Larian Studios Forums Dragon Commander Dragon Commander - General A little TOO much emphasis on gay rights. . .

So, to start, the game is a ton of fun, the story so far (just started chapter 3) is excellent and actually feels like I am in a war with the decisions I am making having a great impact on the battles and other factors. the side little dilemmas are pretty interesting as well, and a few get some good laughs.

But there is one thing that continues to show up over and over again.

First, Oberon requests the freedom for gay marriage. Fine, I have no problem with this being a debate in the game, anyone who argues that it shouldn't be something to debate about in the game due to its controversy needs to realize that THEY are the ones who decides whether to allow it or not, thats it. Make the decision and move on.

So, I decide to allow it to see what happens, then from that point on I have received a whole chain of personal dilemmas that focused entirely on a person being gay. First, an undead artist getting all art removed and burned for being gay, I save the paintings. Next (that I remember at the moment) scarlet "offended" henry and he assumed it's because she "doesn't like men." turns out to be true so I console her and its all better. then just now I hear about a witch hunter performing harsh rituals and killing innocents. Thats good enough reason for me to shut him down. Then it turns out that it is all because he is targeting people because they are GAY.
Ok, I'm all for there being a single debate on gay marriage. That is something governments do talk about and decide whether or not to allow it, but why does almost EVERYTHING after allowing it leads down to someone being gay?

The paintings could have been simply considered "sacrilegious" to the undead for a certain subject matter while everyone else says the work is fascinating and impressive and should not be burned.
the witch hunter could be hunting down people who have voodoo dolls or alchemy labs and such. That is what witch hunters look for! Gay may be on the list but it would not be the first and formost thing that they would search for before trying to burn someone as a witch!

Not everything has to lead to being GAY. Feels like they are trying to press for something in this game after hearing about it so many times.

Otherwise this game is fantastic in my oppinion, I just think they need to cut back on that a bit, or if you say "No gay marriage" will you get something completely different? There are much more interesting things to focus on in side goals and personal debates then being gay. It just gets old hearing about it 4 or more times.

They said their decisions would be topical.
And its in there because its all about drawing awareness.
Gay marriage is a big deal these days.
Hate crimes against gays are real, ie the witch hunter & destruction of artwork just because of sexual preference.
Hurtful things said to people in the closet are real, henry/scarlett.

These things are here to show you that yes, they're real and happen. Its all about raising awareness so people say, shit. This really happens. I for one say good to larian for doing such.

My complaint about the decisions is that so far, the Undead have been mostly on the "theocratic dictatorship" side of the religious scale. I only really saw one decision - the foreign aid one - where donation and helping or giving to less fortunate was part of their reasoning.

Maybe there are more decisions like that I just haven't seen yet. Who knows.

You get 4/5 sessions on a few topics, government type, environmentalism, gender equality, religion as it meets law and same gender partnership.

probably the most for environmentalism actually, that this topic was such a thorn in your side might be worth some thought.

Hmm, I only got one of those in my playthrough. There are more (not sure how many more) issues than you can encounter in one playthrough which is great, I guess if randomly you get a lot of similar ones it creates a theme randomly which might seem a bit odd.

I kind of like the way the undead are intolerant jackasses because it creates an interesting tension with the fact they are utterly, incontrovertibly, provably right. The gods definitely exist, it's just by our standards they are complete jerks. If they definitely existed and were generally super-nice it would be an easy decision. As it stands you can't be sure if they see more than you do or the undead are misrepresenting them (in retrospect I view any issue that gets you a -luck to be one the gods themselves feel strongly about, anything that doesn't to be a grey area).

The dwarves on the other hand are total jerks and always wrong. Other than novelty and diplomacy I can't see any reason to back them ever. They sometimes fall on the correct side of a debate but their consistent cries of "we can't afford X" when X costs a trivial amount of my vast wealth doesn't really work. I haven't seen their faction perk though, it would be interesting if it was awesome.

Even if the undeads gods exist it's worth keeping in mind that that doesn't mean you must worship them.

I consider my reason, logic and conscience far better gods to follow then any presented in divinity.

