Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Was BG3 overly sexualized?

I've just been replaying the game (with the new honor mode) and once again, the characters come across as way too needy and wanting to jump your bones way too quickly. There is little 'buildup - I should have to go looking for that, not just be nice to people. BG3 seems to equate 'being nice' to " I have feelings for you'. Maybe they should have hired a relationship advisor and not just someone for their sex scenes....

Example: after saving the grove, I made no overtures to Halsin, but the dialogue was offered to me to (without really knowing this character)to start asking very probing questions. I think that should unlock after a lot of travel and adventuring together. Its jarring. I was polite, said no - later there was a text option "I hope I didn't come across to strongly' or some such for my character - I had said *nothing* to encourage him. Then L'aezel - who I never said much too - has her whole 'you'll regret not sleeping with me' bit . It all sounds a bit adolescent. An Gale was gazing at my character lovingly because I was nice to him and my character likes magic so tried some out the magic he offered ...it wasn't a "I want to jump your bones' signal.

Is jarring enough that I can't think of any other part-based RPG where it was this blatant - and certainly not in baldur's gate or icewind dale etc. This playthrough I'm ignoring them as much as I can - but of course I need to keep them happy so there relationship stays good (or there can be in game consequences).

From my experience that depends strongly on life experience.

I had a girlfriend with whom I spent lots of time and it took 1.5 years to the first kiss (and then only weeks to the breakup :-/). With another woman I met we’d have been in bed after three days — if I hadn’t declined. And yes, I’m married today.

But studies say, "couples moved rapidly into sexual relationships. Over one third reported having sex within 1 month of the start of their relationships." (Sassler et al 2012) and regardless of how quickly you start to have sex, your relationship is better when you don’t move together too quickly: "the association between relationship tempo and relationship quality is largely driven by entry into cohabitation" — though "women who take longer to become sexually intimate with their partners report significantly greater levels of sexual satisfaction".

So I’d say BG3 is well within the realms of plausibility, especially since it’s an extremely unusual, exciting, frightening and intimate situation for all the characters.

Icewind Dale is a Black Isle Studios Game, not a Bioware game though. The only thing "Bioware" in there is the engine they had borrowed. Everything else was supposed to be a dungeon crawl, like the good ol' days. The good ol' days before anything "romance" became a feature ticked off a list of features.

(Don't care about keeping everybody happy in my playthrough though. This isn't some kind of minigame to keep everybody happy.)

Didn't follow much of the marketing, only watched the trailers in brief (which were more "pandering" to the crowd for DA Origins tenfold, both on the violence and cleavages front, hilariously misplaced Marilyn Manson music included.)


Still: That'd actually be good news!

I'm expecting Bioware et all to do a complete turnaround by tomorrow. After all, all it apparently takes to get players interested in RPGs proper (regardless of anything else too, it seems), is putting a few motion-captured boobies and dongs in there.

No more cheap excuses from tomorrow on accepted.

I don't think its good news as the only effect will be other companies also forsaking story and interesting characters in favor of waifus and immature sex stories according to always the same formula like Mass Effect style romances.

And the marketing of BG3 only really took of after the bear sex panel (and you can be sure that showing such a scene in a very public setting was planned well in advance with a specific goal in mind). After that BG3 came to the attention to circles outside the usual RPG customers because they wanted to see whats that sex thing is about.
A cheap marketing ploy and people sadly fell for it.

I thought the sex in the game was fine. If you don't seek out the sexual content on purpose you'll very likely only see one or two sex scenes, there is an option for modesty filters, and there is an entire romance without any sex scenes. There is also a more mature storyline connected to sexuality.

Overall the romance stories mirror real-life dating, everyone is comfortable with different levels of intimacy at different stages of the game.

There is a lot of hitting on Tav in Act 1, all of which you can turn down without an issue, and by Act 2 the romance matures for all characters.
It's also just a personal opinion but I found most sex scenes more goofy than hot.

And yeah, all gamers are horny, but it's also something you have to seek out on purpose, like fanfiction or thirsty edits.

Yes it is.

The naked paperdolls, genital customization and clumsy sex scenes that go too far are very cringe. Overall the weird focus on sexual content is distracting, embarrassing and ultimately makes BG3 a worse experience. Why do you need to be able to take your companions' clothes off and see their genitals, or have sex with mind flayers?

Sounds more like some entitled child's play than storytelling or gameplay. Are Larian devs the entitled children, or are they catering to such a perceived audience?

Why are you playing a game explicitly marked “mature” if you hate all the mature elements?

Sadly i can't vote, why ever. So i gve my aqnswer here in written form: No!

I don't think the game is over sexualized. We are all adults and knew what we are buying. The romance stuff was advertised everywhere. You can always say no and most companions will respect it. That is at least my experience as a not native english speaking player.

