Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Elvish Facial Hair

I'm sure this will likely meet an entire wall of pushback, but I don't mind. Not having an entire character customization option because of a throwaway line in whatever edition they are up to now's Player Handbook, is dumb. You've enabled cross gender hairstyles. Good. Facial Hair too. Good. You are untangling the differences between lore and limitations, that's a good thing. This is one that should be addressed.

You choosing in your game world to depict every elf as having no facial hair follows along with lore. That's fine and dandy. Restricting Players from an appearance option like this, is nothing more than an annoyance. An impediment to character creation. People that want stereotypical hairless elves could still have them, but give people the blessed option to decide for themselves.

The kind of DM that would restrict my character in this way, for this reason, is the kind that I would have no interest in playing with. It'd be a bad sign of things to come.

Ok ... i get you wanted to do something and you dislike that you cant ...
You dont want to play with Larian ... thats fine aswell ... there is no reason for free will if we dont use it.

But how exactly is following the lore setting a "bad sign"? O_o
Im sory but i must argue that oposite actualy is ... ignoring setting rules is first step towards doom that takes form of beardless 2m high Dwarves. :-/

If it's lore compliant, I think it should stay. Otherwise why not drop all racial characteristics? Want a 3 foot tall elf? Why not! I think there should be more lore/rules compliance, not less.

It's lore compliant and thus should remain the way it is.

Don't like it? Play a half-elf instead and you can grow a magnificient beard (an look more elvish than an actual elf...).

Hmm. normally I would also belong to the crowd that advocates for distinct racial differences, otherwise, why have races at all? But, considering that the game already allows us to create drow with the fairest skin on earth and almost any hair and eye color we could wish for, which definitely goes against lore, I see no reason for why someone shouldn't be able to also give elves a beard, or shave a dwarf. That said, it should, like the extra skin colors, be a drop down option or a box to tick so that players know that it doesn't belong to the lore friendly versions of characteristics.

It is necessary to adhere to the edge of what is permissible in changes.
For example, no matter what color of skin and hair you choose, you will still understand by the elegance of facial features and sharp ears that this is an elf. Dark or light is still a question, but still an elf. Because elves DON'T HAVE beards. Never. And so you create a character who has a beard and IT's still called an elf - why?

People correctly write that if you want to have a beard and pointed ears, please play as a half-elf. Yes, the racial bonuses will be different, but this is the dnd system and in particular BG3.
I'm just a little horrified to imagine how after the start of the game there will be a lot of videos where there will be supposedly a bearded elf created "for fun", for the sake of content, lulz and other things, which is now popular, and all this will be massively distributed on the Internet, as the face of the game....

No, I definitely would not want such advertising of BG3 and dnd system to see in our reality.

Actualy ...
PrivateRaccoon got a good point.

As long as we will be creating pink haired Drows with green eyes and white skin ... and still call it a Drow.
As long as we will be creating beardless Dwarves with white Hair and skin black as night ... and still call them a Hill Dwarf.
People should be allowed to create bearded Elf ... and call it an Elf.

Its exactly the same deviation ... all or nothing! Same rules for everyone.

Pink or other hair, a different skin color - it's all quite possible to imagine as a given of one reality of the dnd world. Especially the hair color! I fully understand that all such magical worlds they are based on a kind of medieval (extremely conditional), only with the presence of magic. But I've never understood why magicians don't use magic to improve people's lives. In the end, everyone wants to be beautiful, bright, attractive, but magic is not in demand in such a setting. As if girls and men will not order a magical improvement for hair coloring?! Yes, in such worlds, heroes can completely change their appearance, but for some reason they do not change the color of their skin or hair to look better... Nonsense. Well, or the lack of imagination about this, due to the fact that the books were written in the old years and then there was no such attitude and diversity... But okay, this is not a conversation about that, so just a little observation.

