- When I played BG1 for the first time ever (the game had just come out), the first interaction was with Winthrop, and his "My Hotel's as clean as an Elven arse!" made me immediately realize that this game was different from everything else I played before.
- Every single time I finish the whole trilogy, I get emotional reading the ending stories of the NPC as if it were the first (damn you, Minsc...).
I remember great adventure, it was a nice when I could play in childhood (an escape from psychopathic people my father married into...). I spent all my time talking to all the npcs, rerolling dice, exploring, pick-pocketing everyone, hording loot. I'd never finished BG1, but had restarted many times.
My most treasured memories were in university, installing mods on two computers so the woman I love and I could play the series together (she too loved these games in childhood, really helped break the ice). We exchanged knowledge of trivia, quotes, favorite parts and the like.
In the Fall of 1999 I finally owned a PC. After years of playing games with other friends(WarcraftII and Starcraft were in there) I saw the BG box at Fry's Electronics. I was mesmerized. 5 discs and the expansion pack seemed like the biggest game ever. It was the most fun I have ever had start to finish with any game. The mechanics were not unlike our table top games. The game was challenging, humorous, in depth, and it took hours upon hours each night.Hours became days and nights. Then with all the Mods, IWD, and of course BG2...BG never died for me. So for me its been 19 years....yet it seems like 19 days....
I have a bit funny story So I got Nalia out of the party because I wanted the other character to join so I could do their quest. Did the quest, went to the Copper Coronet to pick her back in... and couldn't find her there! And then I remembered: Nalia had the Staff Of the Magi equipped so she was invisible. Tried a bunch of spells and things to reveal her, but it didn't work. I thought I'd have to reload an old save and replay many hours of gameplay, but then I decided to try one more thing. So Keldorn cast Dispel Magic and to my relief I was finally able to talk to Nalia. I like to imagine that in universe she did this on purpose, standing invisible and giggling at the party just for fun
Oh man, baldur's gate was the first rpg I ever played, I think I was thirteen at the time and I barely understood the game but loved it so much. I remeber i would pick up every single item and go sell it, going through the nashkel mines took me around 10 trips in and out!
Best memory is searching for that tiny spot where the ankeg armor was hidden, I had no idea the Tab key existed and just knew it was in a field... I searched for sooo long! But when I finally got it, man was I happy!
Still consider BG1 the best game I ever played. I just started from level 1 on a two caracters run with a friend whos never played, we are having a blast!
My dad bought the OG 5-disk Baldur's Gate box from the clearance section of the local OfficeMax in 2001. I remember looking over his shoulder every time he played, just so fascinated by all the monsters and magic. (Except skeletons, they were really scary!)
When I grew up to the point where I could actually kind-of understand how to play, he gave me the disks and said have at it. I've been playing all the Infinity Engine games continuously ever since...
The desire to make new spells inspired me to delve into the more technical side of computers, and eventually come to develop a programming hobby.
Actually, we still have the box in the closet - it's seen better days, but here's a picture! (Forgive my photography skills):
What the hell is wrong with this game! Why am I dying all the time? This game looks oh so good but what the hell is this whole Advanced Dungeons & Dragons thing?
Many, many, many moons later...There is no way we can take on all these gnolls. They're huge! How big is this damn fortress anyway? Imoen! Send Imoen! Give her the only potion of invisibility we have and send her to certain death. She's a poor thief anyway. Heya, it's me Imoen being eaten by a gnoll! Off she goes into the night. Someway, somehow she manages to sneak up the hill past the first group of lookouts. The gods must be watching or they must be concerned with more important things than a lowly thief from Candlekeep. She made it up the steps to the main courtyard! A stinking den of evil! What the heck? Minsc? How in the world he managed to follow Imoen only Boo will know. Imoen tells him to wait by the steps as she ventures forth past the first pit. Among all the vile smells she is able sniff out a rather unusual scent. The smell reminds her of an exquisite perfume a Rashmen trader brought once to Candlekeep. Thanks to her sticky fingers she never smelled this good in her life. Imoen follows the scent and ventures down the pit. On the floor lies a disheveled but beautiful woman. Her caramel skin and dark brown hair glisten in the moonlight. It must be her, Dynaheir. No wonder Minsc swore her life to protect the witch, Imoen was ready to do the same. With no time to waste Imoen passes the potion of invisibility to the witch. It's their only hope of getting out of here unscathed. Quickly they move, almost floating on the cobblestones. Minsc greets them both on the lower level grinning from ear to ear. In his excitement his clumsy comes out. The moon's reflection on his bald head makes it all to easy for the eagerly to fight gnolls. Forget being discrete, time to run, run fast! The trio stumbles down the slope past the pits, pats the lookouts, taking only minor scrapes from the gnoll's halberds. The trio makes finally makes it into the safety of the wilderness. Once the dust has settled the trio checks their wounds. The scrapes turned into more than minor flesh wounds. They barely made it alive. The gods must have indeed been asleep that night, at least the gnoll gods.
Needless to say, the rest is history. I was hooked on Baldur's Gate. I still am.
This was the game of my childhood. I remember my sister gifting it to me aged 8 (oops) and me playing it obsessively thereafter. I think it took me about a year to get into Baldur's Gate because I distinctly remembered running back to the bridge at every minute increment of progress with the hope that mr I SERVE THE FLAMIN FIIIST would let me past. He would not. I would lay out the 5 discs wondering what could possibly be hidden after disc 3.
I think my key memory though would be the extent to which I had misheard all of the characters as a kid when playing back e.g. "Wisdom is only possessed by the NERD", "ASSERVE the FLAYMIN FISH" (??), "Your voice is ambrosia"... Wait that last one was right??
