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Phlegmish posted:That's how I see it as well. Unlike some other recent entertainment products, this game is actually not that politically charged at all, including most of the subtext. An arms dealer starting a war so he can whip up anti-refugee sentiment and be handed the reins of power by a braying and cowardly elite with his promise of security using an army of robocops, feels pretty political
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Jan 7, 2024 18:00
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Lae’zel is a brat, not a dom
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Jan 7, 2024 18:01
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Mr. Lobe posted:Charisma is force of personality, a low charisma doesn't have to mean repugnance, it can also mean being meek, low energy, wishy-washy, or submissive I know, but what I did was funny and a running joke at the table.
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Jan 7, 2024 18:02
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unattended spaghetti posted:I think the game does a really great job on diversity and not making a big blinking thing of it save one element. There's really no disabled characters I'm aware of. Though imho this is also the group most often disregarded more generally so I'm not surprised. Still kinda disappointing. PTSD is a disability
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Jan 7, 2024 18:04
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Perry Mason Jar posted:PTSD is a disability You're not wrong and yet I think you know what I mean. In the interest of clarity I'll say physical disabilities then.
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Jan 7, 2024 18:06
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Is chronic pain a disability? Shadowheart has that
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Jan 7, 2024 18:06
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Morgellons isn't a real disease
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Jan 7, 2024 18:08
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Mr. Lobe posted:Is chronic pain a disability? Shadowheart has that You know, I wasn't going to say anything, but I think Shadowheart is faking it. Even after I favorably resolved her questline, she would still periodically go 'ouchie', probably for attention
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Jan 7, 2024 18:09
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Lae’zel is standoffish at first because she thinks Vlaakith is the one true path to phat loot, until she realizes that killing her annoying brethren and hanging with Tav also gets her some of that sick-nasty githyanki githstanki.
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Jan 7, 2024 18:10
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Phlegmish posted:That's how I see it as well. Unlike some other recent entertainment products, this game is actually not that politically charged at all, including most of the subtext. Even in a shallow 'representation' sense, most of the major characters, including most of the popular love interests, are white. That makes it harder for the usual suspects to concern troll, and they have to show their true colors. Some of the NPCs being presented as openly gay without comment is not 'political', it's just you being a closeted (or open) bigot who needs to get with the times if you have a problem with that. this game's extremely politically charged, just not from a "anti white supremacy" perspective. you can go straight up nazi in this game if you wanted to. don't like them "bad bloods"? kill 'em. don't like the grove nazis? kill those people instead. if you're a liberal, you try to solve all their problems for them and then make them kiss. that said, many games are politically charged. almost every big budget game has political poo poo in it. it's just harder to notice in games with an actually good story, instead of just outright saying "war bad" or whatever nonsense. Professor Beetus posted:To be clear I liked both characters and thought they were both good examples of trans representation. I just thought the contrast was kinda funny. it was a quite funny contrast in storytelling ngl. I'm happy for any company that puts in trans characters in their game (not hogwarts cause they made it a 1 line stunner lol) with any effort because you're 100% guaranteed to piss off a lot of people no matter how you go about it.
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Jan 7, 2024 18:10
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Professor Beetus posted:Morgellons isn't a real disease It actually is...
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Jan 7, 2024 18:13
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Entropic posted:Something fun I figured out in the Mountain Pass on my current run, at Rosymorn Monastery, when you run into the drunken Kobolds that have raided the wine cellar, some of the Firewine barrels have Kobolds that have gotten trapped inside them drinking the wine. You can hear the glug glug glug sounds if you get close to them. I think I had seen that on a previous run, but what I hadn't realize before is you can pick up the barrels and send them back to camp and they will still have the Kobolds inside them. I haven't tested to see if they persist through a long rest yet. You can tell the Kobold barrels apart in your inventory because they weigh 10lbs instead of the usual 40lbs. (you'd think they would weigh more but apparently kobolds have negative weight). I can't wait have Karlach try flying a Kobold barrel in a fight. Yes, this works! I don't know where they are pissing at either, but the barrels do weigh less than normal Firewine barrels. Karlach carried one all the way to House of Hope battle and I threw one at Viconia just for fun (I had created a bottleneck of insect swarm and cloudkill and was just throwing random summons in there to much them up even further), and the drunk kobold died almost immediately lol.