I only tested the male options so far and think it isn't too much. Wyll fades to balck as soon as you know what's going to happen. Astarion, a bit of naked skin, but yopu can switch it off. Gale has even two options. One is more detailed and the other fades to black also. Minthara i only watched on youtube and ok,... i understand why many people kill those man poor tieflings and druids to bed her. It's not too detailed but some still may find it hot.

What i find more desturbing is the blunt presentation of a half naked Mindflayer through most of the Emperor romance scene for example. Tentacle sex is not everyone's cup of tea and i wish i could tell the Emperor to get dressed way sooner. I mean, some may like that exotic kind of sex, but it isn't everyone's thing. I wish they would chnage that scene so you have a choice.

Also i find it annoying, that companions still flirt with each other while we are romancing them. It seems like...bad manners for me if they act like nothing is happening. This makes them look like they're either emergency horny or simply don't care about our Tavs. Hello? Tav is a main character, we help our companions through all of their problems. We risk our lives for them and play caretaker for them. So main characters deserve a bit more respect, i think. I wish the companions would acknowledge the relationships of the Main character more and stop flirting if someone is taken. I wish they would react to the relationships more. That would simply make it feel more logical and realistic (as far as we can call it realistic in a fantasy RPG).

Long story short: Everything is alright, but i would wish it would be done a bit more properly.

Read what i wrote, please. I never said anywhere i hated all the adult elements. It should just be done with more feeling of tact and properly.

Like i said, i am a not native english speaking player. So, if you have any problems understanding sy posts, please don't read anything into it i didn't say. Ask nicely and i'm happy to explain as well as i can.

Actually, Baldur's Gate, where they got the engine from is a Bioware game. But, that didn't have romances and npc's you could really talk with either. A handful of characters in BG1 would have one line when you finish their quest, but that was it. The whole party banter and romances and stuff - wasn't until Baldur's Gate 2, which came after Icewind Dale. So, they didn't 'take that out'.

In fact, that studio later grew to be Obsidian Entertainment, and is largely responsible for many of the relationship stuff we see in BG3 and other crpg's; such as the 'approval meter' etc, which was introduced in KotoR 2, also by Obsidian.

Small detali:

In BG 1 there were no romances at all. You had no approvale system, just a general group alignment and that's it.

In BG 2 there was a general group alihnment as well. But it did have romances. Originally there were 3 female and one male romance option. The commnity later came up with mods to have more options. Those romances mostly were just text, though. Even if someone offered to spend a night with you, nothing was visible. It faded to black completely during a rest.

I myself saw the whole approval system with BG 3 first. I must say i have fun finding out, ho likes what and who dislikes what. And yes, i'm a litte romance addict. I just like things done properly.

Because I was hoping for maturity, and not immaturity?

BG 3 uses sex in a way that is anything but mature IMHO. Being more explicit does not mean more mature.

BG3 is not mature. It's juvenile.

Companion romance scenes are fine with me. But the time spent on Haarlep and tentacle sex and Mizora (and romanced companion reactions to having sex with her) could have been spent on the more important parts of Act 3. All the horny bits can be added later.

Technically, Torment also did it first, releasing a good couple months earlier than BG2. However, that was a character driven project back then when going "character driven" was an option -- not a must-have feature. And was actually influenced by the same source: JRPGs. If you ask me, Morte et all had also been the high-point. It's mostly been down (and super formulaic) from then on: Pick a companion, unlock his "story quest", optional romance, wash rinse repeat.

Too bad that other experiences (and ideas) have been largely tossed to the wayside. For instance, creating an entire party, but being allowed to give each character a personality they express instead of movie-style completely fixed backstory (such as on Wizardry 8). Even companions literally fighting and killing each other in BG1 -- never been seen again. If explored further, this would allow for so much more dynamic interactions than merely farming for companion quests and romances.

But that ship seems to have sailed. And despite the complete repetitiveness, people are just not getting tired of it. I know players who create fully custom parties regardless whether any game ships with "fleshed out companions" -- and I don't blame them for that. edit: Naturally, a sequel to a typically Bioware-styled game is the wrong one for experimentation, naturally.

Can you explain what do you feel like is not mature? Or what do you feel would be a more mature way to handle sex?



I feel like Act 3 suffers from too much content, but I have to agree, the Mizora and tentacle scenes are things I would have also cut. Tentacle is already one of the least triggered but easiest-to-do achievements. Harleep made me feel like my character got violated, and it hammered home the point that my character's actions can have serious consequences beyond "dying".

As far as I understand the horny bits were developed somewhat separately, so I'm not sure how much more ready Act 3 would be without these.

There were screenshots on reddit of one of the lead writers saying they wrote Haarlep, so obviously that time could have been used elsewhere.

Oh, I meant the technical part of game development itself, there are a lot of half-finished dungeons and lackluster fights in Act 3. Maybe there would be a little bit more party banter.

If you had read the books you'd know that GRRM despises violence, doesn't glorify it like the show.