After enjoying popularity in the late 80s and early 90s, Dungeons & Dragons video games had largely gone extinct as the 21st century approached…until a little game called Baldur’s Gate revitalized the genre. The Black Isle/Bioware collaboration became a runaway hit that led to an even bigger sequel a couple years later. With something so popular, and with D&D making a lot of its brand money on its novel lines, a novelization was inevitable.
Wizards of the Coast tapped Philip Athans, their senior managing editor, to write the novel. Athans had spent a long time editing other Forgotten Realms novels and was one of the employees who had stayed with the D&D brand through its transition from TSR to Wizards of the Coast. Sadly, what he wrote turned out…bad. Almost unspeakably bad. Years later, the Baldur’s Gate novel would become a punchline until it was finally written out of official continuity with the approach of D&D 5th edition.
But the failure of Baldur’s Gate as a novel wasn’t just a matter of Athans whiffing on a video game adaptation. There were many factors behind the scenes that doomed this novelization and left Athans holding the bag.
Continue reading “What Made the Baldur’s Gate Novels the Worst D&D Books of All Time?”
Babbling Brooks 