Well I might be starting a shitestorm but I want to bring this discussion up and see what comes out. I am going to use a specific point and not get into ALL of this so you can understand where I am coming from.

The other day I was bored and started another play through, decided it was time I put an effort into being dark, so I created a Drow Wizard. BTW if you do not know, even without CHR, a Drow anything is EASY mode for the early game. Goblins bow to me without any dialog effort. I went straight to Minthara to recruit her and we set off to kill the Tieflings.

After the Tiefling and Druids are all dead she tells me we will celebrate at camp by banging. (Wow barely in the game and already heading for a sex scene, arguably the easiest one in the game)

So we get to camp and away we go... What followed made me almost fall out of my chair laughing. In the "sex" scene you watch Minthara (male PC), direct your hand for her gratification, give obvious head, mount reverse cowgirl and then mount regular cowgirl, all with efforts to show movement. I am laughing because this looks like it was designed for 13 year olds to masturbate to. This is when I started thinking, why so much effort to create sex scenes in the game?

I mean we have major plot holes "no pun intended", bugs in play, parts of game removed for changes not really well thought out and so much more. Was there not more for the team to do than to script out graphics sex scenes for the rendering department?

This was made even more glaring to me when a buddy had me finally set down and play some Kingmaker. I get for companions, a fallen paladin want to be, a barbarian with an inferiority complex, a bard that acts like my little sister and a cleric for the God of the pessimists. Not a single sexual come-on, innuendo, or suggestion in site. Let me be clear I am not saying Kingmaker is better, BG obviously has way more polish. Yet I feel like at least in concept, Kingmaker tried harder for creating interesting NPCs.

So I ask the question here, did BG3 over do sexuality in the game? This is NOT about the type of sex or orientations, this is about sexualization of the game period.

I'm all over this forum with my negative feeling about the pixel porn that is half this game. It serves no purpose other than as a sales mechanism for the unfortunate parts of society drawn to this type of thing. In other words, it's cheap, which makes it shameful

I think this debate gets lost as it devolves into sexuality and "social justice warrior" positions. I am hoping we can keep the discussion on point and focus on the overarching sexualization.

We had a big thread specifically about how badly choreographed the Minthara sequence is, and a lot of people agreed that it wasn't great, but while some things were polished (lighting and positioning, so characters weren't halfway into the altar), nothing else got changed for release (heh). Maybe it's because i'm an adult woman, and not an 18 year old man, but I found the sequence very awkward and not erotic.

I said this before, and I'll say it again. Larian should have either committed to going full ero-game, or they should have tv-sex-scene-ed it (where everything is covered or cut away and we never actually see anything).

It's only over-sexed if you compare it to other dnd crpgs, some of which have suffered from publisher-enforced censorship, even when the developers wanted to create romance plots, because they didn't want the rating of the game raised beyond the marketable range, which was T, or M15 here.

Yes it is. As a form of marketing to make people who otherwise don't play RPGs take notice and hook them. Hence also the prominently advertised bear sex scene.

Larian used sex both to hook in new customers segments and to distract from BG3 just offering average industry standard fare and often even below that.
Sex sells, a good or at least functioning story sadly does not as the success and hype of BG3 proves. Idiocracy here we come.

And yes, you also rightly noticed that BG3s companions suffer a lot because all of them have to be (very) sexual which limits the type of possible (origin) companions and that companions in other RPGs, for example Kingmaker and Wrath, are much better.
And not only does BG3 oversexualisation limit the type of companions, the companions that exist are also modeled primarily to fulfil sexual fantasies. Just play a romantic/sexual visual novel and you will see a huge overlap between the character types in it and BG3. The tsundere, the shy girl, the bully with a soft core, ect.

I wonder if this sexualization is why we have no Dwarven, Halfling or Gnome companions since they would not "normally" be seen as sexual.

I don't understand your position perhaps. Mine is that Larian uses excessive amounts of overwrought, poorly illustrated, poorly written and "cheap" sex scenes to sell extra copies of their game. Does that make me a warrior for social justice? Maybe just someone who would like to see a little integrity in gaming.

Voted yes.

I love romance in video games and am fine with tasteful sex scenes and companions hitting on the pc.

I didn’t do the Minthara romance (or even recruit her), so I can’t talk about her romance. However, the romance I picked, Halsin, was too over the top. Too many strange sex jokes (sex as animal, joke about being a sex slave). Most things in Act 3 for him were about sex only. They didn’t give him a romantic main romance path for just him and Tav or even a small nonromance side quest, such as saving the tree. The lack of these things and his focus on sex without relationships made him feel immature and one-dimensional to me in Act 3. It took over his character. This is why I voted yes. I don’t mind them including a sex scene, but sex shouldn’t take over a character and be all there is to him.

No I am referring to people that get in fights about sexual preferences for partners or orientation. These topics tend to pull the sexualization discussion off topic and take it into the weeds.

Imo yes. They are not sexy enough for the masses according to market research.

Look at what companions we have.
Elf, elf, dark elf, half elf, human, human and two exotics, red human and green human.
As I said in my other response, in my eyes Larian made the companions primarily to fulfil sexual fantasies, which worked when you see all the simping about them and the constant demands for more kisses, hugs and other scenes.
And that included their race.

That elves are seen as overly attractive is even a plot point in some media like Bright or Shadowrun. Larian just applied it to the real world.

There are two nonorigin companions without romances. It is also possible Helia’s story evolved into or was too close to the Dark Urge’s story and that is why she wasn’t included. Only Larian could say for sure!

This is the most horny RPG I have ever played. Yet I don't think it is over-sexualized. The way characters are dressed is generally tasteful. We all know the stereotype of female "armour" in RPG's. BG3 doesn't do that. The exception to that is maybe Karlach, but she is literally on fire when you meet her. So I'll give her a pass on that one.


In my opinion the only companion that fits this descriptions is Halsin, which turns into a sex pest in act 3. But the others? I think it adds more than it takes away. Drow matriarchs are known to use sex to control their underlings, which is why she tries to murder you if you refuse. The Gith reproduce asexually, so sex is "no strings attached for" for them. Which is why lae'zel will bang you early on and only catches feelings later. And Astarion is well, Astarion. None of these fit the mould of what I would consider a normal/healthy relationship. But they do fit their lore, which is what makes it believable.

Horny, yes. Over-sexualized, no.

Is it overly sexualized? Maybe. It's hard to say.

I mean, all the sex is optional. You can play through the game and never see a sex scene pretty easily (Maybe you'll walk in on Bugbear x Ogress fun times by accident...). So it's not like it's being shoved down your throat unlike say Witcher 1 where you got nudie cards for doing certain things.

Maybe one could argue that relationships devolve into sex too quickly... But realistically given the premise of the setting, with characters being infected by an illithid tadpole so literally any second they could succumb to ceremorphosis, many people would be having sex even without a relationship just to make the most of the limited time they have (So perhaps Minthara is a bit quick, I'm not certain I haven't done a Minthara run to see if she knows about the tadpole by that point)

So the only overtly sexual thing that BG3 does is actually depict sex scenes, instead of merely alluding to them or having characters roll around in their undies. Which in of itself isn't overly sexual besides the fact that society is prudish and doesn't like showing sex (While at the same time being completely desensitized to violence), it's only overly sexual for some poorly directed scenes and/or things like marketing the bear-sex stuff.

Perhaps this depiction could be considered too much, while relationships in RPG's are still pretty shallow. Thus perhaps it would feel more appropriate for more people after the genre has evolved so that relationships were much deeper and more intricate of a feature and less about raising an attitude bar with gifts/a handful of positive dialogue options like a cheap Dating Sim.


I think that's more due to general playerbase trends. Statistically, smaller races are the least popular in any RPG. With preference erring towards Human, Elf and Half-Elf.

So they made companions that would appeal to the largest number of players. With of course token Gith and Tiefling given their prominence in the story.

That said, I like making my Dream Visitor a hot goth dwarf

While I do agree things lean a bit into Human and Elves, Dwarves have always been prominent in any DnD based RPG I have played.

The point still stands that BG3s sex focus limits the type of companions.
To keep using Kingmaker as example many of its companions would be impossible in BG3 simply because they are not interested in sex (Amiri, Jubilost, Ekundayo, Nok-Nok, Harrim, Jaehtal, Linzi).
And while it would work for some, making them sexable as per BG3 requirement would break their character.

Yes it is. And this was intentionally done this way by Larian specifically to make the game more attractive to today's over-sexualized younger audiences. It was a marketing ploy, and it has worked wonders for Larian in making an otherwise average, so-so game into a sales blockbuster for them, as they hoped for.

Voted yes because of Mizora, Haarlep, and everything around Halsin. If the same things were actually done well and easier to avoid, would have voted no.

Other companions' romance scenes are nothing compared to Minthara's.

You're right that the focus on romances limits their options in possible companions. But this does not make the game over-sexualized. Over-sexualization has very little to do with how sexually active a character is. It is possible to not sexualize an absolute slut of a character, while at the same time sexualizing a prudish character. And I will argue that none of the characters (apart from Halsin) are over-sexualized. If you were to remove all the romances/scenes from the game very little about these characters would change.

This actually makes the point for me. Once you remove the sex and romance nothing actually changes. The relationships beyond getting a sex scene do nothing to drive any meaningful plot lives. ALL of the plotlines could be achieved without any need for romance or sexual content so this makes it gratuitous at BEST and sex hype for prepubescent teens at worst.

I don't think it's oversexualized.

This is hardly a porn game. You have to play for several hours before seeing anything and often times, the sex scenes add to the character and are quite tame (Minthara's is the most explicit, everyone else's though could be considered PG-13 if it didn't have nudity).

Sex is used to enhance the intimacy of relationships or to show the callousness in characters and I believe BG3 did that pretty well.

Its just like with Game of Thrones. That show has sex all over the place. But what it doesn't do is devolve into straight up erotica. Sex for those characters is used as a weapon, as an intimate moment, to push the story forward, to connect with characters which is exactly what I think BG3 does with it too.

Now, I do believe Halsin was just there for gratification, that is pretty obvious. But Astarion's sex scenes make clear aspects of his character and are somewhat crucial to get to know him on a deeper level since sex and control are such poignant parts of his character, SH's is a big step for her character and being vulnerable with you which is something she's never let herself feel, Karlach's also gives her a softer-ish side and it helps me relate to her, Gale's is just...fascinating to me and makes him fascinating in turn, Minthara's is all about control and dominance and it sets the stage for her if you fully romance her and breaks down her vulnerabilities to the point that she admits her regrets at treating you this way once real feelings set in. I could go on.

The fact is, in real life, sex happens all the time. On the first date, the first sentence, a fling at a party etc. And this game tried to be sure the sex scenes served a purpose for their characters (except Halsin) and I believe they've done that successfully.

Yes and no. I mean, you have a lot of opportunities to have sex, but you can nearly completely ignore them. I for example had a nice conversation with the drow twins about their dreams for the future ( a farm) and if they are treated well here (they are) and then we wished each other a good day and went on our ways. Haarlep is icky, but you just can send Astarion or another stealther in - he mumbles in his sleep and you can hear, where the passcode is and stealth to the painting. Or just stealthkill him. I found out, because after I talked to him and gave him a 'hell no' on his proposition, he just turned my whole party and I was sitting there with a summond water myrmidon and Us to fight him. So I tried the more stealthier routs.

Leaves the companions: Shadow and Astarion are ok, because they leave you alone, if you don't bring the stuff up. Lae'zel leaves you alone, when you are already involved with someone else, Karlach makes kind of sense, so I'm ok with her asking me, Gale got better and I really liek his friendship route now, Wylls dance is awkward, but he never asks again, after a No.
Minthara, I never had in the party, since I prefer teh good route, where the tieflings are alive, so I can't say much about her.
Halsin is very problematic up to the point, where I just don't inetract with him apart from story stuff.

I think, they should fix the companions coming at you - maybe like with Shadowheart, where a scene can ahppen, that can end in friendship or romance.

About the small races: tbh: most dwarven ladies look much nicer, than the elves in the vanilla game, same goes for gnomes and halflings. But yeah, people want to f... their elves, that is, why we have Halsin in the first place, instead of maybe a nice dwarven fighter, a dragonborn monk or a halfling bard.

TLDR: I think, they could tone it down, but having played a few times, I know, how to avoid most of it.

I will admit that most are not a graphic as Minthara, but she also proves your point above false as she can be gotten to in under two hours EASY. I did it and was not looking to sex her nor had ever even tried to recruit her.



What purpose? I mean do you have deeper relationship in game through the romance? Does it actually do anything to drive the main storyline or would the story be essentially the same without it? Does it add a deeper interaction. Can you fight better with that companion at your side because your now closer and understand how the other thinks and moves? There is no real advantage to the relationships beyond maybe some small narrative points. If even having a friendship with the companions does nothing for the adventure experience then sex does less than nothing beyond what we are discussing.

I'll just copy paste what I wrote in the same thread from last month:


https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=880068&page=1

I completely agree. You put the whole thing into words wonderfully in a way that I never could myself.

The appeal for me is learning more about the characters. You get the extra scenes, and more dialogue options. You learn more about their needs, wants and vulnerabilities. That's a reward in and of itself. There does not need to be a mechanical reward or narrative purpose beyond that in my opinion.

I agree with Zentu. Enhances how?
Sex serves no purpose and the character development stays the same even without sex. The only thing it serves is for marketing.
When you want to see it done better look at Arushalae in Wrath of the Righteous where having sex, or at least the possibility, is tied to her development and her fear of falling prey to her succubus instincts.

BG3 has nothing like that. Sex is (early because of EA) payoff to attract certain kinds of players, nothing more. And Larian made sure everyone knew it by prominently showing (bear) sex, genital customization and kept talking about sex, intimacy coordinators, ect.

In 2 PT's I 've witnessed 3 "intimate scenes". Only because I was actively pursuing them.
- Shadowheart at the druid"s victory festivity in camp
- Minthara, idem but for the other side
- Mizora in chapter 3.
And finally I also accepted the Drow's service at Shares Caress. But really, that last one looked like a prank, a joke to rise expectations and then give you the "nah nah, we got you !" I'm sure this wan not Larian's purpose, but I found it really badly done.

Except for the short Mizora fondling, which emanated some eroticism (maybe because of the wings and horns ) none of the scenes were truly erotic, arousing or even very sexy. The only oversexualisation that I can see is the hype that is given to this (tiny) aspect of the game by journalists, players, influencers and maybe Larian itself. Also if you don't go try to find the scenes yourself, you won't see anything. I simply stayed friends with Gale, Lae'zel and Wyll. Mostly ignored Astarion and Halsin and never had anything lewd happening with them.

I guess Larian didn't really know how far they could go and so produced these half-baked romance scenes. I thought a nice, suggestive scene was the test with the Dryad at the circus. Where you must answer questions about "your lover" and can approach one pace with every good answer. The visuals of the dryad herself evoked some eroticism. I would have loved more romantic scenes like this to evolve to a deeper romance and lovemaking.

So anyway I answered "no" to the question is it oversexualised.

I like some degree of sex in the sword and sorcery genre. But I can imagine that if you make a product destined for all ages and all cultures, it is a difficult exercise. But as a reference, I could cite the orgy scene in Tulsa Doom's lair from John Milius 1982 film "Conan the Barbarian". It was erotic, esthetic with some nudity but not too much, and perfectly fit the story , atmosphere and characters.

I guess we all have our own views on what does/does not lend itself as a benefit or enhancement to a game.

If looking for strict utility, then the sex scenes do nothing. No extra abilities or items. You are correct.

But for people like me who play RPG's for rich character progression and story purposes, it enhances a lot.

You mention Wrath of the Righteous where sex is a prominent thing tied to the development of a character and, in my opinion, that's exactly what the sex scenes of BG3 achieve. You are, of course, fine to disagree.

But when looking at the character of Astarion, who's whole life is about control and his inability to have agency over his life, a person who's body was literally used as a tool for someone else's gain, a person who's first defense mechanism is to seduce and enthrall as an instinct, his sex scenes are all about learning that side of him. He literally talks about how his seduction of you was all for protection and then his journey afterwards is helping him reconnect with his intimate side without needing sex to be a weapon or a tool for control.

I'd say that qualifies as character information you wouldn't connect with nearly as strong without his sex scenes.

Sex was definitely sold as a marketing gimmick and there are definitely less mature players out there playing the game solely for the sexualized parts; that we can agree on.

But for people who thrive on getting to know characters and who crave knowing just that one extra detail about a character that we otherwise would not have known, the sex scenes do that and then some. So it's incredibly immersive from that point of view to have these scenes.

There is no doubt in my mind that Larian knew what they were doing with the Minthara sex scene + the 'under construction signs over the other companions giving a certain impression of the game prior to launch. Certainly the Halsin/bear scene was there to generate buzz/controversy right before launch. The game was very much marketed with a 'sex sells' attitude-it feels very intentional even if they didn't outright state it-can't fault Larian for their marketing savvy-they ran a slick game in that department, at least.

Now I don't think that the sexualization in BG III necessarily translates into maturity though. For all their promotion of the sex and relationship side of things, I don't think Larian has really crafted an experience where the relationship experience is anything revolutionary or handled with any more nuance than the Lion's share of rpgs out there that tackle such material.

Polyamory with Halsin is ofc handled very poorly as the discussion in that regard is ample testimony to. The relationship with Lae'zel transitions to a conventional relationship whether or not you wanted to IIRC, and Minthara basically drops the drow relationship power dynamic she exhibited when you first meet her immediately after you get her back which might be unfortunate if that appealed to you.

I voted yes. I simply try and avoid all dialogues leading in that direction. So far into ACT 2 no sex.

And I do.
No companion arc in BG3 is influenced by sex and would happen exactly the same way without it or less graphical ones which would leave more resources for more important things.

Gale is the best example for this. Him having sex with you, thus being unfaithful to Mystra should have a big effect on his character development. But it has not, his arc continues exactly the same way as if he did not have sex.
This shows that BG3s sex is not there for character development.

And don't only focus on how easy and meaningless it is to have sex with companions as evidence of BG3 being oversexualized. Also look at how much effort was spend on it. Why was there a need for customizable genitals (which Larian proudly mentioned for marketing purposes, answered my own question there) or intimacy coordinators?
Was there a need for a bugbear fucking an ogre in a barn? To read about dragonborn mating practices (which does not even match the genitals Larian were so proud of) or a detailed account of Raphaels bedroom performance? Or even a brothel with drow twins? Does any of that enhance the game? No. But Larian put it in anyway as distraction from otherwise pretty generic and predictable plotlines and to cater to the bear sex demographic Larian worked so hard to attract.

Not sexual enough. Pretty average, expected better.

I felt drastically more engaged in DOS2's romances and its one spicy night, and that was achieved with just text and voice acting.

My only complain with sex scenes is that they put waaay too much effort on the gay stuff to the point that there are more cool option for gay men than straight men and I absolutely doubt that enough gay men play the game to justify screwing your straight audience over them.

Other than that sex sells, always did always will and I don’t mint it in my games . I was very disappointed with games like the Fallout series that when you make an effort to have a romantic partner all you can do is lie next to them then it’s black screen and nothing … at least in BG3 you get some more graphical approach and it’s fun because it’s not a generic on scene for all, different companions prefer different things in sex so their scenes are somewhat way to show some more from their personalities.

So anyways I do think the game is sexualized, wouldn’t call it over-sexualized because as a straight man , the only sexual scenes I have seen and ever was interested in are Minthara and Shadowheart and none of the others, I have zero interest in gay content or freaky alien sec with green alien woman etc.

Weeeellll.........

I am an RP whore, I will take weak game play with great RP any day. When I think of "great" RP though I do not see that in BG3, good for sure just not great. When I think of a CRPG and relationships I image something like Drizzt and Belwar. As their friendship grew they became very synchronized in battle, from a game mechanic point of view this would be a special move they could do when together. I also image the deep friendship, with snappy banter back and forth that would increase as the relationship grew.

I do get how romantic relationship an evolve but even those should add something to experience. Image having a deep relationship with Karlach and if something happens to your character, goes say under 25% health, she goes berserk. Going out of the player control as she attempts to demolish any enemy attacking the PC until the fight is over. In this way the relationships, in my opinion, would feel deep and meaningful. Way more so than a quick sex scene and a couple of cut scenes of soul baring.

BG3 has some great dialog and writing. However it feels like they said here is a cinematic and then let is drop.

Also to me the RP is limited in that if you want to pursue a deeper relationship with a companion it has to go sexual. There is no way, again using Drizzt and Belwar as an example, to create a deep friendship, any attempt heads straight to courtship and sex.

It would be great to have this type of reactivity for all the romances!

I didn't answer the poll because the issue feels a little more complicated to me.

I'm okay with the sex when it's appropriate for the setting and story. When it enhances the characters and the world. There are times where I think this works in BG3, or at least gets close enough to working to call it appropriate. Where it brings more to the table than it takes away.

But there are other times where I think it absolutely breaks the setting, and I can see the writer, so to speak.

So. If it helps the setting come alive, great. If it's obviously there for the sensibilities of a modern audience, though, it's detrimental.

I don't think Baldur's Gate 3 is overly sexualized, I think it's just more sexualized than the average game of its type. I think Phoenix's points are pretty much my opinions on the matter as well. However I also agree that the game doesn't really do anything special with romances, nor are the sex scenes all that interesting. Personally I don't think the scenes are really good enough to justify their inclusion overall, but I'm not upset they're in there. I also agree that I think the capacity for deep friendhsips with the companions is lacking. Part of that is because of the way character relationships are written, that's true. Romances are treated as the gateway to seeing the deepest parts of many companions. However I don't think that's the only reason or perahps even the main reason. I think an equal or greater cause of that lack of deep friendship is because our character never really gets to be more than an empty husk of surface level traits dictated by class and race. We're not able to really express our attachment fully through our characters even during romance.

As for tying character relationships to mechanics, I'm of two minds on that. I think it could be cool, but I feel like tying it specifically to romance only encourages the divide in bonding between romance and friendship. I also don't think roleplay needs to be tied to mechanics to be deep and meaningful, and indeed tying things to mechanics can have the opposite effect, where suddenly character relationships aren't about bonds with the characters, they're about which character has the best relationship bonus.

Too sexualized ? Well, yeah. Thankfully you can switch it all off.

This is limitation of RP in CRPGs. In table top the relationship would play out with some game advantages naturally. There would be no "mechanic" needed as the players would build a rapport and just naturally do things to compliment the other. In CRPG the RP elements are limited in depth and so the natural benefits of an RP relationship, friend or otherwise needs a bit of game mechanics help to work.

It is in essence much the same as a reputation mechanic. As you do nice things for the villagers (slay the local monster, drive off a bandit raid or recover an item for someone) they respond more positive you (at least a good game would this happen) resulting in you seeing lower prices for services or perhaps special quests you could not get otherwise. The same goes for going negative where prices go up, or perhaps cannot do business at all, might even have the villagers actively try to kill you. It is a mechanic to reflect the result of how you act to people around (RP)

The same could be implemented as discussed for more direct personal relationships and BG3 does this every so slightly. You can make a companion so mad they leave you. The issue in BG3 is a lack of nuance. They either hate you, want to have sex with you or just are there.



BTW, thank you EVERYONE taking part for a mature discussion on this.

Did you even have to ask? There are meme competitions on youtube, called 'BG3 sex%' where competitors enter the game and try to get laid as quickly as possible (basically romance speedrunning)... and they do it mostly with Lae'zel... and they were saddened when Larian announced that they'd reshuffle Lae'zel's romance so it happens at the party and prior to it you have to impress her. When that got revoked in one of the patches they rejoiced, lol. Now I wonder, if Lae'zel was no longer an option, who would they move on to next? Hmm, likely Minthara or Astarion.

Also, while Minthara and Halsin's "love making" scenes are pretty graphic, Ascended Astarion continuously gets more and more censored, that tactically placed candle gets thicker and thicker.

But yeah, just like yourself whenever I see these scenes I generally laugh, cause I really do not need to see all the graphic details to know what's going on. I actually miss the days when games employed massive walls of text with very tasteful and vague descriptions of the deed. If you ask me, BG3 should've went the Mass Effect route, where you might see some nudity before it fades to black. But that's just my opinion, and I have been called a prude before (I don't mind it really lol).

I voted 'no', but I had to think about it for a bit. I've never done anything with Minthara (except kill her) so I can't comment on that. The only time I ran into something(s) which felt weird and uncomfortable sex-wise was in Act III when the Emperor and Mizora both propositioned my obviously-uninterested-and-quite-hostile Tav. But that sort of makes sense for Mizora. No excuse for the Emperor.

Never did much with Haarlep or in the brothel. I'm generally uninterested in that sort of side content (I'm asexual and a bit sex-repulsed). Fortunately I could just... ignore it. And I did. Never had a problem with how or when any of the companions hit on my characters, it all seemed to fit the circumstances and their personalities - I think I somehow avoided a few of the more common and annoying bugs.

I was here for EA and remember it being much more awkward at the tiefling party back then. They've done a pretty good job of smoothing that out, in my opinion. So, overall, I'd say no, it's not overly sexualized. But keep in mind that I play a lot of "romance" games, or at least games with romance included, so my perspective is probably a bit skewed.

To be fair, Karlach would probably do that for anyone she considered a friend. Not necessarily just for lovers or BFFs.

If we consider how long she's been alone and how passionate she is.

Which is one of the problems with this sort of thing, most gimmick additions for things to occur in combat would also make sense for people who are just friends. Rather than being qualitative of a deep relationship. People don't like bad things happening to their friends...

Really, when it comes down to implementing relationships into games one needs to take into consideration how and why relationships function in real life and see how (If at all) this can transpose into a game.

Like, for friendships, this usually in real life ends up being people you talk to and hang out with on occasion. But in a video game setting this isn't optional, companions are with you because that's how the game is (Unless you perma-death them or otherwise make them leave) and you talk to them because... It's an RPG you talk to literally everyone...

For relationships, you share more intimate moments (Often including, but not exhaustively being sex) and spend more time together. But this is just done with companions anyway by opting to have your preferred character(s) in your party anyway.

So often the only real way of showing relationships deepening in a game is by adding more dialogue options to find out more about a character (But there's only so much one can write about a single character, especially in such a flat scenario as a static face to face conversation dictated by a handful of prompts) or allowing the relationship to take an additional form (I.e. Intimate acts like kissing and sex) - Both often feel pretty shallow.

