Hoarding, map clearing, trespassing, pilfering and other OCD behaviors in BG

FallenAasimon

Hey, guys

So I'm starting my second BGEE run soon and this time I wanna RP more. I finished BGEE a few months ago and despite having an amazing time playing it, I'd feel horrible whenever I reached a new hub because I couldn't fight the urge to break and check every building, closet and container for stuff.. I may have spent half a week in Baldur's Gate checking every house before doing quests and moving on, really. It was really immersion-breaking.

How about map exploration? I know most of you guys are veterans and remember the exact locations of items, NPCs and quest triggers... I would spend much more time clearing the map fog in zigzag to make sure I wouldn't miss anything rather then actually doing stuff in these maps. It was fun If a imagined banters between the party or enjoyed the landscape artwork (it's impressive, imo), but obviosly pretty boring otherwise. Thank God I abhor pickpocketing!

This time I'm refraining to repeat these bad habits and I wanna focus more on RP. I'm not sure, maybe I'll restrict myself to public places and open houses. I may break into closed buildings as long as I have knowledge in game there's something important there. Stiil, I'm afraid I'm gonna miss a lot of equipment and spells.

I'd like to know how you guys dealt with it when you were new and akin to roleplaying and how you do it today. Do you enter houses and headcannon you were invited, or do you pillage them for the sake of powergaming?

dunbar

Firstly, imo you can justify almost anything by roleplaying i.e. 'My character is a thief so naturally he will break into houses and disable trapped chests in order to hone his thieving skills, and while he is there he might as well pick up any valuable items he finds, otherwise what is the point of being a thief?'.

The important thing is to stay in character throughout the story, just like an actor on stage.

For me the character is determined for a large part by the stat roll in character creation (talk about stating the blindingly obvious, but I'll leave it in anyway) after which I create a back-story in my head as to how circumstances and environment have brought him to where he is now. I then play through the prologue to see how the character works for me (e.g. would he go straight to Gorion, making only minimal preparations, or explore every nook and cranny to make sure he is thoroughly prepared? Which would then determine how he explores new map areas for example). After that it's all about how my character would react after the cut-scene at the beginning of chapter 1.

For me anything is justifiable as long as you stay in character, but I must emphasise that this is just my personal way of playing the game and that there are many other approaches - it's all a matter of personal taste.

Lemernis

Well, if you really want to go all-out with roleplaying I would recommend the "Let the Fates Decide" method. Most folks won't take it as far as I have in the journaled game that I'm documenting to illustrate the concept. But at least the description can give you some ideas about core concepts about roleplaying the game imaginatively.

In addition to using your imagination to step into the shoes of the character(s) and act accordingly, roleplaying is very much about self-limiting possible behavior based on all the meta-game knowledge that you possess as a player.

Silverstar

Maps need to be fully explored, fog of war is ugly and needs to die. I don't have any in-character excuse to do it, but if I were to think of one... "Knowledge is power" or possibly "important" and having full detailed maps is the same as having great knowledge of one's surroundings. Surely a clever chap from Candlekeep might have such a mindset. When I've gotten as much fog removed as is possible through conventional means I'll usually get the rest with Clairvoyance. Nahal's Reckless Dweomer is a great way to always have it on hand without sacrificing a level 3 spell slot. Thank you Neera.

I'm unable to break away from the meta-gaming knowledge that there's a lot of sweet loot in people's houses, often very useful loot, and thus I'll usually swipe stuff if it's convenient. I don't go out of my way to check every house (I mostly enter places I have a quest or if they look interesting in some way) nor do I make strong attempts at theft like blocking an NPC's walking path or waiting till they're out of sight. Due to this thievery I choose "Chaotic" good rather than Lawful which obviously wouldn't fit. Again I lack IC justification for stealing but I suppose I could always blame Imoen being a bad influence, hah.

I'm not sure if I did things very differently when I was new to the game, but I don't think so. I'm pretty consistent in my playstyle.

the_spyder

So with the greatest of respect to the other posters here, hogwash... (really no offense intended).

You may miss out on some stuff, but you won't miss out on anything that will prevent you from moving on (with one tiny notable exception). It is literally possible, and even enjoyable, to simply follow the main path of the quest line all the way through without looting and pillaging and scouring every inch of countryside. No problems. The only potential stumbling block will be pretty obvious when you try and get somewhere and can't. But I want to say you are actually told that you have to find a specific person who has the 'key' to the solution.

Other than that, you will have some exploring that you may want to do, but nothing that should be immersion breaking as you describe. And although you may not have ALL of the most UBER items in the game, it is still eminently playable that way. As to if your play style will allow such, that's a different question. But the game itself is very playable in the manner you describe.

