Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Playing as Monster Races

Yeah general consensus for all the cities seems to be "people are probably going to be racist but as long as the 'monstrous' race acts like they belong nobody seems to think they don't. Especially if they dress the part." And even in rural areas I'd imagine people will react differently to seeing a well dressed goblin traveling with elves or humans than they will a troupe of goblins in scrap-armor.

Even Candle Keep has an ogre living in it with a Headband of Intellect as one of their scholars.

So your complaint about nonhumans is that they're boring because they're often badly written.

I have a suggestion... What if... What if we had nonhumans who are well written?

Again, I feel like humans encourage lazy storytelling. There's the cliche that humans can do basically anything while other specieis are limited to "their thing", and I think that ditching humans would force you to put more effort into developing the members of other species a bit more.

I would not call it a complaint, just a general opinion and experience I have had with humans vs exotic races. If people want to play exotic races, I am not going to complain about it or try and ruin their fun, but I do have an opinion about it.

I do think the opposite, exotic races encourage lazy storytelling. I have seen this happen, where the exotic race itself is the gimmick and crutch for the writing. When it comes to the lore in FR, the other non-human races ARE very well developed. Just the writing and development of the actual characters that are part of this race is lacking. (And often ignored, because the special race is the gimmick used by many already so they do not feel a need to develop further)

"Exotic" races usually appeal to shallow people and people with an overblown need for attention. Which is also why they tens to be popular with teenagers and other immature people.

So what, i like them anyway. :P

Quit the offensive generalisations, please.

Or they are representations of different facets of ideology and the human condition, and some folks like to explore those ideas.

Humans already do that.

...therefore people shouldn't want to play as other races?

If you want to play a human go for it. They're already in the game. Congratulations! Now I'm gonna go play my drow and my gith and tiefling, and hopefully one day a hobgoblin, or yuan-ti, or firbolg.

I get attracted to exotic races for similar reasons. Many exotic races live in communities and have ideals that are quite different from the "normal" human, and this can be interesting when you want to try and play a character like that in a campaign, your character may have a very different outlook in a certain situation than the rest of their party members.

Look at the Githyanki or the Yuan-ti, their familial practices are very different from humans, and they have very different attitudes towards relationships and intimacy, distinctly non-human attitudes. This could come up in a game and create an interesting juxtaposition in your party. The issue of fantasy prejudice against traditionally "evil" races is also a thing that groups may or may not get into (depends on the group and the campaign).

This may not be a thing for some exotic races, but it is for some of them. I personally love the planetouched races, even though most people consider them to be just humans with extra bits. My longest running characters in actual table games have been an Aasimar and an Air Genasi, and I have had great fun playing them, and unless your the type of person that leads every damn conversation with "I am Xcharacternamex and I am EXOTIC! Look at how UNUSUAL and STRANGE I am!" their otherness really doesn't come up as often as people think it might (although this may change by campaign).

The thing is that the more races they added, the more diluted and more work they have to put into the dialogue options, time is a limited resource, and it's at the point whether they want to focus on the gameplay aspect, expanding more story, or adding races. No, they can't do all of them. It is just not possible as time and development cost will add up, and the opportunity cost will be taken from another aspect. There are a lot of interesting races, and yes, they will be adding more in the final game. With monster races, it would especially more difficult to add without completely different reactions. If they do it just for cosmetic purpose and NPCs just react to them the same way then there is really no point. The monster race would just be skin instead of bearing any significance. I would rather for them to focus on the races they have and do it well. While people appreciate the freedom and customization in Western games, most players play the game very generically, Larian already said that most people play as a boring humans and a major majority sided with the good faction. It's not just in this game, but many other games from what I have read. With that being said, I do like variety in these games, so even only a minority of people use these options to play as other races or being evil, it's still nice for replay value and freedom. With that being said, they should focus on providing a complete experience for the game and building up the contents for the existence races and the additional races they plan to add instead of trying to add as much things as possible while neglecting other aspects. Monster races like goblin would be one of the things that may be best to leave out at least for the launch version.

The argument we would be making is that the benefit of more race/species diversity outweighs the development cost. You can disagree with the value of adding diversity, but simply saying "but it doesn't come free" is redundant. Everyone knows that.

Personally, I think that orcs (or half-orcs) are core to D&D and provides substantial value to the game. We can also argue about the value added by other races/species.

I think the value added by "half" races in particular is minimal. If you like both elves and humans, then just pick one. Instead of spending time developing half-elves, we could have something more unique instead.

If you're satisfied with the current set of races and feel that they should focus development on other features, then fine. Make your case. Some of these arguments are just lazy "status quo good".

Substantial value is subjective when mostly everyone plays as a boring human. I would prefer for them to give a complete experience for 1 playthrough THEN adding customization for the few who use them for replay value. It's more about priority. Things with half races are that they don't require different reactions or as much resources, but I don't care whether they are there or not, so not really care to argue for that.

Exactly this!

