If you watch that part of the video you'll see that the sex scene is something to be taken as quirky and silly, it's not a drama bait (btw, drama bait? seriously?). Drama, on the other hand, is being created by those who have no problems in jumping head-first into fallacies of composition, cry and throw tantrums because a given game (which hasn't released yet, btw) is not the way they want it to, or has an optional feature they dislike whilst not having some random other just to "compensate" and avoid having double standards between what they consider are both sides of an illusory political spectrum.

I rather have this whole modernity bullshit kept out of established classic IPs too, and instead have completely new franchises created where all this made-up terminology can be crammed into, but it is what it is.

If it's just the fact that this last leg of the marketing campaign emphasised sexual content (which I thought was reasonably countered if not completely overshadowed by all the other non-sexual stuff they showcased) and that there is another option during character creation and thus you don't want to support that financially, alright, that's your and anyones prerogative and I wholeheartedly applaud adhering to ones principles, which seems to get lost more and more in these dark times.

Personally I'm just going to leave the selection on either male or female, go on with the rest of customisation and be done with it. Out of sight out of mind.

I won't let something as insignificant and easily ignorable get into the way and detract from what looks like a extraordinarly deep and intricately systemic cRPG with a whole lot of actual C&C and reactivity to boot. For the most part, the writing may be - in true Larian fashion - shit yet again, but that's something I've learned to not dwell on for too long as well. Helps that my mother tongue usually is not supported anyway and I'm only moderately proficient in English.

Medieval is a time period, not a place. But you make a good point: the Drow, for example, have always been portrayed as amoral and hedonistic, so some level of 'sexual deviancy' on their part would fit the FR setting fine. However, the human population around the Sword Coast have always been portrayed as medieval European (in particular Central/Western), so I have an expectation that their culture should somewhat mirror what would be expected from that medieval European culture. If people are walking around town wearing their genitals like a badge, that wouldn't be internally consistent.

This leads to another point I'd like to make: if the developers wanted to make a fantasy setting where sexual identity is a prominent theme, that's fine - go right ahead. But, why the need to modify the Sword Coast region of Faerun (which has been extensively developed through dozens of full-length novels)? In my opinion, it would have been a much better decision to set the game in a different, less-developed region of Faerun (e.g. the South-East). Perhaps the culture there is different and sexuality/gender is a bigger issue?

That I would have been able to get behind. Everyone gets what they want: you get your modern, progressive setting, where sex is bigger theme, whilst the established setting I've been following for 30 years, that portrays a more conservative human culture gets preserved. I mean, there used to be many different D&D settings to choose from, each with their own flavor. And good god, do we need to see more D&D CRPGs that aren't set in the Sword Coast ...

People talk about "You have a choice, you can just ignore it." No. Re-imagining/modifying an existing fictional setting that I like isn't giving me a choice, that represents another group trying to impose their vision on me. Giving me choice would be to create a new setting for a sexuality-oriented RPG, then letting me choose between that new setting or the older one.

I am liberal/progressive leaning and I am all for creating something new and different, but I also believe that well-established fictional IPs should be to some extent preserved in the way their original creators intended. If you want something new and different then go and make something new. Or, has the current generation lost the ability to be creative and create new content? Is it all they can do to 're-imagine' existing IPs, in an erosive and derivative way?

I think what he's talking about is that (from what I've heard) apparently the game has implemented 'neo-pronouns'. I'm not 100% sure if it is true, but I've heard you can create a trans character and set your choice of personal pronouns. Then, every NPC you meet in the game (friendly or not) will oblige in referring to you using those pronouns.

I have a major problem with this, from the point-of-view of immersion and believe-ability. Case in point: there is no way in a million years the Drow are going to respect your pronouns. If your player character walks into the Underdark openly advertizing that they have some sensitivity about their sexuality, it's the very first thing the Drow would use to torment you.

Not surprising to me at all that Larian is trying to push a certain agenda with BG3. They have been doing that ever since they replaced the original & beautiful artwork of D:OS 1 with hideous ugly artwork simply to appease certain people who made complaints about it being "sexist" even though it actually wasn't at all.

And since that time, they have likewise been deliberately drawing all of their women characters to dress like men and to be unattractive to the eye, since doing that also appeases the same group of complainers, which don't represent most gamers at all.

Then in D:OS 2, in addition to all that, they added unwanted & super-creepy conversations where your own party members are constantly sexually harassing your character, which is again part of pushing the same agenda and appeasing a certain group at the expense of the majority of gamers who don't want that stuff in their games.

I'd be shocked if Larian ever stopped doing that stuff. Them continuing to do it in all of their new games, that comes as no surprise at all. It's to be expected since that's their "new" ( new ever since D:OS 1, that is) status quo.

It's not really a matter of principles. I don't see anything here that would really bother me on some ethical level or anything of the sort (at worst some stuff I tiredly roll my eyes at). It's just thinking that I may not be the target audience, probably am not on the same "wavelength" as the devs as to what I want from D&D, and can likely have more fun with something else.

If they made a fuss about their game's crafting mechanics I would probably have largely the exact same reaction (though with less cringe), because I find crafting as tedious as I find CG puppets bonking boring. That doesn't mean I find playing a glorfied basketweaver in an RPG unprincipled. Just dull.

This thread is essentially:

"I want the developers to create the game how I imagined it".

This attitude is limiting any kind of creativity and it is also the basis for censorship.

On the contrary: Larian's games were actually much more creative, and also much less prone to censorship, and also much better overall, before they literally censored the artwork in D:OS 1, after which time, and ever since, they have been likewise self-censoring all of their games by how they draw all of their artwork with that very same ugly, and creativity-stifling, aesthetic as the censored version of the ugly censored artwork in D:OS 1 has.

No. People don't want certain things. In your example they succeeded to convince Larian. And now people are trying it again. It is ridiculous.

No. The issue is not about stifling creativity or censoring anything. It is about the modification of existing IPs. The Forgotten Realms setting has already been imagined and extensively developed over a period of 40 years. Modifying the fundamental nature of a very well-established IP is not 'creativity', it is vandalism.

As I said in my post above: you want something new and different, go and make something new. I'm not trying to block or censor anything.

You are aware that in your post you pretty much showed what I have written. You want Larian to develop a game that fits YOUR personal interpretation of the setting.

Obviously people are going to spend time and money on games that appeal to them personally. What else would they do? "This game in unappealing to me, but I guess I ought to play it anyway"?

Why does everyone keep bringing up censorship? Unless I missed it, no one is calling for the game to be banned or anything of the sort. Not wanting to buy something isn't censorship. Not wanting pineapple on my pizza and bear sex in my D&D game doesn't make me a nazi.

No, I said almost the polar opposite of that. If Larian are using a well-established setting like Forgotten Realms, then I expect them to depict it in a way that is consistent with how it has been interpreted over the past 40 years since its creation, by dozens of authors and creative writers.

No. You don't need to play it. You don't like what you see. That's it. Time to move on. There are tons of other games out there.

It is not about not wanting to buy something. It is the way of thinking. That's why I wrote that it is the basis for censorship.


No, you haven't. What you are writing here is your personal interpretation of what is the setting or not.

The problem with Larian's recent games, and also the Pathfinder games, and also many other similar woke modern RPGs, is that those games are doing exactly what you are saying they ought not to do: they are forcing other's preferences onto every player, many of whom players do not want that.