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But what about her hairstyle?

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Originally Posted by mr_planescapist
I mean apart from the story/gameplay bits, this game is basically a masturbation simulator the rest of the time right?

At least you’re ‘allowed’ joke about it here – I was promptly banned for 1 month from Steam for just asking the question: why do people want a date/masturbation simulator? Well, all right – specifically I’d addressed the question to the LGBT ‘community’ re: the whole straight-coded characters flipping their sexuality for one night.

Frankly, I was just curious, so I’ll ask it here again, because I simply don’t believe I’m trying to attack anyone by wondering what possible satisfaction could an LGBT person get from the contrivance?

It’s a basic question. I’m not saying take away the option. I’m just genuinely wondering how is it pleasing/entertaining. If Gale is constantly going on about banging the goddess (can’t remember the name), and IMO never really seemed like he was flirting with any lads on the team – is that kind of thing not a turn-off to LGBT people, or what am I getting wrong?

I can’t get my head around the ‘playersexual’ thing, because it’s trying to be so many things at once that not even James Joyce could make a convincing character out it. It just doesn’t happen in reality.

If I like a girl and get a bit of a ‘buzz’ off her, I’ll keep ‘poking’ (= conversation) to see if it goes somewhere – but if there’s even the slightest hint she’s not into it, I leave it be. Because who wants to be a creep?

That’s it. I don’t think about it again. Isn’t everyone else the same, whether you’re into the same sex or otherwise – don’t you just ‘leave it’ if the person isn’t into you? Because otherwise, you know, it’s kind of sociopathic to expect the person to ‘flip’.

Lastly – and I’m not trying to be controversial – I have, and still am, ‘propositioned’, in many different forms, by the same sex, because I work in an industry (IT) that happens to be somewhat top-heavy with such folk, for whatever reason. When you had to be physically in an office to work, 90% of those propositions were hell-on-earth level unrelenting, no matter how violently I made it clear that’s not my jam.

10% tend to be harmless – especially now that everything is remote. You’ll get them flirting with you, then you say you’ve a girlfriend and everything calms down.
It’s not all bad. But it can be. Very bad.

Anyways, maybe there’s no ‘easy’ answer to my question. But I write these things out of genuine intrigue, not shit-stirring (why would I care?). In my view of the world, it’s ok to flirt with people out of curiosity, but if they make it clear they’re not interested (whether you’re straight or LGBT), then you must leave that person alone to enjoy their view of life. You cannot ‘change’ them into something they are not.

And it can’t be fun to keep badgering them about something they’ll never do, hence making an enemy for life. There’s someone out there for everyone – if we just accept that and stop trying to chase the unachievable, then we’d all be good. IMO, playersexual is just encouraging the wrong kind of attitude to life: that everyone’s ‘game’. We’re not, and we should all be cool with that, and seek others who are ‘game’ – they’re out there too.

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I'm not going to get to in detail to the real life comparisons here, but I do want to say that you aren't quite grasping what playersexuality in a game space is.

The characters aren't flipping or changing their sexual preference.

If you play a female PC, then the setting for the world is that it is full of people, and those people have many and varied preferences. Some will like one thing, some will like another, and most (this is canonically stated, in fact - the prevailing sexual orientation in the forgotten realms is bisexuality) will not actually gauge whether they have the potential to be interested in someone or not by that person's genital configuration.

If your female chooses to pursue a romance with shadowheart, then by happy coincidence, shadowheart is open to the idea of sharing intimacy with another woman - and this is the important bit - And she always was, in this version of the world space.

If you play a male character and pursue a romance with Gale, then by happy circumstance, Gale is, in fact, not adverse to interactions with another male - and unless they decide to write in dialogue and further conversation to talk about it being a new experiment for him, then he literally always was bisexual the entire time, in this version of the world space.

Nothing is being changed or flipped - this is just the world as it exists in this specific version of the game that you are playing in... and if it is a well-written world and story, then it will be believable and consistent.

