Baldur's Gate 3, and where D&D shines

I haven't Forgotten these Realms

Confirmed. Baldur’s Gate 3 has at least one dragon.

Setting aside the Satanic Panic, has Dungeons & Dragons ever made more headlines than it has in 2023?

It’s an honest question. The year began with a fan revolt, then brought us a pretty great movie. But in my world, the biggest milestone yet is the release of Baldur’s Gate 3, a computer game that makes me nostalgic for the originals, which I played on vacation at my aunt’s instead of hanging out with family at the pool (I also read Garth Nix’s Sabriel series there — it was a magical place!).

Truthfully, I cooled on Dungeons & Dragons as a game years ago. While I obsessively collected sourcebooks as a tween, I played it infrequently and realized later that my interest stemmed from its worldbuilding, not its rules. It sparked such imagination that I developed my own campaign setting (first called “Fantasia,” then “Olarius”), before falling in love with Tony DiTerlizzi’s whimsical renderings of Planescape — which is still the most bonkers and brilliant fantasy world I’ve seen (sorry, Faerun!).

Unsurprisingly, Planescape: Torment is my favorite of the old Black Isle games, but it’s not the D&D game I played most. That honor goes to Neverwinter Nights, which proved to me that D&D’s meticulous combat fares better when a program can run the dice-rolling and number-crunching for you. My RPG enthusiasms have thus split: I enjoy simpler indies with friends in-person (like Dread, Dialect, or Masks), but can still get behind crunchier titles when a computer does the work.

In short, Baldur’s Gate 3 is more than 13-year-old James could have dreamed. I just hope 32-year-old James can find the time for the dozens (hundreds?) of hours of wonder it promises.

Thought you’d get a newsy introduction, did you? Sometimes, you get personal reflections instead!

What’s New (apart from Baldur’s Gate)

• Wrote about Magic: the Gathering’s new “Commander Legends” release. Basically, Commander is Magic deckbuilding at its most expressive, and its taken over much of the fandom. It won’t ever be my favorite way to play, but it does provide my favorite decks to admire.

• I also worked with NPR’s Eric Deggans and WBUR’s Tiziana Dearing on this review of two summer TV shows: Winning Time and Justified: City Primeval.

What I’m playing (apart from Baldur’s Gate)

• Misericorde and its dysfunctional nuns has kept me company all week in planes and trains, from San Francisco to Washington DC. It’s much longer than I thought it’d be, and I’ve grown to savor its idiosyncratic pastiche.

• I finally got Remnant II working and have enjoyed its co-op. Apart from my new trusty dog, I can’t say it feels all that different from the first game. Maybe my estimation will change the further I go.

• Dabbled in Pikmin 4, though not enough to be truly gripped by it.

• Oh, and Magic: the Gathering, of course. I got to draft March of the Machine with friends Tuesday, which I suspect will be the limited format of the year. I also hosted one of my own Pick-Your-Poison events Wednesday (basically, a “chaos draft,” where everyone can choose what they’re drafting with).

I swear I won’t mention Magic every week! On to the next!