Perhaps RPG designers need to look into Dating Sims (The good ones, not the harem ero ones) and that new trend of AI Girlfriends to see how they might better implement deepening relationships in their games. Since surely the goal is to emulate that sort of thing? Where you feel like you've created a bond with someone.

With the secondary aspect being to better think about how to implement a deepening relationship because the constant iteration of "Attitude bar" always feels awkward. Though, I suppose internally that's how it has to work. It can however be implemented in a less overt way, so instead of just "Heres a gift for +20 attitude" or "Selecting this dialogue option gives +5 attitude" it's more nuanced than that. For example, if it's the first character you talk to when you enter camp. If you always exhaust all their dialogue options when you talk to them. Etc. Smaller details that show you appreciate them that build over the course of gameplay rather than static "Do this dialogue option" stuff.

Yup it Was.. haha
theres no Need to Say More..
Just Play the Game and yu will understand.

(and i kinda Fell in Love with Shadow Becouse of that.. she was the Only one that didant Try to Jump on me without show her that i wanted to be with her..)
i Had to Gave her a Opening for her to actually Start to Treat me Diferent in the Game..
The Rest. Jesus..
Only Laezel Try to actually ask what i want from her.. and i do respect her a lot more just becouse of that.
i start to see her like my Crazy Sister after That.. 100% respect for her.
(i can even Take on Vlakith for her if she asked me.. haha)

(Gale, Astarion, Karlach, Halsin all get Jealous for no reason when i didnt even show interest on then.. really bad.)

Let me illustrate it this way. What is the difference between a sexualized/objectified character, and a sex-positive character?

The answer is agency.

Is the sex on their terms? Are they an active participant? Do they make choices? Are their wants and needs, considered important? Or are they a prize/reward to be won? Are their bodies used primarily for audience titillation, with little regard for the person?

A character who engages with sex because they want to is sex-positive. A character who has sex because the writer wants to have sex with them, or wants the players to be jerking off to them, or because some other character wants to have sex with them, is a sexual object.

If the origin characters, narratively, function fine without any romance or sex. And if their romances do not take away from that. Then these characters are not objectified, no matter how horny they may be.

I feel as though you are trying to make a point, and accidentally making the counter case to what you intend. Your post suggests to me that, by your metric, these characters are very much over-sexualised and objectified.

The characters in question do not have agency.
They are characters controlled by their writers to respond in particular ways to particular flags, no matter what else outside their flag tree (and those flag trees are being revealed to be extremely narrow) the character does. Their agency, as digital constructs, is zero.

The characters you can bed in BG3 are absolutely treated like prizes to be won and the sex is a 'reward' for doing the things they like. Their bodies are absolutely used, in this sense, purely for audience titillation, with No regard for the theoretical person.

They all have sex scenes written for them and gratuitously choreographed (even if said scenes don't land well), because the writers wanted to put sex in the game; there is no reasonable way to deny that and still retain intellectual integrity. The question was never "What is appropriate for the progression of this character", and always "Where and when can we put the sex, so it works?" (and they weren't too fussy about that second question, most of the time, either). Those scenes exist not to further the characters in any tangible way outside of the scenes themselves (they don't), but to deliver sex to the viewing audience as a 'pay off', using the character as a vehicle. That is absolutely sexual objectification, even before we step back from it and take into account that there are no 'people' here - only a video game that pitches digital dolls (sexual objects) at you for your gratification.

If we think only internally to the game space, and consider the characters as people... it doesn't get much better. The relationships you build with them are one dimensional where one direction is "I hate you and want to kill you" and the other is "Lets bang, okay?" and there is no nuance and no in-between (aside from non-interactive non-existence) and no alternative; sex is very much equated with winning in the game of character relationships.

The short answers for your questions above:

"Is the sex on their terms?" - If it were not on agreed terms, there would be no properly informed consent and we'd be talking about rape. You're not saying anything of value here. If you're trying to imply that them making the first move as opposed to the player, somehow makes them less objectified, then no, as written constructs pitched to a viewing audience, it does not.
"Are they an active participant?" - As above.
"Do they make choices?" - For the most part, no, they don't. Once you get to the "guess it's sex time now" gate, choice vanishes for the most part. But... You know who gets to make even fewer choices about how they want the sex to be? The player character; in almost every case they have to numbly accept sex as delivered by their prize-giver, or opt out entirely. That isn't a point in favour of 'not overly sexualised content'.
"Are their wants and needs, considered important?" - As above, no, they aren't, not really... but the player character's needs and wants are considered Even Less. They have to accept the scene and behaviour that the writers wanted to deliver this sex scene in, and be an acting doll in the writer's porn shoot, as directed, or they can cancel it entirely; their actual personal character wants or desires are not considered in virtually every case (and indeed as has been demonstrated, the character is forced to such a soulless stand-in doll that their physical anatomy and gender is not considered for the scene, behind their physical build).
"Or are they a prize/reward to be won? Are their bodies used primarily for audience titillation, with little regard for the person?" Yes, 100% absolutely they completely are, in almost every case.

==

To be clear for myself, I'm not saying that having heavily sexualised content or characters is bad; to me, it's not! It's just a matter of how it's handled and how well it blends with the world and space it's in; how well it fits meaningfully into the space and the characters. I like it when the characters I'm interacting with are able to be acknowledged as sexual beings, and for each of my characters, in all spaces I roleplay in - be it forum-based, D&D tabletop, or other video games, I generally know what their tastes and preferences are, even if it never really comes up; for me, that's an important facet of their identity and who they are, and it can impact and influence things, and it matters. I appreciate games that take the same degree of fullness to their character design.

What I've found in BG3, however, doesn't do that. The sex is a prize, and a milestone; it never escapes feeing disconnected from anything outside itself, placed purely to reward the player. Anyone who knows me knows I've put a great deal of work into feedback on how to write and choreograph intimate sequences in ways that work, and that it's an area of interest to me, to see sex and intimacy present in a game to give it a real, breathing-world feel... to be able to explore that with my character, and define what they like or want to the game, and have the game pick that up and respond to it... but my interest is in it being done well, and what we have been given in BG3 is not that.

I voted yes.

My reasoning is as follows:

All of the main companions are young, fit and interested in you. Yes, even the racist alien. And the guy whose romantic entanglement with a literal goddess is part of his story. No loyal widow/SO back home/married to their duty/asexual/just not that into you, etc allowed. That already felt dodgy before you find out everyone makes the first move and have to be turned down. Everyone.

Platonic relationships got shafted hard and obviously. I should not feel like actually getting to know one of my companions is the reward for pursuing them. That's backwards AF.

The romances exist in a bubble. WAY more effort was put into the reactivity of taking LIs to see some twins than to their LI literally dying in front of them. Hello?

There are SEVERAL occasions where the developers compromised their own characters in favor of sex/romance. A prime example being Shadowheart. Her initial stance is one of reservation. She will tell the player that Shar discouraged relationships so flings were indulged in secret. Cue Act 3, where you can discover any number of fascinating things, like how apparently Shar has multiple personalities and actually does encourage flings so the brothel thing is fine. Or double fine if you brought Halsin since SH has been thirsting over him for a while. Or how Shadowheart is an amnesiac commenting on how relationship drama is so last century fr fr ong.

Halsin's everything is the second example.

Ever noticed how much less a romance with non-Ascended Astarion gets? A friend of mine certainly did. How weird!

Marketing.

I still have no idea what purpose customizing genitalia serves.

Same goes for the sex scenes. They are not done particularly well animation wise, nor tastefully content wise and Larian appears to have buyer's remorse with some of what they launched with. So what was the point?

Honestly, I think what people are getting angry it is the fandom focusing on sex, and then reacting as though it was the game itself sexualizing something.

The game is fine. Sexual, but no more than any other game that has adult content. The fandom is extremely horny (which I like) but if you don't, you're not going to have a good time.

Yes. The horniness and oversexualisation is actively hurting the game.
And the massive success BG3 has means other publishers will now also sacrifice a good game in favor of a horny game even more. If you are horny buy porn and let RPGs be good RPGs with well written characters and story instead of what BG3 offers.

I do lean into yes: But frankly I have more issues with what game doesn’t have (coherent plot line, satisfying character arcs, interesting character choices) than what is has. I am conceptually against turning what used to be teen property into crude R rated sex romp, it could have worked in a narrative with more substance to it.

But I am again, complaining about narrative side, which simply didn’t seem to be priority nor focus. If BG3 was less sexualised, I don’t think it would become any better. While I always found digital dolls awkwardly rubbing against each other plainly weird, there seem to be an audience for it.

Yes, non-Ascended Astarion's my fav but at the same time I did notice how lacking in content he is after dealing with Cazador in general. And this is my personal hot take that might offend some people, but I feel like Ascended Astarion was the writers' favorite pet while also wanting the player to feel bad for giving into that whole power fantasy at the same time and even punishing players for it, fucking wild!

But yeah, I agree with your entire reply, very well thought out arguments, but this part really struck me like lightning!

I noticed that too.

The guy tells you he wants to be seen as a person, not as a sex object, and then you get to Act 3 and the "hot vampire dom" version gets more content and more personality.

I agree. BG3's indisputable oversexualization is the least of the game's many, many glaring problems and weaknesses. But I have to wonder if that is the very reason Larian chose to add in all of the oversexualization. As others have pointed out, absolutely NOTHING would have been lost or changed in the game, especially with respect to roleplaying, if every single bit of nudity and sex in the game had been left out. So maybe all of that is there precisely for the purpose of getting people to either be distracted from the game's many very real shortcomings or not care about any of those shortcomings because ... SEX!

I honestly thought of writing a longer post but after reading Naira's and Rahaya's I decided against it seeing how well they described one of my issues with the game. But yeah, the answer is yes. Larian did an amazing job at distracting people (to an extent myself included) with companions and sex.

Might come of as an ass by saying this but I think this game has attracted a lot of lonely sex starved individuals that are getting overly attached to these characters (ignoring the writing and just focusing on whom they can have sex with and what kinky situations they can get into) and despite it being a great thing business and marketing wise I don't want to think how it might influence the future development of other RPGs.

So to answer the OPs question. Yes, I do think that BG3 is overly sexualized seeing how in multiple cases within the game the writing and its consistency had to take a back seat to provide the player with some sexual hijinks.

Thats exactly the case. There is a sizable customer segment out there who want waifus (see the success of Genshin Impact and other Hoyoverse games). Larian decided, sadly correctly, thats more profitable to reach out to them instead of focusing on hardcore RPG gamers who are less forgiving about story holes and bad mechanics.

Me reading this post scrolling up from the bottom of the page and not seeing the name of the poster:



Realizing it's a Niara post:



Jesting aside though, Niara as usual has put it better than I would ever have the energy/time/ability to. That said, as the subreddit shows, imo, a lot of people don't really like BG3 for the narrative, they like it because it's fun/co-op/sexy.

I wonder who these hardcore RPG gamers are, if they find the small amount of sex in this game disturbing. (Sex which you can entirely ignore if you want to) I don't think they care much for the heroic fantasy genre on which their games are based.

Let's have a look at Conan the Barbarian, which was orignally a series of 5 short stories written by Robert E. Howard.
Below are the covers of the magazines where they were published. Sex and Heroic Fantasy/Sword and sorcery has always gone together. Even in the old myths on which the fantasy genre is based is it omnipresentr.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Black_Colossus_WT.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Weird_Tales_April_1934.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Weird_Tales_1934-12_-_A_Witch_Shall_be_Born.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Weird_Tales_1934-08_-_The_Devil_in_Iron.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Weird_Tales_1935-11_-_Shadows_in_Zamboula.jpg

If Larian had really planned to cater for gamers looking for sex visuals and scenes, they did a poor job.

Strawmen! Strawmen everywhere!

I'm sorry but this argument always makes me laugh. If you close your eyes it doesn't exist lmao.

Weak reply.

In the 1st edition Dungeon Master's Guide on page 192, city adventures, you can actually encounter a harlot. Oh the drama ! All our childrens' souls will go to hell if they see this.
Gygax even let you roll a percentile dice to find out what kind of harlot you had:

00 – 10 Slovenly trull
11 – 25 Brazen strumpet
26 – 35 Cheap trollop
36 – 50 Typical streetwalker
51 – 65 Saucy tart
66 – 75 Wanton wench
76 – 85 Expensive doxy
86 – 90 Haughty courtesan
91 – 92 Aged madam
93 – 94 Wealthy procuress
95 – 98 Sly pimp
99 – 00 Rich panderer

Looks like today's gamer public really has become exceptionally prude and humorless compared to the 1970's - 1980's.
Un unfortunate evolution IMO.
Maybe Larian should make a censored version for the US public.

Strawman AND generalizing all US players. You're on a roll! I'm going to bow out here though, I'm sensing a "play nice" comment coming

No one said 'sex exists' was disturbing. You made that up. Fact of the matter is sex in games is like salt. Sure, it can spice things up. Used poorly, then at best it covers subpar cooking with salt or makes the entire dish unpalatable. You know how much sense it DOESN'T make to have to sleep with Astarion in order to tell him he needs friends? If you can't or won't understand the thread.

Show us on the doll where the US puritan touched you.

Or rather, "It's not OVERLY sexualized, if you aren't forced to engage with the sexual content"

Which is a thing. Yes, the game has sex in it. But is it "Overly sexualized" if the sex is a minor and optional piece of content?

Since being sexualized and being overly sexualized are different things. The former is just the presence of sexualization. The latter is having too much to the point of detriment.

I'm not sure we should be considering any sexualization to be overly sexualized.

No, correct reply.
No one finds the sex "disturbing" but unnecessary and superfluous which took up valuable resources.

I mean, I love the game and I like a lot about it, but I agree, that somehow all things sexual and romance related get a lot of attention in this community, while story stuff gets sidelined. Look at all the threads, when kisses were broken. I never even noticed the missing kisses, but I notice, that tadpoles have not the promised consequences or the ending doesn't make much sense as we have a npc, who could help out (don't want to spoil here).
I guess, a lot is about what the majority of the community wants, which is sadly more sex and romance.

I wonder if we're perhaps getting our cause and effect mixed up here. I don't think it's unfair to say that the companion writing in this game is the best, most compelling writing in the game by a wide margin, compared to the main story. What if what we're seeing isn't a result of the general public just being dumb and horny, but rather them... meeting the game were it is, so to speak. They play the game and see that the character stuff is the most interesting and engaging and they think that it's because that's the part of the game that's meant to be important, the part of the game they're supposed to get invested in, and so they do get invested, and spread the game out to other people who enjoy that sort of game. So they're not disappointed by the poor main plot because they're coming at the game form the perspective that the main plot isn't really what the game is ABOUT, similar to how in Mass Effect 2, the main plot is there, but it's a vehicle to drive you to experience the various companion missions.

It...doesn't matter if you are not sure if we should be considering any sexualization to be overly sexualized because no one is actually doing that.

Which is the same problem as the post referenced.

Take the OP's example. 'Sex exists' is not the problem with Minthara. In a vacuum. Since it is not in a vacuum you have the situation where Minthara is non-negotiable with losing a TON of actual game content and her own companion specific content was bugged to hell and back on release and still feels incomplete.

But her sex scene was not only intact from the beginning, but is the most explicit bar none and is only available if you actively help her raid the grove, instead of not interfering.

Which means that the issue is not 'sex exists.'

The issue becomes 'this...looks an AWFUL LOT like the developers decided that hot Drow sex is the 'reward' for an evil playthrough instead of quest content.'

This is one example, of many, that reveals where the priorities were to the active detriment of the game.

Argue THAT.

Not 'sex exists.'

I played EA for the main plot first and then the companions. In full release I find the main story so boring I wish we had an option to just... turn off those quests and just run around doing side quests and companion stuff.


Didn't they outright call Minthara a reward for raiding the grove? I keep seeing people mention that.

I apologize, but again this argument still doesn't work since you're basing it on 'being able to ignore it, thus its not a big deal'. Of course its optional, a lot of things within the game are optional but they are still there and the way they were included and the amount of it (that I personally don't consider minuscule) will influence how people see the whole game.

You mentioned detriment to the story/game. And yes I would say that BG3 has multiple scenarios where the inclusion of sex and the 'that's hot' mentality came as a detriment to characters and their writing. I might write a longer post later but for now I'll just quote Rahaya's.


As for the whole argument that the other poster brought up about people being prudes.

Well that's another funny thing, isn't it. 'A person who is or claims to be easily shocked by matters relating to sex or nudity.' one of the explanations as to what a prude is, but for some reason a subsect of Larians fanbase has flipped it around and started attaching it to anyone that criticizes or doesn't like the poorly written erotica mixed with bestiality cuck porn. (I adore you Red Queen, my fave mod. I know you'll probably read this and cringe at the word but its true, that shit is in the game.) It's becoming absurd to be honest.

I think the majority of people on these forums are fine with sex and the exploration of sexuality but the issue arises like I mentioned as to how it was handled and to a degree how far certain devs/writers took it.

I fucking hope not, but I would also not be surprised.

Either way, the actual reward for raiding the grove turned out to be not having to deal with Halsin.

I don't think those people are dumb, but I've met the same crowds in the BioWare forums for the DA and ME romances, in the SWTOR subreddit a lot of posts are also about the romances. It seems to be one of the most popular features in crpgs and the devs cater to that. I personally don't care much - I'm not offended by sex, but I don't need it in my games. But I would like, if there would be a bit more balance between fixes for story issues and fixes for companion issues. So far it looks, like companion issues are the main priority - at least in my humble opinion.
As I said, I love the game, but I think, it would be nice, if they stop catering to every romance whim and start looking into the story stuff.
And yes, most companions are written very well, they have good storylines and you can luckily see them even without romancing them.

I am unapologetically one of those types that love having some romance in rpgs. pathfinder:wotr, swtor, bioware games, I love it. But what those games do not have as you've correctly identified, is an overwhelming focus on titillation and meme worthy focus on sex at the expense of a coherent main story. Arue's romance in WotR wasn't the main story. You could ignore it completely and get a very good main story experience. Having that added connection to the characters and world however enhanced the main story even more, as you started to think about things like "wait, if I go true Aeon, that means I have to..", etc, and that MEANS something. SWTOR always had great stories, and the romances didn't really have a large part in the story, they were definitely more side content, but they still enhanced the connection to the characters imo.

BG3, while it does enhance the connection to the characters, in my opinion, it does so in a very immature manner for the most part, and the huge focus on companions massive harmed the main story, and I won't even say 'imo' because I think it's clear that they simply stopped caring about the main story in Act 3. Instead of rewriting some things to make Act 3 better, we had bear sex memes, and fanservice rewrites.

I mean, the fact that Icelyn of all people is saying she's disappointed in Halsin's "romance" says a LOT. (no offence to you intended Icelyn :D)

(off topic, did you change your profile pic Fylimar? Or am I going crazy and you're someone else lol)

Oh God! Fylimar I enjoyed reading your posts but you mentioning the whole DA/ME romance forums reminded me of something.

This is why I'm apprehensive when it comes to romances and joining forums that discuss them. Its so easy for all of it go off the rails and having the game entirely (or for the most part) revolve around them is why my stance on romances started changing.


Maybe the old BSN dying wasn't such a bad thing.


Pretty much what I would like to see, a bigger focus on fixing and adding to the main story.

Rotsen: sorry to have triggered bad memories - and I'm sorry, I clicked on that link, I might need a shrink now


Boblahwah: Yes, I had a tiefling pic, but I changed it to this cute bunny. And yeah, it is too much romance content - I say imo, because I'm ok, if other people see it different. I don't care about Haarlep trying to sleep with us or the drow twins - but if fans more looking for every move Astarion mkaes, that a kiss with (I think) every companion is broken, want hugs and stuff, then I think, it is too much in the focus. If you look at the feedback section on the Larian Discord, you have demands for especially Halsin, SHadowheart and Astarion romance content every day - mostly more than one thread. I actively ignore them and upvote every suggestion making the story better or post story suggestions there too, but the romance content gets the most upvotes, so I guess, we are a minority.

A short edit: When I see, how PS5 player obviously can't really play the game right now, judging by all the threads about that in the Technical forum, maybe that would be much more important, than fixing a kiss, that does not break the game.

Well Maybe yu Guys did not Notice.. But for all of yu that Just Want A Normal Experience.. Without the Sexual Stuff..
Yu Can Turn it Off in the Menu ok..

I never Bother that Much.. like i Told in my Last Post..
i Never Liked the Way all the Other Companions react with this Stuff in the Game..
the only two i actually felt was a Normal way of doing Things was Lazel and Shadow..
Shadow becouse she was the only one from the start that i Need to Show her that i want Something for her to Start Change/Open a Little Bit with Me..
and Lazel get my Respect as companion becouse she was the One and Only in alll my runs that always ASk me what i Wanted from Her..
and when i say that i did not want that from her.. she Kept Cool with It.. even went on with astarion in the Party.. i kind liked a Lot the way she reacted.. like a Normal person would do yu know..
(ok yu dont want me.. i will find another that want..)

But all the Others get Jealous when i did not even Show that i want Something Romantic with then.. thats Bad really Bad bro.
i just Wish i could Have More Brotherly interactions with then not just to Bang then all.
Like put on the Table Simple and Clear like i did with Laezel..
yu are my Bro.. i dont want anything from yu..

and In my Opinion the Worst in this Reggards is Halsin and Gale..
(in All Runs i Made they both Always Kept insisting till the end of the Game i just Start to Avoid then when they Had a Exclamation in their Had becouse of that.. becouse i already New that Again.. they would Try Again.. and Again.. never Stops.. jesus.)

You can turn it off, but it still means that a lot of development time was wasted on it and other, more important, parts of the game suffer for it.

There's been some great commentary in this thread, so I'll simply tack on a couple observations from my comparatively limited experience --

My character has been romancing Karlach, because I think she's terrific and luckily for my guy, she returns the interest. However, as Niara and others have pointed out, the "relationship" developed remarkably quickly because...that's how it was written. I didn't realize it at first since her voicing and mannerisms were so engaging, but we seemed to go from travelling companions to dedicated love interests in the span of a few evening conversations. Is this oversexualization? I don't feel like it is, as even though things escalated quickly, there was at least some ongoing dialog that had laid narrative tracks in that direction.

Now, when the game makes multiple obvious attempts to set the stage for a hookup with Gale simply because I made small talk with him one time? For me, that's when it begins to feel a bit overeager.

On a related note, even on my comparatively tame monogamous playthrough, there was a moment that did strike me as perhaps an indicator of oversexualization:


Now, maybe I'm more prudish than I realize, but this sequence just seemed jarring -- like they had recorded a graphic scene intended for different gender models, but placed it there anyway. If that was the case - that Larian just threw that together for sake of having something, anything graphic appear on screen - then I could consider that oversexualized.

In all, though, the story has jarring tonal shifts all over the place; we go from epic to dramatic to absurd to grimdark and more. Perhaps we're to understand that one of those tones is very intentionally hypersexual.

True, but that goes for so many other things. There's the whole Dark Urge branch. If you don't want to play a murdereous maniac,isn't it also wasted ? All the dialogues with citizens for which they needed voice actors just to say stuff like 'this is a private conversation, please go away" is also effort which could be used otherwise.
Also, given how bad the lewd scenes are (at least the ones I saw : Shadowheart -Minthara and Mizora ) It doesn't strike me as having been very labour intensive.

Well i Always Felt Like Romance in RPG and Games like These are A Flavor..
Only Increase the Stake for your own Tale..
(fell in Love for a Character its not something Weird for me.. sometimes they are better then the Real Life People no Joke..)
But Like i Said.. i wish they Made Better in the Other Companions or at Least..
i could do Like i Did with Laezel.. Ask me what my True feelings for then are..
so i put on the Table and Make Clear that i Just want to Be with Shadow or However i Want..
without then Getting Jealous or treating me Bad becouse i dont want to bang then..
thats the kind of Person in Real Life i would Hate and avoid.. no Joke..
(like im the Wrong becouse i dont want that ?! ok game ok.. thats really Bad.)

It was animated. Someone, multiple someone's had to do that.

Which means rigging mock ups, iterating on those mock ups with consultation, fixing up animations by hand, rendering. Someone has to decide what the sex scene is even going to be about and what is said during it which means writers, voice acting directors, sound teams, etc are involved as well. This is like pretending bad CGI does not still cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and hundreds of manhours to make. Because it does. Larian did not triple in size and spend 100 million for no reason. And despite being done badly, they are ones who boasted of hiring intimacy coordinators for it.

The exact same people and man hours making a sex scene with the twins could have been used to animate responses to the Durge dying. Except cheaper, since the intimacy coordinators aren't needed.

Did the twins have a sex scene? When I went for it literally the screen just went black and left everything implied.

Well i Never Saw too.. i My Self never went with then..
But i saw people posting on Youtube and never shows Anything.. its like that..
always went Black and yu can only Read the Lines.. like yu Say its only Implied.. yu dont Get to See..
(or maybe its a Bug this Game has So Many since 3.0)

another Thing i always Felt Weird its the Lack of Options Regarding to This..
Yu can Only go with the Two of then, two of then with your partner
or Halsin Weirdo comes in to Play and Force his way to a 5 some (creepy Dude.)
But why i cant Have a Treesome with only the Lady or the Dude then ?
yu can go with only Her or the Dude.. but no option for 3 with only one of then.. weird..
Like they Want yu to do Single, Tree Some with the 2 of then or 4 some and 5 some.. ok game ok.. thats Weird as Hell..
even Withcer 3 i could Choooose at least 10 ladys in the Brothel to Bang if i want and Have 4 of then around the world.
Here yu only have this 2 dudes and the Driad in the Uper Floor but yu dont actually Bang Her.. yu get a Buff its just That..
i never went back on her to see if would open something new too after Getting the Buff.

Arcanum had a brothel and a sheep.

The twin scene is a black screen with text and the narrator voice. Not erotic, not arousing or sexy whatsoever.
I actually agree that the so-called sex-scenes could be removed entirely without loss to the game. Not because they're useless but because they're badly done. I mentioned the romantic scene with the Dryad in the circus. That was well done, without sex. They could have done more scenes like this and keep a chivalric or platonic romance throughout .
My opposition to the so-called oversexualisation is that sex has always been a part of sword and sorcery and the mythology on which it is based. I think that 90% of fantasy art shows sexy people. So I think it is a natural part of a fantasy book, movie, art or game. This game is IMO badly sexualised, not oversexualised.

Okay, NOW I can understand what your point is, and the word "oversexualized" might not be the right term, I agree.

"thirsty" , "immature", something else maybe.

I'm probably conflating it with Harleep tbh, but you get the idea.