Gale being interested in males that take his fancy is not contradicting anything - he hasn't spoken about any past male lovers, and his main previous love interest was Mystra - and frankly, if one of your previous lovers was a literal deity, it would be hard too bring up others instead - but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and you shouldn't assume it is. If I chat with someone about one of my female partners, does that mean I'm a lesbian? No. It doesn't. I may not have spoken about my deep and abiding love of cock as well, but that just means it hasn't come up (heh...). If that person assumes that I'm a lesbian, acts on that assumption, and later finds out I've got male partners too, are they right in accusing me of acting out of character (in real life...), or of 'flipping' my preferences? Fuck no they aren't... they made an assumption they should not have made, and that's entirely on them. If you make the assumption that his love of Mystra is the full definition of Gale's preferences, then that's on you; sadly in this game we don't have the capacity to ask the characters, so we just have to deal with their ham-fisted propositions for now, and yeah, it's pretty badly handled, but what it is not, as of yet, is self-contradicting.

Right now, we know that Gale and Wyll like women; this does not say anything about their tastes in men, and if a person feels that there is some contradiction here it is only because they made an assumption that they didn't have any right to make in the first place.

That aside, and Larian's dubious writing quality non-withstanding, the kinds of squishy bits that a person likes to play with most in the bedroom should not, generally, be a defining element of their personality and characterisation. If them liking all parts, or different parts to what was first expected, somehow unmakes, debilitates or destroys their character, then the character should probably be scrapped and rewritten anyway, because that's not the sort of thing that a character should be built around.

As far as the game goes... you talk as though the characters continue to assail you with their interest once you turn them down. They don't. I'm not sure where you're getting that idea from, or why you're phrasing your language that way. They ask, you tell them you're not interested, and they leave it be, done. It never comes up again. There's nothing wrong with asking - people shouldn't be discouraged from asking if a person is interested, or treated like they've made some kind of offence or violation just for asking. If they don't ask, they can't be clear; making assumptions and relying on circumstantial tells to make your decisions is the worse behaviour, of the two.

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Oh boy, another playersexuality thread!
Originally Posted by Niara
The characters aren't flipping or changing their sexual preference. [snipped]
If you play a female PC, then the setting for the world is that it is full of people, and those people have many and varied preferences. Some will like one thing, some will like another, and most (this is canonically stated, in fact - the prevailing sexual orientation in the forgotten realms is bisexuality) will not actually gauge whether they have the potential to be interested in someone or not by that person's genital configuration.

If your female chooses to pursue a romance with shadowheart, then by happy coincidence, shadowheart is open to the idea of sharing intimacy with another woman - and this is the important bit - And she always was, in this version of the world space.

If you play a male character and pursue a romance with Gale, then by happy circumstance, Gale is, in fact, not adverse to interactions with another male - and unless they decide to write in dialogue and further conversation to talk about it being a new experiment for him, then he literally always was bisexual the entire time, in this version of the world space.

Nothing is being changed or flipped - this is just the world as it exists in this specific version of the game that you are playing in... and if it is a well-written world and story, then it will be believable and consistent.

Right now, we know that Gale and Wyll like women; this does not say anything about their tastes in men, and if a person feels that there is some contradiction here it is only because they made an assumption that they didn't have any right to make in the first place.

An issue currently is The Party Night, when possibly all companions (maybe not Wyll?) proposition you. While it is perfectly believable that a single party member who propositions you (or who you go after) happens to have the appropriate sexuality, the fact that they all happen to have the appropriate sexuality (and all go after you this night, and and are personally attracted to Tav) is something that stresses the imagination. I think people would take *much* less offense at Larian making companions playersexual if companion "romances" were spread throughout the game and/or the player had to initiate them.

This is exacerbated by the fact that the companions DO mention past romances and certain party banters *only* reinforce those sexual indications. E.g, Astarion flirts with everyone - he's clearly shown to be bi. Gale, however, talks about a past romance with a godess and rejects Astarion's flirting with him. Sure, he's not shown to be unattracted to all men, but his lack of shown interest in /history with men compared to Astarion's outspoken preferences is distinct. Wyll is in love with a succubus, and since succubi can change genders (and probably would, in order to aid seductions. In fact, incubi and succubi may be the same, just in their different changed form) this implies that Wyll at the very lest *prefers* women over men.

