Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback (Patch 9) On identity and whether it's even worth having in its existing form

As I said in an earlier post in this thread, while I’m not trans myself, I do think it’s important for an RPG like BG3 in 2023 to engage with the topic of gender identity and the Forgotten Realms setting presents all kinds of interesting potential for doing so. Simply giving players the option to select an identity and any body type (which is what it looks like from the updated CC in the release date trailer) and then having NPCs using the identity selected for pronouns and other gendered language isn’t pointless, as it least prompts some thinking about the topic on the parts of developers and players and enables some limited but still interesting opportunities to roleplay characters whose gender identity isn’t straightforward. But if that turned out to be the sum total of what we get in the full game when it comes to engagement with themes of gender identity, I’d see that as disappointing and a huge missed opportunity.

I already indicated earlier in this thread some of the things I thought the game could do if it wanted, so I’ll not go into that any further unless anyone particularly wants to talk about it in more detail.

Ok before this thread gets locked I just want to drop my 2 cents:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces1778.html

Anyway, if the Necromancy of Thay used pronouns, it would be Thay/Them

That's all. I don't have anything substantive to add, but I get mad whenever a post like this gets locked before I can crack a joke.

Well, it’s been open for three months now and though it’s skirted closer than I’d like once or twice, I see no need for it to get locked as long as we engage in good faith and without casting shade on each other or anyone else, which it feels like most folk here are up for. And we very rarely ban topics here, which I think is great as I don’t believe discussion of any aspect of BG3 should be off limits. To be frank, we’re probably more likely to suspend or ban users who can’t manage to engage constructively on game-related topics with others who don’t share their views than we are to block the topics themselves.

You’d probably have been safe. (:Winces, and hopes she didn’t speak too soon:)

Oh, well now we HAVE to have a flame war. :P

I’m a big fan of the inclusivity being brought forth here by Larian but Perhaps they should first fix some of the many glaring and game breaking problems such as stealth or wizards being able to scribe cleric spells or sorcerers getting two non cantrip spell casts a turn before they delve into the finer details of sex and gender in the forgotten realms.

Baby steps before you walk

I’m greedy. I want it all!

That said, I think most of the things I’d want to see with respect to exploration of gender are more dialogue, story and plot related rather than requiring different game mechanics, so there shouldn’t be any competition for resources with the things you mention anyway. Though admittedly there are things Larian could potentially do with respect to this topic that are more complex, and they decide not to prioritise as a result of limited resources. That’s understandable, but a BG3 with perfect gameplay and implementation of D&D rules but whose stories didn’t engage me because all the effort had gone into the former would be more of a disappointment to me personally than a game with what I saw as interesting characters, stories and roleplay potential but some slightly wobbly mechanics. It’s a balancing act, isn’t it?

Wizards can only scribe wizard scrolls as of Patch 8 or 9. Keep in mind that there are probably a lot of things fixed in the full game that are not in the EA framework.

Third person gendered pronouns are never going to be used in BG3. For starters, you don’t use them in direct dialogue, you use I and you.

Secondly I can only remember one instance when you overhear NPCs talking about a PC and the goblins call him Blade of Frontiers. Kethric Thorm calls us True Soul; Larian is taking the efficient route of titles and honorifics.

Thirdly, when we talk about npcs, we use _their_ gender pronouns or names.

Should an NPC call us a gendered title of sir or ma’am, that’s about all we’ll hear from gender identity toggle.

True, in English it’s rare to come across instances in BG3 where the identity selected makes a difference as currently implemented. I think I’ve seen folk mention that in some other languages the gender of the protagonist might make more of a difference to the dialogue, though I’m one of those stereotypical English-speakers who have never managed to become anything close to fluent in another language so I’m not going to embarrass myself by trying to work out what those differences might be.

There is that scene after Astarion reveals his secret where everyone comments on him. That's about as much of a group conversation we've got. Even then, they each say closed dialogue lines and don't expand on each other, so no need to use 3rd person pronouns. I'll pay this scene attention next playthrough.

Is there anyone here who toggled different gender to sex in a play through? I wonder in which scenes BG3 implements this?

