Up to early Act 3: How much LGBTQ content is there in BG3?

[FoxFox]

Preface

While BG3 has been received very positively among players and critics (based on Steam reviews and Metacritic BG3 is among best PC games of all time), on this forum there has been very vocal backlash about LGBTQ content.

Some people feel like LGBTQ content should not have been in the game at all, others are more nuanced and feel like it is excessive or that players should have options to moderate the amount of LGBTQ-content. Critical comments range from downright insults and intolerance, to more a more measured tone with genuine attempts to explain why people feel the amount of LGBTQ content is excessive and ideas on how Larian could have done things differently.

While I still mostly disagree with them, I do appreciate the people who made the effort to present their arguments, remained civil in our disagreements and at least exhibited a willingness to hear each other out.

There is not much I can say to people who think there should not be any LGBTQ content in the game. But with the more moderate critics, one line of argumentation stands out to me and, while I disagree with it, it is only fair to meet it with reasonable arguments in reply.

Summary of criticism

There are some variations to this argument, and I sincerely hope that I do it justice here. I paraphrase it here for clarity, I am not trying to set up a straw man. So the argument goes something like this:

In the real world there is a very limited number of LGBT-people (some say only 5% of the population; this seems low to me, but for the sake of the argument I accept that it is 5%). However, the 8 companions you can romance can all be romanced by players of either gender. Therefore, they are all bi and having 8 out of 8 bi people in your party is so unlikely that it breaks immersion. In addition, some people claimed there were many same-sex NPC couples in the game, more than straight couples even according to some. Having this many LGBTQ-characters is excessively disproportional to how uncommon LGBTQ is in the real world. That makes the game world less believable.

While this is strictly a different complaint/argument altogether, I include it here because the solution that is being proposed applies to both point: One counter-argument when it comes to companions is that you can simply reject them. No, some critics say, even if you do that, they (notably Gale) just keep coming on to you, so you keep being confronted by the fact that they are gay/bi. Besides, in some cases rejecting them requires picking uncomfortably rude dialogue options, which makes it feel like you the only way to avoid having gay sex is by being a horrible human being.

Solutions proposed by critics

Some solutions to this excess and unpleasant pushiness have been offered several times. The end result is the same in each case: the number of LGBTQ-companions is lowered so that it is more in line with how it is in the real world.

One solution is to give all companions a fixed orientation. All orientations can be present, but this way we get rid of the immersion-breaking coincidence of having 8 out of bi characters. Not a popular solution I reckon, because it also means that some female companions will no longer be available for male player romance.

The more popular solution is to give players the option to set their own orientation (so straight males won't be approached by Gale, for example), or to toggle the orientation of the companions. For example: Default (all bi), all straight, all same sex.

How much LGBTQ content is there?

While I have objections to this line of reasoning and also to the solutions offered, I won't go into that now. I feel that, on the face of it, the arguments by the critics are not without merit. I want to thread carefully here, but let's for the sake of the argument accept that, theoretically, there can be a point where the proportion of LGBTQ NPCs is so unrealistically high that it suspends belief and makes the game less enjoyable. So, if we accept this idea for the sake of the argument, then a reasonable question is to ask what excessive is. Critics say that it is excessive right now, so how much LGBTQ-content are we talking about?

Up to the starting area of Act 3, this is what I have encountered so far. I have played the game for over 200 hours (including early access, and I started a few different campaigns to try things out; my main campaign has about 90 hours playtime).

Non romance NPCs

So far I have enountered 1 lesbian couple. One of the pair was an NPC that I had to either kill or free to progress the game. Freeing her was the good option, so it is fair to say that most players did so. But the minorty that killed her would not have even seen 1 lesbian couple.

I have seen 0 gay couples.

I have seen 0 bi characters (I'll get into the companions later)

I have seen 1 woman who may have been trans or queer. It seemed like that, but there is no way to know for sure. She was a tiefling maybe, so maybe what looked to me like a woman with some masculine features was just a regular. So that's 0-1 trans or queer characters.

The player character

The player character is either one of the origin characters, who are all by default either male or female both in gender identity and biologically. There orientation is what the players wants it to be of course.

For the custom player character every sub-race option defaults to either male or female with matching biological features. Now, all customization options are available to both male and female characters, including hair styles, beards and genitals. So players can pick a female body, give themselves a beard and/or penis, or pick a male body with girly braids and a vulva. But none of those are default options, so players have to actively select these.

Romance companions

So, there are 8 of them and according to critics, all 8 of them are bi. That does indeed sound pretty unlikely. But it is only technically true. In practice, most of them are not bi within a single play-through.

So far, playing as a straight male, Lae'zel and Karlach are straight, Shadowheart is not into me (I have her approval now, but that was after I hooked up with Karlach). I killed Minthara, so I don't know and whatever her orientation was never came up.

Gale has a goddess ex-lover and I had this one awkward moment where he seemed to be coming on to me. So he is either straight or bi. So far he never followed up on that, so I just regard him as a friend, he might be bi but in my play-through that was never more than a suggestion that he is bi.

I have no idea about Halsin. I asked him some questions during the party after the Goblin camp. Later on, I had the option to say something like "sorry if I was coming on too strong at the party". Picking that option would imply that I had been flirting with him. But that was not my intention, so naturally I never picked that option. I assume that picking that option will trigger romance options for him, since it indicates that I want him to be interested in me. I don't and he has not tried to flirt with me at all.

