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Baldur's Gate is a Role Playing Game series in a High Fantasy setting, using the second-edition ruleset of Advanced Dungeons And Dragons. It was developed by Bio Ware with Black Isle Studios, published by Interplay Entertainment, and includes:

• Baldur's Gate (1998)
• Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast (1999)
• Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2000)
• Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal (2001)

The original game and its Expansion Pack, TotSC, are set along the Sword Coast of Faerûn between the titular city and the borderlands of the nation of Amn. The sequel, Shadows of Amn takes place largely in Amn itself, in and around the capital of Athkatla, and its Expansion Pack Throne of Bhaal moved the plot further south to the northern border of Tethyr.

The plot centers around the hero (named and designed by the player), who is regularly pursued due to power granted by a Mysterious Parent: Some want those abilities for themselves, others are simply fearful of what the hero may become because they know With Great Power Comes Great Insanity. The first game centers around the hero learning about the powers and their source; the second deals with the consequences and choices that come with that power and knowledge.

The series is best known for its memorable selection of sidekicks, which your hero can have up to five of at any time. All have distinct, if sometimes simple, personalities and backstories, and most will drag you into at least one sidequest unique to them if they stay on your team long enough. Especially in the sequel, they also have a tendency to make comments or suggestions about the current situation, or interact with each other positively or negatively.

Its engine and successors were also used for the Icewind Dale series and Planescape: Torment. Since Interplay's license from WotC for AD&D ran out except for the Baldur's Gate franchise, Interplay made two unrelated AD&D-based games with the “Baldur's Gate” moniker: The console exclusive Gauntlet-alike Dark Alliance series, and The Black Hound (codenamed “Project Jefferson,”) a cancelled game that was actually going to be sold as Baldur's Gate III (one of the original creators apparently intends to complete it in the form of a module for NWN2, which he also worked on.)

The character sheet is under construction

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Tropes:

• Aborted Arc (Several, from additional romance options for female PC's, to extra sidequests, to fairly major changes in the overall story. Some were cut due to time constraints, others because of fan response.)
• Absurdly Spacious Sewer (In both games, as well as the expansion packs - they seem to be an architectural staple of major cities in this game world.)
• Adam Smith Hates Your Guts (Nicely averted. Acquiring a reputation as a hero gets you hefty discounts, and if you sell a powerful or plot-important item to a merchant, they'll still have it if you re-visit their shop later on.)
• Adventure Couple (Khalid and Jaheira, Dynaheir and Minsc)
  • The Player Character can have this relationship with several of his/her party members. Including the love interests.
• A God Am I (Amelissan) is quite arguably the living definition of this trope. Also the Player Character can engage in this behavior. Oh, and Sarevok...and Irenicus.
• Alas Poor Scrappy ( Khalid. In the first game, many players would "frag" him by deliberately getting him petrified or sending him into battle with single digit HP so that he might suffer a Ludicrously Gibby death. This would allow you to be rid of him while retaining the services of his (far more competent) partner Jaheira. Even so, on playing the second game many players found the cruel nature of the Bridge Dropping he suffers between games a bit of a Tear Jerker.)
• All There In The Manual (As far as game mechanics go, that is; most of the Baldur's Gate II manual is essentially a reprint of the AD&D 2nd. Ed. Player's Handbook.)
• Always Chaotic Evil (Subverted repeatedly. Many of the games' antagonists feel that this is In The Blood for the Bhaalspawn, but the main character can act any way the player likes, to the point of becoming one of the world's most renowned heroes. Lots of other canonically Always Chaotic Evil beings (vampires, demons, ogres, dark elves, etc.) show up in the games, and for almost every one there's at least one individual for whom My Species Doth Protest Too Much.)
• Angry Black Man (Valygar Corthala doesn't take your shit. Neither does Sarevok.)
• Anything That Moves (Bhaal takes this trope to its logical extreme and for all the implications that follow. Let it be known that the Lord of Murder does not discriminate in this regard. See Shapeshifting Squick.)
  • Well, at least they were all alive and capable of sexual reproduction, but that's about all the discretion he showed. He must have slept with every living creature this side of mustard jellies.
• Apologetic Attacker (Aerie)
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit (Despite the fact that there are more than 30 playable characters among the various games, you can only have five in your party at any one time in addition to the PC. Particularly egregious since the game doesn't even make an attempt to Hand Wave it when you try to add a seventh member to the party, and it's perfectly possible to control more than six characters with charm spells, summonings, and the like.)
• Artifact Title (Baldur's Gate isn't visited at all in the second game.)
• Ascended Extra (Imoen originally wasn't included in the first game at all, and was only added when playtesters complained that the early chapters of the game were too difficult to complete if the PC didn't recruit unstable nutjob Montaron into the party (this is the reason she never interacts with other NP Cs, incidentally - there was no time to record additional dialog). She became one of the most popular characters in the game and in the sequel was made a central part of the plot, in addition to being retconned as a Child of Bhaal and the PC's half-sister.)
• Awesome But Impractical (High-level backstabbing, especially the Assassin's x7 backstab. Dealing the damage cap (1048 damage) with a single hit? Awesome. Knowing that everything in the game at the point you get it is either immune to backstab or can be killed twice as fast by your mage or fighter without placing your rogue in the middle of a Charlie Foxtrot? Makes it considerably less so.)
• Awesome But Practical (...Fortunately, high-level rogues get their revenge with the traps. The blatantly imbalanced spike trap deals 20d10 damage and its damage cannot be dodged, saved against or blocked in any way. Six of them will kill the game's toughest Bonus Boss in one shot, and a high-level rogue can get another use per day for every level he or she gains.)
• Ax Crazy (Quite a few characters encountered throughout the series. Some can even join your party.)
• Badass Grandpa (Keldorn isn't technically a grandpa yet, but as a gray-haired fiftysomething with a late teenage daughter he's not far off. He's also one of the highest-ranking paladins in Amn, swings a mean greatsword, smites evil left and right with extreme prejudice, and, in his character epilogue, dies heroically after single-handedly fighting off an army of giants. So he's definitely Bad Ass.)