There are plentiful addresses by pronoun/gendered title, though:

- the looters at the ruined temple of Jergal when the conversation results in combat;
- Aradin when responding to the PC mentioning how it'd be a good idea to leave the grove as soon as possible (mentioned in my essay thing on account of him throwing slurs at tieflings but making sure to they/them the player character...);
- Edowin as he's dying;
- Goblins in the Moonhaven ambush;
- Rugan;
- Dror (again, the whole "villains are doing villain things but make sure to get your pronouns right" moment, invoking the new Call of Duty: Black Ops flashbacks of all things);
- Drow-specific dialogue with goblins and the petrified party in the Underdark;
- the myconids (of all creatures out there, you'd think that they would care about gender the least and just address everyone as "it" or "they");

Those are the ones that immediately come to mind, anyway. So it's not exactly something that's being avoided entirely (the dialogue will feel at times very artificial if it were - like in the recent Game-That-Must-Not-Be-Named which had just went with perhaps the cheapest route and used "they" and "gentleperson" (which is a neologism, no?) no matter the player's choice - though only in English text/voiceover, which says a few things all by itself). At least that's what it seems like to a non-native speaker - and honestly, the discourse and the culture wars related to the game in question are a lot more entertaining and showcasing of just how little nuance there is to the more radical representatives of both sides than the game itself, which is as mediocre as it gets. It was a showcase in how easy it is to ride the controversy wave and sell even something as unassuming to people in this day and age, though...

BG3 has an advantage is that it's only voiced in English, which means that the voice-acting costs caused by having to adapt to languages that actually have gendered words are non-existent. But there's still need to translate the texts, and I've touched upon the shakiness of the concept of "non-binary" outside of English already in an earlier post. Should actually take a look at what the sentences that use "they" are like between different languages - the update did say that it's only for English for the time being (hm...), but there were the item descriptions for the lightning set which could be worth a gander to see how it holds up.

Nope, it’s a word I think of as very old fashioned. In fact, I’ve just checked and according to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, the first known use was in 1597 . Not that there’s anything wrong with neologisms or changes to language, either.

Even Shakespeare used 'they', though I suspect, while gentleperson isn't a neologism, its use is probably anachronistic. As most uses of the word 'gender' are in period pieces.

There's nothing new under the Sun. Take Thon for instance. Instead of trying to second guess these things, just understand everyone's vocabulary is peculiar and idiomatic to themselves. We're constantly trying new things out, they either thrive, die on the vine; or become fossilized as a kind of political statement.

I think more apropos, culture is usually pretty static in fantasy, the one in FR seemed pretty staid at least, it isn't a living entity because it's supposed to take on a life of its own after the fact. Which is why any kind of shift in the world undergoes this kind of scrutiny. It doesn't help that WotC has been pretty up front that these changes have little to do with any artistic impulse, it's to make D&D more marketable, or at the very least, stop it showing up as the butt of so many clickbait articles.

I think a VP recently said that Dark Sun has been shelved because slavery is too problematic a concept to deal.

It’s interesting you say the FR isn’t a living entity, because I have the opposite impression. I freely admit I’m only an occasional visitor through cRPGs and the odd novel and comic book, but Faerun for one seems to have undergone massive changes as well as over a hundred years’ of in-game time. Of course, we know that the out-of-universe explanation for many of these shifts are updates to game versions including updated lore, rulesets and responding to the changing social context, but while some changes have been more successful than others, that the changes are in service to the D&D game rather than internal artistic logic doesn’t seem to me a necessarily bad thing given that’s mainly what the setting is for. The trick for the developers is to try to give in universe rationales for changes that (okay) have actually been made for other reasons, which personally I find kind of fun.

I know some folk will miss the old days of the FR, but whatever is behind it I actually enjoy the feeling of time having passed in the game world and, purely from a BG3 player perspective, my hope is we’ll get more of it as it makes the world feel more real. I think there’s lots of potential given we’re revisiting the locations of BG1 a century or so later for giving us that sense of some things having undergone the shifts and changes you’d expect in society and other things still being the same.

Maybe im reading it wrong ... but i dont feel like you are answering my question. O_o

Im asking if curent execution is sufficient ...
While you talking (or at least thats how im reading it) about it being important for some people to have option to use corect pronouns ...
Thats different topic.

Im not against it at all ...
I just wonder if this feels good to people who cares about it, bcs (just as with so called "evil races") i preffer to either do things properly, or not at all.
And all i wonder is if im the only one with this mindset here.

