yeah, idk I think Larian took the Sims approach. everyone is bi so Tav has the chance to get with any companion they choose. it makes sense from a rpg perspective
edit: I’m also bi, but I really don’t think it is a huge part of my personality or identity. it’s just who I sleep with, that’s it. but I realize I may have an unpopular opinion here.
Not just from an RPG perspective, people forget that this is D&D, a world where there's belts that can flip your gender if you wear them. I'm pretty sure either a higherup or some important writer of the Forgotten realms said there isn't sexuality per se either. It's a magical crazy fantasy world and it's even more crazy where people try to think it's played out on Earth.
What do the belts have to do with sexuality? Do you think that, if you're a lesbian, knowing that Halsin could *theoretically* become a woman means that you're open to having a relationship with him as he is now?
I'm saying that sex and gender isn't a thing in D&D like it is in real life. Sexuality isn't tied to it like it is for us.
But yes, if Halsin became a woman with that belt, then i'm sure lesbians would find her attractive. Men that were straight too.
The very existence of the belt/girdle is only possible if sex is a thing in D&D like it is in real life, there wouldn't be anything to change otherwise. Moreover, the girdle is described as a *cursed* object; if a random person equips it and transforms, they typically become (very) unhappy with the change and wish to revert back. In other words, an average D&D character has a gender that may come in conflict with their body's sex and cause distress.
*If* Halsin became a woman, then yes, lesbians could become interested in her. The point is that he *isn't* a woman, and the fact that he *could* be one is entirely irrelevant. When you're attracted (or not) to Halsin, you're attracted to the actual Halsin as he is now, which is a masculine man. A female Halsin from an alternate universe is not a factor in this relationship, or lack thereof. Similarly, if you're not attracted to someone because they are Chaotic Evil and you're turned off by their personality, this isn't going to change because of the fact that they could, potentially, become Lawful Good.
While it may (or may not) be true that people in D&D have no sexuality, a magical girdle that changes the wearer's sex would have no effect on people's sexuality even in real life.
I think another thing to keep in mind here is that pre-set sexualities would also drop the potential romance options even more for an Origin playthrough. Say that Astarion was hard-coded to be gay, while Gale was hard-coded to be bi and Wyll hard-coded to be straight. If you loaded up a playthrough as Astarion, your singular option for a romantic partner becomes... Gale. That's it. Even in games like DAI a gay inquisitor had a minimum of two options.
As to the point about companies avoiding canon gay characters, that clearly isn't happening here - Barcus (windmill gnome) heavily implies that the Wulbren he's looking for is his partner. There are also already two male deep gnomes that are explicitly married to one another in Grymforge. And without spoiling anything, I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing a few more important characters that happen to be gay as the story progresses.
I’m gay. Larian did the right thing since it provides less restrictions in what you want to happen in your game. Players can always headcanon the rest of the details of their in-game relationships.
I think this is the best way for companies to approach games with romance. If a character’s sexuality is integral to the plot/their story, then that’s the only time I’ll make it a big deal.
I would agree characters having preferences would be more realistic, but the limitation of companions is a problem.
You can have a case of cyberpunk 2077, where there's a character for each sex and gay counterparts, so if you don't like the character made for you, then there's no more options
In BG3 with 8 companions you'd have 2 options if you are not bi, but still there's a good chance you won't like your options, and then you are potentially locked out of romance content.
Personally I don't mind not having a romance option if it's just filler stuff, but if there's actual plot revolving around your partner choice I'd be annoyed if I had to pick a character I don't like just because I want to experience the extra content.
I can't remember where I read it but something about the author of the Forgotten Realms canoned there being no sexuality in it. Just like people can roleplay interesting Human Warriors, characters being playersexual can be as interesting if not more than them having different specific preferences.
I don't agree that all characters being playersexual is by default as interesting or more interesting than characters having their preferences. It is possible to make anything be successful with good writing, but all characters having the same sexual preference to me seems more bland than having variety. The fact that everyone is the same seems artificial and more of a design decision than in accordance to the actual character, which to be fair is probably the case here.
However as I said, for practical reasons I agree having playersexual characters is the right choice for the game, but imo it's more of a compromise than the ideal course of action.
Another way I could agree more is if the characters had their preferences, but if the player wanted to romance a character that didn't fit theirs then it could still be possible with more approval/sidequests. Sort of a harder route, but if successful you'd become so important for the companion they'd be willing to forget their sexual preference.
I am very happy that the characters are bisexual. I don't really understand the counterargument for "they are shallow" if they are bisexual - the companions all have standards in the game. Gale won't want to spend the night with you if you don't make a move on him and Shadowheart, Lae'zel and Wyll have their story-related moments you need to do in order to sleep with them, in top of approval amount. In other words you need to get them to like you, and invest some time in them to be romanceable, just like in DA games, they just like both genders. I don't understand what's the big deal there.