• Bag Of Sharing (Averted, which can be quite annoying when a critically injured character doesn't have a Healing Potion on their person in the heat of battle.)
• Bag Of Spilling (Baldur's Gate 2; justified by getting captured between games. You get to keep all your skills, though.)
  • Averted between Shadows of Amn and Throne of Bhaal. If you start from Throne of Bhaal instead of importing, you start with a lot of good stuff (though not all of the best stuff).
• Baleful Polymorph (It happens to a few characters throughout the series, and if you've got a mage in your party you can do it to enemies.)
• Battle Couple (Khalid and Jaheira; potentially you and your chosen partner.)
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil (Imoen, though "evil" might be going a bit far. More like still generally good, but with a surprisingly sadistic dark side.)
• Beneath The Earth (A good portion of Baldur's Gate II takes place here.)
• Berserk Button (Minsc does not take kindly to anyone insulting Dynaheir.)
• The Berserker (Minsc and Korgan, although neither of them brood much over it.)
  • Minsc embraces it, since it is the most honorable profession for men from Rasheman.
• Black And Gray Morality (Particularly in the second game, in which the PC is forced to take sides in a gang war between a ruthless criminal organization which tortures and executes its own members and a coterie of bloodthirsty vampires who have slaughtered hundreds of people. It's difficult to role-play realistically if your character is a Paladin, Ranger, or other do-gooder.)
• Black Magician Girl (Dynaheir in Baldur's Gate, Imoen and Nalia in Baldur's Gate II)
• Blood Knight (Korgan qualifies, but Shar-Teel, motivated solely by a desire to prove her strength as she is, is probably the clearest example in the series.)
• Body Horror (many examples, from the "Tortured Ones" in Irenicus' dungeon, to the Skin Dancers, to the main character's transformation into the Slayer)
• Boisterous Bruiser (Minsc and Korgan)
• Bond Villain Stupidity (Bodhi's plan to hunt the party through the maze beneath Spellhold, rather than killing them outright as Irenicus wishes.)
• Bonus Boss (Aec'Letec in Tales of the Sword Coast, Kangaxx in Baldur's Gate II, and Demogorgon in Throne of Bhaal. To a lesser extent, all the Dragons in Baldur's Gate II—but not Throne of Bhaal.)
• Bonus Dungeon (Durlag's Tower in Tales of the Sword Coast and Watcher's Keep in Throne of Bhaal.)
• Bonus Level Of Hell
• Break The Cutie (Imoen gets more serious between games due to this trope. Also, that wraith who impersonates Gorion will break down your lover.)
• Broken Bird (Viconia)
• Broken Bridge (The city of Baldur's Gate is closed off until you solve the ore problem—it's even an actual bridge, the Serpent's Causeway.)
• Bunny Ears Lawyer (Many of the characters in these games are, shall we say... eccentric. Nevertheless, they're almost all quite good at their jobs.)
• Burn The Witch (And more than once.)
• But Your Wings Are Beautiful (Inverted with Aerie, who fears she's no longer beautiful because she's lost her wings.)
• Cain And Abel (played straight in BG1, then played with for all it's worth in Throne of Bhaal, which is more like 'Cain and Cain and Cain and Cain and Cain and Abel.)
  • ...Only with Abel murdering all the Cains. And going on to become God. ... Maybe.
• The Call Knows Where You Live
• The Cameo (A few canonical Forgotten Realms characters show up, some just to say 'Hi' and others to play slightly larger roles in the plot.)
• Cant Argue With Elves (Subverted; you can. And if you don't, Valygar will. And if he doesn't...well, let's just say the elves deserve to be argued with this time around.)
• Cant Catch Up (Particularly in the first game, several characters can't be recruited until well into the game. Although they'll be leveled approximately equally to the PC if they're added to the party, their skills, weapon proficiencies, spellbooks, and/or HP will have been determined by the computer in a sub-optimal fashion. As a result, they're likely to be underpowered compared to characters who have been in the party for the entire game, and since due to the experience cap you can't level them further, there's no way for them to catch up.)
  • In Baldur's Gate II, Imoen will fall way behind other characters in experience when she's kidnapped unless you set out to rescue her right away.
• Capital City (Athkatla is the capital of Amn, though in Baldur's Gate II it seems curiously lacking in governmental facilities for a national capital.)
• Card Carrying Villain (Irenicus, who's clearly both evil and a serious threat from his first appearance. Sarevok, despite a more stereotypically villainous appearance, manages to keep his role as the first game's Big Bad unclear for a bit longer.)
• Casanova (Eldoth)
• Character Alignment (It's a Dungeons And Dragons-based game. Derp?)
• Character Development (Particularly in Shadows of Amn, in which the developers incorporated lots of eastern RPG-style character-based sidequests to develop the personalities and backstories of the various sidekicks.)
• Chekhovs Lecture (More like Chekhov's mantra: one of the monks in Candlekeep will say "The Lord of Murder shall perish, but in his wake he shall spawn a series of mortal prodigy. Chaos shall be sawn in their passage." This shows up in the title movie of Throne of Bhaal.)
• Chick Magnet (The protagonist, if male, and human, half-elf, or elf. Female PC's aren't so lucky, being more Jerk Ass magnets.)
• City Of Adventure (Baldur's Gate, Athkatla, Saradush Every city you visit.)
• Cloudcuckoolander (Minsc relies very heavily on Boo, his "Miniature Giant Space Hamster", for advice. The hamster's advice, as related to the PC by Minsc, actually works at least once. Of course, using his insanity to get committed to an asylum is handy too.)
  • It's worth pointing out that Giant Space Hamsters do actually exist in the game's cosmology. Spelljammer is part of the same multiverse as Baldur's Gate and contains such hamsters, and shrinking spells do exist. In fact, Miniature Giant Space Hamsters are a genuinely known to exist variant (one of dozens) of your basic Giant Space Hamster. Of course there's no way to tell the difference between a Miniature Giant Space Hamster and a plain old hamster.