Silverstar

... I don't believe anyone made the claim that exploring and/or looting a lot is required, the_spyder. Not sure which posts you're thinking about. You can certainly "move on" just fine without straying a minute from the main quest, I haven't seen anyone here dispute that.

the_spyder

@Silverstar - I honestly did not intend to offend. Clearly I did so I apologize.

I guess I was mainly commenting on the "you can justify almost anything by roleplaying" which would appear to an independent observer as a vote towards continued OCD type behavior styles. Certainly I don't see an over-abundance of ways to justify not doing these things being presented. I was merely attempting to make a point.

But again, no offense was intended.

Blackraven

In my opinion both @Silverstar (plus @dunbar)and @the_spyder make valid points.
You don't need to unlock any chest in BG in order to successfully beat the game, and the number of locked chests that are worth looting for their good items is less than five I think.
You say you struggle with the compulsion to clear all chests. One way around that could be to define your "house rules" before you start playing. A few rules I've used in the past include:
- only steal from the rich (e.g. the manor house but not the commoners' homes in Beregost, the private rooms but not the dorms in the FAI, etc);
- steal everything (this was my all-thieves party's approach);
- decide that only specific NPCs are to roleplayed as true burglars, whereas other Thief NPCs cannot be used for that purpose. To me an NPC like Montaron (ruffian/assassin) isn't a typical burglar. He stealthily enters a place, sticks a knife in the home owner's back and bashes any treasure chests' locks. Alora is for me the quintessential Burglar Thief, who I'll always allow to do free shopping.
I've probably used more rules, as I often play Thieves myself, but duty calls...

the_spyder

Another 'role play' thing that I like to do is recognize that your individual party members are just that, individuals. If you have Jan in your party, he is prone to other people's property. Not that he is necessarily 'Evil' or greedy. Other people's property just comes naturally to him, like breathing.

What this means is that you can role play a Lawful Good Paladin (merely to pick an extreme trope at random) who would NEVER steal from anyone, and still get away with the occasional looting. The argument would be that Jan wandered off while no one was looking and 'accidentally' 'borrowed' the item. Sure, the Paladin in this example might admonish Jan when he "Finds out", but Jan is more or less an amiable person and a valuable companion. So long as he doesn't get caught often, any reasonable 'good person' will give benefit of the doubt such that small transgressions can be overlooked.

This doesn't invalidate my former position though. If you honestly don't want to loot or steal or OCD every single thing in the game, simply don't. There's more than enough good loot on the bodies of your bloodied and slain adversaries to carry you to righteous and divine victory. Just sayin...

Gallowglass

Certainly it isn't remotely "necessary" to loot everything, everyone, everywhere, nor to clear every inch of fog-of-war. Nevertheless, I tend to do so, and I don't personally find that it breaks roleplaying immersion, indeed sometimes quite the contrary.

Particularly in regard to fog-of-war, we may know as players that a certain area contains nothing much, but our party members have no way of "knowing" that there's nothing there until they go look, so my roleplay is usually (okay, I'll be honest, what I really mean is "always"! :-)) that my party will clear all fog-of-war to check for themselves whether there's anything there.

When it comes to looting, my party's Thief will "usually" (yes, again I actually mean "always") check every container in every building in every location and take every item ... after all, theft is the defining behaviour of Thieves, so for me it'd be immersion-breaking if my Thief didn't go around thieving. On the other hand, I vary somewhat in the thoroughness with which I pick pockets - if I have a very good pickpocket in my party (Alora!), then my roleplay is that she'll pick almost every pocket in the game because that's her particular speciality, but if I don't have a Thief with particular expertise then I roleplay that they'll only try picking pockets when the target looks especially promising.

the_spyder

For me, I fully admit to my ow OCD in the matter. I search every nook and cranny (and even then don't get everything). It can stretch credulity at times even for me. However I flatter myself that I am a good enough 'Role player' (read: Justification builder) to do as @Gallowglass indicates above. However, at the end of the day, I must acknowledge that there are quite simply zones where no amount of justification other than rampant curiosity would explain clearing it out.

For the OPs piece of mind, I'd suggest trying playing and just following the bread crumbs. Gorion tells you to go to the Friendly Arm Inn. Go there. Khalid and Jaheira say "Let's go south to Nashkal". Go there. Follow Minsc to the Gnoll lair. Do the mines and then head north again. etc... No one says you have to find the Guard Captain or the renegade necromancer. It will still be a fun game. Or at least it is to be hoped that it will be.

But yeah. I cop to being OCD about the game as well. I think a lot of players, certainly those who play over and over again, fall into the same bucket.