I really wish people would stop letting the difficulty of Baldur's Gate act as a barrier to entry. Out of all the difficult games I've ever played, Baldur's Gate is the most fair and the least punishing. So many games are considered difficult because of shoddy design, improper play balancing or deliberately outperforming players. Baldur's Gate is not like that. Heck, the random number generator doesn't even pose much of an issue. Baldur's Gate offers up legit challenges and then provides you with everything you'll need to find your way through them somehow. It even goes so far as to let you get creative with how.

There is a learning curve though, but keep in mind that learning how to master a challenge is deeply gratifying. The interface is simple enough to understand. The complexities of the rules - while often nonsensical - also become apparent rather easily and the more you come to understand how things work the better you'll play. It's challenging. It's fun and it's satisfying.

And when you get a game over - and you will - you'll be sent back to your last save so save scumming is your best safety net. The game also autosaves incessantly so you'll never be set back far.

After reading some of your comments about Baldur's Gate/Mass Effect/KotOR I have to say that BG and KotOR are nothing alike. KotOR uses a watered down version of the 3e rules adapted for the Star Wars universe while BG uses the older 2e to its full extent. KotOR is much more cinematic than BG and the writing is more expansive compared to the first BG.

Both KotOR and Mass Effect are also a lot easier. Well, on higher difficulties ME is practically unplayable imo due to the nature of the mechanics, shoddy play balancing and a lack of options. But KotOR and ME are both rather simple click-to-win games. Even as a twich shooter ME doesn't allow for enough finesse with the controls to make manual accuracy and timing important. Baldur's Gate will make you think about using the best options you have available, coordinate and position your team so that they move at just the right moment to pull off coordinated assaults and utilize party members in such a way that they can engage enemies and defend each other appropriately. It is tactical combat at its finest, unlike KotOR or ME where you'll run headlong into a mess mash a few buttons and come out ready to automatically heal up for the next tussle.

In regards to grinding, it is nonexistent in BG. The game doesn't necessitate it nor does it really allow for it. Quests will provide you with all the experience you'll ever need.

If you're expecting BG to be KotOR and ME levels of simplicity and simply cannot contend with a game that gives you more then you'll likely find BG too difficult.

Assuming that OP has any interest in doing them, that is. A good deal of the quests I ran into early on where tedious wastes of time, so I decided that I was sticking to the main plot. As a result, I was severely under-leveled and under-equipped to the point where the 2 final battles were pretty much unwinnable, since following the main plot doesn't provide anywhere near the XP or gold needed to stay decently leveled or have access to the numerous magic items that are practically required for the endgame.

For me, it's twofold. On the one hand, the content has to actually interest me. The early quests are rather dull and either consist of going somewhere and killing a thing or, more often, going somewhere and getting an item; not helping is that the extent of interaction with the questgivers in BG is getting the quest and then a reward which may or may not be worth the gold it cost to raise a companion who got killed in the process of getting a belt back from a giant.

On the other hand, it's an issue of story. RPGs generally have a problem where a lot of them are based on a narrative where the world/you/someone/a jar of sentient jam is in serious danger, and you need to take action to resolve the situation (the Githyanki and the King of Shadows are hunting the Shardbearer, the guy in the spooky armor is after you, the people who broke into the Witcher fortress stole dangerous mutagens that the game parallels to dynamite in terms of an invention capable of being perverted in the wrong hands, etc.). The sense of urgency that those kinds of stories tend to try to impart to the player seem a wee bit undermined by the game expecting you to do the errands for every NPC in their dog, despite non of it being related to the plot. Doing all of those quests involving fetching a gnome's wine for them while knowing that Sarevok was after me felt a little like being a part of the Fellowship being on the run from the Nazgul, only to stop every five feet to help someone get their kitten down from a tree.

Or to make bacon sandwiches. :D

As idiotic as Merry and Pippin were (fool of a Took!), at least that contributed to the plot by leading the Nazgul fight and Frodo getting stabbed, thus making it even more urgent that he get to Rivendell.

Goddamnit, now I want to make bacon sandwiches.

As it happens I had BLTs for lunch and - yes - it was awesome.

LOL more to the point, when did video game stories make much sense anyway? I mean in terms of logical internal consistency I can count the number of story-heavy RPGs alone with narratives and quest structures that actually make sense together on one hand. Two offhand: Witcher 2 and maybe Planescape Torment. Fallout as well, perhaps. Point is, players are often forced to perform a pretty heavy amount of suspension for the sake of the writers excuse to cram a story full of optional side objectives. This is a hazard common to video games in general and one that game writers really need to work out, so I won't hold it to any one game in particular.

If you're gonna shun good games for this reason alone you're severely limiting yourself in terms of good games worth playing anyway.

It isn't too terribly difficult to imagine ways to write it off in BG though, since you start off not knowing anything and much of the narrative is investigative work. It is conceivable that you could spend a brief moment helping people as you go because you're not really sure what it is you're doing anyway other than pursuing a series of scant leads. It's harder to stomach in BG2, however, when you're given the pressing objective of saving a loved one who is in immediate peril. It sure doesn't help matters that quests run up and introduce themselves unbidden, each one vying for your attention and only for a limited time. Really, if the matter of sidequests is a big issue for anyone, I would suggest avoiding BG2 like the plague. It's a mess in that respect.

