Larian Banner: Baldur's Gate Patch 9
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Page 5 of 11 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 11
Joined: Feb 2022
Location: UK
Volunteer Moderator
Offline
Volunteer Moderator
Joined: Feb 2022
Location: UK
Originally Posted by Sozz
I don't consider the setting of Faerun to be tailored to fit every roleplayer, if it were it would have skills and take social interactions more seriously. It's a heroic adventure game, and heroes can be anyone, if it dealt more with the fantasy societies in a realistic way than I would expect these issues to have satisfying answers. But like I mentioned, because the Forgotten Realms is such a pastiche of tones, genres, cultures and time periods, I don't sweat it too much. But I do think there was a antique mindset in the setting that has become more and more modern with mixed results, for me at least.

Agreed, unfortunately there's no way of pleasing everyone given that people's preferences in some cases just aren't compatible. And you're of course right Faerun has a mishmash of tones and cultures, and from practically the start the setting and the D&D game has been changing and evolving to meet the needs of its players, e.g. in its treatment of male and female characters. I wasn't a D&D fan in the 70s and 80s, but I'll bet there were many of the same debates then about allowing unrealistic portrayals of women in a mediaeval setting, just so that female characters could participate on an equal footing, as we're having about LGBT+ characters now. At least noone is suggesting that the latter should have different stats!

Of course not every roleplayer is going to be comfortable with the changes that are made and some are going to find it a little alienating and perhaps narratively suspect. But many others will also feel more comfortable, and I hope people will take your attitude and not sweat it too much, given how much it can mean to others to be able to play the characters they want in the way they want. As mentioned before, I'd hate it if I couldn't play a female character in BG3 who didn't have to deal with mediaeval attitudes to women and hopefully most if not all other players will now accept, as a matter of course, that I can. As well as that that there are female characters throughout Faerun doing stuff most women just wouldn't have been able to in mediaeval Europe, and this is no big deal. Perhaps in another few decades people will find it equally as unremarkable to find LGBT+ characters in the setting doing the same. (Well hopefully not as long as that ...)


"You may call it 'nonsense' if you like, but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!"
Joined: Jan 2023
S
old hand
Offline
old hand
S
Joined: Jan 2023
Yeah, that's why I mentioned the "procreation without sticking it in directly" option and marriage in name only. There's no reason why it should be such a big issue... unless virginity and fidelity to one partner are prized at once. It's all structured around marriage to one partner to the point you can't get away with anything else. Or, If you can, it'd bring up a lot of questions about involved parties' motives.

Joined: Feb 2022
Location: UK
Volunteer Moderator
Offline
Volunteer Moderator
Joined: Feb 2022
Location: UK
Originally Posted by Silver/
Yeah, that's why I mentioned the "procreation without sticking it in directly" option and marriage in name only. There's no reason why it should be such a big issue... unless virginity and fidelity to one partner are prized at once. It's all structured around marriage to one partner to the point you can't get away with anything else.

Sorry, with posts crossing over I'm losing track of what posts are responding to what points!

Gray Ghost made the point that the Dorian thing could be as much to to with eugenics as social prejudices, or that the (possible?) hereditary nature of magic in powerful magical families in Tevinter would tend to drive social prejudices against mages refusing to have children. I suspect you might have been responding to something before that?


"You may call it 'nonsense' if you like, but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!"
Joined: Aug 2020
veteran
Online Content
veteran
Joined: Aug 2020
Well I'm not familiar with every little detail ofthe setting-though I do probably know more than the average player-but I don't think people in Thedas have the means to enact artificial insemination. Maybe that's a thing that's been available in crude manner for longer than I realized in our real world, so they could potentially have something like it in Thedas, but it's never come up as something which could be done.

As far as the marriage issue, my understanding is that marriage in name only could have worked if Dorian had been willing to just "lie back and think of Tevinter" until a baby was made, but Dorian specifically did not want to compromise his identity for the sake of his family lineage. An irrational choice? Definitely. But not an unbelievable one in my view at least.