Lets use an example:
I create a Masculine Half-Orc with long, thick beard ... 2m high, 120kg weight, all muscle no fat ... by all standards pure Testosteron body ... ok?
Now i decide that he ... well, actually she ... identify as a Female ...
And from this point on, every NPC in the world will automaticly reffer to her with Female pronouns.

It just feels weird ... not bcs that Half-Orc indentify as a Female, since i dont give a damn about that ...
But bcs whole world know and automaticly decides to respect it!

And so i would like to know if anyone who would concider creating such Female Half-Orc ... feels like such execution is acceptable.

I would like to bet 5 Gold on blue one, please.

Well, my ill-conceived research efforts are back in action.

Here's a collection of four descriptions of one of the lightning items, in English, German, Polish and Russian (those being the languages that I have at least a degree of knowledge in):


In English we have a "they" - have had ever since these were added and the Lenore/Yrre backstory was expanded upon - in reference to said Yrre. However, the three translations all seem to agree upon Yrre being male:

-in German they use the masculine pronoun "er".
-in Polish it's the masculine possesive pronoun "swój", meaning "his", rather than "swója", which would have stood for "her", for example.
-in Russian it's also every masculine form for verbs and pronouns ("получил", "его" - "got his").

Interesting, given how people seemed to agree on Yrre being female on Steam forums at least, meaning that what could have canonically been a lesbian couple is being interpreted differently by translators all thanks to the lack of clarity introduced by "they". So much for representation.

Yes, I think that’s what the OP is asking too, and it’s a fair question. I’ve feel like I’ve given my own personal take in this thread already, so if you want a different kind of answer I think we’re going to be reliant on someone else with different preferences. But in case it’s just miscommunication, the short answer from my perspective is that what we have is better than nothing, but no I don’t think it’s sufficient.

I don’t, however, have any particularly strong views about the fact that the current implementation means it’s possible to create a character that would look quintessentially male but would automatically be referred to as “she” by all NPCs, which is why I didn’t comment on that. I feel like I might already have said this earlier in this thread, but personally I’m happy to handwave that particular incongruity and/or play trans characters that I feel can be handled by the game in ways I’m happy to accept. And has been mentioned, in English the gender of the PC is referred to so rarely that I personally don’t feel it’s particularly jarring. Which isn’t to say that there aren’t better or different ways of handling presentation that doesn’t “match” gender identity, and of course others may well be less happy to compromise on the limits the current implementation could be considered to place on the types of trans characters one can plausibly create.

I do like the suggestion of a more androgynous body shape that Brainer made, though that doesn’t go anywhere to solve the issue of trans characters who don’t have such a body like your trans half-orc. I’d be more than happy to discuss what improvements could be made that could make roleplaying such characters more realistic, but don’t personally have any suggestions that I feel are workable and would be a significant improvement.

That was my thoughts aswell ... thank you.

Well, it was just an example ...
I picked this combination of body and identity, bcs its easier to point out ... but if you pick neutral pronoun, its just as weird that everyone in the world automaticly know that you dont like to being called anything else.

Ha, lucky English.

Im Czech, as stated in the past ... we have different mindset i would say ... bcs in my language, gender of both speaker and person who is talked about affects orthography(?) of the rest of the sentence.
Even tho i must admit that for many younger people such nuances are lost and they stubbornly refuse to learn those rules. But on the other hand, sometimes its funny when they create sentence where person changed gender every two words.

It heavily depends on what would people want ...

I mean, if *i* would want to create trans character, i would have simmilar aproach to it as with "evil race" ...
Point of playing an evil race (for me) is to experience prejudices ... you dont really want them to expect you to be Good Drow ... you want them to expect you to be Evil Drow, and then persuate (or prooven) them to be wrong.
Simmilar ... i wouldnt want them to expect me to be whatever i pick in character creation ... i would want them to presume that im what they see, and have option to corect them.

But since i can imagine some people can be quite frustrated from this ... i gues it wouldnt add much to the game experience. :-/

Huh? I thought Yrre was male and believed I was paying attention to the Lenore plot. (I think it'll expand on in full release.)

That may be due to number of same-sex deep gnome relationships we encounter in BG3. Once is not noticed, 2 is, and 3 (or 4) establishes a pattern. Depending on when you learn about Yrre might explain player assumption.