In my Baldur’s Gate 3 essays, I constantly refer to my playthroughs past, present, and future. I have a log available to help me (and you!) keep track. This post supplies some background information that might help you understand what’s going on (apart from the obvious, that I’m heavily involved with BG3).
In fact, this very post is derived from my-yet-unfinished write-up of my playthrough 19/10 with Real Angela. As I was writing that long post, I realized that a section belonged to a post of its own. Here it is!
The Scheme
The numbering of my playthroughs and the timing between them may be confusing.
I give my Baldur’s Gate 3 playthroughs ordinal numbers based on when I started the playthrough. For example, my playthrough 18 was the 18th since I started playing the game in September 2023.
When I play in a multiplayer BG3 game, by mutual agreement I give it a “slashed” label. The number before the slash is the number of the playthrough for the person who hosts the game; the second number is the count for the other player.
I number the playthroughs in the order that I start them. When you see numbers like “playthrough 15”, “playthrough 1/16”, “playthrough 19/10”, “playthrough 22”, they reflect when I created them.
These numbers don’t indicate when I finish the playthroughs, the rate at which I’m able to play them, nor whether I’m going through different playthroughs simultaneously. If you look at my BG3 logbook, you’ll see that during the time I played 19/10 with Real Angela, I started playthrough 21, completed playthrough 22… and still haven’t formally finished playthrough 15 even though I started it over a year ago.
Similarly, in the same time we were playing 19/10, Real Angela completed her playthroughs 11 and 12, and started her playthrough 13.
This is Euterpe, Real Angela’s protagonist in her playthrough 11.
It’s a matter of rate. I tend to play BG3 nightly, and for longer sessions on weekends. Real Angela and I played 19/10 weekly, for roughly four-hour sessions.
Shadowheart knows better ways to spend her nights. I, alas, do not.
It gets even more complicated. Playthrough 19/10 took a total of 160 hours. However, if you run through the numbers above, that suggests it would have taken forty weeks for us to complete the run.
The reality: Roughly a third of that time was spent with me playing 19/10 by myself, doing various prep tasks that I’ll describe in the full write-up, and even doing some fanfic photography; some of the playthrough 18 fanfic pictures were taken in 19/10 because it was easier to stage the shots.
Shadowheart also knows better ways to spend a third of her time.
That’s why the actual play time was closer to twenty-four weeks.
The reason why YouTube creators like Morgana Evelyn have hundreds of runs, while Real Angela and I are barely in the double digits, is that Morgana Evelyn skips the story and speed-runs the game. She plays for variations in character builds, mods, and challenges (e.g., playing Honor mode without Healing potions). Real Angela and I still play for variations in the story.
To add to the confusion, the order in which I write these playthrough blog posts may not correspond to the order of the playthroughs themselves.
I can write some blog posts quickly, like the one for playthrough 22. Other posts, especially those with pictorial fanfic, take much longer; playthrough 18’s twelve-part fanfic posts took months to prepare, and playthrough 15‘s post(s) are still not finished.
Karlach knows when it’s not the right time for a long story. I, alas, do not.
If a playthrough exists for photography support for the fanfic of a different playthrough, there’s another reason for delays: Sony’s limitation for the number of saved games I can keep on my PS5. I wrote an essay on this, and how I had to use my Mac as a work-around.
I often find myself juggling game saves, archived saves, and gameplay decisions based on whether I want to spend an evening playing BG3 or taking pictures within BG3.
Don’t worry, Minsc. I juggle game saves, but not hamsters.
In other words, it’s complicated.
Status of playthroughs as of Nov-2026
Since I wrote that earlier playthroughs and my fanfic article, there other playthroughs that I’ve started, completed, or delayed:
Playthrough 15 – No progress since that essay. I’m still gathering photos from other playthroughs in order to create the pictorial fanfic I want for playthrough 15.
This isn’t unusual for me. My multi-part playthrough 18 fanfic contains images from my playthroughs 17, 19/10, and 20.
Playthrough 17 – Done. In addition to its own pictorial fanfic, I have some “picture stages” saved to use for the eventual playthrough 15 fanfic.
Playthrough 18 – Done. Again, I have “stages” saved for playthrough 15. Believe it or not, Actual Sabrina contributed to one of them, and I might ask her to contribute to at least one more.
Without Actual Sabrina, I could not have taken this photo. Yes, there’s a valid reason for this, aside from my fascination with the character of Arctic Druid Angela.
Playthrough 19/10 – Playthrough finished. I’m writing the long blog post, but it’s taking a while because… it’s long.
Playthrough 20 – Playthough finished. I’ll write it up when the 19/10 write-up is finished.
Playthrough 21 – This is a “Shadowheart Evil Ending” run. Still in progress as I write this.
Playthrough 22 – Done, with two posts: the original and a follow-up.
Playthrough 23 – Not sure; perhaps romancing Dark Shadowheart.
Or perhaps as the Dark Urge romancing Minthara with no one else to distract us.
This was fun to read!