Why People HATE Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear

Here's the thing. Don't make a gay character, make a character that is gay. Zevran from Dragon Age: Origins is Bisexual, and I love him as a character. He doesn't announce when you first meet him "I am bisexual, now prepare to die," 'cause that would be stupid. Instead, you find out his sexuality after getting to know him as a person. These SJW writers are too busy making a gay character, that they don't make a character. What's his personality? "Gay." Hobbies? "Gay." Likes or dislikes? "Gay."

To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, attempting to insert a moral into your story will instantly feel forced, regardless of whether or not you believe it. It's much better to simply write what comes naturally and feels appropriate to the story, "because the moral inherent in them will rise from whatever spiritual roots you have succeeded in striking during the whole course of your life. But if they don't show a moral, don't put one in." I can understand Ms. Scott wanting to spread what she believes are positive messages, but propaganda always pushes story aside in favor of agenda, no matter how righteous the cause. Still, inserting a GamerGate jab is just pointless and unnecessary, and really just dates the entire expansion, as well as tarnishes one of my favorite RPGs of all time.

Don't care about gay, bi, whatever for the most part. What I care about is the holier than thou bullshit, and not being true to source material.

I absolutely support diverse characters in gaming, but it sounds like they changed pre-existing characters to suit an agenda, and that's ridiculous.

Looks like it's time to quote Ken Levine again: “The first thing you think about is, ‘Who is this character, and what does he want, and what’s in his way?’ That’s how you develop a character.” “If you start from, ‘This is a black dude’ or ‘This is a Jewish dude,’ you’re kind of missing the point. I try not to look at characters as their skin color, race, sex, creed, or their gender. I think that’s an inauthentic way of thinking about character, because that’s not what defines people. What defines people is their experience.” That's how you write characters. I hate characters who are defined by their gender or race it feels incredibly unrealistic and forced.

We had dressgate, we had buttgate... now it's time for Baldur's Gategate. xD

The problem is that they changed established characters (in one case, in a remarkably sex-negative way) and focused more on preaching to the audience than creating a working, functional expansion to a beloved game.

If you define yourself by your sexuality, if you feel a need to tell people about it and to talk about it constantly, you need a hobby.

Very well put, Boogie. I am a HUGE fan of Baldur's Gate. I had read several dozen Forgotten Realms books by the time BG2 was released and I truly felt immersed in that world. The issue that strikes me the hardest is that these writers are not only lacking in subtly, but they are forcing subjects and issues into Faerun that frankly don't have any place there. The forgotten realms is a complicated, storied setting filled with it's own unique set of issues completely alien to our own. It is a world where various different sentient and monstrous species have developed, worshiping a large number of various diverse gods who actively participate (i.e. screw with) the world at large. This all takes place in what we would call a late medievil setting, technological development is slow due to the presence of magic and it's use, and things like the enlightenment and the industrial revolution are not a thing in Faerun. There are plenty of strong, high-level women all around, but there is no feminist movement. There are no scribe protests happening in Candlekeep, no Drow Lives Matter movement and no one in Evermeet is clamoring to let in massive numbers of immigrants. Democracy, for that matter, is incredibly rare in Faerun, and for good reason when you consider how hostile a world it is. Cities are surrounded by walls with Keeps, Castles and citidels a regular ocurrence. Monsters are real. Autocratic and Oligarchical rule are the norms, as are police states. It feels so out of place that a goblin, for example, would have the impetus to call my player character racist (naturally, I killed him. Treating him differently from other goblins would have been prejudicial). Compare Ms. Scott's clumsy attempts at writing with R.A.Salvatore, who's main character faced fear and discrimination from the moment he stepped on to the surface. He wrote Drizzt within the context and setting of the forgotten realms, taking into account that world's history and as such, nothing about it felt forced. The uphill battle Drizzt had to face was not unjustified, not when Drow regularly make mass murder trips to the surface.

What irritates me is that when they originally released the EE, a lot of issues they shut down with "can't do that with our license". but an expansion massively altering the existing characters your license allowed? Yeah, right:

fallout new vegas - had a surprisingly high amount of gay and lesbian characters. but no one cared. why? BECAUSE THEY WERE WRITTEN WELL AND WASN'T SHOVED DOWN YOUR THROAT! in that game, a character tells you about his sexuality only when you ASK him/her about it!

The thing that bothers me the most is that the writer doesn't even know the setting (or know how to write but that is apart). Transsexuality is a non-issue in a Forgotten Realms or Pathfinder setting. There are literally potions and girdles that do precisely that via magic, even an NPC class can get access to them after like 2 years of savings on average. Someone has done the math. With Adventurer profit lines you can probably buy one at level 3 or 4 even with equipment and supply costs factored in. Someone being openly and aggressively transsexual makes absolutely no sense in the setting.

the problem with saying people are not wrong in not wanting gay or trans characters in their games.. is that in real life, in person, you have no choice in being around us. and if that's your first encounter with a gay/trans person, you won't know what to say, you may(probably) say the wrong things, and call us the wrong names. i'm not an agenda, i'm a fucking person.

Unfortunately small minded people are often the loudest with their views and opinions.

I think having gay or transgender characters in a fantasy setting is an amazing idea, however any time someone tries to say "hey look at me I'm GAY!!!" in their first few lines of dialogue you have committed character suicide. I even run lgbt characters in my D&D settings. It adds a lot of spice to a campaign when the strong male guard captain does not respond to the female bard's sexual advances because he is not in to girls, UNKNOWN by the the players. The unknown part is key. I don't assume a character to be gay or trans so there will be a surprise when you discover this. And if a player runs a transgender character or a gay character only through deep role play and true friendship building should the party become privy to that knowledge. When they are strangers it is none of each other's business as to who they choose to have sex with.

Gay character - check. Trans character - check. Bisexual character - check. Video game character design shouldn't be based on a checklist. This is what happens when you get self-proclaimed social justice warriors involved - customers hate their game and the company learns its lesson through poor sales. Glad the community got behind this.

Basically, diversity is good when it can be written in naturally. Forced diversity is bad. It interrupts the flow of a story and always just comes off as awkward.

One really good example of adding a diverse character to a video game is in the Witcher 3. Early on you meet a huntsman in the woods to help you track a something, I played it a while back so details are a bit fuzzy. During your conversation he says he's a monster and can't be near people, so you think he's a werewolf right up until you press him hard enough to where he tells you he was in love with the prince of a castle, and there were caught in a barn, so he had to abandon the kingdom or die. Your next dialog option is to either sympathies with him, or scorn him like everyone else. He didn't shove the fact he was gay down my throat, I pressed him on what was wrong, he gave in and told me, and so I sympathized with the poor hunter. He isn't a major character, he isn't superior to Gerald in any way, he's just a man living with himself in a medieval world that won't live with him. After that quest we parted ways, and though I forgot parts of the game since playing it, I still remember him. That is how you add good diversity to games.

When writers stop treating "questioning/transgender/gay/bisexual" characters as walking billboards for their own or opposing ideologies, and instead, write them as actual people... THAT'S what progress looks like.

One of the first items I found when I played Baldur's Gate many many years ago was a gender-swapping belt. I didn't identify it and just put it on and then I was female. Woop, I was transgender. And that in 1998.