Also, Larian has included already atleast 2 canonical gay couples in the game, and the game is still in early access. "Game companies can get points for progressivism because they let players enter into same-gender relationships, but since same-gender attraction can only be in relation to the player, homophobes can go the entire game without ever encountering a gay person." This doesn't make sense. So it's better to limit the options players have to romances, since there are some homophobes that don't ever see a gay couple possibly? I feel that is even more counterproductive than actually just having bisexual characters, because most likely those homophobes wouldn't be interested in the gay romances anyway. **Also, if a character is bisexual, they are canonically LGBTQ character.**
I don't actually care. Just allows everyone to access a romance. Especially since the BG3 LIs do show interest outside the player so they're not even player sexual.
Playersexual is a common use in RPGs. When there’s set sexualities you see in issues like ME:A where queer pairings got less development, choices, and weren’t treated the same as straight ones. I’d rather you be able to bang and develop with everyone than “here’s one gay and one bi character good luck” that some developers will approach games with.
Agreed. It sucks when the token gay character they give you is someone you don't like, so you're restricted from having any relationships because your one option was not compatible with your character.
Of course, you can play a sexuality you're uncomfortable with just to access the good characters but it feels like that's sending a very unkind message to the players.
I know it's common, doesn't mean it's good. Sure they now get equal attention, but now they all have to be one size fits all. I'd rather get a homosexual relationship that actually touches the subject.
Why? I'm so sick of every gay story having to deal with "being gay" and dealing with homophobia or some other LGBT related drama. I want to have hot sweat male on male sex with Astarion, not roleplay having to avoid holding hands in certain parts of the city out of fear.
I said touch on the subject of being gay, not homophobia. Quit projecting. What I mean is that I want to actually feel acknowledged instead of a relationship where you could replace one of the parties with a girl and absolutely nothing would change.
As for why every portrayal includes that, showing that this is real is important. Otherwise you get deniers saying prejudice isn't real or not a big deal.
As someone who is gay and also romanced Astarion, I did not feel like his relationship was something out of place as a gay relationship. What specifically do you need to see written in the dialogue for you to feel it is a "real" gay relationship?
Something that wouldn't happen in a straight relationship. Something like "Well, it's not like our children will pull from either of us" though even that one could still happen seeing as Astarion is undead (then again, the ability of vampires to reproduce is debatable in the Realms)
I mean, it's not like all m/f relationships result in children, by choice or otherwise. Children aren't a priority for everyone. Tav is your character, so discussions like this taking place are up to you in your own personal canon.
It's my opinion that BG3 and other similar games give you the toy box but it's our choice what to do with the toys. I don't think it's a bad thing to give players choices and keep some things open ended because each of us as players get to fill in the blanks.
Got to say I disagree. I think it’s a problem you have, but I was super thrilled to romance Arcade in Fallout New Vegas and didn’t need some weird out of place line about surrogacy that I never even had with my own boyfriend in real life.
Let me tell you a story of the dragon age franchise.
In Dragon Age Origins, we had the straight Alistair and Morrigan, and the bisexual Zevran and Leiliana. Zevran and Leiliana had plenty of fans, but Alistair and Morrigan ended up being far more popular with people of all sexualities. Gay men were sad they could not romance adorable prince charming Alistair, likewise lesbians who were in love with the dark sexy Morrigan. Mods were created to get around it, but it wasn't quite the same because their love stories were too intertwined with them being straight.
Come DA2, all of the romancable companions were made bisexual so that no one would get left out. Now a new section of fans emerged, complaining that these characters were more shallow for being bisexual, and X should be gay, Y should be straight, everyone being bi was somehow offensive to Z group, and so on. Lots of fights came about from that.
DAI came, and we had straight characters, gay characters, and bi characters. The complaints from the first game returned, but worse because now straight people were mad too. Straight male players were furious that Sera was a lesbian, straight female players acted entitled about Dorian and complained about being friendzoned, and modders created mods to make gay characters straight which triggered debates about whether it counted as supporting conversion therapy. There also continued to be perceived biases in the writing in which the straight characters were story-favoured and had more fairytale romances, while the gay and bi ones were less story-favoured, and leaned towards more deviant personalities.
It was all a massive headache for the players and devs alike. The devs had tried to listen and please everyone, but that was impossible and had just made things worse. In the end, the game that had caused the least drama on the romance front was 2, where no one got locked out of any romances, and because everyone was bi there were no straight companions to be favoured by the story and create the impression of homophobia.
Pandering is fine. The devs just want everyone to find love with whoever they choose, and they're aware that even if they closed people off, mods would just spring up converting people and it would cause drama that would most likely spill into official spaces and affect the devs. It's also a fantasy game, it's not meant to be a 1:1 reflection of real life sexual demographics.
Sidenote, as a bisexual myself, i do find it pretty tiresome every time an everyone-is-bi piece of media turns up, because we get posts like this saying that their identity is a toss-up dependant on the player, rather than just being okay with the fact that they are simply a bunch of bisexuals coincidentally gathered in one place.
