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?

So most of the explicit cutscenes are still under construction, so I cannot say to what extent those scenes are necessary for character development, but I CAN speak to explicit scenes in other RPGs. In Bioware games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, it never seemed like the explicit scenes were 100% necessary for understanding a character or its development? If someone has a counterexample, I'd be glad to be proven wrong. Similarly, I don't see how the suggestions of having a fade-to-black on this forum resolve that problem, for if there is character development in those scenes, having a fade to black just strikes the development from the record? What is the proposed solution here for the balance of explicit scenes and underlying character development outside of watch-it-or-don't?

Put the text box for the choices on the black screen? I mean, I literally read your post and this popped into my head. I can't be sure that I hadn't read it somewhere else before, but this is the simplest solution to this big problem.

That could work. Keep the audio and the text boxes, but give the option to "remove/censor" explicit scenes in the settings. For people who really care, there can just be a visual block. Otherwise, for people who want to view the content or don't mind it, the setting is tucked away and the content in full view.

I'm all for a fade to black as an option and absolutely believe the devs need to read Niara's critique of the sex scenes.

But I am 100% in favor of the "cartoon pr0n" - because Larian has decided to do much its storytelling in the form of cinematics and these scenes contain important aspects of the story. Encouraging Astarian to bite you . . . allowing it . . . forbidding it. All important for the romance. The morning after scene with him basking in the sunlight and you reading the elaborate scars on his back - all important. I suspect that Wyll's scars also tell stories . . .

Is everything in a roleplaying game about character development? Considering roleplaying is about imitating life, is everything in life about developing your character? For some the highest, most noble motivation can involve love and romance. Sex can be the ultimate symbol of that. For others sex and vice can very much be necessary for understanding a character. People have multi-layered and diverse interests and the more art imitates life - the more immersive the experience will be.

Explicit scenes, if artistically represented, can very much heighten these character motivations or traits. You desire more than killing the next enemy, looting his corpse for your next +1 longsword and gaining your next level for your next ability. Romance/sex can be perceived as a break from that mechanical harshness. You can have a private live besides your career as a full-time adventurer.

Explicit sex can be compared to explicit violence and the same arguments can be made against it. Probably with better reason too. Why does some people want to see blood and gore so much? Are these people latent psychos? Does it further character development? I DEMAND a bloodless/painless rendition of violence! It offends me. Everything offends someone. Please leave your subjective morality at your door.

Are you forced to engage in romance? No. Are you forced against your will to 'do the sex' even if you want to dabble a little in romance (for purely scientific research reasons I'm sure)? I should hope not. The only argument here is the prioritization of resources - but in a game with multiple animated druidic wild shapes climbing ladders, I think its safe to say the cat is out of the bag.

I'm sorry that you are not able to take criticism personally and consider it an insult.

I do not refuse my words, this is hypocrisy in the literal sense.

Hypocrisy is the practice of engaging in the same behavior or activity for which one criticizes another, or the practice of asserting moral standards or beliefs that one's own behavior does not conform to. (wikipedia)

In a game where animation is given great attention, and the facial expressions of the characters are amazing (I even notice wrinkles), they cling to a one-minute video that should symbolize the moment of the highest closeness between the characters, this is too much.
You won't tell an artist that his work offends your feelings before he's finished all the work, will you?
You think you figured out the author's idea, but you still don't know what the end result will be.
And if your harsh assessment will spoil the masterpiece? You called the game "cartoon porn" in advance, denigrating the colossal work of the employees on the entire project with this label.

I think that the Lorians should give the opportunity to watch such content to those who want to watch it, and if you don't want to watch it, then just skip it.

I don't remember if it's been broached but even having things described is too far for some people. Just having the dialogue options available would be enough.

We've brought this up before, people want to romance characters, but not have to see them explicitly have sex. It's not even clear to me that you'll have to have sex with your chosen romance, but it does seem out of character for a few of them.

