Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General BG3 armour appearance

Shame it is perceived as a fight, I don't think it is, but I can take it to private.

@Aishaddai Message me if you wish to continue.

Hey, In nature, there are many examples of animals (amphibians and a few fish) that can change sex when they need to. Personally, I like women but can appreciate a beautiful man. Sexy armour in a computer game?? Yes please

Yeah, I get that some people are made uncomfortable by such discussions. Just like I'm made uncomfortable by images of brain being pulled from a skull. But with both sometimes the best answer is both: just ignore the content

I am sincerely interested in the answer to my previous question. I'm not to going agree -- I find the whole animus / anima masculine / feminine is within everyone and that is true on both a biological and spiritual level 'theory' kinda silly. Leave that for the Golden Compass books, not real life. But I do, authentically, want to understand the worldview.

If both genders get sexy armor how does that lead to subjugation? My guess is that it's a variant on the Slouching Towards Gomorrah theory.

Kind of amazing to see the topic whirl around and around when its quite straightforward about the WHY here.

Crack open probably the majority of older Fantasy art, and the 'issue' becomes obvious.

Why is there a difference between Male/Female armour representation? Because its 'always' been that way.
Why is it that way? Talk to folks like Frazetta.

No value judgments here btw, I cant be bothered to get into that, but it is what it is, and there's no way people dont get the underlying reason after 12 pages.

I really like the design Larian did, they are incredible. And I'm in favor of sexual demorphism.

First, about the ''realism'', don't forget that lighter amor were used in history. Romans soldier had naked legs, and Celtic warrior could be bare chested, or bare legged. Not everyone is in full plate armor. Actually, full plate make you really slow and is quite heavy. Its makes senses to have lighter part in an armor and to protect only place like shoulder, knee, elbows and hands. The more full ''armored'' you are , the slower you are.

And yes, revealing armor are usually sexier, can be more charismatic and have more personality than bland ''full covered armor''. Body shape are dynamics and beautiful by essence, and merging the mecanical parts of the armor with the organic part of the human anatomy can be pretty and aesthetic, IMHO.

Not to mention that, male armor DO follow male chest, which is flatter by nature. Breastplate armor of fantasy woman follow the curve of the chest, but so does male armor, so its not sexist or anything, same concept.

And as Scribe mentioned, this kind of design has been there like forever, because its pleasing, aesthetic, sexy, and to some degree, historically grounded (not talking about the chest metal plate which I have never seen, but revealing and half naked armors are part of history and many cultures).

So yeah, I think we shouldn't be too judgemental of that and just enjoy the visual.

if you want to go about realism, you already mentioned the gesetea.

Lets spin this further.

Note that going to battle naked is more historically accurate than going into battle wearing studded leather
It is more historically accurate than ringmail
Two thing sthat dnd just made up.

Also note that Helmets do nothing in dnd while arguably beeing the most important part of any warriors kit during the early and high medieval pariods

Totally agree. We are such a successful species very much in part because we enjoy looking at each other and if clothes/armour etc enhance that, all the better. Can't really see the point of topics such as this TBH.

Considering that studded leather didn't exist this is not surprising.
But going into battle naked (even when you include normal clothes for this)? No. Even poor peasants had gambeson type armor and most fighting in the time D&D is based on was done by mercenaries who of course had armor.
There were a few berserker type warriors who went into battle naked to show of how fearless they are, but usually they were killed very fast, especially by archers -> suicide. And much of the clothing posted here as "sexy" like tight corsets or flowing robes would even be a hindrance in combat (corset prevents breathing and robes pose the danger of tripping without offering any protection from weapons).

The former. Ideally even adapting a bit by body type, without limiting the effect to a stretched mesh.

"Practical" is overrrated. Any sweet spot between believable and cool looking is fine.
The problem begins when you try to define what people think it's good looking.
Some people seem to think that big menacing horned helms and giant pauldrons make for the "rule of cool" while I wouldn't want my character caught dead into one.
Sexy/stylish outfits are fine by me to an extent and I have no problems with boots with high heels while thong armors and similar pseudo-sadomasochistic foreplay shit pushes the trend into laughable bullshit as far as I'm concerned.

Admittedly, that's just a side talk. Definitely not a topic I care strongly about.

That said, any attempt to play the angle "if the woman's outfit has cleavage the male outfit should as well" is disingenuous bullshit, that blatantly ignores how what makes an idealized, top shaped body or a sexy outfit are not things that are supposed to be perfectly symmetrical between sexes.
Society DOES have different standards for what constitutes ideals of masculinity and femininity for a reason. Because not every trait considered attractive or desirable on a group applies to the other.

EDIT- Wait, how the hell is this 12 pages?

DnD didn't make those up by any means, they were misgivings already present in the sphere of knowledge/science through flawed examinations of depictions of armour in historical documents and conflation/confusion/disflation of terms (and the factoids that stemmed from these) which affected the conclusions the DnD guys drew from their research.

We are talking here about preference(maybe a little about double standards), not about realism. Dragons are not real, still people like talk about shape their wings, colors, etc. If you want discuss more about realistic themes, make a topic about it. ;-)
That would be fun to watch.