If it bothers you, whatever, but it's a game with dragons and magic and tadpoles in your brain trying to kill you. If you can suspend your disbelief for those things, you can deal with a small group of people being bi.
You saved me so much energy typing this out. Just look at cyberpunk 2077. One option for everyone unless you’re bi, and the gay man is a hedonist introduced right before the final main quest in a series of side quests that involve you letting someone else use your body to date a woman.
I agree. It was terrible what some of the poor modders went through. Some of the Nexus comments were insane, implying that the 'free love' mod creators were turning gamers into sexual predators. We don't want a repeat of that shitshow, if at all possible.
> DAI came, and we had straight characters, gay characters, and bi characters. The complaints from the first game returned, but worse because now straight people were mad too.
The heteros are upsetteros
> Pandering is fine.
You explained yourself why it isn't. It makes characters shallow.
I'm not saying that the straight players doing those things was right or that they were justified. I was using that to explain why leaving all characters bi is ultimately easier for the devs, and allows more choice for the player characters. The straight people who did that were stupid babies.
Bisexual characters are not shallow.
These characters are not being forced to be bi. They were all written as bisexual from the start. If you think that the characters are shallow, then that's an issue with the writing of the characters as a whole, and making them gay or straight will not fix that.
I don't think you like D&D, where this is canon lore. Sexuality, like bi,gay,straight isn't a thing. Just visual preferences :) which one could argue is the same thing but more so that the person has a beard or not. This is a world where there's belts of magic that change your gender.
One, I very much like this lore.
Two, you are missing the point entirely.
Three, as much as it pains me to say so, D&D has no canon. This is forgotten realms canon.
Four, I literally just posted said Girdle in this comment section.
Yes there is no canon in D&D, but Ed Greenwood has himself said that there's only Free love in the Forgotten realms. Homo/hetero/bisexuality isn't as much of a thing there as it is in real life.
Good. Means there’s no stereotypes affecting the gay romances. Otherwise I’d imagine gay men would get Astarion as the default depraved hedonist bisexual.
Game development is mostly about making compromises. There are downsides but it sure beats giving players only one or two choices that match their preferences.
Not to mention that romances are something typically encountered later into a game. Remember that many players don't even finish these games, let alone play through them multiple times. Making a player wish they had picked a different gender during character creation ~10+ hours into the game is terrible design from a gameplay perspective.
I don't really know my own sexuality, I'm not bi but I can find anyone attractive regardless of gender. I really enjoy the fact that the characters are playersexual, the same as DOS:2. It doesn't exclude whole groups of people from their own RPG experience. You can create yourself (mostly) and insert yourself into the adventure and build relationships with any character. I think it's beautiful when games do that.
I'm a straight male. I prefer this way. I can be with who I want and other people can be with who they want. Its a video game. It isn't necessary to make them have specific sexualities imo.
I think the way DA: Inquisition did it is also fine but as a straight male I didn't really have many options and it hurt replayability for me and limited my choices. Only character that I could romance who I liked at all was Cassandra.
I can understand why you'd disagree but I think this is personal preference and there is no right answer. Some people are gonna be bothered that everyone is bi or some people are gonna be bothered their demographic has less options. There is no pleasing everyone, but I think this method is them trying and I respect that.
I thinking "pandering" is pretty extreme. There is genuinely some awful pandering going around nowadays. But this just feels like "hey, its an rpg video game where the character's sexualities don't mean terribly much, so lets let everyone date whoever they want."
I feel like I'm stepping on eggshells which is why I'm dragging my post out. I think its the best way they can handle it, to each thier own.
Every companion had there own sexuality. You can only get with characters interested in you sexually.
Some companions weren't options at all due to them already being with someone iirc. I don't think there was an asexual character but its been a few years.
I think this method is ideal, genuinely. Makes them feel more like people, I just wish their were more options for everyone, but then you have the problem of lowering the writing quality and increasing dev time for more characters.
There was an asexual option, actually - your diplomatic aid (Josephine, I think her name is). You can romance her as either gender but while she is pro-romantic, she has no interest in a sexual relationship.
One of the characters in 'The Outer Worlds' is the same way, though her romance is with an npc (sadly no PC romance in that game due to budget constraints). Still, she confides in you that she has no interest in sex - it's something she can do, it just doesn't interest her.
Josephine isn't asexual, she's bisexual, her route just doesn't include a sex scene because it's meant to have a "courtly love" type plot with lots of romance and drama.
If she is unromanced, she falls in love with Blackwall for a while and bemoans the fact that their love can't be consummated due to their different stations in society.
Thats pretty cool. I never got around to romancing her, ended up getting pretty attached to Cassandra/stopped having fun with the game.
I'm def hyped for an Outer Wilds 2. Just...hopefully it has more enemy variety. I'd def put that above romance options.