  • It's also worth noting that using Minsc to get into the asylum shows that Minsc is GenreSavvy...or WrongGenreSavvy, as the case might be.
  • Hard as it is to believe, Minsc isn't even a clear-cut choice for "most insane potential party member" - Tiax, Xzar, and Edwin all give him a run for his money.
• Clown Car Grave (Due to game mechanics, zombies, mummies, and others can endlessly spawn at times. Of course, sometimes it actually makes sense—a city old enough to have catacombs might well build a graveyard over the old graveyard.)
• Complete Monster (Neb, the child killer, who even sends the ghosts of his victims to attack you while he tries to run away.)
  • Given all the things you learn Irenicus to have done by the end of the second game, he also qualifies.
• Convection Schmonvection (The Temple Ruins dungeon in Baldur's Gate II features pits of red-hot magma. Characters can walk within six inches of them without being affected; they'll only take damage if they actually step on the lava.)
• Cool Old Guy (Keldorn, sorta)
• Corrupt Corporate Executive (Sarevok is a pseudo-medieval version in the first game.)
  • As well as Reiltar/Rieltar Anchev and the other Iron Throne bosses.
• Crazy Awesome (Minsc, all the way!)
• Cute Bruiser (Mazzy)
• Cut His Heart Out With A Spoon (Just see the quote at the top of the page.)
• Dangerously Genre Savvy (Irenicus. "No, you'll warrant no villain's exposition from me.")
• Dead Man Writing (Gorion writes such a letter.)
• Deadpan Snarker (Most evil party members; the protagonist can be pretty sarcastic in the first game as well. Jaheira also.)
• Defrosting Ice Queen (Viconia and Jaheira both display a bit of this in their romance subplots.)
• Demonic Spider (Beholders and Mind Flayers)
• Demoted To Extra (Happens to a number of playable characters from Baldur's Gate who don't have bridges dropped on them between games.)
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu (The Bonus Boss battle against Demogorgon, the D&D multiverse's most powerful Demon Lord in a straight fight. Amellissan also counts, seeing as how she was almost 99.99% the Goddess of Murder by the time you fought her.
  • Considering that the remaining .01% of Murder God is the Player Character, any 'normal' monster that manages to kill you might also qualify.
  • To be fair, punching out Cthulhu is not all that uncommon in the setting. Forgotten Realms deities are not invulnerable or immortal, and in fact there's a fair amount of turnover in the pantheon.
• Does Not Like Men (Shar-Teel. Given the nature of her father, it's not a big surprise.)
• Doom Magnet (The protagonist, and it's a major and recurring plot point. Xan seems to think everyone and everything is a Doom Magnet.)
• Draco In Leather Pants (Edwin is the poster child for this in the modding community.)
• The Dragon (Bodhi for Irenicus in Shadows of Amn. Draconis for Abazigal in Throne of Bhaal. Unmodded, Draconis can often be more difficult than Abazigal.)
• Dropped A Bridge On Him (Several party members from the first game turn up dead in rather anti-climactic fashion. Inverted when, due to the open nature of the games, several characters who should (If you got them killed) be dead after the first game can still show up for a cameo in the second. Lampshaded when the PC can actually ask them 'Didn't you die?' This is in fact perfectly reasonable in a D&D world.)
• Easter Egg (more than a few)
• The Eeyore (Xan)
• Empty Room Psych (Averted)
• Enemy Chatter (Several scripted encounters which may or may not end in a fight.)
• Ensemble Darkhorse (Among the most popular characters from Baldur's Gate with fans were Minsc, Imoen, Viconia, and Edwin. Bioware responded by including them as playable characters in the sequel, and gave them greater characterization and larger roles in the plot.)
• Evil Is Petty (Ye gods, has this series got a lot of this.)
• Evil Pays Better (Not by a long shot. Good characters get more XP, more rare artifacts, lower shop prices, no bounty hunter chases, and a larger selection of party members. About the only advantage evil gets is that the evil NP Cs you can add to your party are better specialists—Korgan (later Sarevok is the best fighter), Viconia is the best cleric, and Edwin is the best mage.)
  • Even that's a mixed bag, however, as unlike, say, Minsc, Anomen, and Nalia, all three are one trick ponies.
• Evil Sorcerer (Jon Irenicus)
• Evil Sounds Deep (Played straight with Sarevok, who was voiced by deep-voiced villain specialist Kevin Michael Richardson. Averted with Irenicus, who speaks in a normal register, as well as major female villains Bodhi and Amelissan.)
• Evil Weapon (You can acquire several weapons that are described this way, though none actually has any influence on the user's actions.)
• Expansion Pack (Along with the two official packs, this series has a large community of amateur modders.)
• Eye Scream (The Cult of the Unseeing Eye, membership in which requires Exactly What It Says On The Tin.)
• Fantastic Racism (Having the dark elf Viconia on your team will lower your reputation. Keldorn, who's usually quite fair and level-headed, hates her just because of her race, and will eventually try to kill her if they both remain in the team for too long.)
• Fate Worse Than Death (Happens to lots of characters, major and minor)
• Feed Me (Those Big Bads loves their scenery-chewing evil speeches, indeed they do.)
• Femme Fatale (Safana. Viconia also has her moments, though she receives far deeper characterization in general.)
• Fetch Quest (most of them optional, thankfully)
• Final Boss Preview
• Fish People (The party can become quite well acquainted with them in the second game.)
• Five Man Band (It's not immediately obvious, but the people with whom you end up escaping from Irenicus' dungeon count. Your player character is The Hero, Jaheira The Lancer, Minsc is The Big Guy, Yoshimo The Smart Guy, Imoen is The Chick, and don't forget Boo as the Team Pet.)
• For Great Justice (The primary motivation of Minsc, Keldorn, and a number of other characters.)