Joined: Feb 2022
Location: UK
Volunteer Moderator
Offline
Volunteer Moderator
Joined: Feb 2022
Location: UK
Originally Posted by Gray Ghost
Dorian specifically did not want to compromise his identity for the sake of his family lineage. An irrational choice? Definitely. But not an unbelievable one in my view at least.

Not unbelievable at all! As a woman who has chosen not to have children, if my family had tried to force me to have kids I would not have been even slightly tempted to comply. My choice, I'm sure, would have been a lot harder in different societies, and indeed in different families within my society, plus my family certainly has no dynastic power to preserve, but I feel a very visceral horror at the idea of being forced to have a child against my will. I guess it could be argued it's not as big a thing if you're not actually the one giving birth, but it's still plenty big if you take your responsibilities seriously and, even if you take the question of kids out of it, the idea of being pressured into having sex when you don't want to is pretty repellant too.

Perhaps, as you say, there is a Tevinter equivalent of a turkey baster (or the baster of a Tevinter equivalent of a turkey?!) that could be used, which would eliminate the unwilling sex element of it, if not the unwilling parent bit. But even then Dorian would only have reason to do it if he particularly wanted to prop up the existing power structures in Tevinter, including his family's role in them, and I don't think that's something he's up for anyway, even if it didn't involve making sacrifices on his part. If he'd valued Tevinter society in its current form and felt it right to support his family's position in it, then he may well have made some different choices. But then, if he hadn't felt some tension between the way that society worked and his identity then he may never have questioned it.

Anyway, I've got interested in a tangent again, so apologies for another off topic post!


"You may call it 'nonsense' if you like, but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!"
Joined: Jan 2023
S
old hand
Offline
old hand
S
Joined: Jan 2023
Ah, sorry, no. My point was that I believe the background as to why these options don't exist is of religious nature. I can't really remember enough about most of DA:I to gauge Dorian's stance on having children. What's in my head is just this big conflict because he doesn't want to marry the person chosen for him. While I do find it believeable someone may just run away, his family never made a move to offer an alternative. It's all this or all that.

Joined: Oct 2020
member
Offline
member
Joined: Oct 2020
Representation is always important.

Blacks don't play games, Women don't play games. Queers don't play games, Gender-fluid don't play games.

Every time a game offers a "new" choice for protaganist it turns out that those people do play games and are very glad to be seen, and there are always others would like to explore those options.

This is a small step. I'm not cross about that, because thats how all journeys begin. There is much more to explore, much more to be addressed. Just admitting that enbys exist and are worthy of consideration is a fantastic start, one that wouldn't have happened as little as a decade ago.

It doesn't affect me directly, but the progression of freedom and equipability is something I have always felt strongly about. So, cheers Larian! I'm looking forward to the next steps.

Joined: Jun 2012
Brainer Offline OP
enthusiast
OP Offline
enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2012
Originally Posted by Umbra
Representation is always important.

Blacks don't play games, Women don't play games. Queers don't play games, Gender-fluid don't play games.

Every time a game offers a "new" choice for protaganist it turns out that those people do play games and are very glad to be seen, and there are always others would like to explore those options.

This is a small step. I'm not cross about that, because thats how all journeys begin. There is much more to explore, much more to be addressed. Just admitting that enbys exist and are worthy of consideration is a fantastic start, one that wouldn't have happened as little as a decade ago.

It doesn't affect me directly, but the progression of freedom and equipability is something I have always felt strongly about. So, cheers Larian! I'm looking forward to the next steps.

Is it really freedom when all the supposed "expression" amounts to is basically yet another set of stereotypes coded as "not conforming to stereotypes"? And as fringe an opinion as it may seem, lumping race, sex and sexual orientation together with gender identity is downright wrong. And black (which to most oh-so-progressive people just means specifically African American) people are not the only non-white ethnicity out there, but it sure seems to be the only one because apparently the whole world needs to feel as guilty as US for enslaving people based on ethnicity (in which case, I guess, Norse cultures should be constantly apologizing to just about everyone else...).

