Interesting option given by Larian, in the appereance tab you can choose "facial hair" for females too :O :O :O

I'm all for more options. If I can make a green tiefling I don't see why ladies can't have beards.

I actually really like how they handled it so far. It initially gives you the "lore friendly" hair, skin, and eye options. But you can expand it and choose something unnatural if you want to be silly or to facilitate a more unique aspect of your character. Like if I wanted to make a GOOlock with a greenish pallid, unhealthy skin tone and black, evil eyes because his benefactor is slowly transforming his body into an incubator to birth some great tentacled monstrosity into the world. I could totally do that with the current set up!

Fully agreed. There's no harm letting players create silly characters.

Now, I hope Larian goes more consistent on that freedom, and unlocks hair styles that are unavailable to certain races.

(They should then change a bit the UI, because cycling through a list of 30+ options isn't the greatest way to do it, but that's another point.)

Women have beards. pretending they don't is pretty much a western beauty trends thing.

I wish the hair options were available for all characters though it's weird they're locked behind gender when they're all haircuts that IRL everyone has and would just look great on my character.

Lets make a little biology off topic [allert: I will talk from a biological point of view that is anatomy and genetics, I won't consider the concept of gender identity, that is a psicologycal topic]

Women don't have beards.

It's biology not western whatever (furthermore I can not remember Japanese or Chinese or Indian, or Arabic, or African, or Aborigen, or pre Colombian, forms of art, historic documents, that show bearded women, or that describe woman facial hair as an estethic attirbute related to their culture).

Different hair patterns is a secondary sexual trait, like the different tone of voices, the fact that males have more muscular mass, anatomic attributes that are strictly tied to the different distribution of hormones and to the different pair of sexual genes (in females is XX in males is XY).

Beard defines a particular and gender specifci facial hair, in women there is indeed facial hair but not like that in men. Even when in the biological variability of phisical traits a man has scarce facial hair the amount is however more that tha facial hair present in some women.

Indeed when a person transition and start hormonal treatments to align their body with their gender identity in male to female transition the presence of facial hair start to decrease, and same happens to body hair in areas like the chest or abbdomeen (but in some cases still remains so diffuse that shaving is needed) while in female to male transition there is an increase of facial hair and body hair in the already said areas, to a level that it became proper beards even if maybe not as thick as in the average cis-male.

[Also I don't see any Asian, African, Native american, both north, center, and south America, art representation of bearded women, nor the antique artistic reperts, or the historical ones, show a culture where bearded women are described, depicted].

Beard vs not beard, those are social trends and are tightly tied to each culture and society.

[On a side and personal note: I'm Italian, my origins are Colombian, that is I know two different cultures Italian and Spanish derived one. When I read "western" I sneer because indeed there are similarities between Spanish and Italian culture, but they are very different, even in this times of world spread homologation, they have their own individuality, just like all the cultures that people like to unified under the "western" tag have their own peculiarities and indvidualities. To unified very different cultures on a single label is, ironically, very "western" style, and wrong just like is wrong to talk about Asian without caring about the fact that China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Philipines and so on are different nation with different backgrounds, to talk about Native American ignoring the fact that the autoctone populations have their own uniqueness, to talk about Africa like it is uniform, to talk about Islam and Arabics again flying over the vast variety of individual cultures and nationalities.

Specially when it comes to use a label to show a prejudice, like the fact that "pretending they don't is a western beauty trend"]

When we take on account the psychological side and gender identity we can have bearded women (like we can have men that have menstruation) like Conchita Wurst (but again from a biological point of view and from a genetic point of view the beard is related to the XY pair of genes and the menstruation to the XX pair of genes).

Chaucer wrote something about this in The Miller's Tale:

"Abak he stirte, and thoughte it was amys,
For wel he wiste a womman hath no berd.
He felte a thyng al rough and long yherd,
And seyde, "Fy! allas! what have I do?"

Females can certainly have facial hair, though many would prefer not, but I have yet to see any display the "mutton chops" of a proper gentleman.

hypertrichosis. Certainly rare but does occur.

