This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Some of you may have heard of an almost decade old video game called "Kingdom Come: Deliverence". It is a realistic RPG with no fantasy elements, developed by a Czech studio, and set in middle ages Czechia.
At its release its fidelity to history was widely praised by gamers. But gaming journalists attacked it for this very reason: fidelity to history meant that there was a paucity of Africans in the game. Despite gaming journalists forming united frons to smear the developers as racist, for not altering the racial demographics to please foreigners, the developers stood FIRMLY by their game.
Fast forward to a couple of months ago, and a sequel to KC:D is announced. Warhorse Studios says nothing eyebrow raising. Then a shock: screenshots appearing to show an African boasting about his land plenty, equality and knowledge, purporting to be from KC:D2 surfaces. There is widespread disbelief, the developers deny its authenticity, deboonkers find queerities in rendering. Matter is considered to be dubious at best.
Then a shock: a full admission from the man who so unfairly smeared, and who didn't buckle, that the game is in fact alters history to suit the tastes of 2025 American audiences.
Still the wages are low in Czechia, and loyalty of the marginalized and silenced peoples is worthless compared to fame the media can bestow upon you, and fortune gained from hiding the massive backtracks in marketing, so the game is already profitable.
There is plenty of subversion here. Take a look:
• Henry and Hans are gay for each other: https://imgur.com/a/VoNmnq0
• Musa the Malian Scholar, Physician and Explorer (who quickly went from "Al Fake" to "just a Trader" to big plot critical character with over an hour of dialogue that is part of the main story and can't be killed) lectures the player about how much more enlightened his society is than Bohemia over and over, and goes on about how they don't season dey food, you can also get relationship advice from him, or talk about jerking off, also you apparently have to defend him during a trial and if you fail it's game over with Henry getting hanged: https://imgur.com/a/P2dsthI
• Henry apparently has a Jewish step brother, who he can be gay with? and teaches him about the plight of his people: https://imgur.com/a/mooiFgi
• The Jewish quarter and synagogue in the game that wasn't historic, but added by the dev team for story purposes: https://i.imgur.com/5u0o4mG.png plays a major part in the main story and you will have to defend them from “Antisemite” (talk about anachronistic) Christians attacking them in an ahistorical invented pogrom: https://i.imgur.com/YarvjPJ.jpeg
• The main not-gay romance Option is supposedly a single mother who cheats on you with Musa, a black man, and becomes angry with you if you don’t champion him in court in a subsequent quest.
• A gypsy prostitute from a gypsy camp you're to run errands for teaches Henry about hermaphrodites: https://i.imgur.com/ZAn8Ges.png
• Henry gets humiliated or outdone by women several times
• There's a Quest about humanizing and making friends with the Cumans that invaded and pillaged Henry's village and killed his parents and girlfriend
• There's a quest where you have to help make a Golem using Jewish magic, and to do so Henry apparently has to eat dead bodies? The act itself mocked as humiliating (“from Lord’s messenger to taster of cadavers”): https://imgur.com/a/bMPqJIm
The pogrom is interesting - the head developer, who defended the child sodomy (Henry is a minor by canon) he injected, said to players you can make your own choices whether or not to engage in sodomy, but conveniently you have no choice but to slaughter your fellow White Christians beside a Muslim ally to advance the main plot. On a related note about the lead dev from Wikipedia’s early life:
It seems that he ignored his personal ethnic grievances in the first game, to wide acclaim, but then heavily layered them into the sequel in a way that slanders White Christian European history, while vandalizing the beloved first game.
Much media has followed this path - Joker to Joker 2, The Last of Us to The Last of Us Part 2, Hades and its sequel, etc. Rugpulls and humiliating retcons everywhere.
What was "based" about Hades 1?
It was not based, but rather the sequel more heavily catered to woke pieties and aesthetics than the first. It is not the best example, but sequels degrading, if not on an about-face like Kingdom Come, then simply unignorably further downward into wokeism, is a noticeable pattern.