Man I feel old... a lot of the posting here were kids when they started playing Baldur's Gate, but myself I was about 33 and my group of friends since High School had earlier stopped our DND gaming sessions due to moves, and just "gasp!" grown up responsibilities. Either way a gap was there, I had earlier played Diablo and enjoyed it, but I missed the AD&D Gold Box experience from my earlier Amiga computer times. Then, after the drought of good RPGs along comes Baldur's Gate with a promise of a Epic storyline and fantastic graphics. This gave me a reason to convince my wife that on our shoe-string budget to upgrade from my older 486 DX66 computer to a new custom built (too save on cost) computer with an advanced 200MHz AMD CPU to run it (A disastrous, but educational 1st attempt, but I digress). It sounds silly now, but Baldur's Gate brought back that feeling I had as a 13 year old kid in '78 when I was introduced to the D&D Basic, Expert boxed editions & later multi-book laden AD&D game. The excitement of discovery, or the feeling of loss for companions, and yet the sense of satisfaction of overcoming an apparently impossible battle that consumed a good portion of my younger years weekend was again available when I turned on my computer. Later I would play Baldur's Gate1 & II and mod it until no end, eventually when my kids and a nephew got older we multiplayer the game on my home intranet, adding even more fun to the experience. Now here I am 20 years later I'm in my 50's, playing Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition on not only my Windows 10 turbo-charged, ram'ed up, mega-cored computer, but a tablet way more powerful than my first computer I built. And best of all and I still get that feeling of a 13 year old Jr. High kid when I now get online and play with my kids and nephew hundreds a mile apart. So, too point to one experience is impossible for me, because all of us have shared in it. Thanks for the keeping the memories alive. Sincerely; Dale (aka ZoGarth)
I remember my first experience with Baldur's Gate quite well... I was about 7 years old and saw my older brother playing SOA and like any younger sibling, I imitated him. You would have thought someone my age wouldn't have enjoyed it, especially since my reading skills were a tad poor at the time, but I enjoyed it then like nothing I had played before, and I still think the same to this day! I loved the experience of searching around for adventure, and the sort of dopamine rush that came with receiving rewards, getting level ups, defeating powerful enemies, and many more. Even my dad thinks that playing the game actually significantly improved my reading skills, so this game has influenced my development in so many more ways than one.
The Baldur's gate series is now, and will always be, my favourite set of video games, nothing will ever top it, every element of the game is just so well done. Thank you Bioware, Black Isle studios, and now Beamdog, for bringing us these games!
And if you also want a more specific memory, the first time I instantly blew up tree of life Irenicus with a bundle of traps was a triumphant moment .
Baldur's Gate came out when I was still learning English as a second language in Taiwan.
I remember the nights of my younger self staying up and watching my older brother play Baldur's Gate on Windows 98. The whirling of the computer and CD-ROM as we watch 5 CDs and 2GB (massive amount back then) worth of contents being installed over a few hours.
We were enthralled by the gameplay, the voice acting, and the sense of adventure that were introduced by the game.
I hardly understood the banters and the conversations back then, but I still loved it nonetheless. Especially the Flaming Fist mercenaries. The plate armor, the "I serve the Flaming Fist!" and "I AM the Law!".
Fast-forward to High School, which was roughly a decade later when I came to the States. I installed Baldur's Gate on my laptop, only to be awestruck yet again by the sheer amount of story and nostalgia it offered. The game had aged well and was always my go-to. Even if I talked about Guitar Hero or my Mexican girlfriend at school with my homies, I've always played and modded the Baldur's Gate series in my spare time, instead.
I am not exaggerating if I said that it was thanks to Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale that I was able to learn English as well as speak without an accent.
Both Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale will always hold a special place in my mind, as they are part of what shaped me into who I am today. I can't wait to read every single one of everyone's story with Baldur's Gate, as I know I am not the only one who remembers a game so fondly.
Myself, like many other people on this forum have been playing BG since it's release, and we all have a personal connection with many aspects of the game. I have many great memories of talking to random people about BG, teaching one of my first boyfriends to play BG (LOL), and then connecting with someone over this game who would later become my husband. Despite all of this, one thing stick out in my mind:
- Buffed the nine hells out of my party to go and fight Firkraag after I had escaped the Underdark. 10 seconds in after I breached Firkraags stoneskin, Minsc lands a hit with the vorpal sword and kills him instantly. I sit there stunned for a whole minute while my party members are yelling at me to get a move on.
LOL I feel like I didn't really deserve the loot after that. I haven't been able to recreate that moment since either!
"Never 'ad rats, no siree." I've really enjoyed listening to everyone's history, memories of Baldurs Gate and D&D.
I wish I could say I had a fond memory from way back when BG first came out but I can't remember that far back, or what it felt like. I was married, had a new career, and hardly had time for games but played Baldgurs Gate when I could (the only game I played). Several years later I lost all of that, marriage, career, home, and family, yet Baldur's Gate remained. Another 2 years passed and I was injured and left with one side of me covered in scars from 2nd degree burns, yet Baldur's Gate remained. Now I am dealing with some serious health issues and trying to figure out how to adjust to what seems like a different world and reality, and still, Baldur's Gate remains.
It has been like a band aid for me thorough many traumatic events and has as of late kept my interest and encouraged me to keep trying. Why? Because Beamdog has helped to keep the game updated and modders have tirelessly and unselfishly put a lot of time into mods big and small that being new life and people to the game, most certainly me. I know I have great memories every week from tying these new mods and tweaks (though sometimes it is hard to remember) It may not sound like much but it is this game that has kept me living for many years, especially during the roughest and toughest times in my life.
I think in the future I hope to look back at this time and remember one important thing: this game made me want to continue being around. That will be my favorite memory I think, as it gives me the chances to form new memories not just related to the game itself. Thanks Beamdog, and thank you to those on this forum.
Keep up the great memories and stories everyone, and if your new here, stick around for a while. We never tire of seeing new company having new friends.
There's a podcast that I listen to often, The Art of Manliness in case anyone is interested, and there is a specific episode on the importance of wonder in our lives. Wonder is the feeling I always feel when playing Baldur's Gate. It's hard to really describe it. That feeling you had when you really started to understand what was waiting for you under the tree while going to bed on Christmas Eve. Seeing the fantasy books you loved translated to the big screen for the first time in Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. Going on your first camping trip. Some of those things came before, and some came after, and that rush of feelings and associations doesn't happen often in life, but one of the times it does occur is playing this game.
I was 11 when it came out, and didn't know about it until around 13. There hadn't been a game like this in my life. I was almost entirely console raised. We played every iteration of Mario, graduated to fighting games, then first person shooters. I didn't understand what a story could be in a game. I had started to get into Dungeons and Dragons a bit, and didn't completely understand the mechanics, when my buddy gave me a copy. That dark opening scene sucked me in and I was hooked. I remember feeling like I was hanging on for dear life the whole way to the Friendly Arm Inn. By happenstance, it was dark when I arrived with Imoen, and I had run away from my first bandit ambush. Completely mentally ready for a stay at the inn, Tarnesh neutralized me with Horror, and I watched open mouthed as he methodically finished me off. After that, I restarted, picked up a guide, and spent the next few months mastering as much as I could. I'll never forget my first successful run of the game, and the amazing story and experience in the sequels and following playthroughs. Minsc, Khalid, Jaheira, and Imoen all felt like dear friends, and Sarevok and Irenicus were my enemies.
Wonder is the memory I have of this game, and I hope to share that with my own children one day as well.
