You certainly have your moments... +1 :D

I would say that generally stay with CRPGs which are not older than Baldur's Gate. There are older (than BG) gems there too (Fallout most probably, maybe Ultima 7 (there are user-interface issues with that though) etc.), but quite often there are some gameplay quirks and user interface issues with the older games. The things that often irritate me with older CRPGs:

- lack of automap (at least if it is a first-person view RPG), even expecting you to draw a map on a graph paper yourself, or otherwise wander aimlessly in a mazy dungeon.

- no quest log, meaning either you had to have an exceptional memory to remember what you were supposed to do next and which quests were already done, or write them down yourself. Actually I had to do that also in Baldur's Gate and maybe Icewind Dale, as their journal system was not very good for tracking unfinished quests.

- in some real-time first person CRPGs (like the Ultima Underworld games, TES: Arena/Daggerfall etc.), clumsy controls.

By the way, System Shock (the first one) isn't really a CRPG, but more like an action-adventure. System Shock 2 has some CRPG-like features in it though.

EDIT: Pay extra attention on creation of your character/party in the beginning. CRPGs like to pretend that you have a freedom to choose whatever kind of character or party you have, but the game may become nearly impossible if you make poor choices in character/party creation.

Also reading some FAQ from http://www.gamefaqs.com may be helpful (even for character creation), and learning some tips like that in TES Arena/Daggerfall it is a good idea to add skill points to Endurance as early as possible because that attribute decides how many extra health points you will get during level ups. So if you have levelled up to say level 20 with poor Endurance, then you will have much lower HP than you would have if you had invested on Endurance early on, and the game will become much harder and/or tedious to play due to constant need for resting between fights.

Also those games partly randomize how many extra health points and level up points you get during a level up, so it makes sense to try the level up as many times until you get good points for both. I wish they didn't have randomized shit like that that promotes constant save/reload, just because.

This, & take out your pen & notepad.
This thread can be locked now.

I still don't know why "real-time with autopause" combat system in Baldur's Gate-like games has such a bad reputation. As long as you modify the autopause options a bit (like enabling autopause when detecting an enemy, when weapon becomes unusable, when low on health, when your member dies, and when an enemy dies), it is a very good combat system, and quite easy to grasp. The only problem it has is that by default it has too few options enabled (which means it doesn't autopause on all important events), enable also those mentioned above. "Autopause when a round ends" it pretty useless IMHO, but someone might like that too.

Also disable party AI, it is better to tell yourself what exactly you want each party member to do.

And remember you can also pause the combat any point yourself too, with the space bar. I hardly ever needed to do that though with the aforementioned autopause options enabled.

Patience.

The learning curve isn't difficult. It's learning how to be patient that is. You have to have an appreciation for text and the slower pacing. New games try to rush you into the world as the all powerful player. But in crpgs you're just someone in the world until you get the best gear and spells.

- Forgot to hold onto that seemingly insignificant item 10 gameplay hours ago? Well, bad luck! Without it, you won’t be able to finish the game anymore.

That’s one of the reasons why I usually play older CRPGs with a walkthrough by my side. After finishing an area in the game, I then consult the walkthrough if I missed something or did something wrong.

Yeah, it seems I need to be extra careful in e.g. Daggerfall not to lose some quest items. Maybe the manual mentions why some letters etc. have a green background, are they quest items, or what? Now I have several letters/books in my inventory because I am afraid to sell them.

It should always be so that you can't get rid of quest items, not selling or dropping them by mistake. Or the very least it should clearly say which items are such important quest items. I have no idea why some CRPGs allow that, it does nothing positive to the gameplay IMHO even if someone might want to argue that a true RPG should allow you also to destroy your chances of winning the game accidentally (or by purpose, but then why would anyone want to do that?). Freedom of choice, schreedom of schoice...

It's not about being paused or not, it's the way they are built. Lack of tutorialized mechanics aside, they lean heavily on D&D rules, with "once per rest" skills being the most notable. If you have two of those and you need them to win encounters, by the third encounter you are at the mercy of dice rolls with no other commands to give your character, just watching them hacking away at the enemy hoping that this time they'll actually hit it. It's what happened to me when playing BG. Didn't help that I insisted rolling a bard on my first try.

Turn-based games like Fallout and XCOM, with their action points and clearly defined hit chances, feel like you have more direct control of the outcome of encounters. At least comparing the introduction sections of both types of games.

The biggest hurdle for me when I go back to older crpgs is the UI.

UI design has improved so much in 30 years.

I see it as part of the difficulty of old games. ;)

Have you played Temple of Elemental Evil? No game leans more heavily on (another edition of) D&D rules, and it's turn-based.

BG does have clearly defined hit chances, but you might want to activate display of dice rolls in the combat log. The initial brutality comes from the fact that it starts you at level 1 without a full party--especially nasty if you're a squishy class using melee weapons.

It seems that walkthroughs/guides aren't nearly as frowned upon as I originally had thought. I guess I always felt like that was "cheating", but then again, I didn't grow up playing difficult old CRPGs.

It's a bit black and white outlook if you judge someone who never uses a walkthrough or always, surely most people fall something in between, only using a walkthrough as much as they themselves deem they need it.

I would avoid a walkthrough though since they basically tell you how to play in details rather than merely giving some early pointers to make it more accessible when you are new. You could try this too if you get stuck, I've heard good things about it: Universal Hint System.

UHS is good. Usually it gives you just the hints you need to continue and not more.

Yep green background items are quest items. however not all quests are actually important to finishing the game. There are at least a few quests where you can get more money by selling the quest item than by actually finishing it. Of course that does mean you fail the quest and suffer the relationship penalty.

I actually like that about daggerfall, you can actually fail quests and not be forced to reload.