• For The Evulz (Irenicus is motivated by ambition and a desire for revenge. His sister Bodhi, on the other hand, just revels in killing people and destroying things. He lampshades her psychological simplicity at one point by describing her hunger for blood as having overwhelmed even her desire for revenge.)
• Fridge Logic (Several instances, mostly as a result of awkward RetCons between games.)
  • If Sarevok and the PC can't be resurrected because Bhaalspawn cease to exist when they're killed, how come Imoen has no such problem?
  • How did Quayle find time to run a circus and be a foster father to Aerie between adventuring near Baldur's Gate in the first game and showing up in the second?
• Gadgeteer Genius (Jan Jansen. Sadly, his genius is almost entirely off-screen and aside from providing him with some interesting starting equipment, doesn't benefit the player at all.)
• Game Breaker (Quite a few, if you know what you're doing)
• Game Mod (Many, many mods, ranging from adding characters with banters to whole quests to making certain bosses harder and smarter. A notable one is the Ascension mod, which adds many things to Throne of Bhaal.)
• Gameplay And Story Segregation (Imoen always manages to get herself arrested by casting spells illegally upon exiting Irenicus' dungeon, even if she's got none left memorized when you escape. Similarly Yoshimo can't be resurrected despite the fact that in D&D it is possible to bring a dead character back from almost ANYTHING, up to and including the total destruction of their physical body.)
• Gender Bender (Anybody - there's a certain enchanted girdle to be found in the game - but Edwin in particular, as he actually has a subplot that uses a method unique to his story.)
• Genius Bruiser (Sarevok. He's a seven foot tall Deathbringer with a BFS who nearly pulls off a dastardly Xanatos Gambit as the Big Bad of the first game. When he finally joins your party in Throne of Bhaal, you discover that he has an Intelligence score of 17 - genius level in 2nd edition D&D - and a Strength score of 18/00 - as strong as a typical ogre, and as physically powerful as a human can be without supernatural enhancement of some kind.)
• Genki Girl (Imoen, Alora)
• Genre Savvy (Cyric, the God of Madness, bizarrely enough. He has a private chat with the main character in a relatively human form for an avatar. In a But Thou Must moment, you call him out on this, where he responds with something along the lines of "what, I have to have some grisly form like the Slayer (Bhaal's avatar which the protagonist can turn into), some booming voice from the clouds or a puff of smoke?")
• Giant Space Flea From Nowhere (The Bonus Boss battle against the Enclave of the Twisted Rune, which was part of a subquest that was only partially implemented in the game's initial release, leaving players wondering what a group of ultra-powerful Eldritch Abominations was doing hanging out in the basement of a shipping warehouse in the Bridge District. Fan-made mods filled in the blanks, making this battle a bit less of a Big Lipped Alligator Moment.)
• Give Me Your Inventory Item (Branwen in Baldur's Gate)
• Gladiator Revolt
• Glass Cannon (The "Kensai" fighter kit. Also, Haer'Dalis.)
• Goddamned Bats (Bow-toting Bandits in the first game if you embark on that quest early enough. Vampires in the second one. We hates the level drainers, yes we does.)
• Go Mad From The Revelation (What put a few of the inmates in Spellhold. Imoen flirts with it as well.)
• Good Bad Bug (The 'talk-fight' bug. Keep trying to initiate dialogue with a non-hostile character without ever actually talking to them and they won't go hostile... Even as the remaining five members of the party are tearing them a new one. Only works on some very specific characters, however.)
  • This bug can also be used on certain quest characters, allowing for multiple quest reward returns (mainly EXP).
  • Another bug can have you have an absurd amount of gems. You can use this bug to sell the gems as early as Chapter 2, making you filthy rich.
• Gondor Calls For Aid (Attacking Bodhi's guild in Baldur's Gate II.)
• Grand Finale (Throne of Bhaal)
• Grid Inventory (Inverted; the sizes of the objects do not matter, but their weights do.)
• Guide Dang It (If you want to achieve One Hundred Percent Completion, you'd better believe it. Entire areas of the game world can be Lost Forever if you don't go about things the right way.)
• Hand In The Hole
• Handsome Lech (Coran. It gets him in trouble eventually.)
• Hannibal Lecture (You get LOTS of these. Mostly from your Enemy Within.)
• Heel Face Turn (Sarevok in Throne Of Bhaal and potentially Viconia if she's the main character's love interest.)
• Hello Insert Name Here
• Heroic Sociopath (Korgan)
• Hidden Elf Village (Suldanesselar, which is an entire Hidden Elf Capital City.)
• Hitchhiker Heroes (Several potential party members are met this way, particularly in the first game.)
• Hobbits (As with all D&D based role-playing games. Montaron and Mazzy manage to subvert the typical stereotype of a race of cheery, mischievous, good-hearted burglars by being a grumpy, thuggish Psycho For Hire and an honorable, butt-kicking female knight respectively.)
• Ho Yay (A clear subtext in the relationship of Xzar and Montaron, despite the fact that they claim to despise each other.)
• HP To One (The 'Harm' spell, which enemies rarely use but which can be extremely powerful when employed by a Combat Medic in the party.)
• I Broke A Nail (Spoiled Rich Bitch Skie finds the life of an adventurer less fun than she'd imagined it would be if you "rescue" her from her existence as a nobleman's daughter in Baldur's Gate. She even has this as one of her lines.)
• I Can Rule Alone (Amelissan)
• I Have A Family
• I Have Your Wife (Bodhi pulls this by abducting your lover and turning him/her into a vampire when you enter the graveyard district to assault her guild in Baldur's Gate II.)
• Im A Humanitarian: ( Yaga-Shura in Throne of Bhaal)
• Improbable Power Discrepancy (The Amnish guards in Baldur's Gate 2 are incredibly more powerful than the Baldur's Gate guards in Baldur's Gate, so much so that if the power discrepancy were "real" instead of merely game mechanics (to compensate for higher-level player characters), the Amnish could simply march their supermen up to Baldur's Gate and conquer the country within days. And then there's the Tethyrian and Calishite legions and mercenaries in Throne of Bhaal, whose rank-and-file footmen carry +3 magical weapons.)
