Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Elves should look more otherworldly

I don't understand why ethnic races being depicted in a video game is bothering you so much. As for WOTC or Larian not consulting enthic minorities about including them, when it comes to Baldur's gate, both Asian features and Black features are correct. There is no misrepresentation. I'm pretty sure that if an Asian or Black person plays Baldur's Gate 3, they might choose those features because it represents them. This is mostly for human, elf, and tiefling characters as they are the only ones I have seen with those ethnic features. Again, I don't see a problem with that, as an ethnic minority myself.

It's really sad that you're so full of some kind of toxic worldview that you automatically assume that any efforts toward inclusivity are unquestionably "appealing to far leftism" or "fake pandering". Like the very idea that some people, many people, are genuinely trying to just be decent (in a way that does not mesh with your priorities) does not even register as possible to you.

+1
This! I did use a non-asian face for the human (because that one was more asian than my own face, I unfortunately did not inherit the typical high cheekbones etc, just the eyes - but mine are on the larger side for an SE asian), but it DOES make me happy to see a sort-of similar face so I can feel like it's me who's in the game

As someone (I don't remember after all those pages) said, nobody said to not additionally implement some more "traditional elven" faces? But why get rid of... choices?

That is entirely what they are though. Nothing about this is about genuine inclusivity, it is simply all a publicity stunt for upvotes on Twitter.

Making virtual characters that look like real world people has absolutely nothing to do with inclusivity, its not even something that should need mentioning for anything other than publicity.

All companies simply use things like this to get positive attention and farm for upvotes on social media, Larian is no different.

Yes, this.

A reminder to please keep this away from real-world race politics as it seldom ends well. Stick to discussing the game design, please.

Where can it be discussed then? You didn't mind the thread below about it, and then locked my separate one and already told me to use this thread instead?

http://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=669659&page=3

WOTC and Larian are both factually using real world politics to shape their character designs, so why am I not allowed to talk about that?

i think the existing elf heads "just" need to be tweaked, make noses more slender, jaws and chins narrower, eyes a little larger and more almond shaped. You don't need to totally remove the real world ethnic undertones, but the elves need to look like elves. rather than humans with pointy ears added.

I agree that elves look like humans to an extent still, because they're humanoid, but they don't need to look like humans in the same way. Technically, elven ethnicity is represented by their subraces (which, in the case of high elves actually covers three kinds: Sun, Moon and Star elves), so if you want to have some nods to real world ethnicities, they should probably be split between the subraces. Then you'd also want to limit the skin/eye/hair colours based on those subraces too.

The term humanoid is misused in the first place to simply mean 'bipedal', because whoever first coined the term didn't have a dictionary. If elves were simply meant to be another form of humans then they would be a subrace of humans not a separate one.

The full list of 'humanoid' creatures in D&D goes extremely far beyond things that simply look human, that the term cannot be logically applied to relate to the facial appearance.

If its meant to look human then it can be a human or a sub race of humans, or half human. If it's meant to be anything else then there is no reason why it needs to look or represent humans.

It is not an appropriate topic for this forum, especially given some of the inflammatory content I have already had to remove. Please do not bring it up again.

WotC maybe. How do you know about Larian?

Is the thought that elves have too closely resembled white Europeans in the classic depiction? I actually think only the very rare individual of any human culture might almost actually resemble a DnD elf - and I've seen very beautiful people of all skin tones blessed with the kind of physique and facial structure that approaches the elven style, not only white people.

I'm in favor of having the elves look less like white Euros if they look too disproportionately like them, and more uniquely like elves. And keeping the awesome range of skin tones Larian has included.

Absolutely. I think a lot of people forget that two of the key words when describing an elf, in all editions, in all sources, is that they are unnervingly, hauntingly beautiful. That is, because they are strange, and not entirely human-like. Those words are not just simple words to describe beauty, they are very purposeful words to state they are not relatable. They are not supposed to look like anything a human is used to. In fact, they are even a minority race.

They are supposed to make you uncomfortable due to the strangeness of their symmetrical and impossible features. Representing them the way they are just misses the mark by far.



Some people keep repeating that, and yet:



THIS IS ALL 5E OFFICIAL ARTWORK I gathered from the manuals. People act like they don't exist. You can still see the high cheekbones, the slanted eyes, the triangular shaped face, all of it is there, if not as extremely displayed as it used to in older editions. Yet none of the current heads look like this. I would be happy with a few heads that have this sort of traditional features, the slanted eyes per instance are entirely missing.

Here, I'll make it easier for you to spot, in case you are genuinelly not seeing it:

Well, Tolkien would surely disagree. And as he's the father of what elves are in most of the fantasy genre today, this has to be taken into account. Gary Gigax was very much inspired by the Tolkien elves when he wrote his own campaigns. The only exception he made was with the drow. Because the dark elves in Tolkien are the people of Eol, and they are dark only because they live in dark places but their skin is still as white as snow.

So if you intend to redefine what elves look like, you shouldn't take D&D ruleset for it. Cause their appearance is pretty much well defined already in the setting.

And if you are ready just like almost anything Netflix does nowadays to screw the original material, you should at least consider some people will surely be quite vocal about it.

Uuuh. Is this a mispelling? Of course we should take the D&D sources into consideration :| What does Tolkien have to do with anything here? This is Forgotten Realms.



Ironically, this is true. They are well defined, as I've expressed just the post before.

I admit I only skimread the thread but I don't know how all this discussion about human ethnic features is even relevant to the discussion when elves aren't supposed to look like any of them. Share features, sure, but not look like any specific human ethnicity. I didn't look at the male presets but I was disappointed when I noticed human and elf females shared faces. The fact half-elves didn't share any faces with either made me think elf faces were simply placeholder atm. Personally I find Janina Gavankar to be a good example of a real life person that looks elfy.



So my feedback is that elves need the human presets deleted and their own ones made with their own distinctive look. LotR movie elves =/= Faerun elves.

I'm a bit confused on a the last line whether you're talking about D&D or Tolkein.

Firmly of the opinion that when playing in D&D Faerun, use the D&D Faerun material. This goes for Elves, Dwarves, Halfings, so on so forth. I can appreciate a wealth of knowledge on Tolkien's Elves and they were the original base for all others in fantasy - however...

I would like to see D&D use its own material, however adapted from elsewhere it might be. A thing was taken, changed and that changed thing is now the setting's normal. The diagram and pictures provided by Goldberry are perfect examples of that D&D material.

I've always read elves as very slight/petite. Obviously for live action films like LoTR you work with what you've got, which is why they're humans with pointy ears, and it obviously varies from setting to setting, but I've always read elves in DnD following the same sort of build as I read in Tolkien's work-think 'scrawny teenager' bodies. Heck, I think shadowheart's a bit to thicc, and she's 'just' a half-elf.
This is ofc my personal opinion so don't expect poo to be flung if you disagree, lol.

Hence why I prefer fantasy character portraits. So much more creativity and freedom.
Wouldn't it be great and <NEXT GEN> if the paper-doll matched that favorite fantasy portrait? Some kind of overlay + custom physics? 20 years ago while playing BG2I would of thought by 2020 this would be reality...:( Common Larian you can do it!

Three of the four elf/drow faces look very brute-like and I would never pick something like that unless I was gonna make a joke of a character. Half elves look pretty good. Larian just needs to tone down on the orc blood they keep pumping into elves.