My first character was a mage. Spesifically, a human conjurer. I based my choice on the coolest picture there was; a red-robed mage with a hood. I made the robes red with nice golden accents, that looked great and fit the picture. Also bright skin and dark brown hair, since this was "me".
When I eventually reached Nashkel, I took Edwin's quest. Because it was a quest and quests give experience! I was really surprised though when he looked exactly the same as my character; same picture, same outfit, same physical appearance. He even had the same class as me! The only difference was in stats and alignment. I was good, he was evil. I thought it was kind of awesome that the game gave you an evil twin.
In hindsight, I wonder a bit what happened there, as the companions get a different portrait if you use theirs, right? Was this perhaps just patched in later or was Edwin bugged somehow so he got to keep his portrait?
I first played Baldur's Gate when I nine years old, I didn't know how to read back then and I remember with Marl in the Feldepost's Inn always fighting him and Imoen being disappointed and myself being mad at her for siding the drunk at the bar.
Then as I learned how to read with the help of Baldur's Gate (yeah Baldur's Gate was effectively an educational game for myself!) the game turned from randomly clicking different dialog combinations and going off the first voiced line of dialog and reloading over and over and picking the 'best' result; to actually understanding -somewhat- of what was going on.
Honestly I would just smash and grab anything that had magical loot and I could do that for I got enough story through the voiced lines to roughly figure it out. I found Algernon's Cloak in my first play sessions as a young child by killing everyone and reloading to see what items they had for I had no value in really understanding what most characters were talking bout; all I cared about back then was magical items!
I think I tried to kill Drizzt, I think I killed him for I remember my brother reloading his save for he felt guilty after reading the Mithril Chainmail +4's item description. I think that I surrounded Drizzt with party members and uninvited them into a box around Drizzt so he could not move (works in the original). I got my character and Imoen to shoot a whole load of x20 arrows stacks at Drizzt until he died. I remember getting the Helm of Defense from Droth and getting a Tome in the siren cave around that time as well.
I also remember in the early days rolling a male Human Fighter/Thief with the first bald man portrait (with my brother watching) that had 18's in every attributes minus like 6 or 7 in Charisma and I was like 'Yeah! Yeah! That is good! Hurry click accept before something bad happens!' That is because we both did not know how saving a roll worked! To this day I have never replicated that result and that was on one of my first characters when I as nine years old!
Yet something bad did happen, my brother saved over my file and In was quite upset (we used auto save and did not save normally for we were big noobs!). I was living at my grandparents then and we ended up playing on different computers because that. I played Baldur's Gate in room that stored molds for ceramics and I still remember that greenware ceramic smell burned into my mind while rolling new character attributes.
I would be in there rolling for hours trying to get a character with as many 18s's as I could thinking that I could roll another super character like I did so earlier before; yet to this day I always remember never rolling five natural 18's in a roll ever, four once but not five.
The highest I have rolled was five 18s and a 14 in charisma after attribute relocation with a bum value in bonus strength like 07 or something; or a 104 roll for a Half Elf 'Drow' Ranger or Fighter/Mage/Thief. I always thought that 18/00 was the worst but then I read Play It Hardcore's guide and I realized that 18/00 was actually 18/100 and it was the best, I used to throw away characters with 18/00 think them to be 18/0 haha!
In the first play through I had a stupid competition as to who could spend the most days in game and myself and my brother would sleep a lot in the game to get the most days. I 'won' and got to Baldur's Gate and died due to the timer killing my main character 30 seconds after my last save who was Ranger if I recall correctly with Imoen, Khalid, Jaheira, Minsc, Dyanheir and Viconia (who for some reason pronounced 'Veronica').
I had a mad dash to grab all of my magical items into my main character to export him out; I had the Helm of Balduran, Heavy Crossbow of Accuracy, Plate Mail +3, Alergon's Cloak and a few other mage items and magical items. I made it just in the nick of time since back in the original game the inventory as NOT paused.
I restarted a new game and I thought it strange that Gorion would not question or be confused as to how I got super ripped and decked with magical items overnight and I set out to get double the magical items (and sleep less o.o)!
I still killed Marl for I still was bad at reading and I eventually got to the the Undercellar mission. I did not complete the second play-though for I did not want the game to end. My progress of Baldur's Gate stayed as such over the following years playing in the wilderness and playing the Darkside of the Sword Coast in the late 2000's.
I was constantly struck by a creative urge to make the adventure verses playing the adventure. I read through the item descriptions fully years after and before I always used to really appreciate the item illustrations a great deal for it was all I could get out of an item description. Little did I know back then I would write 'books' worth of item descriptions for my own items that I made ha!
I remember in a computer lab (this was the early 2000's with the big blockly computer monitors) when I was in elementary school being introduced to Runescape for the first time and asking if there were any +1 weapons and armour in the game (to the blank confused expression of my class mate at the time; of which I forget their name, lost to the churn of time). I remember no one I grew up with in the School system knew about Baldur's Gate or Dungeons and Dragons; it was all Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Beyblades and Runescape.
I remember being ecstatic when the Enhanced Edition was announce for Baldur's Gate in my later years of High School. Yet as the news trickled in of the buggy launch I was skeptical and I waited a whole year until the bugs were fixed to play the game as I did not want to have a disappointing experience coming back to my favourite game.
I knew that the developers had intended a bug free game so I was patient and I waited for a version that was not a bug riddled mess. I knew it was one of their first big projects for Beamdog and it was a small team. Yet unlike all of the 'mindless' droves of people (who complain about everything yet make nothing) I knew that as complex as Baldur's Gate's engine is; to change and modernize it, fixing all of the bugs and stabilizing the engine across all platforms - there were going to be major issues and these things take time to perfect.
When Siege of Dragonspear launched it was the same experience, I waited around a year to play the new chapter of Baldur's Gate properly and I was cautious and was patient enough to not have my game experience ruined by bugs; except for one major bug where M'Khiin would not shut up in the ogre cave so I had to finish the game with 5 party members. Although perhaps I missed some time in the beta to fix some issues, but it was no big issue for I had room to experience the end fight without 'complications'.
Over the decade or so of playing Baldur's Gate on and off I self-taught myself how to add new content that blends naturally with the feel of the original level of quality of Baldur's Gate. A few years ago I tried to get this remastered item B.A.M. added for Dorn's Two-handed Sword +1-2 'Rancor' but the item was too little amount of content merit an official patch in Baldur's Gate (which still I hope changes one day(-: )
It has been a long and winding journey with many 'irons-in-the-fire' over the years of mostly item, area and Non-Player Character related new high quality content that I have been working on in the shadows. I have released a small encounter module this year as an early Christmas present in the form of my first proper module (which is a piece of a larger item forge module named Baldur's Gate Arms and Armour Emporium which is a smaller off shoot of my work with Baldur's Seatower)! Well I released two modules to be technical but the second module includes the first module; so it works out the same.