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Jan 7, 2024 18:15
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OzFactor posted:After playing with him more, I actually like that he’s an obnoxious narcissist because both his life preceding the plot and the actual plot make him pay for it over and over again, and you can call him out on it repeatedly, and he owns up to it but continues to do it because he’s broken like everyone else. Wyll's dad is a respected military veteran who later became a patriar or whatever. Wyll was born into utter privilege but feels compelled to live up to his father's legacy of charismatic leadership and martial excellence. He tries really hard to behave like some swashbuckling hero because a) he can't help seeing his father, who he looks up to, as such a hero and b) he desperately wants to be worthy of his famous dad's legacy (and love). Wyll is a genuinely good man at heart, but he has never had a chance to really develop a proper identity of his own. His youth was confined by social and political expectations, and he went straight from that mess to being jerked around and manipulated by rear end in a top hat devils (and subsequently exiled by his own father, who he nevertheless continues to idolize). The heroic grandstanding routine goes from funny/annoying to horribly sad once you realize that it's the only thing he has left; his pact prevents him from being anything except an infernal warlock. The last meaningful choice available to him is whether he uses his hellish powers in a heroic fashion or a selfish one, so he desperately throws everything he's got into being the Lawful Goodest, most Dudley Doright-rear end motherfucker he can possibly be, because the alternative utterly terrifies him. e: This is why it's both supremely abhorrent and totally unsurprising when, in Act 3, Mizora forces him to choose between escaping his poo poo situation and saving his dad's life. Both problems were entirely preventable (and in fact might have been intentionally made worse) by a certain piece of poo poo devil, and neither are entirely (or at all) Wyll's fault, but forcing that decision upon him leaves him even more helpess and self-loathing than before, making him easier to manipulate. What I'm saying here is that Avernus is the elemental plane of abusive relationships, Angry Diplomat fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Jan 7, 2024 |
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Jan 7, 2024 18:21
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With Lae'zel it is a bit funny/sad that once you finally convince her that Vlaakith sucks, she immediately switches to directing her belligerent speaking style against Vlaakith because its the only way she knows how to communicate. She, Astarion, and Shadowheart all have really good arcs if you go about helping them heal the different ways they've been broken. I don't think Wyll is a narcissist so much as myopic and try hard-y. Which is an easy trap for an overly earnest guy to fall into. Gale is much more of a narcissist which means his humbling takes something much more catastrophic to happen to him. Karlach is a big murderous golden retriever and is clearly the best.
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Jan 7, 2024 18:28
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The impression I get from Wyll is that he makes a huge deal out of his Blade of Frontiers identity when most people treat him with the same level of curiosity as like, your local car dealer who makes wacky ads on TV. He greatly plays up the circumstances of his pacting to Mizora when the Grand Duke and Florrick probably thought it was just another Tuesday at Baldur's Gate. He does this because the alternative is to believe that he essentially signed his life away for nothing.
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Jan 7, 2024 18:29
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Angry Diplomat posted:Wyll's dad is a respected military veteran who later became a patriar or whatever. Wyll was born into utter privilege but feels compelled to live up to his father's legacy of charismatic leadership and martial excellence. He tries really hard to behave like some swashbuckling hero because a) he can't help seeing his father, who he looks up to, as such a hero and b) he desperately wants to be worthy of his famous dad's legacy (and love). You can still tell Wyll to break the pact and save his dad if you go to the underwater prison though so the real joke is on the one deliberately making things as lovely as possible for the sake of it
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Jan 7, 2024 18:30
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unattended spaghetti posted:I think the game does a really great job on diversity and not making a big blinking thing of it save one element. There's really no disabled characters I'm aware of. Though imho this is also the group most often disregarded more generally so I'm not surprised. Still kinda disappointing. Wyll is missing an eye, which I think would classify as a disability. Gets your drivers license flagged here at least. Karlach can’t touch anyone, is dying of heart disease, and has a demonic pacemaker - all of which would be a disability. Astarion’s previous symptoms of inability to be in sunlight and requiring constant medication (blood) would be a disability. Minsc clearly has a TBI / Forrest Gump thing going on and has a service animal to treat his disability. Really the only “healthy” members of the party are Laezel, Jaheira, Gale, Minthara, and Halsin.
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Jan 7, 2024 18:33
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It always felt wrong to me that for every other companion you can pretty much choose to let them decide their own fate for the big choices but with Wyll it's 100% up to one player dialog choice whether he sells his soul or not in the end.
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Jan 7, 2024 18:35
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Entropic posted:It always felt wrong to me that for every other companion you can pretty much choose to let them decide their own fate for the big choices but with Wyll it's 100% up to one player dialog choice whether he sells his soul or not in the end. Some people just can't make up their own drat minds That said, I agree
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Jan 7, 2024 18:36
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EorayMel posted:You can still tell Wyll to break the pact and save his dad if you go to the underwater prison though so the real joke is on the one deliberately making things as lovely as possible for the sake of it It's genuinely great that you can do that, as well as all the table flipping you can do in the House of Hope. Devils have a vested interest in convincing you that their contracts are iron-clad, but you're a goddamn hero and don't have to put up with that poo poo.
