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D&D video game without mature content?
I've been trying, without success, to find a good video game that is in the D&D/Pathfinder type genre, but without mature content. Some very light profanity would be OK. I really want to avoid games that objectify females, which, unfortunately, a lot of games in this genre does. Preferably something that can be played solo, even if that's in a multi-player environment. I'm good with new games, old games, indy games, high priced games, whatever. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Baldur's Gate 3?
Nudity is both toggleable and entirely optional (simply don't elect to have sex with anyone) along with no actual objectification that I've found, at least of the player's characters, unless you specifically go down that path which would also be going down the path of choosing to have sex in that way.
Yes, there's a toggle for nudity, but some of the other stuff might qualify as "mature content" such as exploring dungeons where large piles of corpses of varying degrees of freshness are on prominent display, along with "sculptures" made of dead bodies and body parts in various intentional arrangements. It gets very grisly at certain points.
I just met the brainless "chop-chop" guy who thanks you for killing him. Yeah, not for kids.
I will definitely check this out if there is a toggle. That's great to hear. Thank you!
Just confirmed in my game, there is a toggle for genitals and a toggle for cinematic nudity. The former simply turns off genitals if a character is nude (female presenting characters still have a bra/pasties of a sort covering nipples and a series of fig leaves covering genitals, male presenting just have the fig leaves), the latter disables sex scenes but you can still have romances with other characters.
I have both on, but in my experience with sex scenes there is always a "safe word" option, so to speak, that immediately ends the scene if the player is uncomfortable.
Along with the much more recent Baldur's Gate 3, Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 are still incredible games despite their age. If you're willing to play in a star wars setting, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2 have dnd style gameplay and are probably 2 of my favorite games. In a more typical fantasy setting, Pillars of Eternity, Pathfinder Kingmaker and Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous are all fantastic dnd/pathfinder style games as well. You could also go for Divinity Original Sin 2; gameplay wise it strays a bit from the above examples but it is still a great game.
I appreciate the suggestions and will look into them. I've definitely looked at some of these before. I know different people will have different opinions on this, but, using Pathfinder Kingmaker as an example, the title image has a woman fighting in what's basically a bikini. To me, that objectifying women and is something I'd like to avoid.
That's interesting, I personally wouldn't have considered Amiri's character design objectifying as the bikini is actually a binder. She is a character uninterested in romance, and as such is not romanceable in the game. It may be that I'm accustomed to more egregious forms of this objectification and this just doesn't register to me. That said, the character has a great arc regarding power and standing up to tribalistic patriarchy.
I would still recommend the game as something that does not objectify women, and in specific the character of Amiri.
Old but gold Neverwinter nights
I haven't seen Solasta mentioned yet, but that'd be my suggestion for a 5e game without any risk of sexual content. It's a bit more indie compared to BG3, but it's still a fun game.
For sure Solasta. The 5e mechanics are well implemented, and it has a lot of expansions now. If you have a buddy with all the expansions you can play multiplayer with them without having to pick them up yourself, which is an excessively nice feature these days.
I have about 40 hours into Solasta at this point, and it's really a great game. Enjoying it thoroughly and it meets all the requirements I asked about. Thanks!
Have you played Neverwinter Nights? I don't have every NPC and interaction memorized but I don't think there's a lot of sexualization of anybody there. There may be some skimpiness with the drow in the 2nd expansion so maybe avoid that one? There is also a brothel in chapter 1 of the base game but everything involving it is optional. I'm trying to remember on the fly and there's a lot of content, so sorry if I'm forgetting anything major, but it's really not a very sexualized game at all. It's also a great classic, one of my favorites.
I would suggest looking at Solasta: Crown of the Magister.
If you're interested in D&D as a system, this is arguably the most accurate translation of the core rules of.D&D 5e into a videogame; more so than BG3. And it's pretty SFW, the game doesn't lean into sexual content or make use of "bikni armour" tropes.
I find it strange that on a thread asking for games without mature content, people are recommending BG3. BG3 is a great game, but it's full of nature content; so much so that the developers had to release a patch to make the characters "less horny". This seems like they opposite of what OP is looking for.
Not that I have any specific games to suggest, but are you mostly interested in the gameplay or the setting being d&d-like?
Definitely the gameplay.
Perhaps Icewind Dale I&II.
It's been a while since I played them but it's less story and consequence heavy and more just D&D combat and fighting.
As far as I'm aware there's no objectification of women and gore isn't too crazy either since the visuals are based on the old Infinity Engine.
Baldurs Gate I&II are also classics, although it's been so long since I played them that I can't guarantee there aren't points in the story where women are objectified in some way, shape or form (what with them being games made in the late 90's/early 00's).
How about Wizard 101?
It’s designed for kids.
Absolutely Solasta. I'm gonna copy and paste a comment I made about it on another forum, and cast Compress Text to make it less of a wall
My experience with Solasta: Crown of the Magister
Me and a friend played it side by side, we thought it was an absolute blast.
Character creation is probably the most D&D aspect of the game. You get almost every race and class from the PHB, although Variant Human is unfortunately not there, and many of the subclasses are unique to Solasta. There are 12 backgrounds, most of which add side quests to the main story, and all of which give some benefit to the character. Stats are determined with either 4d6 drop lowest, or point buy, and there's an option for unlimited points. The game won't punish you for choosing 18s in every stat, but that's kinda boring. Character customization is kinda barebones. There are a few faces to pick from, like 30 hairstyles, and a wide color palette for skin and hair colors. Imagine Skyrim, but only preset faces.
Your background and personality traits determine your character's attitude, and what dialogue they say. The game is almost entirely voice acted, which is really nice.
From a D&D perspective, it takes the combat rules directly out of the SRD, and it plays explicitly RAW. No bending the rules for the new guy because he didn't know he couldn't make a bonus action attack after drinking a potion. No scooting someone's mini one more square over so they can do something cool.
Also worth noting, thanks to the strict adherence to the rules, rangers are actually viable!
There isn't a ton of roleplay, as your dialogue options are usually just "which character says something right now?" There are a few points throughout the campaigns where you have to make choices, and those choices do matter to an extent, but they don't make an impact on the overarching story. The main campaigns are pretty much linear, you just decide how to kill the enemies the game throws at you. The side campaign has a lot more in the way of role playing, because you do have to pick a faction to work with.
The game is a lot harder than typical D&D, thanks in part to the strict adherence to the rules, and in part to the fact that they have to balance out the insane amount of loot you get. Seriously, by the end of the second campaign, we were leaving +2 weapons and Winged Boots on the ground because we had that Tier 4 drip. Everyone had 24 for their main stat. The paladin had 28 AC, and a Cloak of Displacement. The sorcerer could fly, and had a +like 15 to hit. The rogue had two daggers each dealing 4d4 damage, so them sneak attacks were crisp. The cleric... could heal, when the party needed it.
All in all, it definitely scratched the D&D itch for me and my friend. I recommend buying the game and the DLCs.
Fable series
The digital version of Gloomhaven may be up your alley. A recent update torpedoed the games stability on the main branch but it plays just fine as far as I can tell on the older, pre update beta branch.
If seems like you may be using "adult content" to mean that you want to avoid only sex/nudity/objectification and not violence/gore. Is that correct?
If so, have you seen Torment: Tides of Numenera? It's based on a different tabletop RPG (Numenera) but is a "spiritual successor" to Planescape: Torment. By remembering it to recommend to you, I just made a note to myself to re-play it, because I really enjoyed my first playthrough a few years ago and have now forgotten enough of the details to enjoy a second and do a different character type/philosophy.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/272270/Torment_Tides_of_Numenera/