I really enjoyed reading this thread, especially how discovery of the Baldur's Gate series was a result of or resulted in new/improved relationships.
My dad bought me the original 5-disc Baldur's Gate 1 alongside another action game (which I forget) when I was young. I foolishly gave BG1 to a friend who loved RPGs and played the action game. When this friend told me how great BG1 was, I got the game back and he bought his own copy. I have subsequently got all BG related games - TOTSC, BG2, TOB as well as the unfortunate Dark Alliance series.
The great memories are always those mini-bosses that absolutely destroy you - I still remember Tarnesh who obliterated me and Imoen, the various fights against the new creatures in BG2 (vampires, dragons, liches) that were super tough the very first time you encounter them.
I also loved the escapism that BG allowed me to experience - I felt like I was going through these beautifully created environments with my party of adventurers. It felt like living out the fantasy novels I love to read.
I love the IE games so much I bought the digital versions of BG1/2 and PST, and also the EE versions from Beamdog. These games are the only games where I have replayed multiple times - and it would be the game I would start a new playthrough every year during Xmas holidays.
Well it all started in 2015. I had known my friend James for a few months and we had been recording for a playthrough of Baldur's Gate that I've sense lost most of the videos for. Eventually it came time for us to explore the farm area North of Baldur's Gate and a wicked smile rose from my lips.
I said to James "Ok, so in this area there is a small horde of zombies that you need to kill for this farmer, but they're like super easy to kill so I'm going to sic Bob on them"
For context here, Bob was what we decided to name Zaram's familiar, a cat who before this point had gotten very little attention and even less time in the sun, but now...now I decided was his time.
So without skipping a beat, I sent Bob across the map to cut a bloody swath through the zombies with his claws, and although it took some time (and a few trips back to Branwen for healing) Bob managed to get every single one of those undead husks with virtually no difficulty while Zaram, Imoen, Minsc, Dynaheir, Dorn and Branwen sat back and put little or no effort into this endeavor.
And the lesson learned? Turns out familiars can be badass too, you just have to give them their time under the sun.
I genuinely thought, "I am become death, destroyer of worlds" was a quote from this game, until I was 14. Oppenheimer? Bhagavad Gita? No, that's Xzar from Baldur's Gate. I was a cocky little shit about it too, which didn't end well for my pride, obviously.
Aside from that, when I first discovered the secret Ankheg Plate Mail in Nashkel it blew my mind. I began obsessively searching everywhere, in every area of the game, even through BG2. This erratic behavior was worsened by my hoarding of everything that was unique, including the fabled golden pantaloons which I kept just out of spite and curiosity. After finding the silver pantaloons in the second game, I knew something was up. Getting the Bronze Pantalettes and building the Big Metal Unit from all that "meaningless" hoarding was so incredibly fulfilling as sad as that sounds. I have tried to explain it to people, but it is something that needs to be achieved to be appreciated. Hundreds of hours spent in a single playthrough but a lifetime of smiles just looking back on that one little but ridiculously drawn-out easter egg. I have never seen something like it since. I don't think I ever will again. Man, just writing this is going to make me start another playthrough. Well played Beamdog.
Baldur's Gate was my first exposure to D&D and it was an incredible experience for me in particular to play through. It was the early 2000's and I was in my early years of high school, not having very many friends, I would often spend my free time whiling away in the school's computer lab playing games and goofing off. I had discovered that for some reason, on computer in particular had more games on it than the others and happened to include Baldur's Gate. I tried several times to get into it but often ended up floundering around early in the game and dying a lot. Then one day a guy I'd never met before came into the lab and was watching me play and was getting really invested in my game. We struck up a friendship over the game and over the space of several months battled our way through the game before finally taking down Sarevok. I fondly remember many arguments we had over which party members we should take with us (I always wanted minsc) and the outcomes of some of the quests like what to do with the captive nymph.
Baldur's Gate was a fantastic part of my adolescence and gave me a great friend who I still game with to this day.
Well, my favorite #BaldursGateMemory was when I wanted to find some dragon to fight during my first playthrough. At the end I have found one... but he was already DEAD! To this day it remains mystery to me what happened in that cave before my party came... to the party.
I used to play BG in multiplayer with my best friend in high school, playing on his spotty internet connection on 2 PCs at opposite ends of the house. We only had my single copy of the game, so we used to have to do the "disk dance" where as whichever of us had the disk finished loading the area, he'd have to sprint in a mad dash across the house to load it into the other's computer so that we could both load an area without crashing. Best exercise I ever got from a PC game.
We ran into a lot of weird bugs (perhaps because of the suffering from our poor over-worked disks?) during those games. I remember that on one run, rather than have a thief character in our party, we used to create level 1 NPCs to check for traps with their faces. Rather than spend good gold on raising them, we would then just create an identical character with the same name, and have him pick up his predecessor's items. One poor level 1 gnome fighter/illusionist, Mnnnnfh, suffered from this indignity a half-dozen times before being lethally petrified by a basilisk and then booted from the party to make room for an NPC. But then the strangest thing happened. We walked into Baldur's Gate, only to have his character (miraculously revived!) walk over to us and call us a bunch of jerks for dropping him from the party, and then walk away. I stared dumbfounded at the PC for a moment, before hearing hysterical laughter down the hall from my best friend. I think it's the only time I've ever gotten sassed back by an NPC in a game for all the terrible things I've done to them
So 20 years ago, I was a sad kid. I was in remission from an autoimmune disease; my parents had split up seemingly out of the blue; my brother left for uni and my best friend moved schools. I was a very disenchanted nine year old girl. It turns out, I just needed a little fantasy.
Getting to know my step-dad was a difficult process - we're not really 'people' people. I would go to this new house where my mum lived and this other bloke would be sat in the corner on his computer. My brother played computer games, but I was the annoying kid sister so I never really got to play. But my mum's boyfriend didn't mind me watching over his shoulder, and so sitting at my mum's PC to his left (he was the first IT expert I'd met) I would spend hours watching him slay mythical creatures and going on quests. Then, Baldur's Gate came out. Oh boy, did my life change.
