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

You've literally just outlined the position I consider to be myopic. The "blindingly obvious" position that fails to consider the subject more deeply because it's already considered to be a foregone conclusion.

Religion says sex is a private thing to be shared in marriage. Okay. Dig deeper. Why does religion say that? What does open sexuality do to society? Is there any way to look at what happens? How does such impact families and what happens to the children in those families?

Well setting aside for a moment this is a solo game and thus private (obviously multiplayer can decide what's appropriate for their game) isn't the "private matter" solved with the nudity settings? I've never viewed the sex scenes with nudity off so I've no idea what happens. Are they simply skipped or do they still play out only the characters are clothed?

You did make a point in some other thread (if I understood correctly) about it being nice to be able to befriend Gale without there being the feeling it was going to lead to a romantic branch. I totally get this and feel the game does seem to run hot or cold in regards to relationships. In other words its hard in the game to form 'just friends". Choices that lead to companion approval seem to always lead to an intimate offer eventually. I always turn Gale down with the magic invitation because of this. It leads to a "Gale disapproves" Maybe there should have been specific triggers initiated by the player to indicate interest etc. I understand these objections to the sex/romance system much better than the ones that complain about nudity since one can always filter it out.

I think the developers were concerned with making romance too hard and that players would be disappointed in not being able to romance their choices. Many threads/posts on here seem to bear this out as we have seen many requests for romance options that even the developers didn't see fit to offer. The various Astarion threads take this to a whole other level player expectations not being met going so far as to critique or object to facial expressions. So to please players they made romance relatively easy but in doing so I think they missed out on the "fellowship" so evident in many of our most cherished fantasy yarns. Maybe they indulged players too much and created a "when everyone's super no one will be" system of romance.

Maybe for some people it isn't a case of being uncomfortable with sex, but rather being uncomfortable with unwanted advances.

@Ranxerox:

No nudity amounts to a sort of a fig leaf look, if that makes sense.

*

I don't think it being single player amounts to the same thing as privacy. It's a game sold to the public. Sex is a known part of the game. It's seen in streams, it's seen in articles. It's not private in the sense that it's not a physical act shared between two people behind closed doors and closed lips.

Imagine if the folks on Little House on the Prairie sat down to play this game. They would see it as lustful and consider it to be a sign of degeneracy. Whereas they had to slaughter pigs. They had to fight to survive.

Violence wasn't praised, but it wasn't shied away from. Sex on the other hand wasn't a commercial product like it is now. There is an intrinsic difference in the way they are portrayed for a reason.

You could, of course, argue that brothels existed, but those were considered sinful.

Ok I see where that would be insufficient for those who would prefer some sort of fade to black scenario.

Because religion was used to control the masses. Using fear of going to hell to corral them into doing their bidding.

So among other things, they started to say that sex and nudity are sins and should be hidden.


It promotes healthy relationships, self-esteem and overall happier population.


Yes. We have thousands of years of evidence of what society was like before Christianity rolled up and demanded people act a certain way or they'd be sent to hell. (Including very notable societies like Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome)

There's nothing explicitly wrong with sex. The whole taboo regarding it is simply vestiges of the means of control used in a prior time (After many, many civilisations had been thriving and successful before such a notion came about).

With the lack of evolution stemming from the fact that no-one wants to be the one to go against the status quo (Which is very much the case for Japan's heavy censorship of nudity, America forced them to outlaw nudity in media during WW2 as a means to control the population and no politician wants to be the one to upend the arbitrary laws regarding it, which is exacerbated by the nation's deep rooted sense of tradition) as well as some misappropriated logic that hiding sex and nudity is somehow helpful to people.

Again, this isn't hard to uncover. It's very easy to find out all this stuff by doing research into when things started becoming taboo and why. Much of it stems from when Christianity was being used to control most of Europe, wherein ideals were instilled into various societies which have permeated beyond the church and into the general populous and from there has persisted throughout the various colonizations made by the British (Including Australia and America).

As far as actual impacts on society as a result, if anything we've seen much more detriment as a result of such prudence in regards to sexuality. Lots of prejudice against homosexuals leading to hate crimes and self-esteem issues (When people can't openly be who they are). To this day we still have epidemics of teen pregnancy (Thanks to sexual education being a footnote in academia), continual prejudice against LGBTQ communities and people feeling uncomfortable actually expressing themselves if they deviate from the typical sexuality. All of this, a direct result of shying away from sexual expression and calling anything but heterosexuals "Sinful" or "Evil" and even then, trying to hide away sex because "Won't someone think of the children!" (Ignoring the fact that whether you hide it or not, every child will go through the process of puberty in which their body prepares itself for sexual reproduction...)

