Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback WOW so Baldur's Gate has gone from fun GAMe to borderline cartoon porn?

Oh, a fan of the ancient Jewish fantasy book. Bible is full of nonsense, and also it's pretty low quality fantasy by today standards that works only on illiterate people. Thankfully, we live in educated times. So, please, go away with your totalitarian religious views.

Guys, please be respectful when discussing stuff; and let's keep RL religion and politics out of the discussion, nothing good ever comes of it.

Sigh. Let's just get back to the point of the thread. Shall we? And can we be civil? That's really not called for, and I would expect more from someone who believes they are living "in educated times".

The topic is SEX in this game. It is not violence nor about killing children, etc. That has been discussed on other threads, and that was really the point of my last post. Let's not get into the whole violence topic because as you can see in my last post, we can very quickly veer into a whole new realm of conversation.

This topic - sex in BG3 - is very important to me because it can very easily ruin the game for me and prevent me from finishing it. Plain and simple. It has nothing to do with me trying to force my beliefs on others. It has nothing to do with me trying to ruin BG3 for others. It is simply me telling Larian that I am very worried that they will ruin the game for me and others like me.

Especially after this last update, I am stoked. I want to see Jaheira and Minsc again. I want to finish Act 1 and see the other acts. I am invested in the characters, their stories, etc. I WANT to finish this game, and I want to play through it multiple times.

But if Larian isn't careful, and they don't care about fans like me, they could easily ruin the game for us. If they focus too much on sex, and not enough of more important elements such as mechanics and story and things with more substance than one minute sex scenes, this game is going to tank. THAT was my point about Star Wars. Star Wars almost died as a franchise because of 8 and 9, severing ties with long-time fans who became absolutely disgusted by the direction Disney took. Disney took up the franchise and didn't handle it with care. They just regurgitated the originals, slapped a new paint job on it, did some weird crap with it, and it took a serious hit.

What saved Disney was Mandalorian and other shows like it. Don't believe me? Have you noticed? Disney isn't really producing anymore material for the sequels? Where are more stories about Rey and Poe and Finn? They don't exist because fans are not happy with them. They hate them. They don't want anymore stories about them because they were carelessly done. There was a total lack of respect for them.

THAT is also what I'm afraid of for BG3. Larian is picking up the reigns of a beloved game series and beloved world - Forgotten Realms. They need to handle it with care and not focus too much on 1 minute to 2 minute sex scenes. Focus on the mechanics. Focus on the story. Focus on things with substance that will create longevity for the game and series. IF you're going to have sex in a game, it should be the spice - the extra flavor. It should not be something they inundate us with. (And though I say that, I in no way approve of sex at all in a game. I'm merely saying that IF you are going to include it, it should be a minor feature and not something they focus too much on.)

Instead of giving GM4Him a hard time for being Christian, maybe engage with the topic in good faith...

He doesn't want content in the game to be locked away from him with the explicit depiction of sex, his reason for not wanting to see it are his own, but hardly unheard of. I suspect he doesn't have a problem with the depiction of sex in art. It sounds more like a franchise that was important to him as a younger fellow is now being turned into something else, something he can't engage with the same way he did then.

Unless you want to continue to argue about whether or not the depiction of sex has any place in a video game; tell him he's being unreasonable, that there should be a way to sanitize the rating for people who want it, or agree with him that it has no place in the Baldur's Gate franchise.

I don't agree with him on this, I don't think the sex is separate from the story, and I don't think it or nudity is out of place in the the setting. Baldur's Gate is going to be a story with people having sex, so far none of it is compulsory, and who knows if refusing to participate will even lock you out of content.

Just out of curiosity GM4Him, do you refrain from watching movies that have sex scenes in them? Or is it just the supposed shift within a franchise that you find off-putting. As for Star Wars, the sequels are floundering because they couldn't tell a coherent story with them, when you tell a good story you can do anything you want.

Thats sort of the problem... DnD isnt a guided themepark, while yes alot of things can be handled in certain ways, but DnD at its core is full of very nasty things, even beings that feed of sexual energies... And being inside a Fantasy world is just that, a fantasy world, even more so when its done for adults... the whole points for alot of us that we want to experience the good, the evil, and all its forms and uggliness, i dont want it sullied or changed based one "modern" norms, its not a cristan world, its a DnD fantasy world...