When Baldur's Gate came out, I was asked if I wanted to play and of course I jumped at the chance. I created Chaotica, the half-elf ranger cleric, as player two to my step-dad's human fighter on our LAN game. With that, I became a gamer. Every weekend we would reveal more of the map as we explored the world ourside Candlekeep, meeting characters that kept me company for so long. My memory is hazy (mostly because I threw myself into BG:ToB as soon as it came out and never looked back!), but my world brightened with the hours poured into these games. I consumed everything Fantasy and Fantasy-adjacent. I played all the games I could get my hands on.
BG brought my new family together, gave me a retreat from the difficult times, and opened my eyes to a whole world of magic.
I first played BG when I was about 10 or 11. My family had gotten the game so we could play it together, but after our first short session and making it to the Friendly Arm Inn, it was so amazing I just couldn't stop... So I took the discs and installed it on my computer. I remember receiving Landrin's quest to kill the spiders in her house. Not being familiar with D&D at the time I thought this would be a simple chore very much similar to killing Reevor's rats. When I got to Beregost and found Landrin's house I went inside and was like "HOLY CRAP THESE THINGS ARE HUGE!!!" I forgot what happened after that, but I will always remember being completely surprised by Landrin's spiders.
Encouragement to reminisce? That would be even more dangerous if twenty years weren’t such a long time after all, as it turns out. I only acquired Baldur’s Gate a couple of years after it came out, complete with Tales of the Sword Coast, but the demo version (that only included the first two chapters, I think?) was the first computer game I ever bought for myself with my own pocket money. That decision, and eventually going through the complete saga, has produced many fond memories.
After dabbling off and on for ages, as I’m not much of a computer gamer, I’ve only just finished my second complete playthrough (all the way to the endgame of Throne of Bhaal) as of a few weeks ago. It was a bit of a delightful anticlimax: after pulling out all the stops with my thieves’ traps, a carefully-chosen wish to regain my mages’ spells, the very last confrontation with the final antagonist largely ended with a lucky casting of harm by Jaheira, leaving my latest version of Gorion’s ward (an elven fighter/mage) with little to do by the first swing of her sword.
That seems a bit unfair of a memory to choose, since it’s not from the original game. This long after the fact, some of the more embarrassing moments spring to mind most easily: learning the hard way just how delicate single-classed mages were in my very first attempt and dying at the end of Shank’s dagger (how mortifying!), being far too trusting upon first arriving at the Friendly Arm Inn about people claiming to be friends (even if they weren’t Khalid and Jaheira)… I settled more comfortably with multiclassing, and to this day across various fantasy RPGs, my character type of choice is always an elf mage with at least a splash of fighter among her skills.
I can still remember the satisfaction of reaching a point at which I felt comfortable putting off physical armour until I ran out of spells for the day, and/or the first time my party was able to synchronize three castings of fireball from Gorion’s ward, Imoen (dual-classed in anticipation of Shadows of Amn), and Neera (oh, the delights of wild magic in the expanded edition!).
There are, too, some fairly social memories, even for a shy, bookish girl who often found herself at a loss for normal conversation: surprising my brother, probably almost ten years after the game first came out, with the gleeful announcement that I had completed it (still waiting for you, dear brother!), comparing notes with a college friend to see how many of the incantations for various spells we could remember, much to the bemusement of the other girl sitting with us that day, trying to figure out, years earlier, with other friends, what giant space hamsters were, miniature or otherwise…
Ultimately, though, as cheesy as it must be to say so, I suppose I cherish how much the game encourages the idea of what a group of friends with good hearts and big dreams can do, “for the group,” whether one has a hamster of one’s own or not, or goes in for “full plate and packing steel!”, from the moment one accepts her best friend’s offer to see what the world has to offer, “Never let a friend down, no, ma’am! Stick with you until you say otherwise, I will!”
Comments
- When I played BG1 for the first time ever (the game had just come out), the first interaction was with Winthrop, and his "My Hotel's as clean as an Elven arse!" made me immediately realize that this game was different from everything else I played before.
- Every single time I finish the whole trilogy, I get emotional reading the ending stories of the NPC as if it were the first (damn you, Minsc...).
My most treasured memories were in university, installing mods on two computers so the woman I love and I could play the series together (she too loved these games in childhood, really helped break the ice). We exchanged knowledge of trivia, quotes, favorite parts and the like.
I treasure these games and associated memories.
Also the Sounds/Soundtrack was Incendiary...ty
So I got Nalia out of the party because I wanted the other character to join so I could do their quest. Did the quest, went to the Copper Coronet to pick her back in... and couldn't find her there! And then I remembered: Nalia had the Staff Of the Magi equipped so she was invisible. Tried a bunch of spells and things to reveal her, but it didn't work. I thought I'd have to reload an old save and replay many hours of gameplay, but then I decided to try one more thing. So Keldorn cast Dispel Magic and to my relief I was finally able to talk to Nalia. I like to imagine that in universe she did this on purpose, standing invisible and giggling at the party just for fun
Best memory is searching for that tiny spot where the ankeg armor was hidden, I had no idea the Tab key existed and just knew it was in a field... I searched for sooo long! But when I finally got it, man was I happy!
Still consider BG1 the best game I ever played. I just started from level 1 on a two caracters run with a friend whos never played, we are having a blast!
When I grew up to the point where I could actually kind-of understand how to play, he gave me the disks and said have at it. I've been playing all the Infinity Engine games continuously ever since...
The desire to make new spells inspired me to delve into the more technical side of computers, and eventually come to develop a programming hobby.
Actually, we still have the box in the closet - it's seen better days, but here's a picture! (Forgive my photography skills):
Many, many, many moons later...There is no way we can take on all these gnolls. They're huge! How big is this damn fortress anyway? Imoen! Send Imoen! Give her the only potion of invisibility we have and send her to certain death. She's a poor thief anyway. Heya, it's me Imoen being eaten by a gnoll! Off she goes into the night. Someway, somehow she manages to sneak up the hill past the first group of lookouts. The gods must be watching or they must be concerned with more important things than a lowly thief from Candlekeep. She made it up the steps to the main courtyard! A stinking den of evil! What the heck? Minsc? How in the world he managed to follow Imoen only Boo will know. Imoen tells him to wait by the steps as she ventures forth past the first pit. Among all the vile smells she is able sniff out a rather unusual scent. The smell reminds her of an exquisite perfume a Rashmen trader brought once to Candlekeep. Thanks to her sticky fingers she never smelled this good in her life. Imoen follows the scent and ventures down the pit. On the floor lies a disheveled but beautiful woman. Her caramel skin and dark brown hair glisten in the moonlight. It must be her, Dynaheir. No wonder Minsc swore her life to protect the witch, Imoen was ready to do the same. With no time to waste Imoen passes the potion of invisibility to the witch. It's their only hope of getting out of here unscathed. Quickly they move, almost floating on the cobblestones. Minsc greets them both on the lower level grinning from ear to ear. In his excitement his clumsy comes out. The moon's reflection on his bald head makes it all to easy for the eagerly to fight gnolls. Forget being discrete, time to run, run fast! The trio stumbles down the slope past the pits, pats the lookouts, taking only minor scrapes from the gnoll's halberds. The trio makes finally makes it into the safety of the wilderness. Once the dust has settled the trio checks their wounds. The scrapes turned into more than minor flesh wounds. They barely made it alive. The gods must have indeed been asleep that night, at least the gnoll gods.
