Baldur's Gate EE: Siege of Dragonspear - Writing

[Naldan]

I anticipated this expansion to the extent that I thought that this was simply an expansion.

So the DLC/expansion got released. It has some (or lots?) technical issues.


But then I saw some cool stuff. The expansion has some curious writing of western progressivism, transgender issues and emancipation of women. Feminism.

Fine, it's Beamdog's expansion. If it's grievous, what I don't know, I don't have to buy it. It's not like they retro-actively patched BG I EE with such writing. And I'm not repelled by this ideology per se . It might be good writing.

But then I read about an example of someone being told off for mansplaining. Ingame. Holy shit.

Anyway, I could ramble on. What I'd like to ask someone who has this game is if you could post here concrete stuff directly from the game. *I* don't care about spoilers, but others might.

Why don't I post this in any official Beamdog forum? Because, as always, they seem very lose with the banhammer again, I have heard at least. Aside from a def calling for customers for review-bombing (is it called as such when the reviews ought to be positive?) the game.

I'm aware of the technical issues. And I don't even want to judge here. I really like to get some examples, as in screenshots or videos or direct transscripts. Or just your experience since nobody does a quicksave prior to every instance of progressivism.


Thank you very much.

 

[Naldan]

Can you kill the characters that piss you off? If so, it's fair game. So long as the expansion is elective and doesn't retroactively patch the previous editions.

I'd like to know that, too. Replying to you to let you know that I don't ignore you.

 

[Fat Hippo]

Ehh, I already ranted on this in the Escapist news article when this expansion was released, but I've found all of Beamdog's writing atrocious in the content they added to the enhanced editions. Wouldn't surprise me if the trend continued here.

That said, I do think it would be possible to write a good game with feminist themes for more or less any setting, but if you do it in a medieval fantasy universe, it will be harder to do well. We already copy-paste a lot of our ideals and values into settings where they don't make very much sense (The Forgotten Realms are already very egalitarian for a fantasy world) but modern feminism seems like it would be particularly susceptible to seeming completely off when taken out of its real-world context.

 

[aspotlessdomain]

What Beamdog did with Dragonspear is moronic and counter-productive. They absolutely earned the backlash they're currently dealing with.

Here's the exchange people are fighting about:

NPC: "When I was born, my parents thought me a boy and raised me as such. In time, we all came to understand I was truly a woman. I created a new name from syllables of different languages. All have special meaning to me, it is the truest reflection of who I am."

1. Thank you for sharing your story with me. I have another question for you.
2. An interesting past. Now I must ask you something else.
3. I have to be going now.

Note the replies available to the player character: "Wow, you're cool and interesting! I'm definitely glad I asked about your name and don't feel the least bit ambushed by this conversation." Or, you can say: "I have to be going now." No debate, no further inquiry, no possibility for role-play of any kind. The writer just straight up deployed the power of conversation trees to railroad players into a fucking public service announcement.

Weird how this plucked a nerve among people who were called paranoid children for suggesting a strain of Orwellian thought-policing ran through the identity politics and critiques of "representation" that led to this kind of rank tokenism in the first place.

 

[Naldan]

Still waiting for concrete examples. From what I gather is that it's just one character that is lazily written, who is transgender and this being the only defining point of said character. Also, Minsc talks about "ethics in adventuring". When that mansplaining-event is induced by that transgender character, it would feel like this was more a jab at intersectional feminists and this is another instance for intersectional feminism in gaming shooting itself in the foot like in FarCry, where Ani... Abita(?) Sarko(?)sien or something, the woman as reference to Anita Sarkeesian, was all about killing everybody from what I know. Have never played it.


I gather more and more that the writing seems to be the low point aside from technical difficulties, which is rather devastating for an RPG from basically 2000, only a bit higher res. But these opinions seem to be biased by people who don't just think that Minsc's GG remark is pretty stupid, but rather being highly offended by this.

Snip

Sure sounds like the RP-capabilities of Fallout 4. I have read somewhere that Microsoft is taking serious efforts against people being mean and sexist towards Cortana. You know, the program. Seems like the writer took that to heart. The writer for Baldur's Gate's expansion seems to be notorious for being simply bad at writing stories.

So is this all? Do I have to deal with Transgender Intersectional Feminism: The Character, or is it just that and Minsc being dumb that one time?

