I didn't even play through the entirety of the early access stuff for Baldur's Gate 3. I started in on it with my friend Eric when it came out, just to see, and here's what became clear right away: sating an immediate curiosity for this game would be the worst possible way to experience the full thing. In the meantime, a lot of communiques have been deployed. Classes have been added, Features have been made manifest, in accordance with the old ways. I tried to be strategic about what I did and didn't look at. In doing so, I missed a novel "feature."

BG3 is definite, particular, USDA Choice, Corn-fed Iowa Pervert shit. And I don't mean because you can fuck bears or whatever. That stuff happened at my own table, and it was a character - not an NPC - getting bestial. This is years and years old, like 2017 or some shit. You're late, Larian! You're late.

The Neverwinter Nights games - possibly because they doubled as a set of tools to create adventures - also got down into what we might colloquially call the "real shit." There was an expansion for that game that threw a scene at me I'm still ringing from, and have absolutely, one hundred percent stolen for pen and paper. I don't want to go into a bunch of what they've done in the new game, because I want you to have them. But I can lightly go over a couple that these monsters have plucked from what must have been real tables they played at.

- a "territorial dispute" with a squirrel, "Speak With Animals" in general
- The Texture Of Warlock Pacts
- Tongues, Swords, and their Relative Powers
- Druidic Ecofascism

- Literal Spelljammer Shit

It was already clear from their previous excursions - the excursions that landed them the Baldur's Gate gig in the first place - that they know the value of RP in an RPG. I think the combat is very good, and has frankly taught me things that might be useful on stage in Acquisitions Incorporated, but "why" is a very big word and Larian knows it. They didn't try to make a D&D "game." They tried to make D&D.

(CW)TB out.