The world existing in such a state that *multiple* companions only talk about past heterosexual romances AND yet happen to be attracted to (male) Tav is the unlikely part, not the fact that a single companion happens to be attracted to Tav's gender. Plus the fact that the companions all initiate simultaneously and then are snarky if you choose someone else makes it feel extra bad, like you're being punished for not being into them. This issue would be solved if less of them came on to you; one way to do it is to have certain companions have sexual preferences (or at least, require that the player initiate.)


Originally Posted by Niara
That aside, and Larian's dubious writing quality non-withstanding, the kinds of squishy bits that a person likes to play with most in the bedroom should not, generally, be a defining element of their personality and characterisation. If them liking all parts, or different parts to what was first expected, somehow unmakes, debilitates or destroys their character, then the character should probably be scrapped and rewritten anyway, because that's not the sort of thing that a character should be built around.
I agree that characters shouldn't be defined by their sexuality. But that doesn't mean that sexuality can't add to characterization. It is A character trait after all. To provide an example, Cassandra in DAI. The conversation with her when a female PC flirts with her too much and she now has to reject the PC does add to her character.

So maybe saying that companion sexuality IS a trait in itself is too strongly worded. But it certainly provides the opportunity for characterization. And BG3 currently completely and utterly ignores any possibly characterization that can be gained from companion sexual preferences (cough cough Larian's writing)

tl;dr: It'd be nice if some of the following happened:
- companions alluded to past sexualities or made more obvious mention of their attraction to Tav before The Night
- companions who didn't typically go for [gender] romances made some mention of it when romancing/being romanced by Tav and/or
- some companions had set sexualities, which was then used for opportunities for characterization/development. (note, this requires 8+ PCs to have a good spread of gender-sexuality spread)

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That our companions sexuality is retroactively created during our playthrough is not necessarily true Niara, it's a way of rationalizing the design choice.

That said, people have been conditioned by games not to expect NPCs to behave realistically with regards romance.

Also Konmehn, I don't think people look to video games to learn social skills, in fact related to the above, they're interested in less complicated exchanges. The problem to me of herosexual characters is that it's lazy, when it happens I see the game falling short of a character. Actually putting it in D&D, herosexual characters are a railroad. "You enter a chamber with two doors...but don't worry whichever you choose, it won't matter."

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Pretty much agree with everything you add, MrFuji ^.^

The party night is absolutely an issue of poor writing design creating a visible problem that otherwise wouldn't really be one. - To add to your points, even the ones that you haven't drawn the attraction of ALSO snark at you for failing to do so - it jumps into the dialogue as soon as you address them, without any player prompting. It's pretty egregious.

In Wyll's case, regarding his tastes, you're right - Mizora's form most likely shows a strong preference from him (though it could be a strong preference of hers, if Wyll doesn't have a strong preference of his own), but at the same time ,and this may be uncharitable of me... that''s a degree of nuance and understanding of realms lore that I absolutely do NOT expect Larian to have. They just went "succubus sexy lady lol" and called it a day.

Quote
tl;dr: It'd be nice if some of the following happened:
- companions alluded to past sexualities or made more obvious mention of their attraction to Tav before The Night
- companions who didn't typically go for [gender] romances made some mention of it when romancing/being romanced by Tav and/or
- some companions had set sexualities, which was then used for opportunities for characterization/development. (note, this requires 8+ PCs to have a good spread of gender-sexuality spread)

Absolutely agree here - if the spread of options is broad enough, characters with locked preferences becomes more feasible. My only thought there, and the reason I defend playersexuality here, is that we're not going to GET a spread of optional romance characters broad enough to support that.

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Originally Posted by Niara
I'm not going to get to in detail to the real life comparisons here, but I do want to say that you aren't quite grasping what playersexuality in a game space is.

The characters aren't flipping or changing their sexual preference.

If you play a female PC, then the setting for the world is that it is full of people, and those people have many and varied preferences. Some will like one thing, some will like another, and most (this is canonically stated, in fact - the prevailing sexual orientation in the forgotten realms is bisexuality) will not actually gauge whether they have the potential to be interested in someone or not by that person's genital configuration.

