Experience with D&D before playing BG2

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Okay, so to move away from the troll thread and to something that interests me - how much experience did you have with D&D before playing BG2?

Personally, I had no experience whatsoever, and was somewhat confused, but still thoroughly enjoyed BG2 enough to stick around and play it again. Now I also play other RPGs based on D&D and even play the paper-and-pen version occasionally.

 

I had played IWD a couple of times, but it seemed that BG2 was more involved rule-wise. In fact, I originally visited SP because I was looking for BG2 info. Of course, the fact that this site is populated mainly by a bunch of morons means that I got no help whatsoever...

...oops! I think a recently-banned member is channeling through me!

 

I'm a long time 2nd edition person and was prior to BG1. Played a bit of the old D&D games, involving Phlan & Dragonlance (cannot remember what they were called off the top of my head).

For me I think games may be a good way to learn a newer edition of pen and paper D&D if I decide to.

I remember how BG1 wasn't as specific with the weapon proficiencies as pen and paper.

 

Pnp wise, I started out with D&D as a young teenager, which was AD&D for dummies back then. Then we jumped right into 1st Edition AD&D and immediately moved to 2nd edition. Good times! When 3rd edition came out, I bought the books immediately and was thoroughly surprised with the total transofrmation, but loved it. The 1st AD&D PC games were pretty easy to learn, since I knew the game already, the Dragonlance Gold Box games being my 1st. I tried War of the Lance, but didn't like the game play/engine, but Champions of Krynn immediately got my attention. As did the Phlan series, jumping into the the Savage Frontier duo.

Knowing the system before hand helps alot, but not all PC RPGs are based off of a already in place PnP game. It doesn't take much to get the basics of most of these PC games, that guy was being ridiculous and/or just plain lazy. I learned the Wizardry 8 format rather quickly without ever playing that system prior. I think that one is a tougher sell than the IE format.

 

You should have made a poll with BG and not BG2, many have probably been playing BG 1 in 1998. The way you made the poll you can't discriminate between those who played BG1 and other much older games like Pool of Radiance.

I was 9 when I was offered the basic D&D ruleset. It's been a while.

 

None.
It was not such a good argument anyway as the games use only a mangled subset of the rules (agonising the reverse engineers and purists).

 

I played BG 1 first, but before that I had no prior D&D experience. I never played PnP when I was younger, but I stared playing a weekly PnP game a few years back, and we've just began using 4e. It's actually quite fun.

 

Played BG1 first and went to BG2.

Since I had not played any D&D based CRPG's nor PnP before, I was up to my hair in troubles, and had a lot of reading and catching up to do, as you can imagine.

When I met Tarnesh at FAI I got my behind handed to me many times.

I was so proud when I finished BG1 and thought I was a real hotshot.

That changed when I met my first lich in Crooked Crane Inn...

 

Before BG2, I had played BG1, Warriors of the Eternal Sun (Genesis AD&D game), and Eye of the Beholder (didn't even play that much).

In early middle school, a friend tried to DM a game of D&D for a bunch of us, but none of us (DM included) had any idea what we were doing. This was proven by my playing a "beholder" (first time I had heard the term) wielding a "Vorbal blade" (again, first time I had heard that term). Looking back, I have no idea how a beholder wielded a blade of any kind, much less a vorpal blade (don't drop it)!

 

I played the Mega Drive game Warriors of the Eternal Sun but I really don't know if that should count. It was incredibly light on the rules and hid them all behind the scenes. I also played (well, read the books and magazines more than played) a lot of Warhammer and stuff so I did at least understand what a D8 meant and was comfortable with judging dice roll type stuff.

I do understand the guy's point though. Baldur's Gate is very explicit in following the ruleset slavishly and in making it explicit rather than behind the scenes. The weapon proficiencies are split into far too many categories for example, especially as you're useless with a weapon unless proficient in it. A lot of the spells in the game are useless. Likewise a spell telling you it will affect D6+2 HD of monsters is spectacularly unhelpful. What are HD of monsters? It doesn't say. I now know that it's roughly equivalent to a monster's level but there's no way of telling what a monster's HD is, ever. Unless you read some of the D&D rulebooks.

I blundered through of course and now a lot of the stuff is second nature to me. But BG could have added a heck of a lot of user friendliness without compromising its entertainment, merely its slavish devotion to the rule book. It lags way behind user friendliness than nearly all other RPGs I've played, especially Japanese ones.

 

Zero, BG2 was my first D&D-based game. Although I've read a lot D&D stuff like rulebooks and monster manuals since then, I read them mostly out of curiosity and for the "storybook" value.
Although BG2 was the most "immersive" game I played at the time, it wasn't the most complicated. The DOS puzzle games of old could probably traumatize new players nowadays.

 

I had only played Icewind Dale 1 with Heart of Winter (ToftLM was not out yet) and Baldur's Gate with Tales of the Sword Coast prior to Baldur's Gate 2. I found this site, actually, looking for a walkthrough or work-around for a bug I encountered early in the first D&D game I had played - IWD.

I never understood tx's point, actually. I never bothered to try to understand the rules before playing, especially since I had played other games using somewhat randomized mathematics to determine hits or misses before any D&D games. Really, a lot of games are similar when it comes to such things - they are just a lot less explicit about it. I just figured out what an HD was as I played and used the spells, noticing what was affected and what wasn't affected. I just guessed and played around with things until I understood everything sufficiently, without a strong need to beat it the first time ever playing.

I have been very interested in playing PnP, but my sociophobia restricts me quite a bit when it comes to interacting with people, in person especially, as well as not knowing anyone else in the area that played PnP that I might be comfortable enough with to play with strangers as well. Maybe the wife and I can go exploring the area sometime...

 

None here too.

Although I did play PS:T at the same time as BG2. Took me a while to figure out how spellbooks worked. (Memorizing spells and all).

 

My experience with RPG started with a pen and paper game in the mid 80´s. Moved on to computer games like Bards Tale, Dungeon Master, Bloodwych.

Then had 10 year break from RPG’s, before a friend lent me BG2. Now I’m hooked.

 

I started BG1 when I was 12 without any prior knowledge at all. Sure I didn't really understand some stuff but it didn't really effect my enjoyment of the game at all, and I learnt it over time. If I'd started with BG2, it might have been a different story, starting at 89,000xp with lots of spells, the various kits to choose from, more specific weapon proficiencies etc. I can see how it would be overwhelming.

 

Ditto for me, too. For me it was table top 1980 - 1985. I even played in a convention in Seattle in ~1987. Ultima rocks (I even played Ascension).

 

Played BG1, then BG2, then was harassed into a 2ed D&D game which never actually started.

Only started playing D&D after joining #Sorcerers in which it was 3.5ed and at least two years after first playing BG.

I managed to fathom out what everything was all by myself. I found the dice notation simple and easy enough to fathom, but then again I was a maths kind of girl back then