Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Larian, please ensure you don’t take away player agency with AA in patch 7

I'll try, though am suffering mildly from the language barrier -- AFAIK that's a complex issue you're describing. Some people enjoy being used, or having their mobility severely restricted to that degree, or even like to pretend they're furniture. That description could fit many things. Most people who are into non-con mean consensual non-consent, with themselves being the person pretend violated. There's usually something "extra" involved that drives someone past wanting something as "boring" as bondage.

Most people who go for non-con in fandom also don't have it as a fetish. You're more likely to find someone exploring their own trauma, especially in the written medium. Humans generally aren't wired to find lack of consent sexy per se, to seek a victim. Those who do are often supremely hateful individuals rather than people with a traditional fetish. Combining all of these factors, I really can't say for sure if any of the people you've encountered are sexually motivated. It's certainly possible, but in this case I would speculate the attraction is Tav being *owned*, without complete free will, bound, etc. Almost all people into non-con project onto the victim role, not the abuser role. *If* there even is such an imagined dynamic, not a hunter and the hunted, etc.

With AA, it's more of a form of extreme submission than non-con, a surrender. Though submitting to that degree can lead to wanting to be "used". Or, so I speculate. Whether the non-con is actually dub-con in that sense is difficult. We get many hints AA thinks we want to be degraded, used, even he doesn't say "violated". Assuming he is *right* (risky), a person can fully want to be ruined, and consent to it. In a way, such a person is using the one who "violates" them as much as they're being used themselves. This doesn't have to be as healthy as kink attempts-- it can be a genuinely toxic dynamic. Not sexually motivated. Astarion has to participate and consent to your "degradation" as well. He could just not do it. It might be distasteful to him. It being a "sex thing" really is the best case scenario. Degradation is a source of arousal for some, after all.


Lore wise, I don't think vampires are capable of fine tuning your facial expressions into a smile (?). I really don't know. Tav seems unsure about the kneeling for a moment, but genuinely enthusiastic about the threat of choking. Generally, I get the impression that Tav performs in part for Astarion's enjoyment. That's normal enough. Maybe even the objective basis, after which we're to ask why and arrive at different answers. I rather like that more than heavy handed alternatives.

Does Haarlep force anyone to have sex with him? He suggests it, in a somewhat pushy and vulgar way, but I don't see how one incubus can force such a thing on the leader of a 4-man battlegroup who has met tougher opponents before. It's a pretty fun enemy, but no more than that. It's up to the player to agree to Haarlep's proposal if that's what they want. I've now watched this scene on YouTube - and in my opinion, it's a normal intimate scene, completely acceptable in an R-rated game, not needing any additional warnings. I will admit that I have seen a variant of the censorship in the form of squares on the screen that the author of the video put up, but I'm assuming those squares are just masking the naked body. If anyone has been through this scene themselves, they could confirm or deny my assessment. If you mean that Haarlep subsequently has some sort of effect on Tav (I've read about it), it's expressed in plot description, not in the form of an explicit video sequence. Also, this only happens if Tav fails the check, otherwise Haarlep can't do it. It seems to me that a player for whom something like this would be very unpleasant from an emotional standpoint would simply not choose this, and kill Haarlep.

Yes, I don't argue that the pain of a beloved character can be much more acute than one's own. It was very hard for me to watch some of Astarion's videos, and I even admittedly didn't watch them all to prevent myself from feeling pain and anger. But in this scene everything is too obvious, there is not one but even two lines, I watched this video:

“I was hoping that as regard for my support you'd throw yourself at me” - in my opinion, the line itself is very strange and stupid, especially since Astarion started a serious conversation. All right, let's say someone took it as playfulness.

“You should learn to enjoy sex for your own pleasure, and you should enjoy it with me” - Really? After what he said? I don't know if someone has problems with localization and translation. But it seems to me that already at this point the player wants to see what will happen if you induce Astarion to have sex despite... And his voice, his facial expression - there are so many signals here that it's strange to me to imagine how it can be ignored. But I'm not condemning anyone's roleplay, I'm just saying that this scene doesn't fall under the category of scenes that need a special warning.

And I agree that we can have more empathy for companions. And the most important companion is our LI. So how am I going to make the kind of facial expressions that were suggested for me in patch 6 in kissing Astarion? And even neutral expressions? It would look like I'm tolerating the touch of my significant other, rather than enjoying it. And I don't want Astarion to feel like there's something I don't like about him. It's not fair to make me look like I dislike him. In that case, it's not just the scrapping of the roleplay that upsets me, but also the thought of what Astarion thinks when he sees that look on Tav's face. About the associations with Tav - I didn't really mean that, I meant that the trigger can be activated under some similar circumstances. A person who was the victim of SA/DA sees some similar actions, and the same fear and pain on the face of the character with whom they associate themselves, together this triggers and can provoke PTSD. In the case where there is no match, for example, the expression on the character's face is happy, even if the actions that are done to the character are judged as unacceptable, the person is more likely to experience dislike, disgust at the scene, they may not like it, but it will not be as traumatic a trigger as it could be if there is a more complete match to some situation that happened to them in the past. It's not a matter of who one feels more sorry for, Tav or the companions, it's that the situation itself, also because of the association of oneself with the character being violently acted upon, can be a trigger. So a consensual D/s would be a much safer option for the player who gets into these scenes.

Thank you so much for the detailed response! It's a really complex topic, and very individual. There can be different interpretations and fantasies, the authors, in general, I see, have touched on a rather poignant topic that can be viewed from completely different angles, so that one player may not even be able to imagine someone else's interpretation, hence, perhaps, so much conflict and misunderstanding. What is perfect for one breaks the perception of the other. I talked to a person online who seems to represent the small part of people who like the role of the abuser and he just expressed the idea of total and absolute control, although he himself likes the facial expressions of patch 6 much better and associates himself with Astarion, not with Tav, who he made for him.

Yes, the game directly states that Astarion thinks you “like to degrade yourself”. It was very hard for me to take it the first time, I was even pretty angry at the game for not being able to give any reaction to that check, and in the next playthrough I just didn't want to pass it anymore. I assumed it was because of his pain, his trauma, and his own assessment of himself. Many things in the game also speak to Astarion's low self-esteem, despite all his narcissism, humor, and desire for attention. What I find most frustrating about this story is that Astarion continues to think this way, and I don't have any options to dissuade him or talk to him about it later. But when a player doesn't take it as rails, but actually agrees with it and wants it, and not just from a submissive position... You are right that Astarion has to participate in this and consent to it. It feels like a very painful relationship. Perhaps Larian didn't just listen to the players' requests, but wanted to somehow lighten the story, make it a D/s romance, but also leave room for different readings, which generally fits into the overall concept of the game, which presents a lot of opportunities for different sexual play options.

Yeah, before the kneeling, Tav seems unsure. There are some sort of glitches in the overall emotional background as I perceive it. The throat-touching scene was the most triggering and dangerous for those affected by Patch 6, maybe that's why Larian decided to do just that in that moment, a clearly joyful, desiring smile of pleasure to remove that trigger. The neutral face still leaves options for presenting this scene as a violent scene - for example, the victim is afraid of showing fear or disgust and thus angering the abuser, and restrains themselves.

If the only options available are sleeping with Haarlep or having to fight him to the death, that's coercion, it affects the player character, not an NPC,