Your argument still seems to boil down to "Sex exists"

Your problem with Minthara is that "Sex exists" and has been a functioning feature of her path.

Which is still hardly "Overly sexualized" it's at best mismanagement of resources. IF we consider the notion that the team that works on gameplay elements is the same team that works on dialogue and sex scenes.

It's also hardly the "Reward for an evil playthrough" since you can do an evil playthrough and... Not romance Minthara. It's again, only an optional piece of content for that playthrough, not the end-all-be-all of such a run.

There's plenty on offer for evil playthroughs. Many interesting unique items are only available in evil runs. The way the story plays out in later acts is different when the Tieflings don't survive and if you side with the Absolute...


How doesn't it work?

In the grand scheme of things, it IS a minor part of the game (It spans a handful of scenes among dozens of hours of gameplay) and it is avoidable so those that don't wish to partake of it don't HAVE to.

Which is in contrast to games that are "Overly sexualized" where sex is unavoidable and a much larger part of the overall play experience.


I do have to consider whether this detriment was due to the inclusion of sex as a whole or the amount of sex included, or rather the implementation or choreography of the sex. Since if it was simply poorly implemented, it's not "Overly sexualized" it's just "Sexualized poorly"

As "Overly sexualized" and "Poor implementation of sex" are completely different things.

Overly sexualized is referring to quantity. While implementation is referring to the quality.


Probably because there are many posters that are not making it clear that what they're against is the way the sex was portrayed, rather than the inclusion of sex as a whole.

A lot of the arguments about the "Overly sexualized" nature seem to suggest that they feel the handful of scenes we get in the game are somehow everywhere and it's too much to handle and it's basically a porn game.

While the crux of the issue is that the sex and moreover relationships as a whole, haven't been implemented in a particularly good way. But this is nothing new and is not particularly impacted by Larian's choice to include full nudity. For example, Dragon Age and Mass Effect have both featured terrible relationships and awkward sex scenes... But apparently Larian's so much worse because the models are nude instead of wearing underwear?

Of which this scenario of RPG's having terrible relationship systems, isn't helped by everyone ignoring the core problem in favour of crying about sex scenes. I recall even back in DA:O where no-one was talking about the terrible relationships and was more concerned with talking about the god awful sex scenes. In Mass Effect the main issues being brought up was "Why can't I bang daddy Garrus?" as opposed to again, the terrible relationships.

Which is why I suggest that RPG developers look into Dating Sims and AI Girlfriend apps. Since the first step is to create better and deeper relationships within games, THEN we can focus on making sure any sex scenes appropriate. Since with or without sex, the genre still fails hard in creating interesting and fulfilling character relationships.

Otherwise, we might as well just say to cut relationships from RPG's entirely and just focus on making more in depth gameplay and world building since that would be a far better use of resources than half-baked shallow relationship systems.

Person A made a million dollars last month.

Person B says: Person A made a million dollars last month while all their employees don't have a living wage.

Does Person B's argument "boil down to" Person A made a million dollars last month.

If you like Person A? Yes

It seems that you and I are talking about different things entirely. You are focusing on the sex (animated) scenes themselves while I'm talking about the overall sexual feel or overreliance of sexual writing within the game and comapanion/npc stories. (I do think certain companions have been ruined or made less because of a mindset that just adding sex/sexual situations was thought to be hot with the disregard of what came before/was established. Again, not the sex itself but the implementation of everything sexual surrounding it.)

Sexualized - Made sexual, given sexual associations. So it doesn't necessarily mean just sex.

Like I mentioned in my post quoting Fylimar, I lost interest in discussing these things and romances as a whole to be honest with you. Maybe I could spend and hour or two having a conversation with someone going into more detail seeing how I would be forced to be present within the moment but with the forums and their reliance on text I find myself drifting off mid writing because I just don't find it as interesting as I did before. I kinda regret diving into this topic a bit lol.

You might be right tho, the word that was used might not be appropriate to the situation at hand. But when I look at the game and everything sexual within it I cant shake this feeling of I don't know, disgust.(Might be too strong a word for it.)

From Larians braggadocious interviews about romances and them being taken seriously to the poor excuse of 'deep and romantic' writing that we ended up getting that is more in line with a cheap erotica I really cant take it seriously.

Every companion being playersexual - as if their main reason for existing is to fulfill the players need to have sex (People are even begging for Jaheira and Minsc to be romancable ffs.) / Companions jumping at the thought of trying to bed you / Bestiality which by the way isn't confined to one 'funny' scene (One of the weirdest interactions I've had around this is that I was called homophobic for saying that having sex with animals was bad/wrong, just what?!) / Necrophilia / Cheating (Out of nowhere a character does a 180 just because the writer thought it would be spicy) etc. So, no. Not everything is about being explicit and seeing two pixels bang. (To me.)

And Larian seems to be catering to this crowd.

As for the 'just ignore it' thing. Not to beat our good ol' dead horse Halsin but he's the perfect example of a character being over-sexualized to the point that he infects others companions and other parts of the story (You can't resolve the issue surrounding the shadow curse/shadowlands without him). And despite all of that the majority of people either ignore him or outright kill him but their issue still persists.

I would say that BG3 is more sexual than other mainstream RPGs but I think the fanbase or a part of the games fanbase has made it worse. To quote Roy Batty 'I've seen things, you people wouldn't believe.' I'm just waiting for this games Tali sweat guy to pop up and we come full circle.


Oh I hope fucking not lol. That would be horrible, games shouldn't become waifu/husbando simulators for lonely people.


This I do agree with and maybe in the future we will see writing improve but until then I rather see the boring BioWare style romances/friendships opposed to what we ended up getting in BG3.


I agree with this even more. I like romances even tho they aren't the most important thing that I look for in a RPG, I do think they have a place within games (some games) seeing how they can add to the story and companion/npc depth but I rather have a well crafted game with no romances than a hole ridden unfinished mess that masks it behind 'Look you can bang these people' or 'You can have an orgy with them' you get the point.

Now I feel like I'm rambling and If I misunderstood your point I blame it on being tired from my night flight.

It would only be horrible if they just copy/pasted from the bad Dating Sims and AI Girlfriend apps into the game.

"Looking into" simply means seeing how such things thrive based on creating a relationship with a character. These things create a feeling of a relationship being developed, which can help developers think about how to implement better writing and mechanics to their own relationship content (Less "Here have this gift/dialogue option to receive love" and more nuance and character development)

Of course, the key would be looking at GOOD Dating Sims. Ones that aren't just about obtaining waifus. But that have more depth and platonic paths.

Since, these are the best iteration of relationships in the video game market.

General point - "overly" is a relative term and a definition of "sexualised" would have helped.

I'm with those who think the sexual aspects are poorly handled and I also think that BG3 is one of the most over-hyped games ever.

Broadly speaking, Europeans generally have a more 'grown up' and liberal view of things sexual but here we have European Larian obviously targetting the American adolescent market.

This might be slightly off topic, but not really. I'm in the Saw subreddit, because I love horror and for some reason the Saw franchise, despite being a bit too brutal. I just love the story, characters and moral dilemmas there. There is currently an ongoing discussion, because after the latest movie, there are tons of new fans now writing. And they are thirsty, they thirst after some of the protagonists ( all serial killers, mind you), some of the other characters and the Saw group now looks a bit similar like our Character& Story section, only instead of Astarion, Karlach, Shadowheart... they lust after Hoffmann, Amanda, Strahm , Adam ... And now I'm afraid, that Twisted Pictures will pull a Larian and explore Hoffmans sex life in the next movie.
What I want to say is, the sexualisation is everywhere, even in brutal and dark horror movies. I'm ok with it to certain point, but I feel it's getting a bit out of hand.

I'm perfectly fine with a game having some stronger sexual themes, especially if used in a meaningful way.

When Lae'zel threw herself almost instantly at my Tav during my very first playthrough, I was fine with it. She's an alien with weird customs and socialization, so her acting like that was plausible. My opinion started to change when every other companion turned out to behave exactly like the horny gith. Every interaction with them was about me trying to turn them down as politely as possible, because I was afraid that they might leave the party for good. A creepy experience for sure. The game would have been better if it followed the "less is more" approach when it comes to romances. All party members want you, but none of those "relationships" amounts to anything more than a cutscene. Even worse, being in a "relationship" with someone makes many scenes feel dissonant and off, because your supposed partner acts as if you weren't together.

I also like the dryad circus scene!

This thread has been a delight, I had expected a shite show. Thank you to all of you for showing gamers can have a discussion on topic and not devolve instantly in a sewer.

Sounds very similar to what happened in BG3 except that Larian actively tried to attract them.
I wonder who this demographic is.

Menopause made me asexual, so it all just kind of grates on me these days. I still very much appreciate romance, though.

However, I've been playing computer RPGs since the late 1990's and even then sex wasn't a drawing point for me unless the characters were very, very well developed. (No pun intended.) In the old BG games it was just theatre of the mind, and it didn't take away anything from the story. And I remember Mass Effect getting some real flack for it, but I feel that those scenes are extremely well done and well deserved in that game.

I mean, Larian brags about "show, not tell" and yet these are some of the most graphic sex scenes in any game. And the development of deep friendships is ignored in favor of the sex, which is very disappointing.

I am still amazed by the double standard of western civilization.
Murdering thousands of people in the most gruesome way imaginable? Heh that is fine, give it to Timmy 10y/o he will like that.
Having a very soft suggestive scene after working dozen of hours for it? We wont let that happen in this mature rated game! Relationships should stop at hand holding at most.

The reason,I brought the Saw example is, that this is probably the most unsexy franchise out there and Twisted Pictures never encouraged this and still the fans are extremely thirsty. I know, Larian promoted that with the Astarion/ bear Halsin scene at the PfH, but I wonder, if it is a general phenomenon, that people are more thirsty or showing it more. I mean, I was a Harry Potter fan back in the day and we had some very unhealthy Snape fans in the mix, but I think this got worse.


Zentu:

I'm happily surprised too, that it is a decent discussion.

Ugh, I can't watch the Saw films. I tried to watch the first one, and just could not get through it. It was well done, but whoa, way too much for me.

Sexuality is important in story writing because it is a very basic source of character motivation. When the sexual aspects provide motivations for things to happen in the story, then I am happy. Sometimes you don't even need sex per se, and simple personal contact is enough ... I think of when Karlach can finally get a real hug. That scene was very well done. The circus dryad scene was very interesting in a similar way. I m glad Larian put those in. I wonder if the scene with the Emperor could have been better if the sex part was held back a bit, and if the focus was placed even more on intimacy and emotional connection?

First off, let's be real that there is precious little, if any, *romance* in this game. Sex and romance are most definitely not the same things in any way, and I don't see any romance in the game in any meaningful way. And as an aside, I'd have been quite fine with actual romance in the game, as in any game I play.

But to the question of audiences, it does make sense that Larian would try to cater to the very large group of (mainly younger) gamers out there who want, even crave, a lot of gratuitous nudity and sex in their games. That audience also craves these same things in their TV shows and movies these days. That audience, I dare say, outnumbers the hardcore cRPG fans by at least a margin of 10 to 1. So if you're going to be investing hundreds of millions of dollars making a AAA game, you have to find "creative" ways to boost your prospective audeince if you want to turn a profit. In BG3 Larian did have another ace in the hole, which is that this is a D&D game, and D&D has gained mainstream popularity in recent years. So they did have that going for them in a way that other cRPG IPs do not. But I'd guess Larian wasn't convinced D&D's popularity alone would be enough to carry the day, sales-wise, to match the HUGE expenditures Larian devoted to making this game. So, they needed something else, and that something else was gratuitous nudity and sex.

I'd also note here something I've said before to those who claim people can get plenty of nudity and sex online these days. One cannot underestimate the power and the draw of sex that is interactive, where you can engage with sex objects as you want and in your fantasy scenarios. This is what Larian is delivering with all the nudity and sex in BG3: interactive sex.

Lastly, I've also made this point numerous times, but it needs to be appreciated that the posters here in this forum are a tiny fraction of 1% of whole BG3 player/fan base. As such the forumites here are not, even in the slightest, representative of the overall player base. And yet, even here in this forum, as some of you have noted, most of the discussion centers on "romances," the euphemism for sex. Only a select few posters, the same posters, have shown an interest in talking about the issues in the game hardcore cRPG fans might be expected to care about.

Nudity and sex are overall far from gratuitous in BG3. Most of it is tied to character development and drives the plot forward, for exemple Karlach and her condition, Astarion and his control tendencies, Shadowheart and her trust issues, etc... I would argue that even scene is important to show how manipulative he can be. Then you also have sex and nudity as a comic relief, which is a staple of DnD (see the "I seduce the dragon" trope), the ogre and Halsin scene fit this description.

Of course it is gratuitous. As has already been stated, remove the 'romance' and sex and it in no way affects the main plot and most of the time it does do much for the sub-plots. The hobgoblin back-scuttling the ogress in Act 1 is there for why?

Oh I am prepared to accept that one as a pure joke However to make your point better, show me any part of the Shadowheart storyline that really changes if you do not have sex. How about Gale?

Sex and sexuality sprinkled lightly into the game context can add spice. In my opinion someone thought dumping the whole container of salt and adding a salt lick to the stew was a good idea.

Only if your definition of "gratuitous" is anything not impactful to the main storyline in a role-playing game. It serves its purpose for people who want to interact with that aspect of the game.

My only complaint about romances is they take away from friendships. I liked Alister from DA:O, who becomes your bro without a weird rejection scene that would definitely un-bro him. WOTR is the biggest offender, locking a lot of personal backstory behind romances or having companions hit on you without any prompting from the player.

Who are you talking about? o.O

I am using the dictionary definition of the word - not called for by the circumstances : not necessary, appropriate, or justified.


I have never 'romanced' any character in WOTR and if I have missed any personal backstory then it is down to me not Owlcat. In any case, romance and backstory is a different kettle of kippers than sex, gratuitous or otherwise.
I'm currently replaying WOTR and haven't noticed anyone 'hitting' on me. Granted I'm only in Act 2 (not taken Drezen yet). So far I have only noticed one possible romance opening in the dialogue, with Sosiel, which I ignored and we moved on.

I'm sorry for being blunt here, but whoever is claiming that sex in BG3 is too gracious or is the main selling point either don't know what they are talking about or just writes it with ill intent. I have seen full Shadowheart romance, one Karlach's sex scene, two scenes with Lae'zel, initial sex scene with Minthara and additional sex scenes with Mizora, the devil in House of Hope plus drow twins in BG3 inn. None of those scenes were on any way more horny then we have seen over a decade ago in Dragon Age Origins and we really have no more than 2-3 sex scenes per companion, spanned across the entire game. If anything, I'm a little disappointed, Larian played safe after advertising it as more hardcore as it really is. So yeah, sex is a very minor part of BG3 and definitely not its selling point. And I'm talking from experience, take it or leave it.

This appears to have been toned down since release greatly. I had a single character hitting up on me, and that was Lae'zel. Weirdly enough I hadn't even seen any party member hitting upon another. I'd have expected there to be far more "stuff" either way, given the interweb. Additionally, pretty graphical displays of violence far outperform any sexual content in BG3 - perhaps to not upset US audiences, who historically never even registered a hundred heads exploding. But for which a single flash of boobies could see you risked being removed from Walmart outright, thus even adventure games such as Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy only getting released censored in the US. Similar to how in Germany, violence in games was risky business, so even tiny pixel soldiers in RTS games were turned into robots bleeding black oil, and all (quite killable) children in Fallout removed outright.

Anyways, romances and sex are the curse of Bioware, another area in which they dragged the genre down forever. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/rps-at-e3-dragon-age-origins Not because of the romances -- but because they have become the be end all of character depth, with Bioware rightfully nicked as the "Romance company" in circles. Additionally, imagine a traitor archetype of character in your party had developed into a similar must-have feature to be ticked off a list during development; all surprise and wonder would have been gone down the shitter just as quickly.

At least I apparently didn't need to feed, level-up and constantly gift Lae'zel to get the deal done, true Bioware-style.

I actually think this is the avarage bg3 experience.
My wife sayed they could make this from Halsin too.

Yes, and based on your definition I would say that it is indeed appropriate and justified. It is a mature game that is heavily centered around its characters and their relationship, and sex is a normal part of adult life in this context. As I previously described it enhances the narrative in multiple ways. Now I get that maybe from you subjective point of view a RPG shouldn't be centered around this kind of relationship, then maybe BG3 isn't the game for you. There are plenty of games out there with very minimal to no intimate scenes and I am glad there is one out there that isn't prudishly closing its eyes on this subject.

You are now twisting things in order to not be wrong.

The original point was that the sex, not the romance, was gratuitous because it can be removed without any affect on the main story. You then challenged my use of the word 'gratuitous' erroneously claiming I was misusing the word when I was not. You also brought in some nonsense about WOTR which I challenged and you have ignored.

But the characters are not living a normal life are they? They are supposedly desperately trying to get rid of the tadpoles before they get turned into illithids and then to stop the entire world being enslaved. Do you think the team of Sharrans were going at it like mink while they were on the mission to steal the artefact? Do you think the githyanki were while they pursued the nautiloid?

Who do you think you are that you are entitled to tell me that this game may not be for me? Do you think me so stupid that I cannot make that decision for myself? You need to get it into your head that the issue is sex (sexuality in the thread title) not romance.

BG3 is not a 'mature' game - nothing Larian does is mature. They cannot rise above the adolescent.

Okay folks lets keep the lid on this and lot let it get out of control.

Saying tha the game is oversexed, and at the same time claiming that you can remove all sex without affecting anything in gameplay seems contradictory to me.

The main story isn't the only story in BG3. I actually do care about the companion stories too and sex is indeed an important step in those relationships. They are symbol of trust between you and the character, they are a landmark in your story that lead to interesting outcomes. I don't get why you are bringing WotR to the table here as it also has optional romances leading to sex scenes. The only difference is that they are fade to black only, BG3 also has an option for that if the depiction bothers you.

The "get rid of the tadpoles before they get turned into illithids" plot point is solved way before any romance scene. Also I don't think that saving the world and having a little fun bed time is incompatible. I for sure don't think about Sharrans or Githyanki relationships as it isn't the focus of the story. Although for githyanki, their sexuality is an important aspect of the setting as it has been heavily twisted by the mindflayers.

No, not at all. The "sex" scenes are easily avoided, the females in the game aren't walking around in armorkinis.
I think there's a tongue and cheek, humorous aspect to many of them, especially Halsin, that sort of poke fun at what happens in DND

Ultimately I think where you stand on this is reflective of how attractive you are IRL. Respectfully.

I'm in the Yes-it-is camp.

I remember the last PFH, wherein was stated that the 'romances were more mature' and 'it's not about finishing a quest and be rewarded with sex'

Well. It is literally 'finish Act 1 and be rewarded with sex with whomsoever you choose, they're all game'. Even the Mass Effect series wasn't *that* bad. Then there's the Emperor who, out of nowhere wants to bang you *regardless of your interaction up to that point* and gets angry if you don't want to. There's even an achievement tied to it, so if you want to 100% the game, you're locked into going that route, even though it has no impact on the game whatsoever. Then there is Halsin and all his 'I am the legendary sexmaster' stuff in Act 3. Granted, BG2 had moments like Minsc shoving Boo where the sun don't shine, but still. Haarlep *can* be avoided, but come on, man. The interaction you can have with Haarlep is more than you will ever have with actually important characters, say a certain servant of Bane. Not only that, but take that route and you're rewarded with even *more* narrated sex afterwards. Humorous to some, perhaps, erotic to others, but I find it cringeworthy at best. Maybe if I were fifteen, it'd summon my Netherese Wand, but as an adult I just roll my eyes at it. If they refrained from all that nonsense and instead paid some attention to actually important characters like Gortash or the Emperor, the game would be far better for it.


Astarion's vampire reveal scene is also unavoidable, and rather sexual in nature, that's backed by the fact that - choosing to go along with it starts his romance [not to mention I've seen a compilation of girls who collectively cast create water at this moment]. Now, you can kill him for it, too - and I always do - but I can't *avoid* it, either.

On top of that is the 'game doesn't recognise gender' thing. I get it, modern audiences and all that... But there's no way to opt out of it, and I'm forced to deal with getting chased by everyone, including those I'm not interested in. And there's hardly any saying 'no', or go; 'Hey man, I'm not gay/straight' to get the message across. If you let me choose my gender and pronouns and all that, give me a 'I'm straight/gay button' so I don't have to deal with things I find disturbing.

And lastly - and this more or less equates to my previous complaint - The game assumes you pick at least one character to romance. So as long as you don't pick someone, you're game for the rest of them. This is annoying as hell. Even Withers complains to you for not banging at least one of your comrades. For me the problem, mostly is then - That I don't chase NPC's, yet they chase me.

Not necessarily. If the game has too much emphasis on the sex side of things as many here are suggesting (and not enough on the relationship side of things or reactivity with the plot etc) and the sex only really exists to serve itself (which can be an easy pitfall if not enough is spent on the 'supporting content'- like the aforementioned relationship stuff) Than it's fairly easy to point to it as something that both stands out in the game and doesn't really exist to serve anything else.

I think Niara did a good breakdown on the Minthara sex scene way back in EA and I think showed how something can be oversexed and out of place and not really supporting the story. The scene would arguably work better with just a simple fade to black.

As is, I think that scene was just there in EA mostly to generate buzz/controversy and expectations for the rest of the romance/sex content in BG III. Much like a lot of Larian's other reveals in EA (Bear scene, I'm looking at you). The game was heavily marketed to the fanbase with a 'sex sells' aim, even if they didn't pull out a slogan like 'Darker, Sexier, Better. Dragon Age 2' etc. Which IMO is frequently not a hallmark of maturity, and I don't think Larian really can say they bullseyed their mark or we wouldn't be having conversations like this.

Maybe there are no armor bikinis, though the robes, you can get from Viconia or the Umberlee priestress are pretty revealing and clearly made for females. And my biggest pet peeves: the camp clothing: the girls al sit there with basically lingerie, while the guys all have comfortable camp clothes. First thing I do, is giving the girls normal camp clothes. I installed a mod for that, because otherwise, you wouldn't have the chance to change that throughout most of act 1. So there is still the 'girls have to look sexy' mentality. Only Jaheira has normal camp clothes, the rest is ridiculous.

Have you tried putting Shadowheart's shirt on a dude?

Our multiplayer group made everyone ditch camp clothing and just be in underwear

And that is absolutely ok, if you wanna do that, but that person was saying, that basically there are no skimpy clothes in the game, so I gave some examples.

Ding ding ding, talk about hitting the nail on the coffin. It really just points towards our usual acceptance of violence in media while exploration of sex is considered taboo.

Now don't get me wrong, Mortal Kombat 1 got called out by numerous organizations and countries for being considered too violent, to the point to where it was banned in a few countries. Now we have God of War where Kratos pushes the eyeballs out of a God and everyone talks about how cool that was.

Even in BG3, You noticed how we're having this long conversation about sexuality, and yet no one brings up the horribly grotesque scene of the gnoll ripping out of the body of a hyena, which just goes back to my original point about how graphic display of violence and gore are acceptable, but exploration of sexuality has been held back in mainstream gaming for a long time.

BG3 is that renaissance, it's that necessary push to display sexuality fully and unbashfully. And like Mortal Kombat, there's bound to be resistance to exploring those areas. But 10 years from now, we'll be looking at BG3 as one of the games that help normalize sexuality in games, and Larian deserves a round of applause for that.

Well, D&D has entire books focused on scary monsters, rules for brutal combat, graphic descriptions of burning your enemies and so forth. Not once did I read a D&D book titled '50 shades of vampire' .

If we're talking about maturity, then stuff like the Emperor's 'Achievement unlocked: Tentacle Pr0n' and Halsin's Bear stuff can go straight down the toilet. I was merely exploring some place, certainly - a brothel - when my party members suddenly suggest a threesome. Come on, man. You can't argue that that's because we're adults and exploring our relationship and all that. This is just immature fanfiction that made it ingame.

Now, I'm not against ses or nudity in the slightest. ALso. This game doesn't show us anything more explicit than say Dragon Age or Mass Effect, but I *will* argue that these titles had a more mature approach to them. I mean, Mass Effect was largely regarded as the Dating-in-Space game, but here at least, one could progress a friendship without sex. In BG3, it's sex or nothing.

Coward. In my multiplayer campaign we all sleep in the buff.

I am now (somewhat to my surprise) in favor of full frontal male nudity in all my games. It’s just a naked body. What’s the big deal? Why can’t I see Cloud’s other buster sword? What are they trying to hide?

The issue is society at large.

With the whole "Won't somebody think of the children‽" aspect.

You can have a game heavily feature gamblling and it gets a rating of 3+.

You can have a game about killing people and it gets a rating of 12+.

You show a single nipple and bam, 18+.

This increase in age rating will negatively impact sales (Because some people actually care about age ratings) so companies tend away from it.

1 - Are you talking about DnD novels or DnD sourcebooks? DnD sourcebooks definitely do NOT go into graphic descriptions of violence as it's owned by Hasbro, and a large part of that was to have kids play DnD. That's why if you go to an adventures league in America, many of the tables have children in them. As a comic book creator, I know quite well you cannot sell your products to children under the age of 18 if it contains a certain degree of violence (in America specifically.)

2 - You also just double down on my point, which is that our society (which includes DnD) has an acceptance and interest in violence while rebuking open displays of sexuality. Now DnD is a combat based game, for certain. But that's just because our society finds violence acceptable. We also know different displays sexuality are viewed differently within different societies. For example you can find nude billboards in certain countries, while Sin City had to had it's advertisement taken down in America due to an outline of a breast being shown. But her holding a gun, of course that's not a problem.

3 - You certainly can have friendships in BG3, as it largely just depends upon the choices you make. Especially with Karlach. In fact, I was surprised because one playthrough I started down the road of just friendship with Karlach, and suddenly tried a romance line just to see what would happen, and she entirely turned me down. It was interesting and refreshing. From there, I continue with just a friendship with Karlach.

4 -BG3 definitely took things farther than ME and DA for sure. Bioware were certainly among the pioneers, but the most displayed were female breasts (and possibly a butt.) But there was never genital and there wasn't full body shots.

100%. I forgot which social media platform this happened on, but I remember there being a large pushback on that platform that men could be topless but women couldn't. So instead of allowing women to be topless like they should, they banned men from being topless. Talk about three steps back lol.

If you want to run around naked and compare magic wands, I don't give a flying kitten. I'm not opposed to nudity in the slightest.