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Jan 7, 2024 18:37
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Perry Mason Jar posted:It actually is... Oh yeah my bad, I forgot it is a psychological disorder. that was lovely of me.
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Jan 7, 2024 18:37
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EorayMel posted:You can still tell Wyll to break the pact and save his dad if you go to the underwater prison though so the real joke is on the one deliberately making things as lovely as possible for the sake of it Yeah but like. For most of the game, he acts the way he does because he's completely loving doomed and has no idea what else to do, is the point I'm making. In short, Mr. Lobe posted:Some people just can't make up their own drat minds This, but it's tragic instead of annoying because his entire development as a person has been stunted both unintentionally (by his dad and social station) and intentionally (by some soul-lawyering dick from another plane) Angry Diplomat fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Jan 7, 2024 |
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Jan 7, 2024 18:38
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Halsin loves to cum too much which let me tell you is definitely a disability
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Jan 7, 2024 18:42
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space uncle posted:Wyll is missing an eye, which I think would classify as a disability. Gets your drivers license flagged here at least. The only one of these that counts imho is Karlach because she actually experiences concrete consequences because of it. The eye never comes up as an obstacle, the vampire stuff is eliminated by the tad pole or easily averted by switching him to animals, etc etc. Even Karlach can be ahem fixed by some iron. The reality of disability is that it forces an adjustment of how one lives day to day. If there are opt out conditions it kinda blunts the reality. I'm not touching that Forest Gump poo poo get outta here. Like I said, this is the one identity that is typically done poorly these days. Honestly I wouldn't even point it out at all if the game didn't do such an excellent job in other areas. It isn't enough to depict. And it blunts the supposed import if the player can superficially wave away the constraint. Though, this being a fantasy game, one can easily justify almost anything by magic so whatcha gonna do?
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Jan 7, 2024 18:47
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Big Bowie Bonanza posted:Halsin loves to cum too much which let me tell you is definitely a disability He loves it when you sleep with Mizora, but he doesn't love it as much as when Astarion knows about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8MO0gwD35U 
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Jan 7, 2024 18:48
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Feels like with all the crazy technomagic going on in the game, they could have had a few people with prosthetics. And as someone with some mild (non-facial) vitiligo, it would have been nice for more detailed customization there. Also they should have made a character who was diabetic so you'd have to be careful about how many sugary supplies you used for a long rest.
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Jan 7, 2024 18:52
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Professor Beetus posted:Feels like with all the crazy technomagic going on in the game, they could have had a few people with prosthetics. And as someone with some mild (non-facial) vitiligo, it would have been nice for more detailed customization there. Also they should have made a character who was diabetic so you'd have to be careful about how many sugary supplies you used for a long rest. I mean it feels like you're taking the piss a bit here, but with all the reactive stuff in the game, having a quest giver straight blow a character off for having a pigment condition would be pretty accurate. Not that anyone would have the balls to do something like that. Again, fantasy game, too raw.
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Jan 7, 2024 19:00
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Professor Beetus posted:Oh yeah my bad, I forgot it is a psychological disorder. that was lovely of me. No, it's literally real and as described by sufferers: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5811176/ It's tick-borne and related to Lyme E: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5038112/ This article is better, more thorough Perry Mason Jar fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Jan 7, 2024 |
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Jan 7, 2024 19:05
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I've seen a lot of chronic pain sufferers post about Shadowheart in the comments to Jennifer and Aliona's videos. Usually it's how they find a lot of connection with a character carrying an otherwise invisible burden and wanting that pain to mean something, even as it feels completely random and inexplicable to anyone else. "You can tolerate a great deal of suffering so long as it has meaning" etc.
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Jan 7, 2024 19:10
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Perry Mason Jar posted:No, it's literally real and as described by sufferers: Huh, seems like the medical community is still pretty divided on it but the stuff in that abstract looks pretty conclusive. Weird. unattended spaghetti posted:I mean it feels like you're taking the piss a bit here, but with all the reactive stuff in the game, having a quest giver straight blow a character off for having a pigment condition would be pretty accurate. Not that anyone would have the balls to do something like that. Again, fantasy game, too raw. I mean, a little yeah, but two out of three of those are conditions that I have. I think it would have been interesting to have reactivity to camp supplies, like if you use too much garlic, Astarion won't fully heal or something. One thing I've noticed on multiple playthroughs is that some of the reactivity is smoke and mirrors, where some differently labeled dialogues are still the same text.
