Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Was BG3 overly sexualized?

The reason,I brought the Saw example is, that this is probably the most unsexy franchise out there and Twisted Pictures never encouraged this and still the fans are extremely thirsty. I know, Larian promoted that with the Astarion/ bear Halsin scene at the PfH, but I wonder, if it is a general phenomenon, that people are more thirsty or showing it more. I mean, I was a Harry Potter fan back in the day and we had some very unhealthy Snape fans in the mix, but I think this got worse.


Zentu:

I'm happily surprised too, that it is a decent discussion.

Ugh, I can't watch the Saw films. I tried to watch the first one, and just could not get through it. It was well done, but whoa, way too much for me.

Sexuality is important in story writing because it is a very basic source of character motivation. When the sexual aspects provide motivations for things to happen in the story, then I am happy. Sometimes you don't even need sex per se, and simple personal contact is enough ... I think of when Karlach can finally get a real hug. That scene was very well done. The circus dryad scene was very interesting in a similar way. I m glad Larian put those in. I wonder if the scene with the Emperor could have been better if the sex part was held back a bit, and if the focus was placed even more on intimacy and emotional connection?

First off, let's be real that there is precious little, if any, *romance* in this game. Sex and romance are most definitely not the same things in any way, and I don't see any romance in the game in any meaningful way. And as an aside, I'd have been quite fine with actual romance in the game, as in any game I play.

But to the question of audiences, it does make sense that Larian would try to cater to the very large group of (mainly younger) gamers out there who want, even crave, a lot of gratuitous nudity and sex in their games. That audience also craves these same things in their TV shows and movies these days. That audience, I dare say, outnumbers the hardcore cRPG fans by at least a margin of 10 to 1. So if you're going to be investing hundreds of millions of dollars making a AAA game, you have to find "creative" ways to boost your prospective audeince if you want to turn a profit. In BG3 Larian did have another ace in the hole, which is that this is a D&D game, and D&D has gained mainstream popularity in recent years. So they did have that going for them in a way that other cRPG IPs do not. But I'd guess Larian wasn't convinced D&D's popularity alone would be enough to carry the day, sales-wise, to match the HUGE expenditures Larian devoted to making this game. So, they needed something else, and that something else was gratuitous nudity and sex.

I'd also note here something I've said before to those who claim people can get plenty of nudity and sex online these days. One cannot underestimate the power and the draw of sex that is interactive, where you can engage with sex objects as you want and in your fantasy scenarios. This is what Larian is delivering with all the nudity and sex in BG3: interactive sex.

Lastly, I've also made this point numerous times, but it needs to be appreciated that the posters here in this forum are a tiny fraction of 1% of whole BG3 player/fan base. As such the forumites here are not, even in the slightest, representative of the overall player base. And yet, even here in this forum, as some of you have noted, most of the discussion centers on "romances," the euphemism for sex. Only a select few posters, the same posters, have shown an interest in talking about the issues in the game hardcore cRPG fans might be expected to care about.

Nudity and sex are overall far from gratuitous in BG3. Most of it is tied to character development and drives the plot forward, for exemple Karlach and her condition, Astarion and his control tendencies, Shadowheart and her trust issues, etc... I would argue that even scene is important to show how manipulative he can be. Then you also have sex and nudity as a comic relief, which is a staple of DnD (see the "I seduce the dragon" trope), the ogre and Halsin scene fit this description.

Of course it is gratuitous. As has already been stated, remove the 'romance' and sex and it in no way affects the main plot and most of the time it does do much for the sub-plots. The hobgoblin back-scuttling the ogress in Act 1 is there for why?

Oh I am prepared to accept that one as a pure joke However to make your point better, show me any part of the Shadowheart storyline that really changes if you do not have sex. How about Gale?

Sex and sexuality sprinkled lightly into the game context can add spice. In my opinion someone thought dumping the whole container of salt and adding a salt lick to the stew was a good idea.

Only if your definition of "gratuitous" is anything not impactful to the main storyline in a role-playing game. It serves its purpose for people who want to interact with that aspect of the game.

My only complaint about romances is they take away from friendships. I liked Alister from DA:O, who becomes your bro without a weird rejection scene that would definitely un-bro him. WOTR is the biggest offender, locking a lot of personal backstory behind romances or having companions hit on you without any prompting from the player.