Wyll: I don't know whether there is something between him and that patron of his. To me he is gay, but he might be bi. I rejected him when he said he wanted me to be his new dance partner. I called it a night instead, as I would in real life if a mate would ask me to dance that way. He was disappointed, I did not feel like horrible person about it, we never talked about it again and we are still mates.

Astarion is a different story altogether. It may seem like he flirst with everyone, so thaat would make him bi. But Astarion is not flirting at all. Astarion is an apex predator and you are food. He talks like I imagine a cat would talk to a mouse he somehow befriended. He basically tells you as much the moment he joins you. He talks about "travelling with the herd" or something. But you and the others are the herd, cattle.

So, in my play through: I have not had any romantic interaction with 4 out of 8 NPCs, 2 of them are straight females, there is 1 male bi and 1 gay.

Had I played a female NPCs, than Karlach and Lae'zel would have been lesbian, and Wyll and Gale would have been straight.

Conclusion

I am open to seriously debate the idea that there can be too much LGBTQ-content in a game, to a point that it suspends belief and comes across as pushing an agenda.

But now that I have progressed to Act 3, I feel I have sense of the extent of LGBTQ content. And I have to say, I have seen very little of it. I don't see how any of this is excessive.

All told, we are talking about literally 4, maybe 5, LGBTQ NPCs and 5 cut-scene dialogues a handful of minutes long during a 90 hour campaign. Of these NPCs, 2 were lesbians with no interest in me, 2 guys tried to flirt with me once and never followed up after I told them no and 1 NPC was possibly trans or queer, but this was never explicitly stated. Where is the excess in that?

[SerraShaar]

huh? This again???

[Rex is back, baby!]

Why is this even a post.
Deadhorse, beehive, whatever metaphor you want to use.

[dustin1280]

There isn't much, aside from character creator and your companions being "player-sexual" the LGBTQ content in this game is minor and doesn't feel forced at all. The stupid and ridiculous people are blowing it WAY out of proportion...

The MINORITY is always the loudest.

[Greebo]

Please go outside and get some fresh air.

[ACS36]

It entirely depends on player preferences. There is no conflict here. You're in complete control with what types of relationships are formed in the game.

[✙205🍉🐆→]

Astarion constantly wants to stick his Wood Stakes between my lovers

Originally posted by Greebo:

Please go outside and get some fresh air.

It's too hot outside, let him go to the mall

[ZombieNation]

If only ppl put this much effort into other more productive things.

[Agony_Aunt]

Q: How much LGBTQ content is there in BG3?

A: Yes

[Lord Adorable]

Originally posted by Agony_Aunt:

Q: How much LGBTQ content is there in BG3?

A: Yes

Based.

[Aidosyne]

The romance options are player-sexual. They are designed to not care who or what you are and give you the generic "I like you" lines so that the player gets to experience content.

You missed at least one gay couple.

You're asking for proportional representation without providing a count of every other NPC character up to Act 3 in order to identify if BG3 lives up to the 5-8% of the population. If we're generous and say there is only 100 sentient characters in act 1 which include 1 gay gnome, 6 companions that express interest in you and the player, we're at 7%. Which is exactly in line.

You wasted a lot of time with that write up only to have bad methodology.

[radubradu]

I'm gay and I find it too much, so there you go

[FoxFox]

Originally posted by Aidosyne:

The romance options are player-sexual. They are designed to not care who or what you are and give you the generic "I like you" lines so that the player gets to experience content.

You missed at least one gay couple.

You're asking for proportional representation without providing a count of every other NPC character up to Act 3 in order to identify if BG3 lives up to the 5-8% of the population. If we're generous and say there is only 100 sentient characters in act 1 which include 1 gay gnome, 6 companions that express interest in you and the player, we're at 7%. Which is exactly in line.

You wasted a lot of time with that write up only to have bad methodology.

I am not asking for proportional representation at all. I wondered how people came to the conclusion that there was anything excessive and disproportional.

Bad methodology? This is a case study.

It illustrates how much LGBT content one might actually encounter when just playing the game. So in my campaign I encountered 4 definitely non-straight NPCs. In theory there could be more, if I go out of my way to find them, or if every NPC that is a romance option actually starts flirting. But that's the thing, I was just playing the game normally, not doing some weird census of how many LGBT NPCs there are and what proportion of the total game world population that would be to check whether it is proportional. If people think really think that 4 NPCs is excessive, the problem has nothing to do with proportional representation, they just don't want to see LGBT content at all.

I took their argument to see where it took me and my conclusion is that talk about excessive LGBT representation is either misguided at best, or at worst simply a front to say that there should not be LGBT-content at all while trying to sound reasonable. Either way, it was the most serious argument by LGBT critics I encountered on this forum and it turns out it is still bollocks.

[Action Man]

Originally posted by FoxFox:

So many words.

K

[FoxFox]

Originally posted by radubradu:

I'm gay and I find it too much, so there you go

if you complain about excess because of 4 NPCs you are the problem, not the game

[jcw163]

Not reading this ♥♥♥♥. It's fine, everyone who thinks otherwise should grow up