D&D 5E D&D Beyond Offers A Free Baldur's Gate Gazetteer

In Baldur’s Gate, thievery, blackmail, and illegal trade runs rampant. Now you can journey to this dangerous city of the Sword Coast with the Baldur’s Gate Gazetteer. Learn about each of the city’s districts and key locations and people, and unlock backgrounds for your next Baldurian character!

The Gazetter includes:

• History of Baldur's Gate
• Baldur's Gate Today
• Government
• Citizenry
• Economy and Trade
• Religion
• Dangers in Baldur's Gate
• City Landmarks
• Upper City
• Lower City
• Outer City
• Beyond Baldur's Gate
• Baldur's Gate Character Backgrounds
• Dark Secrets

The Gazetteer is quite sizable, and mainly lore-based, with two new NPC stat blocks (Nine-Fingers Keene, and Rilasa Real), some random encounter tables, and information on how the regular D&D character backgrounds fit in. There's also a new background, the Faceless. Finally there are some rules about 'Dark Secrets' which are a background element which the party shares.

Claim Baldur’s Gate Gazetteer now! - D&D Beyond

www.dndbeyond.com

 

[beta-ray]

Everyone should be rooting for them to do this the right way.

That's rooting? Oof.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Because they saw the feedback that happened after launch day?

They couldn’t have seen it before it existed.

Now that I think about it I kinda do not want a direct tie in. The last big one was the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide. While I liked and appreciated it they got FRIED over it.

Also they could easily be cheesy

Which is pants because that book is excellent.

 

[beta-ray]

Thank you for posting about this EN World. How would I normally have learned about this? I always miss these "freebies" that they offer for a limited time, and I don't know where to look to see what offers are available to claim. Can someone please let me know where I can normally find such offers on D&D Beyond.

 

[Mercador]

This may be the most low effort marketing tie-in I have ever seen. It's the BG chapter of Avernus, with, like, 2 extra NPCs. It is wierd that people are cheering about this.

A D&D game is going to likely be the biggest game of the year, and probably man sites' Game of the Year, and the best they can do is to give away an already produced gazeteer from a module published 4 years ago. This strongly suggests to me that they did not have ANY tie-in marketing planned and only after BG3 was a break out did they think to try.

Between this and the severely lackluster HAT tie-in marketing, what is happening over there? Who is in charge?

Well, with the Dark Alliance debacle with Tuque Games, I can totally understand they didn't care too much about BG3 before seeing it as a commercial and critic success.

I didn't know that the Gazetteer was part of Avernus book as I don't have it. For me, it's new and free content so I'm happy

 

[Divine2021]

the number of complaints about free stuff is astounding.

Bad actors gonna act bad, tale as old as time

 

[Reynard]

Bad actors gonna act bad, tale as old as time

Wow. That is not a trivial accusation.

 

[Divine2021]

Wow. That is not a trivial accusation.

Chill dude, it isn’t even directed at you, unless you’re going to admit you’re being a bad actor here. It’s a free market tie in. Since you came directly at me, I’ll respond to you: you are getting really upset that some people seem to pleasantly ok with it, to the point you were writing all caps answers to people. It isn’t worth it, just walk away.

 

[Reynard]

Chill dude, it isn’t even directed at you, unless you’re going to admit you’re being a bad actor here. It’s a free market tie in. Since you came directly at me, I’ll respond to you: you are getting really upset that some people seem to pleasantly ok with it, to the point you were writing all caps answers to people. It isn’t worth it, just walk away.

The most amusing part of this post is that you are upset enough that you aren't actually reading who is writing what and instead just amalgamating anyone who doesn't agree with you into a sibgular mythical "bad actor" character, rather than people who have reasons for the way they view WotC.

I'm not upset. I just pointed out it I'd another example of WotC playing catch up in the marketing department and more evidence that 5E is the most popular version of the game purely by accident and often in spite of WotC's efforts.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Well, with the Dark Alliance debacle with Tuque Games, I can totally understand they didn't care too much about BG3 before seeing it as a commercial and critic success.

I am sure that someone at WotC heard weekly or monthly reports about how BG3 was doing in early access. It's the exact sort of stuff that gets discussed in meetings for a product line.

But their unwillingness to do a tie-in doesn't really have anything to do with how good or bad the reviews are. Last we heard official word, there aren't going to be special 50th anniversary covers for the 2024 core books. (And before someone jumps in as a human shield -- they're producing more than just the 2024 core books next year; they could farm out versions with special covers to a separate printer, just like they are with the non-core books.)

For whatever reason, someone at WotC -- possibly the same someone who got their hair blown back about "monetization" last winter -- simply doesn't care to do them.

I didn't know that the Gazetteer was part of Avernus book as I don't have it. For me, it's new and free content so I'm happy

100%. I really like the Faceless background -- it's an exact fit for my longest-played character.

 

[MockingBird]

They did a whole live event in 2019 that announced BG3 and introduced Descent into Avernus as a tie-in?

Yep, I remember because at the time it was only announced for PC and I pretty much wrote the game off at that point. I also think the development time took longer than anticipated. I'd also be curious to see if there is an up tick of BG books being sold since the games release.