I've been slowing writing BG playthroughs for several years now. I have a few completed ones:
Hello everyone, For about the past year or so, I've been posting my Roleplay playthroughs on the Beamdog forums. I was actually keeping the roleplay "journaling" to myself, for posterity's sake, until I discovered the Challenges and Playthroughs board and started posting my playthroughs there...
tavernrpg.com
Hello, I'm here posting another thread for a different character's playthrough, seeing how I just finished my Avenger run.
forums.beamdog.com
Hello, I was posting my narrative playthrough of my CE Berserker in another thread, buuuut I actually switch characters every 3 months or so.
forums.beamdog.com
I'm not sure what keeps me going. I've played BG for 20+ years, but the real note-taking and journalling has just started in the past 5-6 years. I'm not sure it meets the definition of SSLP, as I learned about that term later on, but I know it's very similar in concept. I first started just keeping notes to myself so I can remember to have a "diversified" playthrough each time, mostly with what companions I'm picking. Out of that, it grew into roleplaying different characters to kind of unpredictably "randomize" the playthough, butterfly-effect style, based on some simple "seed" character elements, in-game RP decisions, and minimal reloading. I discovered for me personally this was a Rod of Replayability. I started posting the stories, my notes slowly became legible and then slowly transformed into something prose-like.
I've mentioned it here before, for some reason my brain loves that s***. Churning out infinite variety from within a structured set of rules. Jam bands (same song improvised different every time) and watching sports (same rules everytime but no two games will ever repeat) are two of my other favorite hobbies, which fit the same mold.
Why, and/or how, do I keep going? I don't know. I do it very slowly and my playthroughs take years. I pick up new campaigns while shelving others for long periods of time. If I HAD more time to play, I probably would, but I likely would get burnt out quickly and then step away for a few years (which has happened many times!). I really don't play other computer games. Just Baldur's Gate. (I'll get like every fourth Call of Duty and play that on Playstation, but only for a couple months usually.) So I wouldn't even call myself a gamer necessarily. Also, I'm an aspiriting writer, so all the time spent RP-journalling...if it starts feeling like a slog, I tell myself it's actually good practice for learning how to write, and in fact possibly MORE worth my time than the actual playing.
This is all me personally. I might just have a unique combination of traits where I can look myself in the mirror and say "yeah I'll keep playing BG for the rest of my life." I actually have 73 different unique character picked out to play. 3 campaigns completed, 4 currently underway. So, yeah, probably a lifetime thing for me haha.
Lastly, the screenshots used to kill me. THAT was an admin slog that actually gave me burnout despite all else I like about doing this. So recently I have a 5-screenshot limit on all posts, that has helped get from the play session to the final post much more enjoyable.