Note that is a rant and is not very coherent and I've not finished it yet. I'm forcing myself to complete it as I'm a fan of BG1 and 2 but is a chore to play.
There are people, including on this site, that are praising BG3 for role-playing along the lines "sure is woke but I can role-play how ever I want".
My experience is exactly the opposite. Just few things I noticed.
1.The dialogue options are not satisfactory.
I've showed no interest in the druid elf dude but he offers you sex despite barely speaking with him and you can't get mad at and say "you degenerate either leave my camp or die". In fact you can't tell any companion to leave the camp permanent. You can't even tell that to other people that show up in your camp.
There are a bunch of abrasive NPCs that you can't tell them, bitch either tone it down or there is going to be violence. Sometimes you get intimidation checks but this is not what I'm aiming at, but the proper response to a bitch that treats you like shit despite being a group of heavily armed individuals that should be known at one point.
There is no nuance to refugees, either you support it or you are evil. You have no reasonable path for them. The game also pushes "the poor refugees" angle like crazy. Even the druid dude says something along the lines of baldurs gate people deserve death for being reluctant to take in the refugees.
As an example, there are some refugees squatting in someone's house and you can't use money to buy them accommodations elsewhere or better yet, give them money and supplies and get the frell out of there, there is a freaking army heading their way. And of course they treat you like a monster if you chose to evict them.
I understand there are some shady things with the dude who owns the house but that is just further manipulation from the writers to make it reasonable for refugees to take over ones house without the owners permission.
The lesbo priestess of Selune and her lover are bitches in how they act towards the priestesses father sacrificing himself to save her from death. The avatar of female frequency smashes his head several times in anger, sure he kept her locked up but it was towards saving the one she supposedly loves. I should be able to point that out to them.
- Sometimes ignores your choices or tries to force "the right choice". I told the lesbos to not come to my camp but they came anyway. Why is my character ok with having them there against his will and no dialogue option later to talk about it?
There was another scene with Wyll trying to sneak in the camp to kill Karlach, I told him to leave and never return, frankly he should have died there but I was merciful. The game tries over and over to make you take him in your party despite not making any sense.
- Several times my character is acting gay against my will. I've never gave any indication of being interested in Gale but suddenly I can see my character throwing seductive looks towards him and then sitting right next to him. I would expect the gay action to happen only if you show interest.
The same with the emperor. I was 100% against him from the start but it does not stop my character to sit down and throw glances like we are best buds, including a strange scene with him with his shirt off. Again I told him he was a monster from the start, why is the monster flirting with me.
- Evil choices are not well thought off. For example, if you choose to give Nightsong to Lorroakan you get no reward despite being a contract and he mentions a huge reward. You can call on them later but that made 0 sense. And this happens in several quests.
In previous games the evil choice was designed to be tempting. Better rewards to test you as a player, was an interesting idea.
- The role-playing of some NPCs is just over the top. You get the 3 bad guys do a captain-planet summon and one of them is an edgy emo dude. You also get some over the top evil guys that are cartoonish evil with no depth or anything that would make them interesting.
I've seen NWN2 mods that had better NPC role playing then this game.
There are some nice one, Lae'zel and Shadowheart are surprisingly interesting and their reactions seem more natural for their personalities. I understand that Lae'zel wants to have sex with you but I must have missed that part.
The Baldur's Gate series was dead to me as soon as they went back and wedged a modern American-style transgender character into the original story, which makes it way easier to not really care about the queerness of 3.
That was beamdog and their horrible enhanced edition crap
What? I never played enhanced. What did they add?
ACkshUaLLy iT's AbOuT ETHICS iN SkUlLbAShInG!
Several companions that can be gay romances and a trans character.
A trans character other than Edwina? That was the best use of "trans" in any game ever.
Heresy and desecration.
Haven't noticed that one yet. Tell me who it is, so I can kill it?
Literally someone who needs beaten with a belt, namely the cursed one from Aerie's circus after you free her and Quayle since its a Cursed Belt of Sex and would actually do for them what is supposed to be the point 🙄
Failing that pray to one of the God's for divine blessings, buy a Greater Wish, or piss off Elminster since he proves he can cast the spell to do the same thing when Edwin is dumb enough to do just that. It's literally a world setting where someone can actually transition completely but still the characters get added.
But then they wouldn't be able to scream for attention about how they're a precious special unique character that everyone and their dog should bow down and worship.
Attention whores gonna attention whore.
Or more accurately, shortly after leaving Candlekeep and save-scumming an Ogre to death.
Edwina is the best trans characters ever made and her interaction with Misc are priceless.
Edit: Not sure why I got downvoted. For those that do not know Edwin in BG2 puts on the cursed belt of sexes so he changes to Edwina. He is now literally a man stuck in a woman body. If you have Misc in your party, Misc hates Edwin for killing/ trying to kill Dynaheir, the one he was protecting, to the point he can try to attack him. Once Edwin turns to Edwina, Misc does not realizes it is the same person and tries to flirt with her while Edwin is incredibly annoyed. This makes sense do to Misc low intelligence, Is incredible good writing and very funny.
I disagree with the point about Edwina being trans, Edwin simply fucked up and was a man stuck in a woman's body trying to get his original body back. Sure there might have been times of body dimorphia but it wasn't because he felt he was born in the wrong body, it's because he's a Red Wizard of Thay and arrogant enough to stupidly play about with powers beyond his ability. Then later when he manages to fix it he does something similar when challenging Elminster which results in him being turned into Edwina again, but probably not for any trans related reasons. More likely it's Elminster being the crazy old coot he is and punishing Edwin for being a dick yet again by Dwayne Dibbly-ing him a second time.
Also as MargarineMongoose points out it's not the belt Edwin uses, it's the scrolls you find under the graveyard if you let Edwin keep hold of them. He fucks around with it a few times and when it goes wrong he ends up a woman until he works out how to undo it. In the mean time both party and npc interactions make fun of this like when a fellow wizard learns of what happened and mocks Edwin to his face. I think the response is a fireball from Edwin, or something similarly lethal spell wise.
I completely agree, since is not a mental illness but it is a men stuck in a woman's body. I don't care if he can be considered trans or not, I just think it was incredibly fun to see him get upset.
BG2 was pre-Obama writing, so a character changing genders has virtually nothing to do with transgender as it exists today.
I agree, it was back when this stuff was funny.
No, he fumbled the Nether scrolls. It had nothing to do with the girdle.
That said I'll agree, he provides some top tier party banter during that part of his quest.
There's a difference between being transformed by magic into a different type of being, versus being a psychopath who mutilates their own body and tries to force everyone else to bend to your will.