And to turn the reasoning he says that certain things should be the spice, the icing on the cake, that can be aplied to bascialy everything, since we all have views we care about more or less, but in this case, he is asking Larian to program a fantasy world to adhere to his modern cristian beliefs... and i think thats wrong, cristians dont have more right to fantasy then others, and if everyone would ask larian to mind their pet pevees, then none of us will get anything...

Its a Fantasy, written for adults, let it remain so in all its good, evil and succubusness... and nothing of it is real !

Let's be clear. What I want is a Baldur's Gate with more of a Star Wars adventure feel. No sex, nudity, etc. Just good, clean adventure with some solid drama and romance. A perfect example would be KOTOR. The story and game were wonderful and sex was not needed, nor nudity. Shoot. You still had some hints of naughtiness, such as the droid and owner relationship and you could also romance Carth or Bastilla, etc. Fade to black. It was rewarding story and game and romance without the need for anything more.

Now. That's what I WANT.

What do I expect from BG3? I fully understand it is Mature. I almost didn't buy it for that reason. However, because it is Baldur's Gate and D&D 5e, and I really loved Lae'zel's concept from the beginning, I went ahead and got it. I have bought Mature games before that said they had sexual content, but they were good about it. I could avoid it. Hoping BG3 was the same, I took the risk.

I in no way expect anything from them. Really. Nothing. I figure they're going to make the game however they want and they probably don't care THAT much about what I think.

What do I hope for from Larian? That maybe they'll hear some of us who don't want to stumble upon a bunch of naughty scenes while trying to adventure in the 3rd installment of the series, and maybe... Just maybe... Let me have a fade to black option so I CAN have romance that is more like KOTOR. There are fans who don't want sex scenes but want romance. I'm hoping they'll give that to us. There are also fans who want adventure without running into topless hookers or demons or whatever naked things devs COULD throw into the game. I'm also hoping they give that to us - the adventure and not the other.

There is a tasteful way to do things, even a succubus seducing a person. It doesn't have to be super raunchy. So even if some scene is super vital but also sexual, you don't need to make it soft porn. Leave things to the imagination. Sometimes that is even more effective.

And yes. I absolutely refrain from watching movies that have sex scenes in them, but it ALSO is the shift within a franchise that I don't like. I played BG1 and 2 and SOD. I had a romance with the Captain lady in SOD. My character chose to sleep with her at the end. Never once did I see a naked person, there was no sex scenes or even sex noises. I played them all with 0 issue, and I enjoyed them tremendously. My character later romanced Jaheira, and the same was true. It was pure adventure because that was the focus.

Think of it like this. Star Wars originally did so well because Mom and Dad could take their kids to see it. The movies didn't exclude anyone. Now imagine if they had a steamy sex scenes or two between Han and Leia. Do you think they'd have done so well? No. Why? They would have immediately excluded a large part of their potential audience.

BG1 and 2 could be played by anyone. BG3 will exclude people simply because of sexual content. Guaranteed. Keep the sex content in the background and able to be parent locked and you exclude no one. Plain and simple.

Where was I not civil? For calling things what they are? So, as you said, let's avoid acceptable by your standard role-playing of murder hobo topic (which you can play for 150 hours non-stop) and get exclusively to "unacceptable" by your standard sex topic, which happens for few seconds in the cut scene only if you optionally romance certain characters. Such a huge focus on sex... yeah, the whole minute of a cut scene in 100 hours full walk-through.

First of all, calling the sex scene in this game a porn is already completely wrong. Either the OP doesn't understand the meaning of the word or deliberately twisting it. The word porn means "a prostitute" in Latin and the whole definition of porn movie is the a prostitute is getting paid to have sex so others can watch it. How does it relates to the BG3? It does not, question about cartoon porn closed.

Secondly, the whole "sex is bad" attitude. Sex is as bad as eating, drinking, shitting and so on. It's not only a natural activity of every human but any species in general. Sex is a mean to procreate and a goal in life of any specimen is to find a suitable pair by whatever means available, have sex, and produce next generation preferably successful to do the same later. Any deviations from this strategy cause the extinction of a person who failed to do that.

Then you go on a rant, by some reason, about Star Wars, which failure is not related to the topic whatsoever. It failed because of bad writing, not because of presence or absence of sex. So far writing in this game is fine if you don't deep dive into the evil path, which was inconsistent last time I checked.

Well, he has two options: either stop lying to himself that sex is bad and the second option is to avoid playing games like BG3. I'm pretty sure that he's just a hypocrite like most religious people and will be playing the game anyway even if Larian adds 10 minutes of non-stop sex in it. If he's a real honest prude then he will be in such minuscule minority that it won't reflect on the game well-being in any way.