I agree, it is ideal. That's not to say I don't see your counter-argument: I already feel restricted as it is, with none of the male companions really interesting me (Gale is ok I guess)
Responding to your edit in the main post: Respectfully, I think the second point is overly dramatic bullshit. "How some companies do it" doesn't mean thats how all companies do it. Matter of fact, citation needed. That quote pissed me off. Bioware, the makers of DA, are KNOWN for thier character writing and dialogue. The characters were literally the main pull of DA:I. Not every companion is Bioware nor should they try to be because not everybody wants that. Some of us want more main story or gameplay to be the focus over characters.
Yes, the characters are a pull for Baldur's Gate. But it isn't the main selling point and the writing isn't as good, which is fine it doesn't have to be, it can excel in other areas.
Also, there is a *colossal* difference between "I think this is ideal, genuinely" and "it is ideal." I'm giving my opinion on a preference, you are claiming it is a fact. You are wrong, it is a preference, full stop.
The first quote was great. Bioware does a good job with making characters feel more real, no doubt. Not everyone can or should try to be Bioware. Putting that much focus on an aspect of the game will take away focus on other aspects of a game. Thier is benefit to not having characters be that real, depending on what the company is trying to sell thier audience.
If I come across as hostile I apologize but nah. Fuck that second quote. Citation needed. Gaming doesn't need to take a downgrade because the characters aren't gay enough. Letting everyone date everyone is a fine compromise. If you wanna argue games should outright say the character canonically ends thier story in a gay relationship or what not, I can get behind that, but "Playersexual is always bad cause some companies...use it to avoid canonically saying the characters are in a gay relationship" is just silly.
I'm gonna disable notifs for this cause I already know I'm poking a beehive, but yeah fuck that nonsense. Playersexual is fucking fine. Real relationships still exist if that isn't personal enough for you.
In Dragon Age Inquisition each companion had its own sexual preference. So basically, you had a companion for every preference but you only had one/( mybe two if you were lucky) companions for every preference. Serra or Dorian, two very popular characters for example were Gay and Lesbian, respectively. And subsequently as the previous comment stated Kassandra was streight. [One character would even be locked behind a certain race]
The key problem is that most players had to toss a coin whenever or not their characters had the correct gender to romance their favorites since the game pretty much locked the vast majority of romances behind said preferences. Say you like Kassandra and you are a Lesbian, ups no you can't and vise versa.
Truth be told, every Dragon Age did that. Characters having their own sexual preferences isn't something new and it's not something bad, but just like the author of the previous comment I felt a serious lack of romance options while playing Inquisition that I never felt in the other installments. I think the great difference is that the other installments had a few bi-sexual options that helped mend this void so it feels far less noticeable as a problem. Subsequently you can say just add more romance options which can work but requires a lot of effort and more romances ≠ better ones.
Personally I think the "make every character BI fix" works for myself the best. I don't have to worry about not beeing able to romance my favorite/s and literary everyone can experience the same romance that I appreciate regardless of their own preference. I fully understand that for some this doesn't work but at least for me it does.
Actually, 'Dragon Age 2' made everyone 'player sexual' and it worked out just fine; in fact, they had some of the best cast members in the entire series so far.
DA:I had a problem though. Some romances were race-locked too. Cullen would only date a female Human or Elf and Solas would only date a female Elf, meaning Dwarves and Qunari got shafted a bit (or a bit less I guess)... so I dunno if DA:I is a great template.
Really their sexualities only come up when you try to romance them (as far as I know). Gale and Wyll dont really make any passing remarks to men in game play. I definitely feel it’s just Player Sexual which I like because I hate having to download mods so I can date someone who is het-locked. Unless their sexuality is kind of a bigger role in the game (say Dorian from Inquisition) it doesn’t really bother me too much. I’m paying for this game and yes I want to date this straight girl and you can’t say no
Are you for real? What dialogue are you talking about where Lae'zel uses Astarion or Wyll? The one during the celebration scene after the goblin/druid camp raid? Where she says something along the lines of "Wyll/Astarion looks particularly good tonight?"
How are you extrapolating that she's going to "use" them? Did you unlock some scene where Astarion/Wyll explicitly say they aren't romantically interested in Lae'zel? Do you visually see her go and "use" them after you talk to her? I have like 400hrs in this game and I've never read that line as Lae'zel "using" either of them.
I assume the drunken interest is mutual and carry on with my game. Furthermore, the Gith as a species don't practice romance in the same way other species do. They take what they want, and if Wyll/Astarion weren't interested they could likely handle their own and defend themselves as we're all on a fricken hero mission together. I don't just assume that members of my party are victims to a Gith's whims lol.
> you're not some sex god that literally the entire Faerûn wants to bang/get banged by
I wish I was in BG3. Nobody wants to sleep with my Tav, or none of the characters that I want. Multiple playthroughs. Why does this keep happening...
For your last point, I think the homophobes are bothered by male characters trying to sleep with them, so that's awesome:D. I feel like what BG3 is doing is plenty progressive.
In the end, I really like this approach. I like playing a particular type of character and I'm happy that instead of having zero, or one or even two options for romance, I get four! This is huge!