On the other hand, logic says that you shouldn't screw over your auto-resolve luck TOO much.

Personally I don't feel it has too much emphasis on gay rights it's more equality because Catherine pushes the womens rights and then you have the Lizard councilor.

Throughout my game the undead HATED my guts I had 0% with them.

Was never an issue, there are so many things that effect auto-resolve I always had +chance

Indeed but it's still an interesting question as far as I'm concerned and one without a simple answer. We know the gods are powerful but does that imply they are wise? Their actions suggest otherwise but I can really judge seeing as little as I do? Personally I say yes, but I can see both sides.

I think you and the OP are both wrong.

There's only several of these events (as far as I've seen in Let's Plays) and they're from a lesbian character so it's to be expected really that she'll constantly bring them up. It's not like the player is even forced to one choice and can decide their stance.

However their inclusion is hardly to raise awareness because you can't go a month without homosexuality being mentioned in the news now. People are aware and have been for some time. No one is aware of minority groups though such as asexuality.

If not for the whole point of being an emperor getting to make interesting decisions relevant to modern life (i.e evolution debate, journalism freedom, euthanasia and gay marriage) then it's been added for increased attention for the game itself. Controversy sales remember?

However it's obvious that it's been added because it's a modern issue like abortion and euthanasia. Larian said from the start that they wanted to tackle modern issues. It's hardly to raise attention for anything.



Well I haven't played but just from watching there's times where I've gleaned that a middle option would have been appropriate or needed in some situations. You're forced into pursuing the extreme on both sides of the spectrum. There should be a middle ground for issues. For example in the case of the euthanasia one "Kill them only if they have no chance" or in terms of gay rights "Allow them to be open but let there be no marriage between them because that's a religious matter" and so on. Along comes the super-solder project from the Imp (aka The SPARTAN-III Program but with unborn children) and again, no middle ground for that. Why can't grown adults be subjected to the experiment instead?

Seriously, two dialogue options? What is this? Mass Effect 3?

Speaking of the extreme spectrum. The councilors appear to be the same for the most part. The undead is a religious fundamentalist and the imp is a scientist like Frankenstein but even more extreme to the point of not caring about morality or life. I suppose it's was a deliberate design but still...

I don't know what Larian's game is but the undead guy is all like "science is hurtful to religion and I'm against it" (a view held by no religious person save for YEC's) and then the publication of Charles Darwin White-Wickle's evolutionary theories on the lizards serve to spread racism and racial superiority rather than actual scientific progression.

It's strange, I can't quite tell if Larian is pushing an agenda or just throwing in the extremes of the spectrum for good measure...

One way or another I may not have the game. I could even hate the gameplay but I must say that the stories had me watching walkthroughs till their completion. I have high hopes for Original Sin if it contains the same quality writing. The only thing Dragon Commander is missing is the Larian comedy we all know and love but I suppose considering the game it is, it would be a bit out of place.



Aren't the Seven the same gods from Divine Divinity? This means they are the gods of all races and not just the undead. They are the same gods who made The Divine One. I think the Undead Politician is simply misrepresenting them.

Larian stated already that our choices had consequences on the issues brought up.

So maybe you should have said no after a while, that would have been the end of gay stuff

Some issues come up again and again because they're part of a general's arc. One General's arc is about women's rights and the exploitation of women. Another arc is about being a team player versus relying on yourself, etc. Another arc is about racism. Those issues also come up just as much as gay rights - maybe not for each player, that's the beauty of the randomized playthroughs. On my first playthrough, I did all of Catherine's arc, but no one else's.

When Scarlett told me about the two Lizardgirls, I was mesmerized.

I found fault with the way the game presents this issue. Oberon just assumes you agree with him without presenting any argument to gain your support. Instead Scarlett is the one that comes to you about it. If you don't agree with her then Oberon won't even try to defend his position.

Though if you don't immediately agree with her then you're strongly biased against it and refuse to consider their position anyway. Plus, according to the game if you oppose gay marriage you're forcing them to get married to someone else. Which hurts the argument so badly as to negate any point that was being made.