One thing they might try, which I haven't seen done yet in a popular game, would be to present a character creator with 3 choices at the initial prompt. Typically there are only 2 in every RPG I can think of, and the gender choice determines which cosmetic features for the avatar are then presented. But it could easily be 3. This wouldn't be particularly difficult from a design standpoint, though it would perhaps open up Larian to a certain amount of predictable blowback. It also means they couldn't use the easy out of 'well, we're just doing this how other games have done it.' Instead of parsing it out overmuch, selecting the third option would just provide the cosmetic features of both without blanking half of them out.
D&D did away with gender as anything other than cosmetic pretty early on, and BG1 even stated as much in the first prompt of the character creation menu to remind everyone that the choice would make zero difference to the gameplay. Disentangling the voice selection has also already been done. Same deal with beards and makeup and other stuff that might get boxed one way or the other. With a third option in the character creation menu, the pronoun thing would be pretty easy to accommodate, just one more field before the character naming part.
No reason I can see why they shouldn't be able to do this, though I think it would be simplest to implement from an initial prompt, just from an organizational standpoint.
Right now the character creation menu still feels haphazardly organized to me. I prefer a step by step build with a vertical/sequential layout like the prior BG games, rather than horizontal tabs of BG3 where you can jump back and forth. I also don't like how the current character creator starts throwing default models at us before we've made any decisions. So the first person I see is always the same High Elf with the same head. If doing that, at least randomize it. Though I'd rather it just be blank until the player starts their input
Last edited by Black_Elk; 15/02/21 04:22 AM.
