Baldur’s Gate 3 proves that the Forgotten Realms cannot last forever

Baldur’s Gate 3‘s setting, the Forgotten Realms, is the perfect home for heroic fantasy in many ways. Created by Ed Greenwood in his childhood and later introduced as an official Dungeons & Dragons Campaign setting, the Forgotten Realms now serve as the default home for most mods DND Content. Baldur’s Gate 3The engaging story and locations are a great reminder of how much the Forgotten Realms still have to offer, but the game also shows how much of what makes the setting interesting for adventurers can spell doom in the long run.

The overall scope of the Forgotten Realms covers a lot of ground, however Baldur’s Gate 3 Sticks to a small corner of the continent of Faerûn. As one of the major centers of culture and commerce dotted across the desert of the Sword Coast region, The city of Baldur’s Gate is a fascinating destination that is surrounded by dangerous lands even on the best of days. Although Baldur’s Gate 3 Dealing with the danger with the advent of the absolute, many of the game’s challenges come from threats that have been carving their footholds for a while.

The city of Baldur’s Gate was built on almost nothing

A critical wiki is riddled with dungeons

There may be nothing more important to a city than its foundations, but when it comes to Baldur’s Gate, they start to look very difficult.. The situation is nicely laid out by Reddit user maikol2346which lists a number of major locations found beneath the city in Act 3. From the Baalist temple to Kazador’s elaborate dungeon, the Undercity has almost as much going on as the city proper, even if the average citizen of Baldur’s Gate may never know About this.

Although it is possible to build tunnels or catacombs under a city in a way that maintains structural integrity, the sewer system is the only thing under Balaldur’s Gate that is particularly likely to be cleared by any experts, and even that seems like it could use Some maintenance. When you look at the bigger picture, there is no way this situation can last forever. Sooner or later, the city will be hollowed out by one dungeon too manyBringing the whole thing down even without the power of the absolute.

Baldur’s Gate isn’t the only D&D location at risk

The Forgotten Realms are structurally unsound

As the main destination in Baldur’s Gate 3, The city of Baldur’s Gate is a great place to start when looking into the structural problems of the Forgotten Realms.But it is far from the only place in danger. Gale’s home of Waterdeep might be an even better example, as the city’s iconic Yawning Portal Inn opens directly into the carved-out chasms of the Undermountain, a gigantic megadungeon that goes very, very deep. Waterdeep citizens clearly accepted the situation, and there was never a mass exodus in fear of a collapse.

Back to Act 1 of Baldur’s Gate 3 points a finger at the most widespread problem in Faerûn – the Underdark. Cave systems are obviously a natural part of the world, but the vast expanse of the Underdark puts any cave system on Earth to shame. Baldur’s Gate 3 Can’t even show the full extent of the Underdark, which can be divided into three tiers known as the Upperdark, Middark and Lowerdark, with the latter referring to the depths that are 10 miles underground or deeper.

It is possible to hand-wave the situation as unimportant in a fantasy world, because there is no hard rule that the Forgotten Realms have to obey the same fundamental principles that Earth does. There are still a lot of other rules in there DNDBut, and Most would point out that laws like gravity can’t just be thrown out the window. Calculations for things like running jumps tend to be at least somewhat realistic, although a lot of movement rules obviously support the idea that party members are capable of exceptional feats as brave adventurers.

The Forgotten Realms of BG3 were built for gameplay

Fun matters more than scientific laws

The lack of structural integrity in the Forgotten Realms is not just an accidental choice, and the motivation for designing a world riddled with holes is quite obvious. Dungeons & Dragons is called Dungeons & Dragons For a reason, and Venturing down into the depths has been a core part of the experience for even longer than the Forgotten Realms has. Dungeons don’t always have to be underground, but hiding many of them below the surface opens up a lot more possibilities, especially when it comes to a metropolis like Baldur’s Gate..

It’s hard to imagine an Act 3 that won’t send the party under the city on numerous side quests, and it’s especially hard to imagine it being as compelling as the one that exists. Talking to NPCs throughout the city can be one of the biggest joys of the game, but it would be strange for dungeon-crawling to cut off after reaching the city, placing some of ​​the darkest and most secretive enclaves on the Surface would be difficult to justify. . Suspension of disbelief is often necessary for a truly great adventureAnd Baldur’s Gate 3 is no exception.

From no logical standpoint, the Forgotten Realms are doomed to fall someday, but that doesn’t mean they’re going away anytime soon. DND‘s continue to refer to the setting in current and future books, though the return of the classic Greyhawk campaign setting in the new Dungeon Master’s Guide is a nice treat on the side. Get some new ones DND Games from other campaign settings would be fun too, but these Baldur’s Gate Series can never leave its namesake, and Baldur’s Gate 3s trip through his undeniably menacing world is a fantastically memorable one.

Source: maikol2346/Reddit