Who are you talking about? o.O

I am using the dictionary definition of the word - not called for by the circumstances : not necessary, appropriate, or justified.


I have never 'romanced' any character in WOTR and if I have missed any personal backstory then it is down to me not Owlcat. In any case, romance and backstory is a different kettle of kippers than sex, gratuitous or otherwise.
I'm currently replaying WOTR and haven't noticed anyone 'hitting' on me. Granted I'm only in Act 2 (not taken Drezen yet). So far I have only noticed one possible romance opening in the dialogue, with Sosiel, which I ignored and we moved on.

I'm sorry for being blunt here, but whoever is claiming that sex in BG3 is too gracious or is the main selling point either don't know what they are talking about or just writes it with ill intent. I have seen full Shadowheart romance, one Karlach's sex scene, two scenes with Lae'zel, initial sex scene with Minthara and additional sex scenes with Mizora, the devil in House of Hope plus drow twins in BG3 inn. None of those scenes were on any way more horny then we have seen over a decade ago in Dragon Age Origins and we really have no more than 2-3 sex scenes per companion, spanned across the entire game. If anything, I'm a little disappointed, Larian played safe after advertising it as more hardcore as it really is. So yeah, sex is a very minor part of BG3 and definitely not its selling point. And I'm talking from experience, take it or leave it.

This appears to have been toned down since release greatly. I had a single character hitting up on me, and that was Lae'zel. Weirdly enough I hadn't even seen any party member hitting upon another. I'd have expected there to be far more "stuff" either way, given the interweb. Additionally, pretty graphical displays of violence far outperform any sexual content in BG3 - perhaps to not upset US audiences, who historically never even registered a hundred heads exploding. But for which a single flash of boobies could see you risked being removed from Walmart outright, thus even adventure games such as Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy only getting released censored in the US. Similar to how in Germany, violence in games was risky business, so even tiny pixel soldiers in RTS games were turned into robots bleeding black oil, and all (quite killable) children in Fallout removed outright.

Anyways, romances and sex are the curse of Bioware, another area in which they dragged the genre down forever. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/rps-at-e3-dragon-age-origins Not because of the romances -- but because they have become the be end all of character depth, with Bioware rightfully nicked as the "Romance company" in circles. Additionally, imagine a traitor archetype of character in your party had developed into a similar must-have feature to be ticked off a list during development; all surprise and wonder would have been gone down the shitter just as quickly.

At least I apparently didn't need to feed, level-up and constantly gift Lae'zel to get the deal done, true Bioware-style.

I actually think this is the avarage bg3 experience.
My wife sayed they could make this from Halsin too.

Yes, and based on your definition I would say that it is indeed appropriate and justified. It is a mature game that is heavily centered around its characters and their relationship, and sex is a normal part of adult life in this context. As I previously described it enhances the narrative in multiple ways. Now I get that maybe from you subjective point of view a RPG shouldn't be centered around this kind of relationship, then maybe BG3 isn't the game for you. There are plenty of games out there with very minimal to no intimate scenes and I am glad there is one out there that isn't prudishly closing its eyes on this subject.

You are now twisting things in order to not be wrong.

The original point was that the sex, not the romance, was gratuitous because it can be removed without any affect on the main story. You then challenged my use of the word 'gratuitous' erroneously claiming I was misusing the word when I was not. You also brought in some nonsense about WOTR which I challenged and you have ignored.

But the characters are not living a normal life are they? They are supposedly desperately trying to get rid of the tadpoles before they get turned into illithids and then to stop the entire world being enslaved. Do you think the team of Sharrans were going at it like mink while they were on the mission to steal the artefact? Do you think the githyanki were while they pursued the nautiloid?

Who do you think you are that you are entitled to tell me that this game may not be for me? Do you think me so stupid that I cannot make that decision for myself? You need to get it into your head that the issue is sex (sexuality in the thread title) not romance.

BG3 is not a 'mature' game - nothing Larian does is mature. They cannot rise above the adolescent.

Okay folks lets keep the lid on this and lot let it get out of control.

Saying tha the game is oversexed, and at the same time claiming that you can remove all sex without affecting anything in gameplay seems contradictory to me.

