Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General The fantasy/fantasy ambiguity fallacy

It is his opinion and he did not attack an individual like you did.[/quote]

fylimar did not attack him, they just stated, that what he SAID is "mysogenic, sexist and racist". That's also an opinion, and one that is hard to argue against if I'm being honest

Borys of Ebe said that there was too much representation of certain groups of people in the game and that the game would be better / more believable with less representation. Arguably that is a very strong and hurtful attack against all the people who are part of the group he thinks are deviant from what he thinks is the norm.

Thank you, I was about something similar.

Unless you cast sphere of victimhood and protection from resistance to questionable opinions.

I'd just like to point out that the different areas of Faerun are broadly inspired by different fantasy, mythological, or near-historical settings, as Star pointed out, Amn is middle eastern, as is Calimshan. The world of Toril is bigger than the Sword Coast, we have people of all different types, and it still has plenty of slavery, racism, and sexism in it. But a large number of adventures have been set specifically in the Sword Coast, where these prejudices exist in minority or not at all.

And comparing different settings regarding their handling and attitude towards social issues is kind of a pointless exercise; yes a dark fantasy setting is probably going to have darker themes in it than a high fantasy or epic fantasy setting. If you prefer a grimdark adventure where your characters constantly struggle for survival in a harsh and prejudiced world, then that's fine, but this game isn't trying to be like that.

I don't believe that is what OP is looking for. I believe he is fine with a light-hearted high fantasy setting. He just believes it would be better with fewer gay and black people in it. And fewer women swinging swords. That's what I took away from his comments anyway.

It is his opinion and he did not attack an individual like you did.[/quote]

fylimar did not attack him, they just stated, that what he SAID is "mysogenic, sexist and racist". That's also an opinion, and one that is hard to argue against if I'm being honest

Borys of Ebe said that there was too much representation of certain groups of people in the game and that the game would be better / more believable with less representation. Arguably that is a very strong and hurtful attack against all the people who are part of the group he thinks are deviant from what he thinks is the norm.[/quote]

Thanks, as a member of two of the three groups, OP attacked (being a woman and LGBTQ+) that post did hurt me. I didn't attack OP personally, I just attacked his opinion.


I don't get why people think to gatekeep different genres etc. If OP wants to fulfill his straight white male power fantasy (I'm assuming here of course based on what he wrote, if I'm wrong, sorry), he can make a warrior or barbar and just not use Lae'zel and Karlach and romance Shadowheart or Minthara. To basically say, that warrior women, other ethnicities and gay people shouldn't be in the game , because 'Tolkien', is de facto gatekeeping.
Everyone can play the game, as they like, there is no need to demand to take away from people, who like different things in this game, based on the fact, that 'back in the day' AD&D and whatsnot was not that divers.

OP is appealing to logic, but I find many if not all of the arguments to be logically flawed.

For starters, it’s important to recognize the difference between decisions made for gameplay reasons from those made for lore and world building reasons.

Your companions aren’t really all bisexual, they are playersexual. That’s a simple gameplay decision Larian made so that anyone can do the romance thing with any character they like, regardless of their character’s gender. There are valid arguments for and against this approach, but it’s not uncommon, it’s just about giving players options. Outside of your party I can only think of a couple of obvious gay relationships, and one of them is more notable for being between a mortal and an immortal.

Racial ability modifiers were probably also removed to simplify character creation. I don’t know how much difference it would really make when you can just add and remove points anyway? I guess you could make an elf with a starting dex of 18 or something?

The female warrior complaint doesn’t really work either IMO. The real world reason that women tend to not be as strong is because human evolution means it’s the women who have to deal with pregnancy and childbirth. That’s not the case with Githyanki, so there’s actually no “logical” reason that Lae’zel shouldn’t be every bit as strong as male counterparts. And Karlach has been experimented on to turn her into a literal war machine. These are both cases where the fantasy element is just more significant than arguments you can carry over from the real world.

As for racial diversity, again in this fantasy world, we have humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, orcs, goblins, etc. which are all far more significant differences than the colour of someone’s skin. In this fantasy world, prejudices and rivalries between the different (fantasy) races probably would far outweigh what we consider racial differences in the real world. That would likely mean that they’ve been traveling and mixing freely throughout their history and no one would bat an eyelid if the grand duke of a city happened to be a black man for example.

TLDR:

Being a fantasy world and being a game really does explain these things.

Agreed!

Just as a small aside on the women strength thing: It's true that ON AVERAGE men CAN be physically stronger than women. However that's just a potential. A woman who works out regularly and does martial arts will kick my untrained male ass easily. If I work out every day, then sure, I have the potential to BECOME stronger than women who train similarly.

And in the logic of BG3: Our Party Members are not just any men or women. They are highly trained specialists. In the class fantasy of D&D, a fighter even at level 1 is already an expert in combat with a variety of weapons. That makes them different from random NPCs in the world. So yes, logically, Lae'Zel and Karlach (even if they were Humans and not fantasy races) are probably much stronger physically than most men that aren't fighters or Barbarians.

People would be more inclined to engage in the fantasy-fantasy ambiguity discussion if we could find examples that didn’t specifically disregard LGBTQ+, women, and people of diverse races, ethnicities, or origins.