That's speaking for the US. I'm a Dutchman, and we don't have this issue. In our culture, we more or less say; 'It's better to expose them to things than to make it mysterious", and that largely works. I am rather numb to things like nudity and sex onscreen and I don't give a tressym. To me, YouTube and such feel weird, with all the censorship.


I am, however in favor of good storytelling. I consider the raunchy jokes and so on, just utterly immature and obnoxiously out of place. Finishing a chapter's main quest resulting in 'Now you get to bang someone' just as much. I'd have much rather they scrapped all that nonsense and instead a cohesive story with characters that make sense, or make it avoidable.

If one argues that 'it's about characters and their relations and sex is part of that' - Sure, I'll agree. But NOT having sex is typically a greater part of that.

Oh, I hadn't seen Eclipse's post yet.

Perhaps not *as* graphic, but attacking someone with an Axe, for example is, in my mind graphic regardless of description.

Yeah, my issue isn;t so much that nudity or sex *is* depicted, but more the manner wherein they do it and the emphasis they place on it in this game. As per my previous post, again, I'm a Dutchman and we have different [fewer] sensibilities here.

Ah, perhaps she's different in that regard. My experiences with camp companions is that every interaction is romantic in nature, or the talks end.

I honestly avoid most romances, but so far I don't think I've seen genitals outside the character creator. I mean, you can take off your character's underwear, I suppose - but in the cutscenes it's more or less the same as in the Bioware games. The taking off clothes thing... Eh. I don't mind it. I don;t care for it, either.

I mean, I didn’t ask you but okay. Thanks?

Yes, it's over sexualized and it's due to political reasons - same reason there is no banter/racism/allusions between races.

I want it sexualized and even manipulation for power, sex, etc. I also want conflict between groups and races which would be racism. I want a living breathing world that you enter which includes all the great things but also all the bad that make up humanity. If I play a Drow, I want to be hated for what I am and work to overcome that hate or let said hate turn me into the monster they see.

Please stop trying to minimize the darker, lustful, corrupt aspects of humanity in these fantasy worlds. It touches on aspects of our own world and makes it more real and appealing. You have a group of attractive over archivers stuck together in a life-or-death journey. I'm more surprised that they all aren’t going at it every night around the fire. Do you have any idea how sexually active the athletes at the Olympics are? If not look it up as I’d expect roughly the same in this situation for many in this group.

You mean fantasy races or human race? There's a fair amount of distrust towards Tieflings in the Druid Grove, Laezel is rather racist towards Istiks of all varieties, Shadowheart distrusts Gith, Gnomes are enslaved by Duergar, there is a fair amount of reactivity for some [sub]races, especially Drow.

As for the other option.... Frankly, I am rather surprised that there's no outcry over how the only black party member loses his skin tone by being the good character.
But, yeah, the game is quite woke and I suppose that's why.


IN that regard, I *would* agree, just not for this game. This is a D&D adventure, and it doesn't need to go that deep. But, at the same time, I don't need daily virtual sex in my games at all.

1 - Oh no doubt, but there's a reason in America, PG-13 can't show things like decapitation and other more gruesome acts of violence. But a kid can watch spider man beat up a villain to a pulp and it's still viewed as socially acceptable, and that's because some societies accept violence while condemns aspect of sexuality.

2 - Oh no doubt, but again, that's no different than how GoW and Mortal Kombat embraces the violence side of the spectrum. The only difference is that violence had a 30+ year head start with Mortal Kombat 1, we're just now getting to unbashful displays of sexuality with BG3.

3 - That's the thing about BG3 (and why it's so high on replayability), the amount of directions each character can take is absolutely staggering, and it's why I try many different avenues in my playthrough.

4 - Well of course if you're going to avoid most romances, you won't see genitals lol. You actually have to commit the romances to see how it's explored. But I do know that both Karlach and Lazel's sex scene have full blown nudity including genital. As stated, they take the bioware displeys of romance to the next level, and is the most committed mainstream video game with this type of display to date.

I see what you're getting at, and you're right. The violence over sexuality thing doesn't make sense to me, either. Truth be told, I don't care for any kind of censoring in things made for mature audiences.

I tend to notice that censoring more than the actual thing they censor. Say, in movies how people are always exactly covered in the right spot in bed and so on.
I remember the PFH's Bear scene where one of the Magic Wands was literally covered up by a fortuitous leaf in the way. At the same time, I have romanced Lae'Zel and clearly don't remember seeing her junk, where as you say, they were clearly visible.

But again, I have no qualms with this at *all*. It's supposed to be for mature audiences, mature audiences ought to be able to handle some nudity without being shocked.

But I don't like it when its handled immaturely, and I'll argue that that's what happening in BG3.

Take Basic Instinct. Very famous for that particular shot, and sure, it received backlash, yet I'll defend that movie to the death. Because that fits the theme of the movie and the femme-fatale character *so* well. In contrast, BG3 is a D&D Adventure game. I'll not say romance can't be a part of it, but in my mind they put far too much emphasis on it, and it's made for/by an immature audience; 'Hee hee, look at us being edgy! Have gay bear sex, whoooo, bang a mindflayer, wheeee'

I think we are going in a different direction right now. When I look at BG3 it is not so much the acts of sex that seem over the top to me. Rather it is the way it is pushed in your face. There is no romance, there is no real plot movement, there is no option for deep friendships. There is hey I like you, lets screw or not. As I have said I feel like sex is added for teenagers to say, look I had sex in the game.

This is my feeling, too. I love that — and most of the scenes are very modestly cut.


There *is* the Book of Erotic Fantasy. Which is basically photos of cosplayers in various stages of undress with custom classes focused on intimacy and supporting materials how to run campaigns with an erotic theme.

But that said: the Lae’zel romance starts with sex and goes deeply into appreciating life and your significant other — with the only recurrent intimate part being kisses.

Shadowheart is laid back about sex — but doesn’t just lie down with you. When you’re sitting near the waterfall, sipping wine and watching the sky, there may be sex after the fade out, or there may be not.

This is presented expertly, so maybe focus on that and not on the sex scenes found when intentionally following the edgy path?

In 10 years people will roll their eyes at BG3 for making every publisher add badly made sex plots in their game the same way Mass Effect formularized romances are seen today.

I don't think BG3 was overly sexualized, but I think calling it a renaissance is giving it too much credit. It's no brilliant example of sex in video games. BG3's approach to sex is like everything else about the game; pretty good, even gret in a couple spots, but overall really not that special.

God damn! Eclipse my dude thank you, truly. I cant remember when was the last time I laughed this hard because of some crazy shit on the internet.

'Where where you when the dong slider was added to video games!?' LMAO

Listen, you like the game and that's fine. No one can take that away from you but some of you guys really need to relax and stop treating it as a second coming of Jesus.

Revolutionary lol, renaissance lmao.

You mean like how every game has add badly made sex plots in their game already thanks to Dragon Age and Mass Effect?

Or how every game has full nudity already thanks to Witcher series?

Oh wait... None of those things had any major impact on game design...

I find it utterly remarkable that people think that BG3 is somehow going to become the basis for every RPG made from today onwards. When it isn't even the first game to do anything that is supposedly genre defining from it... (It's also not like DA:O, ME2 and Witcher 3 weren't GotY contenders so you can't say that it's because BG3 is well received and other games were niche indie titles)

The only thing that BG3 has done that's truly unique... Is the Bestiality scene. Which is unlikely to be picked up by other studios (Maybe Witcher might, it's not like Geralt hasn't slept with all manner of beasties... Though they tended to take the form of sexy ladies as opposed to animals)

Indeed.

And let's also again point out that the criticism isn't that there is sex in the game. Some people continue to keep saying that, so that they can bash the critics with their strawman while also deflecting from the actual point.

Yup.

I'm still waiting for 'is the argument Person A has a million dollars' answer from a certain someone that keeps posting in this thread.

Oh. Well, fine. I stand corrected.



Again, I've said this a number of times already. I *do*. I avoid that nonsense where I can. And yet, I murder a bunch of Goblins, and everyone in camp is telling me we should have sex. You can avoid a certain shed once you realize it's there, but otherwise, just by exploring you stumble upon a half-ogre in the making. I would avoid the whole Emperor character entirely if I just could for once, but he's always forced on you, and so is the the 'let's bang' option, that too is unavoidable - regardless of what choices you make up to that point. I never went for gay bear sex, but that's what was fed to me prior to the release. Withers even complains if you don't bang at least *one* of your companions. Just having Halsin in the party in Act 3 is like having a fifteen-year-old along for the ride, as all the party banter turns into these lame sex jokes and innuendo. The game constantly reminds you of the fact that there's sex to be had somewhere. I will stick by my original answer here, that I find this immature and unnecesary.

Now, sure there is some good writing in the romances, but that's not what we're debating here. At the same time - that good writing is largely missing from the main plot. I mean, the Emperor and the tadpole is hot garbage throughout, Gortash has no screentime whatsoever, there's no truly satisfying ending except for maybe one or two Origins. I'd much, much rather they didn't include Halsin as a companion and gave us a proper third Act instead. There's too much focus on dick jokes at the detriment of the main plot, in my opinion. Therefore, my answer to the question at hand is:

Yes.

Well said.

I know where I was when the dong slider was added to my video games and I know it was years before anyone had heard of BG3.


Sex in video games?

I'm a little afraid of that link, but just off the top of my head:

Cyberpunk had a dong slider in '20.
Battletech had the separate-gender-from-sex-and-pronouns thing in '17
Dragon Age Origins already had far more complex relationships in 2007, including gay ones. The amount of possible outcomes for the relationship with Alistair alone should convince one that BG3 isn't all that revolutionary in that regard.

Oh I'm not saying you have qualms with sexuality, I'm saying that BG3 putting emphasis on sexuality is no different than Mortal Kombat and God of War putting emphasis on violence in their games. Now I have no idea what "your" personal viewpoint may be on those two games, but I do know that both Mortal Kombat and God of War were given the same sort of critique in the violence spectrum (GoW less so since it came out more recently.) The sort of "Hee Hee, look at us being edgy, we can show someone pull a skeleton out of someone's body." or "Hee Hee, look at us showing Kratos pushing eyeballs out of the socket of a God."

You may view MK and GoW as immature, or you may not. And just like some may find MK or GoW "excessive" when it comes to violence, there will be some that view BG3 exploration of sexuality as excessive. My point isn't to change your mind (as I'm pretty certain most of us in this thread won't buldge in how we view BG3's exploration.) but to illustrate that BG3 is that necessary catalyst to push the envelope for sexuality that MK and GOW were for violence. They're just two opposite ends of the spectrum.

Oh no doubt, but in case you can't tell, the people rolling their eyes are in the minority. Just because you have an issue with Mass Effect romances doesn't change the fact that its impact has been found in almost every rpg game featuring romance going forward (including bg3)

And just because you and six other people on this thread have an issue with BG3 exploration of sexuality doesn't change the fact that thousands resonated with this exploration.

So will people have an issue with BG3 pushing the envelope? Most certainly, but as the saying goes "You can't please everyone."




You can disagree and laugh if you want, but there's a reason it won the golden joysticks and is the front runner for game of the year at the game awards. I definitely don't believe it's any sort of second coming, (it's essentially a bioware game for the new generation) but I do believe in regards to exploring sexuality, it has push the envelope further than any "mainstream" game to date.

I do, but that's beside the point.
Mortal Kombat and God of War are, as their titles suggest *about* grotesque, over-the-top violence. Taking that out, nullifies these games entirely.

Not so much with the gratuitous, immature nonsense in BG3. You can take out the Emperor stuff, the gay bear sex, the incessant corny jokes, Halsin's God-of-Porn complex, the buggering bugbear and the game wouldn't be lesser for it in the slightest. In fact, if they'd have not done that and focused on Act three instead - I'd say the game would be *better* for it.

If it were just an exploration of sexuality, you wouldn't hear me complain. For the bazilionth time, I'm fine with the romances and nudity. I'm more taken aback by the childish stuff I just mentioned above. I find it dumb and cringey.

And you see, BG3 is a sequel to a 25-year-old-game. If you want to play a sequel to that game you played 25 years ago, you're at least 35 years old. And everyone over 35 has been in contact with real humor and real sexuality and doesn't need dick jokes in their fantasy game.


No. Like I said above - God of War and Mortal Kombat are *about* that violence and cannot exist without it. Just like those Anime sex games in Steam's Adult section are about over the top immature sex and cannot exist without that. Those are on opposite sides of the spectrum - and can exist just fine. I couldn't care less. There is exactly the amount of gratuitous, imamture sex and violence across these games as needed, and I avoid these games accordingly.

Yes, and for certain - one of those things is hype. And, the hype is certainly aided by the things that I'm criticising here. But I will stay on the point that the stuff I mention above do not contribute to the quality of the game. And, as good a game as it is on other fronts - mechanics and reactivity and exploration are incredible - the game is very lacking narratively towards the end. I'll stand by the point that I'd rather have that fixed than a hunky sex god companion. Because I'm still not twelve.

That's not true at all, removing the over the top violence would be no different than removing the exploration of sexuality in the BG3, because it's a staple aspect of the game. If you removed those aspects of the game, it would be an entirely different game, because you're removing them exploring different aspects of sexuality. It's just accepted that the violence is tied to GoW and MK because we're more used to violence. But just like how you say you could remove the aspects BG3 you mentioned and make it a possibly better game, a same argument can be made that you can remove the over the top violence of GoW and MK and possibly be an even better game for it. There is no reason a game needs to push eyeballs out of anyone sockets. There's no reason a game should have a skeleton get pulled out of somebody's body. And there's no reason a gnoll should mangle and explode out of a hyena's body. But these are aspects of violence and so therefore, it's accepted. All of that could be removed from a game and you still can and would have a great game.




And for the bazillioth time, I already said I didn't think you had an issue with romance and nudity, but you clearly view their exploration of sexuality as "immature" as those are your words. You find their exploration childish, dumb and cringey. That's entirely your prerogative to view it that way. I and many others clearly do not.


And once again, not true at all. There is nothing about a fighting game or adventure game that dictates it needs to have that level of violence. The developers choose to implement that level of violence to create a staple for itself, just like BG3 decided to push the envelope of sexuality. There is literally no difference between the two. Violence is just given a pass because it's violence. And no, "anime sex games" is literally it's own genre under dating sim. They are not coupled in another genre like adventure, fighting, puzzle, etc. So unless you're saying BG3's pushing of sexuality should be relegated to just dating sims (which it shouldn't and won't), they don't apply here.



Correction: You "believe" they do not contribute to the quality of the game. You can only speak from your opinion as many others fully disagree with your statement. Secondly, being "twelve" has nothing to do with either outlook A twelve year cannot legally buy this game (at least in America) and quite a few of the voice actors (some award winning) favorite aspect of the game was the romance and BG3's boldness in sexual acts. So, let's not go down the superiority complex road and respect that people can have different opinions on the matter.

You don't understand.
The Mortal Kombat & God of War franchises were built *specifically* around that violence. It is the core of what it is. Leisure Suit Larry is about corny sex huimor and revolves around getting laid, and doesn't work without that.


The Baldur's Gate franchise was never about that sort of thing - [although it had some, I suppose; Minsc literally had Boo up his ass in BG2]. And as a sequel then, it feels completely out of place.

And yes, that is *my* opinion. I do not represent many, or any others, nor the actors. Neither do you, I don't understand why you'd bring that up. Transformers was a popular movie, too.

And that is *exactly* the point. Why make it so immature, when that's not your target audience?

No, you don't understand. No one is not saying MK isn't built around violence, but the grotesque violence was and is not necessary. The same is for BG3. BG3 is built around pushing the boundaries regarding sexuality. If you took away the violence of GoW, it would be a very different game for many people, but it would be the same game for many people as well, just not as grotesque. The same applies for BG3, if you took away the aspects you mentioned, it would be a very different game for many people, but it would be the same game for many people.

The primary difference is that you' believe that the violence in MK and GoW is essential to make the game what it truly is, while the aspects you mentioned are ancillary parts to BG3. This I disagree with, as I view the full package of BG3 exploration of sexuality as just as crucial to the make up of the game as the violence is tied to MK and GoW. If you took the aspects you mentioned away, BG3 would be an entirely different game for many people.

And I'm specifically referring to the make up of BG3, not the BG franchise as a whole. No one is stating that the entire franchise was like this, but Larian had a vision for bg3 and pushing the envelope in regards to sexuality was a major part of that vision.

And yes, Transfers was a popular movie, so was Black Panther.


Because many people don't find it immature, including the actors that I referenced in the quote you snippet? Just because you view that content, along with GoW and MK as immature doesn't mean others feel that content is immature.

I see what you're trying to say here, but I still think you're just wrong on this particular point. It's not that you can't remove the over the top violence because they're adventure or fighting games, but you can't remove the violence because of what those SPECIFIC game franchises are. That's their point of differentiation. There are other fighting games out there, but the thing that makes Mortal Kombat unique is that extreme violence. Take it away and you have just a generiic fighting game. Same with God of War. Take away the extreme violence and there's not much that's really special about it. At least the original games. The new games still have that gritty, intense violence as a fundamental part of them, but they do actually think about that violence more, and mete it out with more consideration. Each game was built from the ground up with violence as their focus, thinking about how to step up the violence and make it as impactful as possible at every point. Sex in BG3 isn't anywhere near as central to the identity of the game. If you took sex out of it entirely, then structurally the game really wouldn't feel that different. It's not going to leave the game blank and generic because you still have the breadth of choices, the deep systems and reactivity, the classes and ruleset, etc. Violence is built into every aspect of GoW and MK, sex and sexuality isn't built into every aspect of BG3. I think removing the violence from those games would be more akin to removing BG3s reactivity. That's the part of the game that Larian built everything in consideration of.

I think that if you took away ROMANCE from BG3, that would change the game far more fundamentally than if you took away sex from it, and I believe the two are connected, but not automatically so. Also, I just in general don't think Larian put that much thought into how they approached sexuality in this game. I don't think Larian put that much thought into a lot of stuff they put into the game. They seem to have a hard time saying no to ideas, and on every level of the game, they shoved stuff in because they thought it was cool without really considering if it would be an actual benefit.

Yes it is. You can take it out, and end up with Street Fighter. Take more out, and end up with IK+ . The whole game is literally styled after the over-the-top action movies of the era, hells - the main character was even modeled after Jean Claude Van Damme, signature kicks and all. It is part of the identity of the brand - which at the time was just the game, of course.


Look, pushing boundaries... Just like 'exploring sexuality' ... That sounds kind of artsy and new. And there are certainly instances in this game where sex is used as a functional tool for storytelling.
But buggering bugbears isn't that, really. I mean, come on. It's a cheap, immature joke. Tentacle Porn Achievement? Gay Bear Sex? All the cheap banter jokes that a 15-year-old would make... That has nothing to do with 'exploring sexuality' and 'pushing boundaries'. It just doesn't.

You can disagree, you can tell me actors can disagree - but unless you come with something substantial other than saying 'it's pushing a boundary' or other , you'll not convince me. You'll have to tell me how that stuff actually adds something, or how it works as a functional storytelling device. All I see is intended shock value, and I don't necesarily see a boundary that needed pushing, either. Again, I played Leisure Suit Larry in 1989.


I don't know, I doubt it, but I've only seen marketing. I can't comment fairly.


No. That's jsut the thing. It's an adventure game with whole bunch of things to explore and stories to tell. Take away the bugbears and no one will notice [on a first playthrough, obviously], same with banging the Emperor - that one should probably not even be there, that whole scene is just a remnant from when Daisy was something romanceable - it makes no sense in the current campaign, Halsin's Sex-God comments, etc. No one would miss it, because it is all just fluff. Fluff that's in your face. It doesn't change the core of the game.

I just answered this, but yes.



Fine. WHY? and HOW? Please. Enlighten me. Because I cannot put the bugbears and the bear sex in that context.

Yes, yes... pushing the envelope.

Exactly. That doesn't make it artful or even good, just cheap laughs and fancy colors onscreen.

But that's not how it works in a debate. I say what I think, you say what you think. 'Lots of people like it' is not an argument, you can't speak for 'lots of people'. Also, let's face it. Lots of people think the Earth is flat, that doesn't make it flat.

It's a perfectly good website - no malware and it has far better performance and features than this forum (and its had them for a least 6 years). Oh, and there are a few DA images in there.

A website has better performance than this forum by merely existing, lol.

Well I'm not surprised that you find my viewpoint wrong, because as stated, violence is viewed to be much more intrinsically linked and inseparable than sexuality, but to say it can't be removed is completely false. Does removing the over the top violence change the characters? No. Does it change the story? No. Does it change the combo and blocking system? No. The only thing the over the top violence does in MK is give you fatalities and xray moves. That's it. The same with GoW. You removed the over the top graphics, you're still have the exact same award winning narration, award winning soundtrack, award winning voice acting, and top tier combat, just without the grotesque finishers to give that brutal edge. And noticed how the sexualization is called out for BG3, but no one has address how BG3 goes into the grotesque violence area as well.

And yes, the romance and sexuality aspect of the game is every bit as central to BG3. You and others may not believe so, but there's a reason why one of the most talked about fixes requested in this game is fixes for and more hugs and kisses.

This conversation just highlights the conclusion that violence is viewed as much more necessary than sexuality, hell, I think I even remember reading about this in psychology class. I have to look it up.

I see your point and your not wrong. When we played DnD over the years there was always one person in the group that wanted to be the "evil" character and would kill, literally for the sake of the kill. Most of us played "good" characters. There was violence for sure but it was not so indiscriminate. In BG3 there is a path in the game, with rewards for murdering the Tieflings and the Druids. Not because they are a threat or they have defiled a temple, just killing them for killing them. I wanted to understand so I played that path once and I honestly felt like I had to die a little inside to finish it. I stopped that play through right then and will not do an evil play through again.

As for all the discussion about romance in the game. I am becoming a little sad. The main story of the game is finding a way to cure yourself of an Illithid parasite and then to save others from a possible Illithid invasion. Yet it seems like any content effort being added to the game is for romantic, sexual and general knee jerk emotional material. Would have much rather seen an effort to add more content that was applying directly to the main plot.

I bought this game for a DnD adventure and feel like we are getting sword and sorcery fantasying dating simulator.

Right...cause the only thing separating street fighter and mortal kombat is the violence. So I guesss Tekken, Soul Caliber, Virtua Fighter and more should all be renamed Street Fighter. Because they don't have the over the top violence to separate the two games...


Oh I have no interest nor plans in convincing you. These topics will always go around in circles because we're discussing completely subjective topics based on the biases and interests of a particular person. There is literally no way for me to convince you about BG3's pushing the boundaries just like there's no way you would convince me bg3 antics are immature or that over the top violence is a necessity in gaming. Because our viewpoint on the matter is going to lean towards the biases we have towards a particular topic.

It's along the lines of the recent spider man 2 discussion. There were a few articles out there stating that Miles Morales got short changed in Spider Man 2, due to having significantly less mission time and plot importance than Peter Parker. The people who wanted to play as Miles mostly agreed, saying his story was hampered until Act 3. But those that wanted to play as Peter mostly disagreed, because they stated Peter should be the main spider man and therefore should have the 75/25 split we saw in the game. There is no way each side is going to convince the other their point, because their biases are intrinsically linked to two opposite sides.

The same applies here. Nothing we're discussing here is factual, merely subjective lenses fueled by our biases and viewpoints. It's along the lines of "one mans trash is another mans treasure." You're not going to convince the other that it's trash or treasure.


A debate also doesn't work by using off-handed analogies to give the false impression that your viewpoint is the correct one, but you keep using this tactic. Secondly, I don't "need" to speak for "lots of people." You only need to pull up VODS from the Actors playing BG3 like Jennifer English, Devora Wilde, Neil and more to see the hundreds and thousands that echo my point. But that's entirely on you if you wanna dive into that rabbit hole.

Oh to clarify, I completely understand your concern, especially since this game is based off of a franchise. I entirely understand why you'd feel disappointed with the direction this game took. If you came into the game with a certain set of expectations, and they took a left field turn into an area that you not only did not expect, but have little interest in, that's bound to be off-putting.

It goes back to my spider man point on how miles fan found SM 2 a good game, while Peter fans view it as game of the year (and it's technically nominated for game of the year.) When you have a certain level of expectation, and they blindside you, well there's likely to be problems lol.

So yeah, I'm not trying to convince you or anyone here that the road Larian took towards BG3 is a net positive for everyone, because that's impossible. I'm only here to give the other side a voice.

I didn’t take Halsin in my party, so I can’t comment on that, but on the others: yes, Lae’zel called for sex, and that happened. And Astarion did. And that was it. The emperor asks for more trust and a simple "we should focus on our task" (which is the most plausible answer there, I mean: it’s a mind flayer) gets a "this felt kind of short" comment in the scene while he tells you that you’re right, and that’s that. And you’d have to be crazy to lie with the Incubus instead of just slaying it (well, I switched to the former after re-loading after the latter, because the former seemed like a lot more fun). And who would accept the demoness’ offer where it’s clear that the goal is to compromise your partnership with your companion (and yes, if you try, it ends badly)?

Main characters who did not ask to have sex in my playthrough: Shadowheart, Wyll, Gale, Karlach, Jaheira, Minsc. (though there may be implied sex in some of the initial romance scenes with Shadowheart)

Halsin did, but Halsin feels a lot like fanservice (it’s fun to see fanservice being a male character — usually that’s the women ☺).

I don’t know about Minthara, because I killed her on sight.

And all that said: I love it how BG3 explores sexuality. It brought me the best gaming experience I had in over a decade and it has me totally hooked.

I actually keep a log of the best experience each day, and the romances in BG3 hit that several times. You may find it childish. For me it was core to the enjoyment of the game.

And no, I’m not twelve. At 16 I would have considered that focus on romance as annoying. But that was more than two decades ago and nowadays I enjoy that exploration of different aspects of romance.

And I think it fits the game very well, because this game starts with Characters whose thoughts and memories and even feelings get connected to some degree, so they share an intimate bond. All of them are cut off from their original groups and have no existing bonds, and they are basically forced to travel together for weeks in the wilderness and trust each other. It is pretty likely that they would develop deeper feelings and explore intimate relationships.

The only part that’s less plausible is that they all focus on Tav, but that’s easily explained by being a game where *you* are the main character.

Yeah, though there's a distinction between people who play "Evil" characters and would kill during a campaign and the "Murderhobos" which is a term used to describe people who during a campaign kill literally everyone they can simply because they can.