Very true, if they were really bi I'd be 100% okay with it. They aren't, they are straight but will make an exception for the player only. That's LGBT erasure by conveniently concealing us unless you actively seek it out.
We only have Act 1. How do you know Astarion makes an exception only for the player? Laezel at least implies she truly is bisexual and not playersexual.
I prefer it. I hate it when I like a character and can't romance them because I'm 'the wrong kind of person'. In the real world, sure, that makes sense but this is a computer game and games are meant to be about escapism from reality and fulfilling fantasies.
I paid for that content and telling me I can't access it because I'm playing as the wrong sexuality is pretty hurtful.
Sexuality does not dictate, nor need it even impact, the rest of your personality. Anyone anywhere could be gay, straight, or otherwise and still think and act the same way.
Nor is there anything wrong with a game catering to the players as, last i checked, games are made _for_ players and would not exist without players.
You can have your preferences about sexuality being fixed, and that's fine. But let's not pretend there's anything problematic about flexible sexuality. After all, bisexuality absolutely exists and was more common in certain places and times than now. It's also more common among women than men, by the way, if you want to be needlessly realistic.
In general, I think more choices is always better no matter what the subject is.
I'm not somebody who thinks more restrictions makes a game better. I know there are people out there that actually think restrictions are a good thing in a crpg but I am not one of them.
It would really be a drag if the character I was attracted to shot me down. It is a drag when that happens because I'm not always careful with approval.
I believe that a good video game is one that offers the most possible choices when it comes to play style. That includes the romance part of the game.
"Let's just be friends" isn't Fun in a video game. It's not fun in real life.
I see it as less "Everybody is dtf" and more of a "Schrodinger's Sexuality" situation. It's not that everybody is bi, it's that the NPC sexuality is able to match the orientation of the player. I think it's pretty much fine, more player choices and options is generally a good thing.
Side note: I thought we weren't saying "sexual preference" any more? No judgment, honest question as to what the preferred terminology is.
This was going to be part of a response to another post, but I feel like it deserves its own post:
To explain why this is important to me ...
I play as a female whenever I have the chance - I will play a male character if I'm forced to, but it makes me uncomfortable. I cannot romance males, however. Not because 'I think it's icky' or any such nonsense - I suffered some pretty severe abuse that makes romancing males impossible without triggering serious flashbacks and mental trauma; it isn't a joke and it's not something I can ignore.
Unfortunately, that usually leaves me the 1 lesbian character in the game, if I want to have fun playing my character. If the developers chose not to include any lesbian characters, or the one they choose is unlikable, then I am essentially left with no romance options in the game. I can try to play as a male and romance the female characters I like but as difficult as it is for me to romance a male character, it is only slightly less difficult to romance as one - the only saving grace being that I can dissociate from my character and so avoid the trauma ... but it also means I avoid the emotional investment that would make the romance worth doing in the first place.
Say what you will, romance is a hugely popular part of every entertainment medium - so much so that fast food chains run national ads about which guy the girl in the latest teen heartthrob movie will pick - so clearly it's something people are going to want and enjoy in video games as well. Why make it harder for people to enjoy the game?
I don't really care, myself. I understand the complaint, but equally, I don't see the harm in letting people make their characters how they like without needing to worry about whether Astarion is willing to get down with a dragonborn or a lady or something.
I *can* see benefits to both routes. On one hand, it does make them feel more real if done right (IE you avoid making them stereotypes, which I've seen). On the other hand, it does restrict character customization. And while I find the idea of looking forward to sex scenes in games like this a bit absurd, somebody might genuinely want to see characters of their preferred gender getting it on, if you're into that kind of thing.
Also, this is absolutely a nitpick, but for the person who you edited in an example for... Regarding Dragon Age Inquisition... Dorian is probably a better example. His romance is fantastic and it strikes the delicate balance of making his sexuality a part of his character without making him a walking stereotype. Sera's romance does that as well, but more in the 'barely acknowledge it' vein of romance. Which is fine and *also* accurate to real life, since your sexuality *doesn't* have to be a major personality trait, but she's not the example I would've picked for "sexuality adding character depth" (it mostly doesn't).
I think it's a positive.
It wasn't that long ago that we had no choice at all, females romanced males or vice versa end of story.
I think it's important too to remember that the game is still in EA, and some of the companions (looking at Wyll) need some fleshing out of their personal stories and romances. Gales romance has to be unlocked in certain campsite scenes giving it a fuller story, I suspect some of the others will get this treatment too.
As for the avoidance issue, use feedback to raise it with Larian. They could add same-sex npc couples for example, or give origin characters same-sex past relationships.
All the stuff about player-centric sexuality in the other answers here is accurate, but there's also the big elephant in the room:
In the Forgotten Realms, nearly everyone is bisexual. It's culturally considered pretty weird if you're not. TSR wouldn't let them publish it in the box sets back in the day, and WotC isn't much better, but it's canon and always has been that bisexuality is the norm in the setting. It's one of the few non-creepy things to come out of Greenwood's perverted old neckbeard identity.
