Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Warnings in the game - necessary or not?

Hmm.... I am not a person who would benefit from such warnings, but I do find them obnoxious. While of course, I don't oppose them being created for people who want them, I also wish they would be optional. I had a direction of an episode spoiled more than once thanks to those content warning. THey also feel rather "corporate" to me, though I wouldn't jump to judgement without hearing an input of someone who actually benefits of them - but quite often I felt the content warnings were setting up a minor, brief and quite fantastical scenes.

Of course, I also don't believe that any creator is under an obligation to hand out a list of the content their work will contain. There are resources one can use to get an idea of what they are getting into (I often scour IMDB parental guide due to my dislike of gore, but I also find that written discriptors often sound more explicit than scenes themselves).

But from a more interesting perspective: where do you think OP such discriptor should be included? At the start of a hundereds of hours long RPG? At the beginning of act? Quest? WHen entering the location where such content occurs?

As I said a few times here now: I don't need a content warning, I'm pretty sturdy. This is the continuation from a discussion in another thread.

Edit: I would assume a general warning in teh description about the topics that might come up would be enough athough. Or an optional menue like in the gameplay video, Ametris showed a page before, where you can click, if you want content warning or not and if yes, how much.

I also didn't want to imply the game needs any more than it already has through its description, but felt the discussion was very focused on one type of topic.

As for where to place CWs in general: Tags are great place in my opinion. Every product these days has them, people who aren't looking for anything specific (in the positive or the negative) usually don't read them anyway and if you have a topic you want to rather avoid that day or forever, you can check the tags for it. It's also really information you need before making a purchase (as Kira mentioned on the previous page) or picking your entertainment for the evening, so putting them inside the game is a bit late. As for the CWs on the intros for specific episodes of a series, which I assume you were talking about Wormerine, they can feel very obnoxiously corporate or like a good natured heads up from the creator.

I agree with Fylimar that the scene with Haarlep
I don't have PTSD, but I still appreciate trigger warnings. I once had a forensic psychology class, and it would have been extremely hard to get through if I didn't get advanced warnings for which days would have particularly tough content.

Anska's points about tags makes sense to me. Tags wouldn't be immersion breaking or only accessible after purchase, and would be easy to avoid if a player didn't want spoilers. It also would allow more specific warnings, since extremely vague warnings aren't very helpful.

I am someone who greatly benefits from a specific type of trigger warning, and I appreciate all corporations that take the time to implement them.
When I play D&D, I usually have a list of trigger and content warnings for specific topics that may arise during the campaign. The generic 18+ or similar warnings for the game are very broad, covering everything from nudity to extreme gore, making it difficult to understand what exactly is involved. A list of specific triggers is much more helpful and is not as lengthy as some people might suggest.
Additionally, there are other ways to incorporate trigger warnings into the game beyond pop-ups or Steam descriptions; for instance, game mechanics could include companions warning players about certain topics or books providing specific details.

My opinion on this topic is that there are official rules to give a game this or that rating, as well as the need to put a warning. But developers can, for the sake of sensitive players, introduce additional warnings into the game at their discretion. These warnings can be incorporated into the game's storyline so as not to annoy other players by breaking the fourth wall. For example, during dialog you may be told that you're about to hear something very heavy, hint at what it's about, and your character may refuse to listen or watch it.

Rules for assigning a game a rating by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). These rules are used by Steam. Let's consider the M (Mature 17+) and AO (Adults Only 18+) ratings, since hardly anyone here is particularly interested in games rated T (Teen) and younger.

M rating (this rating is our all-time favorite game BG3). The game may contain violence, blood and core, sexual content, nudity and strong language. Note that sexual content and violence are separate, not combined with each other. Unlike games with AO rating (the highest rating). The game may contain prolonged scenes of intense violence, and may also contain demonstrations of violence.