BG3's "Evil" route tends to err towards the Murderhobo side of things than a proper "Evil" character (Who can often be a very interesting part of a campaign. I know of times when it was devised that the "Evil" character would actually end up being the BBEG at the end of the campaign)

That said, even BG3's "Good" path involves a lot of violence. Murdering the leaders of the Goblin camp to save the Tieflings. Murdering the Inquisitor. Cutting off Nere's head. Murdering wing guy in Last Light Inn (I forget his name). Murdering Ketheric Thorm. Murdering Orpheus' guards. Murdering Orin and Gortash.


Technically, romance IS directly part of the main plot.

Since the initial premise of the game is "Find allies", allies that you then adventure with throughout the entire game. Thus you have a relationship with them. It starts off as a purely "We're in the same situation, may as well work together" but throughout the game grows into friendships and more.

It doesn't necessarily advance the main plot (Besides befriending the Emperor as killing him literally stops campaign), but it's very much part of it.

It's not part of a typical TT DnD experience, because of a multitude of differences between a Tabletop Game and a Video Game such as:

- In a TT game there's a person behind the character, so there's never 100% immersion.
- In a TT game there's other players and it would be cringy af if 2 players spent time having their characters romance each other.
- TT characters are often throwaways. Once the campaign is over, their character's story ceases to exist so there's no point in setting up long lasting plots like relationships (In a video game there's implied permenance to characters. You can presume that after the events of the game, the characters would keep living their life)
- Not all TT characters have deep backstory and characterisation written for them, making it less necessary to devote time to finding out about the character in question.

In essence, TT characters are less people and more vehicles to go through a campaign (Even those that are well written, with deep lore and backgrounds). In a video game, there's more room to make characters be people and do people things like socialise (Thus, video games do often incorporate relationships, because video games are played by people... And people to people things like socialise)

There seems to be some serious overselling of how deep ANY of the relationships are in order to make (rather tortured) points.

Larian : *adds junk jiggle physics*

Nope, not at all pushing sex over a real narrative/character development.

I've had enough of this in my save.

I've seen eyes ripped out, capturers being cut open with scalpels, poor guys being skinned and hung upside down, child murder, pet murder, anything murder, oft in cinematic details. My party has waded through seas of blood, guts and limbs (the latter of which completely interactive and pick-upable, throwable and lulzable because why not).

Granted, I'm yet not been actively pursuing the sexy side of things, e.g. desperately looking for it. But that's kinda the point. Even in the EA I've seen more. I've no doubt that this content is treated in more rather juvenile Larian fashion too if you go looking. But the one "sexy time scene" I saw faded to black immediately, unlike any of the torture pr0n. And I'm over 60 hours into it, middle of Act 3. I've had it. I'm now going to Baldur's Gate's official Temple Of Lust. Saw a neat drow thing there. If this will not suffice, I'm gonna boot up Realms Of Arkania again (or the Twitcher, collecting sexy booby cards).






PS: The Japanese will tone it down, so you may pick that one up. https://www.thegamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-censorship-japan-romance-scenes-violence-torture/

I like the sex scenes when they're about the romance and done respectfully. Without the romance it essentially becomes porn though, which is where the bugbear and brothel scenes land. The beastiality is technically tied to Halsins romance, but it's immature and disturbing. I have no idea why the Emperor tries to screw me when the whole time I've only been mean to him. Nor do I understand why there's an achievement tied to this, forcing completionists to have sex with him.

Companions also need to chill out and let the player take the lead, all the thirsting is annoying and can be overwhelming. Let us have friendships with them, if not romanced and with enough approval. That's something I loved in DA:I where I could actually befriend all of them, play cards and they even ask about how I'm doing and they're not obsessed with getting in my pants. There isn't any of this in BG3 and it's so unrealistic. Like is there really nothing else to do but have sex? Can we not buy a deck of cards at a trader and just hangout? Sit around the campfire and tell stories? Friendships are so disregarded in this game.

If they had just kept it where we have the sex scenes with our chosen romance partner, and left all that other porn stuff and beastiality out, I would have voted no on this poll. Unfortunately, they went overboard in my opinion.

The problem for me was that all the "sexy stuff" was unevenly distributed, with most of the more "romantic stuff" occurring in Act 1 and then just sort of disappearing. By Act 2, pretty much everyone in my party had tried to sleep with me that could sleep with me, and I was sick of it. Now, with over 400 hours played and the end of Act 3 looming, all the sexy is a distant memory. There's two Act 3 sex scenes I can think of, but only one of them really establishes any kind of relationship, and it's a twisted one. I think that maybe the storied, more romantic stuff that happened early on came too hard and fast, leaving only the more insubstantial stuff for Act 3. The companions wouldn't have come off as so thirsty, the Act 3 stuff wouldn't've had to stand alone in the player's mind, and fewer people would've been so bothered by it all.

In the brothel scenes I experienced a woman attracted to Illithid telling a story about feeling empowered. The two others in the Caress made an offer, but Lae’zel made it perfectly clear that she would not share, so I declined. And there was a clothed dancer and music. That was it.

And I also think that the sensual parts are too absent in Act 3. For Lae’zel you actually get some great relationship parts ("Source of my ..." ← rest left out to avoid spoilers, if you played it, you know), but there is no progression in *shared* sensual experiences.

On the other hand, Act 3 is where the established connections hold fast to drive the main plot and shape decisions (and yes, if you allow yourself to get immersed in what those relationships mean for your character, then they are the major driver of decisions), so dialing them down a bit is consistent with the progression of the story.

What an absolutely brainless take.

Lets not let this get personal or heated please...

I don't limit my decision of why I think BG3 is oversexualized to only the game itself but also to the marketing campaign, design, and the customers Larian wanted to attract with it.

Larian heavily pushed sex as primary marketing ploy, it designed the companions to be sex and wish fulfilment first, similar to how Hoyoverse games like Genshin Impact and other waifu collectors are designed, with an actual rpg story being an afterthought in case they have still time (for Halsin and Wyll apparently not).

And it worked and attracted exactly that crowed who, because most of them lack any real rpg experience think BG3 is revolutionary, ignore all the mechanical story problems, the core disciplines of an rpg, BG3 has and spend all their time with romance fanfiction and their number one priority are not mechanical or story problems but getting more kissing scenes. And that despite the actual romance and also scenes in BG3 being low quality as people pointed out.
And Larian is just too happy to keep the sex hype going.

Thank you!

We've been through Game of Thrones and its complete betrayal of GRRM's approach to sex and violence. BG3 is TAME by comparison. Calling it over-sexualised in a society like ours, where in the early 2000s literally any ad and most magazines had nude spreads seems, as you said, a deliberate attempt to start a storm in a teacup, to put it politely.

Your comparison with Kingmaker also seems completely out of the blue - the premise was completely different, there is no sense of urgency which, historically, lowers inhibitions but rather there's stressing kingdom management and need to escape. Let alone in the adventure path which is as open world as a tabletop can be,

GoT had rape, gang-rape, sadism, incest and all sorts of other things from the books. I don't see any 'complete betrayal' of the books. The medium is the message and GoT pushed a few limits for TV.



You are not comparing like with like. Different medium, different message. A point I made several pages back is that the thread title is poorly formulated - 'overly' is too relative and 'sexualised' is too vague.

Seconded. But, also, multiple things can be true at the same time.

I am all for nudity and very much not in favor of censorship of any kind; be it sex, violence and probably most other things that might spring to mind.
Yet, I really don't like the cheap humor stuff of say, buggering bugbears....And I'll gladly call that immature and childish.
Yet, I then go out of my way to talk to *every animal in the entire game* like a child in a pet store.

I think the problem here, personally, is with the thesis. We're asking if BG3 was overly-sexualized, but it's a product. We don't have to invest money in it, we choose to. The product itself can only inherently be "sexy" or "not sexy." Even that is subjective, though. Imo, the real question should be: "Was BG3 overly-sexualized for you?" We can't decide if the product was 'too sexy' for everyone, unless we look at the market reaction to the product. It's really our best and only barometer for if a product was too much of anything. BG3 has sold a minimum of seven million copies, which I would say is a fairly warm reaction to the product as a whole. The final sales figures will likely be in the tens of millions, and to me that is a pretty good sign that BG3 wasn't too much of anything for a majority of the intended market.

But it's okay if you're not part of the majority, or even not part of the intended market. You can disagree subjectively with how the sexiness in BG3 has been received specifically, and you can certainly say if it was subjectively overtly-sexual to you. But I don't think you can argue with those results. What Larian did worked, and it is apparently still banging on all cylinders after three months on the market.

Far too little sex and far too soft

I've just been replaying the game (with the new honor mode) and once again, the characters come across as way too needy and wanting to jump your bones way too quickly. There is little 'buildup - I should have to go looking for that, not just be nice to people. BG3 seems to equate 'being nice' to " I have feelings for you'. Maybe they should have hired a relationship advisor and not just someone for their sex scenes....

Example: after saving the grove, I made no overtures to Halsin, but the dialogue was offered to me to (without really knowing this character)to start asking very probing questions. I think that should unlock after a lot of travel and adventuring together. Its jarring. I was polite, said no - later there was a text option "I hope I didn't come across to strongly' or some such for my character - I had said *nothing* to encourage him. Then L'aezel - who I never said much too - has her whole 'you'll regret not sleeping with me' bit . It all sounds a bit adolescent. An Gale was gazing at my character lovingly because I was nice to him and my character likes magic so tried some out the magic he offered ...it wasn't a "I want to jump your bones' signal.

Is jarring enough that I can't think of any other part-based RPG where it was this blatant - and certainly not in baldur's gate or icewind dale etc. This playthrough I'm ignoring them as much as I can - but of course I need to keep them happy so there relationship stays good (or there can be in game consequences).

From my experience that depends strongly on life experience.

I had a girlfriend with whom I spent lots of time and it took 1.5 years to the first kiss (and then only weeks to the breakup :-/). With another woman I met we’d have been in bed after three days — if I hadn’t declined. And yes, I’m married today.

But studies say, "couples moved rapidly into sexual relationships. Over one third reported having sex within 1 month of the start of their relationships." (Sassler et al 2012) and regardless of how quickly you start to have sex, your relationship is better when you don’t move together too quickly: "the association between relationship tempo and relationship quality is largely driven by entry into cohabitation" — though "women who take longer to become sexually intimate with their partners report significantly greater levels of sexual satisfaction".

So I’d say BG3 is well within the realms of plausibility, especially since it’s an extremely unusual, exciting, frightening and intimate situation for all the characters.

Icewind Dale is a Black Isle Studios Game, not a Bioware game though. The only thing "Bioware" in there is the engine they had borrowed. Everything else was supposed to be a dungeon crawl, like the good ol' days. The good ol' days before anything "romance" became a feature ticked off a list of features.

(Don't care about keeping everybody happy in my playthrough though. This isn't some kind of minigame to keep everybody happy.)

Didn't follow much of the marketing, only watched the trailers in brief (which were more "pandering" to the crowd for DA Origins tenfold, both on the violence and cleavages front, hilariously misplaced Marilyn Manson music included.)


Still: That'd actually be good news!

I'm expecting Bioware et all to do a complete turnaround by tomorrow. After all, all it apparently takes to get players interested in RPGs proper (regardless of anything else too, it seems), is putting a few motion-captured boobies and dongs in there.

No more cheap excuses from tomorrow on accepted.

I don't think its good news as the only effect will be other companies also forsaking story and interesting characters in favor of waifus and immature sex stories according to always the same formula like Mass Effect style romances.

And the marketing of BG3 only really took of after the bear sex panel (and you can be sure that showing such a scene in a very public setting was planned well in advance with a specific goal in mind). After that BG3 came to the attention to circles outside the usual RPG customers because they wanted to see whats that sex thing is about.
A cheap marketing ploy and people sadly fell for it.

I thought the sex in the game was fine. If you don't seek out the sexual content on purpose you'll very likely only see one or two sex scenes, there is an option for modesty filters, and there is an entire romance without any sex scenes. There is also a more mature storyline connected to sexuality.

Overall the romance stories mirror real-life dating, everyone is comfortable with different levels of intimacy at different stages of the game.

There is a lot of hitting on Tav in Act 1, all of which you can turn down without an issue, and by Act 2 the romance matures for all characters.
It's also just a personal opinion but I found most sex scenes more goofy than hot.

And yeah, all gamers are horny, but it's also something you have to seek out on purpose, like fanfiction or thirsty edits.

Yes it is.

The naked paperdolls, genital customization and clumsy sex scenes that go too far are very cringe. Overall the weird focus on sexual content is distracting, embarrassing and ultimately makes BG3 a worse experience. Why do you need to be able to take your companions' clothes off and see their genitals, or have sex with mind flayers?

Sounds more like some entitled child's play than storytelling or gameplay. Are Larian devs the entitled children, or are they catering to such a perceived audience?

Why are you playing a game explicitly marked “mature” if you hate all the mature elements?

Sadly i can't vote, why ever. So i gve my aqnswer here in written form: No!

I don't think the game is over sexualized. We are all adults and knew what we are buying. The romance stuff was advertised everywhere. You can always say no and most companions will respect it. That is at least my experience as a not native english speaking player.

I only tested the male options so far and think it isn't too much. Wyll fades to balck as soon as you know what's going to happen. Astarion, a bit of naked skin, but yopu can switch it off. Gale has even two options. One is more detailed and the other fades to black also. Minthara i only watched on youtube and ok,... i understand why many people kill those man poor tieflings and druids to bed her. It's not too detailed but some still may find it hot.

What i find more desturbing is the blunt presentation of a half naked Mindflayer through most of the Emperor romance scene for example. Tentacle sex is not everyone's cup of tea and i wish i could tell the Emperor to get dressed way sooner. I mean, some may like that exotic kind of sex, but it isn't everyone's thing. I wish they would chnage that scene so you have a choice.

Also i find it annoying, that companions still flirt with each other while we are romancing them. It seems like...bad manners for me if they act like nothing is happening. This makes them look like they're either emergency horny or simply don't care about our Tavs. Hello? Tav is a main character, we help our companions through all of their problems. We risk our lives for them and play caretaker for them. So main characters deserve a bit more respect, i think. I wish the companions would acknowledge the relationships of the Main character more and stop flirting if someone is taken. I wish they would react to the relationships more. That would simply make it feel more logical and realistic (as far as we can call it realistic in a fantasy RPG).

Long story short: Everything is alright, but i would wish it would be done a bit more properly.

Read what i wrote, please. I never said anywhere i hated all the adult elements. It should just be done with more feeling of tact and properly.

Like i said, i am a not native english speaking player. So, if you have any problems understanding sy posts, please don't read anything into it i didn't say. Ask nicely and i'm happy to explain as well as i can.

Actually, Baldur's Gate, where they got the engine from is a Bioware game. But, that didn't have romances and npc's you could really talk with either. A handful of characters in BG1 would have one line when you finish their quest, but that was it. The whole party banter and romances and stuff - wasn't until Baldur's Gate 2, which came after Icewind Dale. So, they didn't 'take that out'.

In fact, that studio later grew to be Obsidian Entertainment, and is largely responsible for many of the relationship stuff we see in BG3 and other crpg's; such as the 'approval meter' etc, which was introduced in KotoR 2, also by Obsidian.

Small detali:

In BG 1 there were no romances at all. You had no approvale system, just a general group alignment and that's it.

In BG 2 there was a general group alihnment as well. But it did have romances. Originally there were 3 female and one male romance option. The commnity later came up with mods to have more options. Those romances mostly were just text, though. Even if someone offered to spend a night with you, nothing was visible. It faded to black completely during a rest.

I myself saw the whole approval system with BG 3 first. I must say i have fun finding out, ho likes what and who dislikes what. And yes, i'm a litte romance addict. I just like things done properly.

Because I was hoping for maturity, and not immaturity?

BG 3 uses sex in a way that is anything but mature IMHO. Being more explicit does not mean more mature.

BG3 is not mature. It's juvenile.

Companion romance scenes are fine with me. But the time spent on Haarlep and tentacle sex and Mizora (and romanced companion reactions to having sex with her) could have been spent on the more important parts of Act 3. All the horny bits can be added later.

Technically, Torment also did it first, releasing a good couple months earlier than BG2. However, that was a character driven project back then when going "character driven" was an option -- not a must-have feature. And was actually influenced by the same source: JRPGs. If you ask me, Morte et all had also been the high-point. It's mostly been down (and super formulaic) from then on: Pick a companion, unlock his "story quest", optional romance, wash rinse repeat.

Too bad that other experiences (and ideas) have been largely tossed to the wayside. For instance, creating an entire party, but being allowed to give each character a personality they express instead of movie-style completely fixed backstory (such as on Wizardry 8). Even companions literally fighting and killing each other in BG1 -- never been seen again. If explored further, this would allow for so much more dynamic interactions than merely farming for companion quests and romances.

But that ship seems to have sailed. And despite the complete repetitiveness, people are just not getting tired of it. I know players who create fully custom parties regardless whether any game ships with "fleshed out companions" -- and I don't blame them for that. edit: Naturally, a sequel to a typically Bioware-styled game is the wrong one for experimentation, naturally.

Can you explain what do you feel like is not mature? Or what do you feel would be a more mature way to handle sex?



I feel like Act 3 suffers from too much content, but I have to agree, the Mizora and tentacle scenes are things I would have also cut. Tentacle is already one of the least triggered but easiest-to-do achievements. Harleep made me feel like my character got violated, and it hammered home the point that my character's actions can have serious consequences beyond "dying".

As far as I understand the horny bits were developed somewhat separately, so I'm not sure how much more ready Act 3 would be without these.

There were screenshots on reddit of one of the lead writers saying they wrote Haarlep, so obviously that time could have been used elsewhere.

Oh, I meant the technical part of game development itself, there are a lot of half-finished dungeons and lackluster fights in Act 3. Maybe there would be a little bit more party banter.

If you had read the books you'd know that GRRM despises violence, doesn't glorify it like the show.

I have read the books you dingbat. I read them before I saw the TV series. I fail to see how the TV series is glorifying the violence which is taken from the books.

Nobody is 'hating' anything. People are expressing their dislike of various aspects of the game. Some of us are disliking the fact that what the game contains is not 'mature' but immature nonsense.

And some disagree with the notion that this applies to major parts of the respective content.

I consider most sensual parts to be presented very maturely and tastefully. Not all, but most.

And for the juvenile fantasies of the old broadshouldered elf: I can easily live with that. He usually only tells me when I ask him and I can just choose not to ask him. For the tentacle sex: that wasn’t tentacle sex. Not by any stretch of the definition. Though what I plan in my current playthrough is to tell him to stay in the form I designed and see where that takes it.

I suppose it depends on where one sets the 'mature' bar. I set mine high and find virtually everything Larian does immature, from the barrelmancy/everything go 'boom' inanity to the allegedly mature/sexual content'.

Its ok to show sexuality in a Game. I think they underdone some of the cutscenes anyway. The Dig of Male Charakters stays limp all the time^^ Its more of some erotic scenes and they promised to much in early access imo. Cyberpunk was way harder in this therm.
What they have overdone is first: Most Companions are there to be tragic, complicated and to flirt. There should be some normal dudes and dudesseseses...AND DWARFS! This game has no cool Dwarf in it! There are just those perfekt looking teenage model crushes. They tried to hard to make it cool. D&D ist popular enough already. And yes everything is about Sex sometimes. Also there is to much about sodomy. Sex with Devils, Sex with Bears(I KNOW ITS AN ELF!) and Sex with a Fucking MINDFLAYER! Is it true that Minthara lets hundrents of Spiders crawl over your Body? I mean this is kind of lorefriendly but uuhhh....My GF told me Gale does a Kagebunshin Gangbang in the Astralplane with you. The only things missing are Sex with Children and Sex with Corpses.
Its too dirty. Sex is wonderful and if everyone agrees with it, everyone should do what they want with who they want. But i think its not normal that everything has to be about sex and exceed limits.
D&D is this loveley farytal dark fantasy world for me. Yes there is Sex and yes there is violence but was it really necessary to make Balduran the Founder of Baldurs Gate a pansexual Mindflayer? More work for immersion in the Sex scenes and maybe a little more visual material.
Idk. I had a long day and my english isnt perfekt. I didtn want to blame Larian for anything and i dindnt want to offend anyone. I am open mindet for every sexuality and gender identety. Just my thoughts about this toppic so dont start a fight pls. I wont respond anyway^^

Its just a bit of Adult gloss to keep everything a bit juicy. The relationship/sex between my Tav and Shadow I thought was really elegant. It was slow burning and kind of deep which is what I'd hoped for. Would I like to see more and perhaps grittier Adult content? Yes, I would but done with the same thoughtful and not too "game invasive" manner. The world and its magic are the important bit. Sex is there to spice it up a bit. To those that don't care for it, just switch it off and move on.

Yeah, that is all well and good, but as per most of the 'complaints' if you will, the romance-sex bit isn't most anyone's concern.

"Just switch it off" doesn't help when the oversexualization is driving development. No amount of switching it off changes that Larian is spending time and money to add more kissing scenes instead of adding an Omeluum ending. Or that instead of an original character to round out the race and class balance of companions we got "yet another elf druid" Halsin with several fetishes tacked on as only content.

And it's existence doesn't guarantee that it was done in place of things like an Omeluum ending. Or was the driving force behind "Yet another elf" Halsin instead of a race/class balance.

It's impossible for us to know exactly how much sexualization impacted overall development and even harder for us to know if certain desired additions to the game were scrapped purely because they spent development time on sexualization.

Thus it's not a very strong argument to rely on.

Thats a smokescreen.
Resources (time and money) are limited and while we do not know exactly what they would have been used for if BG3 were not oversexualized we do know that with all options open to them Larian decided to pump even more resources they had into romance and sex.

We only know that they spent resources on romance and sex.

That's all we can say for sure. We cannot say that what these resources would be used on if not for romance and sex (If anything). Therefore it's not an argument that holds any weight.

One can wish that the resources were used on other specific aspects, but we cannot say that their lack of inclusion is because of the way resources were spent.

As if BG was a dating game... you don't have to have anything with an NPC/companion. It is an 18+ game and it is mentioned what content the game has.

Yes that "wasted resource" reasoning can be applied to everything we don't like . and so basically it is meaningless.

I have to agree they did not waste resources. Their goal was to find a way to get adolescents more interested in a turn based CRPG and they succeeded, that has hardly wasted.

Close to the end, still ain't seen nothing yet.

Except for another fully cinematic child murder, of course. One you can prompt via your own (dialogue) choice, which the original never had, despite involving a certain kind of cult also.

If I'm gonna replay, I'm gonna really try though, honest. Won't happen anytime soon though, I'm full.

Its a game for adults, if you are a prude and can't handle sex scene switch them of or don't play the game, it is easy as that.

Precisely!

The game has an 18 rating in the UK at least so there should not be people under 18 playing the game. But yes, how exactly is anyone going to police that?? Perhaps when the full release modding tools are available there will be a way to balance the amount of "wasted" resource by adding more content etc. Time will tell. Personally I love the game as it is but happy to see what comes next.

Nothing about the sex scenes and sex based marketing is adult. Rather its what teenager think adult is.

As Topper said, no one is policing the adult rating online. And based on the oversexualization and quality of that content Larian was fully aware of that.

Again with the bullshit strawman. Nobody here has said anything about not being able to handle the sexual content.

If you ARE interested in a romance with an NPC (and so of course into sex) the scenes in BG3 are NOT enough. I think: Still TO soft for a over 18 (!) game. If you are NOT interested ... JUST SAY NO!

I don't really see the problem here. I was searching all this "LOT OF SEX SCENES" in my game but ... I could not find them. I would be happy if I would find it. Honestly.


Seem to me, none of the people who are offended by the sex scenes have EVER played a game like (for example) Dragon Age before. Or she/he play a RPG games with a romance option for the first time ... Or are puritan / very young (here we must see: There is a huge difference between european people and for example US-americans). Or ... want clown-faces in the Steam forum (if they post a thread about this on Steam).

I keep seeing people fall back on the same arguments without seeming to understand a lot of the discussion. The actual scenes for many of us are not offensive, in fact none of it is about being offended. It is rather a visible effort to cheap push adolescent sexuality into the game for easy teen gamer interest. A system that BRRINGS nothing substantial to the game yet is pushed at hard. Do not think it has been impactful? Just look on this forum alone where the threads about various romantic and sexual woes are often more engaged than threads discussing how the lore was interpreted wrong, the game system has things missing and other things directly related to what the main "plot" of the RPG is supposed to be.

That's just another opinion in the same way mine is just another opinion. If you think the game is "overly sexualized" fine, but why push this narrative? The game is spectacular in many ways and arguably a hundred times better than the original which (in my opinion only) was fine but of its time. Why cant we just put the adult stuff aside and enjoy the magic as well as the silly romance stuff. It just looks like pushing an agenda again and again.

It sort of looks like this matter is "pushed hard" particularly by those who disapprove. On this forum at least.
And what do you mean with "substantial" ?
If the romance between Conan and Valeria were removed from the movie, they could still defeat Tulsa Doom. Nothing substantial changes storywise. But the experience would be substantially different from an artistic, emotional point of view.
You may see this primarily as a fighting game and not so much an RPG, but I think the romance elevates the story.. (BTW, I think there is much more noise on the forum about how the fights are not hard enough, than about the sex and nudity. The fights are hard enough for me, so I could consider the effort to increase difficulty useless and wasted. But I'm not complaining. You can never make the perfect game for everyone.)

I have to agree that the implementation, or visualisation of the romance scenes is not particularly good. Actually, the rare times we see a lewd scene, it sucks... 90% of the time. Also, I think there is not enough romance and sex. In places and times where it would really fit in, well, it is absent.

No I don't think this was done to attract adolescents. I think that perhaps the developers were unsure how far they could go with romance in this time and space. Afraid of backlash from certain cultures and communities perhaps. And so they made a half-baked thing. If it was made a generation ago with the same technology, the sex scenes might have been done properly.
But even the half-baked thing makes it better than what it would be without it, for me. ( BTW, 'm not an adolescent. I played AD&D in the early 1980's.)

Re: Marketing, was there anything much else aside of the bear scene? I think people get this the wrong way anyway. If this wouldn't have tied into the overall tagline of BG3 being a game "where you can do pretty much anything", it wouldn't have caught on as it did nearly as much. Sure, it's lulz, but it tied into the overall campaign, reaching some beyond gaming mags prior to release already. Like: "What? You can do even THAT?" "Um, yeah."

