Summary
After the success of Baldur’s Gate 3, a brand-newDungeons & Dragonsvideo game is coming our way from Wizards of the Coast and game developer Giant Skull. This game is set to take place in the world of Dungeons & Dragons and is a single-player action-adventure game that capitalizes on the ever-growing popularity of tabletop roleplaying games.
Games like Baldur’s Gate 3 borrowed a lot from Dungeons & Dragons, including dice rolls, character classes, and more. We’re hoping that Giant Skull will take it to the next level. Here are some gameplay mechanics and rules from DND we want to see in the game.
10Multiclassing
Preferably Three Or Four Times
One of the most fun elements of any long-running Dungeons & Dragons campaign is multiclassing.Expert players can sometimes multiclassa handful of times before they’re through creating the perfect character build. Because multiclassing is one of the best ways to make unique custom characters in Dungeons & Dragons, multiclassing would be a great addition to a single-player DND game.
It’s not exactly clear at the moment if the game is going to have traditional DND classes, but if it does, finding fun ways to combine classes to break the game in two would prove to be immensely fun for seasoned tabletop players. Plus, this could give players so much free rein over their character concept.
9Bastions
Home Is Where You Hang Your Pointed Hat
Bastions were introduced in the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide as a form of long-term progression for players. At level five, you canearn your own bastionand upgrade it with various facilities that give you perks in gameplay.
Having your own keep or bastion in the Giant Skull game would be immensely fun. Not only would this allow for even more character customization and perks, but having a keep of some kind to call your very own could make players feel like they’re truly immersed in the world of Dungeons & Dragons.
8Crafting
Forge Your Own Path
Both the 2024 Player’s Handbook and the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide have unique rules for crafting potions, weapons, equipment, magic items, and more. Any great adventure game worth its salt typically has crafting mechanics. So, naturally, this is something we’d love to see in a brand-new Dungeons & Dragons video game.
Imagine being able to head to a blacksmith or a forge installed in your bastion and craft brand-new, homebrewed weapons for yourself or your party. Plus, perhaps the game could have unique crafting systems that allow for experimentation ala the crafting system in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
7Death Saves
Your Days Are Numbered
Player-character death can be really fun in a Dungeons & Dragons game. Not every player is up for it, but a lot of tables like the stakes to feel real, meaning that character death has to feel like an actual threat players can contend with. Of course, in a video game, death is always a certainty, but porting over typical DND rules for this mechanic would prove really immersive and fun.
Imagine you’re playing through a complicated battle with your party, and your player-character goes down, or an ally goes down. Watching the dramatic ticking clock that is their death saves would add a lot of stakes and tension to the battle. Plus, this gives players a small reprieve to undo their mistakes, which is always great in a video game.
6Vehicles And Mounts
Normal Ships As Well As Airships
The 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide, as well as some supplements like Spelljammer,have bespoke rules for vehicles and mounts in DND, ranging from submarines to spaceships. It’s unclear how big of a world this game will involve, or whether or not it’ll even be open-world, or more pseudo-open-world like Baldur’s Gate 3, but having vehicles to traverse the map would be great fun.
Gathering your party together to construct or purchase a giant airship to soar through the skies would not only make fast-travel an unnecessary mechanic, but having bespoke vehicles you’re able to use would make for more unique character concept options. You could roleplay a spaceship pilot or a ship’s captain in this manner, making each player’s story feel unique.
5Alignment
Get Chaotic
Alignment is an often misunderstood mechanic in Dungeons & Dragons. Most people just ignore it completely. At best, some players might use it to help guide their character choices, or DMs might ask players to shift their alignment if they’re roleplaying in unexpected ways.
However, in a Dungeons & Dragons video game, it would be so fun if alignment actually altered the types of decisions you could make. Let’s say there are choice-based dialogue trees, or other branching narrative paths you could take. Perhaps having different alignments could open different paths for players, making each playthrough its own unique experience.
4Level-Ups
Take It To The Next Level
Baldur’s Gate 3made level-upsso fun each and every time. There’s nothing like getting that satisfying animation and music cue every time you level up, getting new abilities, spells, and more.
It’s unclear exactly what kind of progression another Dungeons & Dragons game would have, but we hope that there’s a similar level-up system that follows the same path that a typical Dungeons & Dragons game does. Although it would be really fun if you could go all the way to level 20 instead of just 12 in Baldur’s Gate 3.
3Renown
Favored Or Bountied
Renown is a systemintroduced in the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide that not a lot of DM’s make use of. However, combining this system, which allows players to get perks for being renowned in certain parts of the world, could work perfectly for a video game.
It’s easy to take inspiration from games like Red Dead Redemption 2, which has an honor system, to see how renown might work in a DND video game. Imagine walking into a settlement and being revered like a hero for your good deeds, or walking into a city and discovering that a bounty has been placed on your head. The possibilities are endless.
2Relationships
Gotta Have A Dating Sim
The best part of Baldur’s Gate 3 was getting to have relationships with your party. Romance and roleplaying are key elements of any great Dungeons & Dragons campaign, so we hope similar mechanics make a return in a brand-new DND video game.
One thing that would be great, too, is if the romance options were slightly more flexible. Obviously, in most romance sims, you’re limited to how many characters are actually romanceable. But, imagine if this new DND game went the way of Skyrim, which allows for much more flexibility when it comes to forming romantic attachments, or even getting married.
1Patrons
Hopefully Of The Supernatural Kind
Patrons in Dungeons & Dragons, whether they be supernatural or not, are a great way to introduce players to powerful NPCs, or warlocks to the source of their powers. It would be amazing if, in a new DND video game, there was more emphasis put on NPCs like patrons to make the experience feel more immersive.
For example, a great way to multiclass into a warlock might come when your player-character meets a powerful magical NPC, who enlists you into the service. The same idea could be applied to clerics or paladins, who might encounter a deity who wants to name them their champion.