I don't disagree with you, but the comment I was replying to was specifically about character development. My suggestions has been to allow people to skip it like any cinematic if they don't like it, just like they can skip any cinematic in the game (usually if you have seen the cinematic a dozen times). There is no change needed. I can skip any cinematic I want (and do, as I am sick of seeing the same cinematics over and over and over).
I am a little confused at your reply? All morality is, to some extent, subjective in that moral propositions are statements which concern our experience of the world and what we experience as rightness or wrongness within the world as perceived specifically by ourselves. Moral propositions tend not to cover empirical content or external falsifiability. Unless you believe in some divine moral arbiter, the truth value of moral statements is not fixed by some metaphysical force. The truth of this statement is that mores have changed fundamentally over time, over space, over culture, and yet every time, place, and culture considers its own morality to be objective within its own frame of reference. But I imagine many people in this forum (myself included) would be uncomfortable if the game showed vivid depictions of the torture we engage in at the goblin camp, like showing the removal of skin and fingernails in graphic detail, providing lifelike renditions of burning flesh, complete with recorded screams from people who were actually burned alive in real life, or vivid, lifelike depictions of rape. Should we check these subjective moralities at the door? I am not appealing to the extreme to strawman the position; rather, I am pointing out that even if adult themes are designed to subvert the sociocultural taboos of media in the form of art, we still have limits and boundaries. "Graphic" sex is a spectrum that can range from a few suggestive scenes of bodies in motion against each other to full-on close up renditions of genitals, bodily fluids, and the like. Similarly, "graphic" violence can be a spectrum that ranges from telling us what happens and showing a bit of blood and gore to hyperrealistic renditions of such gore and horror based on, say, crime or combat footage.

Usually I find my agreeing/disagreeing with Niara to be around 50/50. What page is the critique on in this topic if you recall (if not don't worry about it)? Really don't want to go through 24 pages of forum posts.

Censor Option would work something like this:

Censor Option Yes/No - skips scenes with explicitly sexual content or blurs out nudity if the scene is essential to the story. Also removes unnecessary vulgarity.

By default, the selection is No.

This is just one example: You leave it as no. You trigger Astarion's sex scene by agreeing to join him that night. You see the whole scene in its entirety. Astarion makes out with your MC, the scene shows the two of you doing things. Whatever dialogue is in the actual sex scene occurs, but it is not really vital to the story or character development. It is basically just sex scene dialogue. Then, after it is over, your MC wakes up and has the next morning dialogue with Astarion which actually is meaningful to his character and to the development of your MCs relationship with him.

You reach Grymforge. The duergar guy says, "Where's Thrynn?" Answer: "Probably still choking on Nere's prick." All background dialogues are also included because Censor Option is No.

Now, let's say you change Censor option to Yes. This is how both scenarios would go:

You trigger Astarion's sex scene by agreeing to join him that night.
Fade to black. Then, after it is over, your MC wakes up and has the next morning dialogue with Astarion which actually is meaningful to his character and to the development of your MCs relationship with him.

You reach Grymforge. The duergar guy says, "Where's Thrynn?" Answer: "Probably still [audio cuts out and subtitles black out the text indicating that it is vulgarity]. All background dialogues containing any sort of vulgarity are also disabled with no subtitles appearing on screen because Censor Option is Yes.

Another example: Minthara's sex scene. You agree to sleep with her. Option is No for Censor, and you see everything. Option is Yes for Censor, and as soon as you agree to sleep with her, the scene cuts to the first dialogue snippet that actually has any kind of character development, background, etc. If Minthara and your MC are naked, the screen blurs out the naughty bits. The dialogue commences, and as soon as the important dialogue is finished, the scene cuts again.

In other words, if Larian doesn't think that ANY dialogue text or audio is important to character development, etc. the whole scene is simply auto-skipped. The game tags your MC as having had the encounter, but you, the player, saw nothing. You got the idea what happened, and that's all you need. The rest is left to your imagination.

Lae'zel, if remember right, would be a good example. I don't think she had ANY important dialogue. So, Censor Option is Yes? You trigger the scene. Boom! Next day. Maybe she makes a comment or something to imply that you had a rather painful encounter or whatever, and that's it. Game continues.

