CorInABox

It is also helpful to know that if you make any mistakes in you character build, you can respec your class and ability scores very early in the game for a fairly low price. The things that you cannot change are your origin, race or appearance, but these don't have such a great impact (unless you take the Dark Urge origin and find a bit too bloody for your tastes - in which case you have to start over)

Personally, I never played DND but I did play a bunch of RPGs before (such as the Pathfinder games on PC) and I love checking out character build guides. The learning curve of BG3 was pretty smooth for me.

I use the Steam version with the -provider Portal launch modifier (lets me use my old ANet account)

Dropping by to throw some more praise onto the pile for Nobara Linux - it's my current distro and I have an AMD RX 6700 as well. All the games in my Steam library work great, including Baldur's Gate 3 (no tweaks necessary other than enabling the latest GE-Proton version). Unfortunately I haven't played any of the games you listed; my preferences lean mostly towards RPGs like Elden Ring, Path of Exile, Guild Wars 2, Valheim (with mods!), Enderal and so on.

This, or the Tray Icons: Reloaded extension for GNOME, which adds the Steam icon to the tray bar. From there, you can click it and it shows a list of the installed games.

If you are new to Linux, GNOME has quite a different feel from your usual Windows flow. I personally love it and would never swap back.

(Off-topic, but If you would be interested in a gaming-oriented distro, I would recommend Nobara Linux - the official version looks fairly familiar for Windows users and it also comes with a bunch of gaming-related stuff preinstalled like Steam, wine dependencies, mesa drivers for AMD, etc)

Sven said in an interview they will try to get Steam Deck verification at launch or otherwise soon after

(https://youtu.be/LOqmFYDoTUc at 19:40)

Since people have suggested virtual machines, I wanted to mention that most of them will not be using your GPU (and GPU passthrough is tricky), so they won't be helpful if you are using GPU-intensive apps.

On the other hand, moving form Adobe Illustrator to Inkscape was a pretty smooth transition for me, and I can't say I miss any of Adobe's features (except the Shape builder, which is also coming to Inkscape). However, I'm not a professional illustrator - it's mostly a hobby for me and I only use it for creating icons, simple illustrations and infographics

Gaming experience has been really good, though! (Steam/Proton and yuzu for emulating some Switch games)

And the Essure permanent birth control device, causing persistent pain, bleeding and other health problems to thousands of women. Withdrawn from the US market before the Netflix documentary released

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jul/25/the-bleeding-edge-netflix-documentary-medical-devices

As a complete casual Linux user (made the switch last year), all the games I previously played on Windows work on Linux smoothly with minimal or no intervention on my part. Even started fiddling with emulators - Legend of Zelda BotW on yuzu worked right out of the box

Surprised no one mentioned Enderal yet. It's a total conversion mod for Skyrim (special edition) and it really fits the bill of mystery/horror. It's my favorite game from a narrative point of view; the soundtrack and voice acting is also excellent, and I have re-listened it long after finishing the game. The only issue would be that you mentioned you would prefer a more linear experience, rather than an open world. The main quest is fairly linear, but you can still go off the rails and explore - but the pull of the story will always set you back on track.

One of my favorite tracks, which summarizes quite well the atmosphere of the game - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKLkOnvFG5w
Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DHkmHBPs2Q

ProtonDB lists it as playable on SteamDeck; the game itself is free, although you will need Skyrim Special edition (which is around 10$ on Steam right now).

I resorted to blocking the element completely with the uBlock extension

Seconded for Nobara, gaming is a smooth experience with it

Perhaps the problem was that it was not an open discussion, but an "off-the-records", private one. And, from a moral standpoint, small concessions can end up leading to a slippery slope.