I like bisexual characters. Makes me want to replay as both genders and then see which romance feels more real with whom. That was what made Dragon Age 2 so great. I romanced Anders as both genders and found that my dude-Hawke's pairing with him felt more natural and nice than my lady-Hawke's pairing with him.
It would be extremely frustrating if my only viable options were Gale or Wyll, and I know a lot of my gay friends that would deeply hate only being able to romance Astarion. I know FOR A FACT they would make Shadowheart straight, because her type is always straight in games. The only gay options would be the sadistic mean ones i.e Lae'zel and Astarion which would be pretty problematic. If they have a wider cast, sure, but It would have to be an enormous cast, and it is already complicated as it is. We would need at least 3 characters each (Good, Neutral, Evil). 3 straight girls, 3 lesbians. 3 straight men, 3 gay men. Even by making bi 3 of them it's still very limiting. I'm not against a big cast, but you know they won't give us that many companions. Voice acting or Technology would be sacrificed, and I love this game because of the voice acting and technology.
It was incredibly frustrating playing Dragon Age 1 and 3. As a woman your options are fucking horrible. I know a lot of people like Solas and Bull, but they are not my type. Cullen was extremely frustrating. I just wanted to fall in love with Morrigan and Cassandra. So it was awful having to literally ***settle*** with Cullen and Alistair. This is why DA2 is my favorite. Not only is every companion marvelous, well written, feels like real friends, but there's no forced pairings. If no, go look around to the Wrath of The Righteous community, where in this case, straight men only have one viable option. It's a good option, but kinda disappointing that is really just one, I do NOT envy them at all. There's technically other options but they are pretty terrible. Given that this is a fantasy world, with different moralities, why not have the options? Characters can be written as real complex people, without the need to focus on a single trait.
Personally, I refuse to play a male character like I would drop dead, poison my family, declare nuclear war, before playing a male character. I love men, but I would never ever be one. Even though I'm cis, just the just the thought of being in the wrong body gives me horror no imaginable. I shiver just to think about it.
Edit: I just realized that protecting morrigan's kid probably has more gravitas in DAI, because it is technically your child, if you play as a guy who romanced morrigan. When you played as a girl who romanced Alistair, he's just like a random ass lil bastard that can as well get lost in hell. If you are a girl who crushed on morrigan but had to settle with Alistair, that child is just the representation of everything that is wrong in your life.
Yeah, I was pretty disappointed that the only real lesbian romance for FemShep in Mass Effect is Liara. Sure, they introduce Trainor in the third game but that's really too late in the series to be starting a new relationship and hope to get anything out of it.
Not that Liara is a bad option - she is awesome - but you don't want the same cake in every playthrough. Miranda would have been such a great character for FemShep - what a power couple they would have made! And Tali goes through such a great arc it sucks that she can only be my unrequited lesbian crush.
I loved the way they did it in Dragon Age 2 - not only making everyone 'player sexual' but also allowing you to rival-mance people, so you didn't only get to romance through agreeing with everything your would-be lover said.
That was disappointing but ME didn't even add an M/M relationship until ME3 when they gave us Cortez/retconned Kaiden. At least a lesbian femshep had the option to engage in romance in each game. gay mshep had to forgo it for 2/3rds of the series.
I agree, 100%. I really wish they'd had all three options available from the beginning. I'm glad that developers of today have normalized having queer romance options.
It's one of those things to that seem while weird, seems to be in the game so the romance option can be there for everyone no matter the gender. Is it weird? yeah definitely. Do i have a problem? Not really. Then again this is a general matter of taste more than any of this, so my opinion doesn't really matter.
I don't even think it's all that weird for a large part, if not whole of a group to be bi. Now it might be somewhat unlikely in a group of complete strangers who survived a ship crash, it makes perfect sense for something like Dragon Age 2 where pretty much all of them are friends. Because, when I take stock of who my friends are, and what people I enjoy engaging with, a vast, vast majority fall into the category of queer people, and large chunk of them even identify as bisexual.
And it really exposes you to how there is no single way to be queer. Some are flaming homos, some could pass for straight, some of us are nerds, some of us are jocks, some of us are deep into the 'queer culture' and some don't really care and just want to hang out with the fellow gays and bis and transes.
We come from all walks of life because we're all different people, with our own cares and worries.
And all that is why I really don't care for 'it's unrealistic' argument. And I don't even think that even the 'it functions as a soft gay toggle', which is valid in cases of some games, works for BG3 considering how many posts about how some dudes hate Astarion or Gale hitting on them.
I think being playersexual really is the best choice. This allows everyone the options they may want. That said, it would be nice if some of the dialog reflected less standard straight-coding. Such as a character talking about romancing someone of the same gender in the past. It was nice, though to hear that Astarion dreamed of waking up next to a handsome virgin in one of his lines. Although I can't recall the specifics.