In this way, I could trigger ANY romance and not have to worry about getting an eye-full. I could safely watch SH's romance scene without fearing it's going to get raunchy. I could get Minthara's important backstory details without watching her do naughty things with my MC.

I would not go as far as add a skip option because intimate relationships can be used as a crucial plot device for a lot of situations. A fade to black option, with the option to skip the hidden cinematic like any others, would be the most sensible to me.

Like we've pointed out though GM4Him, the meaningful dialogue doesn't necessarily occur around the sex scenes. In your scenario how are you going to cut around the aforementioned choice you make in the Astarion scene letting him bite your neck, or the telepathic connection between Wyl and Mizora etc etc.

Zerubabbel, KillerRabbit might be referring to Niara's post on the choreography of the sex scenes she posted a while back. Focused Examination: Intimate Choreography with Small-sized Characters

@Akorolin

Maybe you are not talking to me, but it seems like you are since I was the one to address your hypocrisy comment.

If it was hypocrisy, I would say, "I detest sex scenes and vulgarity," or "sex scenes in movies, games, books, etc. are evil," but then I would secretly watch all the sex scenes and love them and the vulgarity, etc. I would say I hate and disapprove of such things and tell others they are bad and so forth, but then I would secretly go and watch porn etc., etc. etc.

I do not do such things. When I play games like this, I do everything in my power to avoid the sex scenes and vulgarity. I do not like them, and very honestly I wish they were removed from all games.

As for the rest of what you said, I don't really like nudity so blatantly displayed for everyone to see. It's not offending my feelings. It's just something I don't want to see and I don't think it's good for others to see - especially impressionable children or horny young adults who don't know how to control themselves (of course, horny young adults aren't the only ones who have a hard time controling themselves in this area, which is another reason why I think it's not good to do).

Consequently, my daughter is an artist. In college, she had to draw nude people just to get through school. She did not enjoy it, and she never wants to do such a thing again. Did she refuse to paint or draw these nude people? Nope. She did it because she had to in order to graduate. Did I get all condemning of her for doing so? Nope. I supported her. I even looked at some of her art in support of her as well as to provide critiques and so forth. And frankly, it IS upsetting that schools demand that their art students have to paint nude people regardless of whether they want to or not.

But I digress. That in no way makes me a hypocrite. I still do not want to see explicit sex scenes in my entertainment, nor do I like vulgarity, and I really don't think either is good for people in general. I also still don't watch porn or go looking for nudy pictures while saying that I don't like these things.

And yes. I absolutely will critique someone's unfinished art, or an author's idea regardless of knowing the end result if they ask me to do so. Larian has asked us to provide feedback and suggestions, and this is one of my feedbacks and suggestions.

Also, I am not calling the entire game "cartoon porn". I am calling some of the sex scenes, especially Minthara's, cartoon porn. Unless something has changed, I believe the only thing they didn't include that would make it absolutely porn was showing the particulars while doing the act.

And finally, "I think that the Lorians should give the opportunity to watch such content to those who want to watch it, and if you don't want to watch it, then just skip it." This is exactly what I'm looking for except I would like an auto-skip option in the settings so that if the scene is about to get explicitly sexual, the game auto-skips the scene and moves on to the next one. Then I don't have to get an eye-full before I hit the button to skip it. Images flash quickly, and they can stay in your brain forever. It only takes a moment for an image to affect you. I'd appreciate it if Larian made it so that I don't have to worry about such a thing.

Can I get Gale to cast Owl's Wisdom and Astarion to give me Guidance through the Harper amulet before I sleep with Shadowheart?

Heya, glad I'm at least thought provoking ^.^

Others are referring to two threads that I made a while back.

This one: Focused Feedback: Minthara's Intimacy [Heavy Spoilers][potentially NSFW screenshots and language]

and this one: Focused Examination: Intimate Choreography with Small-sized Characters

The first is a thread examining the Minthara scene specifically, in terms of its construction, delivery, choreography/shooting, atmosphere and other elements. It uses screenshots from the game to support itself.

