Summary
- Baldur's Gate 3 offers inspiration for treasure distribution in TTRPGs.
- Treasure in D&D has evolved from a central focus to a smaller role.
- Baldur's Gate 3 encourages exploration and roleplay through abundant loot.
Baldur's Gate 3 is chock-full of loot, filled with all the same magic and mundane items that can be found in the average D&D campaign. However, the way Baldur's Gate 3 gives out this treasure could serve as a source of inspiration for those running the game's TTRPG base.
Treasure is a vital piece of Dungeons and Dragons, particularly with regard to its history. In earlier editions of the game, XP was calculated by how much gold the party managed to scrounge up from a dungeon. Moreover, getting that gold back to a safe town was a mini-game within itself, requiring an entirely different hexcrawl game to facilitate this. As many D&D campaigns shifted to heroic fantasy as opposed to loot-goblin plundering (though the latter aspect has always remained), treasure has taken on a slightly smaller role in its mechanics.
Baldur's Gate 3: The Best Longswords, Ranked
Players who enjoy wielding longswords in Baldur's Gate 3 should keep their eyes peeled for the following weapons.
Dungeon Masters Should Take Note Of How Much Treasure Baldur's Gate 3 Gives Out
The world of Baldur's Gate 3 is stuffed full of treasure, even more so than a typical D&D 5e adventure. Crates, buried chests, and specialized loot containers are at every turn in the slice of Faerun players can access, something that greatly encourages exploration and thorough investigation. This is in contrast to the way many DMs approach loot, reserving piles of gold, consumables, equipment, and magic items for the post-boss treasure hoard. Part of this relates to the different mediums; any side loot a player finds through investigation is often improvised by the DM to reward a high roll. On the other hand, there are still ways for DMs to make loot more of an exploration reward than a combat reward if they choose.
Small Loot Chests Incentivize The Other Pillars Of D&D
It is readily repeated with official D&D material and fandom spaces that there are three pillars to the game: combat, exploration, and roleplay. Unfortunately, exploration hasn't been D&D 5e's strong suit, especially when compared to the other pillars. There are many reasons for this, from lackluster travel rules to spells that contradict wilderness survival, but one of the biggest is the lack of incentive. If players have no reason to explore the world of their own impetus, they will focus on the more inherent fun of combat and social encounters.
The buried treasure, plentiful chests, and small containers of Baldur's Gate 3 aren't revolutionary in the gaming scene by any means, but that just makes them easier for a DM to implement. Describing a scene as having pots or crates is a good first step, though getting players to smash them can be tricky. A good way to do this, and to encourage exploration of worlds the DM has worked so hard on, is drawing attention to suspicious piles of dirt or doors with mysterious inscriptions. Once players know that everywhere they go has a ready supply of secrets, the DM can sit back and enjoy watching players solve puzzles and check all their bases.
Baldur's Gate 3's Mimic Makes Opening Random Chests Viable
Something that makes encouraging exploration tougher is D&D's mimic, an iconic creature that pretends to be a chest before attacking surprised adventurers. Its beloved status is a double-edged sword, though; most players expect just about every chest to be a mimic, making them overly cautious.
Baldur's Gate 3 uses loot to make a simple fix here. Mimics are centralized in specific locations and, when they're killed, they can drop gold and magic items. Considering that any adult mimics would have swallowed prior adventurers, this makes a lot of sense. Moreover, it turns mimics into creatures that players actively want to seek out and fight — in a similar vein to Terraria's mimics. If a DM rewards players for squishing mimics with a nice magic item of common or uncommon rarity, players will be quick to forgive the nasty surprise.
Baldur's Gate 3
- Released
- August 3, 2023
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Larian Studios
- Publisher(s)
- Larian Studios
- Franchise
- Baldur's Gate
- Number of Players
- 1-4
- Split Screen Orientation
- Vertical Only
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC, macOS
- Genre(s)
- RPG
- How Long To Beat
- 100+ Hours
- Metascore
- 96
- PS Plus Availability
- N/A
- Local Co-Op Support
- 1-2 Players
