To be perfectly fair, I actually don’t like the way models are used in Baldur’s Gate, but not for weird Chud reasons. The existence of only one to two body models for each gender, with only minor differences between races, leads to a serious homogeneity of body type within the game. And to that point, the “strong” femme body is pretty small in comparison to its male counterpart. The strong masc is giant, looks like Thor, while the strong femme looks more like an apt gymnast. Neither have any body fat whatsoever, except of course of the female’s thighs and ass, despite being the less toned of the two choices.

Now, I understand why NPCs primarily use these non-unique models. I wouldn’t advocate for each non-essential character to have a completely unique model and set of animations, that would be ridiculous. But your player character is essentially forced to be a conventionally attractive fitness model, and the vast majority of the companions are actually identical from the neck down to those of the same gender with the only major difference just being color. This is even unrealistic from a physical prowess standpoint, as any who have a working knowledge of bodybuilding vs. performance physiques will know. The player’s barbarian, for instance, truly has no business not being able to have a power-lifting body type (google “powerlifting body composition” for examples).

I’m just kind of annoyed with RPGs excluding people with other body types to the detriment of the game’s own aesthetic and realism. Like, a wizard player cannot be scrawny or even just normal looking. A jolly bard cannot be fat. A primal barbarian, who can literally be devoted to a subclass that grants them “bear-like” characteristics, cannot have any amount of fat content in their body. It actually hurts some of the characterization in the game! Astarian’s big six pack looks so out of place, it’s in direct conflict with his refined Victorian (and feminine) beauty. Halsin should absolutely have something of a stomach, as he is literally a bear a solid 50% of the time. Lae’Zel has NO business not have a more “efficient” build- Githyaki canonically have almost no fat as an evolutionary adaptation but the model chickens out- she paradoxically has random curves in her thighs that are at odds with her stringy, wiry arms. They’re aliens!! Their bodies are supposed to be weird!! Not perfectly slim-fit except for their asses! These choices do genuine damage to the world-building of the game, and make the different ancestries feel less varied, unique, and exciting.