Jeremy Crawford gave an interesting interview on their thought process that went into Tashas Cauldron of Everything, and why they wanted to make the rules for various races a lot more flexible and accessible for players. I'll look around for it later and post it if I find it.

And ultimately everyone wants something different out of these kinds of games. Sword and board, lots of Puzzles, high fantasy RP, etc.





I think this is a totally fair and well reasoned point, but I think Ayvahs response hits it on the nose as for why I pop into forums in support of various monster races. If enough people are asking for specific races, it becomes worth the time and effort it takes to add them. Ultimately we know that at this point in the game development they are planning on adding more races, we just don't know which ones. So now, as they are doing the work, it would be the time to let Larian know which ones we'd like to see.

Regardless of which ones they are adding I'd be very interested in seeing if they have any stats on how many people are asking for which races.

Do they? Just a page back we had someone saying it would be quick to implement goblins "because they already have models".


Therefore humans are the most interesting. I mean, seriously, if you want to explore the human condition, humans are the way to go.

Err, variety in a fantasy setting is good and often times exotic races are a chance to explore perspectives that lie outside of the normal human perspective, or just to have something cool that people can enjoy. There are already magic and monsters, and the source material supports monster races as player characters. So while it may take resources to implement, and maybe some manipulation of how the game treats certain things, like adding more meta tags so they don't need record new dialogue for everything, I think it would be well worth it to add more player races, or even just companions.

Goblins would be quicker than implementing say Orcs or Triton because they already have models and facial options, but there would be a need for new dialogue or responses. Though I do think the easiest way to implement everything is to add Meta tags like Goblinoid or Dragonoid so it sorts the response and only certain dialogues needing to consult your specific race. Like a Dragonborn, Lizardman, and Kobold would all have the Dragonoid/Reptilian meta tag. Goblin, Hobgoblin, Bugbears, (maybe Firbolgs?) would have the Goblinoid Meta tag. Yuant-Ti, Tabaxi, Tortles, Shifters, Aarakokra, and Kenku could all have the Beastial tag. Tieflings, Aasimar, and Genasi could all have the planetouched tag.

Though this would not sort out every race it would give players way more options.

Also different people find different things interesting. I personally find non human characters to be a well spring of interesting concepts in DnD and other franchises. While you seem to be of the opinion that Humans are the most interesting. I want the game to hopefully have enough options for players that most everyone can have what interests them character choice wise (within the confines of faerun/5e) without having to resort to mods.

If you are able to say this, then you have no idea why the sci-fi and fantasy genres exist.

They exist precisely because your statement is false. I mean, why does the character Spock exist?

This is entirely your subjective opinion and it suggests you don't actually understand what I've said about story telling and character representations.

The 'interestingness' of a character lies totally and completely in the depth of Character (The writing/motivation/etc). Human can be just as interesting as a Goblin can be just as interesting as a Dwarf, if the story is interesting. Every single story that exists is a human story in the sense that stories are about brothers, about adversity, about love, about loss. If you are only interested in playing a human fine but I'd suggest playing any plethora of games out there that only have humans, like Mirrors Edge or something and avoid the Fantasy genre since the various races are an aspect that a lot of people find fun and interesting.

(Edit: Dwarves tend to represent the industriousness of humans, Elves tend to represent the loftier ideals and goals of humanity, Hobgoblins represent a militaristic view of the world, etc)




And it is entirely accurate to say it would be easier to add a type of character to the game if the models already exist as a portion of the work has already been done as opposed to a character that would need to be made from the ground up.

I am human in real life (although I feel like an alien much of the time. ) Playing human in a fantasy game is boring to me because of this. I will play most any race that isn't human and doesn't look like an animal (unless shapeshifting) but I think that having as many options as possible is a good thing to make everyone happy. There would have to be more dialogue options added and of course character models, but it may not be necessary to have different dialogues for everything, maybe just some generic options for all monster races.

Well, I'm definitely NOT a teen, really don't give a damn about attention and have never been accused of being shallow.

I can play a zillion good/neutral/evil versions of humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, half orcs and even drow at this point. On the other hand, playing a goblinoid that wanted to be neutral/good in civilized society while facing the usual biases and discrimination, would be a fun change of pace, especially if properly done. Similarly, we don't usually get to play an Aasemar that has perhaps fallen - a traditionally angelic looking character that acts in an untraditionally evil manner. Or maybe a half giant, trying to figure out how to be an 8 foot tall somewhat clumsy oaf, in a city built for human sized people. Do I expect Larian to be able to devote resources to a large number of such variations? No. But resources for say a goblin have already been developed for the game - creating a one off "goodish" goblin character would not be as difficult - just as a one off "evil" shadow druid character might be equally possible with already developed resources.

It's all in the quests, options for character growth in multiple directions, and motivations both "good" and "evil" .

Pikel Bouldershoulders was always one of my favorite characters - a dwarven druid was simply so unusual - a class generally thought out of character for a dwarf. Unusual mixes - pass some over to me.