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

Homogenizing races is sadly an ongoing trend in entertainment for various reasons.

1. Some people started to virtue signal by accusing WotC that D&D race X represent ethnicity Y (they could not even agree on which one) and that them being different is racist. Sadly instead of ignoring them WotC caved and thats the reason why suddenly everything in D&D is a multicultural utopia.

2. After WotC drove away all their old role player customers they only survived because Stranger Things attracted a lot of casuals to the game. But they were far less interested in storytelling and role playing and instead only wanted combat and "numbers go up". So they build their characters to be good in combat and nothing else. I literally have been told by them that it is impossible to play an orc archer because they can't get a 16+ Dex at level 1 when races still had fixed ASI.
So with the primary target group of D&D being people who never in their life would play something not optimized WotC caved again and removed all differences between races.

For video games there are additional factors.

3. Motion capturing is expensive, but can easily be reused as long as the skeletal structure remains the same. So for cost cutting the number of races with different skeletons get reused. And its not only animation, also all the equipment and clothes would have to be remade to fit a new skeleton.
That the reason why halflings in BG3 are just scaled down humans with the same proportions or why Blizzard invented a new humanoid dragon race for playable dragons for which they used the elf skeleton instead of making the long existing dragon race playable.

4. Thirst. As mentioned Larian worked hard to attract the Romfantasy crowd and thirsters as that brings the money as the success of the Hojoverse and BG3 shows.
But while some people are ok with romacing something alien or furry, most want conventional pretty human and (tolkien/anime hybrid) elven waifus. And as BG3 made Lariant into the gooning studio as far as all the new players BG3 attracted are concerned, this is what Larian will likely deliver to not disappoint them.

That is true, but I hope that rather than letting technical challenges reduce everything to human-like, that they see it as something worthwhile to invest resources towards overcoming.

In the end I'd rather see a unique lizard race which may have some issues with clipping and animations than less variety just so everything can be perfect for cinematics.

Following minorities in fantasy genre never leads to anything positive. It was really sad to see fantasy race NPCs with afro/asian faces in bg3(In Fantasy World!). For any developer this is like shooting yourself in the foot. We speaking here about PC game, where the players do not have the real freedom of actions, you had no chance to skip all afro/asian faces in bg3. It is not a tabletop rpg with GM and players, where people creates the story, where the presence of modern extremely stupid trend lies on the shoulders of the players/GM.
This is the only correct way to overcome and create better animations for each race to highlight their differences. A real progress from part to part, Players will no longer be impressed by simply new spells/abilities. The story, lore, true fantasy atmosphere, cool fantasy characters(NOT reskinned humans), better animations than bg3 - the only way!
Romfantasy or not, this is not an excuse for creating an absolutely stupid mess from reskinned humans and call them as Fantasy Races.
I've wrote much already about "Salad", mix of fantasy races(just reskinned humans). Each fantasy race is an independent entity with its own culture, physiology, history, and global goals/not global. The small amount of mixing is possible in fantasy setting like Divinity, where we can see different fantasy race members living in specific place together. It should be clear why this phenomenon is present here, shown competently to not ruin Fantasy Atmosphere, not induce vomiting by extremely stupid and merciless modern diversity.
And in this regard, BG3 completely failed the fantasy genre.

If it is really necessary to implement the "tolerance" content, then make a customization for human race only in the next Divinity game. Here we can still "fit a square peg into a round hole" with great effort and grinding noise, that the humans of the southern lands have black or swarthy skin in fantasy world. And only because we know it from the real world.
Under no circumstances should fantasy races be changed or distorted to suit the destructive desires of minorities! This is the path to destruction!
Keep the standarts of Divine Divinity & Divinity OS2 in Fantasy Setting, Larian Team!

I find it odd to reference the adaptations in humans based on geographical locations. While outright refusing its potential existance in other races.

Especially if you want to compare to real world, where many species of animals have differences based on geographical location. Both in terms of colour and other physical traits (For example, the Tazmanian Platypus is much larger than the Austrailian Platypus. They're the same species, but geographical differences change how they develop)

It would make sense to have "Black" fantasy races. Since the colouration is based on melanin content in the skin, an evolutionary development to protect skin from the deadly laser in the sky known as the sun. Animals don't always have this pigment because their skin is under their fur so its not in direct sunlight (Though some still do have it), but fantasy races are based on humanoids and thus lack fur and as such would also evolve to develop melanin pigmentation to protect their skin.

With the evolution of lighter skin colours being due to humans moving to northern regions where there was less sunlight meaning that protection was less important and absorbtion of light was more beneficial (Since, yes, white skin is the evolutionary divergence from early hominids) - Then of course the "Asian" traits are further adaptation to the particular climates of the region.

Well... It makes sense depending on how much impact evolution is supposed to have occurred since their creation (Of course, you can never discount the possibility that when the race was created, they were created with such differences included). But if you accept humans changing based on geographical location, then there would also be similar evolutionary adaptations in fantasy races too. Of course, keeping in mind the inhabited locations of each race, as fantasy settings having multiple sentient races it's not like the real world where humans populated everywhere, there would be territorial disputes from early on limiting the places where races reside in the world.

As such, I wouldn't necessarily call ethnic options for fantasy races "Tolerance content", but more so including a pretty basic tenet of life that is often overlooked in fantasy settings.

If humans in the setting have "Black" or "Asian" adaptations thanks to evolutionary pressure. Then the same would be true of all fantasy races unless explained otherwise (Such as the race living in a very small region where there are no geographical differences for any members of the race, or if a race had other practices to cover such environmental pressures to mitigate the need to evolve such traits - For example, covering oneself in mud to protect against the sun)

Of course, there's always the possibility to use "Fantasy BS" to make up alterations to the normal processes (I.e. Build up of melanin, causing a dark brown colouration) in order to make fantasy races have different presentations of ethnicity. Such as how Drow/Dark Elves have a blue/purple skin tone thanks to "Fantasy BS" reasons. (Or better yet, actually provide in universe explainations for things... Like how Warhammer's Orks and Goblins have green skin because of the presence of chlorophyl due to their origin being plant based)

Do not start with the "they are not white" nonsense.

The problem I mentioned has nothing to do with humans of different ethnicies, but for example some influencers started with "Orcs represent black (or asian, as I said they never agreed on which one) people so them being evil is racist!!!!" back when such statements gave lots of clicks and likes.
Thats why orcs are now just humans with a bit of paint and live in multicultural cities now or why there suddenly are udadrow who are all nice (forcing Larian to have Lolthsworn drow as separate race choice to use the classic drow culture) or why in the new version there are no half elves or half orcs anymore as "being half of something" is racist.

And that leads to everyone and everything becoming more and more human.