The first three (race, sex, sexual orientation) are innate and immutable, and arguing against representing them in media (unless, again, it's done in a very ham-fisted, pandering way rather than a natural, matter-of-factly one) is kind of pointless. GI, though, is not only a psychological/social phenomenon, in many ways conformative as it stems from gender stereotypes integrated into the society (hence the existence of the gender critical movement which rejects the concept, rather justly pointing out how regressive and self-destructive it is for people engaging in it), but is also NOT innate and immutable (otherwise the concept of "gender-fluid" would not exist, no?), and one can raise cases as to why its existence in the setting would either not make much sense at all or should probably take nuances of perception into account (which I painstakingly described in the opening post and in one later on).

And to address a, perhaps, misinterpreted point of mine from the previous post: what I meant is that specifically accessibility options should most certainly be there, because they allow for an ability to experience the game in the first place for people that would otherwise be unable to. My point was that it's unfair to compare that to something that, in itself, is not something that removes an actual barrier that would otherwise be there for a percentage of people. To put it more simply - I don't think accessiblity options is something that people would want to mod out of the game on purpose. And while one can make a point about how people would want to "whitewash" characters or something to that extent - I've already made a point on that in the previous paragraph.

While I may come across as spiteful, my opinion on the whole debacle is that it's really unfortunate that people would so easily let the society's values and antiquated views dictate how they should act, dress, and express themselves while thinking that it's their "authentic" identity all the while. It's dowright unjust that instead of letting somebody actually explore their personality and not ascribe traits and interests to either gender or lack thereof, there is instead a chimeric construct in place that forces one to conform in some way or another (when there's a tailored "non-binary look" when it's supposed to imply the lack of conformity, it says a lot...) and to police their own behaviour and that of others. It's a culture that's both insidiously cruel and stuffed full of safety coushions, which results in people fighting over who is the biggest victim and the most oppressed while spiraling downwards into turning the concept of "identity" into a lifestyle rather than simply a set of traits.

That is something that only a modern, Internet-equipped and consumerist-centric cultural landscape could have conceived, as far as my take goes. Where people are so obsessed with being different that they all end up circling back to looking and behaving the same, and seek to either undo anything "conservative" just for the sake of undoing it without really questioning why it's there in the first place, or hang onto whatever values they consider sacred to them like there's nothing else for them existing in life.

Well, that was a hell of a tangent.

Last edited by Brainer; 05/01/23 12:58 PM.
Joined: Jul 2022
Z
addict
Offline
addict
Z
Joined: Jul 2022
To the original post .
My personal opinion i wouldlike to say no to this. Ofc if they will implement it idk i will just ignore it.
But the real reason is why i dont want that. The game should be released w/o bugs and missing class features like example eldritch knight.
I think if they released the game they can for sure patch some cosmetics changes. After that i am fine with it.

Joined: Oct 2020
old hand
Offline
old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
Here's my take:

I'm fine with it. They can include whatever they want, so long as they don't try to force me to interact with it, if I don't want to. As it stands, it's optional, meaning I can completely ignore it, but if NPCs start trying to employ "misgendering" or similar, then I'm going to ask for a refund. I don't play video games to be reminded that some people think that their world view is the only one that matters. I play them to get away from that shit. I neither want, or need, a game to beat me over the head with it. Existing in character creation doesn't beat me over the head with it. I'm fine with it. I'm not required to use the features, so I don't care.

I absolutely loved Dorian. I've never done the romance, because it doesn't appeal to me, but his being gay didn't matter in the slightest. Krem didn't bother me at all, but I was impressed to find out that he was voiced by Jennifer Hale, because I never would have guessed. I'm not looking at their sexuality, or preferences, or identities. I'm looking at what kind of character they are. The character that I hated the most in the Dragon Age series was Alistair, a straight white male, because of how he reacts when you go to Redcliffe and are legit surprised at his reveal in the cutscene just before you get there.

So by all means, be as "inclusive" as they choose to be, so long as they include the option to ignore it.

Joined: Jan 2023
S
old hand
Offline
old hand
S
Joined: Jan 2023
OP, most of that argument is really a gender critical outright lie. I don't know how many trans people you've met, but generally, trans women who don't dress hyperfeminine, and trans men who do dress feminine, are not rare.

