Amber Scott is what this entire post is about. Did you not even read the Kotaku article the OP linked to? Good grief, this is what pisses me off, people don't even know what they are defending. Effing educate yourself for 5 seconds before coming to post.

Beamdog currently has creative freedom over the Baldur's Gate video game license from WotC. Anything they add or take away to the series is canon. Just because they did this in a sequel doesn't mean it doesn't change these characters and the world the live in. It's the same thing that Abrams has done to Star Wars (and Star Trek) who also injected a bunch of SJW BS into a beloved franchise.

Art is creative expression, the how, when and why it was created is important. Shakespeare wrote a lot of things that would be viewed as sexist or racist today as well. But we should maintain us these pieces because they tell us about our history as human beings and, whether you agree with it or not, it should be protected.

n/m

This last line pisses me off the most about Scott's Safana personality change: "If people don’t like that, then too bad."

It's clear she has a disdain for the Baldur's Gate, and by extension, Dungeons & Dragons universe. She has a chip on her shoulder about the whole thing and she's gonna be the big crusader to show all of us misogynists what's up. This shows that she knows she'll get blow-back from the fans and that she's doing it anyway to piss us off.

D&D is heavily based on a fantastical version of Earth's own medieval caste system. Women in that caste system lived in much different roles than women today that some would see politically incorrect by today's standards. Gary Gygax wrote human females in AD&D 1E to have less strength than males. Setting aside, that's actually based on real science (men are, in general, stronger than women in general), there is nothing wrong with someone's own creative work being based on whatever you want it to be.

Beamdog should fire Scott immediately and remove this crap from their game if they don't want this to blow up any further. And believe me, based on what gamergate's historically capable of, it will blow up.

I won't be buying Siege of Dragonspear, I hope to convince as many others to skip it as well. You don't take, arguably, the greatest western computer RPG series of all time and just spit on it and its fans and get away with it. Not in my book. If people don't like that, then too bad.

TL;DR

*removes from wishlist*

I might buy it if they go full SJW with it though.

Maybe remove alignments and all religions/faiths... anything religious that shows religion.

Remove races and racial weapons(sorry dwarf slaying arrows). Sex and class have got to go.

All of your money should be taxed 90% as soon as you get it, and there should be only one shop with a very poor supply of goods.

No one should eat meat or use any spells that could increase their carbon footprint.

There should be no fighting or war, and all combat should be replaced with a dialog system.

At the same time though, everyone should have to follow sharia law, because they are somehow for that now... because of hipster levels of irony?

BUILD THE WALL!!!

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/gog_should_build_a_wall_and_make_steam_pay_for_it

Why do you consider those to be improvements? Giving female characters a malus on strength makes sense (at least for humans) because the stat limits are meant to represent inherent potential for a character's abilities, and women have a lower potential for strength. This can be offset by giving male characters a different malus or female characters a bonus in some other aspect. This is done for races all the time, but apply it to gender and it's a no-go.

An amazon receiving a to-hit bonus makes sense, the opponent will be unfamiliar with her kind and lower his defences.

Changing pronouns for no reasons is just stupid, in English you either use male or singular they if the sex of a person is irrelevant. Ignoring linguistic rules serves nothing but tripping up the reader, it would be like intentionally misspelling a word, like writing "thru" instead of "through" or randomly changing the font. That's just bad writing.

Giving classes, races or even sexes different bonuses is there to make them different. They should not just look differently, but they should also play differently, otherwise what's the point? There should be a difference between an amazon and just a woman who puts on some armour. And you know, if you don't like a rule you can just house-rule it. It's not like Wizards of the Coast will break into your house and confiscate your D&D books if they hear you were changing the game.

The rightwing drama queens running this disgusting scam thread are suppressing my comments
They dont like I call them out
and dont engage with them
trolls hate it when you dont fall for their bait

What do you hope to achieve by defending your precious memories and feelings from an ever-changing world? What do you hope to gain by working yourself into a tizzy and pressuring artists to conform to your worldview? What is the endgame of this endless quest to find things to be offended about when an artist does something you don't like?

About female strength:
The thing is, in 1e, females are strictly inferior to males, as they do not get anything in return; there was no attempt to balance it. If they had, say, limited male characters to 16 Constitution, then it might be fair and balanced; as it is, the game is essentially punishing players for wanting to play female characters (fighter-types in particular). In other words, the rule amounts to "this specific archetype (strong female warrior) is forbidden".

About pronouns:
A linguistic rule should be ignored if it causes a problem (like the oft cited rule about ending a sentence with a preposition). In the case of pronouns, the problem is that using male pronouns as generic contributes to the "male by default" problem. (Warning about the following link: TVTropes has been known to eat hours of one's time.)
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MenAreGenericWomenAreSpecial
https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/02/16/male-as-the-neutral-default/
http://cratesandribbons.com/2013/01/27/why-the-default-male-is-not-just-annoying-but-also-harmful/
(The last link actually discusses pronouns a bit.)

Another example of this issue is XKCD, where the generic head is male, and hair is added to make someone female. For example, see this one:
https://xkcd.com/385/

Regarding the different bonuses thing: I agree that it makes sense for there to be differences, but there needs to be at least *some* attempt at game balance. The 1e gender imbalance is particularly bad since there was no attempt to balance the sexes.

Why would they care, though? I thought it was about ethics in games journalism?

There's a pretty huge violation here. Gaming journalism has done good work here (Kotaku specifically) and OP is denying them credit for it by linking through a proxy.

Even though he bases his entire argument on something they uncovered, he does not credit them. Not saying Kotaku is great, but if you're going to base a discussion around something in one of their articles: read it, give them that traffic.

I would, except for the fact that the link in your post is broken.

Edit: It seems you fixed the link after I started typing this post.

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The original game has not been touched. That's been touched on a fair bit by this point.

Still, it's very arrogant and cheeky to claim BG is sexist and portray the established world and its society in a light quite significantly different than that of the original.

Imagine that son of Tolkien would introduce LGBT to Middle-Earth. This is simply wrong and fans of the lore have every right to be angry about it and boycott the title.

Jesus Christ people. Games are an artistic medium. Art is used to express emotional, spiritual, and yes, POLITICAL opinions. Letting someone be of a different sex or gender preference will not destroy what is the rest of the damn game. Are people really that upset about inclusiveness that does not diminish or reduce the already present content!?