• Infinity Plus One Sword (Carsomyr, to the point where, when wielded by the already magic-resistant Inquisitor subclass, it's almost a Game Breaker. Unlike most such weapons, it doesn't require a lengthy sidequest and can be obtained fairly early in the game, though not without defeating a powerful Bonus Boss. Crom Faeyr is an InfinityPlusOneWarhammer, and unlike Carsomyr is suitably difficult to acquire. In Throne of Bhaal almost every weapon class gets its own Infinity Plus One variant.)
• Insufferable Genius (Quayle in Baldur's Gate (though not in the sequel); Nalia in Throne of Bhaal.)
• Insurmountable Waist High Fence (A few instances, though usually not literal fences)
• In The Blood (Played with at length (it's one of the major themes of the series), but ultimately subverted. Evil Bhaalspawn are happy to believe it about themselves, but as Imoen and potentially, the protagonist prove, in this universe people ultimately choose their own moral nature. Sarevok is an even stronger subversion - at first he himself believes it, but his backstory and potential later Heel Face Turn prove him wrong; if he and the PC are at different ends of the ethical spectrum, it's not because of their shared parentage, but because of different experiences growing up.)
• Item Crafting
• It Was His Sled The Player Character is a child of Bhaal. The series is even informally referred to by many, including some of its creators, as "The Bhaalspawn Saga", for crying out loud.
• I Want To Be A Real Man (Anomen)
• Jerkass (Anomen, and many evil party members.)
  • Anomen's arguably more a Jerk With A Heart Of Gold, particularly if he completes his Knighthood Quest.
  • There's also the Player Character if you play evil. In fact, most non-evil characters will leave you if you become too much of a jerk... At least in ways the Karma Meter can detect.
• Joke Character (A few borderline examples, particularly in the first game. Tiax and Quayle in particular are severely underpowered and seem to be around primarily for comic relief.)
• Joke Item (Several. Some, such as the Golden Pantaloons, turn out to be much more if you hold on to them long enough.)
• Just A Stupid Accent (Major characters in these games come from all over the Forgotten Realms and are of different races. All speak grammatically perfect English, but to give them each their own personal flair they do so with a wide variety of accents. There are Fake Brits, Lzherusskies, Violent Glaswegians, Fake Americans, and others. It keeps things entertaining, but definitely contributes to the games' distinctive flavor of ham.)
• Karma Houdini (The player runs across a few wrongdoers who may or may not escape justice, depending on his or her actions.)
  • In order to have Anomen pass his Knighthood test if you're romancing him, you have to convince him that he should let his sister's death go unavenged even though that means letting the killer get away with it. So Yeah...
• Karma Meter (The reputation level. Unfortunately, you receive a significant bonus for a high reputation and serious penalties for a very low one, so it ends up being in the best interests of even the most psychotically evil of player characters to end up being a Villain With Good Publicity.)
• Kleptomaniac Hero (Although unlike in most RP Gs, there ARE consequences if you're seen rifling through somebody's underwear drawer.)
• Knight In Shining Armor (Mazzy Fentan. The more literal example, Keldorn, is borderline, as his armor's got a bit of sour to go with the shine.)
• Knight Templar (Lord Galvarey in the second game)
• Lady Of War (Jaheira. Mazzy also arguably qualifies.)
• Large Ham (Minsc, and probably also Korgan almost everyone else.)
  Minsc: Make way, villainy! HERO coming through!
• Lawful Stupid Chaotic Stupid (Anomen and Keldorn in Baldur's Gate 2. Anomen plays the trope straight, being so smug and inflexible that his knightly status is at risk. In contrast, Keldorn subverts the trope awesomely, managing to be righteous in almost every sense of the word. But even he has his flaws; just ask Viconia.)
• Least Common Skin Tone (Averted. There are lots of non-white humans in addition to all the dwarves, elves, and gnomes.)
• Leisure Suit Larry (Salvanas the elf)
• Leeroy Jenkins (Minsc. See the page quote, or his battle cry "Minsc shall inspire you by CHARGING BLINDLY ON!". Luckily with few exceptions (see "Berserk Button" above) he generally follows any orders the player gives him.)
• Level Grinding (Delightfully averted. Characters do gain experience points and level up (it's an RPG, after all), but this is largely a result of completing quests and/or defeating significant enemies, not spending hours upon hours beating up randomly spawning Goombas and Mooks.)
• Like Brother And Sister (The main character (if male) and Imoen.) It's revealedThey are actually half-siblings
• Linear Warriors Quadratic Wizards (And how. At the beginning of the first game, it's much easier to survive if your main character is a warrior of some sort. Melee class characters are still quite effective in Baldur's Gate II and Throne of Bhaal, but by the end of the latter in particular magic-oriented characters can acquire truly godlike offensive abilities.)
• Literal Genie (in Baldur's Gate 2; Limited Wish spell, and indeed the Wish spell)
• Loads And Loads Of Characters (... and plenty of them can join your party. Each one has a different, interesting personality - the number of possible banters which can take place between your various buddies in Baldur's Gate 2 is astounding)
• Lord British Postulate
• Lost Forever (The heads of the Flail of Ages from BG 2 could be fairly easily missed, and some of the romance plots could also be lost pretty easily.)
  • The same goes for every unique item in every other area which you can't reenter past a certain point, as well as some other items. This is especially annoying in case of the pieces of certain artifacts. Didn't pay quite full attention in the very first dungeon, and missed a specific jewel? No Equalizer for you. Missed an item in a hidden area in the spellhold dungeon? Forget about ever completing the Gesen Bow. Made the mistake of actually giving a snobby artist the alloy he asked for, instead of taking it to the smith to upgrade that Mace of Disruption? You'll never get the upgrade. Avoiding all of these is well inside Guide Dang It territory.