I'm not religious at all but that is the definition of being uncivil by making it personal and insulting people who hold such beliefs. Contrary to your line about educated times, I would argue that we are actually living through one of the stupidest times in Human history but that's another discussion for another forum.


Firstly, we don't live in Ancient Rome so nobody is conversing in Latin these days. Dictionary definition of Pornography:
1: the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement
2: material (such as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement
3: the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction

Literally nobody in this thread has said sex is bad, though thanks for the Biology lesson, I'm sure none of us were aware of what procreation is until now. May I suggest reading people's posts properly because it seems that you are misunderstanding those who oppose the idea of graphic sex in BG3.

Yea, the whole point of a Fantasy world for alot of us, is we want to be supriced, we want to be chocked, like any book, movie, regardless of theme, its a escape, and we want to be thrilled... If i get lost in the deaph forest, and stumbles on a nymph, or a incubus, i want it in my face,i want it to be thrilled... IF larian inserted a warning sign, if you are cristian please go left by the big oak, to avoid next adult themed scene... its just absurd... talk about a turn off, and runing the whole experience...
This whole things is just absurd, more so, when nothing of it being real, and advertised as fantasy for adults... the problem isnt that is fantasy in all its forms, the problem is some not being able to handle it as such !

If you look to the title of this entire post... Larian is accused of cartoon porn, and well everything is cartoonish, couse it isnt real... its all fantasy, regardless of what it depict... allow Fantasy to be fantasy, if some cant handle unreal things, maybe they should leave it to those that actually want a DnD Fantasy world with all its cartoonish things...

I really don’t believe these is any issue with people seeing a naked female breast. Those with reservations are talking about graphic sex, not seeing a naked nymph.

It sort of sounds like you are hoping for a sexual encounter with these ‘erotic’ creatures should you see them on your adventures?

Thats up to Larian to decide, what im hoping is that larian keep making a fantasy game for adults, that uses the grafical advances unhinged, be it, good, evil, violence, gore, horror or sexually natured... couse regardles what Larian choose to do, it is just that its fantasy and its not real... as i said, in earlier post -> -"the problem isnt that is fantasy in all its forms, the problem is some not being able to handle it as such !"

PS i suggest you actually read the thread, you have a person in this thread that cant handle the "shed with ogres(?)" and or the night in the camp scene, that if anything is a kiss or some skin... and again, it isnt real !

I love that these types of video games are becoming more open-minded when it comes to sex. Like why are people ok with the violence and killing and murder, but lose their mind when we see some bare flesh,,, a breast or a buttock. 🤣🤣🤣 Give me some Game of Thrones! No really, I've watched chef GoT with friends, family, mom, niece. No issues, no qualms. It's natural. Why the fuss? The Minthara scene didn't bother me at all. It was quite erotic and I liked it. In fact, I was really glad that they decided to be that explicit. I eagerly anticipate my fun time with Wyll! 😋

Sure, that's easy enough to explain. I am not really ok with glorification of the violence and killing and murder, however, fantasy worlds, like that of Forgottem Realms, has made them more agreeable. From what I understand about Forgottem Realms, it is rather similar to the world Tolkien created - meaning it has living personifications of good and evil. Elfs are good and that is that, and orcs are evil and that is that. Removing evil makes things better, therefore killing orcs is not only acceptable, but a good thing to do. On top of that, stories have a long tradition of personify concepts - so presenting characters in a physical conflict, while focusing on ideologies that drive them. A simple example of that would be superhero stories, were villains are usually dark reflections of the hero - so while there is a physical conflict between the characters, a good superhero story will focus on what drives and divide them. Even in that simple narrative, reducing the story to "two guys punching each other" would be reductive. That's is really the space classic BG1&2 were occupying.

I haven't really seen no such "different world" rules for sex in the world of BG, nor a narrative significance behind it. As such I am much less OK with them, as the game and the world did no attempt to decouple the ingame act, from its real world moral connotations, or justify their inclusion. Of course, I have to stress that what I have seen are only two romance scenes - Minthara and Shadowheart. Shadowheart was fine so far, though clunky and awkard and Minthara's was part of an absolutely attrocious evil path - not in terms of "mature content" but how poorly it was put together. In that regard Larian is living up to Bioware legacy, as they always struggled to make decent non-good paths. So it is possible that in the end my dislike for Minthara sex scene, is just part of a larger problem of evil path being rather shit.