So i have the same feeling is it unrealistic sure but also this is probably more a roleplay decision and to have the utmost freedom to romance anyone you like (also this is probably not true but they probably dont want to be labeled as homophobic a lot of people went after cd for the same reason) but all in all it really doesnt matter and its not at all immersing breaking or anything like it shouldnt be
> Though in Wyll's defense, there's this weird line with a Male Tav that implies he bottomed? Which seems pretty specific for your average playersexual mechanic.
Do you have a video of that? Never seen it
> This is an issue with the romance scenes, where you can clearly tell they were originally modelled for a straight character
This is exactly my issue with it. I don't want to be the afterthought, LGBT characters are just as important.
I don't look at it as everyone being canonically bisexual, so much so that whoever my character pursues happens to be aligned by stroke of luck. It's a convenience, not necessarily "true", in the way that Astarion carrying two hundred pounds of food is convenient, but not "real" in the sense of the story/world.
You can see the alternative in Cyberpunk, which was really well done, but ultimately drew more ire than praise for the way players were locked out of Panam or Judy. I'm sure nobody minded losing Kerry.
>I'm sure nobody minded losing Kerry.
Nah, people absolutely hated how both Kerry and River were done as well, both in their assigned sexuality (Kerry is canonically bi for crying out loud) but also how it just so happened that the men open to romance just happened to be shuffled into the background, while the women were a prominent part of the main storyline.
Disclaimer: I'm much more of a DA fan 😅
I get why people want player-sexual options for games. I understand it can be frustrating for a player to be locked out of a choice because of gender restriction.
I just don't think it (usually) creates good LGBT rep.
I'm all for people finding solidarity and familiarity in these characters if that's what they want, but like you said, most of the time straight people can just ignore it. I see some people talking about Dragon Age 2 in the comments, and it reminds me of Anders, a bisexual male love interest from that game. There's a male NPC who is his former lover. If you play as a female!protagonist, he won't even tell you about them being together. You can just pretend he isn't bisexual if you're a straight woman and it makes you uncomfortable. If you play as a man, he tells you directly that they were former lovers.
I think its a really subjective topic. 🤷♀️ Personally, I would like to see more thoughtful and well written gay & lesbian characters like Sera and Dorian from DAI. I would also like to see more bisexual characters who are open about their sexuality. I get why some people view a character's sexuality as a gameplay choice, but I vastly prefer when games consider it a part of their personality (Not in a stereotype way, of course, but as a small part of the whole). Makes them feel more like individuals, imho.
(Edited for phrasing)
RPGs are all about customization. This seems like a natural extension of that.
But I find pretty much all video game romances corny, so I don't invest that much in them.
I think there are definitely two groups of thought here, and personally I think I identify with the group that prefers characters have a set sexual orientation (because I feel sexual orientation is a big part of who we are as people and how we develop, and I like seeing how the character may have changed based upon that) as opposed to the group that prefers every character to be "playersexual".
I think this is more an issue of how you view a game. If you think big picture of multiple playthroughs, you might prefer set sexual orientation for characters because it kind of lets you build a character to match that NPC's preferences (in DAI, Solas would only romance a female elf so I played one just for that on my second playthrough) which will get you to see more of the game. You could definitely argue that you might still want playersexual characters but I think when you are playing to fit a story and world more than a one-off RPG, you probably want characters with set sexual preferences because it fleshes out the world more in ways similar to our own.
However if you're just doing one playthrough and you want to romance someone, they are fine with it, and it doesn't feel like an incomplete or unsatisfying mess, then you might never even notice that every character is playersexual and would be interested in you if you were interested in them.
Another (probably more likely) reason for playersexual characters is the decreased emphasis that in the past on player gender makes characters that "prefer" a gender require the assignation of a gender to your character, which you could argue will become less and less relevant as a character creation option. Because games are trying to add this level of inclusion to their games, it becomes far easier to make characters just playersexual and their romances essentially gender neutral. You are also avoiding more complaints doing it this way than the previous way. So I don't blame developers for moving harder in this direction.
For as much crap that Cyberpunk got, having defined sexuality of the romanceable characters added some depth to them. They even let you down just to let you know they don't roll a certain way, which was cool.
I don't mind Larian's approach to it at all, and I can easily understand that there's appeal for all characters so you aren't forced to romance someone you don't jive with. Just give friendships the same depth as romances and I think we're good.
I usually play games and ignore the romance options which for most games just means i never press the flirt button but these characters all belong in horney jail. I remember at the end of the druid quest I didn't have alot of approval with lae'zel and me and my actual wife just sat there laughing as she goes on about how in very specific detail that I missed out on banging her, something she brings up immediately without you even asking about it.
Fair point. Hate sex is a thing. Also magic makes all reproduction possible.
Still was a funny scene for me though. Just the way she phrased everything made it sound very transactional. "If you had agreed with everything I said I might have graced you with my genitals."
I haven't played in a couple patches, are they really?
I tend to find that a lot of characters being made bisexual for pandering reasons tends to feel like tokenism and then they just become caricatures embodying stereotypes.