*** WARNING: sensitive content (may contain a discussion of violence, abuse, SA related to a BG3 scene) this content might not be suitable for all audiences. Trigger warning***

You may ask - what is the problem? What is the difference between 17+ and 18+, only that some players who fall into this age range will be in a bad situation due to the increase of the game rating? Not really, games with an AO rating are also a kind of characteristic of the game. This rating is associated with games in the horror genre, games that build their story around violence for violence's sake, containing many violent and possibly traumatizing scenes (like Hatred and Postal). It seems to me that the concept of the game, which is positioned by Larian as the concept of BG3 (in all promotional materials and public announcements BG3 is presented as a fun game, with humor, aimed at a wide audience), in my opinion, is not very compatible with what is usually understood under games with AO rating. Some game stores (e.g. GOG) don't really like to include AO-rated games in the list of games they sell (e.g. GOG refused to sell Hatred).

The only scene in BG3 that is currently (which thankfully will be fixed soon) beyond the M rating is the kissing scenes of the Ascended Astarion.

*** WARNING: sensitive content (may contain a discussion of violence, abuse, SA related to a BG3 scene) this content might not be suitable for all audiences. Trigger warning***

How is this different from the dialog with Hope and the subsequent scene with Haarlep? In the dialog with Hope, we can clearly understand that she was a victim of the

*** WARNING: sensitive content (may contain a discussion of violence, abuse, SA related to a BG3 scene) this content might not be suitable for all audiences. Trigger warning***

Sex with Haarlep happens voluntarily at the will of the player. Sorry, but taking a “death threat” from a boss in an RPG as a serious threat of death to Tav is only possible if you have the fantasy and desire to roleplay that way. Weak Tav is afraid of Haarlep and “gives himself up for the key” - but this is already a fantasy that the player's imagination draws, in any RPG we constantly come across some enemies that threaten death and we, as a rule, blow their heads off, not really worried about it. You can tell Haarlep right away that you're going to kill him without even hearing about any of his game. The sex scene itself (I won't go through it myself, sorry, but I think the video gives enough information to evaluate it) looks like a normal consensual sex scene. There is no hint of Tav's disagreement/resistance in the video.

As for those scenes that are hard for the personal perception of any particular player, you'll have to put up with it. Either don't play games at all that may contain something that could hurt you, or learn about such content in the game in advance and avoid it if possible. I try to avoid, for example, watching content that shows opportunities for the player to be cruel to Astarion if I want to have a good day today, because something like that makes me want to cry and/or kill (*joking). But since my personal emotions only matter to myself, I can handle it on my own. So when someone finds that they feel bad that their Tav is smiling in response to those actions of Astarion that they personally find offensive to them, at that

*** WARNING: sensitive content (may contain a discussion of violence, abuse, SA related to a BG3 scene) this content might not be suitable for all audiences. Trigger warning***

And when it comes to facts that show why a given scene is triggering and not appropriate for an M-rated game, that's an entirely different conversation.

It is more difficult for me to form an opinion about what in a game can scare rather than cause emotional pain, because I myself have problems with fear in games, I have not yet managed to find a game that managed to scare me, I can get very nervous, especially if the scene requires quick action and high reaction speed, but I have not yet managed to experience fear specifically because of game events. I love horror games, especially horror stories like The Dark Pictures Anthology, Until Dawn. I like Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Dead Space, Callisto Protocol. By the way, that scene in Dead Space 2 where Isaac stabs himself in the eye, which I mentioned in the thread about kissing, is really quite difficult to get through. The scene is interactive, you have to do all these manipulations with the eye with your hand, a xenomorph breaks in the door, you can make a mistake and kill Isaac (the video will be appropriate). I dreamed about that eye afterward (funny, I read later that many people dreamed about it after going through that scene), some complained about that scene, asked for it to be mitigated, or asked their friends to go through that scene for them. But in the context of the game, that scene was completely justified. And I can't remember a single horror game where the game tried to dictate to me, “This is where you should be afraid!”, especially in a scene where I don't see the slightest reason to do so. That's nonsense. I think with the thing about personal phobias, when you know what you're afraid of, then you can try to figure out where in the game you run the risk of encountering that fear, whether that scene can be avoided, and decide whether to play it or not. Of course, if the developers can make a list of warnings (for example, in the form of text attached to the game) regarding scenes that can cause negative emotions in the player, it will be only a plus for the game.