I would also want to stress that I don't mean to say that there is no place for a more deconstructionist approach. I dislike R rated comic stuff, which add R rated content, without changing anything else, but stuff like Alan Moore's "Watchman" (I know, an easy example) is great. In fantasy RPG terms Dragon Age:O attempted something similar, with mixed result IMO, and so did Pillars of Eternity and to some extend Witchers. Baldur's Gate3, however, so far offers no spin on traditional fantasy tropes, nor commentary on traditional hero stories, doesn't create a more grounded worlds. Some call it "adult fantasy" but it is really not shaping like that so far. What I have seen is very basic story, filled with characters with a very shallow emotional depth. It just has more violence, cursing and sex but otherwise, mature it is not.

There is a wonderful quote by James Gunn after Deadpool was released: "... over the next few months... you'll see Holywood misunderstanding the lessons they should be learning with Deadpool. They'll be green lighting films 'like Deadpool' - but, by that, they won't mean 'good and original' but 'a raunchy superhero film' or 'it breaks the fourth wall.'" We have also seen TV shows attempt to emulate GoT success by stripping other IPs of their identity, desperately trying to create GoT knockoffs. That is what Larian is doing in my eyes, looking at Dragon Ages and Witchers and wanting to emulate their success, and not asking why they succeeded, or how they can create their own good game - they just take and strip bits of those, use strong IP and stitch them to their D:OS formula hoping for the same impact. Couple pages back some defended Larian as artists, but coherent and confident artistic direction is what this game desperately lacks.

As to why the focus on sex, but not the other two? At this point censoring violence and cursing would take quite a bit of work, as they are tied to gameplay and narrative content of BG3. Sex scenes aren't - they already seem to contribute little to nothing. Some pointed out that one can skip it without issues, which very much highlights the problem - they ARE disposable. And to be clear, I am not really that invested in having sex scenes removed - they are pretty low on my priority list. If I find them embarrasing, I will skip them. But one can point out how crappy they are - both in execution and concept.

It seems like this game just isn't for some of you.

This isn't some bible camp it’s DnD the forgotten realms a very raunchy setting if you are familiar with the source material this game is built from.

Making 15 pages begging for them to change the game into something its not and is never going to be seems like a giant waste of energy to me.

There are plenty of PG rated games out there.

Well said @Wormerine
To add on to this, at it's core D&D is a combat simulator. The overwhelming majority of mechanics are built for combat. You can't make a D&D video game while censoring violence; that would basically defeat the whole point. (Okay, you could, but it'd be so different from the D&D experience that it might as well be something entirely different. Insert "play a different tabletop system" comments here.)

Sex scenes, however, aren't core D&D mechanics, or even necessary features of the playing in the Forgotten Realms. Even nudity isn't a necessary feature, as nymphs/succubi/etc don't need to be in any specific campaign. So it's reasonable to think that a D&D game won't have explicit sex in it. At the very least, requesting a fade-to-black option is really not that much of an ask.

I interesting claim. As someone who played most major D&D and non-D&D cRPGs, and Baldur’s Gate series specifically I would be willing to call bullshit on that. But maybe you are right, maybe computer adaptations have been sanitised up to this point. Let’s see… D&D starter set… 12+ rating, just like your usual D&D cRPG. How… expected.

D&D has always taken greater inspiration from Conan the Barbarian and other pulp fantasy stories than Lord of the Rings. It's not Christian. It was explicitly the target of a smear campaign by Christians. I'm glad Larian is leaning into its roots and making a fantasy world that actually feels real. If I were thrown into this scenario and thought I could die any minute and was given the opportunity to hook up with a hot companion, I would absolutely do it in a heartbeat, and anyone honest with themselves would as well. The only reason previous generations of games didn't include sex was a combination of graphical limitations and censorship. We don't need to go backwards in progress when it comes to art. Enough of the Hayes code and Comics Code Authority. If that repells certain ideological segments of the population from playing the game, then good. I want an RPG that will really let me stretch my legs in the kind of content I can enjoy.

The mechanics of D&D deal largely with combat, because everything else can be taken care of with roleplaying. Saying that the sex doesn't contribute to the story is giving it short shrift. To look at it another way, if BG3 glorified violence it would be offensive, and if it used sex solely in a exploitative way, that would be meaningless, but I don't think either of these are the case. I remember Harlan Ellison describing gratuitous violence as violence that happens by rote, someone dies and it hold no meaning for the characters, which conditions the audience to feel the same. Nothing is gratuitous about the sex in Baldur's Gate.