• Lovable Traitor (Saemon Havarian)
  • Your Mileage May Vary on that one. This troper for one finds him just about the most annoying character in the game, and makes a point of re-loading the game if he's not able to kill him before he teleports away during the Githyanki attack. Yes, you can do it, thought it creates a break from the pre-written storyline when the narrator then describes him "saving his own skin, as always".
  • Arguably (Yoshimo) might also fit into that trope.
• Love Redeems (The player character can convince Viconia to go from Neutral Evil to True Neutral if she's being romanced.)
• Love Triangle (If you've got a male PC of the right race and two or more of Aerie, Jaheira, and Viconia in the party. With all three, plus Haer'Dalis, it turns into a full-fledged Love Dodecahedron.)
• Luke I Am Your Father
• Mad Oracle (Gromnir in Throne of Bhaal. If only you were given the opportunity to listen to him...)
• Malevolent Architecture
• Manipulative Bastard (oh so many)
• Marathon Boss (Amelissan in Throne of Bhaal)
• Married To The Job (Keldorn, as the subplot involving his family reveals. It's also part of Cernd's backstory.)
• Memetic Mutation (Go for the eyes, Boo!")
• Miles Gloriosus (Semi-subverted with Anomen Delryn—he's really quite capable in a fight—he just brags that he's even better than he is.)
• The Mole (Yoshimo in Baldur's Gate II)
• Most Annoying Sound ("You must gather your party before venturing forth. You must gather your party before venturing forth. You must...")
• Most Gamers Are Male (This series largely avoids outright Fan Service, for example depicting female characters wearing armor that appears to have been designed with protective ability rather than sex appeal as the primary consideration, and including plenty of female sidekicks who aren't particularly attractive or romantically interested in the hero. Nevertheless, the fact that there were three potential romances included for male PC's in Shadows of Amn and only one for female PC's (and that with a partner who many players found less than endearing) indicates that the developers felt they knew which gender their players were more likely to be.)
  • The series actually does have a relatively large female fanbase, and several independently created mods have expanded the romance subplot options for female characters.
• Mugging The Monster (Random bandits will gleefully attack you in the wilderness or sometimes even in the middle of a city. At the beginning of the first game, when you're a staff-wielding weakling in leather, this is understandable. By the second game, when you're carrying a sword that glows like the sun, wearing the skin of a dragon that you killed yourself, and are surrounded by five other, similarly outfitted people...)
• Multiple Endings
• The Munchausen (Jan Jansen)
• Murder The Hypotenuse (Haer'Dalis will do try and do this to you if you romance Aerie with him in your party and your relationship with Aerie isn't yet solid when you get him. If you have solidified your romance with Aerie, he gracefully backs down.)
• Mysterious Parent
• Nakama (canonically, the PC, Minsc, Jaheira, and Imoen)
• The Napoleon (played straight with Korgan, subverted with Mazzy.)
• Necromantic (Bassilus)
• Never Got To Say Goodbye (the protagonist)
• New Age Retro Hippie (Cernd's as close as a Dungeons and Dragons character can get, with his tree hugging, far out elocution, and loose attitude toward family values.)
• Nice Job Breaking It Hero ( Kangaxx congratulates you for yours after you release him. There's also the Bonus Boss battle against Demogorgon, in which defeating him results in sending him back to his home plane of existence rather than re-sealing him in his prison. Whoops.)
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot (Definitely possible with some of the more Munchkinesque character builds, such as a samurai archmage Dual Wielding war hammers and katanas, and a night-stalking, back-stabbing nature-controlling warrior-priest. The developers felt some of these possibilities were so implausible that they were Nerfed or removed outright in the Expansion Pack.)
• Now Where Was I Going Again (check your journal and find out, duh)
• Obfuscating Stupidity (Jan comes across most of the time as a turnip-obsessed, Chaotic Stupid Cloudcuckoolander with a penchant for telling meandering, pointless stories, but if the player undertakes the sidequest to save his former lover, he's revealed to be quite lucid and clever.)
  • The player character can also engage in this behavior at times.
• The Obi Wan (Gorion)
• Old Save Bonus (A Tales of the Sword Coast player can import a higher-level hero than normal into Baldur's Gate II. Also, pantaloons.)
• Omnicidal Maniac (Kangaxx)
• Optional Party Member (All of them, with the exception of the main character. It's possible to play the game with a player-created party, or even solo with the right character build, though you miss out on many of the best Sidequests if you do.)
• Our Vampires Are Different (As in, really bloodthirsty, without a bit of fondness for the living or brooding sex appeal about them.)
• Our Werewolves Are Different (You can recruit one into the party, and he's not Always Chaotic Evil, nor do his transformations depend on the cycle of the moon or drive him to kill mindlessly.)
• Overly Long Gag: "Are you gonna throw rocks at me?" "What about now?" "What about now?" "What about now?" Repeat about 20 times. Appropriately enough, the person saying this is named Noober....
  • Slightly shorter example with Neeber in the sequel.
• Pausable Realtime (probably the Trope Codifier for many games)
• Perky Goth (Haer'Dalis is a doomguard — basically a Nietzsche Wannabe who is happy about knowing that the universe is pointless and everything will inevitably rot and die.)
• Pintsized Powerhouse (Mazzy)
• Pirates (They've even got their own island.)
• Pixel Hunt (Baldur's Gate I plays this straight: some of the best equipment or a ton of money could be had early on if you knew what pixel to click on. Totally averted in Baldur's Gate II: tap the "tab" key, and every item and hiding place on the screen will be highlighted. Then came the mod that allowed the first game to use the second game's engine...)
• Player Punch (In Baldur's Gate II, Irenicus lands a barrage of Player Punches before you even escape the first dungeon - torturing both the PC and Imoen, killing former playable characters Khalid and Dynaheir off-screen, and abducting Imoen when you escape. Several more follow at intervals throughout the game, from both Irenicus himself and his lieutenant Bodhi. By the time the player finally has an opportunity to kill them, it's very satisfying to do so.)