Sometimes even on axes.

And you are incorrect. Older women start growing beards, though few are as full as that. I have seen many, many cis women who don't bother grooming themselves in that way and have full mustaches or wispy beards.

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion...men-have-it-why-are-we-so-deeply-ashamed

1 in 14 end up growing excessive hair and more beyond that grow sparse facial hair. Biology is sloppy.

As a trans woman, I would never want to play as a bearded lady - but I'm sure there are people who would want to. It's optional so just let it be.

Peach fuzz is not the same as a beard. The wispy hair growing on your chin caused by hormonal changes due to age or otherwise is not a beard. Let's not get confused. Biological females can have facial or body hair but unless they have a rare disorder that makes them grow a literal carpet on their chests etc what they have is just normal light hair growth which can't be compared to the thick hair biological men grow.

Recombination of genes can lead to anything right? So maybe women can grow beards but yes, thats the exception rather than the rule. Not sure what the object of this thread is...

It is an old topic with which people have fun dinner conversations. See Dragon Magazine #038, June 1980.

ttps://www.annarchive.com/files/Drmg038.pdf

At least dwarfen woman must have beards!

It's a cosmetic option, including hurts literally no one, if its only for the PC doubly so. Removing arbitrary gender limitations of cosmetics aspects like hair and beards just opens more customisations for PC and has no effect on players who don't want to use them.
Even if you wouldn't use it yourself, does it matter if other people would enough you need to argue against it?

And really, even if the appeals to science, were scientific, this is game where player characters can be magic elves or egg laying gith. Claiming your views as science, doesn't make them any more relevant as even if that were true, the player character could be an egg laying alien gith not a mammal anyway, let alone a human.

I will second the point that it is extremely bizarre that females can have beards and yet hairstyles are gender locked.

Science is pretty irrelevant when we're dealing with a setting in which literally every facet a being's nature, from their sex, species, and even more metaphysical qualities like their moral alignment, can be manipulated or wholly changed with magic.

Lady beards are far from being the most outlandish thing in Forgotten Realms.

They really need some wispier lip and chin hair options for the ladies. Little groomed pencil mustache instead of a great big gunslinger mustache would feel more appropriate.

- This is a fantasy game. Even if human woman could not have beards in the real world, in a fantasy game with all kinds of races and all kinds of magic anything can happen.
- BG had a belt that changes your gender.
- Look at the sorcerer bloodlines. There can be anything among your ancestors. There are so many half something people in this world. Even pure genetic humans may be rare.
- In the Discworld universe is written that female dwarfs have beards too and they also use to wear armors. Dwarfs have to carefully check the gender of their potential partner to make sure to date the right person (not DnD, but funny)
-Do you remember the stoning in Life of Brian?
- I like mustache girl in "A hat in time".

I see no harm in allowing players to have their char look like however they want. More options do not stop you from choosing a normal look.

I don’t care if players can place beards on any of their characters. But I’d rather not see them on female NPCs. Can I make sure NPCs can look a certain way? More options are good right?

i don't think my wife can grow my magnificent moustache

In original AD&D all dwarves had facial hair, including women.

I hear the are no dwarven women. That dwarves just spring from holes in the ground.

A beard would be a terrific enhancement for my Beach Druid animal companion/familiar, a chariot-riding clam, who would then be called "Spartacus Clam-Whisker"

(yeah, I know ... I just couldn't cross the line of decency)

When the full game releases I'll create a bearded darwen female warlock ^^

The way I see it, less code (no if:female = disable beards) stuff so less potential bugs.

The way I see it, more works for graphic artists = more resources wasted.

Really, how many will actually create such characters? 0.1%? Oh well better stop the "hate speech".

The way I see it, it would be more work to remove the beards.

The fundamental art and animation work for the beards has already been done. It's not perfect (I have a character with a long beard that goes inside his chest), so more work is needed on beards. But I doubt that female models have such prominent breasts that it makes any difference compared to male models. So on both the animation work which has been done and which will be done, adding beards to female models is probably no more work. Now, given that the UI for adding a beard to females is already there, it would be more work to remove it.

