On LGBTQ+:
So what you are saying is that if I want my Tav to be a gay Wizard, I should be locked out of experiencing romances with my Party NPCs, because based on IN OUR own world with OUR OWN Western conservative views on sex, statistically the percentage of characters who would engage in a homosexual relationship is too low?
That would be extreme silly in multiple ways, because:
1. On Earth there have been and still are many cultures who don't have the same restrictive views on sex and relationships as conservative Westerners do. The Ancient Greeks would find some modern views on homosexuality weird. So why impose some arbitrary conservative Western values on the game?
2. Faerűn is clearly different from our own (Western) world, and while I'm not familiar in detail with its history, I have no trouble believing that sex and relationships are more open. Is there a history / rule book that states that the Sword Coast has so-and-so high of a percentage of LGBTQ+ people living in it?
3. It would discriminate against certain playstyles. Everyone paid the same price for the game and it would find it strange if in a game where I create my own character and roleplay, I would be punished for roleplaying a certain way. Kind of like when in BG2, straight male characters could romance 3 ladies, but straight ladies could only romance Anomen, and homosexual characters could romance nobody.
On gender:
1. Does D&D really link classes with gender roles? So are there more male barbarians, because men are generally "dumb brutes" and more female wizards, because they are generally "smart weaklings"? I find that hard to believe.
2. Also the attribues in D&D don't distinguish between gender. AFAIK, a value of 10/11 strength is what an average Human (not an average MAN!) has. So you can have weaker men and women with a strenth value of 8 or stronger men and women with a strength value of 15. And then I'm sure that lore-wise two people with the same strenth attribue are not exactly the same in terms of strength. So if you have two male fighters with 15 strength, one can still be stronger than the other. So no reason for saying women should have on average a lower strength attribiute than men.
3. And the in BG3, you said the two martial classes in the party are represented by women. But those women aren't even human, and I'm not an expert of Githyanki or Tiefling physiology to say if the gender differences in Humans are the same for those two races. But I do know that the Githyanki are a militaristic culture and clearly train both men and women in combat. Lae'Zel is an absolutely believable fighter.
On ethnic diversity: I don't know why it's silly to have different phenotypes of Humans in the game. "Humans" in D&D represent all of us and not what anyone thinks is the default. I don't know, if there is such a thing (strictly) speaking as a black Elf in D&D, but even if there weren't, the fact that Larian included them should NOT be a reason for anyone to not enjoy the game.
I find it funny that some people argue that if a game has representation of women, LGBTQ+ and a variety of skin colors, it has something to do with a "liberal" ideology. That's a very narrow-minded view. In fact, I would argue the contrary: many games in the past have (not consciously, but still) pushed a certain ideology, where the people mentioned above, were not represented. And if a game nowadays goes out of its way to NOT represent them, I would feel that THAT'S trying to push an ideology.
Last edited by SiriusVI; 25/08/23 09:47 AM.