If your female chooses to pursue a romance with shadowheart, then by happy coincidence, shadowheart is open to the idea of sharing intimacy with another woman - and this is the important bit - And she always was, in this version of the world space.

If you play a male character and pursue a romance with Gale, then by happy circumstance, Gale is, in fact, not adverse to interactions with another male - and unless they decide to write in dialogue and further conversation to talk about it being a new experiment for him, then he literally always was bisexual the entire time, in this version of the world space.

Nothing is being changed or flipped - this is just the world as it exists in this specific version of the game that you are playing in... and if it is a well-written world and story, then it will be believable and consistent.

Gale being interested in males that take his fancy is not contradicting anything - he hasn't spoken about any past male lovers, and his main previous love interest was Mystra - and frankly, if one of your previous lovers was a literal deity, it would be hard too bring up others instead - but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and you shouldn't assume it is. If I chat with someone about one of my female partners, does that mean I'm a lesbian? No. It doesn't. I may not have spoken about my deep and abiding love of cock as well, but that just means it hasn't come up (heh...). If that person assumes that I'm a lesbian, acts on that assumption, and later finds out I've got male partners too, are they right in accusing me of acting out of character (in real life...), or of 'flipping' my preferences? Fuck no they aren't... they made an assumption they should not have made, and that's entirely on them. If you make the assumption that his love of Mystra is the full definition of Gale's preferences, then that's on you; sadly in this game we don't have the capacity to ask the characters, so we just have to deal with their ham-fisted propositions for now, and yeah, it's pretty badly handled, but what it is not, as of yet, is self-contradicting.

Right now, we know that Gale and Wyll like women; this does not say anything about their tastes in men, and if a person feels that there is some contradiction here it is only because they made an assumption that they didn't have any right to make in the first place.

That aside, and Larian's dubious writing quality non-withstanding, the kinds of squishy bits that a person likes to play with most in the bedroom should not, generally, be a defining element of their personality and characterisation. If them liking all parts, or different parts to what was first expected, somehow unmakes, debilitates or destroys their character, then the character should probably be scrapped and rewritten anyway, because that's not the sort of thing that a character should be built around.

As far as the game goes... you talk as though the characters continue to assail you with their interest once you turn them down. They don't. I'm not sure where you're getting that idea from, or why you're phrasing your language that way. They ask, you tell them you're not interested, and they leave it be, done. It never comes up again. There's nothing wrong with asking - people shouldn't be discouraged from asking if a person is interested, or treated like they've made some kind of offence or violation just for asking. If they don't ask, they can't be clear; making assumptions and relying on circumstantial tells to make your decisions is the worse behaviour, of the two.


Well said.

So many people (especially Larian) seem to misunderstand the very nature of role playing in role playing games. Every new game is a new world/universe/reality.

LZ in your game is not the same character as LZ in mine. Not the same as LZ in another playthrough of mine. Not the same as any other anywhere else.

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Originally Posted by Niara
If your female chooses to pursue a romance with shadowheart, then by happy coincidence, shadowheart is open to the idea of sharing intimacy with another woman - and this is the important bit - And she always was, in this version of the world space.

If you play a male character and pursue a romance with Gale, then by happy circumstance, Gale is, in fact, not adverse to interactions with another male - and unless they decide to write in dialogue and further conversation to talk about it being a new experiment for him, then he literally always was bisexual the entire time, in this version of the world space.
And they are both willing to shag anything from Halfling or Gnome, over Hunam or Elf, to Dragonborn, Tiefling or Githyanki. laugh

Call me purist, but that part seems much more disturbing than if they are gay or not. :-/
What kind of sick bastards would Faerunians be if they are turned up the same for well build Human, asweel as scaly bipedal Lizard? laugh

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Originally Posted by RagnarokCzD
And they are both willing to shag anything from Halfling or Gnome, over Hunam or Elf, to Dragonborn, Tiefling or Githyanki. laugh

You aren't wrong, truth be told - In many ways that is actually the more unusual aspect - the assumption that standards of attraction translate across species divide, when it's natural that they may not (not to say they never do or that it should be discouraged, just that it's entirely natural that it would be far less common, and decreasingly so the more physically different the species are).