In fact, of all the games I've listed where the sidequesting makes sense in context, they all share one thing in common. The main narrative is all about investigating to uncover secrets. Geralt's/Nameless' amnesia/assassinations/water chip/mutants/GECK/Dad/Benny, etc. It is easier to believe that your character would do all sorts of things in between uncovering the next lead.

Quite. For somebody who role plays, it's simple: even adventurers have to live. Substitute 'side quests' or 'helping people' with 'odd jobs to pay for food and lodgings' -- "got any work, missus?" Thrown out with nothing, and no home base, odd jobs along the way to... wherever, are an adventurer's bread and butter. It wouldn't take wolves or gibberlings to kill you without them.

Firstly, from an investigative standpoint, I do have leads in BG, starting with Khalid and Jaheira, then the breadcrumb trail left by the main plot. If this were PST where I was completely and totally starved for clues, I could see that, but in BG, the investigative mindset doesn't warrant going on a quest to get Perdue's short sword for a bit of coin.

The problem is that all too often these problems become more glaring *because* I roleplay. A lot of the early requests don't even mention a reward up front, and in some cases the reward is nonexistant as far as roleplaying incentives go (unless the game is set in the Order of the Stick universe where characters are able to comprehend that they are gaining experience points) or it is laughably awful in comparison to what has been asked of you.

Take that giant, for instance; if you don't have an amazing charisma and reputation, you get a paltry 70 gp, but with amazing charisma and reputation, you still get a measly ~90 gp and a book that neither fetches a good price nor serves as good reading material in its own right. I took down that thing, probably lost a party member or two, requiring resurrection at 100 gp a pop, and the reward stands a good chance of being a net loss. Granted, I do get xp, but again, I can't possibly know about that in roleplaying terms.

BLT... Who on earth ruins a good bacon sandwich with lettuce and tomatoes? Anyway, on to the post.

I'd argue that (1) there are a number of videogame stories that have attempted to remain internally consistent with the game mechanics, and (2) just because games have had a nasty habit of doing it in earlier games doesn't mean it shouldn't be called out as the storytelling defect that it is so that designers can know better next time. After all, it's only through developers learning how to do things like not screw up the narrative that games can evolve as an art form. That said, I'm not churlish enough to avoid old games because they indulge in this sort of thing, since most developers back then just didn't know better; however, I did wind up giving up at BG's ending battle because of various other reasons, including but not limited to the fact that refusing to do all those ostensible "side quests" now meant either grinding or giving up.

As for your examples of RP reasons to do sidequests, you'll notice I didn't bring up Fallout or PST, but instead brought up the Witcher, Neverwinter Nights 2, and BG. That's because I agree with you about PST and Fallout. There are absolutely good character reasons to engage in sidequests, both in terms of RP (get evidence of your past/water chip location and mutant factory) and narrative (by both fleshing out the universe and exposing the player to various instances of recurring themes, particularly in PST). I don't buy it so much with the other games, though. Geralt is an amnesiac by virtue of a near death experience, and not once did I ever get any indication that someone was going to spill the beans on my past only after I fetched them a bouquet (and proceeded to shag them, as the case might be), while the more pressing concern of the missing mutagens was far more urgent and one I had solid leads on, thus killing any necessity of searching for more. Same with BG and NWN 2; the main plot never exactly was skimpy with doling out breadcrumbs, so not once did my character ever think that now was the time to start chatting up the locals for intel and work.

You have as good as nothing. You have been lied to (or at least kept from the truth) by you own foster father, with the result that you have had two hit-man attempts on your life inside your own home. Gorion then, without a word of explanation, takes you to you-know-not-where, never to return, and you are ambushed along the road where Gorion is killed. Seriously, anybody who had gone through that would be seriously lacking in trust of *anybody*, including so-called 'friends' who Gorion would also tell you nothing about. A sane person's instincts would not rush up to some complete strangers after going through that, regardless of who recommended them.

And even *if* you team up with Jaheira and Khalid, you still need to eat, sleep and stay safe. Tell me: how will you go about ensuring all of that without finding jobs? You won't, it's that simple.

Who said anything about trusting them? I RPed Claire Willis as a protagonist right out of a hardboiled Parker crime novel, and while that meant trying to keep the crew together to try to foster trust in order to maintain it as a valuable asset providing protection and a means of acquiring lucre, it also meant keeping an eye out on the party for any treachery (two eyes as often as I could spare them). As for gold, we already were getting paid for the gig at the mines, and handsomely. That's not even getting into the money that we did get from dead monsters on the way, or the gold and items that Montaron and I "confiscated" from the various homes we "reconned for assassins".

Don't get me wrong, BG's plot does keep the player equipped, fed, leveled, and sheltered, but only just so for most of the game. The final fight, on the other hand, is where failing to do any of that really bites the player.

Already getting paid for the gig at the mines? The party knows nothing about any such gig, only about some vague 'troubles'. Assuming the party decides to investigate said troubles, they cannot know that work is guaranteed. They *need* to work along the way. That is the whole point of side quests. There is no 9-5 job with pension; you scrape by, day to day, on whatever comes along, and you go looking for work if you've a brain in your head -- trekking through Faerun while on the run is a hard, long, hazardous grind.

And we did scrape; we scraped a few hundred gold in gems from xvarts and much more from robbing manors, to say nothing of a wand of lightning. At that point, doing anything else to pay the bills would have been overkill.