The role-playing game Baldur’s Gate 3 fascinates many players in 2023, but upon closer examination, this masterful role-playing game has a storytelling problem that detracts from the fun of the game and is common to many role-playing games. A false sense of urgency.
What is this problem? Every role-player is familiar with it:
- The world is on the brink of destruction, the apocalypse is imminent, in a few days the “army of ice zombies will come over the wall”/”the evil wizard has seized world domination”/”the worm in our head will explode and turn us into a tentacle monster.”
- But there is this little girl whose cat has run away. And there’s also a cellar vault where a +1 sword of courage might be lying. And actually, one also needs to beat up 500 crocodiles to craft that leather armor that looks so cool.
- Especially Baldur’s Gate 3 suffers greatly from this discrepancy between what the story tells us and how we are supposed and want to play. This is a kind of ludo-narrative dissonance.
Every NPC wants us to hurry and is in pure panic
Why is this particularly intense in Baldur’s Gate 3? In the first hours of play, Baldur’s Gate 3 puts incredible pressure on the player from the narrative perspective: Because one has a parasite in the brain that will inevitably, and actually immediately, in a few days, as the game says, lead to the transformation into a thought shredder.
In the first hours, one is constantly confronted with this countdown in Baldur’s Gate 3. Every companion one meets is in the same panic, desperately wanting to get rid of this thing.
In a discussion on reddit, this discrepancy particularly comes to light. Some thoughts from there:
- In the story of Baldur’s Gate 3, it is regularly implied that a specific fight or the game in general is “time-sensitive” and must be completed as quickly as possible. This is supposed to create tension and pace in the gaming experience.
- In reality, such limits – except for some quests – are hardly present, and the role-playing game actually invites leisurely play, where one can explore everything. Because that is the strength of Baldur’s Gate 3, the countless side missions that can be solved in various ways.
A player says: “I’m sure that’s why many players miss so much in Act 1, because every single companion you recruit says: We need to get a cure as quickly as possible! Everyone tells you to get your ass moving and hurry up.”
Another user says: “This false sense of urgency is such a constant in role-playing games that my brain simply filters it out like a filter. My poor companions were surely very desperate with all these parasites in their heads, and I was like, ‘We’re now going to walk through the wilderness for half an hour and then call it a day.'”
What can be done about it? Apparently, an old writing wisdom from SF author Douglas Adams is the healthiest way to handle “urgency in role-playing”: I love deadlines, I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by.
More about the game and people who are in too much of a hurry:
World record: Speedrunner completes Baldur’s Gate 3 in 4 minutes by putting Shadowheart in a box