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2...eo-game-where-you-can-do-almost-anything

In terms of promoting tatas and catering to the young crowd, Larian have still a lot to learn though. For Origins, the bulk of the promotion can be summed up by: "Bloods and titties". They weren't even subtle about it. https://rpgwatch.com/forum/threads/...in-maxim-magazine-a-marketing-ploy.8783/ Not gonna linke the "sex & violence" trailer anymore, as it's too cringey. Maybe I've just missed the more obvious stuff when trying to avoid spoilers as to BG3. If not, one for the next time.

The game being "spectacular in many ways" is an opinion too, one that I utterly disagree with.

Oh, please, fellas. It's a forum. A forum is a place where you discuss opinions.

Mine is as follows:

They release this:



And I say, yes.

I played BG3 a lot. I always avoided having sex with my NPC companions. Only with Minthara did I do a round in my underpants.


I don't think it's generally wrong to have sex in the game. It would also be okay if the NPCs fell in love with each other. That would even have added RPG value.

Personally, however, I tend to leave out the sex stuff because it also has something to do with respect. And simply riveting everything that offers itself makes me lose respect, or is too cheap for me when I'm so directly and specifically hit on in this way.


Does BG3 have too much sex... hmm, hard to say.

Basically, it's not important to me. But there was one thing I didn't like so much. That everyone really got involved with everyone.

It didn't matter whether they were men or women, the NPCs were inclined towards everything.

That was one of the weak points of BG3 in terms of content and seemed false and contrived. Nobody would have minded if one of the characters had been attracted to both sexes, but it seemed abnormal.


I can absolutely do without all the relationship boxes in this type of RPG. I wouldn't miss it. In a game like this, I'm not interested in a real-life simulation of relationships and sex. The focus here is on adventure, classes and combat, as well as the beautiful world. If such a game then has a high replayability value through class variations and different NPC behavior, other locations, etc., all the better.

I thought BG3's romance would be mature when I got EA a few years ago, but it's probably on the immature side of RPGs I've played (excluding Skyrim, because that doesn't count).

Then the game is not for you. Time to move on.

I saw this thread on page 1 a while ago and was going to respond, but then the forum was down and I forgot all about it. I hope bumping after one and a half months isn't considered thread necromancy. ^^

(The following is meant as constructive criticism / food for thought. The game is mesmerizing overall. No hard feelings, just my humble opinions, etc.)

The critique in the opening post and some of the early replies speak to me. (I haven't read much more of the thread; ain't gonna wade through 12 pages.) I just turned off nudity and sex scenes immediately when starting my first play-through, because the marketing had made it fairly clear that this aspect of the game is mostly just a gimmick/thirst-trap. If I want to play a game that's heavy on lore, story, and adventure, and immerse myself in its world, then such gimmicky sex scenes merely serve as an awkward distraction from that. Also, even if I wanted to watch characters in a video game having some adult sleepy time, the graphics of BG3 don't seem suitable for it, based on the few clips I've seen. It's almost uncanny valley territory.

That said, I think even the non-sexual parts of romance were not well done at all, but I don't know if I can fault the writers for that, because there's a fundamental issue here that's probably near impossible to solve:

If you want to have convincing, high-quality writing for a character with a rich personality, and have romance/sexuality be part of the writing, then you HAVE to give the character a sexual orientation, preferences, history, and so on. But in doing so, you will end up greatly disappointing a lot of players. Maybe I really wanted to romance Wyll with my young male elf Tav, but comes out I can't, because he's only interested in women, specifically women around his age who will live a human life-span, so they can grow old together. (That's very Wyll, isn't it?) Or maybe I really wanted to be Shadowheart's first sweetheart (there's a pun there somewhere...) but comes out this is her third serious relationship, or she's divorced, or something. ^^

So what are the writers to do? Firstly, they have to make every single character "Tavsexual," meaning they are devoid of an orientation and preferences, and instead unconditionally interested in the player character. This is already limiting in terms of writing when it comes to any one character, and becomes worse when applied to *every* companion at camp. At that point, we really get into "harem anime" or "erotic visual novel" territory, which is part of what makes the game feel overly sexualized. If you like that type of media, great! But it's not everyone's cup of tea. And also, suspension of disbelief is out the window: how convenient that everyone happens to be interested in my main character.

Secondly, though this is a weaker point, you'll want to make the relationship history of the characters nebulous to some degree, so everyone can have their fantasy. I say this is a weaker point because it doesn't actually apply to a lot of characters in BG3: Gale was in a devoted relationship with a certain someone; Lae'zel and Minthara are obviously, uh, quite experienced; Astarion has had... tragic things happen, which I guess overshadows anything else. And so on. So, props to the game for not making the characters *that* devoid of a personal history. But what about Shadowheart, for example? She's been with Shar since childhood, and maybe they strictly control relationships or something, since it's a cult of sorts. Might Astarion have had a devoted lover before being captured, or was he already a playboy of sorts? Karlach has definitely had some action before Avernus, but has she ever been in a serious relationship? These are some things you might be very curious about in a real relationship, but you don't get to ask such detailed questions in the game.

TL;DR: You can't write fully fleshed-out characters with a detailed personality, novel style, and yet give the player total freedom in forming a relationship with any of them. It's sadly an unavoidable dilemma. Personally, I would have preferred characters with a fully fleshed-out personality, even if it means my main character may end up being rejected. The devs decided to go the other way, to give maximum player freedom, which may have been the right choice for various reasons, but unfortunately it makes this aspect of the game feel gimmicky, and perhaps overly sexualized.

The writers didn't have to. They, or rather Larian, choose to in order to sell the game for thirsting.

Look for example to Rogue Trader. The equivalent to Shadowheart would be Sister Argenta. Good looking (depending on taste) early female companion.

And she can't be romanced. Not a single bit. Because that would not fit her character (and there are many people who are disappointed by that).

Owlcat prioritises story and immersion, you know the thing RPGs depend on.
Larian throws those core values of RPGs out of the window and instead goes to cheap sex sales to people that do not care about RPGs. And they made sure people knew it by putting bear sex into a large promo event.

And its a shame that BG3 sold so much better than Rogue Trader by sacrificing core values so sell porn to the masses.

This is probably the biggest joke I've run up on. The whole thing is laughable, and really plays no part in the game.
I can see how some have tried to advertise it as ""sex scenes" to generate interest, but there's nothing to it.
The closest I've come is that scene where you share a glass of wine with Shadowheart and the scenes fades to "the next morning".

While I generally agree, it also very much depends on who you romance.

Do you seriously think that Larian, the game maker, has created real scenes for the characters that are real, X-rated sex scenes?
I don't believe that.

While I can't judge that because I haven't seen all romances, some are definitely more explicit than others. Some companions also seem to have a tamer and a more elaborate path the romance scenes can take.

I guess nobody remembers all the mods that were made for Skyrim.
Those got out of hand!!!!

I would say the game is a bit overly sexual due to how poorly tacked on it is since most of it does not feel organic or natural as well as how diverse it is with the amount of fetishes it contains to the point where it is a selling point to some people out there. There is also a strong positive correlation of Google Trends with Baldur's Gate 3 and Halsin's infamous scene around late July-August.

In fact, his relevance in Act 3 is so nonexistent he is only known for that scene and a beastiality + incest scene that half of your companions want in on a fivesome with. Simply put, any controversial and negative valence will result in getting the most attention to a product or event. When the game first came out, people mostly only talked about the sex as well to the point where the story was equal and even second to the sexual aspects of the game. Sex is definitely a big part of the game and would prefer if that budget went to fixing their bugs and paying their employees better.

The game allows you to design your dream waifu and lets you have sex with her later on (or the Squid whichever you prefer).

It was popularised with a bear sex scene.

Halsin was added in response to horny memes thirsting over him.

There are "sex speed runs" for this game on Youtube.

Minthara rewards you with a sex scene for being a naughty boy.

Main companions are obviously designed with sex appeal in mind (no older characters, dwarfs etc.) and they all have a romance path (why?).

You can have sex with two demons just for the sake of it.

The game is riddled with sexual innuendo.

I definitely found it weird and very noticeable. I'm not a prude but I just don't see the point of all of this constant in your face sexual content. Is this how the writers express eroticism? Is it just for the "wow they let you do that?" comedic effect? Is it "fan service" because people expect it from RPGs? To me, it just sets a weird tone that ridicules and undermines what could have otherwise been promising romances. It also doesn't help that a lot of the romance scenes and dialogues mostly seem like they're wish-fulfilment written by a teenager. I thought video game companies these days could do better than a linear arc that ends with you getting laid.

I don't know what gave you that impression. Given that literally nothing has ever done any different.

I'm not sure if companies are simply incapable of making better romances, or they simply don't care to because people eat up the "Linear arc > Get laid" formula. Though given general writing I'd put my money on the former...

Of course, part of the issue is the severe lack of actual attempts to do things. Hopefully BG3 and CP2077 will get companies over the "Look, nudity!" shock value and allow developers to simply get back to actually trying to make better relationship content.

Well, if were only counting AAA devs, then sure, I can't think of any. Buuut, there is Owlcat, who doesn't really follow that formula.

Although, tbf for BG3, not every character ends with "Getting Laid" (e.g. Lae'zel)

No, that one kicks off with it.

What do you mean?

Owlcat still follows the same formula. Linear arc. Just their "Getting laid" part only sometimes happens.

Heck, sometimes "Arc" is an overstatement. Their newest title, Rogue Trader, it's literally just a simple dialogue option that puts you into a relationship and for several characters this results in most of your dialogue options being how horny you are for each other (Especially Jae who has tons of flirting even if you're not in a relationship with her).

There's very little in the way of nuanced relationships (Be it platonic or otherwise). Just like with every other game out there.

Well yeah, but Lae'zel was just an example where the "getting laid" part isn't the final reward but just something that happens along the way.


Which is also what I was mostly getting at in terms of what Owlcat tends to do.

And well I guess if thats what you meant as Linear, as in, there is only 1 branch for the romance and you can't decide between being fully invested or just being platonic, then yes your right.

However, I think that there is some non-linearity going on for some characters, such as those that have a "True Romance" path ontop of the normal one (Wenduag) or how some have different outcomes based on your convictions (Sosiel with Demon, Heinrix and Yrliet with Heretical, the Lich mythic path) or maybe just Marazhai and the two "romance" paths that can go down.

So, unless I've misunderstood what you've meant, thats kinda what I meant by not following the same formula.


There is Yrliet's romance, which, given that it is a platonic relationship, I believe is completely unique from other RPGs.

I mean, linear is linear.

There's no dynamicism involved. You enter a romance by picking a dialogue option and then the character is in love with you until the end of the game (Or you make decisions that forcibly end the romance such as picking the dialogue option to end it or certain actions like going an evil route) after which, the character goes back to their normal self as if they were never in a relationship with you. No messed up feelings. No latent affection from their end. Nothing.

A more dynamic relationship system would have characters react to things you do. Be more affectionate and come onto you more when you treat them well and become distant and confront you if you do things they dislike. You know, like real people. People don't just get together and are instantly madly in love forever, relationships build over time and change depending on actions. With of course, ended relationships being emotionally devastating (Unless they had been falling apart for some time).


It's not truly platonic though, it's just not physical. Which is nothing particularly new. Pre-Dragon Age: Origins had plenty of non-physical relationships (Mostly due to being even less than half-baked additions). If I recall correctly, Visas from KotOR 2 had a similar romance path it being more spiritual in nature (Due to the whole "Being blind and seeing through the force" thing)

I don't think the sex scenes in romances are bad; they serve a purpose and aren't just there for 13-year-olds to jerk off to some pixels, for example with Astarion it serves to explore more deeply and intimately his history of sexual slavery. Sex is part of our lives and I don't think it's wrong to address it as long as it's not stupidly used as in the case of Halsin in Act 3.

Now, regarding the Minthara scene, I think it fits well with the context of the scene. I mean, you've just massacred the tieflings, and a second later, you're having sex with a genocidal drow to revel in the cruelty you've just committed. It seems like a wicked act that fits well with the scene for an evil run in the game. Now, what bothers me is when sex starts ruining characters.

I mean, in my opinion, it wasn't necessary for Selunite Shadowheart to have an orgy option in Act 3, that fits better with Shart Shadowheart, not with Selunite Shadowheart. Why include Selunite Shadowheart in this? Couldn't they make her romance slow and beautiful? Did they have to ruin everything with a stupid orgy? Why? Because teenagers get more excited about white-haired Shadowheart? I don't know, to be honest. I wouldn't have included something like that for her, but hey, it's not my character, so whatever.

It's all well and good until they decide to suddenly whitewash Minthara instead of commiting to her being a "genocidal drow".

Same with Lae'zel becoming all romantic and lovey-dovey in the most tropey, eye-rolling fashion. That they didn't bother developing the idea of party members actually hating one another for many a good reason that arises and you having to choose, instead opting for either an effectively all-eat buffet (even "legalizing" the exploit allowing for Minthara to be recruited in a "good" run, making the evil one stand out even less), or just taking as many as 4 out of 10 characters from you if you dare to go with a "bad", "problematic" run.

D:OS2 had the right idea by having you pick 3 for the whole journey with some repercussions, and seeing that developed would have been so much cooler than what we've gotten.

I don't think the game itself is oversexualized, but as far as marketing and social media goes, the focus went too far over into that area. It's definitely a main draw for many players. A lot of people seem to get into RPGs now solely for the romances.

The whole Bear reveal (whether it was done for laughs or not) and the fact that someone sat down and concieved a scene with a Mind Flayer of all things raises a few flags for me.

As far as the other content is concerned, it is mostly tasteful and serves a purpose without being lurid, but then the game will do a sharp 180 and dip into whatever parody pocket plane Sharess' Caress inhabits.


There is already scope for two separate Shadowheart personalities depending on her Nightsong decision. Hopefully that interaction will get at least tidied up sometime in the future, because it certainly doesn't match the person she becomes in the Selunite path. Though I'm thankfully only aware of the 'orgy' thanks to the internet, I view the entire Drow Twins/Sharess' Caress thing as some schrodinger's cat of bawdy innuendo that sits far, far away from canon events.

Sex is a part of our lives along countless other facts that were never addressed in BG3. You spend weeks with your companions (in "game time"), facing all kinds of dangers and yet there's no option to develop friendship with any of them. You get to Baldurs Gate and there's no option for a night out. No kidding. All 4, 5, 6 of them or whatever, with your Tav, going out for a beer, telling jokes and stories etc after specific dialogue option you would had made, just like romance. Where's the companionship ? And how much more fitting to the whole story would it be than "romance" ?

Νο, no, the sex scenes were to make 13, 23 or 33 years old kids horny.

RPG relationships still have a long way to go and in many instances are still very much in the same place as they were in Dragon Age: Origins or Mass Effect. The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur's Gate 3 made some headway, but simple friendship stuff still feels absent.

Cyberpunk has a really great example where during one mission your character and about 6 others sit around a campfire. One is playing a low tune on a guitar, you talk together, someone makes a joke, you can drink a beer and after you feel closer to all of them. I was hoping BG3 would have more stuff like that; yet we never see the companions bond as a group of adventurers in camp which seems like a missed opportunity to me. Quiet, group moments like this are just as important as romance scenes I think.

+1

Why are they all trying to get in MY pants? Honestly, I'd expect the ones I leave at camp to be shagging each other out of boredom, especially once Halsin joins the camp.

To avoid FOMO I guess...

I'm not sure if there's some "Point of no return" for initiating romances, after which it'd be a-okay for companions to start getting with each other...

But before then they wouldn't want people to feel they missed out on a relationship because the companion they wanted got with someone else (With the option of being a "Homewrecker" not being appealing)

There's probably the side effect of they wouldn't want to infer canonical pairings, as it'd make people question characters sexualities and legitimacy of "Their" relationship.

Though it's most likely just, games don't write characters properly so they only write in a single romance, which is with your PC.

No

Yes

Given how people in certain circles are throwing tantrums about how Wyll is not as sexualized as the others and how that's "problematic" and the like, very much yes.

Not to mention a patch dedicated to kisses while taking away a unique githyanki PC / Lae'zel story resolution which felt like the game FINALLY recognizing the race you picked. Not anymore it doesn't, everyone's included.

Next in the line of planned patches: a happy ending for Minthara's romance, where she and your non-drow character marry and settle down in Menzoberranzan.

Mmmm. So slavery then?

I don't think so personally. I chose to romance Astarion and the first sex scene is a little intense, sure, but it wraps into his storyline well and makes you focus on that more than the "passion" of it all. He himself is of course a flirty person, but only in act 1 if you're romancing him. Outside of that, as time goes on and especially in act 3 he becomes less driven by lust and says it himself. I do not think it is over-sexualized in my opinion, but again I haven't experienced any other romances outside of Astarion and only have played the game once. I understand from the view of marketing it was made to be sexualized in certain ways to draw a demographic in but it really isn't a big part of the game overall.

That’s one I really loved.

Her arc steers towards the crescendo when she confesses that asking for gentle intimacy was harder than facing a dragon: this is the 101 of character development where she has a real character arc from the society she grew up in (where sex is raw and aggressive and about power) to gentle and sensual and compassionate interaction.

This is her character development arc on many levels. In Act 2 she can confess that she actually doesn’t like seeing someone suffer (anymore!). I see it as foreshadowed and well-written.

This is something that happens while you travel (though it’s hard to catch when you’re playing with a translation, because many of the dialogues are invisible when your companions walk behind you). But it’s always one-on-one interaction, not group-interaction. Which may be an intentional choice because it limits the complexity (doing personalized group interaction with every possible set of three out of 8 characters would cause algorithmic explosion of the possibilities).

My issue with those one on one dialogues (other than it being pretty easy to miss them) is that they all feel very shallow. It doesn't feel like we get good insights into how they interact with each other. And I definitely would have wanted more moments where the group as a whole could bond or interact with greater depth.

I never considered this before but it's a good point. Even with certain characters interacting with each other inside or outside of battles, you need to meet strict requirements for them to happen which depending on what you choose to do in your playthrough you might never see. If a few dialogues could happen without those restrictions and including the whole group (e.g. during camp after ending the day and everyone huddles around and just chats about without necessarily needing to chat with every single one of them individually) that would be interesting to see.

the answer is no , the marketing and fandom probably over sexualise it though making it seem its all about sex.

If we break down a couple of romances you get big bits of nothingness which falls into the story arc of that character

Astarion will come on to you super early sometimes even before you've even spoke to priestess gut which is like the 5th thing you do , you get scene number 2 fade to black shortly after then nothing until you trigger either araj or Yurgir near the end of act 2 then nothing unless you complete his ascension as the cemetery scene is fully clothed.

Gale: he has his freak out super early if you kiss wyll in early act 2 and you hadn't even realised you'd triggered Gale's romance status " the weave" threw me a fast ball and one of my games has no romance what so ever even at very high with all thanks to Gale putting me off and I like Gale . his waterdeep date is sweet the astral sex umm not sure what to think there , the bed in the woods all fully clothed .


Shadowheart so far I've just triggered the first scene it's a mild chat and good morning kiss .

Lae'zel is a fight and a kiss on her first trigger.

Halsin should of been utilised as a romance choice once you save the grove because leaving him till act 3 seems like he's making up for lost time.

I know the fandom want more and I know large number of the Astarion fans are throwing a hissy fit with the latest patch including me AAstarion was my evil choice from the start of my durge run I'm beyond unhappy that my evil will be Bhaals chosen is looking like a scared sex doll at his hands I am fine with the aggressiveness but not that submission narrative forced on me by animators.

I am all for adding a bit more of romance or adding in a few extra tidbits I'm pleased that the new added lines to Gortash with Durge makes it an interesting bit of bait and the Durge X Gortash fans scream for joy though we'd love to actually see it animated.

So No it's not over sexualised there is plenty of vacuous space between romance scenes and if you hadn't hooked up at act 2 with anyone you're forever alone unless you take the one offs or Halsin.
I'd rather see a second chance hook up party in act 2 as I want to see the others personal arcs but 35 save spaces suck.

Hehe

But then again, this is Larian's homebrew Realms, where drow and "happily ever after" *can* go together, I'm guessing. LOL

Or maybe you simply missed the point of the comparison

OK, I have seen the scenes, and they are a joke.
Who are you kidding?
That wouldn't turn anybody on.
It's laughable.

yep, she really lacks of race restrictions
something like raven from arcanum would be infinite times better

Apparently the tumblr standards are that low. And the mainstream journalism ones, what with how this is supposed to "re-invent" RPG romances both from the structural and the cinematographic perspective. Andromeda of all things looked and worked better than this! And the actual romantic/narrative aspect still remains unmatched in Mask of the Betrayer. All the JRPGs are out there as well for the actual romantic build-up and proper interactions with the LI.

My main gripe is how low-poly everyone is with how close they are willing to place the camera in the scenes (not just the sex ones). And how poorly the bodies handle any pose except for the spine upright ones.

In reply to your query OP, I'm finding it hard to settle on a simple 'yes' or 'no'.

In my first playthrough I wanted to romance Astarion but alas, he had 'standards' and Tav didn't meet them. Everyone else propositioned her though and later Withers mocked her for being alone. It felt a bit to true to real life there, having the one person I was interested in being totally disinterested in my character. :P

I think the romance options are great and I'm really happy they are in the game and that there is no restriction on who your character pairs with. That said, I feel the relationship side of things is rather neglected.
Being propositioned by characters Tav had hardly spoken to felt off and the speed with which it happened felt a bit too quick. I wasn't really sure how much I liked them at that stage.
Friendship between the companions felt undeveloped. I miss a lot of the banter in the open world due to characters being behind me and having hearing issues in RL. By the time I've turned Tav round, I've often missed at least a part of what was said. I'd love to have the option to have that dialogue written bottom screen. More important I'd like to see more interaction when we rest.
After act 1 the interaction just seems to drop off (maybe I'm bad at picking up cues).
In act 3 it's particularly noticable that our companions are just standing by their beds doing very little. You have a nice big fire in the Elfsong that is completely unused.
"Sit by the fire? Nah, I'll just stand by my bed and look bored."

So, in conclusion I don't think the game is oversexualized, but I do feel the romances are badly paced and I can understand people feeling they are being pushed into them.
It feels like the game is saying relationship = sex and that's the only option.Tav's relationship with the characters she is not romancing could really do with further development imo.

You can see the banter between companions in the combat log. I also have to check this all the time because I miss half of what's being said.

@ Ido58 Thank you so much for telling me! I never realised.

Maybe they are not meant to turn you on, but instead to show the development of the partnership between the characters?

Ok, I've asked this in another thread but I see Arnes quote so its a perfect time to ask.

Lee you say that those sex scenes wouldn't turn anybody on, so my question is why would they need to?

I can't count how many times I've seen people in this fanbase bring up the need for fully animated sex scenes, and my question is why? Every response to this question I've seen was always something along the lines 'you're a prude etc.'

Are fully animated sex scenes really necessary in video games? Are people that sex starved in their actual lives? (I know this last question is a bit inflammatory but I'm just baffled by it.)

I think a common response is "To justify the choice to implement genital options in character creation"

Though a more realistic answer would be immersion. Wierd fully clothed grinding on each other or disappointing fade to black sequences for such an act during the relationship can be jarring or outright turn an intimate act into something comical.

Sex can be a major point in character interactions, for some relationships it can be an incredible show of intimacy and skipping over such an interaction and thus not doing an important moment justice is terrible for characterisation.

Even for less intimate sexual encounters there's something to be shown there, where it's characterization that the people involved are merely looking for self-gratification which can contrast against the more intimate encounters.


Are they necessary? No.

But can they add to a game? Yes.

Not everything about a game is "Really necessary". But it's still included because it enhances the overall product with its inclusion. For example, depictions of violences aren't necessary, BG3 could easily have it so when you go and attack a goblin there's just a fade to black and then there's a satchel of loot where the goblin died.

Fully animated sex scenes can add to a video game. Are they needed in every game? Of course not. But some games that may have a focus on deep characterization and romance might opt to include them to better portray an intimate act and how characters develop because of it (Without creating an antithecal effect of comedy from above mentioned poor representations)

Essentially, there's a lot of characterization that can be shown through sex scenes and it's a disservice to the medium to obscure or pervert the act which can significantly reduce the impact it otherwise would have, for what? So ignorant people don't claim "Porn game" when they are completely oblivious to the nuances in character development such scenes can provide? (Yes, I'm aware of other factors involved with fully animated sex scenes - Revolving around age ratings and censorship laws which cause such things to impact video game marketability. But pussyfooting around these things won't ever create cause for the repeals of such arbitrary decisions regarding sex in media)

My belief is that the big difference here is that the person gets to feel like they're involved in the scenes, that the "sex," such as it is, is interactive. That's the difference, and that's the draw. They're not just watching a video; they are a part of it. Or at least, many people *perceive* it this way, even though the person's participation is actually not real.

You might as well ask why porn is such a massive industry. You can't honestly be baffled by people enjoying sex in media.

Cinematic in-game visuals sex in games such as BG3 makes the RPG experience even worst. Simply because it looks bad, its badly acted and its sometimes just plain weird and out of touch in the Faerun D&D world.
That people find this amazing and amazingly directed is just beyond me. Or people THAT naive and sex taboo and deprived???

Its silly at best to my eyes. And mostly hilarious. Adds nearly nothing to the game; with a VERY FEW well done romantic exceptions. Are people actually in awe at these scenes and crying ??
The issue here is HOW IT LOOKS and acted. It derails the entire RPG experience and turns it into a Leisure Suit Larry moment. I am sorry, I don't have all of your imaginative views of how it is...I see stupid naked computer model clumsy moving, its silly. Its funny.

And being able to SKIP NEARLY all of them, makes it even more hilarious because YOU KNOW, you just KNOW behind EVERYONE's smirk...there is a wild wild thing waiting for you in the woods. And hell yea they are thinking about it, no doubt about that. Just say the word...
So hell yea BG3 is overly sexualized, to a point it ruins the entire game for me. They should of focused more on FRIENDSHIPS.

Let's focus on our opinions of the game, and try to avoid sideswipes at those who don't share our views!