• Plotline Death (Gorion in Baldur's Gate, Yoshimo in Baldur's Gate II)
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner (loads of them)
• Psycho For Hire (quite a few punch clock villains, as well as recruitable allies Korgan and Montaron)
• Purely Aesthetic Gender (save for the romances, dialogue and certain people hitting on you harmlessly)
• Random Encounters (Played straight in terms of game mechanics, but pleasantly subverted in terms of enjoyability factor. Some random encounters provide you with very respectable quantities of gold and valuable Vendor Trash, and others occur randomly but tie directly into plotline events or subquests and as such aren't pointless.)
• Rant Inducing Slight (see quote on top of the page)
• Rebellious Princess (Nalia. Nobility instead of royalty, but the principle is the same.)
  • In the first game, Skie has a similar background to Nalia, though she's rebelling to be with bad boy Eldoth rather than to help the needy.
• Relationship Values (the romances in Baldur's Gate II)
• Rescued From The Scrappy Heap (Some people view one of the resolutions of Anomen's quest as doing this for him. Most feel Aerie is rescued when Throne of Bhaal rolls around.)
  • Many players also found Quayle much less irritating in his second go-round (as Aerie's foster father) than he was in his first (as a playable character).
• Ret Con (Quite a few, mostly between the first game and Shadows of Amn. Some of them worked better than others.)
• Retired Badass (Gorion, allegedly. Also, you'll find that Ribald isn't lying about being one if he catches you stealing at the Adventure Mart.)
• The Reveal (several)
• Revive Kills Zombie (The Empathic Manifestation in the temple of Amaunator. As an embodiment of pure hatred, it can only be killed by showing it love - i.e., healing it.)
• Road Cone (Done to a depressing extreme in the sequel. The game dialogue and set-up tells you exactly who you travelled with - Khalid, Jaheira, Minsc, Dynaheir and Imoen - and tells you exactly how you behaved - heroically. Needless to say, rationalizing what you are shown and told in the intro level was very difficult if you were playing a Chaotic Evil Priest of Talos. Unless, of course, you're Dangerously Genre Savvy, and your character wants to be a Villain With Good Publicity.)
• Rodents Of Unusual Size (Miniature Giant Space Hamster, anyone?)
• Romancing The Widow (The essence of Jaheira's romance subplot. If you pursue the relationship, Khalid will show up in dreams and fantasy sequences to torment her about it.)
• Scary Black Man (Sarevok, though his race isn't made clear until Throne Of Bhaal gives him a badass new portrait)
  • But Not Too Black
• The Scrappy (Anomen and Aerie are two very "popular" candidates for this position, but most of the characters will have at least a few people who hate their guts. It all comes down to individual preference.)
• Sdrawkcab Name (Koveras? Never heard of him.)
  • You also encounter Nanoc the Barbarian in Throne of Bhaal.
• Sealed Evil In A Can (Kangaxx)
• Selective Condemnation (Even if you play these games in the most pacifistic manner possible, you will still end up killing, at minimum, hundreds of people. Despite that, you only succumb to The Dark Side if you behave evilly towards a few, arbitrarily important characters.)
• Serial Killer (Rejiek Hidesman, complete with Creepy Basement)
  • Also Neb the child-killing dwarf.
• Sheathe Your Sword (Needed in order to defeat The Beast under Athkathla )
• Sidekicks (lots to choose from, most of them very memorable)
• Sidequests (you can spend more time on these than the actual plot, easily)
• Shapeshifting Squick (The sheer range of creatures which show up claiming to be Bhaalspawn in [Throne of Bhaal] is... is... well, it raises some interesting questions about what the God of murder was doing while "walking the earth". Everything from humans to dragons to werechinchillas.)
  • Considering that he foresaw his death while walking the earth and decided the best thing to do is sire as many kids as possible, to use their essence as a springboard back to life, it makes perfect sense.
    • Werechinchillas, dude. It makes sense—the Chinchilla has some very strong points. The one near Yaga-Shura's Base may not have a particularly powerful offense, but it has a positively insane movement speed and is also (almost?) impossible to kill—but "perfect" sense is giving Bhaal too much credit.
• Shout Out (lots, to "Cyrano de Bergerac", "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", and "The Blair Witch Project", among others)
• Slap On The Wrist Nuke (There are spells which do things like crash a comet into the battlefield and blast everything in sight with flaming dragon breath, damaging enemies heavily but not so much as flattening a blade of grass otherwise.)
• Smug Snake (Edwin)
  • Nalia's fiance Isaea Roenall is an even clearer example.
• Somebody Elses Problem (Christ almighty the civilians of this world are lazy gits.)
• The Soulless ( Irenicus and Bodhi, and later the Player Character and Imoen.)
• Spoony Bard (Player-created bards can actually be quite powerful, if built correctly. Many players find the recruitable NPC bards, on the other hand, somewhat lacking - Garrick from Baldur's Gate in particular might be the spooniest bard since the original himself. Several "kits" available to the player character in the second game gave up useful abilities in exchange for fairly useless ones, and thus qualify as Spoony Bard classes.)
• Squishy Wizard (Edwin. He's got the lowest HP of any character, and unlike other magic-users (Aerie, Imoen, Nalia, etc.) he doesn't have a high DEX or the ability to equip a shield to make up for it.)
• Sssssnake Talk (assorted demons and reptilian monsters)
• Staff Chick (Aerie and Jaheira)
  • Moreso Aerie. In addition to not being nice enough in terms of personality, Jaheira is equally proficient with spears and scimitars and generally racks up too high a kill count to qualify.
• Stop Poking Me
• Stupid Good (Ellesime, for letting a mass-murdering megalomaniac free without stripping him of his powers, so that he might "learn from his mistakes". Also, Aerie, in her backstory.)
• Superpowered Evil Side (The "Slayer" form. Although it's a little lacking on the 'superpowered' thing, especially if you're not a melee class.)