The main thing I want to say is that borders are important. As I said, I can imagine a situation where in the ordinary dnd world our character or another one will have the wrong feature, that they should be. A different color of eyes, skin, hair than is inherent in this race. I think this is acceptable. Very close to an impermissible assumption, but still possible. BUT! I absolutely can't imagine an elf with a beard. I just don't see the development of such a representative of this race. Why did he grow a beard and most importantly, how. What's next?A tall dwarf? Absurd.

Of course, everything can be implemented, but the question remains - where will be the trait that shows us that THIS is a dwarf, and THIS is an elf, and that is muscular, with fangs and evil - an Orc, etc.

My red line is the color of my eyes, skin, and hair. It's just that in my dnd world, I would certainly force the magicians to change me a little for beauty.
Still, changing a character in this way will affect the perception of the game too globally. I'm talking about a beard and more significant changes (a tall dwarf for example -_-). This is no longer a personal wish, it will be the face of the game. Those are bearded elves who will flash on videos on YouTube and in guides. Excessive assumption.

If you really want a beard - I'm sure on 1000% people will make a mod and everyone will be able to be satisfied with this. I don't see any point in including this in the game itself.

Because of the exact thing that PrivateRaccoon wrote, that swayed you.
Because if the lore of the world includes Wish spells, but the hill to die on is if whether elf mustaches and their riders are a thing that exists, then that's silly.
Because PC's by their nature are not "consistent with the lore", as they are Player Characters making their own lore. They start within the framework of a world, but are split apart by their special nature.

All of that would be a bad sign out of a DM because it showcases an inflexibility and adherence to the point of Dogma for something so inconsequential, that it will sooner or later bite you in another way.

That's the difference. As I wrote initially, lore is them choosing to enforce it for every single NPC that spawns it in their game world, not limiting players from realizing their own creation.

Perhaps my favorite argument that I saw while searching for a topic on this, was that fake beards or mustaches are a thing. I don't mean an in game item.

I mean imagine an elf wizard that's so insecure about having a majestic wizard beard that they get one magically glued to their face.

That character cannot exist in this system along with others like them, and that's a shame, and an artificial limitation for not a very good reason.


Lastly, I bought the EA the day it released. I've already played several characters. I was making a new one, looking at the creator, and noticed the inconsistency and limitation.
My initial reaction in 2020: "Heh, that's amusing.. no beards." Now in 2022: "Wait.. why aren't they just doing that for their NPC's so that players can make characters they want?"

The ones interested in the lore will know*. The ones who want to stick to the lore when creating a character will. For the rest...I say let them have their fun their own way 🙂
But I have to point out, you will most probably see it. Because even though that option is not added officially, I'm sure there's going to be mods for it.

Edit:


+1
Having that option available but clearly indicating to the players that it's atypical would be nice and a fair compromise.
Personally, I would not need that option, but I could see cases where it could make sense. For example, someone picking an druid elf. One could imagine that, being able to turn into furry beasts, that sort of magic could maybe have an impact on their actual appearance (aka body hair). That's also maybe why Halsin is so big for an elf.

Edit:

*That being said, I'm all for giving a lot of liberties to players but (!) it would be nice to indicate in a better way what's typical or not. What is the lore, game? What's the vision? And, I don't think the default models suffice.

Two ways this could be done (both could be applied together):
1) Adding a description of what's common/typical for a given race.
2) Rearranging what are the default options and the ones "hidden" behind a checkbox to be more lore-friendly.

• Some of those "hidden" options are actually somewhat lore-friendly and could be added to the default options.
  