Needless to say, the rest is history. I was hooked on Baldur's Gate. I still am.
I think my key memory though would be the extent to which I had misheard all of the characters as a kid when playing back e.g. "Wisdom is only possessed by the NERD", "ASSERVE the FLAYMIN FISH" (??), "Your voice is ambrosia"... Wait that last one was right??
Sincerely;
Dale (aka ZoGarth)
The Baldur's gate series is now, and will always be, my favourite set of video games, nothing will ever top it, every element of the game is just so well done. Thank you Bioware, Black Isle studios, and now Beamdog, for bringing us these games!
And if you also want a more specific memory, the first time I instantly blew up tree of life Irenicus with a bundle of traps was a triumphant moment
I remember the nights of my younger self staying up and watching my older brother play Baldur's Gate on Windows 98. The whirling of the computer and CD-ROM as we watch 5 CDs and 2GB (massive amount back then) worth of contents being installed over a few hours.
We were enthralled by the gameplay, the voice acting, and the sense of adventure that were introduced by the game.
I hardly understood the banters and the conversations back then, but I still loved it nonetheless. Especially the Flaming Fist mercenaries. The plate armor, the "I serve the Flaming Fist!" and "I AM the Law!".
Fast-forward to High School, which was roughly a decade later when I came to the States. I installed Baldur's Gate on my laptop, only to be awestruck yet again by the sheer amount of story and nostalgia it offered. The game had aged well and was always my go-to. Even if I talked about Guitar Hero or my Mexican girlfriend at school with my homies, I've always played and modded the Baldur's Gate series in my spare time, instead.
I am not exaggerating if I said that it was thanks to Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale that I was able to learn English as well as speak without an accent.
Both Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale will always hold a special place in my mind, as they are part of what shaped me into who I am today. I can't wait to read every single one of everyone's story with Baldur's Gate, as I know I am not the only one who remembers a game so fondly.
- Buffed the nine hells out of my party to go and fight Firkraag after I had escaped the Underdark. 10 seconds in after I breached Firkraags stoneskin, Minsc lands a hit with the vorpal sword and kills him instantly. I sit there stunned for a whole minute while my party members are yelling at me to get a move on.
LOL I feel like I didn't really deserve the loot after that. I haven't been able to recreate that moment since either!
I've really enjoyed listening to everyone's history, memories of Baldurs Gate and D&D.
I wish I could say I had a fond memory from way back when BG first came out but I can't remember that far back, or what it felt like. I was married, had a new career, and hardly had time for games but played Baldgurs Gate when I could (the only game I played). Several years later I lost all of that, marriage, career, home, and family, yet Baldur's Gate remained. Another 2 years passed and I was injured and left with one side of me covered in scars from 2nd degree burns, yet Baldur's Gate remained. Now I am dealing with some serious health issues and trying to figure out how to adjust to what seems like a different world and reality, and still, Baldur's Gate remains.
It has been like a band aid for me thorough many traumatic events and has as of late kept my interest and encouraged me to keep trying. Why? Because Beamdog has helped to keep the game updated and modders have tirelessly and unselfishly put a lot of time into mods big and small that being new life and people to the game, most certainly me. I know I have great memories every week from tying these new mods and tweaks (though sometimes it is hard to remember) It may not sound like much but it is this game that has kept me living for many years, especially during the roughest and toughest times in my life.
I think in the future I hope to look back at this time and remember one important thing: this game made me want to continue being around. That will be my favorite memory I think, as it gives me the chances to form new memories not just related to the game itself.
Thanks Beamdog, and thank you to those on this forum.
Keep up the great memories and stories everyone, and if your new here, stick around for a while. We never tire of seeing new company having new friends.
I was 11 when it came out, and didn't know about it until around 13. There hadn't been a game like this in my life. I was almost entirely console raised. We played every iteration of Mario, graduated to fighting games, then first person shooters. I didn't understand what a story could be in a game. I had started to get into Dungeons and Dragons a bit, and didn't completely understand the mechanics, when my buddy gave me a copy. That dark opening scene sucked me in and I was hooked. I remember feeling like I was hanging on for dear life the whole way to the Friendly Arm Inn. By happenstance, it was dark when I arrived with Imoen, and I had run away from my first bandit ambush. Completely mentally ready for a stay at the inn, Tarnesh neutralized me with Horror, and I watched open mouthed as he methodically finished me off. After that, I restarted, picked up a guide, and spent the next few months mastering as much as I could. I'll never forget my first successful run of the game, and the amazing story and experience in the sequels and following playthroughs. Minsc, Khalid, Jaheira, and Imoen all felt like dear friends, and Sarevok and Irenicus were my enemies.
Wonder is the memory I have of this game, and I hope to share that with my own children one day as well.
When I eventually reached Nashkel, I took Edwin's quest. Because it was a quest and quests give experience! I was really surprised though when he looked exactly the same as my character; same picture, same outfit, same physical appearance. He even had the same class as me! The only difference was in stats and alignment. I was good, he was evil. I thought it was kind of awesome that the game gave you an evil twin.
In hindsight, I wonder a bit what happened there, as the companions get a different portrait if you use theirs, right? Was this perhaps just patched in later or was Edwin bugged somehow so he got to keep his portrait?
Then as I learned how to read with the help of Baldur's Gate (yeah Baldur's Gate was effectively an educational game for myself!) the game turned from randomly clicking different dialog combinations and going off the first voiced line of dialog and reloading over and over and picking the 'best' result; to actually understanding -somewhat- of what was going on.
Honestly I would just smash and grab anything that had magical loot and I could do that for I got enough story through the voiced lines to roughly figure it out. I found Algernon's Cloak in my first play sessions as a young child by killing everyone and reloading to see what items they had for I had no value in really understanding what most characters were talking bout; all I cared about back then was magical items!