 

[aspotlessdomain]

There are more examples. It's a theme that runs through the entire expansion and includes a complete retcon of a character from the original game to be less sexist (Safana).

The original games had elements of this sort of thing and it was totally fine and no one cared. An example that comes immediately to mind is the now-cliche "oppressed Elves" in Saradush from ToB. What is grating about Dragonspear is the distinctly preachy and out of place postmodern tone and the authors particular identity politics rewriting basic adventurer-y things like "offering to protect a woman" as unheroic.

 

[Naldan]

Snap

This is consistent with this:

Spoiler

Well, I guess that's that then. Thankfully, I don't have to buy it. If it were consistent within the universe or something else, it might be another story - literally. But the game mechanics or the art doesn't seem to make up for unsubtle, not immersive writing. But still, maybe it's just some random NPCs and one two characters I don't have to deal with...

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Still waiting for concrete examples. From what I gather is that it's just one character that is lazily written, who is transgender and this being the only defining point of said character. Also, Minsc talks about "ethics in adventuring". When that mansplaining-event is induced by that transgender character,?

Wait wait wait wait wait...

Does the game just allude to the concept or does it actually use the term "mansplaining"? Because that's bloody hilarious if it does.

 

[SecondPrize]

The writing is certainly not up to par with the earlier entries (Beamdog's characters in the EEs weren't really either) but it's just looking at it that gets me. It looks like they tried to recreate the visuals of the originals but failed and then just blurred everything a bit and called it a day. It looks like ass put next to BG 1 or 2. I don't know why they thought they could take up a franchise as beloved as Baldur's Gate and half-ass it with the quality of writing and art but that's not going to work out for them. I'm judging this thing based on the quality of BeamDog's work, not on how virtuous they are and whether they hold the right opinions of the issues of the day.

Still waiting for concrete examples. From what I gather is that it's just one character that is lazily written, who is transgender and this being the only defining point of said character. Also, Minsc talks about "ethics in adventuring". When that mansplaining-event is induced by that transgender character,?

Wait wait wait wait wait...

Does the game just allude to the concept or does it actually use the term "mansplaining"? Because that's bloody hilarious if it does.

They don't use the term. One character tells you off if you offer to help another. You're not explaining anything, but it is made clear your help isn't needed. I actually think that exchange is kind of cute and fits with what that character may actually do. It isn't forced or anything and anyone calling it mansplaining is blowing it out of proportion and should relax a bit, there's enough else to get righteously indignant about considering this is Baldur's Freaking Gate and the work was not great.

 

[cleric of the order]

The things they did to Minsc, i am not sure if i should be sad or angry.
But i know one thing, SOMEONE NEEDS SOME GOOD BUTT KICKING, BOO GO FOR THE EYES

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

How do they not make sense? Its a fictictious fantasy realm with unique geography and weather, alien biology, supernatural creatures and actual magic.

Hell... it's not just a realm, but two (Toril is but one half of a seperated whole)... and then you have more the setting specific demiplanes/planes... all of which coterminous with the greater multiverse... and Toril itself isn't even a 'Medieval' setting. Parts of it are archaic... and reference not merely a huge diversity of human cultures on Earth but even planar cultures from beyond, like the Star Elves.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

For example, people were upset that there is homophobia in Skyrim. Well, why would there be? Why must homophobia exist in the realm of The Elder Scrolls? It doesn't have to. Neither does homosexuality. Or heterosexuality. Or humans. Or trees. Or rain. Or the cosmos. Or gravity.

But then I can also just as logically say: why shouldn't there be?

If we're going to say "well it's a fantasy world, therefore anything goes" then there is no limit to what we can put (or not put) into the game.

 

[DementedSheep]

What Beamdog did with Dragonspear is moronic and counter-productive. They absolutely earned the backlash they're currently dealing with.

Here's the exchange people are fighting about:

NPC: "When I was born, my parents thought me a boy and raised me as such. In time, we all came to understand I was truly a woman. I created a new name from syllables of different languages. All have special meaning to me, it is the truest reflection of who I am."

1. Thank you for sharing your story with me. I have another question for you.
2. An interesting past. Now I must ask you something else.
3. I have to be going now.