The problem is, GC people turn around and call these people fakers. So either you're not dressing fem/masc enough to please the GC crowd, or you're dressing too fem/masc and are a singular (=harmful) stereotype. There is no middle path.

This is intentional and not their only rethoric trap, but it really needs to be said. It is a strawman used for justifying harrassment of anyone they don't like. It's not a good faith argument and engaging with it leads nowhere. You also get "drag is womanface", "only switching is morally progressive (non-heteronormative) gay sex", and more from that base.

As is, the presence of trans people is incredibly optional and you more or less have a "no trans or enby people in this world at all, please" button. That is going very far in accomodating anyone. Both ways.

Last edited by Silver/; 05/01/23 01:59 PM. Reason: Grammar
Joined: Feb 2022
Location: UK
Volunteer Moderator
Offline
Volunteer Moderator
Joined: Feb 2022
Location: UK
Originally Posted by Brainer
Hence the existence of the gender critical movement which rejects the concept, rather justly pointing out how regressive and self-destructive it is for people engaging in it

I am not sure where you are based, Brainer, but I am in the UK. Here, people with gender critical beliefs have, as I see it, been inflaming political debate about trans people, arguing for effective removal of their rights to access public services and fiercely resisting moves to make the public sphere more inclusive for them, opposing improvements in the health and social care available to trans people and even supporting further restriction of already appallingly poor provision, particularly for young trans people. They, intentionally or not, incite hatred against trans people, present an inaccurate caricature of what transness is in order to set up a false dichotomy between trans and women's rights and cause distress to a segment of society that already faces stigma and rejection. I do believe people with gender critical beliefs hold them sincerely and genuinely think they are acting for the best, but given the already high incidence of violence against trans people, and the rates of mental illness, self-harm and suicide amongst trans people who do not get appropriate healthcare, acceptance or support, I think it is no exaggeration to say that they are costing lives.

I say all this *not* in order to enter into debate, but to demonstrate it is impossible, in this forum at least.

I am sure you will disagree with my characterisation of the gender critical movement, just as I reject your characterisation of what transness and gender identity are about. I am sure I will not be able to change your mind and there is zero chance of you changing mine, so talking about our views just creates an unwelcoming environment for people on all sides of the question. Let alone for trans gamers themselves who just want to get on with their lives and have fun playing and talking about a game that lets them roleplay a character that shares their gender identity, and have this acknowledged, in a way that you and I now take for granted.

So given you, I, and many other gamers have irreconcilable preferences about whether or how the game deals with gender identity along with all kinds of other things (see, eg, a parallel debate on this forum about inclusion of explicit sex), where do we go from here? I would hope that we would be able to accept that we all have a right to our preferences, whatever the reasons for them, and that, in order to include content that allows players the maximum amount of flexibility in the characters they create and stories they tell, a cRPG like BG3 will likely include some content that we personally are uncomfortable with.

You started this thread by asking whether the gender identity feature that the game provides is worth including in its existing form.

The answer is that there are gamers who want to play a trans or enbie character and have that acknowledged by the game, and the feature gives them that ... so yes. It is not much, and there are still niggles with the way it functions, and some handwaving is required in order to accept the impact selecting the feature has on NPCs and the world, but for the gamers at whom the feature is aimed, ie those who want to roleplay a trans or enbie character, it is better than nothing. Anyone who does not want to play such a character just has to ignore a couple of options on the character creation screen.

Given that answer, I am not sure if you are willing to say something along the lines of "Oh, okay, I have views that make it uncomfortable for me to encounter representations of trans or non-binary genders in the game, but I understand that there are other gamers who actively want to be able to play a trans or non-binary character who will enjoy the feature, and I am willing to skip past a couple of options on character creation in order for them to be able to do that." If not, then I think this debate is at the end of the line, as what is being asked of you currently is pretty much the minimum possible. There is no reasonable compromise I can see that would ask anything less of you that would not just remove any trans representation from the game ... which is not compromise but just giving you what you want at the expense of other gamers.

