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Introduction
Confession: I've never finished the Baldur's Gate series. It is what it is. Unpopular opinion to follow.
IE games are like a pizza. Planescape: Torment is like the signature design gourmet chorizo, onion, and goat cheese pizza that isn't terribly well made, but the flavors are amazing and more than make up for it. Icewind Dale is like a cheese pizza, but likely the best made pizza you ever had. It's a very dependable choice for when you want a satisfying pizza, without worrying about toppings sending the flavor off in a weird direction. Baldur's Gate is like a 60-inch everything pizza. And, by everything, I mean shit that doesn't even belong on a pizza like parsnips, bananas, and scrambled eggs. It's not the best made, and not the best flavor. However, there is a lot of it and if you can finish it in one sitting, it's free and you get your picture on the wall of the pizza place. It's less a meal and more an accomplishment.
BG2 alone is a long game. And, while there is a lot of story to be had, it doesn't all fit together really well. I've finished the first game a fair number of times, but I could never make it all the way through BG2. I don't think I've ever made it further than Spellhold and I've never actually even been in Watcher's Keep or explored the ToB content. I just burn out long before all that trying to complete everything, usually in a nonsensical way. It's been decades and I can't seem to cinch this game up, yet I keep bringing it out every couple years to try. But, I'm determined this time. This time is it.
I figure the thing that will help me is to really immerse myself in it and commit. I guess you could say it's a roleplay run, though I'm not going to be doing funny voices or wearing costumes, at least, for all you know.
Instead, I'll be making choices based around what I think this character would do and headcanon any narrative gaps, rather than follow the prescribed flow of play in a video game (i.e. follow a MQ while picking up side quests along the way). I'm also posting a screenshot let's play to give myself an extra layer of accountability. Additionally, the SSLP format also forces me to break up play so I don't play “too much” in one sitting.
This will be the time that I play through the whole saga. I just feel it.
You Must Gather Your Party Before Venturing Forth
I was originally going to blow through with a Cleric/Ranger taking along Imoen in BG1 and Yoshi->Imoen in BG2 to speed things up. Full parties can play really slow and I kinda just wanted to get this done. However, I thought I owed it to the canon party, the characters I've dragged along on so many playthroughs that I never could be bothered to finish. Finishing this game won't just be my victory, but theirs as well.
Because I'm going canon, I will also be dualing Imoen at level 7 to a mage to retro-jive (sure, that's a word) with her character in BG2. It gives me smh feels every time I think about it. Level 6 would have been much better for a dual. She could still max out traps and locks, and the catch up period would be much shorter. As is, if you also want to play with the canon party, you either can't follow the prescribed flow of the game, or you end up in a really awkward place without a thief for a long while. Indeed, the very atypical path that I take here is largely due (on the meta) to Imoen's dual. I could also knock her down a level of thief in BG2, and do what I want in BG1. But, for some reason, that doesn't sit right with me.
For BG1, that gives me a final party of Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc, and Dynaheir. For BG2, it's Jaheira, Minsc, Yoshi -> Imoen as the core. The remaining slots in BG2 cycled between various NPCs for their quests. I am writing this before the actual run, so I have yet to decide who, if anyone, I'm taking the final slots. I'm leaning towards Jan since he's the only thief that still levels in Classic (and I like turnip stories, and traps are fun, and I'll have an extra back line slot). I'm also leaning towards big ol' Bro in ToB, just to bring the family back together.
This is also intended to be a mostly completionist run. There are a handful of things I might skip for roleplay and meta reasons (and I'll note why/when I do), but I want to try and take a character through all the game's content. It will likely be a challenge to do this, partly due to the character build I have in mind, and partly for it to come off organic with the "roleplay" aspect.
Technical Notes
I'm playing the original trilogy, not the EE, as packaged by GOG. Apparently, you can't even get the original recipe anymore because Beamdog killed it. Booooo! For BG1, I'm playing using EasyTutu (BG1 in the BG2 UI). I considered just going with the original BG1, keeping it real, but it's so low res that I couldn't do it. Plus, playing through with the same res and UI means more consistency in screenshots.
Both the original devs and EasyTutu did some weird stuff with NPC proficiencies. I'll be correcting these in Shadowkeeper as I go with a note to explain the rationale. Additionally, whatever I build in BG1, I will SK in BG2 to maintain continuity.
Who the Hell Is This Other Chatterbox?
You will see some format changes once we really get the ball rolling with this SSLP. I haven't hit my head or anything. This is intentional.
When you see this, you are reading the subjective third-person reliable narrator giving you our main character's perspective.
But, if the text looks like this, the player of the game is sharing some pertinent meta.
One of us figured that pointing this out was important. Don't ask who. We both think it was the other person's idea.
And speaking of chatter, feel free to comment with questions and feedback in the post. Discussion is always welcome. I have a table of contents in the top post and links in the individual episodes to organize the actual Let's Play so it can flow for a reader. As such, we don't need to worried about the thread getting cluttered.
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