Larian Studios Forums Divinity General Discussion A mistake to avoid in Fantasy setting since BG3

I'm glad to see the announcement of Divinity! I've played DOS, DOS2, Divine Divinity a lot and know the lore well, as well as BG3.
There was a big problem in BG3 for Fantasy settings that should be avoided in the next game Divinity. The Absence of Cultures of Fantasy races, their traditions, their differenсe in lifestyles, their homelands. If we replace all the main characters, minor and background characters with just humans - nothing will change in BG3, except few names.

Since Divinity Original Sin 2 we have much more lore and details about each race of Rivellon, which were first appeared in Divine Divinity(2002). DOS2 gives us more "saplings" of lore about Rivellon' Fantasy races. We could see the Elven structures, traditions, completely different manner of speech, how they stick together in the hard times. Some of Dwarven culture, the dwarven queen Justinia, different material culture. We could see some of Lizard culture and structures(a bit in the dream ACTIII), the lore about their Ancient Empire and the different material culture, their language. Arx - human city, Driftwood, braindead reds & whites zealots of Divine Order(most of them), Black Ring - demon worshippers, jumping from chaos demons to void monsters.
ACTII Driftwood - human small trading town on the coast, there are no Elven or Lizard citizens at all, only dwarven emigrants, mostly because of their special operaions here.
ACTIII Arx - human big city with religious significance. Mostly humans and pilligrims. A very few citizens of other races(elves, dwarves, lizards), only because of religious significance and trade.
Lets say, DOS2 gives each of Rivellon's main races a distinct personality, culture features. And the main thing - everyone on their places! The same can not be said about BG3 at all, where everyone(fantasy races) was thrown into a plate and mixed like salad...
The Druid's Grove(BG3 ActI) - Created by Elves, but we see only 1 or 2 elves here. Everything are mixed.
Baldur's Gate City(ActIII) - The big trading city. We do not see the racial quarters here. Everything are mixed again.
This really ruins the Fantasy atmosphere of the game, the atmosphere of Fantasy Setting!

Even in Divine Divinity(2002) we could see the Dwarven Halls under the mountains, dwarven king, dwarven small trading settlement. Elven trading outpost and archers guild. In the human cities elves, lizards or dwarves were mostly like guests - strangers , traders, because everyone have their own kin and their own homeland. The Fantasy atmosphere was way better than in BG3.

Divinity announcement trailer showed exactly the same mistake, all of the Fantasy races are mixed in the salad again around small human city... I understand, the point of the announcement trailer is to show the major lore concept without any details, to show the playble races - elves, dwarves, lizards, humans, orcs. The "Salad" should(Must!) be avoided in the actual game and story!







Hope to see the continuation and evolution of concepts and ideas from DivinityOS2! And more careful and accurate way of showing the Fantasy World(than BG3), Fantasy Races, their homelands, traditions, difference in their cultures, languages, manners of speech, etc.
And as a fan of elves, it would be nice to see the evolution of elven concepts/ideas in Divinity from DOS2, the living armor/weapons, the possibility of using "Vegetal Tank" as an elf and many other. Very interesting ideas & concepts!

I wish you success with developing Divinity, Larian Team! 3rd person view rpg like DivinityII:Dragon Saga or turn-based DOS2 like. No doubts, it will be successful . You're the saviors of Fantasy genre these days in game industry!

To be fair, Baldur's Gate is set in (And around) the city of Baldur's Gate. Which much like how real life cities such as New York are a melting pot of many cultures, is likely to end up having its own culture form as a result that is somewhat different to all the original cultures that emmigrated to it.

That combined with the rarity of travel/relocation means that many Baldur's Gate citizens would have lived in Baldur's Gate for their whole lives and likely many generations.

As such, the lack of diversity is somewhat expected. Since if everyone has the culture, traditions and lifestyle associated with Baldur's Gate, then it would be reflected by everyone acting very similarly - With a few minor predjudices here and there because racism...

That said, it was quite noticeable with the Tieflings. As they are specifically mentioned to have come from Avernus. But they don't act any different to anyone else. Which is pretty disappointing and made me miss Woljif from WotR, where he had a tangible reason for being so heavily discriminated against (He was born to human parents. But came out as a Tiefling due to his grandmother getting it on with a devil. He was subsequently abandoned by his parents and forced to live with his grandmother who despised him, leading to him running away and living a life of crime on the streets). Meanwhile, you can't even tell the Tieflings came from Avernus, let alone understand why people are so heavily predjudiced against Tieflings.


I don't think it should be completely avoided. It's only natural that eventually mixing will occur between races. It's unrealistic to expect every single race to be vehemently traditionalist forever. Especially when there will be major trading cities that will thus become a melting pot of cultures just like Baldur's Gate and many real life cities (Which don't always have segregated areas specifically for different cultures)

Having some places still holding on to tradition, especially towards the centre of a race's territory, makes sense and would remain largely populated by that race (Of course, travellers, guests, traders etc. Will be mixed in). But towards the fringes you'd start to see more mixing as major trade occurs, as well as things like alliances, embassies and other political endeavours (Unless races are actively at war with one another)

The main goal would be to have players visit a selection of locations. Some deeper in a race's territory and so more traditionalist and thus more insightful into their racial heritage, some more towards the fringes where cultures have melded and you now see something unique that is shared among all the inhabitants of the city regardless of race.

Hopefully their quote for this new game being "Larger and deeper in breadth and depth than ever before" will mean that we do get to visit a variety of locations. Meaning we can get a much wider and deeper look at each races unique culture deeper into their territory, whilst also getting to visit large trading cities where cultures have mixed.

That was not really Larians doing. D&D itself tries its best to suck all identity out of other races and make them pretty much interchangeable, both to not possibly offend anyone in any way and also to make all races equally good at everything so that no one complains that they "can" only play X with race Y....

Trailer raises some concern in regards to racial identity. Elfs do not look as alien as in dos 2 and seem more like humans with ears. Lizards look less like chameleon-like type with prolonged necks and more humanoid. Concerning, but not critical.

I think this is sadly because of people are demanding conventional attractive romanceable characters and player characters ( as is already the case here, someone even made a whole thread about it) and elves are the most popular alongside humans.
The characters in the trailer look more like humans with little extras to. I do hope, that the trailer doesn't show the final look, but was a quick draft, because I actually like the alien look of DIS elves and lizzards.

Good point.
Put it on the pile of all the "compromises" and downsides of a romance/sex focus.

Yep, shield dwarves even only getting close to something obviously magical without a major tantrum didn't happen until TSR sold the license. WotC completely broke the continuity on the Forgotten Realms' elven sub-races by simply using the Greyhawk ones. No explanation given, except 'Vecna broke the multiverse'. However, it's pretty much the same in my AD&D home campaign that elves or any other races who live in or around Baldur's Gate (or Waterdeep, Neverwinter, Luskan,...) aren't usually typical examples of their people as they live in a predominantly human area and usually have a good reason for that. If I had one complaint, I'd say Larian did the other species maybe a bit too human in looks and behaviour. An elf from my campaign would hardly pass as human on the metro, even with ears tucked under a hat.

There was actually a huge thread on this board during early access about "Elves are not Elven" about how the elves in BG3 looked too human like, especially compared to D&D 3E sources.

Larian obviously did not listen.