Humble Bundle - Baldurs Gate & Beyond

For me, the original Baldur's Gate releases brought back much of the same joys of playing the earlier Gold Box releases on my Commodore 64. The stories were great and they felt like the D&D ruleset they were built upon.

For the next couple of days, you can score the Baldur's Gate & Beyond Bundle for 12 bucks, which is beyond a bargain (see what I did there?). I have a few of these titles and I'm in for 12 bucks.

Lose yourself in some of the most immersive, beloved, legendary PC role-playing experiences of all time—and get Lose yourself in some of the most immersive, beloved, legendary PC role-playing experiences of all time! Rediscover a genre-defining saga in the Enhanced Editions of Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II from Beamdog. Embark on an epic journey in 2021’s acclaimed Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. Return to the Forgotten Realms in Neverwinter Nights: Complete Adventures and more, and help support Active Minds with your purchase!

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Humble Bundle - RPG Legends: Baldur's Gate & Beyond

I was just thinking that I needed to explore some of the recent classics in computer RPGs. In my mind, that means the era of IBM PCs, instead of my old Commodore C-64 ;)

What pops up on my feed? I new bundle from Humble Bundle - RPG Legends: Baldur's Gate and Beyond. My classics are here!

There are three price points, depending on your budget (OSX folks are in luck too!)

20 bucks give you as pictured above. Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is currently 50 bucks on Steam with decent reviews. Of course, you get all of the other titles too.

10 bucks give you everything except for Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous.

For a measly buck, you get Planescape: Torment EE as well as Icewind Dale EE.

Looks like I'll be lost in nostalgia for a few weeks ;)

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. 

DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Anchor, YouTube,  or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar

 

Getting my Gaming Fix In by Any Means Possible

It's week four, or is it five(?), that I've been going sans dice as I'm overseas and my group is not playing during the lead-up to NTRPG. To say I've been jonesing for a game is a bit of an understatement. Luckily I did download Baldur's Gate off of steam and I'm on day 66 of my adventures along the Sword Coast. This go around....I've started the game maybe a half-dozen times but have only made it to Baldur's Gate once and never had finished the game.....this go around I just started off with an entirely custom party:

• Elven Ranger (Archer)
• Dwarven Defender
• Halfling Swashbuckler
• Human Mage
• Human Priest of Talos
• Half-Elf Skald (Bard)

I am totally cheesing this playthrough though in making sure every level-up has the PC's getting maximum HP. I'm doing my best to hoard every GP I can, even if that means selling off all of the potions, which I assume might bite me in the butt later...we'll see.

Even though it's a fun enough time-waster, it doesn't quite scratch that itch....

....so I'm starting to write/design a new adventure.

After getting to explore a bit of the local area I've come up with a mish-mash of ideas that I think could work well together for a written adventure. Right now I just have the shell of an idea....but it is written down, and I need to figure out the framework with which I'd like to work in.

Right off the bat I'm thinking I'd like this adventure to be a bit of a multi-purpose kind of thing, so I'm thinking I'll use something that already exists as a rough template. A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity works for me as said template because what I'm thinking of is a larger adventure that can be used, at least in part, as a tournament adventure. 

Since most of my more formal adventure writing is for tournaments, I've got that experience I can draw from. Of course, the adventure portion will literally just be part of the overall adventure.

Now my initial planning is to write this for Old School Essentials (OSE) as I think that'll be easy enough for GMs to flip over to any other flavor of OSR. Also I'm thinking levels 3-5, but I want to keep that a bit loose until I figure out the tournament portion of the adventure.

Since my initial inspiration came from a couple of local (well, currently local) places, I need/want to do what I can to import some historical maps from the area. Luckily I was able to find a German map website that had access to some old maps of the area. It's enough to start off with, but it's really misleading on just how the location itself looks. I'm hoping that with more time looking I can find a topographical map I can overlay on a homemade version of this old 1800-something map to strike a nice balance that shows just how much this one feature can be seen from even the far side of this rather large valley.

So the first phase of this project will be working on the larger overland map, tightening up the background story, and then writing the tournament portion of the adventure, along with any specific tournament requirements (special rules, pregens, etc.) Then I can work on "interior" maps, any special monsters, and overall tweaks. 

Then the real PITA work comes in: editing and playtesting.......luckily I have a few folks I can probably reach out to for assistance on that one.

The Tavern Chat Podcast - Episode #59 - Baldur's Gate Lead Designer Goes Greek with 5e

I'm a huge fan of Baldur's Gate 1 & 2. In my eyes, they set the highwater marks for the computer RPGs that followed, and I'm not sure if any have ever hit the mark. To see talent moving from computer games to RPGs is exciting.

James Ohlen (lead designer Baldur's Gate 1&2 and Neverwinter Nights) has retired from Bioware and is publishing a Greek-themed setting for 5e called Odyssey.

Link to Episode #59 -  https://anchor.fm/tavernchat/episodes/Episode-59---Baldurs-Gate-Lead-Designer-Goes-Greek-with-5e-e1q263

Link to ENWorld article - http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?5412-Baldur-s-Gate-Designer-Leaves-Bioware-To-Form-D-D-Publishing-Company

Link to Arcanum Worlds - http://www.arcanumworlds.com

The Return of Minsc and Boo - in comic format at least...

Looks like Minsc and Boo are returning. No, not in computer games but comic book form. Baldur's Gate will feature in the new Dungeons & Dragons comic book series from IDW.

Each issue in the series focuses on an individual hero from Baldur’s Gate, including fan favorites Minsc and his miniature giant space hamster Boo. Krydle and Shandie, Delina, and Nerys Kathon will also see the spotlight.

You can read more about it at ICv2. 

As for me, I head out to Day One of Jury Duty shortly...

Baldur's Gate 2 - One of My Last Experiences With 2e

I was bouncing around on the WotC site and I noticed that Baldur's Gate 2 now has an "Enhanced Edition". Just thinking about it brings back memories of gaming on my laptop with BG, BG2 and Icewind Dale, trying to keep my table top RPG experiences moving forward even after the true gaming had stopped.

February of '96 was my last true RPG experience for about a dozen years. Sure, there were MMOs - Everquest, Anarchy Online, Everquest 2, Warhammer, Meridian 59, Sierra's The Realm, Ultima Online, Dungeons & Dragons Online and many, many more. None however, were D&D like I had last experienced it.

The Baldur's Gate series kept that fire burning for many a year. It WAS AD&D 2e, or as close to it as I was getting in those days. "Go for the eyes Boo!" became my rallying cry. It was good. It was fun. It wasn't as good as the real thing, but it didn't need to be, as I didn't have access to the real thing.

I'm tempted to buy the new enhanced Baldur's Gate 2 to relive some of those memories, not because I need to these days - I get my gaming in regularly now - but because the memories are good memories. It was a good game for the time, and I've yet to see anything in the days since that came close the the D&D tabletop experience as I knew it. Well, maybe Temple of Elemental Evil, but that was a buggy mess, and I never got into the temple itself.

Hmmm, wonder if they could enhance ToEE next?

Go for the eyes Boo, GO FOR THE EYES!! RrraaaAAGHGHH!!!

If you are looking for a gift for yourself, you can't do much better then the Dungeons & Dragons Classic Anthology of computer games.  For less then 20 bucks, i get to replay Baldur's Gate 1 + 2 (and all the expansions), Icewind Dale 1 + 2, Plansescape Torment (one of the best computer RPGs of all time and Temple of Elemental Evil (i never finished it the first time - this time I'll instal the community hack right from the start).

I guess the old SSI GoldBox games would be the true originals of D&D computer gaming (and I did love them) but Baldur's Gate was amazingly addictive.  I really need to take some sick time off from work.  Haven't done so in over 4 years and it would make for some great computer gaming time ;)

They've also put out a collection of all the Neverwinter 1 + 2 games and add ons.  That runs 29 bucks.  Great stuff there too, and I picked up both collections already, but I think I need to revisit Baldur's Gate first.