The Ethics and Pragmatics of Druid Sexuality

[Ellie]

Dear scholars of the BG3 community,

1. Druids can shapeshift.
2. Druids have sex.

This raises some interesting academic questions.

Canonically, how do druids think about the various possible configurations involving shapeshifting?

Is it considered acceptable for a humanoid to sleep with a shapeshifted druid?

What about shapeshifted druids with each other?

Does it matter if its the same species or not?

What if a shapeshifted druid has relations with a real animal of the same form?

Can druids shift into different genders?

If druids fornicate while shapeshifted, can they produce offspring? Would it count as human, or of the species they shapeshifted into? Is that where catgirls and catboys originated?

Can a woman shapeshift into a male form and create offspring?

This is very sophisticated academic discourse, and thus intimidating, but it begs to be discussed.

DnD has been around for some years, has this topic ever been properly mapped by the community?

[Ellie]

Originally posted by EricHVela:

Sometimes, it appears people focus on polygonal representations of sexual acts far too much, to an unhealthy level. I can't blame developers for providing what players want, but what players appear to want in certain video games seems a bit... weird.

BG3 is just fine without indulging in the romance arcs (and for many playthroughs, I had my character friendzone everyone). After playing a few of them, it seems the romance arcs turned out to be silly anyway.

To put such importance on something so inane and trivial in the full scope of the game as to keep harping on it or raging about it... Doesn't seem healthy.

Curious; for me it's the opposite. When I start a game, my base is usually, "this time I play x and romance y". Probably focus on that more than the combat bits.

Anywho, someone said here that the details are usually navigated by the DM, which means that there's no official lore on the ins and outs of druid sexuality.

Canonically in BG3 shapeshifted shenanigans are sparkly fine apparently, so at least in BG3, things are furry-positive. Makes you wonder what goes down in the grove, but maybe that's the reason they wanted their privacy so badly.

[seeker1]

Originally posted by EricHVela:

Sometimes, it appears people focus on polygonal representations of sexual acts far too much, to an unhealthy level. I can't blame developers for providing what players want, but what players appear to want in certain video games seems a bit... weird.

I find it a bit weird that people find so much more satisfaction hitting cartoon pixels (monsters, bosses, and enemies) with other pixels (weapons and spells) and then bragging about defeating pixels with pixels. Shrug? Many people seem to relish in orgiastic joy over murdering those pixels, even friendly allied pixels. Some are upset you can't murder more child sized/aged pixels. Sometimes that seems unhealthy to me too, but am I gonna judge?

It's all your imagination at work. I prefer both kinds of imagining in my game. If I'm role playing a character in a fantasy world, that character could have sexual fantasies and romantic desires. Seems like folks in Faerun do. So when in FR do as FR folks do.

You often say at your table there never were romances in games. Shrug? At my tables, players in RL relationships had their characters "handfast". It was definitely a thing they did. So this idea that the TT game can't have any romance, well, depends on the DM.

I admit trying out all 4 romances, mostly because they are side stories and I wanted to see the conclusion and how they played out. Again, I don't think this was unhealthy and I guess if other people do, this must be another place where I just can't care about their opinions.

[Ellie]

Originally posted by seeker1:

I find it a bit weird that people find so much more satisfaction hitting pixels (monsters, bosses, and enemies) with other pixels (weapons and spells) and then bragging about defeating pixels with pixels. Shrug? Many people seem to relish in orgiastic joy over murdering those pixels, even friendly allied pixels. Sometimes that seems unhealthy to me too, but am I gonna judge?

The fact that expressing violence has less stigma than sexuality is one of those truly weird things about society. Nobody bats an eye if a shapeshifted druid rips someone apart, but if you investigate the logistics of them snuggling, people lose it.

[EricHVela]

Originally posted by seeker1:

Originally posted by EricHVela:

Sometimes, it appears people focus on polygonal representations of sexual acts far too much, to an unhealthy level. I can't blame developers for providing what players want, but what players appear to want in certain video games seems a bit... weird.

I find it a bit weird that people find so much more satisfaction hitting cartoon pixels (monsters, bosses, and enemies) with other pixels (weapons and spells) and then bragging about defeating pixels with pixels. Shrug? Many people seem to relish in orgiastic joy over murdering those pixels, even friendly allied pixels. Some are upset you can't murder more child sized/aged pixels. Sometimes that seems unhealthy to me too, but am I gonna judge?

It's all your imagination at work. I prefer both kinds of imagining in my game. If I'm role playing a character in a fantasy world, that character could have sexual fantasies and romantic desires. Seems like folks in Faerun do. So when in FR do as FR folks do.

You often say at your table there never were romances in games. Shrug? At my tables, players in RL relationships had their characters "handfast". It was definitely a thing they did. So this idea that the TT game can't have any romance, well, depends on the DM.

I admit trying out all 4 romances, mostly because they are side stories and I wanted to see the conclusion and how they played out. Again, I don't think this was unhealthy and I guess if other people do, this must be another place where I just can't care about their opinions.

It's the fixation I find weird, not the presence of it.

[Ellie]

Originally posted by Boombastic:

Throwing some oil into the fire now: a sad consequence of our dear religion(s) brainwashing full of stigmatas, restrictions and blindness :-)

Thankfully, we did make some progress, both as a society overall, and in this important discussion thread in particular.

In the World of BG3, with animal speaking, all adult creatures would pass the Harkness test. Also something to keep in mind.

[Boombastic]

Damn...now I feel really bad because I "forced" the poor Halsin druid to have sex with me in animal form! (only for scientific purposes, of course) :-)