For example, I find the teleportation portals confusing for worldbuilding. What’s the point of beasts of burden, winged creatures, or carts if you can teleport half your journey? Sure, there are dragons and spells, but doesn’t teleportation break the world economy?

Yes, and I have similar feelings towards spells that revive people. For most people, death should be entirely meaningless. You can just buy a scroll or go to a temple to be revived. So when I see a cutscene of someone mourning a dead loved-one, I'm always asking myself... well, why not just go to a clerik?

There is this one guy in Waukeen's Rest in BG3 whose wife died in the fire. He is devastated, but he never once thinks to himself, "well I need to save some coin to revive her." It's kind of rude for him not to try, to be honest.

But for some reason, MY cleriks also can't revive dead NPCs. My PC can speak with her corpse, but why can't I revive her?

These things hurt the internal logic of the setting much more than: "OMG women cant's have 18 STR!!!"

In theory resurrection magic, while definitely being a thing in D&D settings, is supposed to be incredibly rare and not readily available from any backwater priest or temple. Even if you are lucky enough to find a priest who can resurrect in theory, it's far from certain that a resurrection will actually work (in earlier editions, for example, the deity could decide not to grant the spell or grant it only under certain conditions or a soul might simply refuse to be brought back).

Also, people tend to forget that most priests are either not clerics or even if they are, they'll most likely be pretty low level.

I'd love if players wouldn't get access to resurrection spells (or scrolls) outside of very specific situations.

I only know D&D from Baldur's Gate 1, 2 and 3. In BG 2 I can go into almost any temple and they can revive my dead party member pretty easily and it's not expensive. And I've always had at least one cleric in my party who could revive dead party members.

So from my experience playing games, it always felt like dying in the forgotten realms wasn't a big deal.

On a further note: even if someone dies for real, they just end up in another plane of existence, such as one of the nine hells, right? And theoretically one can escape such a place, too.

If I had to put up with romancing Shadowheart, you can put up with romancing Gale.

Fair is fair.

Shadowheart is really sweet. Planned on romancing her. But then, unexpectedly, Lae'Zel stole my heart ... well first she stole my body, but you get the idea.

Gale seems to be a fun romance, too. No reason why even a straight male can't experiment in the safe environment of a video game =).

Video game mechanics aren't really representative of the actual settings.

Dying in Faerûn is actually a pretty big deal ... this article covers all questions: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Afterlife

Another relevant thing to know is that in older editions the cleric theoretically needed the deity's approval to cast higher level spells (generally level 4+ spells). So denying a cleric a spell if they strayed too far from their faith or only granting it on certain conditions, such as in exchange for a service, was a nice option for the DM to keep clerics in line.

Yes, this seems like a much better way to deal with death. Personally, I refrain from using revive spells in all of these games. If a character dies in my playthroughs, I either reload or I accept that they're dead. Essentially, I headcanon that it's impossible to revive characters except for special circumstances.

IMHO, this makes for a much more exciting gameplay.

OP, I'll give you a 'bit' more benefit of the doubt and say that your points are very vague, and seem like you're trying to skirt around just saying what you really want to say. Give me a single concrete example of what "those people" are arguing, and how you think they're wrong. Or give me a single example of over-representation of LGBTQ+, and what YOU feel about it. Right now from your posts, it's very hard to get any real feeling of what you're trying to say, and to be honest, it just sounds like another "too much gay and black people" dog whistle.

I'm all for you proving me wrong though.

Catching up late on this thread, and thank you to everyone who has kept it civil despite the understandably potentially upsetting implications.

I am in two minds whether to lock it.

We are a global, diverse community here to have friendly discussions about Larian's computer games, and noone here should feel unwelcome or attacked on the basis of their sexuality. But at the same time, the game does exist in a social and political context and I don't want to completely shut down discussion of that. Striking the balance generally means people being very careful when bringing up social or political points, or things that have very personal implications like sexuality. And being mindful and respectful of how discussing those might feel to others here, which includes steering clear of general, unfocused theorising about what non-quoted people say elsewhere, and focussing on discussing specific points raised on these forums and going no further into potentially personal territory than is strictly required to make their point.

I don't think the OP has kept within those limits, and I've already said in other threads that I think we all want a break from being made to feel uncomfortable and upset by intentionally or unintentionally offensive discussion of topics that impact closely on many of our real lives.

But I'll leave it open for now on condition that it stays friendly and it's kept to general discussion of how realistic fantasy needs to be, or at least as long as examples cited steer clear of features that people are understandably likely to take personally, including sexuality. It's not like there aren't many to pick from, so a focus specifically on LGBT+ content, for example, just makes it look as though the argument is a smokescreen for expressing anti LGBT+ sentiment here. Which is not okay.

TL;DR It's fine to discuss how realistic fantasy needs to be, but let's steer clear of using very personal features such as sexuality as examples of "unrealistic" content. I'll lock this thread if it ventures any further into that territory.

But reloading and rewinding time is God tier magics, or even greater, like Christopher Reeve era Superman.

F8 spins along as it should.
-Bone Man