>Going to battle nakeD isnt historically accurate

how about you read my post before you go ACKSCHUALLY MUH PEASANT

im talking about the Gesetae, who were not peasants, they were Mainland Celtic warrior elite and later roman mercenaries.
The same can be said about the entire tribe of the Belgae, at least according to Cesar

They didnt just fight unarmored, they foguht butt naked, they believed it gave them the blessing of their gods, who would view them as courages.
Which is not to say that Mainland celts lacked armor equipment, compared to their germanic neighbours, they didnt lack Iron (Noricum was pretty much where rome would get all its iron from later on) or the techniques to forge proper armor (Roman helmets for example were a Gaulish design)

They chose to do so
And it terrified the Romans


TL;DR: READ

Also

>Muh practicability and sexyness
women warriors are unrealistic.
Every time you go to realism ill go to this because i love how it destroys discussions. it amuses me.
Lets face it, women werent warriors. Maybe one or two in the entierty of recorded history.
And unless you want "Horse archer" to be a character class i wouldnt exactly take the scythians as an excuse for anything.
Female warriors are a romanticised fantasy.
Same as fantasy armor.

Get over yoruself, the entire "but muh realism" crowd is delusional.


>Dragons and realism double standard

Gonna actually disagree with you here. Its not about realism but about believeability.
A Dragon is about as realistic in a medieval setting as an apache attack helicopter is.
one of them is more believeable than the other.
the same applies to many other things, armor is one of these.

As such im largley going to forgive ringmail and studded leather to exist, as long as other people allow Loincloth barbarians and barbarian princesses to exist.
But lets make no mistake, not only are those two equally nonsensical, the former dont even look good

Also true of the Picts. It's not clear if the Picts and the Celts were different people but the Romans saw them as different -- celts being scary because they were tall and hairy and picts being scary because of the extensive blue tattoos and habit of launching into battle naked -- both genders.

No, There are report of woman fighting early , such as onna-bugeisha and Tomoe Gozen, a very famous Samourai warleader. Artemisa , queen of Halicarnassus, Joan of arc , Trieu thi trinh, Lozen, Zenobia etc etc . And these are famous because they were commanders, but you can read stories about middle age where woman would fight to defend their house with scythe and fork. Its not that big of a deal, woman did a lot during middle age, including ruling, trading, having a job etc. Its during Renaissance than woman became much more passive in old Europe because of religion . And its not a surprise, as a woman with a sword or a musket is just as deadly as any man, especially if trained / experienced with weapon. This became even more true once rapier was discovered, as its required very little strengh to effectively kill a man.

You should look at historical document on these and search out for warrior woman and life in middle age / before, you ll be surprised at how much woman could / would do. Woman staying at home to take care of children isn't the norm in every culture, if you read Elizabeth Badinter book ''l'amour en plus'', you ll see that in a lot of cultures, children would be raised by slaves, nanny, or even mens, while women worked / had fun / did whatever.

Keep this discussion civil please.

And of course Boudica. While there are reasons for a sexual division of labor in hunter gather societies -- pregnancy, lactation -- these are societies that have flipped the sexual divisions and cultures where the divisions are fairly close to horizontal with men taking care of children while women hunt.

And there is a chicken - egg issue with European history. So much that history is about the imperial rule and the aftermath of empire. Which is why fantasy settings always have a Nethril / Myth Drannor like setting. Why did the Romans invest so much energy and resources into crushing Boudica? was She was an ally, she was tithing . . . and the answer was the Roman were fighting for patriarchy. Boudica and her daughters were a threat to Roman law itself and the notion that property is controlled by the father and that all authority comes from the father.

What we don't know is how many other matriarchies and gender horizontal cultures were eliminated by the various empires.

again, exceptions to the rule.
also the latter was a leader, wether or not she participated from the front, who knows. also "Charioteer" isnt a DnD class.
Joan of arc was basically a glorified figurehead

>Romans were fighting for patriarchy

listen to yourself. You realy think the mightiest empire in europe for most of its history bothered that some barbarians were ruled by a woman?
Romans foguht for conquest. For political and economic advantages.
Do you understand how different barbarian law was to roman law? And how many non female led barbarian tribes were subjugated by the romans? Despite them beeing "allies" before?
Pretty much all the gauls suffered this fate.

Its also not like the Romans fell over themselves to invade scythia to get rid of the *actual* women warriors, rather than boudicca who was a family of women in a male dominated culture (the celtic one)

>Matriarchies were eliminated by various empires
well, i have a different conclusions as to why that is.
History is brutal and only the strong cultures survive.

Listen to me.

I Don't expect this sort of tone only two posts after I left a reminder to remain civil. If you really cannot make a point without resorting to insulting or snarky language, I suggest you refrain from posting.

I don't expect playable characters to be anything other than rare exceptions. Not everyone goes on a journey that we depart on and not everyone can survive it. Even if female warriors are logically rare in set climate, a female PC will be an exception every single time to every single rule, she is the best of the best, the one and only, be it a Bhaal spawn, a spirit eater, the hero of Neverwinter or whatever title we will get in this game.

my argument was never that there shouldnt be female player characters.
my argument was that the prevelance of female fighters in your average fantasy setting, especialy forgotten realms, is a pretty strong argument against "Historicism" in fantasy.