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Exactly ...
And this gets even worse since you are hit by your companions, instead other way around ... meaning they are not only willing to sleep with you no matter what you are ... they WANT to ... they feel desire towards anything that (as the old expression says in Czech) "have hole(or stick) and breaths". :-/

There is something seriously wrong with this world. laugh


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Originally Posted by Niara
My only thought there, and the reason I defend playersexuality here, is that we're not going to GET a spread of optional romance characters broad enough to support that.
+1. With playersexuality it is fair to all, and everyone has options.

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Not want to advertise myself ...
But there are better ways to achieve the same. :P


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Originally Posted by RagnarokCzD
@JandK
Why not tho?

I mean Githyanki surely respect strong sides of powerfull Wizard ... and it can also be appealing for her that despite the fact that your Gnome *seems* like creature even stray cat would eat, he can handle himself.
I mean ... it would be reasonable if she would act surprised by this atraction ... and your Tav would probably need to make first move, since i aswell cant really imagine her offering herself so easily as she do now ...
But beyond that? It dont seem impossible.

My little gnome is a known liar and thief. A fellow most cussed and untrustworthy.

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In Githyanki eyes it means Cunning, Selfsuficient, and Resourcefull ... those are things they admire. :P


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Originally Posted by RagnarokCzD
In Githyanki eyes it means Cunning, Selfsuficient, and Resourcefull ... those are things they admire. :P

I don't know. Remember how Laezel says that "killing is good. It culls the weak. But theft would be paid for a thousand times over." <--something like that.

I always got the feeling that she didn't like liars and thieves.

She also has that line about Volo: "this man has no respect for the truth." <--or something like that. I'm going off memory.

...and I'm pretty sure she wants Arabella to be locked up for theft, lol.

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“Wyll is in love with a succubus, and since succubi can change genders (and probably would, in order to aid seductions. In fact, incubi and succubi may be the same, just in their different changed form) this implies that Wyll at the very lest *prefers* women over men.”

Just for clarity, I don’t think she is a Succubus- I *believe* it was mentioned somewhere that she is a cambion. Has it been determined/documented what she actually is?

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Originally Posted by avahZ Darkwood
“Wyll is in love with a succubus, and since succubi can change genders (and probably would, in order to aid seductions. In fact, incubi and succubi may be the same, just in their different changed form) this implies that Wyll at the very lest *prefers* women over men.”

Just for clarity, I don’t think she is a Succubus- I *believe* it was mentioned somewhere that she is a cambion. Has it been determined/documented what she actually is?

Wyll specifically says she's a cambion when he finally comes clean. He says she revealed her true nature only after he accepted her offer.

That said, it's possible Wyll could be wrong.

And really, isn't it possible that Mizora is just the representative of whomever Wyll actually made the deal with? For instance, could Mizora not be representing the Raven Queen from the Shadowfell? I don't know; I'm not up on my Shadowfell lore enough to know if that's a possibility.

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And yet her whole species "just take" whatever they want during their raids. smile
I would presume that there is difference between situation, when you steal something from her ... and when you just take it from litteraly anyone else ...
As for Arabella ... i wouldnt be surprised, if her actual sin in Lae'zel eyes was not stealing itself, but the fact that she let herself caught.


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I would assume that raiding is considered different from being a sneakthief. Raiding is fine because you're facing the enemy up front, proving your superiority as opposed to using darkness or clever words to your own advantage, which I could see as being considered the actions of the weak. The difference between mugging and pickpocketing. If that's the case then I actually like that. It's a fun bit of nuance that the society, though evil, values a kind of honesty. Nothing groundbreaking, sure, but interesting to me at least.

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Originally Posted by Gray Ghost
I would assume that raiding is considered different from being a sneakthief. Raiding is fine because you're facing the enemy up front, proving your superiority as opposed to using darkness or clever words to your own advantage, which I could see as being considered the actions of the weak. The difference between mugging and pickpocketing. If that's the case then I actually like that. It's a fun bit of nuance that the society, though evil, values a kind of honesty. Nothing groundbreaking, sure, but interesting to me at least.

Yeah, I agree. I think it's the sneakiness.

They are conquerors. They conquer and then take what they conquered.

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