Baldur's Gate is, unfortunately, completely obsolete. For reasons other than sheer nostalgia or curiosity, it simply is no longer worth playing. I don't wish to be too harsh on it, as in its day it was the product of quality and purpose, but something must be said of "standing the test of time." Baldur's Gate is of a time when simply being able to play Dungeons and Dragons by oneself, on one's own schedule, with automated combat rolls and more audio-visual happenings than Orthanc or any of the other primordial D&D computerizations was an earth shifting novelty.
For a citizen from far beyond The Year Two Thousand and especially for one who has been lucky enough to actually play D&D consistently with a group that they like, Baldur's Gate is a complete and total slog. The hack and slash brand of tabletop roleplayer that it was made to service is one that has dwindled to virtually nothing, and wasn't exactly huge to begin with. Even for those who still hunt such solo simulations, there are better solutions than D&D, and there are better editions than AD&D. Most importantly, there are far, far better dungeon masters no matter your preferred system of play.
There are a great many things that a good DM will do to ensure a good experience for their group, and Baldur's Gate will do none of these. Baldur's Gate is perfectly happy to fill a dungeon with spiders that cast Web immediately, every single time they enter combat, and then make you sit there and wait until the full duration of the spell expires, even if all of the spiders have been dead for nearly a full minute. At the tabletop, any competent DM would either do something interesting with trapping the party in webs, or they would skip things ahead... because having everyone sit silently for a full minute in between encounters would be fucking annoying, and no one would like it.
It's not just that Baldur's Gate's DM is a cold robot who cares not for fun, it's that he's a pre-teen giga-nerd circa 1995. He assumes that you'll be utterly starstruck when faced with the canon-renowned Elminster: Greatest Wizard, and he thinks that you'll be on the floor in need of stitches when you first encounter his brilliant Noober. The joke is that Noober is annoying, you see. A noob, if you will. The DM will offer you endless fields of bog standard and disinteresting sidequests because he thinks that you are just as excited about the mere opportunity to play Dungeons and Dragons as he is. In its way, that's adorable. Unfortunately it renders most of the game no more than a time capsule... a window into a time where the fact that a computer could perform Dungeons and Dragons for you at all was thrilling enough. It no longer is.
Even if one conveniently ignores the bountiful pastures of subsequent CRPGs that offer more engaging narrative experiences, it is far, FAR more likely that one can now simply play D&D with actual human people. In your Baldur's Gate party, everyone simultaneously won't shut up and never says anything. In the end, from a modern perspective, Baldur's Gate feels like a bad session with a sophomoric DM and a truly lame batch of players, and that's a real shame, because the story does eventually reveal itself as something with great potential. Maybe the sequel can capitalize on it.
For a citizen from far beyond The Year Two Thousand and especially for one who has been lucky enough to actually play D&D consistently with a group that they like, Baldur's Gate is a complete and total slog. The hack and slash brand of tabletop roleplayer that it was made to service is one that has dwindled to virtually nothing, and wasn't exactly huge to begin with. Even for those who still hunt such solo simulations, there are better solutions than D&D, and there are better editions than AD&D. Most importantly, there are far, far better dungeon masters no matter your preferred system of play.
There are a great many things that a good DM will do to ensure a good experience for their group, and Baldur's Gate will do none of these. Baldur's Gate is perfectly happy to fill a dungeon with spiders that cast Web immediately, every single time they enter combat, and then make you sit there and wait until the full duration of the spell expires, even if all of the spiders have been dead for nearly a full minute. At the tabletop, any competent DM would either do something interesting with trapping the party in webs, or they would skip things ahead... because having everyone sit silently for a full minute in between encounters would be fucking annoying, and no one would like it.
It's not just that Baldur's Gate's DM is a cold robot who cares not for fun, it's that he's a pre-teen giga-nerd circa 1995. He assumes that you'll be utterly starstruck when faced with the canon-renowned Elminster: Greatest Wizard, and he thinks that you'll be on the floor in need of stitches when you first encounter his brilliant Noober. The joke is that Noober is annoying, you see. A noob, if you will. The DM will offer you endless fields of bog standard and disinteresting sidequests because he thinks that you are just as excited about the mere opportunity to play Dungeons and Dragons as he is. In its way, that's adorable. Unfortunately it renders most of the game no more than a time capsule... a window into a time where the fact that a computer could perform Dungeons and Dragons for you at all was thrilling enough. It no longer is.
Even if one conveniently ignores the bountiful pastures of subsequent CRPGs that offer more engaging narrative experiences, it is far, FAR more likely that one can now simply play D&D with actual human people. In your Baldur's Gate party, everyone simultaneously won't shut up and never says anything. In the end, from a modern perspective, Baldur's Gate feels like a bad session with a sophomoric DM and a truly lame batch of players, and that's a real shame, because the story does eventually reveal itself as something with great potential. Maybe the sequel can capitalize on it.