Greetings! ( Seeking advice from any congenial Loremasters and/or Fanatics )
Lord_Rattlebottom_IV
Member Posts: 13
Hello Everyone
I hope this day finds you well. While I am officially known as Lord Rattlebottom IV, it is a long and rather stuffy title, therefore please feel free to address me as LRB4, or alternatively, "You Pompous Git".
Introductions aside, I have a humble request.
I am about to play Baldur's gate for the first time. Very exciting. I regret that I must admit that my knowledge of the lore of Dungeons and Dragons lies somewhere between Pathetic and Embarrassing.
I am aiming to correct this abhorrent character flaw of mine, and so am beseeching the community for advice of how I should first set about educating myself.
Imagine yourself as you were before you dived into this world and had the opportunity to learn about it all over again, how would you go about this? What resources, novels, posts, etc. would u recommend (in what order) to read that would enable an ignorant buffoon such as I to gain a meaningful understanding of this exciting world.
I am a blank canvas, or rather, a large, useless lump of clay. Mold me into a grand adventurer and have my everlasting gratitude.
Cheers!
I hope this day finds you well. While I am officially known as Lord Rattlebottom IV, it is a long and rather stuffy title, therefore please feel free to address me as LRB4, or alternatively, "You Pompous Git".
Introductions aside, I have a humble request.
I am about to play Baldur's gate for the first time. Very exciting. I regret that I must admit that my knowledge of the lore of Dungeons and Dragons lies somewhere between Pathetic and Embarrassing.
I am aiming to correct this abhorrent character flaw of mine, and so am beseeching the community for advice of how I should first set about educating myself.
Imagine yourself as you were before you dived into this world and had the opportunity to learn about it all over again, how would you go about this? What resources, novels, posts, etc. would u recommend (in what order) to read that would enable an ignorant buffoon such as I to gain a meaningful understanding of this exciting world.
I am a blank canvas, or rather, a large, useless lump of clay. Mold me into a grand adventurer and have my everlasting gratitude.
Cheers!
6
Comments
I would love to also get into playing with pen and paper too. None of my friends were into it and I'm in a small town so there's no meeting place for like minded individuals to interact. Maybe I'll find some friends here to get together with someday and rock the pen, paper and dice. But first things first, find the handbook.
My recommendation would be to play the tutorial, and anything you are unclear on, look up in the PH.
Welcome to Baldur's Gate.
No worries on that front, my good dreamrider. I have a pdf to get me through until the real one comes in the mail on Thursday. Can. Not. Wait. (Well, obviously I can wait because technically I am waiting at this very moment but you know what I mean)
@wubble
Thanks for sharing that story. I had a similar experience with a game called Dungeon Master on my old Atari St 2600. I was around 8 or nine and had NO grasp of the mechanics. Knew only one fireball spell. Had my wizard on the front line, just a train wreck of a party. Needless to say I don't recall making it down too many levels before the party either was slain or starved to death. But about a year ago I got a copy to work on my current computer, read all I could find on it, and no surprise, I was finally Master of that damn dungeon after . . . ahem . . . XX years. The important thing is that in both circumstances I was having a ton o' fun.
Just start playing the games.
See, when I first played Baldur's Gate, I knew nothing about Baldur's Gate.
I knew nothing about the Forgotten Realms.
I knew nothing about Dungeons and Dragons.
I knew nothing about Roleplaying Games.
But Baldur's Gate taught me.
By playing the games, you learn so much about this world. Details that don't even have anything to do with your adventure. For instance, there are books in the game, dozens of them, that serve no purpose at all, other than to enlighten and amuse you if you just read them. They are filled with historical accounts about places and events in the Forgotten Realms.
When you read one of those books, also have a look at this map. It shows the main continent where the games take place (the in-game world map only shows a tiny portion of the whole continent). When you discover the places mentioned in the books on the map, you better understand those stories.
Edit: fixed map link
I am a self proclaimed "lorewhore" and will cherish reading any book, scroll, tome, grimoire, map and scrap of paper I can my stuff in my inventory. There is definitely something to be said for learning about the world organically.
Thats what I did in the Elder Scrolls reading every book that series numerous times, in Dark Souls I read the blurp of text before looking at the item's stats to see if it would shed some light on what has happened in that world. I'm always craving more knowledge about the universes I enjoy. I immensely enjoy pouring over the in game books and maps, making connections between events, famous heroes, cataclysms, etc
I suppose the reason I am so eager to acquire the history, politics and such of this world could be attributed to the fact DnD is the grand daddy of role playing. I've spent a decade role playing in Tamriel learning all there is to know, doing all there is to do (although mods make that a blatant lie) but also being conscious of the fact that so much of that was either influenced or directly taken from DnD. As a fan of this kind of fantasy, I owe it to myself to learn about DnD
To me, it would be like me saying I'm a huge fan of Led Zeppelin but haven't heard any blues records. Granted, you don't have to listen to the blues to enjoy Zeppelin but if you do study the blues, you develop a better appreciation of the group. Even better, more often than not, you find the ones that influenced the greats are just as good, if not better than, the greats themselves.
What I'm trying to say Is I'm very excited to finally be getting around to experiencing the DnD universe but have to remind myself I didn't learn everything about the Elder Scrolls or Zeppelin in one day.
I myself thought it was an excellent read.
Also, Lifts-Her-Tail is the most hilarious name in the franchise. Argonian or otherwise.
Manual 1 in particular is a good place for lore related info.
http://www.beamdog.com/files/bgee/BGManual1.pdf
You could also check out Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast, for a light hearted (and not entirely serious) take on these areas. You may even see similarities between what is mentioned there and what made it into the game
Besides the 2nd edition players handbook (that others have mentioned) there are also Forgotten Realms Campaign Settings that have information about a lot of the areas you will be visiting in the game (TSR 1031 or 1085 would be examples of this).
That said the easiest (and quite possibly the cheapest) way you can get information is probably going to be from the forgotten realms wiki.
This is its article on the Sword Coast. Its limited but from it you can get a basic understanding of what locations it encompasses.
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Sword_Coast
I have read the manual including Volo's Guide ( I recognize your name! ) I was intrigued by the campaign settings you suggested. I looked them up and they seem like they would be helpful. Over the past few days I have increased my knowledge of Dnd exponentially and I have all you kind people to thank for that. My player's hand book came early in the mail and I'm enjoying the read immensely. I've been researching what novels to read however so far I have found there is lack of consensus as to which are the must reads. I've only begun my research so that's bound to change. Of course if anyone has any suggestions feel free to let me know.
Oh, Yeah. I know what you mean.
Sleep. ;-)
http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/Reputation
Be Warned. Be careful which other articles in the BG wiki you choose to read. In articles about locations, characters, and items, it is spoiler laden, though a wonderful ref for those who have been to the Sword Coast before.