The main story isn't the only story in BG3. I actually do care about the companion stories too and sex is indeed an important step in those relationships. They are symbol of trust between you and the character, they are a landmark in your story that lead to interesting outcomes. I don't get why you are bringing WotR to the table here as it also has optional romances leading to sex scenes. The only difference is that they are fade to black only, BG3 also has an option for that if the depiction bothers you.

The "get rid of the tadpoles before they get turned into illithids" plot point is solved way before any romance scene. Also I don't think that saving the world and having a little fun bed time is incompatible. I for sure don't think about Sharrans or Githyanki relationships as it isn't the focus of the story. Although for githyanki, their sexuality is an important aspect of the setting as it has been heavily twisted by the mindflayers.

No, not at all. The "sex" scenes are easily avoided, the females in the game aren't walking around in armorkinis.
I think there's a tongue and cheek, humorous aspect to many of them, especially Halsin, that sort of poke fun at what happens in DND

Ultimately I think where you stand on this is reflective of how attractive you are IRL. Respectfully.

I'm in the Yes-it-is camp.

I remember the last PFH, wherein was stated that the 'romances were more mature' and 'it's not about finishing a quest and be rewarded with sex'

Well. It is literally 'finish Act 1 and be rewarded with sex with whomsoever you choose, they're all game'. Even the Mass Effect series wasn't *that* bad. Then there's the Emperor who, out of nowhere wants to bang you *regardless of your interaction up to that point* and gets angry if you don't want to. There's even an achievement tied to it, so if you want to 100% the game, you're locked into going that route, even though it has no impact on the game whatsoever. Then there is Halsin and all his 'I am the legendary sexmaster' stuff in Act 3. Granted, BG2 had moments like Minsc shoving Boo where the sun don't shine, but still. Haarlep *can* be avoided, but come on, man. The interaction you can have with Haarlep is more than you will ever have with actually important characters, say a certain servant of Bane. Not only that, but take that route and you're rewarded with even *more* narrated sex afterwards. Humorous to some, perhaps, erotic to others, but I find it cringeworthy at best. Maybe if I were fifteen, it'd summon my Netherese Wand, but as an adult I just roll my eyes at it. If they refrained from all that nonsense and instead paid some attention to actually important characters like Gortash or the Emperor, the game would be far better for it.


Astarion's vampire reveal scene is also unavoidable, and rather sexual in nature, that's backed by the fact that - choosing to go along with it starts his romance [not to mention I've seen a compilation of girls who collectively cast create water at this moment]. Now, you can kill him for it, too - and I always do - but I can't *avoid* it, either.

On top of that is the 'game doesn't recognise gender' thing. I get it, modern audiences and all that... But there's no way to opt out of it, and I'm forced to deal with getting chased by everyone, including those I'm not interested in. And there's hardly any saying 'no', or go; 'Hey man, I'm not gay/straight' to get the message across. If you let me choose my gender and pronouns and all that, give me a 'I'm straight/gay button' so I don't have to deal with things I find disturbing.

And lastly - and this more or less equates to my previous complaint - The game assumes you pick at least one character to romance. So as long as you don't pick someone, you're game for the rest of them. This is annoying as hell. Even Withers complains to you for not banging at least one of your comrades. For me the problem, mostly is then - That I don't chase NPC's, yet they chase me.

Not necessarily. If the game has too much emphasis on the sex side of things as many here are suggesting (and not enough on the relationship side of things or reactivity with the plot etc) and the sex only really exists to serve itself (which can be an easy pitfall if not enough is spent on the 'supporting content'- like the aforementioned relationship stuff) Than it's fairly easy to point to it as something that both stands out in the game and doesn't really exist to serve anything else.

I think Niara did a good breakdown on the Minthara sex scene way back in EA and I think showed how something can be oversexed and out of place and not really supporting the story. The scene would arguably work better with just a simple fade to black.

As is, I think that scene was just there in EA mostly to generate buzz/controversy and expectations for the rest of the romance/sex content in BG III. Much like a lot of Larian's other reveals in EA (Bear scene, I'm looking at you). The game was heavily marketed to the fanbase with a 'sex sells' aim, even if they didn't pull out a slogan like 'Darker, Sexier, Better. Dragon Age 2' etc. Which IMO is frequently not a hallmark of maturity, and I don't think Larian really can say they bullseyed their mark or we wouldn't be having conversations like this.