  A few examples :
  - Wood elves : some of the greenish skin tones like "sage".
  - Moon elves(High elves) : some of the lighter blueish skin tones like "azur" and "storm", maybe "ice".
  - All Drows : some of the lighter eye colors (almost white). While famous for their red eyes, Drows "commonly have very pale eyes (so pale as to be mistaken for white) in shades of lilac, silver, pink, red, and blue" (PHB). Those options more or less exists (not all) but are not in the default suggested options.
  - ...
• Some of the default options are not so lore-friendly...unless we accept those as Larian Studios's own homebrew (again, a description would be nice then) :
  
  A few examples :
  - While High elves can have a pretty wide range of eye colors (between the Sun elves and Moon elves alone), Wood elves are supposed to have brown or green eyes (again only talking about default/typical options, the others would still be available but after ticking a checkbox).
  - About Drows, the lighter gray-ish skin tones are actually canon (since the 5th edition, especially with MotM and TGtE)...but...the "human" skin tones being available as a default option? I don't know. If it stays...oh well. I'm sure a case could be made for it, but it seems weird to me. I would put those behind the "All Skin Colours" box.
  - ...

I wanted to reply to that, that'd be perfect. I don't think anyone would feel that would be unreasonable to have it be a tickbox or something to enable showing it as non standard.

Your druid elf is a great example to go along with my insecure wizard.
Another would be an elf that had their bloodline cursed by another elf that really hated their ancestor to be as hairy as those "ape people". Now other elves doubt their elvish-ness. How is THAT not lore friendly?

There are hundreds of good ideas that can't be realized as is, which is the reason I made the thread. Players should have as much agency as possible, double especially during character creation.

I agree that this is possible in the story of the world
But this is a storyline for a companion or another NPC. The story is for the character that the world reacts to (In the sense that it is possible to prescribe a full-fledged plot, with pre-scripted answers and dialogues. Otherwise, such a thing is impossible for the player due to the great difficulty). In this case, I doubt that the presence of an elf's beard would somehow surprise someone. Well, maybe 1-2 times... Although in fact, this should be surprising EVERY time, in every dialogue.
Something like:
"Hey, who are you and where are you coming from?"
"Alatiel, elf of the valleys"
"What kind of elf are you, you have a beard, it doesn't happen like that! You're lying."
Well, etc. But for many reasons, this will not happen. Maximum - a couple of phrases will sound in the general chat when we run past. "Wow, bearded elf, I haven't seen this before.".. It will get boring after a dozen repetitions.

In any case, I still don't see any reason to make this a basic feature of the game. Why not add naked tits then? It's not by Lore? Ok, we can add a plot about the curse of nudity or something like that, right? Why not? No, it's better not to open Pandora's box. There are mods - if you want, use them.

None of those who unsubscribed earlier apparently does not take into account that the year is 2022. There is YouTube, there are hundreds, if not thousands of sites. You say there will be an "*" or another type of notification? A banner on the half screen? How it will affect... Pfft. Who cares? I'm telling you - as soon as the game starts, there will be hundreds and thousands of videos where there will be JUST such a character - a bearded elf. Guides and walkthroughs will be filmed with such characters. And this will certainly affect many players who don't like this. For example, it will definitely affect me. I like to watch guides on the game, how to build a character class, how to complete a particular quest in the game, compare with how I did it... And I know for sure that such an assumption will destroy Lore Baldur Gates 3 for me. This is a fact. Describing a similar situation, I want to point out that a PARTICULAR case of a certain player's desire will negatively affect the OVERALL feeling of the game. In this case, this is due to the possibility of changing the color of the eyes, skin and hair, which has previously reached the point where a reasonable assumption turns into an unreasonable, destructive one. Red line for BG 3.

This is the murder of the lore of the world, at its core, because an elf has a beard - this means he had a human in the genealogy, and if so, then it is a half-elf. There is no other way. What is normal, as a special case of an NPC, is wrong for our alter ego in the world, whose story will be built in the course of the narrative.

You don't want to see stream captures of a bearded elf, because you won't like it, and you feel like the lore cannot hold such a sight, despite no less than 3 examples in this thread it would make logical (and hilarious) sense.

That is a lot of "You"'s in that. I'm debating for the addition of choice and player agency, not the murder of lore. They still design and include every NPC in the world.