And Baldur's Gate 3 shows us that people, including the white Gamers, love it as long as it's a good game.
BG3 also did not exactly have the opportunity to plainly slander White Christian Europeans (unless they somehow made their way into Faerûn). It also did not vandalize the prior titles in the series with woke retcons.
I blindly (nearly zero prior review on social media or otherwise, because I enjoyed BG1/2 very much and decided to dive in blind only if a trusted friend could vouch it wasn’t woke goyslop) played through it on recommendation from a friend who didn’t find it catering directly to modern audiences in his own playthrough (unlike recent Ubisoft titles). I believe now that he was wrong and is not sensitive enough to know he is swimming in woke waters.
It’s mostly fine, but it isn’t real time with pause, the writing is poor but serviceable for the gameplay. The problem is aesthetics - everything is undifferentiated morality choices, spiritually genderless with no alignment system. All races are strictly equivalent, and would-be evil races are turned into sympathetic humans with some devilish window dressing. At some point in the third chapter, the designers’ jarring preference for girl bosses become impossible to not notice, everything has a sterile-feminine bent. It’s not done well. There’s apparently a whole lot of degeneracy that is avoided by not engaging with it - after I beat it I was surprised by some scenes on YouTube I never saw in game.
Much of this could be predetermined by the edicts of the 5th edition D&D rules however, which is why I never use that rule set in any tabletop setting.
It has some good moments, and the tactical gameplay loop is there, so it is worthwhile but it isn’t any sort of Infinity Engine game. There’s no successor to those.
I've avoided BG3 myself, despite being a massive fan of BG1 and BG2. The shift from RTwP to pure turn-based is huge, and as far as I can tell BG3 is a 5e game, not an AD&D2e game - and I mean that in terms of atmosphere, themes, and writing style, not just mechanics.
And as far as I can tell, yep, BG3 is pretty woke. I remember when the jokes/memes about sex with a bear were going around, but beyond that, it strikes me as very much a post-Critical-Role type of D&D, focused on misfit characters and with a lot of snark. It just does not look like Baldur's Gate to me, in any way, and to be honest I rather resent the fact that it claims the title.
It's a huge improvement and I say that as a massive fan of BG1 and 2. DnD (whether 5e, Basic or ADnD2e) was built for turn based play. Now I would certainly prefer if BG3 was either ADnD2e or 3.5E based (as 5e is definitely not...great) but it is definitely better off as turn based.
As for sex as a bear, well you have to remember Forgotten Realms was created by Ed Greenwood who is the very definition of a horny player. Canonically any NPC who does not have a defined sexuality is pansexual in the Forgotten Realms. And his self insert character basically gallivanted around banging powerful goddesses and avatars and what not including gender swapping. The bear sex part is very true to Forgotten Realms probably about as much as dead gods coming back to life (or Mystra's chosen being in relationships with her). It's part of it's "charm".
That's a very subjective call - I would say that RTwP was the central mechanical pillar of Baldur's Gate, so making a BG game without it feels like missing something essential. At any rate, I massively prefer RTwP to pure turn-based, and I feel RTwP better represents the flow of actual gameplay in tabletop D&D (where you do actually speed up, slow down, skip or rush at times, and then go moment by moment when it matters). It was therefore a design choice that both suggested to me firstly that BGIII isn't very interested in imitating its predecessors, and secondly that it not be to my tastes.
As to sex... certainly Ed Greenwood was a dirty old man, and always has been. (I have no idea what you're referencing with canon, though I would not be surprised if Greenwood has gone on to say free-love things on the internet. For however much you think that's worth.) However, Greenwood was never the only person who worked on Forgotten Realms, and in particular Baldur's Gate comes out of 90s, TSR-era AD&D, which had deliberately put more emphasis on narrative, worldbuilding, and indeed morality. That was the peak of the Paladins & Princesses era of D&D, and it showed.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link