Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Please let us keep our stories with Ascended Astarion

If someone wants to play intimidated and want to break up, it makes much more sense for this roleplay to choose the “Let's break up” line that is in the game, and after that line, kissing disappears. No kissing. I'm certainly not an expert on roleplaying a cowardly character, though it can be quite fun, and Larian has that option at some points in the game (like “Running away in fear from the Emperor”). Yeah, by the way, it would probably be nice to add, for those who chose that option with the Emperor, the option to agree to have sex with him with a face contorted with terror. Tav is so afraid of the Emperor that he can't refuse him - quite fitting for such a roleplay.

It is very difficult to reflect in the game all the nuances of relationships, including D/s relationships “as in real life”, and it is unlikely that Larian set himself such a task. There are consensual animated D/s scenes in the game. These scenes look like this from the outside: a “vanilla” kiss with face-grabbing, which can be suitable for both D/s and classic romance “with a peppery twist”. A kiss as a reward for kneeling Tav - as a variation of a reward for submission. Of course, the submissive will be pleased with such a reward, and the smile on their face as Astarion touches Tav's throat is more than appropriate. A variant of “punishment” for disobedience is a playful imitation of a slap (not a real slap, it can be seen) for showing initiative that the submissive should not show. The smirk in response to that action on the part of the dominant that the submissive provoked by his own action is perfect for “bad girl/boy”. I like to interpret it slightly differently, but in terms of my understanding of D/s, these scenes were probably intended that way. Especially since they were originally animated that way, and only the victim's facial expressions turned the whole thing into an “extreme specific dynamic” clearly not appropriate for an M-rated RPG game.

These scenes were filmed as D/s scenes, with the animations done separately and the facial expressions set separately in the code. And that facial expression was exactly what made these scenes disrespectful and harmful to the community. The victim's facial expressions unfairly portray the BDSM community in a bad light. Now those scenes look like healthy D/s.

Larian recently spoke at PAX West 2024. When asked about sexuality in BG3, Adam Smith mentioned that they purposely added "kinky" sexual scenes into the game to make things more authentic, and that they consider that a good thing that they're proud of. He said, "We wanted it to feel authentic... I don't think sexuality should be controversial; different kinks, arousals, fetishes, whatever it might be... I think it's okay for things to be sexy. " (his answer starts at about 51.47). Which may confirm that those kisses with AA were meant to be D/s and give pleasure to both Astarion and Tav. And the horrible faces are just an oversight.




That's right. Kissing is purely a fanservice. None of the companions have any connection between “kissing” and story content, it's just adding a romantic interaction that the player can replay for their pleasure as many times as they want. And adding the ability for someone to say “Pick this, say that, and you'll see what a bad ab**er Astarion is, how he tortures your Tav, etc.” - isn't fanservice anymore, it's something else.


Yeah, personally they are even too neutral for me, could have been done better, although the smile on the knees is very nice, and the grin after the slap is nice too and makes this situation playful instead of painful. For some reason it looks better on the male Tav than the female, he seems more content, I can't figure out why. But I'm really glad they changed them. There's passion and expression and play between Astarion and Tav now. And before, it was impossible to play either evil or chaotic-neutral (if you consider that after the ritual the “good” Tav's alignment changes), roleplay was destroyed for all characters who genuinely love Astarion (I'm not belittling anyone's “toxic romance”, I mean love for Astarion in the classic sense of the word, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with loving this or that fantasy, “story” or roleplay).


I choose “gently” and enjoy it, nothing gets in the way. Yes, it should have been made an option for “gently” with classic romantic kisses, or leave the 5 patch kiss for “gently”. The reason is there - time constraints and technical difficulties. Larian want to finish BG3 and move on to a new project, so they fixed the scenes that were intended for D/s, as was obviously originally planned, and are unlikely to put any more resources into kissing content.


I absolutely agree.


It's excellent dialog that does a great job of showing AA and Tav's relationship. And the romantic epilogue itself is completely at odds with the “monster” story. The “monster” will never say words like Astarion did. A "monster" would never watch like that: