Larian Studios Forums Divinity General Discussion Attractive romance options + Better character creation

Better character creation: Possibility to create beautiful/handsome characters, more robust, more options, sliders, colors etc.. (Divinity: Original Sin 2 was IMPOSSIBLE to create a beautiful character, their faces were abominable.)

Attractive romance options: I don't like the male options in Baldur's Gate 3, Most of the men in BG3 world are ugly. The only moderate exception for me is Gale.
Come on, give me handsome men! Ex: Nathan Drake, Chris Redfield, Deacon St. John, Leon, Carlos Oliveira, Solid Snake, Cal Kestis, Cullen Rutherford etc.. (Not just humans, you could also make hot elves and lizards.)

That's some white-ass lineup you got there.

Your grindr algorithm must be really narrow.

Sorry, It's not my fault if we don't have many handsome black guys in games.

But if you want representation, I just remembered him now: Lincoln Clay

BG3 does not have conventionally attractive male presets with artificially messy hairstyles and sweaty foreheads. But all things considered, the character creator is alright.

It certainly allows for a unique feel for each character made. If you can adequately use it at least.

I made a lot of characters to have an almost 'white-ass lineup' of my own.. to share a few..

They don't look good to me.

I had to download mods to create an handsome character like I wanted.

I mean we could do the thing from bg3 and do the whole who do you dream of.

I'm not a friend of sliders for faces. In game with sliders all characters in some way look similar or grotesque on the extremes. There should be more face options and especially body options instead, with a bit more variety compared to BG3. I missed different body stature options the most.

I was a bit lucky in BG3 with the faces. I consider one male face and one female face for Half-Woodelf and one female face for Human in BG3 very attractive, which was nice because I played Half-Woodelf in my first playthroughs and currently I'm playing and will only ever play Human. Without a face I liked playing would be much less of a pleasure, so I can understand the wish for better char creation options.

The more options the better, although those metrosexual types are a big no for me. As long as character creation satisfies both ends I am happy.

It seems that you have a very specific and very narrow taste in men's faces, which doesn't align with my own tastes in men (like, AT ALL). I think if you're that picky about the way characters look, you should probably just use mods. That's what mods are for.

For the base game, I think it's more important to have a diversity of faces, rather than try to align to a very specific kind of face, because everyone has different preferences.

I could say the same to you, but in reverse: The game should have handsome faces and attractive romance options available, and you'll have to wait months to get less handsome faces as you wish (but you know that probably nobody will make those mods...) Do you understand my point?

There's a reason why there are LOTS handsome/pretty face mods to BG3, MANY players were dissatisfied with the faces the game had to offer.

Larian should think about that in the next game. Let there be more diversity, not SO MANY faces devoid of beauty.

I think for creating your own character there should be a variety of options to make every kind of appearance, from conventionally handsome to unattractive so that I can roleplay the type of character I'd like. Most important to me is that races are unique and stand out from one another so that I am not simply limited to creating a few variations of pretty human.

In terms of the world-building, companions and NPCs I think it should have a realistic representation where having pretty privilege is something that makes certain people stand out. When everyone are conventionally attractive, it's not a privilege.

I think you've missed my point. You are not the arbiter of what is attractive and what is unattractive. For example, Astarion is widely regarded as unusually handsome, yet you apparently think he's unattractive. (Astarion isn't my type, either, but I find him WAY more handsome than any of the examples you've provided here. And I'm generally pretty meh about Astarion. Wyll's face is much, much closer to my type.)

Instead of trying to adhere to just one person's tastes, Larian should strive to represent a lot of different people's tastes. Some people's preferences might not be represented, particularly if they're very picky, but offering a diversity of faces means that at least MOST people's preferences can be represented.

I really don't understand why so many people like Astorian. It's probably because of his writing, not his appearance.
He looks like a boy-band member, but over 35 years old. 😂
Extremely caricatured/exaggerated character, I don't find him attractive.

I'd rather they give me an interesting lizard companion than another Astorian. (I'm really hoping for a lizard option.)

I'm quite sure that, after what Swen said in the Reddit AMA to the "lizard romance" thing, we'll get some lizard companion options. Wasted in case of me because I neither find lizards "hot" nor do I like them otherwise and will try my best to not have one in my party, but probably fullfilling the wishes of a lot of other people. Which again shows that tastes differ. And that we need a wide variety of options.

They want to have something to generate the same kind of buzz than BEAR SEX!!!!!!!.

Just bigger bears does not work, so lizard sex it is.

I would also like to see more conventionally attractive men, especially humans and elves in traditionally masculine roles such as knights and soldiers. I was not at all fond of Baldur's Gate 3's handling of its male characters, especially when both Gale and Astarion were altered prior to the game's launch to have less muscle definition. A very strange decision in itself when Karlach was left untouched. Halsin, physically, was very much to my liking - and yet the infamous 'bear scene' combined with his sleazy approach to intimacy really put me off of him.

I'd like more of a balance. I'll begrudgingly tolerate the 'weird' options for those who truly want them, though I do not think that they should come at the expense of the timeless classics when it comes to more traditional standards of attractiveness and romance.

Halsin has a hot body, but his face prevented me from feeling any attraction to him.
He's an elf, why is his face so aged??? He looks like a bulldog with a melting face. 😩

Gortash is also described as a "handsome young man", but his model is ugly and aged, without coherence.

Why does everyone have such aged and ugly faces?
Larian, just give me some hot young men!

BG 3 did have a young, conventionally attractive, handsome male with a sword. It's literally in his name.

But somehow he apparently didn't meet the standards, I wonder what that could have been?

Yeah, honestly, Wyll is one of the best looking male characters out there.

And tbh, I don't care how characters look or if they are romanceable, just give me interesting characters with great backstories and don't dumb them down in release, because people think ' they are too mean' ( looking at you, Shadowheart and in a way, Astarion too. Bite night on the second or third longrest, even if you really haven't interacted with him?)

I really would love for Larian to tell their characters story and stop pandering to fancrowds. Shadowheart was so much more interesting in early access, it felt earned when she told you about the Shar worshipping. You could go a whole playthrough ( until Grymforge, the end of EA) without finding out about Astarion being a vampire, if you didn't follow the clues ( that boat and other things were more important back then). It felt more realistic.



Erwin: Gortash might have been a handsome young man but being a chosen of Bane changes you physically. Gortash as we meet him looks exactly how the lore describes someone, who was a chosen of the god of tyranny for a while, so that is lore accurate, the same as Orin decorating herself with flesh of her victims and Ketheric looking undead. They all show traits of their gods.

Wyll suffers terribly from his character being completely changed throughout early access, so the darker and grittier edges he had are absent as of the game's official release.

Yea,I recall from early access : Scene : he goblin camp torture room where Liam is hanging on the rack. Recollection is fuzzy, but Spike, the torturer who took Wyll's eye, somehow reveals that he knows where Mizora is. He will tell Wyll if he can extract the grove location from the prisoner. Then Wyll begins to torture Liam , with vivid text details of what exactly he's doing to the poor guy. That was a whole other Wyll than the released one.

Not everyone has to be dark and gritty. I love that we have at least two companions, that are different, Wyll and Karlach , well, and Gale to an extent. The dark and gritty trope gets so tiring.
Every companion is so over the top and then Wyll comes along and owns himself like a responsible person without throwing temper tantrums at every corner and it was refreshing.

That is correct, but the premise of the thread is that someone wants romanceable male characters that are young and attractive. Which in my opinion does exist. Regardless of his writing, Wyll matches those criteria in terms of aesthetics.

There's definitely a typecast here... My only similar interest in this lineup is Cullen, but I honestly liked his wonky-ass DAO and DA2 look better. His DAI "glow-up" was jarring.

As a serial Alistair romancer myself, I'd throw a vote to having another sappy-conflicted-romantic-himbo to love, but I'm more excited to see the characters that Larian cooks for themselves, however they end up looking. Going into BG3 I didn't think any of the characters were "hotTM", but I fell in love with their personalities, and everyone is still like way above average in level of "attractiveness" by any normal standard.

Additionally, per your images, there are plenty of these type of "attractiveTM" characters in other games.. I don't want Divinity's companion designs to look like the characters from elsewhere. Just like I was disappointed with Dragon Age: The Veilguard (for almost everything, honestly, but also) when the wonky elves suddenly just looked like regular hot people (DA2 Fenris and Merrill will always be peak! I'll die on that hill.)

Larian's not gonna please everyone, there will always be someone who "yucks" someone else's "yum", but I don't want Larian's characters to suddenly look like they've had Stellar Blade makeovers... I want them too look how Larian intends them to look in their weird, sometimes grimy, and gruesomely hilarious world of Divinity where every surface is often on fire.

I get that it's not your jam, however, as other's have mentioned, eventually there will be mods available to get what you want. I'm sorry (not sorry) you'll have to wait a little longer to have the specific fantasy husbandu gameplay you're looking for.

