Launch Trailer via GameSpot
Like half the planet (it feels like) I too have been sucked into Baldur’s Gate 3, developed and published by Belgian game developer Larian Studios. Present to self for Christmas.
God alone knows when I’ll finish it. The damn thing’s huge. I haven’t even gone through Act One. I’m still noodling around goblin camps and wondering whether that nice Auntie who lives out in the forest really can homeopath me back to health. I shan’t tell you what I think of the game. Unless you’ve been living under an RPG rock you already know how good it is. I wouldn’t be writing about it now if I didn’t enjoy it.
That said.
There’s a bit early on that sticks out at me. Very minor spoilers ahoy.
Blighted Village. It’s within a stone’s throw of a temple, now defunct, and easy walking distance of what seems to be a grand monastery (ish) with a tomb underneath it, also defunct. Already you can get a sense of how this community used to work: priests in the temple, monks in the scriptorium, with a village in the middle producing goods to satisfy their needs. Probably there was some little gift shop selling tchotchkes to pilgrims as they wandered through.
Visually the Blighted Village reminds me of those tiny villages out in Northern Italy. You know the type; everything’s made of stone, streets very narrow, and there’s probably someone trying to sell it because nobody wants to live there anymore. Big features include a windmill, apothecary, and school. It’s abandoned, overrun by gribblies.
The more I poke around in there, the more the feeling grows. Is this a once-functioning community, or is this basically a bit of window dressing for the dungeon below? Did this village have a purpose, or is its purpose to get you down in the adventure area ASAP?
Point being if it feels as though the Blighted Village, or whatever it may be, is just set dressing, then the set starts to wobble. Immersion is threatened. Some background material is required for a place to feel lived-in. In Baldur’s Gate that seems to come most often from books and secrets you find after poking through all the crates and shelves; not so much from the things you see on the screen. Every so often you might, say, search through a schoolhouse and find a much-loved teddy bear. What happened to the child who owned that bear? How did the bear end up buried in a hole?
How much is too much, when it comes to background material? There’s no point designing things the players will never experience or care about. But if you set something in, say, an abandoned vineyard, do you want to outline how a functioning vineyard would, well, function? Or do you just want to sketch in some eye-catching details and handwave the rest?
If you’ve read my stuff, you know I prefer setting things in the real world, adding some historical data to make things flow properly and lend a bit of spice to what might otherwise be a boring narrative. Sometimes this leads to trouble, revisions. A while back when I wrote Sisters of Sorrow I realized that submarines in World War One were nothing like I imagined, and that meant rewriting the entire concept. C’est la vie.
I find it useful to poke around in old books and find out how things once worked. If nothing else it can provide plot, or at least an interesting scene.
Let’s wander over to Gutenberg, and ask the question: can I design a Chicken Coop of the Damned?
Probably the better question is why I’d want to do such a damn silly thing, but here we are.
A lot of games have, say, an abandoned farm as a setting. Something happened here in the before times and as a consequence the place is now Ripe For Adventure. Hideous things lurk in the shadows, each of them malignant and dripping with treasure.
For that to work in a scenario, how much do I need to detail about how the farm used to function?
The answer is, as much as is useful to me. However, that’s more glib than helpful. A bit fortune cookie-ish.
I start at Gutenberg because it’s useful to have a basic overlay of how things worked before The Unpleasantness. It’s also a pretty decent source of copyright-free maps and images. I could say the same about Wikipedia. I rely on neither for factual accuracy but then I’m not writing a thesis: I just want ideas.
Gutenberg reminds me that, if my adventure site includes a stable, then that stable needs somewhere to store harnesses and tack; somewhere to store grain and feed; somewhere to put the carriage (if this is that kind of stable); a source of water. Do I need to plan all this out? Probably not. But I do need to know that these things exist, because knowing this allows me to add details that can make the game fun.
It can also be a source of … other things …
From the description found at Gutenberg: The carriage room is sixteen by twenty-five feet, and the manure pit is in the basement beneath this room; to prevent the escape of ammonia from the manure pit into the carriage room a good cement floor should be laid down.
So, if I wanted to design a trap that, say, dumps the characters into, oh, a manure pit why not … I trust you can work out the rest for yourself. A whiff of ammonia might be the one warning the characters get before their moment of unhappiness.
A while back I put out a D&D scenario, For The Sound Of His Horn. In that scenario there’s a haunted mansion. Did I plan out the entire mansion from basement to rafters?
Hell no. This is what I said:
The Manse consists of the manor house, the hunting dog kennels, stables, and formal garden.
Manor House: a minor country house, first built over 400 years ago as a fortified country manor, renovated 150 years ago to be more comfortable and include a glassed sunroom. It was abandoned 100 years ago. Heavily overgrown and the roof is basically gone. In its day would have been home to four of the family and twice as many servants, or about twelve people in all. Rooms include: the great hall, the solar (private lounge for the family only), glassed sunroom now overrun by plants and mold, bedrooms, library, garderobe (latrine, single hole, discharging to outside), kitchen (including pantry and buttery, food prep and storage), attic (in almost complete ruin), wine cellar (ransacked). Most rooms have some furniture in them, but anything truly valuable has long since been stolen. Haunted Effect: footsteps heard in the next room, but nobody is there. Trigger: if anyone finds the library, if anyone is alone in the house.
