D&D CRPGs - Where to start?

I've played and love all the Dragon Age and KotOR games. I love every numbered Fallout game. What are some of those older D&D CRPGs (That's Black Isle stuff mostly, right?) that you love? I'd like to play one, but want to know what ones you think are most worthwhile. Here is a list of some I haven't played to jog your memory:

Baldur's Gate

Baldur's Gate II

Icewind Dale

Icewind Dale II

Neverwinter Nights

The Temple of Elemental Evil

Baldur's Gate II with the expansion is arguably one of the greatest games ever made. You'll miss out on who some of the characters are if you skip 1 and if you don't understand the combat system starting off mid level in 2 can be a set back. But if you want one game, that's it.

This is a tough one. Did you want to stick with the Infinity Engine and similar games, or go back even farther to the SSI Gold Box stuff? If you wanted to begin with more modern IE games then I'd suggest starting with Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition and moving forward from there. Some of the older CRPGs consist of little more than a map, stat screens, and text boxes, which certainly isn't for everybody especially 25 years later.

Planescape: Torment.

Menzoberanzan, or Ravenloft: Stone Prophet, is probably the closest you can get to a modern'ish first-person RPG. I remember Hillsfar being pretty easy to get into when I was younger. I was also a big fan of Dragonlance as a kid, so the Krynn titles were always something I enjoyed.

Edit: Shit. I was looking through my old games and found a copy of Dungeon Hack. That game would hold up incredibly well because it is basically a first-person D&D roguelike. I remember putting a hundred hours into that game game when I just graduated high-school.

Baldur's Gate 1 with the BGTutu mod (which places it in the sequels engine) or the more recent Enhanced Edition are generally good places to start. However, note that the first Baldur's Gate is very tough in the beginning (mollified somewhat in the editions I suggest), so if you are having a ton of trouble and not enjoying it at all you may want to just jump to BG2 to get your feet wet (any edition is fine).

Icewind Dale 1 and 2 are fine games, but both are very much dungeon-crawlers. If that is not your cup of tea they are probably not the best places to start, but if you love that style of game both games are fine places to start playing.

The first Neverwinter Nights is a decent game, but if you pick up the gold pack you may as well skip the original campaign as it is rather boring compared to the expansions, which are much better. Neverwinter Nights 2 has a more interesting Vanilla campaign and absolutely fantastic expansions, and would be a decent place to start with these kinds of games.

Temple of Elemental Evil is a strikingly close approximation of 3rd edition D&D, but is fairly challenging and light on story. Probably not a great place to start unless you are intimately familiar with that ruleset.

I haven't played tons of any of these games, but I found Baldur's Gate II the easiest to start playing. It doesn't really toss you into a difficult area or anything like that, it just puts you into a manageable (though not really easy) dungeon. Note, however, that this first dungeon is long and... well... there's a reason "skip the first dungeon" mods exist. You need to go through it at least once, though.

Some people are strongly opposed to this and I'd like to say I'm one of them, but look up an introductory guide. No, I'm not kidding, do it, especially if you plan on playing the original version without any mods. If you've played tabletop D&D games you probably won't need it as much, but if you can't explain what THAC0 means then you need to look it up.

I know most people won't care about this, but keep in mind that there's no zooming in and out or anything like that in the original versions of these games. The Enhanced Editions did add the ability to zoom the camera closer or pull it farther away. Perhaps the biggest reason I've never played more than a few hours of these games is the lack of a zoom, and I'll probably buy Baldur's Gate II EE just to get that. Apparently no one has thought to mod it in any time in the past fifteen or so years, I don't think it will happen anytime soon. I don't think the EE's are compatible with mods, though, and some say they add new bugs, so might want to compare different versions to see which one you would like to buy.

I'm probably an odd one out in that the only Infinity Engine games I've played are Icewind Dale 1 & 2. I didn't have that much trouble picking them up and quite enjoyed both. I keep meaning to try Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment, but with the amount of time involved in really getting into these games, I'm wary of starting one up.

Baldur's Gate 1 with the TuTu mod or the Enhanced Edition. If that doesn't do it for you, move on to the second one.

There are more than just Infinity Engine games you guys! Pool of Radiance for life! That said, those Infinity Engine games are more accessible. I honestly think Neverwinter Nights is a hell of a game, it get a little more hate than it deserves, and it's got a decent tutorial, something no Infinity Engine game has ever had.

But seriously, maybe try Pool of Radiance...

EDIT: And not the 2001 UBISoft one. The old SSI one.

I know this doesn't apply but Arcanum is the best of this TYPE of game I ever played. I still feel the loss of Troika deep down in my soul. Google the latest user patch for Arcanum.

@tehbull: Amen.

For D&D style cRPGs I'd start with either Neverwinter Nights game and work backwards from there. The GOG editions are great and often have major discounts.

Heck, I think they're giving away a copy of NWN1 with Witcher 3 pre-orders and you can give the code to whoever you want.

I thought this said "Dad CRPGS"

I mean, it kinda is. In a grumpy old man sort of way.

Thanks for all the great suggestions. One more question:

If I start with Baldur's Gate, should I go for Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition? Any reason not to?

IWD2 is a good starting point to learn mechanics, although you do have to make the whole party at the start of the game, which can be rough. TOEE is also pretty good, although you'll want to get the fan patch for it.

I'd go with Baldur's Gate 2 and Planescape Torment.

Icewind Dale always seemed combat heavy; a dungeon crawler.

Baldur's Gate 1 suffers from low level D&D-itis. Are you a mage? Save often, because a falling leaf might kill you.

Neverwinter Nights, which I still play to this day, has horrible single player campaigns. There's an underdark expansion which was pretty good, though. But if you're not using this as a multiplayer role playing game with a group, I don't think it's worth going to.

However, it has EXCELLENT mod tools, as it was built from the ground up for modding/user content. NWN2's mod tools felt very clumsy in comparison, which is why I think the community for NWN2 is much smaller than NWN1's.

If you want to stray away from D&D a bit, Vampire the Masquerade is quite excellent as well.

Between the original version and the Enhanced Edition of Baldur's Gate, the EE is definitely the one to get. It had some issues when it first released, but it's been patched up since then. The only significant advantage the original still has over the EE is its lower price.

Never Winter Knights 2 is very close to a Kotor or Dragon Age...

Pool of Radiance is one of my all time favorite games. I can't tell you how profound an achievement it was to a young D&D nerd to see my favorite pastime so well replicated in digital form. However don't think that I can recommend it to a new player.

Maybe not worry about the D&D license, and go with Pillars of Eternity? I hear that's good.

I think Baldurs Gate 2 is the easiest to digest. But definitely go back to the first eventually.