In a perfect world we'd all get what we want right at the start... unfortunately some of us will never get a male-equivalent Karlach in BG3. (T_T) I just wanted an infernal golden-retriever-barbarian himbo boyfriend... alas.

Whatever is to come, I hope you're able to enjoy... regardless.

They certainly cannot please everybody, though there is a very easy way to satisfy the majority. How? Simple - for those who like women, provide a conventionally attractive and feminine female character as a companion and a romance option. In addition to that, provide a conventionally attractive and handsome male character as a companion and romance option.

The issue with excessive attempts at pandering and providing increasingly niche options is that they never really live up to the popularity of the traditional options. It's the same way in how countless options can be added to the character creation, only for the majority of players to choose a male human fighter or the equivalent. The next most popular options tend to take the form of playable races such as Elves and Tieflings. This is fairly consistent across the board in many fantasy games. Single player and MMO's included.

In other words, there isn't much point fighting against that tide or engaging in spiteful attempts to remove those options altogether. I can tolerate niche options being available, though if they come at the expense of traditional options? Then I lose all interest.

Diversity and options to explore widely different concepts is fun in and of itself. It cannot be measured in popularity or as some market survey because it is fundamental to the creative process of character creation, even to those who ultimately choose something traditional. The existence of variety around your character provides the sense of your character being someone unique.

The formula isn't to simply fill every space with something that satisfies the majority, because in doing so you destroy the illusion of things being unique and special and the entire storytelling you are trying to get people to engage with.

I have specifically stated that I am willing to compromise. I do not care if niche options are added, so long as the more mainstream options are also present. Yet if those mainstream options are absent altogether, then I am not particularly interested in that particular breed of 'diversity' as it rather blatantly becomes a matter of spiteful erasure and pandering.

To me, the romance stuff was something that just happened along the way. I didn't expect it, I didn't push for it, but maybe I was a bit afraid of waking up to a Game Over screen if I turned down Lae'zel. In a way, romances in BG3 were even a bit too realistic, as there is no guarantee your affections are shared by the person in question and you sometimes get hit on by people with who it just wouldn't work for you and suddenly everything is awkward. In that aspect it did serve the drama/soap opera aspect of RPGs. I guess my Tav was a bit more open to things than I would have been. Perhaps getting a dial in character creation that lets you set your orientation and kinks could solve this dilemma.

No guarantee that affection is shared? Have we played the same game?
Every companion in BG3 is playersexual and willing.

Thats a far cry from, for example, the Owlcat games or even BG2 where you can actually by rejected because a companion isn't interested in you or you screw up the romance.

Apparently not, I wasn't hit on by everyone in camp and didn't get romance dialogue options for everybody. From the top of my head - no Karlach, no Astarion, Halsin only very late in the game. BG3 was my first game with any romance options, although BG2 and D:OS2 are on the waiting list.

The point is that in BG3 every companion you hit on was 100% willing and on board right from the start no matter who or what you are while many other rpgs the companions have actual preferences you have to meet or can be not interested in romance at all.

I guess I'm just ugly, then.

You know I wanted to romance Wyll on my first playthrough but he wasn't interested, ended up seduced over to the evil side by the vampire.

As for the discussion on niche options; I don't mind it as long as the shoe fits.

No, you aren't, it's just that the romance options are described negatively, from a special point of view and from a meta-perspective. You usually cannot romance more than one companion in BG 3 and you have to do some stuff to achieve romancing. You just can romance any of the companions (they are player-centered) and that some people don't like.

As others said, the companions can just not be interested in you or reject you, if certain things are happening. They also can end a relationship, if you behave in certain ways - those mechanics are actually pretty good.

The only thing, that is a bit jarring is, that you have to lock into a romance during the tiefling party latest ( apart from the late comers Halsin and Minthara). In my first run, I found Karlach shortly after I freed Halsin and had the party and during doing side quests. I know, where she was, since I played early access and a friend told me, that she is still in the same spot, but somehow, I ended up doing the main quest before doing the Risen Road.

( And your gith lady is gorgeous)

Thanks for the flowers and the confirmation! I wasn't sure about Karlach, but guessed that with Astarion and my Gith necromancer Tav, Sava, it was just due to low approval. Thayvian necromantic tomes should only be handled by trained professionals! Mutual antipathy until late in Act 3. A lot of people who didn't play the game thought it was pretty saucy because of the bear-scene that was all over the news, but all in all I thought the romances were rather tame, added to the dynamics of the group and, at least in my case, were quite suitable to forward the story of Sava's journey.