Baldur’s Gate 3’s Nautiloid is a Good Lesson for Dungeons & Dragons DMs

Highlights

A memorable campaign opening in D&D needs urgency, stakes, and danger to engage players immediately.
Baldur’s Gate 3 sets a strong example with a chaotic start on a crashing spaceship to create a lasting impact.
Bonding the party in a life-threatening situation like the Nautiloid crash can create strong player connections, and new dungeon masters could look to BG3 for inspiration.

Every story needs a good beginning, preferably one that grabs the audience immediately. In Star Wars, John Williams slaps the viewer to attention with his opening piece as massive yellow text looms over them, with a space chase right after. There’s no reason a Dungeons & Dragons campaign cannot be as memorable as that, something that Larian likely recognized when it decided to make Baldur’s Gate‘s opening worthy of remembrance.

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Starting a New D&D Campaign

Starting the ‘Classic’ Way

Usually, when starting a new campaign of Dungeons & Dragons, the players find themselves in a tavern. They meet up, have a drink, spy the shadowy figure in the corner staring at them intently and, if they’re feeling generous toward the DM, go talk to the suspicious-but-obvious quest giver and head off to the nearby dungeon. An opening like that can be fun and memorable, if the DM is prepared and flexible enough. Unfortunately, oftentimes it meanders, slowly building steam until it finally gets going.

What is a Strong Start?

A strong start needs 3 things to be strong: urgency, stakes, and danger. If a slow start is getting a drink in a tavern and sitting down to talk while introducing everyone, a strong start is the equivalent of flipping the table, lighting the tavern on fire, and finishing it with the ale cellar exploding while assassins hunt the players. Of course, one can take a strong start a step further. One can also take it several steps further and then jump off a cliff like Larian Studios did. Baldur’s Gate 3 starts strong. The player character awakes with the mother of all hangovers, trapped in a horrifying alien ship. They’re surrounded by monsters, there’s blood everywhere, dragons are flying around and the vessel they’re on is currently hurtling through Hell itself!

Just like in the previous “Burning Tavern” example, all of those circumstances are there to make an impact on the player, to give a sense of urgency and stakes, while making the opening hours extremely memorable. Since Baldur’s Gate 3 is a video game and won’t crash the Nautiloid simply because the player took too long to get to the bridge, it does use the environment and sounds to indicate that this vessel might crash any minute, something that can easily be translated into a tabletop game where the DM should absolutely threaten the players with a deadly crash if they don’t get going fast enough.

A Strong Start Cultivates a Strong Party

The strongest case for a memorable start to a campaign is great party synergy. Putting the players into a dangerous situation that forces them to work together for survival creates the most solid party bonds, especially at the start of a campaign. Most of BG3′s NPC party members are morally dubious at best, with many clashing philosophies, and yet they stick together through thick and thin for quite a while.

Shadowheart and Lae’Zel, Best Frenemies

During the Nautiloid crash, the player meets Lae’Zel, an extremely unfriendly Githyanki, and Shadowheart, a priestess of an obviously evil deity. Lae’Zel threatens to kill the player character the moment she meets them and wants to leave Shadowheart to die. Shadowheart, on the other hand, makes her distaste for the Githyanki apparent from minute one and gives off strong serial killer vibes.

Put the two of them in a room together, and it’s likely only one person will walk out. Put them in a crashing spaceship with tentacles coming out of the walls, and suddenly they are fighting side by side like Gimli and Legolas. Even when the danger finally passes and those two can hate each other without any restrictions, the battle scars they share bring them closer together.

Looking for Inspiration as a DM

Larian Studios did a wonderful job at merging the two mediums of video and tabletop games into a unique experience. The studio took the idea of the immense freedom D&D brings into BG3, giving the players a cornucopia of choices on how to play their characters and live out their stories. Larian was inspired by everything Dungeons & Dragons is. Therefore, it only makes sense that aspiring DM’s take inspiration from Larian, whether it’s the amazingly strong start, the multifaceted quests, or any other aspect of Baldur’s Gate 3.