Profanity in mods, [split by Baronius; Domi's request] Options

[Domi]

BG1 is a PG13 game, so the developper to start with did not intend it for children. There are characters in BG1 that say stuff like "Will one of you rugged adventurers give me a good, hard shag?"

The mods/mods components are sometimes rated as well (for example some of BG1NPC Romances are rated R for language or adult situations), while the mod itself is the same as the game, to avoid embaracing the selective players. It will be nice, if people used the rating system more vigorously.

I guess this is why most sci-fi/fantasy tv creates new profanities - frac, frell etc

And that is why the authors who have guts to carter to adult audience and have no pangs of guilt about it, read so real and have their own appreciative following. (Points to Martin).

In other words, do what you feel is right, just warn the consummer about it. I always make a point of explaining that Martin is gritty, uses the obscenities and does not draw curtains when his characters decided to make love, when I recommend his books. Yes, I love what he does. No, I don't expect everyone to agree with me that it is how it should be done.

This post has been edited by Domi: Jan 9 2006, 09:03 PM

[Baronius]

Adding rape to a game might be tempting because you can try something in a game without consequences which you can't do in the real life (normally), and this is what makes games tempting. (Just like you can be a terrorist in SWAT). But it won't make BG better and more interesting. We're modders, and make content enjoyable for players (I ignore someone's comment that she makes mods only for her own entertainment -- in this case she shouldn't release them in the public and shouldn't talk about them). Some players might find it funny "Wow I raped this and that" but the majority wants new quests, new NPCs, dialogues etc., they want quality and not such low things.

And the blurb "AD&D/BG/whatever was not meant for kids" has no meaning for a real modder. It may be true, but mods look and work like we, the modders, make them. It's easy to use the quoted statement as an excuse when we want to add e.g. adult content. Additionally, regardless it is meant to be for kids or not, there are younger people who play the game, and play our mods.

Adding rape as a player option doesn't make a mod good. It's entirely okay when an external NPC such as a bandit tries to rape someone, because it's realistic and also acceptable, unlike the "player option" version. As Rabain has said, there are things that are simply not so important in the world of Faerun that they should be represented in the game. We need new and nice. This is a world about tales, legends, dragons, demons, kings & wars, let's be elegant when we decide to touch it and modify it. A real modder uses imagination, and doesn't try to alter this nice world of fantasy by adding the aforementioned option or anything similar.