I think I tried to kill Drizzt, I think I killed him for I remember my brother reloading his save for he felt guilty after reading the Mithril Chainmail +4's item description. I think that I surrounded Drizzt with party members and uninvited them into a box around Drizzt so he could not move (works in the original). I got my character and Imoen to shoot a whole load of x20 arrows stacks at Drizzt until he died. I remember getting the Helm of Defense from Droth and getting a Tome in the siren cave around that time as well.
I also remember in the early days rolling a male Human Fighter/Thief with the first bald man portrait (with my brother watching) that had 18's in every attributes minus like 6 or 7 in Charisma and I was like 'Yeah! Yeah! That is good! Hurry click accept before something bad happens!' That is because we both did not know how saving a roll worked! To this day I have never replicated that result and that was on one of my first characters when I as nine years old!
Yet something bad did happen, my brother saved over my file and In was quite upset (we used auto save and did not save normally for we were big noobs!). I was living at my grandparents then and we ended up playing on different computers because that. I played Baldur's Gate in room that stored molds for ceramics and I still remember that greenware ceramic smell burned into my mind while rolling new character attributes.
I would be in there rolling for hours trying to get a character with as many 18s's as I could thinking that I could roll another super character like I did so earlier before; yet to this day I always remember never rolling five natural 18's in a roll ever, four once but not five.
The highest I have rolled was five 18s and a 14 in charisma after attribute relocation with a bum value in bonus strength like 07 or something; or a 104 roll for a Half Elf 'Drow' Ranger or Fighter/Mage/Thief. I always thought that 18/00 was the worst but then I read Play It Hardcore's guide and I realized that 18/00 was actually 18/100 and it was the best, I used to throw away characters with 18/00 think them to be 18/0 haha!
In the first play through I had a stupid competition as to who could spend the most days in game and myself and my brother would sleep a lot in the game to get the most days. I 'won' and got to Baldur's Gate and died due to the timer killing my main character 30 seconds after my last save who was Ranger if I recall correctly with Imoen, Khalid, Jaheira, Minsc, Dyanheir and Viconia (who for some reason pronounced 'Veronica').
I had a mad dash to grab all of my magical items into my main character to export him out; I had the Helm of Balduran, Heavy Crossbow of Accuracy, Plate Mail +3, Alergon's Cloak and a few other mage items and magical items. I made it just in the nick of time since back in the original game the inventory as NOT paused.
I restarted a new game and I thought it strange that Gorion would not question or be confused as to how I got super ripped and decked with magical items overnight and I set out to get double the magical items (and sleep less o.o)!
I still killed Marl for I still was bad at reading and I eventually got to the the Undercellar mission. I did not complete the second play-though for I did not want the game to end. My progress of Baldur's Gate stayed as such over the following years playing in the wilderness and playing the Darkside of the Sword Coast in the late 2000's.
I was constantly struck by a creative urge to make the adventure verses playing the adventure. I read through the item descriptions fully years after and before I always used to really appreciate the item illustrations a great deal for it was all I could get out of an item description. Little did I know back then I would write 'books' worth of item descriptions for my own items that I made ha!
I remember in a computer lab (this was the early 2000's with the big blockly computer monitors) when I was in elementary school being introduced to Runescape for the first time and asking if there were any +1 weapons and armour in the game (to the blank confused expression of my class mate at the time; of which I forget their name, lost to the churn of time). I remember no one I grew up with in the School system knew about Baldur's Gate or Dungeons and Dragons; it was all Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Beyblades and Runescape.
I remember being ecstatic when the Enhanced Edition was announce for Baldur's Gate in my later years of High School. Yet as the news trickled in of the buggy launch I was skeptical and I waited a whole year until the bugs were fixed to play the game as I did not want to have a disappointing experience coming back to my favourite game.
I knew that the developers had intended a bug free game so I was patient and I waited for a version that was not a bug riddled mess. I knew it was one of their first big projects for Beamdog and it was a small team. Yet unlike all of the 'mindless' droves of people (who complain about everything yet make nothing) I knew that as complex as Baldur's Gate's engine is; to change and modernize it, fixing all of the bugs and stabilizing the engine across all platforms - there were going to be major issues and these things take time to perfect.
When Siege of Dragonspear launched it was the same experience, I waited around a year to play the new chapter of Baldur's Gate properly and I was cautious and was patient enough to not have my game experience ruined by bugs; except for one major bug where M'Khiin would not shut up in the ogre cave so I had to finish the game with 5 party members. Although perhaps I missed some time in the beta to fix some issues, but it was no big issue for I had room to experience the end fight without 'complications'.
Over the decade or so of playing Baldur's Gate on and off I self-taught myself how to add new content that blends naturally with the feel of the original level of quality of Baldur's Gate. A few years ago I tried to get this remastered item B.A.M. added for Dorn's Two-handed Sword +1-2 'Rancor' but the item was too little amount of content merit an official patch in Baldur's Gate (which still I hope changes one day(-: )
It has been a long and winding journey with many 'irons-in-the-fire' over the years of mostly item, area and Non-Player Character related new high quality content that I have been working on in the shadows. I have released a small encounter module this year as an early Christmas present in the form of my first proper module (which is a piece of a larger item forge module named Baldur's Gate Arms and Armour Emporium which is a smaller off shoot of my work with Baldur's Seatower)! Well I released two modules to be technical but the second module includes the first module; so it works out the same.
Anyway without further ado here is my first proper Baldur's Gate module: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters for Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear 2.0+ (Version 1.0) https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/73749/extra-expanded-enhanced-encounters-module-download/p1
My dad bought me the original 5-disc Baldur's Gate 1 alongside another action game (which I forget) when I was young. I foolishly gave BG1 to a friend who loved RPGs and played the action game. When this friend told me how great BG1 was, I got the game back and he bought his own copy. I have subsequently got all BG related games - TOTSC, BG2, TOB as well as the unfortunate Dark Alliance series.
The great memories are always those mini-bosses that absolutely destroy you - I still remember Tarnesh who obliterated me and Imoen, the various fights against the new creatures in BG2 (vampires, dragons, liches) that were super tough the very first time you encounter them.
I also loved the escapism that BG allowed me to experience - I felt like I was going through these beautifully created environments with my party of adventurers. It felt like living out the fantasy novels I love to read.
I love the IE games so much I bought the digital versions of BG1/2 and PST, and also the EE versions from Beamdog. These games are the only games where I have replayed multiple times - and it would be the game I would start a new playthrough every year during Xmas holidays.
Well it all started in 2015. I had known my friend James for a few months and we had been recording for a playthrough of Baldur's Gate that I've sense lost most of the videos for. Eventually it came time for us to explore the farm area North of Baldur's Gate and a wicked smile rose from my lips.