I found sex a bit too easy to get to - maybe that was before that patch , but I didn't want that experience in my "baldur's gate" rpg, a beloved franchise which harks back to a more innocent time. The game often equated being nice to people to wanting to get into their pants. That is very off putting an irritating. Everyone's mileage will very on this front - but I found this this most sexualized RPG I have played, in the sense of unwanted character advances. Other games are more subtle, or just did a 'fade to black'. I really don't need pixel sex in my life (if I want porn, there are better options, seriously) . I have played the witchers, cyberpunk, Dragon age etc - and none of those left the same impression on me. The Wicther1 had those stupid sex cards etc, but I just ignored that - and *no hard feelings. no one felt slighted* In BG3 sex could happen way too fast too. Sex != (friendship | strong feelings of loyalty/platonic love). Can't you care about someone without needing sex? That doesn't seem to be what the game wants you to do. Also, it is *highly* unlikely that a githyanki would every consent to mating with a lowly being like *your* character (unless you played a githyanki). It would be nice of there were some consequences to your character construction choices, but Larian erased all of those already so hardy a surprise.

I’m married more than a decade with the woman I love, but due to serious health issues (fixed now, no need to worry), the past years were rough and took a toll on my emotional state. The relationships in BG3 — yes, including the veiled sex scenes — helped me heal some injuries I suffered during that.

So I politely disagree. From my position Larian did this completely right and they earned every single award they got.

I totally agree, they earned every single award they got.

For me all the sex content has nothing to do with it. They made a damm good game. True now, true 25 years ago with BG1. That didn't need sex. For me in BG3 it downgraded the gameplay and immersion, even trying to keep it at a minimum.
Most of the sex and romance scenes are cringy as hell and look bad (to me!). I am very happy for you that you could find healing in it.

BG2 in 2001 saved my life in a time of my life were I contemplated suicide.

Maybe I'm missing something but I've never seen a graphic sex scene. It's all implied.
Of course I really haven't "romanced" anyone, except Shadowheart in one of my early play-thoughs.
And that was definitely "G" rated, in my estimation.

I watched one of the cut scenes of getting with the Devil Lady, and I just laughed. It was all talk.
She just described having your lust fulfilled, etc and yammer, yammer yammer.
This stuff is a joke, folks.
There's no sex in Balder's Gate!!!!

Then you must not be doing it right.

Damn!
That's what my wife said!!!!!

HAHA

The animation content itself is quite tame for an 18+ game, unless you lead a very sheltered life. It's not particularly different from, for example, the recent CD Projekt games, and really just follows the "romance" trajectory set by Bioware over the years; including that it is more amusing than arousing. I expect there will be mods on loverslab in time for those that want more explicit animations.

Where I found the game interactions lacking was ( as many have pointed out ) that most of the NPCs seemed to want to rip yours clothes off if you agreed with them once ( OK, exaggeration for effect ), which surprised me as the early access did not feel that way.

I appreciate that each NPC romance story is supposedly different, so I would expect the build-up dialog to feel more varied than it actually appeared in-game. There was some suggestion that the NPC "desperation" in the released game is a bug, which is possible. I will not replay the game until the frequent bug-fix releases settle down, maybe another 6 months, or after the formal mod tools are released.

I would also certainly agree with those that think act 3 was something of a damp squib. The early access hinted at a more complex political situation in the city than the released game provided. It may be that I simply missed a lot of act 3 content, but if so, it was not for lack of trying. Either I still have a lot to find, or the story was significantly simplified in an effort to actually ship it.

On the other hand, I don't think that the romance content was directly responsible for the lacklustre act 3, which was more of a design problem than a resource constraint. The romances are self-contained and orthogonal to the plot; you can ignore them and nothing really changes. If anything, the early access mania for Minthara and Halsin may have robbed us of one or more other NPCs, in particular a member of the small races that was datamined in early access.

All that is a long-winded way of saying, "no", I don't think the game is inherently over-sexualized, but it is buggy and has design issues that may make it feel that way to some players.

That’s quite possible. I’m in my second playthrough, and half the time I’m experiencing stuff I completely missed in my first playthrough.

Just realized that those are huge shoes for BG3 to step into — and that it is unlikely that it has a chance to ever really fit, because (outside all quality questions) it does not arrive at a time in your life where it can have the same effect. (at least I hope so)

And it’s great that BG2 had that impact for you!

There is a lot scratched though. According to datamined voicelines, Cazador for example had a bigger role, Raphael too. Maybe they expand it again in the definite edition. I'm all for political intrigues.

As for over sexualisation: At this point,I think Larian just does, what the fan base wants. When I see, that there is a 30 pages thread and more smaller threads about one kiss by a character, then you don't have to be a genius to know, what the people are after. And I say that judgement free. It's not my focus tbh ( I didn't even recognise, kisses were broken at one point), I want the political intrigues and a deeper character and story development, but if you look at social media, most of the posts are about romancing characters ( even the ones not romanceable like Gortash, Raphael, Kar'niss, Abdirak etc.) and lewd artwork and stuff. Which is totally ok, if that is, what people want. I still have enough that keeps me going, but hope for an act 3 update later on and think, it might be realistic for the definite edition, because it's a lot more work. Meanwhile the thirsty fan base gets their kisses, which are probably a lot easier to implement in patches and hotfixes.

I think there is no good reason to argue about this and most of the criticism is in bad faith (i.e., trolling or bigotry) because the supposedly disturbing content is easily avoided by the player. THE GAME HAS A NUDITY SETTING. SO IF YOU DON'T LIKE "PIXEL PORN" SET IT TO NO NUDITY.
Besides that any entertainment can be whatever the artist wants it to be, and people want to enjoy. Obviously enough people enjoy BG3 as it is that to say it is wrong in having any particular content makes no sense. What does make sense would be to suggest that the game give the player more explicit choice in settings to avoid content that they might not want to see, such as violence settings. It would make sensee to say that the game should have a no romance setting. I do think that would be an improvement. In effect, there should be a PG-13 version of the game, with a parental lock for mature content, for whoever wants it for their children. If my children were young I would appreciate that.
But I will also say that I personally enjoy the sexual elements of the game, and I am glad that I can choose which partners I want to see getting it on. To me it adds to the sense of immersion in the story and makes the characters more meaningful and less expendable. People can easily enjoy the fantasy of not only the sex, but the experience of defending the life of their sex partner. Although IRL I am a straight male I enjoy playing as a female character who fools around with female characters. I don't want to see Halsin or Gale naked, let alone having sex. But that's just me. I want to see beautiful female images if I am going to spend hundreds of hours in a game. But to each his own!
If anyone had read The Illiad and saw through the veiled homosexuality of Achilles and Patroclus would appreciate this. It doesn't have to be homosexual, but since women did not fight until recently those were the only battle romances that were possible, and no doubt they existed after Achilles.
If you don't like gay characters in your game or potential gay sex, well you can play other games.
Please .... just stop with the hate.

I had a romance with Karlagh, but let myself be seduced by Minthara. This broke Karkaghs heart. Damn I felt bad. Went back to a previous save and will stay with Karlagh.
If this was an oversexualised game, wouldn't it let you get a harem of lovers ?

In general, it might be my impression, but the scenes people seem to be gushing about are not the racey but the emotional ones, hugging Astarion in act 2, Gale's boat ride, looking at the sunrise with Lae'zel ...

(and of course it is this post that turned me into an old hand.)

Still no.

My impression as someone that has not played the game yet but was put off by the marketing/thirst posting initially, it was my perception before talking to some players that the game was overly sexualized. Which seemed really odd as the first two games were firmly in the non-graphic camp and romance content was both well written and something you had to choose to pursue.

Wanting to avoid a conversation like "I'm playing BG3" "Isn't that the game where you can f*** a bear?" just led me to ignore the game for a while.

Also as an aside I've never played a video game where two polygonal characters bumping uglies was remotely titillating, it's just awkward and kind of funny to watch.

Anyone purchasing this game hoping for a lot of sexual content would be disappointed. What sexual content there is in the game is entirely avoidable. So in my view the answer remains no.

1000 times yes! There is nothing more to argue about here.
Anyone who doesn't need sex can simply turn it off. But they don't, and continue to talk about the over-sexualization of the game. Why? Enjoy yourself and let others enjoy it.

The general sentiment from anti-nudity viewpoint is that the time and resources put into making full nude models, animating sex/kissing scenes, writing romance dialogues, implementing approval systems etc. Could have instead been spent on other aspects of the game, aspects that they care about instead of nudity. Thus, its mere existence detracts from the overall game quality even if they never actually interact with it.

Of course, such an argument is predicated on the fact that such resources would have actually been spent elsewhere had these things not existed. Which is a notion that is unsubstantiated. One can imagine that it would be the case, but we don't know.

There's also the argument that it shifts the direction of future games in a similar direction creating a world that focuses heavily on sex as opposed to x, y, or z.

Suddenly the world goes from providing what one would consider to be acceptable and appropriate entertainment to something that more closely resembles pornography.

*

Regarding whether or not the resources are placed elsewhere, that's not terribly relevant. Even if they aren't, the existence of this content impacts the entirety of the project, whether that be through the extension of release dates or the spiraling effects of bugs throughout.

In short, it's not a non-issue. I consider it to be absolutely reasonable in terms of feedback and critique.

You are both engaging in a straw-man claim that has been refuted multiple times within this thread. So one might ask if you are the ones trolling here. None of us critics have ever said we have a problem with the sex in the game or have objected to any specific instance of sexual representation in the game. The issue being discussed is the purpose and value of the sex in the game, which you would know if you bothered to read through the whole thread.

Is it a "Strawman argument" though? I've read through all of your posts in this thread and I can't say with any precision what it is you object to. Other than repeated assertions that BG3 is "oversexualized" your criticisms lack specifics. You do mention once or twice your theory that Larian included the content to appeal to "younger people" who want sexual content because ...well I'm not sure where you were going with that point.

You also mention more than once that people are attracted to the BG3 sexual content because they can "interact" with the characters in a sexual way. Why is this a problem in regards to sexual content? Isn't the goal of an RPG to make the player feel like they are interacting with the game? It's the same reason people want combat, exploring, decision-making, quests, etc etc. Players want to "role play" and imagine they're in the world with the characters.

So what is it exactly that you don't like about the sexual content in BG3? What leads you to believe it is "oversexualized"? How much sex should there have been? Since you insist more than once to be open to sexual content in games (ie the basis of your "Strawman" claim) what would have been a more appropriate amount?

How would Kanisatha have implemented sex in BG3?

Asked in honest curiosity.

Just re-iterating my previous post. Yes, it was oversexualized. The vast majority of the marketing focused on the sexy sex. And everyone trying to gaslight others into thinking they're the crazy ones for noticing it is ridiculous. Grow up. if you don't like the topic of this thread, move on.

I can't answer for Kanisatha... but I would have just left it out. Porn is extremely easy to find on the internet these days. I don't need it in my video games. Put that time and energy to work on more important game systems.

Exactly.
Larian put sex front and center during marketing and development.

- Marketing took off with the bear sex scene, displayed at a prominent event.
- Nudity and genital customization was part of marketing despite not being really needed considering the outcome.
- Sexual encounters were set quite early so even EA players got teased by them (see also the sex speedrun)
- Established characters were rewritten because they were not likeable and romanceable enough in EA
- Halsin was made into a companion purely because people started thirsting for him. But because of the time pressure the only content he got was sex as that was apparently the most important thing.
- The vast majority of new content after release was about sex and romance.

Its quite obvious that Larian considers romance and sex one of the main draws of BG3 and marketed it that way to the detriment of rpg content as companions were filed down to visual novel level to make them "sexable".
Thats in addition to Larians decision of not only make everyone Bi but to also have everyone romanceable, no matter the circumstances. Compare that to Owlcat rpgs, for example.

Just compare the marketing and content/companions to other rpgs.
Not even Bioware focuses so much on sex as Larian does and they invented that trend.
The closest ones were Witcher 1 and they reduced sex once they became successful instead of doubling down on it.

Yes, I would've left it out entirely. I don't at all see it contributing anything to the game in any way. However, if they were going to have it, then just do it the way it's done in many other games: fade to black without showing anything explicit.

The point about oversexualization is to say that Larian intentioanlly included unecessary sexually explicit scenes in the game as a way to attract a bigger audience to their game. Nothing further needs be said here. It's a very straightforward point that requires no further elaboration.

And the point about interactivity was my way of explaining why in an age of porn aplenty young people would want this rather tame version of virtual sex. The interactivity point was not criticism of the game, but rather explaining that even though far more explicit porn exists out there, and even for free, all of that porn has to be consumed passively, whereas in this game a player can interact within the sexual material. And this can make a big difference for some people.

Too add to that, this wouldn't be quite as bad if BG3 were not so lacking in other parts.
All this sex focus wasted resources that were desperately needed elsewhere.

- Instead of sex scenes (which in comparison are rather complex) they could have spend the animation budget on making the main character not look like an idiot in most dialogues (especially the nonhuman ones)
- Instead of forcing in Halsin (another elf druid) they could have made a companion of one of the missing classes and races (which tend to be less attractive)
- Instead of mellowing out all companions to make them easy to get and sex up, they could have had really evil characters (Shadowheart) with a more interesting story than "just misunderstood" or "actually nice".
For someone to be even considered to become a justicar, Shadowheart behaves nothing like a Sharr follower.

As far as I can tell, this strongly depends on how much she likes you. In usual runs, it starts with you rescuing her and she telling you that she won’t forget that. That’s what makes the friendliness plausible.

From that point on she travels towards a crossroad: either abandon Shar or becoming a Dark Justiciar. And if she chooses the latter, she’s no longer nice.
And many of her dialogues are not just mildly unsettling, if you expect a stereotypical nice and friendly lady.

And Lae’zel, with all the easy sex up part, is also not nice at the start. Mind the descriptions: the narrator tells you that you hurt all over. It’s on you how you react to that, but the description is clear: Lae’zel uses you at the start and does not even notice your pain. This can grow into a bond of deep romance, but it does not have to. You can tell her that it hurt and you don’t want to ever repeat it. She’s arrogant and very much into herself and does not value anything but her duty and her own enjoyment.

Maybe I would agree more with your point if that were what I experienced from the marketing.

But what I experienced first from the marketing was an awesome thirdparty Dragonborn GMV which included some of the scenes from the intro. And later the intro itself. And since I had played Divinity 2 (yes, not original sin), I had high hopes that I could trust Larian to pull it off well. And they did.

I only saw some hints of the bear scene in comments from people on the game, but did not experience it as part of official marketing. Because I just did not see that.

This indicates that for most people Larian actually put too little sex and romance into the game in the beginning — that they did not expect people to be attracted to that as much as they are.

“Fade to black without showing anything explicit”

Doesn’t that completely undermine your “strawman claim”

It seems the nudity is what bothers you. Can’t you just adjust your settings to avoid that?

Or do the sex scenes still play only everyone is clothed? I don’t know the answer because I’ve never checked it out.

+++
Absolutely!

1. The cinematics in the game are very far from porn.
2. Everyone constantly talks about some mythical “resources”; a spherical horse in a vacuum looks more real.
3. Use the censorship options in the game and be completely happy. It has already been implemented.
I want to see a full disclosure of relationships in the game, even sex scenes, but I won’t have the “turn on” feature if it’s not in the game.

Not at all. I'm simply not repeating, in this post or any of my previous posts, the many related things others are writing about in this thread. I fully agree with @Ixal, @dwig and others that there are so many other areas in which those resources could've been used. That is the point. SO it's not that I have an issue with the sex. It is very much that the sex stuff is a total WASTE of resources that could have and should have been used to add/improve so many other areas of the game that are currently lacking. But I don't feel the need to say those things myself because others are saying them very well here. My posting time is very limited, and as you can see over the years I have always kept my posts very short.

It is strange (or perhaps not strange) that there is a thread claiming the game is over sexualized when there appears to be no discussion as to whether the game is too violent or too morally indifferent etc etc.

I suspect this thread has more to do with the well known sexual anxiety of a certain culture that has always been more comfortable with violence than sexuality.

Just sort of spitballing off the top of my head because I haven't given this much thought, but I think it might come down to the idea that violence, as abhorrent as it may be in some situations, can also be used for good. It's a necessary thing. The good must battle the evil and more importantly, it must be seen to help inspire more acts of good.

As opposed to sexuality. Sex can certainly be good, of course. It's what keeps humanity progressing. But it doesn't need to be seen because it's a private matter. Taken to excess, especially outside of a private lens, it becomes and inspires lust which is typically unhealthy for civilization.

That's a question I often find myself asking. Astarion's epilogue quip about murdering people is ok as long as they are the right people, seems a very apt representation of the general rpg morality, if it is an enemy it's ok to kill it. I am quite glad that the game offers some opportunities to avoid violence and has an uncynical stance on mercy.

As for the sex, somehow sex and romance have become pretty muddled in this thread.

It's just the typical prudish nature of society as a whole. Where nudity gets 18+ ratings while violence and gore are okay in 12+ rated media...

Sprinkle in the fact that BG3 isn't any more violent than a majority of games, while it features more nudity than most games and you get a thread discussing the sexualized nature of the game rather than its violence.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that this is a terribly myopic position.

The position itself is so convinced it's right that it avoids any intellectual rigor in understanding why there's a cultural difference between the presentation of sex versus violence.

The understanding is that sex has been considered taboo for the last few hundred years thanks to religion and politics. Yet violence has never been subjected to such views (And has instead been continually reinforced by numerous wars as well as violence as a past time, with things like public executions).

Society has not yet managed to evolve beyond this need to "Protect" against some magical evil that is caused by sex and nudity. Which continues to make modern society lag behind ancient societies (Heck, we've only relatively recently accepted homosexuality again...).

I'm well aware of the reasoning behind the sex vs violence dichotomy. Just because I don't jump at the chance to divulge the reasoning doesn't mean I lack the "Intellectual rigor" to understand it. It simply means that I believe it to be blindingly obvious to anyone who cares to look into it for 2 seconds that I don't feel the need to.

Feel free to make one of those thread, but instead, here you are, ironically clutching your pearls about THIS thread.

Interesting...

You've literally just outlined the position I consider to be myopic. The "blindingly obvious" position that fails to consider the subject more deeply because it's already considered to be a foregone conclusion.

Religion says sex is a private thing to be shared in marriage. Okay. Dig deeper. Why does religion say that? What does open sexuality do to society? Is there any way to look at what happens? How does such impact families and what happens to the children in those families?

Well setting aside for a moment this is a solo game and thus private (obviously multiplayer can decide what's appropriate for their game) isn't the "private matter" solved with the nudity settings? I've never viewed the sex scenes with nudity off so I've no idea what happens. Are they simply skipped or do they still play out only the characters are clothed?

You did make a point in some other thread (if I understood correctly) about it being nice to be able to befriend Gale without there being the feeling it was going to lead to a romantic branch. I totally get this and feel the game does seem to run hot or cold in regards to relationships. In other words its hard in the game to form 'just friends". Choices that lead to companion approval seem to always lead to an intimate offer eventually. I always turn Gale down with the magic invitation because of this. It leads to a "Gale disapproves" Maybe there should have been specific triggers initiated by the player to indicate interest etc. I understand these objections to the sex/romance system much better than the ones that complain about nudity since one can always filter it out.

I think the developers were concerned with making romance too hard and that players would be disappointed in not being able to romance their choices. Many threads/posts on here seem to bear this out as we have seen many requests for romance options that even the developers didn't see fit to offer. The various Astarion threads take this to a whole other level player expectations not being met going so far as to critique or object to facial expressions. So to please players they made romance relatively easy but in doing so I think they missed out on the "fellowship" so evident in many of our most cherished fantasy yarns. Maybe they indulged players too much and created a "when everyone's super no one will be" system of romance.

Maybe for some people it isn't a case of being uncomfortable with sex, but rather being uncomfortable with unwanted advances.

@Ranxerox:

No nudity amounts to a sort of a fig leaf look, if that makes sense.

*

I don't think it being single player amounts to the same thing as privacy. It's a game sold to the public. Sex is a known part of the game. It's seen in streams, it's seen in articles. It's not private in the sense that it's not a physical act shared between two people behind closed doors and closed lips.

Imagine if the folks on Little House on the Prairie sat down to play this game. They would see it as lustful and consider it to be a sign of degeneracy. Whereas they had to slaughter pigs. They had to fight to survive.

Violence wasn't praised, but it wasn't shied away from. Sex on the other hand wasn't a commercial product like it is now. There is an intrinsic difference in the way they are portrayed for a reason.

You could, of course, argue that brothels existed, but those were considered sinful.

Ok I see where that would be insufficient for those who would prefer some sort of fade to black scenario.

Because religion was used to control the masses. Using fear of going to hell to corral them into doing their bidding.

So among other things, they started to say that sex and nudity are sins and should be hidden.


It promotes healthy relationships, self-esteem and overall happier population.


Yes. We have thousands of years of evidence of what society was like before Christianity rolled up and demanded people act a certain way or they'd be sent to hell. (Including very notable societies like Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome)

There's nothing explicitly wrong with sex. The whole taboo regarding it is simply vestiges of the means of control used in a prior time (After many, many civilisations had been thriving and successful before such a notion came about).

With the lack of evolution stemming from the fact that no-one wants to be the one to go against the status quo (Which is very much the case for Japan's heavy censorship of nudity, America forced them to outlaw nudity in media during WW2 as a means to control the population and no politician wants to be the one to upend the arbitrary laws regarding it, which is exacerbated by the nation's deep rooted sense of tradition) as well as some misappropriated logic that hiding sex and nudity is somehow helpful to people.

Again, this isn't hard to uncover. It's very easy to find out all this stuff by doing research into when things started becoming taboo and why. Much of it stems from when Christianity was being used to control most of Europe, wherein ideals were instilled into various societies which have permeated beyond the church and into the general populous and from there has persisted throughout the various colonizations made by the British (Including Australia and America).

As far as actual impacts on society as a result, if anything we've seen much more detriment as a result of such prudence in regards to sexuality. Lots of prejudice against homosexuals leading to hate crimes and self-esteem issues (When people can't openly be who they are). To this day we still have epidemics of teen pregnancy (Thanks to sexual education being a footnote in academia), continual prejudice against LGBTQ communities and people feeling uncomfortable actually expressing themselves if they deviate from the typical sexuality. All of this, a direct result of shying away from sexual expression and calling anything but heterosexuals "Sinful" or "Evil" and even then, trying to hide away sex because "Won't someone think of the children!" (Ignoring the fact that whether you hide it or not, every child will go through the process of puberty in which their body prepares itself for sexual reproduction...)

Since it appears that Larian is not doing a BG4 and not doing DO3...
They should do an anime inspired adventure.
Young men and women learning martial arts and magic at finishing school.
Sure, there could be the occasional tournament or demon to defeat or side quest into the dungeon.
But it would be 90% about the students, relationships, romances, jealousies, pranks, nudity, and sex..,
Now being an American company, it would need to be an international school not literally a manga, but you get the idea.
Enough students to choose from, so you don't get forced into the 'right' choice.
You could have the friendship only setting. Romance setting. Nudity setting. Sex setting.
What's not to like?

No worries about it being over sexualized, maybe just concerns if there's any point to the violence...

Larian is american now? when did that happen? /s

My bad, I should have said just said non Japanese.

Twenty-five, thirty years ago I would've agreed with you. Would've said much the same thing, in fact. The argument is so common that it's essentially programmed as a response.

After a lifetime I've come to recognize the position as sophomoric. There's a lot more to it.

But I suspect this isn't the place for a discussion about values and religion.

In short, I will say that the sexuality within BG3 fits its time and place. That is not to say that I think we are in a good time and place, but BG3 has little to do with that. BG3 is an excellent game with strong writing that reflects where we are in society. That is the most it can be asked to do.

@Zentu for a long time that was the only sex in the game [talking way back in early early EA] so almost no extra time was spend on it... in fact the other characters have all been redone at least once after EA finished and Minthara holds her own because she was well writen at the start unlike Wyll who had be made into a dance nut and that Wizard

yes the game is riddled with plot holes and bugs but thats because Larian makes halfassed changes and our testing period is over

Yup. Interesting indeed.

I think that depends upon where you put the fig leaf.

Ye gods. Tell me you you know nothing of religion or ancient history without telling me you know nothing of religion or ancient history.

Your use of the word 'religion' here means Christianity or at least your limited knowledge of the many, many flavours of Christianity.

Thousands of years of pre-Christianity evidence? Do you think that ancient Greece or Rome were some sort of hippy, free-love societies? What about ancient China or India? And once we get beyond about 500 years BCE our knowledge of societies drops off dramatically.

There are/were many reasons why extra-marital sex was frowned upon, from bloodlines to yoga.

I think you are absolutely right. If the game could use friendship triggers more clearly, many of the complaints simply wouldn't exist. But on the other hand, the game itself would become more predictable.

Although in general I don't have any problems with establishing friendships or personal relationships in the game. But I agree that this can be problematic for some.

Actually, I have no issue with either the level of violence or sex in the game. I do find it humorous though that there are so many who are more concerned about the sex than the violence.

It's deeply ironic to me that the sex was one of the big selling points of this game pre-launch, but now that I've actually played the game a few times I've found the amount of sex to be somewhat disappointing. Perhaps I'm just a pervert (jokes, I know I'm a pervert), but they could have put a lot more sex and I would still not think it was too much. I'm also disappointed in how they've implemented the poly stuff, but I know it's because it was not something they fully planned.

But the level of sudden and obvious gore and violence has surprised me at times. i would be in favour of adding an extra content warning when a player selected the durge origin.

Yes someone who has never played the game would get the impression reading this thread that BG3 is an interactive sex simulator worthy of a channel on Pornhub.

As for the violence I can kill anyone including goblin children, collect body parts, and strive to become the “God of Murder”. When I romance SH we share a fully clothed kiss and eventually go skinny dipping.

I have no problem with the portrayal of sexually driven characters in BG3. I think they exist in the real world so it is fair enough to represent them in the game. And correspondingly, I have no problem with the sexually explicit interactions these characters can have with the protagonist, should you desire it.

What I do have a problem with is the overrepresentation of sexual promiscuity. It would be nice to have some characters who are less sex-positive. I think of all the romancable characters, the only one who doesn't shag at the party after saving (or sacking) the grove is Shadowheart, and she gives it up not long after. (Am I right in thinking only Jaheira and Minsc are not romancable?) They are pretty much all unreasonably and unrealistically horny. There is no seduction or romance - just sex - and it makes relationships feel very empty and hollow. It is ironic how a game that claims to be so inclusive is so very exclusive in this regard.

I am a undecided whether this was a deliberate ploy by Larian to create publicity and attract a crowd of influencers who would never normally cover RPGs, or whether it was just Larian being a bit Dutch in their worldview.

I think it's just an overall liberal slant to these issues that dominates entertainment as a whole.

What it does is not the question in this context, but what it *did*.

