when you roll a Nat 1.
When taking dialogue into account, there are many personality options that lead to the same outcome, but not if you’re trying to impress someone you want to romance, for example. This doesn’t even mention how there are countless aspects in the code that silently tally up points based on the player’s specific dialogue choices — using Shadowheart again, for an example, she has her standard approval rating, but she also has something called Nightsong Points, which will influence her doubts about her faith.
The game makes zero mention of this, but your approval with her, combined with specific things you could say (especially as a Selûnite cleric), will determine if she independently throws the Spear of Night and spares Dame Aylin later on at the Gauntlet of Shar. Instead of having to persuade her to abandon her goddess, if you are a certain way with her, she will do that entirely on her own.
That is literally a single example of a single character — your choices will seal the deal for everyone and everything, even if you’re actively trying to go in an alternate direction.
In D&D terms, that’s a DM that knows their players; and the fact this can be so easily felt while playing only emphasises the game’s authenticity to the tabletop, and the memories the roleplay scenarios created.
Countless Choices Allow Different Personalities
Plus, it Keeps Repeat Playthroughs Entertaining
If you’ve not tried to genuinely step into the world and your character’s shoes, you’re missing out — not just on a better experience with Baldur’s Gate 3 overall, but also with the insane depth you encounter with the roleplay itself. Have a friend play along with multiplayer, and you can create unique moments that would be impossible to replicate anywhere else other than at a genuine D&D table. This is even more obvious if one of you plays a Dark Urge character while another is an average Tav.
The Dark Urge alone is full of unique options and roleplaying opportunities, and it’s enough to keep you for several playthroughs on single-player, much less when actually playing with someone else.
Games have a hurdle they have to constantly keep in mind: replayability — but thankfully, the countless roleplaying options make repeat playthroughs different every time. I have well over 1,500 hours in the game, and I was still discovering new dialogue branches with specific companions and NPCs because of my different characters and their personalities (which, obviously, led to unique dialogue options and choices as a result).
“That’s nerdy,” you might think — and well, yeah. It’s a D&D game, you can’t get nerdier than that; you might as well have fun with the roleplaying here.
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The different characters you create should have such varying personalities much of the same way. It will keep you curious and entertained for far longer than you had initially anticipated. You can experience peace when you had previously dealt with violence and vice versa with the simple choice of a spell or simply going for the first hit — and within combat, taking on different spells or abilities that would still influence every outcome.
The Iron Throne is one example; if nobody in your party has Haste or a stockpile of Potion of Speed, you’re not going to save everybody from a watery grave. In fact, you’d barely be able to save yourselves.
Even if you’re a thorough player like myself, there are still dozens of different NPCs you haven’t yet spoken to, quests you haven’t yet completed, and new scenarios for you to roll your dice while crossing your fingers for a Natural 20. This means when you go back through and find these newly discovered pathways as a new character, you’ve got new Tav personalities you can play with.
For me, that quest was Scratch’s original owner — sure, there’s a consensus in my choices that aligns with “this is my camp’s dog now,” but how that’s gone about is definitely different every time. One of my characters actually didn’t give her a chance and just stealthily shot her to death with an arrow.
The chaos and beauty of it all is only emphasised when you play multiplayer, and at that point, the roleplay is the most authentic it can be, apart from playing the tabletop itself.
Including mods into the mix can only expand on your roleplay opportunities more — not always within dialogue, but definitely with your stats. Seriously, play as a Vampire Ascendant and realise how you can get away with doing basically whatever you want (which will, naturally, lead to a particularly chaotic personality for that Tav). But in the base game itself, completely vanilla and unmodded, the possibilities in your playthrough are literally endless.
Anyone who has played the actual tabletop version of Dungeons & Dragons will tell you that the experience feels the same: you are whoever you want to be, doing whatever you want to do in a world with thousands of different outcomes waiting for your selection.
Simply put, you aren’t going to get an experience like this in any other game, nor are you going to get a D&D-based game that’s as genuine and authentic to the roleplaying opportunities.
No Other Game Comes Close
Not Even RPG Legends
When thinking about all the games that have come before and after Baldur’s Gate 3, I genuinely cannot think of another that allows for the same level of freedom in opportunity (while keeping roleplay at the forefront). Mass Effect is probably the closest second that comes to mind, but a lot of the pathways end in either You Succeed or You Fail (which, in Mass Effect, means This Character Dies, or They Don’t). The only time your actions feel like they have any consequences outside of those moments is with your war assets in the third game.
Meanwhile, a Baldur’s Gate 3 outcome would have a few more options than a pure success or failure, as well as subsections within that ending. In simpler terms, there are more outcomes within the outcomes themselves. It’s like opening a test and seeing it’s only 10 questions, but each of those questions has an additional 20 sub-questions (in the best way).
Astarion’s Successful Ascension Ending, for example, may be a success on his part and completes his quest — but it’s a bad outcome from success. His actual best ending requires him to fail at ascending, and I’m really understating how many sub-choices you have with those outcomes (especially with the other spawn and the Gur).
Again, this doesn’t even scratch the surface with the choices you can make. Random NPCs that you had a one-chance encounter with can do something as simple as leave a note for you in the epilogue, reminding you of something you had done without even thinking, leading to a significant impact or influence on that character.
That’s if you didn’t play as a truly evil Dark Urge and choose to kill everything in sight. Again, choices.
There truly isn’t another game like Baldur’s Gate 3 when it comes to its roleplay, and the choices are only half of what make up the roleplay in the long run. The only other way you can genuinely and authentically go all out with the experience is with an actual session of D&D itself.
It’s a challenge for developers who want to make their mark in the fantasy RPG sphere, but so long as they keep roleplay as authentic as Baldur’s Gate 3 does (even on a more limited scale), it would still be beloved in the same way. The sole reason BG3 feels so close to an actual tabletop session is because of the roleplay, and whoever plans to take up Baldur’s Gate 4 is very likely to keep this in mind.
The roleplaying opportunities in Baldur’s Gate 3 set a new standard, but it’s not an impossible one by any means — and if anything, I’m excited to see how future games will allow for a similar authenticity.
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Even if you make every single choice the same in your next Baldur’s Gate 3 playthrough, it won’t feel the same now that you have context.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