The second thread is a more general discussion of the process of creating intimate scenes, how to construct shoot and choreograph them, and the considerations you need to make regarding tone and atmosphere, and the impact on those things that your design choices have; it discusses much of what we can see in game already, as part of that. This thread, in particular, if focused around the considerations that need to be taken into account when writing intimate scenes involving small-sized characters (such as halflings and gnomes). Unfortunatly, the second thread used 3d models to support itself, since game screenshots were not sufficient for the discussion, and as a result the larian mods felt the images had to be removed - the thread itself is a little difficult to rally wrap your mind around without the supporting images though, so I'd recommend anyone interested in reading it seriously contact me for a link to the unedited document instead; I can't link it directly, but I can supply it privately on request.

I’m finding it harder to keep my mouth shut on this thread now I’ve broken my silence once, and am going to give in to temptation and make one more post before zipping it again.

I am in favour of there being an easy way to skip extended explicit sex scenes, and would certainly make use of such a function myself if such scenes are as wonkily animated and jarringly out of character for my custom MCs as I fear they will be (but will be delighted, though astonished, if Larian find a way to implement such scenes in a way that I would find convincing and engaging).

But the ability to censor every instance of nudity, vulgarity and swearing in the game seems a much bigger ask, just because those are a significant part of the way Larian seem to be envisaging the world the game is set in. Of course they didn’t need to go in this direction, and a cleaner, more family-friendly interpretation of the Sword Coast would no doubt have better suited many gamers, but I for one am glad of the artistic direction they have taken and would be disappointed to see them compromise on it, even if I wish they’d implement it slightly more subtly sometimes.

I wouldn’t tend to roleplay a crude, sweary character myself, but I find it realistic and interesting that even the purest paladin I might want to play would need to navigate a world in which they have to interact with such characters. In fact, I think one of the biggest triumphs of Early Access is the portrayal of the goblins, who are so irredeemably rude, vulgar and awful but nevertheless clearly people. I don’t think the impact they have could have been achieved in a game that was worrying about its players being exposed to vulgar content. And while I don’t have any objection in principle to Larian offering a censorship option for such content, I hope that they don’t shy away from producing a game in which such an option would be difficult, expensive, intrusive and immersion-breaking.

I’m not happy that this would no doubt alienate some gamers, I wish everyone could appreciate the darker, dirtier, raunchier world that Larian seem to be aiming for and it will be sad if some people who would otherwise have enjoyed a BG game feel excluded by its aesthetic in this area. But given that I think the game would be far less to my taste if it were good, clean family fun, I reserve the right to be pleased that Larian’s artistic vision seems on the whole, though not universally, to be in line with my own preferences!

With respect to nakedness outside of sex scenes, I have no problem with this as long as it seems appropriate in context and is not blatantly salacious. And as long as the same approach is taken to all genders, rather than there being female but not male nudity. Done correctly, I would find seeing some nudity far more realistic and less startling than seeing everyone with naughty bits conveniently and somewhat implausibly covered up. I personally wouldn’t use an option to censor nudity, as opposed to extended sex scenes, were one offered.

Sorry for leading people astray. I misremembered the Minthara scene feedback being part of the choreography one.

I'll agree with the complete and total censoring of anything anyone would find offensive in the game. Despite it being subjective, and inauthentic to the tone and setting, it's just a huge investment for a worse product. It's the type of thing I'd expect the modding community to take care of.

I wouldn't say leading astray... I've just written, er... rather a lot since coming to these forums ^.^

ONLY one thing to say who Fing cares, seriously enough is aenough if you dont want to see Sex then go into to setting and censorship it, like seriously this i becoming stupid. i think it ok to have Sex in a VG it a VG grow the F up stop shaming Sex just cause it Sex. they Make it how they want when you own a company and decide to make a game it your choice. this is just to much and beyond stupidly retarded.

are the scenes NECESSARY? No. But they add to the experience for those who wish to explore that in their fantasy experience. That being said, I do think the sexual encounters should have options based on fetishes, relationship preferences, how much you want to see, and whether you want fade to black or full on porn. I don't expect detailed implementation of everything I just listed, but giving people the option to enjoy video game sexuality and romance at their leisure will help with your critiques.