Women used to get pregnant. Many died in childbirth. People caught illnesses. Without a group supporting them, the first weeks and months of the life of the child could be deadly. Poverty was likely with the wrong or an absent husband.

We can do something about the first nowadays: it is no issue anymore if you’re well-informed. The second is no issue anymore. The third is answered by Condoms. The fourth is fixed in the EU (mandatory time off the job after childbirth). The fifth — that’s still an issue. But can be avoided by not getting pregnant.

In short: most of the reasons that made sex dangerous are gone thanks to technology, education, and a social safety net.

Children in "rainbow families" lead a life that’s proven to be just as good as those in monogamous families, *if* there is no grudge between ex-partners. The latter is a matter of social norms and expectations.

Well said.

No, it's not.

Simply put, broken families and divorce rates are unhealthy. Open sexuality is viewed by many as a moral contagion that breaks apart society. Children from single parent homes are far more likely to encounter serious problems throughout life.

It is exceedingly more complicated than most either realize or are willing to admit.

If someone genuinely wants to understand why open sexuality is more frowned upon than violence then that person has to be open to viewpoints more elaborate than "love is love." Often however, I suspect folks aren't necessarily interested in truly understanding so much as condemning, using the "violence v/s sex" as a rhetorical weapon.

I'm not entirely sure where the connection between open sexuality and broken families, divorce rates and single parents is coming from.

Open sexuality, doesn't necessitate any of those things. All it means is that sexuality isn't hidden away. I.e. More education about sex (Including safe sex), more understanding of sexualities and more understanding of body diversity.

Broken families comes from individuals not respecting their partners.

Divorce rates comes from people being pushed into marriage (Which can be exacerbated by "No pre-marital sex" ideals)

Single parents comes from either unsafe sex (Made worse by the lack of education and availability of safe sex) or aforementioned premature marriages and subsequent divorces (As well as widowing which is a result of many factors such as disease, crime or war).

Nothing about open sexuality has quantifiable negative impacts, unless you have the myopic view that open sexuality = extra marital sex.

Religious rules around sex are bronze age relics conceived to assuage male insecurity about competition for female attention. The same mindset views violence positively as a male virtue. Thats why "open sexuality" is viewed more negatively than violence.

It can always be understood in terms of male insecurity.

That is certainly the popular mainstream opinion.

I would suggest that the more you consider human nature and pay attention to the breakdown of societal values the more you'll start to realize that the consequences signal an overall decline.

In a handful of decades the nuclear family has been more than decimated. It is a splitting of the basic social unit, as devastating to society and culture as the proverbial splitting of the atom.

For fucks sake, I'm so very over conservatives trying to tell me that the decline of the nuclear family is a sign of increasing moral decay and trying to prop it up as the most basic of familial units, when the nuclear family as we know it is a familial construct built up as the norm only over the last 100 years. Multi-generational and/or mixed-family households are the more traditional family model across multiple human societies in history and provide more support and stability over the nuclear family. That simple fact aside, the rise of open sexuality has not killed the nuclear family (cis-het people getting married and having kids are still the majority. Persecution complex please leave), and it wasn't open sexuality that killed the nuclear families of me or any of my peers, it was economic pressure and the societal expectation to get married and have children at a young age before either person really knew who they were or what they wanted, leading to an unstable family life, resentment, hatred, trauma, then divorce.

I'm not interested in understanding your opinion. I was raised religious, and much of my family remains conservative. I saw what it did to my family, and to the families around me. I lived that life already and i would like the world to be better after I leave it.

Nevertheless, it remains the answer to the question that was posed. Essentially: why does so much of society seem to care more about sex than violence?

It's not surprising that there's a visceral knee-jerk reaction to the notion. I understand. As mentioned above, the popular mainstream opinion believes otherwise and challenging that belief can be scary to one's identity.

Wyll won't have sex with you at the party either. I think, both him and Shadowheart have their first and only sex scene in act 3. Which seems to be pretty reasonable, given that by then you are dating for a while.

Karlach would love to have sex and generally be able to touch , but she can't, so you don't have sex with her either. If you tell her, you are interested, you can have sex with her in act 2, but you can also tell her, that you are not interested in sex.

I agree mostly with the rest of what you said. I'm ok, if there are sexualized situations, you just can deny. You can kill Haarlep, you can just say no to Abdirak ( I guess a BDSM session counts), you can say no to everyone offering from the companions or other NPCs. I'm ok with that.
I was a bit put off at how quickly some companions come at you at the party, but it got better after recent patches. Now it's only Lae'zel and Astarion and those two make sense tbh. Lae'zel is pretty direct in what she wants and Astarion wants to get you on his side.

Is this really the place to discuss your personal viewpoints about family and sex positivity?

To answer fylimar’s rhetorical question: no it isn’t!

Let’s respect the fact that we’re all entitled to our own views on these real-life topics without being directly or indirectly judged by folk on a gaming forum, and part of that respect should mean avoiding sensitive social or political topics wherever possible or not directly relevant.

Probably not. I do find it difficult to discuss the "sex versus violence" question without delving into the territory, unfortunately. It's like there's a question being asked but the answer isn't necessarily welcome.

And it really goes to the heart of the actual thread topic: is BG3 overly sexualized? Well, what does overly sexualized mean? If someone feels like the answer is yes, is it reasonable to explain why the answer is yes?

I often get the feeling that it's okay to argue for "sex positivity" but it's frowned upon to express an opposing view. I think there's something intrinsically wrong with that.

All the same, I suspect there's not much to be gained from continuing the conversation.

Of course it was delibetate.
Larian realized that they had a broken, disjointed mess at their hands and decided instead of trying to deliver a epic adventure like BG1/2 did to go for the lowest common denominator. That meant both removing all consequences for your action (tadpoles, which required complete story rewrites to shove the Emperor in last minute) and putting sex front and center.

Both in marketing, the prominently placed bear sex scenes, the constant mentioning of the possibility of sex in interviews, highlighting that they used intimacy coordinators despite the result not really warranting them, the rather useless genital customization that got highlighted, and so on.
And in the game, often to the detriment of gameplay and story, by rewriting characters to be more bland, "waifu" and most importantly, willing, by basing their characters on the common visual novel templates and Twilight novels, adding some more side sex scenes and pillow talk which in its worst cases devalues otherwise interesting characters like Rafael and also basing the choice of companions to implement not on what would be best for the game, a new class or race for example, but one who the EA players thirsted for the most with the only content added being aggressive polygamy.


And the sadest thing is, it worked. BG3 gets praised to no end, not because its a good BG game with a story worthy of its name and impeccable mechanics, but because the aggressive sex marketing drew in lots of people with no interest in RPGs and no frame of reference about its quality who are only interested in Astarion/Shadowheart being hot while shouting over any requests for improvements to the actual game and story with demands for more kisses! and sex with Driders/other character!

I completely agree with you, just with every word.

Sex is shoved wherever it can be, zoophilia, illithidophilia, threesomes, brothels. Yes, I appreciate romantic story lines in games. But romantic story lines with a well-written plot and aggressive polygamy are, after all, different things. It was very sad to learn that BG3 was originally intended to be a normal classic RPG with a single companion romance. It feels like it's now a dating simulator where everyone around you is out to get Tav. Or a sex store, rather than an RPG where you're encouraged to pick out items to taste. No roleplaying, immersion, much less sincere and deep attachment to a companion character is out of the question. Just choose your "department" and "product". For example, Astarion, after Ascension, now becomes a "product" for those who like to be strangled on their knees, shoved and punched in the face. It's okay that among the players who choose this path, there are a lot of players who just hate this content or are even traumatized by these scenes.I'm not talking about the damage it does to the story, so much so that it becomes physically impossible to play. It truly angers me that I could have avoided every possible perversion in this game as much as I wanted (ew, gross, okay, nonsense, no one's forcing me, that's how I thought of it all before), but still I was just forcefully shoved into the perversion, with no choice, forced to experience it all. "Oh, there's a choice not to ascend him" - no, sorry, I'm not choosing a pixel dildo for myself, I'm immersed in an RPG, some people are capable of deep attachment to their companions, and are not at all interested in him "being hot", but interested in his well-being. It's not a romance appropriate for an RPG, it's really a template for a visual novel, and a third-rate novel at that, no hint of roleplay, and the logic and story are just crumpled up and shoved in one place for the sake of hype and "moral lessons" on "Why deep monogamous relationships are evil".

I'm not against polygamy at all, I don't care at all, but monogamous players exist too. The players exist, but the lines for them don't. You can't tell your companions in the first act that you're already in a relationship, there are no such words because the game has a "second place", the game thinks you came here then to sleep with two companions at the same time or in parallel. There is genital customization, though. How about customizing roleplay-appropriate lines instead? Even in the second act you can't say no to Halsin properly, you can't ask that oak-faced bear if he's blind. Can't he see that you're in a relationship? You can only talk about your relationship in a way that makes it sound like you're kind of okay with "kissing the bear" too, but kind of pondering. Monogamous relationships are exposed as "possessive", "stuffy", doesn't that sound like aggressive propaganda? Sure, you can show all forms of relationships between people, but show them, not impose them. Otherwise, the "good hero" goes around the world happily f**king everyone to great applause, while the "monogamous villain" has to realize his/her own inferiority.

I've read players' outrage that they didn't do this and that, bugs and all, but they did "kisses". I'd be so damn happy as a kissing-affected consumer of this content, if Larian had instead listened to the requests of those players who asked for other, non-sexual content.

I used to like romance in games. But a classic monogamous romance between a man and a woman, without perversions, with the possibility to bring the beloved companion to such a final, where he is satisfied and does not suffer (to the "evil" final, if this companion is evil), it is, of course, very difficult to do, it is capricious players do not want to understand the great and ingenious idea of "sex education", do not want, you know, to realize all the "advantages of free relationships". In all games where romance is provided for at all, there was such a possibility. All of them.

I really hope this is still Larian's "experiments" and not a trend of modern RPGs. Obsidian are making their next game without romance, and that sounded like a great advertisement to me, though I didn't think so before. The sexualization of the game in BG3 reaches such heights that I want to see games without it at all, just so long as I don't see it anymore.

The worry for me is that other game devs see the success of BG3 and try to emulate it, thinking (perhaps not wrongly) that its success was due to the sexualisation of the story. It might be hard to find RPGs in the future that present a more balanced view of sex or just let us adventure in peace without all the dating rubbish.

Okay folks, trying again.

Let’s try to make this friendly and constructive and take out the unnecessary social or political commentary. The discussion here perhaps inevitably touches on real-life, very personal issues and I’m not seeing anything like the amount of care and consideration I’d expect when discussing such topics here.

Everyone should be able to participate in a forum provided by Larian for their fans to have friendly discussions and connect with each other without feeling that their personal lives are being attacked, or that they are forced to step up and defend them.

The company spent a lot of resources to implement this additional content, which did not allow them to fix technical issues in the game in a timely manner, some companions are still not fully implemented (Minthara), so I hope that other companies will pay attention to this as well and not follow this trend after all.

Proof of this assertion?


No one outside of Larian management knows the answer to how much resources were devoted to this and how that may, or may not have impacted other demands.

In any event one could make the same argument about any aspect of the game “they spent too much time on dyes..” etc etc

Given how popular some of the romances have been it seems Larian probably made a good decision. How much have to the romances contributed to sales and revenue etc etc.?

We've already established that the marketing for this game was horribly over-sexed, and it's set up a rather incorrect perception of the game outside the fandom circles. As i said before, they could have put more sex in the game and i still would not think it was too much.

There's only been one major update that's been very focused on the relationships and adding new stuff to that, and it was the valentine's update. Every other update has had a mixed bag of bug fixes and content, and there's still content to come, although it will apparently be evil focused, so I'm expecting more epilogues for evil choices made at the end of the game.

I would not blame the slow rate of bug-fixes on the the team somehow being forced to focus on the relationships in the game, I'd much rather direct people to something said by Swen regarding the relationship with Hasbro, and how Hasbro pushed for the 2023 release, which means the game was effectively released 3/4 months too early. It's not surprising, publishers pushing release dates up and making things difficult for devs is unfortunately common practice in this industry.

I've also not found the polyam content to be excessively pushed in-game. Like most of the romantic content, it's hard to accidentally find yourself in a polycule. One of my first play-throughs was romancing Wyll, who is very much only interested in monogamy. I told Halsin no, and he took that answer and didn't push anymore. Wyll said no to the Drow twins and being a good partner I was able to politely refuse as well. Wyll is written to be very reasonable and clearly states his boundaries, both things i really appreciated. Gale's romance in relation to the polyam stuff is not as good, and I was surprised at how mean and manipulative you can be with him when he tries to establish his boundaries.

But this is a flaw in the consistency of the writing, not it's content. I wish that your interactions with Gale (and, to a lesser extent, Karlach) were more similar to your responses with Wyll in regards to setting boundaries. I actually have many such criticisms regarding the sexual content in this game.

In my humble opinion Larian did the best decision to add romances and more humane aspects like such into the game, besides Larian as a studio have multiple teams, concept artists, programmers, scripters, enviromental artists and whole other division of artists, list would be too long to mention.

I'll throw in for sake for debate that by not having romances in the game, could have left a portion of studio artists workless or either rather than having said resourcces poured into the game could very well have just been another part for fallbacks instead.

That ship sailed long ago.

Romance/sex options are part of the modern CRPG genre. People play as much for the story as the game mechanics and that includes the personal story and relationships of the protagonist/their character. It doesn't always include romance and sex, but it very often does. Not everyone is interested in that aspect, but lots of players are. I think it's now expected for CRPGs as much as character customization and wearing different outfits usually are.

BG3 is of course a sequel to the Bioware games, and Bioware really led the pack on all this. It wasn't much of a thing in BG, but BG2 is one of the first good examples of romance in a CRPG, and we also shouldn't ignore how games have evolved since. BG3 is kind of a successor to the Dragon Age games as well as the original BG games, just as Dragon Age was a successor to BG1 & 2.

Certainly Larian lent quite hard on that side in their promotion, but it's still quite a small part of the game really, and still optional. How much time do we actually spend in romance dialogues and cut scenes? Half an hour maybe in about a hundred hour play through? For some of the companions at least, it's not quick either. It took me most of the game to get into Sharty's pants.

Aside from the promotion, I suspect much of the complaint is due to two things. Making the companions "player-sexual" and having many of them initiate romance/sexual encounters. The "player-sexual" thing is basically a game mechanic. It's to give everyone all the options. There's upsides and downsides to that approach, but it's what they went with and I have no problem with it. Having some characters pursue you isn't a bad thing story-wise, but it does mean you can't completely ignore it. Put together and it means you hit a point a dozen or so hours in, where approval ratings can start kicking things off with several characters all around the same time, including of course characters that don't match the player's sexual orientation.

Gale is an obvious example. It's super easy to get a load of approval early on by playing the hero route. Save a couple of kids in the Grove, be understanding about his situation and you're basically there. Then if you want to do a bit of best bud bonding with him teaching you some magic, the narrator suddenly tells you the moment feels "sensual". It didn't bother me personally, but I can certainly understand how some players might just think "wait, WTF?".

I think the overall level of sex and romance is fine. What I've seen of it is generally handled well, some of it exceptionally well. But there are moments, when the game suddenly throws it at you without warning, that could probably have been handled a bit better. Halsin trying to sleaze his way in to your relationship could be taken as either quite funny or massively inappropriate, depending on the player. Particularly if you've gone for a slow burning love story over dozens of hours, like with Shadowheart. Also turning characters down often seems a bit blunt and it's not clear that they won't hate you for it. I found Wyll's reaction quite hilarious. It was just a dance man, get over yourself!

If you want an example of an RPG where romance and relationship stuff really is inescapable, look at the Witcher games. Let's skip the crude way it was handled in the original and move on to the hugely popular and critically acclaimed Witcher 3. Geralt's relationship with Triss and Yennefer (and Shani with the DLC) is completely built into the story, right from the very beginning when you are looking for Yennifer. It's your very first quest objective. You can choose to play celibate Geralt, but you can't ignore your past relationships with them. The Witcher 3 was probably the previous massively successful RPG widely hailed as a step up from what's come before, as BG3 is now.

I'm not sure it's exactly the "Player-sexual" thing as much as it is characters being designed to appeal to the majority. I.e. The lack of racial diversity between companions (With the datamined halfling werewolf gal getting cut from the game)

Which is somewhat surprising given the diversity Larian had in DoS, with the roster including a dwarf, a lizard and a skeleton who wears faces. With the argument being made that the reason for "Elf, elf and more elf" companions is so sex scenes aren't too weird (Ironic given the whole "Bear sex" thing, not to mention mind flayer sex...)

But yeah, the companions initiating romance seems to irk some people, seemingly because they feel uncomfortable when people not of their preferred sex come onto their character (Personally, I've had dudes hit on me in real life and it's never bothered me. I just politely tell them I don't swing that way and we both move on with our lives). Though there is the whole aspect of simply trying to be friends with the companions and then they're suddenly like "I wanna ride you", which is exacerbated by the fact that basically all the companions end up like this (If it was just 1 or 2 that made the most sense. For example, Karlach who's not touched anyone for years and Lae'zel who's direct and comes from a society where sex isn't about reproduction it's entirely a recreational activity)

Huh? Where/When has this sweeping assertion been “established”.

At best it’s frequently repeated opinion of a small minority of people commenting on the game. I’ve yet to see this opinion mentioned anywhere outside of Internet forums. I don’t recall a single article in the gaming media that has even come close to describing BG3 marketing as “horribly over-sexed” (whatever that means).

I've literally had people ask me "is that the bear/squid sex game?" when I talk about BG3. The last Panel From Hell around launch had a big focus on that, because it got people talking about the game who may not have been aware of it before. The EA cycle was long, interest waned, and then suddenly all the major videogame news outlets could talk about was BG3's romance and sex again. That footage made it very far outside the gaming sphere.

Hell, it even spawned a huge wave of new people coming here all eager to talk about it (or, yell about it, in some cases).

Stuff costs money. If you think it doesn't then you are the one who should be providing proof. The correct default assumption should be that all things cost money, and all things must be paid for. There is, after all, no free lunch.

Yes, stuff costs money.

However, "It costs money" doesn't indicate HOW much it costs.

The assertion was that "A lot of resources" was spent on this content.

Also, that this content being developed was in lieu of fixing technical issues.

All we know is that it costs SOME amount of money to develop, and the people who were working on it were not working on something else (If they had something else to work on. We don't know if the people who worked on it have the ability to work on something else. Developers aren't intechangeable. You can't have an artist suddenly writing bug fix code for example)

Ergo, the assertion referencing the "Lot" of resources at the expense of bug fixes would require proof.

Having two mocap characters interact with each other in cutscenes is vastly more difficult and thus costly than having a character being alone.

So all those scenes like with Minthara or even the kissing scenes they added were much more expensive than normal dialogue scenes.

Yup. It's simple common sense. All of the cinematics, including voice acting, was easily well over 50% of the cost of making BG3. And the sex-related stuff is a pretty good chucnk of all that. So it is very much a safe bet that a lot of other things were left/dropped from the game to accommodate the sex-related content and cinematics.

Yup. It's simple common sense. All of the cinematics, including voice acting, was easily well over 50% of the cost of making BG3. And the sex-related stuff is a pretty good chucnk of all that. So it is very much a safe bet that a lot of other things were left/dropped from the game to accommodate the sex-related content and cinematics.

So the voice actors, sound engineers, performance directors, motion capture crew, etc would have been fixing programming bugs if they weren't spending time on recording romance scenes?

Seems more likely they were just different teams, doing different jobs to me.

Either they would have done something more useful like making dialogues or new characters, maybe we would have even gotten an epilogue in the release version, or they would have been paid less so other teams had more time or manpower to fix buff or add more content.

This is an isolated demand for rigor. Of course we don't know exactly how much each line item on the Larian budget costs. We don't NEED a detailed description of the budget to know that stuff costs money. If its not free then the budget for it represents an opportunity cost, because that money could be spent elsewhere.

Modern economies use money rather than barter to solve exactly this problem.

It’s entirely a matter of opinion whether cutting romance scenes in favour of other dialogue scenes would be “more useful”. I wonder how many players would sacrifice the romance stuff for getting the epilogue a bit earlier?

Anyway I was talking about the specific claim that cutting them would have given Larian more time and resources for fixing technical problems. There are limits to how many people can work on the same code at the same time. It depends on how much the game engine, core mechanics, etc can be divided into pieces for people to work on separately and then recompiled.

So for that assertion to carry any weight, maybe we should have some evidence that Larian left the crucial programming tasks understaffed because they diverted too much money towards the things that some people think are pointless.

I don’t think you quite grasped the point I’m making.

Or... you didn't make a very good point.

The point is that some tasks can be done in parallel, and some can’t.

People working on cutscenes don’t interfere with the core programming at all. Whereas only so many people can work on the code at the same time. You can’t just throw more programmers at fixing the same part of the game or engine.

I would also debate that with what Dagless said, there is a good chance we would still be having issues with the game, minus all the humane aspects of romances as if playing safe with development could in theory have been a more inferior decision.

Because even if you did in theorty throw more hands on the same pie would still impose issues, perhaps just in a potential different way, I would have said a loss of opportunity if game had been less sexualized.

Teams are not as interchangeable as most might assume, you want the ones with most skill and talent to focus on their special talents and its best to only have so many on the same code to avoid creating more problems and to have things less likely to have gone wrong in more bizarre ways, whether those issues would reflect into the game or just remain behind the scenes is a matter only a person with a crystal ball would know.

Yes, we know that it represents an opportunity cost.

But the assertion being made is that it was a large opportunity cost. Both in terms of money as well as manpower.

Which would NEED a detailed description of budget as well as workload distribution to evince.

All we know is that SOME money was spent on it and that the people who worked on it did not work on SOMETHING else.

We don't know HOW much money was spent on it (And whether it would have been enough to fund any other tasks), nor if the people who worked on it could have worked on something else (If there were no other tasks suitable for those people's skillsets, then their time wasn't pulled away from anything else)

Ergo, to state that the development of this content was to the detriment of other content would require the burden of proof to be on those who claim to know exactly how much of an opportunity cost such an undertaking actually was.

One can state their wishes of having X thing instead of Y thing, for sure, but that doesn't mean it would actually fit with how the game was developed.

Me? I didn’t make the unsupported claim.

Again no one outside of Larian knows the answer as to what resources were devoted to this and how it impacted the overall development of the game. People are free to speculate of course and offer opinion which is all that it is in the end. Speculation and opinion.

Notwithstanding the “people are saying” weakness of this statement it in no way substantiates your claim that “We’ve already established that the marketing for this game was horribly over-sexed”.

What do you even mean by over-sexed? At what point does marketing become “over-sexed”? How do you measure the point at which “over-sexed” marketing tips from plain “over-sexed” into “horribly over-sexed? Are there other intervening levels such as “seriously over-sexed” or “extremely over-sexed”?

I think it’s fair to say your opinion is there was too much sex somewhere in Larian communications regarding BG3 and possibly in the game itself, but that is a far cry from saying “we’ve established” anything beyond your opinion.

Lastly who are the “we” in your “we’ve established” was there a blue ribbon panel formed?

Thanks for trying to explain own opinion back to me. I would never have understood it without your excessive pedantry.

Yes.

How did you managed to get 20 pages out of this?

Glad to have helped and also glad to see now you correctly acknowledge it as opinion rather than “established” facts.

Or ... here's a thought:
Larian would not have hired those people in the first place (or not hired as many of them, or not given them as many work-hours), and instead hired/funded more people focused on the other aspects of the game. That's how production works, not just in making a video game but in any economic enterprise.

And as I said above, there are limits to the number of people who can work on the same thing at the same time. That is also how product development works in general.

The assertion that scrapping romance scenes would have meant addressing technical problems quicker is entirely dependent on whether Larian left the core programming team understaffed so they could blow as much as possible on everything else.

I think that is highly unlikely as they would be amongst the most key roles, and I’ve seen no evidence to suggest otherwise.

Edit: Although they apparently don’t have the resources to fix this G Damn forum.

I seriously question whether or not Swen knows how bad this forum is.

If I knew how to start a petition to send to Swen about this forum I would. If anyone else starts one I will happily sign it.

At this point fixing the forum would be creating a whole new non-ubb board with a whole new framework, archiving all the current threads and then doing a mass migration. Not even LOTRO still has its old ubb forum, and that game just turned 17.

And even then, I feel like it still wouldn't fix the constant 504 errors.

I wonder if there is any player that has examined and read the description of every painting that appears in the game.
And yet, resources were spent creating the visuals and the descriptive text for every one of them.
Everyone can set preferences as to where resources would have been deployed better. You or I will never convince anyone that your or my pref. is better.
It's not a convincing argument.

It's also an unrealistic argument. Meaning I don't think people very often think through anything but the most basic level of the idea. It's not like the company is full of contract workers who just perform one task for a paycheck and then hope for another task so they can get a second paycheck.

These are largely salaried employees who are there. Sometimes things at work are slower or faster in your department depending on the workload.

If department A has a heavy workload but department B has a light workload, then you don't take employees from B and move them to A with the expectation that they'll suddenly be good at a task they're not trained at. Even if both departments have a heavy workload, department A getting done with something you don't happen to care about has no bearing on how long it takes department B to finish their workload.

There is. I researched and read (the descriptions are great). I like to explore all the items in a game on as detailed a first playthrough as possible.

An argument on the topic of wasting resources. Here are some articles describing the state of the game after patch 6 - bug occurrence and other problems with the game:

https://screenrant.com/baldurs-gate-3-patch-6-glitches-bugs-bg3/
https://gamerant.com/baldurs-gate-3-patch-6-graphical-bug/
https://www.thegamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-patch-6-known-bugs/
https://ciceropost.com/baldurs-gate-3-patch-6-new-bugs/
https://www.pcgamer.com/patch-6-of-...he-exe-got-completely-reorganised-again/

If you wish, you can find even more articles and player reviews dedicated to this issue. So what did they add in patch 6? Kissing. That is, they spent resources on it (of course, no one can say exactly how many resources were spent on it and what exactly could have been done instead, but definitely something could have been done). The funny thing is that there have been kisses in the game before, and they were quite "hot". It turns out that the money spent on the old kisses went nowhere - the player even with all the desire can not return these old scenes, they no longer exist, they were simply removed from the game. I agree that it was groundbreaking the first time around - yes, I hadn't seen this in games before, but then? Why spend money on remaking something that was already there and was good when they could have paid attention to the story and technical aspects of the game?