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.
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:
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.
I do, not everyone likes to use mods. But I see your point. I think a better alternative would be to make it clearer, in game, what the lore is (what's typical).
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.
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:
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.
Hahaha. I love this. And I think it's part of what Dnd is supposed to be. A game where players can get creative, have fun, with some guidelines (but not stone walls) found in the lore.
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.
- ...
