Larian Studios Forums Divinity General Discussion The reaction to men and women

I noticed that in BG3 there was virtually no reaction to the player's sex, whether male or female. At times, it felt as though I was playing as an undefined creature rather than a man or a woman, and that negatively affected my role-playing experience.

Perhaps this is something you avoid because it would require adding reactions not only for men and women, but also for "they/them" and many other forms of fantastic self-identification, which would consume significant development resources. However, the vast majority of players identify themselves according to their biological sex—as either male or female. Since this represents the overwhelming majority of players, I believe it would be fair to include at least some gender-specific reactions for them.

I would love to see this feature return in your future games. I would certainly appreciate it.

Frankly I am not sure what you are even refering to, for I dont remember much gender dependent content in most other classic fantasy games either.

Apart of course from having two versions of dialogue that refers to gender, most dont have anything, except maybe romances.

BG3 already has these two versions, as well as romances.

So what else do you actually want ?

There were reactions in DAO. For example, the gender of the City Elf in Denerim heavily influenced the quest involving the sexual assault scenario—if you played as a male, you had to rescue your sister from a noble’s castle; if you played as a female, you and your sister ended up in the castle where soldiers try to #ape you.

A male noble could marry Anora and become king, while a female character could marry Alistair. In Mass Effect there was a kind of reaction like, “this isn’t a strip club, it’s a recruitment for soldiers” — if you were playing a female protagonist and interacting with a man in one of the scenes. And if you are a man and in love with Morrigan - you can chose a special ending in the last DLC where you can go with her and have a family.

And yes, romance restrictions based on gender also added immersion, since your partner was aware that you, for example, are a man rather than some undefined entity. And again, the ability to get a special ending due to noble status in DAO was also a very cool feature.

OK thanks for the examples. Now I have an idea what you are asking for.

I do own DA:O but I didnt like it for many reasons (the really poor rulesystem being the primary one, but I cant say I liked the general story too much either, far too depressing for my taste) so I only played it once and didnt notice such details.

Frankly I dont remember what character I played; I only know it was a mage.

It's disappointing that developers have to comply with current diversity trends and inclusive identities. On the other hand there are mod creators, but not a single one has been found yet to implement such complex role play modification