I said to James "Ok, so in this area there is a small horde of zombies that you need to kill for this farmer, but they're like super easy to kill so I'm going to sic Bob on them"
For context here, Bob was what we decided to name Zaram's familiar, a cat who before this point had gotten very little attention and even less time in the sun, but now...now I decided was his time.
So without skipping a beat, I sent Bob across the map to cut a bloody swath through the zombies with his claws, and although it took some time (and a few trips back to Branwen for healing) Bob managed to get every single one of those undead husks with virtually no difficulty while Zaram, Imoen, Minsc, Dynaheir, Dorn and Branwen sat back and put little or no effort into this endeavor.
And the lesson learned? Turns out familiars can be badass too, you just have to give them their time under the sun.
Aside from that, when I first discovered the secret Ankheg Plate Mail in Nashkel it blew my mind. I began obsessively searching everywhere, in every area of the game, even through BG2. This erratic behavior was worsened by my hoarding of everything that was unique, including the fabled golden pantaloons which I kept just out of spite and curiosity. After finding the silver pantaloons in the second game, I knew something was up. Getting the Bronze Pantalettes and building the Big Metal Unit from all that "meaningless" hoarding was so incredibly fulfilling as sad as that sounds. I have tried to explain it to people, but it is something that needs to be achieved to be appreciated. Hundreds of hours spent in a single playthrough but a lifetime of smiles just looking back on that one little but ridiculously drawn-out easter egg. I have never seen something like it since. I don't think I ever will again. Man, just writing this is going to make me start another playthrough. Well played Beamdog.
I tried several times to get into it but often ended up floundering around early in the game and dying a lot. Then one day a guy I'd never met before came into the lab and was watching me play and was getting really invested in my game. We struck up a friendship over the game and over the space of several months battled our way through the game before finally taking down Sarevok.
I fondly remember many arguments we had over which party members we should take with us (I always wanted minsc) and the outcomes of some of the quests like what to do with the captive nymph.
Baldur's Gate was a fantastic part of my adolescence and gave me a great friend who I still game with to this day.
I used to play BG in multiplayer with my best friend in high school, playing on his spotty internet connection on 2 PCs at opposite ends of the house. We only had my single copy of the game, so we used to have to do the "disk dance" where as whichever of us had the disk finished loading the area, he'd have to sprint in a mad dash across the house to load it into the other's computer so that we could both load an area without crashing. Best exercise I ever got from a PC game.
We ran into a lot of weird bugs (perhaps because of the suffering from our poor over-worked disks?) during those games. I remember that on one run, rather than have a thief character in our party, we used to create level 1 NPCs to check for traps with their faces. Rather than spend good gold on raising them, we would then just create an identical character with the same name, and have him pick up his predecessor's items. One poor level 1 gnome fighter/illusionist, Mnnnnfh, suffered from this indignity a half-dozen times before being lethally petrified by a basilisk and then booted from the party to make room for an NPC. But then the strangest thing happened. We walked into Baldur's Gate, only to have his character (miraculously revived!) walk over to us and call us a bunch of jerks for dropping him from the party, and then walk away. I stared dumbfounded at the PC for a moment, before hearing hysterical laughter down the hall from my best friend. I think it's the only time I've ever gotten sassed back by an NPC in a game for all the terrible things I've done to them
Getting to know my step-dad was a difficult process - we're not really 'people' people. I would go to this new house where my mum lived and this other bloke would be sat in the corner on his computer. My brother played computer games, but I was the annoying kid sister so I never really got to play. But my mum's boyfriend didn't mind me watching over his shoulder, and so sitting at my mum's PC to his left (he was the first IT expert I'd met) I would spend hours watching him slay mythical creatures and going on quests. Then, Baldur's Gate came out. Oh boy, did my life change.
When Baldur's Gate came out, I was asked if I wanted to play and of course I jumped at the chance. I created Chaotica, the half-elf ranger cleric, as player two to my step-dad's human fighter on our LAN game. With that, I became a gamer. Every weekend we would reveal more of the map as we explored the world ourside Candlekeep, meeting characters that kept me company for so long. My memory is hazy (mostly because I threw myself into BG:ToB as soon as it came out and never looked back!), but my world brightened with the hours poured into these games. I consumed everything Fantasy and Fantasy-adjacent. I played all the games I could get my hands on.
BG brought my new family together, gave me a retreat from the difficult times, and opened my eyes to a whole world of magic.
So thank you ♡
After dabbling off and on for ages, as I’m not much of a computer gamer, I’ve only just finished my second complete playthrough (all the way to the endgame of Throne of Bhaal) as of a few weeks ago. It was a bit of a delightful anticlimax: after pulling out all the stops with my thieves’ traps, a carefully-chosen wish to regain my mages’ spells, the very last confrontation with the final antagonist largely ended with a lucky casting of harm by Jaheira, leaving my latest version of Gorion’s ward (an elven fighter/mage) with little to do by the first swing of her sword.
That seems a bit unfair of a memory to choose, since it’s not from the original game. This long after the fact, some of the more embarrassing moments spring to mind most easily: learning the hard way just how delicate single-classed mages were in my very first attempt and dying at the end of Shank’s dagger (how mortifying!), being far too trusting upon first arriving at the Friendly Arm Inn about people claiming to be friends (even if they weren’t Khalid and Jaheira)… I settled more comfortably with multiclassing, and to this day across various fantasy RPGs, my character type of choice is always an elf mage with at least a splash of fighter among her skills.
I can still remember the satisfaction of reaching a point at which I felt comfortable putting off physical armour until I ran out of spells for the day, and/or the first time my party was able to synchronize three castings of fireball from Gorion’s ward, Imoen (dual-classed in anticipation of Shadows of Amn), and Neera (oh, the delights of wild magic in the expanded edition!).
There are, too, some fairly social memories, even for a shy, bookish girl who often found herself at a loss for normal conversation: surprising my brother, probably almost ten years after the game first came out, with the gleeful announcement that I had completed it (still waiting for you, dear brother!), comparing notes with a college friend to see how many of the incantations for various spells we could remember, much to the bemusement of the other girl sitting with us that day, trying to figure out, years earlier, with other friends, what giant space hamsters were, miniature or otherwise…
Ultimately, though, as cheesy as it must be to say so, I suppose I cherish how much the game encourages the idea of what a group of friends with good hearts and big dreams can do, “for the group,” whether one has a hamster of one’s own or not, or goes in for “full plate and packing steel!”, from the moment one accepts her best friend’s offer to see what the world has to offer, “Never let a friend down, no, ma’am! Stick with you until you say otherwise, I will!”