Hunting Dog Kennels: Stone built with slate roof, space enough for a hundred hounds, or fifty couples. Still stinks of dog even after all these years. Haunted Effect: shadows of hounds flit across the walls. Though they do not attack people, they harass the shadows of anyone in the kennels. Trigger: if anyone is alone in the kennels, or if a hunter (eg. Ranger, someone dressed in hunting gear or similar) is in the kennels.
Stables: Stone built with slate roof, space enough for a dozen horses including tack room for their gear, and the manor house’s carriage, capable of seating four plus driver. The carriage and tack are far too rotten to be any use to anyone. Haunted Effect: the sound of stamping horses being loaded with tack for a hunt. Trigger: if anyone is alone in the stables, or if a hunter (eg. Ranger, someone dressed in hunting gear or similar) is in the stables.
Formal Garden: rolling lawns with tree groves scattered about, small lake now choked with reed and mud, artificial ‘hidden grotto’ cave, artificial ‘antique’ statues (cupids, heraldic animals, foxes). Haunted Effect: the fox statues seem to move about and there are more of them than before. Trigger: if anyone finds the hidden grotto, if anyone is alone in the garden.
Secrets
Manor House: Library. In its day this would have been an impressive collection. That was before the windows smashed and damp got in. Now most of the books are ruined and the carpet is a soggy, stinking mass. Secret: Will & Legal papers. Hidden in one of the books is the last will and testament of Gelbert’s brother Wyllin, including plans of Wyllin’s estate. The papers show Wyllin’s two children, son Bartell and daughter Allecia, were to inherit. Secret: Family Holy Book. The Huntingtower Scriptures of Ezra, annotated on the frontispiece with the family tree. Bartell and Allecia, Wyllin’s son and daughter, are both crossed out. Secret: Estate Plan. A framed copy of the estate’s total land holding hangs on the wall. If Wyllin’s share had passed to his children Gelbert would have been left with less than half; if they didn’t inherit, Gelbert got it all.
Formal Garden: Hidden Grotto. In its day this was a quiet spot with a good view of the gardens and lake, part hidden by a grove of trees. The sort of place lovers and poets might enjoy, on a pleasant summer’s day. Secret: Bartell’s Diary. This is hidden under a stone near the grotto’s bench. Written in a child’s hesitant script, the diary tells how Bartell and his sister were forced from the family home after their father died. For a brief time they hid in the garden where once they played as children, but Gelbert soon found all their childhood hiding spots. ‘But he shall never find our secret wood, and we will hide there until we can get someone to help us!’
Potential encounters
The Butler, manor house only, night only.
Twig Blights, 4-6, formal garden only.
Giant Bats, 3-6, manor house only during the day in what little is left of the attic, night only in the gardens, hunting.
Rats, 10-20, hunting dog kennels and stables only.
Potential Treasure
Bloodstone earrings, 100gp, manor house, bedroom.
Obsidian carved family seal, 50gp, manor house, library.
Book, antiquarian, local history (gives +2 to any History check concerning Mordent), 80gp, manor house, library.
Book, antiquarian, vampire lore (gives +2 to any History check concerning Barovia), 100gp, manor house, library.
3D6 GP, manor house, one time only, any room.
Potion of animal friendship, hunting dog kennels.
1D3 bottles of good wine, 50gp each, wine cellar.
1 bottle of bad wine, DC15 CON save or lose 1D6 CON, CHA, INT for 24 hours (constant retching, nausea), wine cellar.
Enough description to be helpful, not enough to be overwhelming. There’s just enough history to the place that you, as DM, can get a sense in your head of how things used to work and how things work now. That’s all you really need. It might be a little different, in a combat-heavy game, if you need combat areas. Then you want maps. But most of the time you’re not going to need detailed maps, particularly if you’re the only one who’s ever going to see them.
Going back to the Blighted Village, where this conversation began, that’s broadly what you, the player, get. A visual that paints a picture. Enough of a working design that you, the player, get a sense of how it was supposed to function when it was a functioning village. Secrets, hidden away, that you, the player, can find.
Notice I repeat those words, you, the player. That’s who all this is for. Never lose sight of the fact that there is an audience and that audience needs to be catered to. All this description, this verbiage? It has a purpose.
Put it another way. I came up with a concept I called Rome. All roads lead to it. For the campaign, Rome is an event, location or circumstance that is the end state of the game.
That’s for the game.
For you, the DM/Keeper/Director, Rome is the player. Everything you do is headed towards that Rome – player engagement.
Fun.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to stick a tadpole in my eye and go smack goblins.
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