It might be used by 1% or 0.01% of players, but I doubt the resources-spent-vs-audience-using-it is particularly relevant on this particular issue. (I think it is relevant on other things, like making 8 Origin Characters and very few companions, when few people will play more than 2-4 OC.)

I enjoy playing a noble dwarven woman with a long, well-groomed beard. The thing is, though, the long beards in the game don't interact with the chest very well... they disappear directly through the boobs. I do get a chuckle out of that, but there has to be a decent way to improve the way hair and tentacles overlay with the character body and armor somehow.

I don't care about this general topic, but no, its defnitely more work to add beards to new faces than removing the option completely. You would only need to hide the part of the UI not even deactivating it. As someone who does character models for living, believe me the amount of work per face to add beards is significant - might be aliviated a bit if the engine can morph automatically assets to faces, but that's not a given - and in cases where its not a given its hours of work - each beard for each face needs to be morphed, skinned, exported and setup in the engine - not to mention if bugs/art direction force you to go back and change a beard.

Yes, we shouldn't have character creation options at all, since most just created a generic Tav. And before you say it is a strawman, no, there is no golden middle. 0.1% here, 0.1% there, realize that there will come a time in a particular topic / question when you will be that 0.1% and will be ignored according to your own logic.

You do realize if you abide with all the 0.1% then nothing gets accomplished? There are infinite numbers of the 0.1%. You can’t please everyone.

I prefer no beards but it’s not a big deal for me if it’s included. But yes your argument is a strawman.

They're already there - so if it was extra work before it would still be just more extra work to remove them afterward.



By definition something got accomplished - and the key is getting .1%s in the right area as that can add up to large sums of sales. You want to avoid pleasing the .1% when there is conflict - i.e. when it means 99.9% are deprived of what they want. However, if it's extra options for people then that is the sort of thing that can get sales moving. If you add .1% of 2 million sales (which is what BG2 got), that's 2000 extra sales, which at $65 a pop means $130,000, which is probably much more than it costs to add something like beards on women.

^This + one of the key features of an RPG like this is choice, and even if only 0.1% will make a certain choice the other 99.9% get a contrasting choice to what they made. What is the point of having choice if you only include choices that everyone most likely will make?

Gee weren’t you the one that said art shouldn’t be about making the most money? Funny how things change.

Time. No studio has unlimited time and resources. Decisions have to be made to exclude some things in order to produce a product that appeals to a large audience at a reasonable time.

So yes some 0.1% of the population will be disappointed their pet customization is not included but hopefully the entirety of the game is good enough they will buy the game regardless. This isn’t an all or nothing choice.

Just because capitalism perverts art doesn't mean that I am unaware of where it's interests lie.

Then don’t use it as an argument if you use capitalism as an excuse to support your current position. Just saying, stay consistent.

The discussion was on all the work that was going into creating beards for women - that was a fiscal discussion so I replied in context to the conversation. That's how conversations work. Personally I found it cool that you could add beards for women, but I have no interest in doing so myself - but I have a more favorable view of the game for having the option even if I won't use it.

All artists need resources to enable them to perform their art ... else they would soon starve and would then have to go back to bartending. Whether the patronage comes via capitalism, fascism, communism, or monarchy, the result is the same in that the sponsor's wishes will likely be represented in the works ... but not always! The story of Michaelangelo and the Sistine Chapel ceilng, including the struggles with Pope Julius II, is a great tale.

Now that I think of it, this theme could make an interesting side-quest in BG III, where perhaps a character who was originally thought to be a skilled sculptor was in reality a mage with mastery of a useful spell. Sort of a House of Wax scenario ... creepy and horrible! Ah, if only I could find a patron to support my developing writing skills.

That's assuming that neither new faces will be added nor new beards. While the beard selection is quite broad (it could use a couple more options), the head selection definitely isn't. Again - every new head needs every beard adjusted.

Removing them is telling the UI to use the elf's UI that doesn't have a beard selection. Probably 15-30min of work - less work than adding a single beard to a single face.