However, I will point out that you very neatly undo your own argument.
If there WILL be mods for this, and people WILL stream them, you WILL see them and have your lore murdered whether Larian allows us to easily do so, or not.
The only difference in your scenario is whether or not Larian is nice enough to enable it easily for the people that want it. And so you're saying what, No, don't be nice to us?

Weird stance to take.

Are you talking about me saying this :


Lol, this was an invitation to keep reading the "footnote" :
Granted, it's a long footnote, so maybe that wasn't clear. Sorry 😅



Says who? I don't see why that needs to be the case. No, it's not necessary to have NPCs/Companions react to it. So no additional dev needed.
If it's a question of immersion, you don't have to pick those options anyway.

How to compare apples and oranges. Also, I did see people ask for it 😅.


Man...you are being very dramatic about all this. I understand feeling passionate about thing but it's not a big deal.
D&D does have a lot of lore, but also a lot of homebrewing. A lot. Homebrew can affect spells, combat mechanics…and sometimes things as trivial as physical appearance. It's a world of magic and a game that invites imagination.

And I doubt it will be as "disastrous" as you make it sounds to be. In fact, I can already say this since there's plenty of guides and videos where to characters are not that eccentric in terms of appearances. And those were not necessarily made by people that knows the Dnd lore.

Is ok to not support OP's suggestion of course. It just...this reaction seems excessive.
For god's sake, we're only talking about the facial hair about fictional characters 😩 (hence why I will retire from this thread after this…)

It's the lore. Yes. But about "There is no other way", Sarien and I have offered good examples of why that not necessarily the only reason.

+1

Exactly.

No.

If these are mods, I will know this and will not take it seriously. No refutation, everything is logical. And I also won't watch those mods that I personally don't want in my adventure. It's a completely different matter if the developers themselves introduce such an option and it becomes publicly available - I simply will have no choice how to watch this from each screen. As an example, I will cite the situation with Skyrim - I watched the passage of those authors who played without mods. I knew 100% that I would not see an anime-girl in an armored bra.

Now, Larians are writing the history of BG 3 - they are its demiurges. As it will be written, so it will remain. I want them to understand this and be reasonable.

A lot of "I"?
That's right, I don't deny it. But don't you have something like that? Now we are arguing as my "I" against your "I" - absolutely right. Everything I wrote earlier, I wrote in relation to those people who will probably collect feedback and wishes of players for their game. All the examples were only in the expression of one's own position. Just by your very messages and filing, I understand that you have your own position and you do not intend to change it. I don't blame this, but I just don't agree with it. Then everything remains only for the developer's judgment.

This is my position. I agree that it would be nice to see a similar quest for an NPC (an Elf with a beard is even fun ^_^), and absolutely against our character having the opportunity to choose a beard for himself, being an Elf.

MelivySilverRoot, I've seen the footnote, but what does it change? You do not understand the basis of my statements and probably will not understand. It happens.

If my position is unclear to you, I will explain that I have NEVER played a dnd board game and have played very few games based on the dnd system.
There were simply no people around with whom you could play board games and understand the mechanics, and the PC games also seemed complicated and boring. It is only thanks to Larian that I am gradually being drawn into this world, this mechanics, and I want everything to be, if not perfect, then good.

Mostly about fantasy and its lore, I learned a lot from books and there such things are intertwined organically and intelligently. If there is a deviation, then there is a backstory. This is probably why such assumptions made by the OP cause me strong rejection.

It is a weird stance to take, though. It's splitting hairs to the point of dwarvishness.
You avoid streams with mods so you don't see something you don't want to include, but would be unable to avoid a stream where a player chose that option from within the game?
Why?

I'm not saying you can't have your position as well, I also don't agree with yours. They are not equally opposing viewpoints, however.

If they include the option, you may see someone else playing in a way you don't want to play yourself, somewhere else.

