// PC GAMER — GAMING
I am here to save us all time by determining which of our most-played videogames would be more efficiently completed if you had a gun
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If there's one thing I know about the age of information, it's that none of us have time for anything anymore, nor the attention spans to see them through. If I'm not getting a constant jitterbug hit of dopamine every two seconds from my doomscrolling, am I really awake? Don't answer that. I don't want to think about the answer to that.
And if there's one thing I know about videogames, it's that man, they're getting long. If only there was a way to make these things shorter, somehow? Like, say, giving our protagonist a gun? And not just a period-accurate flintlock or something, I mean an actual handgun. Let's just say a .45 pistol. If you know more about guns than me you're welcome to imagine something sexier.
I asked a few of my colleagues for their longest-played eligible games—that is, videogames that have an ending, do not feature guns as a common, standard feature throughout their runtime, and could be feasibly impacted by the inclusion of a pistol. Let's see how much time we can save…
This one's a toughie. The Dungeons & Dragons universe isn't all that impacted by firearms overall, given it's a world of magic anyway. Rules-wise, a commoner has about four hit points, meaning that the difference between getting stabbed by someone moderately proficient with a sword (around four damage) and getting shot with a gun (probably more) is that you're just kind of dead, anyway.
But you do have to start at level one in Baldur's Gate 3. Which means that it's a while before you get anything like a fireball (8d6 damage, or roughly eight shortsword's worth) which would outpace a standard pistol in terms of raw power creep. And act 1 takes somewhere around 30 hours to complete. It'd go faster with what is essentially the equivalent of a powerful magic item, in-universe, that's for certain. That damn phase spider wouldn't stand a chance.
However, I'd argue that act 3 would take way longer, simply because BG3's cast of absolute trash fires could not be trusted to responsibly handle having a gun in a populated area. Astarion, Karlach, Lae'zel, Minthara… god, Minsc? They would wind up shooting somebody they shouldn't, and it'd become a whole thing.
Thus I posit that Baldur's Gate 3 would take the exact amount of time to complete, with Act 1 and Act 3 balancing each other out.
Verdict: No hours saved, don't give Astarion a gun.
Alright, here's the problem: Yes, having a gun would definitely save you a lot of time. But I've sort of screwed Lincoln over here by giving him a handgun, rather than something a little meatier, like an assault rifle. It's an issue of size.