Since it appears that Larian is not doing a BG4 and not doing DO3...
They should do an anime inspired adventure.
Young men and women learning martial arts and magic at finishing school.
Sure, there could be the occasional tournament or demon to defeat or side quest into the dungeon.
But it would be 90% about the students, relationships, romances, jealousies, pranks, nudity, and sex..,
Now being an American company, it would need to be an international school not literally a manga, but you get the idea.
Enough students to choose from, so you don't get forced into the 'right' choice.
You could have the friendship only setting. Romance setting. Nudity setting. Sex setting.
What's not to like?

No worries about it being over sexualized, maybe just concerns if there's any point to the violence...

Larian is american now? when did that happen? /s

My bad, I should have said just said non Japanese.

Twenty-five, thirty years ago I would've agreed with you. Would've said much the same thing, in fact. The argument is so common that it's essentially programmed as a response.

After a lifetime I've come to recognize the position as sophomoric. There's a lot more to it.

But I suspect this isn't the place for a discussion about values and religion.

In short, I will say that the sexuality within BG3 fits its time and place. That is not to say that I think we are in a good time and place, but BG3 has little to do with that. BG3 is an excellent game with strong writing that reflects where we are in society. That is the most it can be asked to do.

@Zentu for a long time that was the only sex in the game [talking way back in early early EA] so almost no extra time was spend on it... in fact the other characters have all been redone at least once after EA finished and Minthara holds her own because she was well writen at the start unlike Wyll who had be made into a dance nut and that Wizard

yes the game is riddled with plot holes and bugs but thats because Larian makes halfassed changes and our testing period is over

Yup. Interesting indeed.

I think that depends upon where you put the fig leaf.

Ye gods. Tell me you you know nothing of religion or ancient history without telling me you know nothing of religion or ancient history.

Your use of the word 'religion' here means Christianity or at least your limited knowledge of the many, many flavours of Christianity.

Thousands of years of pre-Christianity evidence? Do you think that ancient Greece or Rome were some sort of hippy, free-love societies? What about ancient China or India? And once we get beyond about 500 years BCE our knowledge of societies drops off dramatically.

There are/were many reasons why extra-marital sex was frowned upon, from bloodlines to yoga.

I think you are absolutely right. If the game could use friendship triggers more clearly, many of the complaints simply wouldn't exist. But on the other hand, the game itself would become more predictable.

Although in general I don't have any problems with establishing friendships or personal relationships in the game. But I agree that this can be problematic for some.

Actually, I have no issue with either the level of violence or sex in the game. I do find it humorous though that there are so many who are more concerned about the sex than the violence.

It's deeply ironic to me that the sex was one of the big selling points of this game pre-launch, but now that I've actually played the game a few times I've found the amount of sex to be somewhat disappointing. Perhaps I'm just a pervert (jokes, I know I'm a pervert), but they could have put a lot more sex and I would still not think it was too much. I'm also disappointed in how they've implemented the poly stuff, but I know it's because it was not something they fully planned.

But the level of sudden and obvious gore and violence has surprised me at times. i would be in favour of adding an extra content warning when a player selected the durge origin.

Yes someone who has never played the game would get the impression reading this thread that BG3 is an interactive sex simulator worthy of a channel on Pornhub.

As for the violence I can kill anyone including goblin children, collect body parts, and strive to become the “God of Murder”. When I romance SH we share a fully clothed kiss and eventually go skinny dipping.

I have no problem with the portrayal of sexually driven characters in BG3. I think they exist in the real world so it is fair enough to represent them in the game. And correspondingly, I have no problem with the sexually explicit interactions these characters can have with the protagonist, should you desire it.

What I do have a problem with is the overrepresentation of sexual promiscuity. It would be nice to have some characters who are less sex-positive. I think of all the romancable characters, the only one who doesn't shag at the party after saving (or sacking) the grove is Shadowheart, and she gives it up not long after. (Am I right in thinking only Jaheira and Minsc are not romancable?) They are pretty much all unreasonably and unrealistically horny. There is no seduction or romance - just sex - and it makes relationships feel very empty and hollow. It is ironic how a game that claims to be so inclusive is so very exclusive in this regard.

I am a undecided whether this was a deliberate ploy by Larian to create publicity and attract a crowd of influencers who would never normally cover RPGs, or whether it was just Larian being a bit Dutch in their worldview.

I think it's just an overall liberal slant to these issues that dominates entertainment as a whole.