Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Companions and Romantic Dynamics in Relation to M/M Pairings

What I'm hearing is some hope for Halsin and Gale, or perhaps some Wyll in addition somewhere. Curious about the Dark Urge in relation to romance as well, and whether there will be any special interactions. Astarion might be the go-to for that, considering, but I guess I don't know enough about the companions to really rule anyone out. Seems, too, that there's at least some 'rougher' or potentially d/s options with Lae'zel, though do agree on the uh, problematic nature of that relationship, haha.

Also good points by Mercury in regards to different people having different wants/leans even outside of penetrative acts, with some preferring not to engage at all. I suppose there's only so far any of us can expect them to take it insofar as number of options, but more is certainly better than less. I'm curious to see what Larian comes up with. Their DOS2 options weren't bad, even for as limited as they were.

Hey OP, how'd you'd reckoned this thread would go? Anything like it is?

To be clear, as someone whose only interest in M/M scenes is how they relate to the game and to role play, this is something I find a thousand times more interesting than rules-lawyering minutiae. Moderators, if that's out of line, I'll happily edit, but I feel strongly about this. This game has a possibility to advance sex-positive sexuality, and how that happens is so much more interesting than wild speculation based on assumptions.

Hah, in truth I had no idea. The forums seemed really positive so I was hopeful, though, and everyone has been great and respective about what I know can be a charged topic in some areas.


Fwiw, I agree with this entirely. Sex positively is HUGE and something the US doesn't really do well. Honestly we haven't seen it much in games in general, either. Sex positivity, alternative lifestyles... One can argue it isn't a game's place to do it, but particularly for an RPG that's so focused on options and customization, being able to sort of feel more like 'yourself' in whatever form that takes is incredible and so, so important. I know growing up games with male/male pairings simply didn't exist. The fact that we've come as far as we have is super exciting and I'm thrilled to see it. I just know we can go FURTHER and be more respectful and realistic with the way we handle this sort of writing instead of dwelling in stereotypes; for the most part we're still in that sort of problematic/stereotypical area of writing when it comes to LGBTQ+ topics, but we're getting better.

I'm excited to see what Larian does, and I'm genuinely hopeful to see a broad array of dynamics and relationships on display. I might be let down, but hey, hope is something I didn't have for a long time at all in this regard, so I'll take it.

There is room in my life - and on these forums - for discussing both representations of sex in the game and rules-lawyering minutiae. We don't have to choose! Unless we want to of course, and anyone is free to opt out of one or the other.

As to whether that's an okay thing to say, you know already that it makes me itchy when I think people are being insulted, and implying that what's going on elsewhere I guess could be taken as mildly derogatory. But I hope that most people would take it in good part and I feel I've been doing a lot of telling off lately, which I don't enjoy. So as long as it goes no further, I will let it slide this once

I only experienced the audio since the cinematic was "under construction" but I didn't get the impression it was anything more than the PC

You know, people keep saying Lae'zel is a teenager but I don't think that's really accurate. We have no idea how old she is in actual years, or the equivalent in physical maturity, but presumably she is physically mature. She hasn't gone through her rite of passage yet but we don't know what age that happens at. Furthermore that rite is killing a mindflayer. Mindflayers aren't exactly widely available. They're already uncommon, spread across numerous planes of existence and very secretive. There's little reason to think that when the Githyanki of a creche reach a certain age they'll just have a group of mindflayers available to go kill. And sure she's naive, but naivety isn't solely the purview of the very young. I'd wager she's closer to a college student who's gone abroad to a country she's only read stuff about. She's dealing with a culture she's never cared about, sure she's read about Faerun but probably only in terms of what there is to take and kill, and where mindflayers might hide out.

The level of discussion here is certainly higher than I think would be possible on, say, reddit (thanks both to the mod(s) and the lack of a like/dislike system). I'm glad to be able to have such conversations, especially since I make the occasional romance mod and it's helpful to get perspectives other than my own rather mainstream one.

I mean if you WANT it to be more toxic and base, I think I can accommodate…

Not to make any assumptions, and solely to be silly...

No one really knows how The Red Queen identifies themselves. With that name though, they may be more than just an ally

Not even as a joke, please.

I actually don't know much about Lae'zel, beyond the fact she's apparently called 'child' by her people. But that might just be a result of the rite of passage. Honestly I wish we had more information on the companions in general, particularly alignment wise but ages would be useful, too. It's definitely an interesting situation with her; Astarion has sort of a similar thing in that considering he'd more or less been enslaved for so long, there's probably a decent bit of trauma and things to work through. I'm curious what directions we could to sort of... lean into or encourage in the companions, and how different they can actually end up, long term, through player choices.

Yeah, learning companion ages would be nice. I assume Wyll is in his late 20s, Gale is in his 30s. Astarion tells us he was enslaved for 200nyears, and he was a magistrate before that so he was probably around in his late 20s early 30 himself. Shadowheart is the real tough nut though. She's a half elf so she could be decades older than we realise. Even though she looks quite young.

Lae'zel is from a creche meaning she isn't mature yet. As mature gith spend of of their time in the Astral plain and wouldent identify themselves as being from a creche.

True, but maturity for her culture means killing a member of an incredibly secretive other race spread out across the muktiverse. Not an opportunity I imagine appears often.

Also a minor thing, but it's strange we don't get to hear most of the companions talk about their abductions. Was it clear lae'zel was with the githyanki attacking the nautiloid? We don't get to hear where Gale or Wyll were taken from either, and it's fuzzy with Shadowheart.

Lae'zel wonders, why the Githyanki attacked the nautiloid like this and even followed it into hell, so I assumed, she wasn't part of that attack.

That makes it even stranger since it means she was taken from somewhere else, presumably her crèche? She doesn't mention where she was taken from. Shafowheart kind of mentions it as I said, but Karlach is the only one who definitively says where she was taken from and when, and even then the timeline is kinda wonky. It's not as though it's being framed as any kind of secret, it's just... a very strange omission. I can imagine Wyll telling the dramatic story of his capture, for instance. Or Lae'zel mentioning if her crèche was attacked. Really, the timeline of the beginning of the game is just overall wonky and unnecessarily fuzzy.

Maybe she was in the astral planes to proof herself AS a warrior to her queen. I guess, she might tell us later on, If the approval is high enough ( I never manage to get her approval high, I like Lae, but she doesn't like me).

I'm not sure any of this is supposed to be a genuine secret though. If it were then based on Larian's track record we would be able to ask them so that they could tell us it's none of our business.