Note the replies available to the player character: "Wow, you're cool and interesting! I'm definitely glad I asked about your name and don't feel the least bit ambushed by this conversation." Or, you can say: "I have to be going now." No debate, no further inquiry, no possibility for role-play of any kind. The writer just straight up deployed the power of conversation trees to railroad players into a fucking public service announcement.

Weird how this plucked a nerve among people who were called paranoid children for suggesting a strain of Orwellian thought-policing ran through the identity politics and critiques of "representation" that led to this kind of rank tokenism in the first place.

Yes because it soo uncommon in an RPG for your dialogue options to boil down to "cool story" with no real input. "Thought policing"? because you didn't get a dialogue option in a game? are you serious?
Even if they did purposefully not add any negative reaction they don't owe you to have your view available as an option in their game.

But hey, if it truly upsets you then you could join the people review bombing it in the interests of being "politically neutral".

 

[Naldan]

Snap

Hm. I made the assumptions because the writer of FarCry 4 said so. By the way, after you've played it and try to call me out: It's not taking place in Nepal. But as I said; I haven't played it and, with no sarcasm, I'm sorry if I blurred and confused this non-reference. When it's wrong, it's wrong. Just don't get snarky about this, please?

And I made this thread in order to gather concrete evidence like SecondPrize and pretty much everyone gave me.

But your opinion is welcome. Thanks for sharing it. Now I know what I should do in order to talk about games and ask questions. Like playing them first and getting the facts straight, in that order.

---
Anyway.

So, it seems like this theme is everywhere in the expansion. Man, that would be fine if it wasn't an in-between entry rather than a spin-off.

It looks like characters act really out of character when previously established. One couldn't even write this off as character developement since it all reverts back to before in BG 2 or am I missing something?

By the way, I don't care about spoilers anymore.

And I'm not aware of Beamdog's writing capabilities since I only played the originals.

 

[Wiggum Esquilax]

snip

Feminism isn't the right to be an idealized version of yourself, it's the right to choose.

So Beamdog retconned Safana away from being manipulative slut? Because they're uncomfortable with those aspects of human personality, they redrew the definitions of what a woman can be. This isn't egalitarian, it's missing the point entirely, becoming just another form of gender bias in the process. Way to miss your own point.

It doesn't even make sense canonically. When she makes her return late in Shadows of Amn, she's not only back to her old manipulations, she added murderous bounty hunter to her resume. Has she undergone some radical personality shift, only to spring back?

 

[DementedSheep]

Yes because it soo uncommon in an RPG for your dialogue options to boil down to "cool story" with no real input.

Mostly just the ones with really shitty dialogue options. Those kind are pretty common, and usually forgotten. But games that had good dialogue then have a turd plopped ontop of that? Less common. And even I know that Baldur's Gate was praised for it's dialogue options.

http://speed-new.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/425234534.jpg
====

1. Thank you for sharing your story with me. I have another question for you.
2. An interesting past. Now I must ask you something else.
3. I should go

The most prominent flaw I see with this is that they offered two options that appear to both take you back to the original dialogue tree, with no apparent difference between the two of them.

"Thanks" and "Interesting". Now, unless I'm missing some secret affect between the two of those (like, I don't know, -20 relationship points by saying Interesting for some reason), I don't see why there's not one option given the above.

Saying it's "interesting" is more neutral. You can put whatever tone you want into that without them having to write a whole bunch more dialogue.
It's been a while since I played and I'm too tried to go through the memory banks for a specific one but I'm pretty damn sure that is not the first time BG had this. The amount of options it gave you varied.

Edit: that example picture of BG2 dialogue technically has more options but that because it's the initial dialogue box where you pick a topic.
1.*Use Innkeeper function* <--really doesn't count as a dialogue option
2.*flavour dialogue for that NPC*
3.*plot related question*
4.*plot related question*
5.*exit conversation*

It's like when people got all hung up on the dialogue wheel (which I don't like BTW, I think it's too rigid and I don't like that doesn't show what you are actually going to say) from bioware because it only gives 3 reaction options. That's standard, it only appears less than usual because they separated out the general questions.
Although BG did have better than that in SOME places from what I recall the majority was just like the above picture with most the options being nothing more than picking a topic or boy scout, money orientated and asshole.