• The Sword That Speaks (Lilarcor)
• Take Your Time
• Talking About Important Plot Points Is A Free Action (Sometimes Time Stands Still when dialogues happen. Sometimes it doesn't)
• Tear Jerker (The fates of Khalid, Yoshimo and Dynaheir. And Viconia, if the player is involved with her and chooses the "happy" ending.)
• That One Boss (Kangaxx, if you don't have weapons that can hit him/the ability to immunize yourself against his Imprisonment spell)
• That One Level (Most players who've played the second game through more than once feel this way about Irenicus' dungeon)
  • To the degree that a mod was created purely to let people skip it.
• There Can Be Only One (Sarevok's plan, and, essentially, the climactic scene of Throne of Bhaal)
• The Three Faces Of Eve
• This Is Sparta
  Minsc: "Evil, meet my sword! Sword! MEET! EVIL!!"
• Those Two Bad Guys (Xzar and Montaron)
• Time Keeps On Slipping (not that it matters much)
• Time Stands Still (the 'Time Stop' spell)
• Tome Of Eldritch Lore (This is what Edwin thinks the Nether Scrolls are. Much to his chagrin, he's wrong.)
• Took A Level In Badass (several characters throughout the series)
• Tragic Monster (Your love interest, if you have one, will be turned into a vampire by Bodhi. Fortunately they get better.)
• Tsundere (Viconia. In the words of the player character: "I am sick of you running hot and cold all the time, Viconia. Just leave me alone and I'll be happy!")
• Useless Useful Spell (A good chunk of those kill-everything-instantly spells at higher levels usually aren't going to kill much of anything worth wasting the spell slot for by the time you get them.)
  • Thrown into the right combination, even the relatively weak instant death spells can be useful. Doom + Greater Malison + Chromatic Orb = dead dragon.
• Vendor Trash (TONS of it)
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon
• Villain With Good Publicity (Sarevok and his minions in Baldur's Gate.)
• The War Sequence
• What The Hell Hero (Good or Neutral-aligned party members will call you out on it if you do something truly dastardly, and eventually leave the party if you become too evil.)
• Why Dont Ya Just Shoot Him (Inverted in the second game — when Irenicus captures you in Spellhold, he wants the party disposed of instantly, but Bodhi overrules him (without his knowledge and consent) and tries to have you executed in a way that will amuse her. Needless to say, it backfires and Irenicus is none too pleased.)
• Wide Eyed Idealist (Aerie and Nalia in Baldur's Gate II)
• With Friends Like These (Xzar and Montaron—to you and each other)
• The Woobie (Aerie is an attempt at this; most of the fanbase would argue it's a failed one.)
• World Of Ham (Minsc and Korgan mentioned earlier are just the very tip of the iceberg.)
• Xanatos Gambit (The Big Bads of this series all try to pull off at least one apiece. Occasionally the PC can execute a mini-Xanatos Gambit of their own.)
• You Cant Go Home Again (Candlekeep)
• You Remind Me Of X (Sarevok: You remind me of myself...before I was slaughtered and cast into the Abyss.)

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The Baldurs Gate novels include the following trope examples:

• Adaptation Decay
• Cassandra Truth (Xzar tells the others All There Is To Know About The Crying Game pretty much at the start. No-one believes him because he's insane. Of course, he also doesn't care, because he's insane.)
• Character Derailment (To the point where you wonder if the author of these novels has ever been in the same room as a copy of the game, much less played it.)
  • One potential example would be making the Biggest Ham Of Them All turn into a dishwasher.
  • Looking at the author's writing as a whole, he probably did look at the originals. He has simply failed in just about everything he tried in his writing (there are other examples mentioned below), including adapting the characters.
• Designated Hero (Abdel, the 'hero' (and I use the term loosely) of the novels, is not exactly a shining beacon of goodness. More specifically, he murders at least one person I can think of for no reason, steals another man's wife and then cheats on her with a vampire, and completely and utterly fails to actually save or help anyone, largely due to his own stupidity and lack of self-control. ...Actually, since the game allows you to create and play as a bastard of this magnitude, this is probably the closest the novelization ever got to being like the game. Or should I say 'the closest it would have gotten'?)
  • Said character has a save file with a similar character included in Tales of the Sword Coast: While supposedly neutral good, he has a party of entirely evil characters.
• Die For Our Ship (Khalid. The hero first almost stabs him to death accidentally (Put that thing away before you put someone's eye out!), but the author chickens out from making it his fault, so he has Khalid infected with The Virus so he has to be put down. And, of course, he's made a complete and pointless jerk while he's alive.)
• Dis Continuity (What many fans consider the novels to be.)
• Everybodys Dead Dave (No one except for Gorion's ward makes it to the end of the trilogy alive.)
  • Causing readers to wail, "No! Why did he not die?!"
• Fan Nickname ("Abduh", for the protagonist Abdel Adrian. Emphasis on the "duh".)
• Faux Action Girl (Jaheira. A particularly egregious case in that she doesn't even try to fight anyone almost ever.)
• Gorn
• Informed Ability (Jaheira is a tough warrior. And a druid. And Abdel Adrian is smart. *snrk*)
• Internet Backdraft (Try to defend, or in some case even mention, these novels on an Infinity Engine fansite and see how far that gets you. This can reach levels of The Scottish Trope for some of the most reactive communities.)
• Jerk Sue (Guess.)
• Narm
  "Abdel became a paralyzed mass of white hot indignation, and he screamed loud enough to scare birds from trees miles away. A child in Candlekeep began to cry, and his parents didn't know why. A whale swimming past the rocky edges of the Sword Coast took note of the sound and formed a rumbling that gave the Sahuagin communities pause. A god, then another glanced down, but it was by sheer force of will Abdel made himself stand."
• Novelization (Well, obviously)
• So Bad Its Horrible - The novelization
• Suddenly Sexuality - It turns out Imoen is actually into chicks...at least in the novelizations. In the games, it's never really brought up one way or the other (unless you count some of the fan-mods)

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