Baldur's Gate 3 managed to break out of the traditional CRPG demographic and capture the hearts and minds of total newcomers to the genre (like me). This was hugely exciting to see, but it inevitably caused some headaches for folks who found themselves intimidated by the game's unfamiliar rules and systems (again, like me). The cure to this headache, according to Larian senior RPG designer Anna Guxens, is to simply "roll with it" instead of trying to understand and master everything perfectly.
Speaking to Gamereactor, Guxens shared some sage advice for players who are new to RPGs like Baldur's Gate 3 and struggling to wrap their head around it all. "I think you don't need to be intimidated by the systems and the depth of it, because it's designed in a way that you can just have fun," she begins. "You don't need to understand and get the full experience like, 'I will know everything.' You don't need that, you just need to roll with it, have fun. You fail? That's okay, that's also part of the story."
It's a lesson that took me roughly two acts of Baldur's Gate 3 to learn. Shaking off this sort of perfectionism, the fear that I was having fun sub-optimally, while grappling with the nuances of Baldur's Gate 3's rules, and the exceptions to those rules, about drove me mad. The thing is, you're supposed to screw up, and you physically cannot see it all in one playthrough. That's the whole point.
Nuxens also points to community resources built by people who were long ago inducted into the ways of the CRPG and are more than happy to help others see the light. "There's different challenge modes that put more emphasis on the story for example rather than the challenge, that's something you can use to just get started," she adds. "The community has also been huge in supporting and filling in information that they feel the players might need to know to get engaged. So get engaged in the community, that's also good. But again, don't feel intimidated, just go for it, have fun. I'm sure you will be alright."
Here are our biggest Baldur's Gate 3 tips for making the most of Larian's masterwork. Meanwhile, our own Jasmine Gould-Wilson got good at Baldur's Gate 3 by refusing to play it properly, so, you know, do you.