But I'm not arguing to remove them. Just setting the expectations correctly when it comes to workload. I absolutely don't care if females can use beards. If Larian has the time for it (or if they are lucky enough to have a fast morphing tool in their engine), why not? I would probably argue to add it for Elves as well before arguing to remove it (although its not cannon, but bearded female's ain't that common either I would say).

I mean I kinda think it's dumb to argue about bearda when we won't get sliders for headmorphs but whatever.

It doesn't work like that with RPG genre, because the point is having choice, the less choice you have the worse the game objectively is, like I already said before, having a choice that you won't take makes the choice that you will take worth more.

And you’re not understanding what I am saying. Choices are fine if there are resources for it. But not everyone is going to get everything. That’s an impossibility, an objective impossibility.

If Larian wants to have bearded females and it’s in the budget then sure. But if it means taking away from what Larian considers more critical? Then no it won’t happen. They will assess if catering to the specific 0.1% is worthwhile.

I’d love to have custom companions with deep stories and voice acting. But I can’t. I mean more choices are good right? I’m sure there’s more than 0.1% of the players who’d want this. It’s not always just about choices. It’s about how many choices can a studio fulfill while having realistic goals.

This happens in every business.

We are talking about a choice that takes very little resources.

That’s according to you. What if there are 100s of choices that require little resources. Only 50 can make the cut. Now what?

Now you make sure that a few of those 50 choices are fringe.

You mean the fringe of the fringe?

I mean something that will make the game stand out and be unique and niche as opposed to the majority of other choices.

Allowing female characters to have beards or providing nonbinary/other categories to mix/match options is kind of the standard in non-tripleA RPGs these days. Battletech and encased being the two off the top of my head. Its not radical or weird, it's just not reactionary, approaching being standard and I full expect come half a decade from now it will be.

You say if it is too resource intensive “it won’t happen” but beard options for women are already in the game. And it isn’t resource intensive at all. It’s a really easy feature to implement, so there is really no reason not to.

Funny thing about software products is that the recurring cost of a feature is ... zero. If we were talking about putting beards on Barbie Dolls, then there would be a unit price impact caused by the extra feature. But in software, once it's done, it's done. I have used the DLTCEP Infinity Engine game editor to create lots of new spells and magic items for the original BG series. It takes me about 20 minutes to do one item or spell, but I have to re-use existing graphics. So if we assume a game developer is making maybe $40 per hour, with an overhead wrap rate around 1.9, then the total cost of creating a new item or spell, assuming no new graphics are needed, would be (40)(1.9)(20/60) = $25. Not too bad, really. But, now say that new graphics are needed as well. Based on the information garnered in this thread, I estimate that a female beard animation that is not using any existing male beard artwork would require approximately 483 hours in total, thus costing (40)(1.9)(483) = $36,708. The next question is whether or not a skilled person is actually available and willing to do the work. If said person was already working on something actually important, such as the Efreeti City of Brass, then I would say the custom female beard should probably wait until patch #14 which is likely to release in 2023.

I'm not going to assume this or that about cost of labour/productions regarding beards. But having beards for female faces aren't just a matter of removing a "if_female = NOBEARD" line of code or simply reusing the same asset with no adaption. They have to spend time fitting the beard to the face models. I don't know if that is easy to do or if they can program an automatic beard shaping program so I'm not saying it's a big deal. But it's not a "no more amount" deal either. I'm not in the know of whether all the models share a basic shape so they doesn't need fitting but just from glancing at the face models they certainly look different enough that they might need not just fitting on a gender or racial basis but actually need it on a face-by-face basis.

Now, the largest amount of work is obviously the creating of the beard model/asset, and that has already been done at that point. It would be easy to argue that at that point, fitting the asset not just to the male models but also to the female might be getting the most out of the buck, so to speak. But it is more work than just fitting them to the male faces.

(This is likely why the hair choices have not all been made choosable by both genders and all races too by the way -- they haven't been fitted for everyone.)

kind of a waste of resources, but hopefully it will make some people happy