I am now banning myself from posting any further in this thread, in order to remove any temptation to get further embroiled in debates about real world politics.

I hope, whether or not you agree with it, I have made my position clear and I suspect it's not going to help move the debate on any further if I say more about it.


"You may call it 'nonsense' if you like, but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!"
Joined: Jun 2012
Brainer Offline OP
enthusiast
OP Offline
enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2012
Originally Posted by The_Red_Queen
...

The point of this thread was to encourage discussion and to welcome every opinion out there, not necessarily agreeing but at the same time trying to avoid outright fighting. Wanting to present points and see what others think.

I do agree that devolving it into arguing over even more real-world stuff is hardly gonna be productive and will probably get it locked, so yeah, better to cool off while possible. Thank you for your input!

Joined: Jun 2012
Brainer Offline OP
enthusiast
OP Offline
enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2012
Having looked at what the updated licence entails, I am curious as to whether BG3 has to follow the tenets within, even though it's technically not an OGL product (wouldn't having a full-on licence for a setting make it even more strict, actually?) - because if it does, then it means that every point raised in my first post regarding perception will technically violate some point or other. I guess it remains to be seen whether the races are renamed as "species" and if we're getting anti-tiefling/goblin/drow/whichever hate speech cut from the final version. Lovely times, these.

Joined: Nov 2020
P
addict
Offline
addict
P
Joined: Nov 2020
It's not 2024 yet, cool your jets. We have a whole year before the new OGL and 5.5.

Joined: Dec 2018
Location: Equator, Earth
T
stranger
Offline
stranger
T
Joined: Dec 2018
Location: Equator, Earth
"I yam what I yam."

if that's a problem
then

"Go.
And beat your crazy head against the sky."

rly
chill


Amused to death.
Joined: Oct 2021
addict
Offline
addict
Joined: Oct 2021
Originally Posted by Brainer
Originally Posted by The_Red_Queen
...

The point of this thread was to encourage discussion and to welcome every opinion out there, not necessarily agreeing but at the same time trying to avoid outright fighting. Wanting to present points and see what others think.

I do agree that devolving it into arguing over even more real-world stuff is hardly gonna be productive and will probably get it locked, so yeah, better to cool off while possible. Thank you for your input!


I think you handled yourself well and raised many valid points in a respectable manner.

Joined: Feb 2023
B
apprentice
Offline
apprentice
B
Joined: Feb 2023
It doesn't matter how hard you try to appeal to common sense while bringing so many and detailed arguments, Larian is forced like any other game developer to comply with current trend. Acting independent will result in loss of money and reputation, so adding these pronounce is just a small price for them.

Joined: Feb 2023
B
apprentice
Offline
apprentice
B
Joined: Feb 2023
Originally Posted by The Red Queen
As a woman who enjoys playing female characters in RPGs, my enjoyment would be totally scuppered if my character had to deal with the sorts of limitations and sexist behaviour that would entail.


Obviously IRL you act instinctively as a woman and while playing as woman as well, you want to be unlimited in your actions and not to be harassed. It's not fair for me as a man IRL, to not have the option to play a woman where she's constantly being seduced, or any male Npc is not scripted to flirt with my character after I undress her or put some revealing clothes on her.

Joined: Dec 2020
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Dec 2020
Originally Posted by Bardhuk
Originally Posted by The Red Queen
As a woman who enjoys playing female characters in RPGs, my enjoyment would be totally scuppered if my character had to deal with the sorts of limitations and sexist behaviour that would entail.


Obviously IRL you act instinctively as a woman and while playing as woman as well, you want to be unlimited in your actions and not to be harassed. It's not fair for me as a man IRL, to not have the option to play a woman where she's constantly being seduced, or any male Npc is not scripted to flirt with my character after I undress her or put some revealing clothes on her.
Can you stop your blatant sexism already? This is a thread about representation, not your personal fetish!


"We are all stories in the end. Just make it a good one."

Doctor Who
Page 5 of 11 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 11

Link Copied to Clipboard
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5