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Jan 7, 2024 19:11
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Professor Beetus posted:Huh, seems like the medical community is still pretty divided on it but the stuff in that abstract looks pretty conclusive. Weird. Crazy, right? Check my edit, much better article that's more conclusive. Anyway, enough derail and make sure to check yourself and friends for ticks!
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Jan 7, 2024 19:13
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mycot posted:Oh God I finally resolved it by forcing every party member to go to camp individually and dragging Halsin far enough that he wasn't considered "in danger", which made every quest update at the same time. Weird. Another way to do it is to hire some hirelings. Then you can commit your dead party members souls to Withers and then slot in Hirelings to finish the fight. I never touched hirelings my first two playthroughs but they can seriously break the game if abused. Just Warding Bond alone makes your party nearly unstoppable
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Jan 7, 2024 19:14
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exquisite tea posted:I've seen a lot of chronic pain sufferers post about Shadowheart in the comments to Jennifer and Aliona's videos. Usually it's how they find a lot of connection with a character carrying an otherwise invisible burden and wanting that pain to mean something, even as it feels completely random and inexplicable to anyone else. "You can tolerate a great deal of suffering so long as it has meaning" etc. See I come at this as a person with severe visual impairment. So disability being tremendously varied as it is, covering so much breadth of experience, there's things I just won't account for in practice. But that's pretty cool. To be clear, I'm not trying to rag on the game here. There's a lot of care and consideration put into it. But in my personal experience, with my personal disability, and knowing a lot of people with similarly severe disabilities, I think we have a ways to go and I just want to see media get there This also kinda chaps my rear end a bit because the other big way this game fell short was in regard to accessibility options. I'll grant that they've done some good post release support which is nice. But I'd have killed for some kind of text to speech functionality in the game. unattended spaghetti fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Jan 7, 2024 |
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Jan 7, 2024 19:20
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Astarion's Charisma is low because he's built using strict point buy and you need a dump stat or two if you want to afford a higher stat somewhere else. In other words don't think about it, D&D mechanically sucks rear end.
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Jan 7, 2024 19:42
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Not that I'm saying the point buy system itself sucks, because the alternative is much worse, but really I don't pay attention to the stats of the game outside of what they mean mechanically because it's not like D&D as a game system is all that well-thought through anyway. It's got two attributes that mean "muscle" and divides them by offensive and defensive muscle, with one as a stat tax for survival. It's also got two attributes that mean "how much you know" but handwaves one as intuitive intelligence and life experience rather than erudite intelligence. It's very stupid and you should engage with it mechanically rather than on any deeper substantive level. Also you can respec them at any time, for a price, they're not a roleplaying tool they're just functions.
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Jan 7, 2024 19:55
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Wyll should've gotten -1 to perception and +1 to intimidation as the game itself handles it.
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Jan 7, 2024 20:04
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I think the way 5E does stats is pretty uninteresting BUT it is extremely funny how people figured out what Shadowheart's entire deal was 3 years ago because of her lovely point spread.
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Jan 7, 2024 20:06
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I like Karlach but she's a little too well adjusted for spending a decade in hell. She should be a bit emotionally damaged from that, no? Lae'zel is arguably the most grounded companion if you think about it. She's not sleeping with god like Gale, or a superhero like Wyll. She doesn't have a furnace for a heart. She's not a vampire. And she's not the literal chosen one like Shadowheart. Her being a space elf is the only thing special about her but in the grand scheme of things she's just a grunt for Vlaakith. A talented one to be sure but she's not close to becoming favored when the game starts. She's the only companion that doesn't have some crazy background. She's just a soldier. And I kinda like that about her.
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Jan 7, 2024 20:11
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Thundarr posted:It's genuinely great that you can do that, as well as all the table flipping you can do in the House of Hope. Devils have a vested interest in convincing you that their contracts are iron-clad, but you're a goddamn hero and don't have to put up with that poo poo. It definitely feels like devils are too used to toying with mortals on planes where they just get sent back home if they "die" and fail to consider the possible ramifications of someone coming to find them at home. Powerful entities being so insulated from consequences that they forget people can come find them if they get pissed off enough, I guess this game is political  One of the possible interpretations of low charisma that I like is that someone might not be unpleasant, they might be a nice person with bad social skills, which explains Karlach having an 8 in charisma.
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Jan 7, 2024 20:17
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Ginette Reno posted:Lae'zel is arguably the most grounded companion if you think about it. She's not sleeping with god like Gale, or a superhero like Wyll. She doesn't have a furnace for a heart. She's not a vampire. And she's not the literal chosen one like Shadowheart. She killed four children when she was herself a child. She's normal by githyanki standards, but their standards are insanely hosed up.
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Jan 7, 2024 20:20
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