If they don't include the option, people won't be able to play the actual game in a way they want so that you don't see it, somewhere else. Until you do anyway, from mods.

Oh you really dont want to went this path ...

Bcs once you do, everything and i mean EVERYTHING is possible ...
It wouldnt be just a tall Dwarf, it would be a GIANT Dwarf aswell!
Or an Orc who will not reach even your knees.
Elves who will have so much facial hair, they basicaly become Wookie.
Or werewolves that are unable to grow fur!
(have you seen such thing? can you imagine? its far beyond scary, thats bloody terrifying!)

Just thrust me, leave magic out of this and nobody gets hurt.

Agreed ...
But as PrivateRaccoon pointed out, all we need to is hide it under "extraordinary" parts of character creation.
That way its perfectly wisible that you are creating anomaly, if you dont care ... proceed ... if you do, then probably dont.

Well thats just matter of personal prefferences tho isnt it?

Just a question ... can you imagine an Elf with body hair? Like chest, legs, arms, armpits etc.
Bcs feel free to corect me but as far as i know, Elves in DnD dont have either of those.

And yet, thanks to Chubblot we know that Halsin do.
(Yes i know it may be still just work in progress and this may not be his final body ... but NOW he do. :P )

Who knows how exactly genetic works ... especialy in the world where different species can crossbreed?
Maybe he is distantly relative to Dwarf, or Human, or i dunno ... maybe his grant, grant, grant, grand father spend too much wildshaped into a bear.

I mean ...
If you breed Human and Elf ... you get Half-Elf ... so far this is easy.
If Half-Elf breeds with an Elf ... what do you get?
And if that kid will then breed with an Elf ... what do you get?
And if that kid will then breed with an Elf ... what do you get?
And if that kid will then breed with an Elf ... what do you get?
I believe you get the idea.

Were you ever interested in our (as humans ... as real humans) genetic herritage, its quite fascinating stuff!
Today in our world there is litteraly no "pureblood" person, we all come from all the globe, at least partialy.

Well thats the point, isnt it?

How do you recognize if you are talking with Elf or a Drow? If they both can have curly brown hair, green eyes and sun tanned white skin?
Thats right, you dont!

And thats why we have rules ...
BUT! (And this is a big butt )
There are ways to bypass them, and that is totally fine for people who just dont care.

You said it yourself ... people WILL mod this almost certainly ... so yes, bearded elves WILL flash on videos and guides, no matter what. :P

And that is totally fine.

Usually those who play without mods make guides also without mods. Well, or it's a video where the author advises certain mods.

In fact, I don't really see the point in discussing this thesis, about videos on YouTube, because it was just an accompanying example, and not the whole essence of the negative. I just don't really want to see the option itself, proposed by you, as the basis of what the developers approve and consider it normal to include in BG 3. That's all. It will already be uncomfortable for me if I keep in mind that an elf's beard is normal.

P.S.But, I'll accept this if enabling this option (wearing a beard for an elf, since we stopped at it) adds a UNIQUE quest that will explain a similar situation. If such a thing is introduced, then such a situation will already have a prehistory, in a world in which much is possible.

Obviously, this is the case. The fact that the same personal opinion as the author of the topic. It just seems to me that the author of the topic considers his desire based on a personal whim more important than someone's unwillingness to make such a thing come true. It seemed so to me. I don't think this is the right approach in the dialogue.


As well as much, much more (the same nude mod will be for sure). In any case, I don't think such an argument is important, in the sense: That since there will be then let's do Larian yourself. Mods are notable for the fact that you either use them on or not. You either watch video reviews with the game on mods - or you don't. As I said, but for some reason you ignored my words:
If I see a video with mods, it will be fine, because it will be what the players themselves have done. Players come up with all sorts of things (some mods are very good), but what Larian will do in BG 3 will become the history of the game and its canons.

Do you understand the difference in the relationship here, or do I need to explain it in more detail?