Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Small suggestion. Daisy appearance.

I agree the scenes are creepy, and also assumed they were meant to be. Personally that’s what I like most about them, though recognise mileage will vary. In fact, I also like the fact that the companions react very differently to their dreams, reflecting just that.

I don’t think the scenes are necessarily rape-y, though can see there’s a case to be made and there are certainly ways the interactions can go that very much lead in that direction. For that reason, it’s vital that we are able to roleplay what we see as an appropriate response to the dreams, and while most characters I’d personally play would probably go along with the seduction to a point out of curiosity to find out more and a (probably doomed) hope to be able to turn the tables, I agree there should also be a path that lets us effectively push back and avoid the “seduction” altogether.

And while in principle I can see how resisting Daisy might be related to strength of mind or other traits, in practice I am very uneasy about putting certain responses/ability to push back behind dice rolls as happened in at least one scene in an earlier patch at least. Given the sexual nature of the scenes, being able to fail a saving throw against what I agree could be a kind of rape seems deeply problematic and I can imagine might be very upsetting for some players.

From what Niara says about previous patches, I think Larian may have made some steps towards being able to opt out of the “seduction”, as in my latest playthrough the “too much in my head already” option did seem to shut things down pretty effectively. It was buggy, though, as my companions still talked as if I would know about the seduction even though I didn’t experience it and the dialog options were a bit odd. For example, when Gale asked me what I did, I think I only had options to 1 Lie and say I gave in, 2 Lie and say I relented, 3 Lie and say I did nothing, or 4 Ask him what he did, so it felt there was a missing part of the dialog tree for the option I really picked.

I do still hope that Larian implement an option to have the Daisy conversations without the sexual element so that players (and/or player characters) who would find that too disturbing can still experience this thread of the game. There are plenty of other ways of being ominous and creepy.

This is key; I've said this before myself, and I agree very much - Shadowheart identifies that, no matter what we *actually* say or do in... I think it's the second dream... that we slept with our lover. She asserts is as known fact, and we try to claim otherwise she informs us, in full certainty, that we are fibbing, and that she knows this because they all experienced it. We don't get any further opportunity to comment (because Larian's origin PCs always have to have the last word on us in these things).

You're also right that when it comes to questions of intimacy and sexual encounters, it either must be entirely the player's choice (or something resolved through simple dialogue), or it must be out of their hands; you *cannot* invoke dice rolls on this topic. "Roll to avoid getting raped" is a non-starter at any table, and in any game.

If the PC expresses unwillingness, and later intimacy is implied to have taken place anyway -> that's character rape. The game must be aware that that is what it is doing, and it cannot act as though it is not.
If the player is *not given a choice or option* to express unwillingness with their character and later intimacy is implied to have taken place anyway -> that's also character rape. The game must be aware that that is what it is doing, and it cannot act as though it is not.

That said: If they wish to do that, that's okay. These things shouldn't be blanket banned from media, in my opinion, as long as it's handled well and carefully... as a survivor myself, I'm actually quite okay with games dealing with rape and other situations of non-consent, but, if it happens, the most important thing about it is that we, as our characters, are given sufficient opportunity to show our companions, or otherwise express to the game, how our character feels about it, so that how we move forward from there can be handled in a way that fits.

There are a lot of different ways a character could react, or feel about the outcome, even within each major decision branch as presented - though the main issue is that the second dream doesn't provide any, which is why it feels like more of a character violation than the others.

Actually if you're interested, Red Queen (and anyone else), I wrote a bit about this when I was examining the dreams for the halfling thread - save me typing out similar things again: https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=747874#Post747874

One of the main points to emphasise is that using the cover of "it's a dream" doesn't actually matter - imagine if you will, a character who, to this point, hasn't ever slept with anyone, and who is, let's say, courting someone in baldur's gate, whom they hope to one day do such things with; what happened here might be 'only' a dream, but they were still right there, with that other, very real, intelligence, sapient, other entity, and they still had that experience (unwillingly in this case, even if compelled to be agreeable at the time) put upon them; that event, and the memory of it cannot now be taken back, and any first experiences they may have been planning or hoping for with their special someone have been irrevocably stolen - it may not have been 'real' in their physical flesh and blood body, but it was still real in all of the ways that actually matter.

The fact that it was within a dream does not mitigate the actions taken (actions implied and then hard confirmed as having happened by shadowheart), any more than if they were taken by means of someone sneaking into our camp and using a dominate person spell to compel us - and the game must not pretend otherwise, and it must give us due chance to express how we feel about it.