Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Goblins, Duergar, and... Generic?

The goblins are incredible. I mean, phenomenal, great work. They really stand out as a group and a culture. You can feel what the goblins are. See and hear what they're like. You definitely know a goblin from another racial type.

The duergar are great. Very well done. I feel like they're a clan, and I get a sense of who and what the duergar are. Nobody drughs with clan Flameshade.

But then...

All of sudden the races just sort of merge together. They become costumes. An elf, a human, a whatever, doesn't matter.

Consider the drow in Moonrise. Do they feel like drow? Can you point out which ones are drow and which one is a wood elf and which ones aren't, without examining them?

Once you're in the city, it's suddenly like the NPC races are determined by random dice rolls. Could be an elf, a dwarf, a gnome, a human, a half-orc, whatever, doesn't matter.

I think this is very bad for the story and worldbuilding. I suspect it contributes (not the only reason) to why Act III doesn't feel as strong and compelling as the other acts. (Act II is carried largely by the cursed Thorms and the dark mood.)

I did really like how, in DOS2, the elves had a very distinct culture and distinct racial talents that only they could do. I am definitely missing that in BG3. Granted, it’s not the same world, and the world-building should be different. But there doesn’t seem to be any Elven racial solidarity? If you play an Elven tav, I feel like your relationship to the Feywild only gets mentioned like once?

I don't have issues with Moonrise. They're all brainwashed cultists no matter what race they are. "We are all same under Absolute".

In act 3 there is too much diversity for "diversity's" sake. It's not surprising, because Baldur's gate city welcomes any race, except of monstrous races like ogres and such.

Still, it would be interesting to see some communities or even ghettos for rare races like dragonborn, half orcs and drows.

Tieflings would be in the ghettos according to Canon "To be greeted with stares and whispers, to suffer violence and insult on the street, to see mistrust and fear in every eye: this is the lot of the tiefling."-PHB

That's because the Duergar was originally clan of Shield Dwarves called Clan Duergar before they got tricked by the Mindflayers into digging deep enough to be enslaved and experimented on.

This is so much more interesting than the way the races are presented in Act III.

The way fictitious races are handled in today's cultural climate is a shame. It truly is a disservice to storytelling and art.

Yup.

There's quite a lot of topics that simply don't get handled very well in stories simply because of modern day cultural climates and the recent trend of people getting offended by any little thing that doesn't even impact them.

Races and their culture are often never truly explored and when it is it's often just "They're just humans that look different" with the occasional trope of "Elves live in giant hollowed out trees because nature goddess or something".

It's one of the more disappointing aspects of fantasy settings, there's so much potential for other races to have completely alien cultures to explore.

I think that’s a bit overly simplistic. The game takes place 100-150 years after BG1 and BG2, and I like that a lot of races, particularly when you get to the city, seem to have integrated and diversified the city. The Goblins and Duergar live in isolation, so I can see why they stand out. Both the Iron Hand and Gondian Gnomes are second class citizens in Baldur’s Gate, so they feel pretty distinct as well.

I think it would have been nice to still maintain a bit more distinction to give a sense that even though the city and all its different races are more integrated, they still carry some cultural traditions or beliefs with them. Overall though, I like that this world doesn’t feel so stuck in the past.

No, that's overly simplistic.

I can look at real life, go into cities and see various different cultures in different areas. These are based on simple cultural differences from humans hailing from different countries or regions.

Yet, in this fantasy setting, completely different races all homogenize into a single culture? Or have very little cultural differences depicted...

Lets not even get started on the lack of emphasis on uncommon scenarios. Like how no-one gives a damn about Dame Aylin being an Aasimar (Which are supposed to be really rare), there's no depictions of tieflings born to non-tiefling parents (Since much like a Sorcerer's bloodline, such a trait can pass through generations and suddenly manifest if an ancestor had a child with a Devil - Such is the case for Woljif in PotR. But no, literally every Tiefling in BG3 was explicitly from Avernus), no notable interactions with Lolth-sworn Drow on the surface, no interactions with deities (Such as people showing adoration for their respective deities or even things like people converting to worship other deities, besides Shadowheart) etc.

People in real life have preserved cultures for thousands of years. But apparently, no-one in Baldur's Gate gives a damn about their heritage that they can lose all sense of cultural integrity in a mere 100 years...

I actually did address that in my second paragraph. (The one you didn’t quote). I would have liked to see more distinct cultural traditions carry through even in this more integrated world. As it stands now, it does feel too homogeneous.

I wished Tiefling PCs got 3 racial dialogues mentioning their parentage, one for Devil Hertiage literally descended from a Devil, Tiefling Parents like Arabella or Pact Cursed Human Parentage, Personally the Devil hertiage would be my choice, My Tiefling would've had a Cambion for a Mother like a real Tiefling, his infernal hertiage would be more important to him than the human one and there's no generations or pacts involved,

There are elven cultures in Faerun, you just don't see it BG3,

"In many of the worlds of D&D, there are two kinds of high elves. One type (which includes the gray elves and valley elves of Greyhawk, the Silvanesti of Dragonlance, and the sun elves of the Forgotten Realms) is haughty and reclusive, believing themselves to be superior to non-elves and even other elves. The other type (including the high elves of Greyhawk. the Qualinesti of Dragonlance, and the moon elves of the Forgotten Realms) are more common and more friendly, and often encountered among humans and other races.

The sun elves of Faerun (also called gold elves or sunrise elves) have bronze skin and hair of copper, black, or golden blood. Their eyes are golden, silver, or black. Moon elves (also called silver elves or gray elves) are much paler, with alabaster skin sometimes tinged with blue. They often have hair of silver-while, black, or blue, but various shades of blond, brown, and red are not uncommon. Their eyes are blue or green and flecked with gold."-PHB on High Elves

There are elven cultures in Faerun, you just don't see it BG3,

"In many of the worlds of D&D, there are two kinds of high elves. One type (which includes the gray elves and valley elves of Greyhawk, the Silvanesti of Dragonlance, and the sun elves of the Forgotten Realms) is haughty and reclusive, believing themselves to be superior to non-elves and even other elves. The other type (including the high elves of Greyhawk. the Qualinesti of Dragonlance, and the moon elves of the Forgotten Realms) are more common and more friendly, and often encountered among humans and other races.

The sun elves of Faerun (also called gold elves or sunrise elves) have bronze skin and hair of copper, black, or golden blood. Their eyes are golden, silver, or black. Moon elves (also called silver elves or gray elves) are much paler, with alabaster skin sometimes tinged with blue. They often have hair of silver-while, black, or blue, but various shades of blond, brown, and red are not uncommon. Their eyes are blue or green and flecked with gold."-PHB on High Elves