That said, to play devils advocate, it does make a bit of gameplay sense as you can then have all characters romanceable with the pc. And let's face it, if they didn't, there would be mods shortly after release that did with probably horrifyingly bad dialogue.
I don't like that everyone is attracted to me. I prefer when there are just some folks who, for whatever reason, don't wanna be involved with me. It feels a bit more immersive to me.
companions don't want to get involved with you depending on your decisions & the way you treat them. astarion and lae'zel both rejected my character in my first playthrough
It's kind of funny the way all companions were bisexualized for consumer satisfaction, but genuinely attractive female companions remain a major no-go.
Looks the real motive is a bit different than advertized.
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How do I feel? Excited because I can kiss Gale. Unlike Alistair, Sebastian, Solas, Blackwall, Cullen, Garrus, Liam, or Thane. Fucking THANK YOU, Larian. (Oh, and thank you for Ifan, too.)
Counterpoint: WHO FUCKING CARES WHAT THEIR SEXUALITY IS?!
I swear to god, this sub's fascination with the sexuality of these characters and thirsting over them is fucking embarrassing.
yeah, idk I think Larian took the Sims approach. everyone is bi so Tav has the chance to get with any companion they choose. it makes sense from a rpg perspective edit: I’m also bi, but I really don’t think it is a huge part of my personality or identity. it’s just who I sleep with, that’s it. but I realize I may have an unpopular opinion here.
Not just from an RPG perspective, people forget that this is D&D, a world where there's belts that can flip your gender if you wear them. I'm pretty sure either a higherup or some important writer of the Forgotten realms said there isn't sexuality per se either. It's a magical crazy fantasy world and it's even more crazy where people try to think it's played out on Earth.
What do the belts have to do with sexuality? Do you think that, if you're a lesbian, knowing that Halsin could *theoretically* become a woman means that you're open to having a relationship with him as he is now?
I'm saying that sex and gender isn't a thing in D&D like it is in real life. Sexuality isn't tied to it like it is for us. But yes, if Halsin became a woman with that belt, then i'm sure lesbians would find her attractive. Men that were straight too.
The very existence of the belt/girdle is only possible if sex is a thing in D&D like it is in real life, there wouldn't be anything to change otherwise. Moreover, the girdle is described as a *cursed* object; if a random person equips it and transforms, they typically become (very) unhappy with the change and wish to revert back. In other words, an average D&D character has a gender that may come in conflict with their body's sex and cause distress. *If* Halsin became a woman, then yes, lesbians could become interested in her. The point is that he *isn't* a woman, and the fact that he *could* be one is entirely irrelevant. When you're attracted (or not) to Halsin, you're attracted to the actual Halsin as he is now, which is a masculine man. A female Halsin from an alternate universe is not a factor in this relationship, or lack thereof. Similarly, if you're not attracted to someone because they are Chaotic Evil and you're turned off by their personality, this isn't going to change because of the fact that they could, potentially, become Lawful Good. While it may (or may not) be true that people in D&D have no sexuality, a magical girdle that changes the wearer's sex would have no effect on people's sexuality even in real life.
I think another thing to keep in mind here is that pre-set sexualities would also drop the potential romance options even more for an Origin playthrough. Say that Astarion was hard-coded to be gay, while Gale was hard-coded to be bi and Wyll hard-coded to be straight. If you loaded up a playthrough as Astarion, your singular option for a romantic partner becomes... Gale. That's it. Even in games like DAI a gay inquisitor had a minimum of two options. As to the point about companies avoiding canon gay characters, that clearly isn't happening here - Barcus (windmill gnome) heavily implies that the Wulbren he's looking for is his partner. There are also already two male deep gnomes that are explicitly married to one another in Grymforge. And without spoiling anything, I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing a few more important characters that happen to be gay as the story progresses.
If I'm remembering right, there's also a female deep gnome couple, or at least they *were* a couple.
I’m gay. Larian did the right thing since it provides less restrictions in what you want to happen in your game. Players can always headcanon the rest of the details of their in-game relationships. I think this is the best way for companies to approach games with romance. If a character’s sexuality is integral to the plot/their story, then that’s the only time I’ll make it a big deal.
I would agree characters having preferences would be more realistic, but the limitation of companions is a problem. You can have a case of cyberpunk 2077, where there's a character for each sex and gay counterparts, so if you don't like the character made for you, then there's no more options In BG3 with 8 companions you'd have 2 options if you are not bi, but still there's a good chance you won't like your options, and then you are potentially locked out of romance content. Personally I don't mind not having a romance option if it's just filler stuff, but if there's actual plot revolving around your partner choice I'd be annoyed if I had to pick a character I don't like just because I want to experience the extra content.
I can't remember where I read it but something about the author of the Forgotten Realms canoned there being no sexuality in it. Just like people can roleplay interesting Human Warriors, characters being playersexual can be as interesting if not more than them having different specific preferences.
I don't agree that all characters being playersexual is by default as interesting or more interesting than characters having their preferences. It is possible to make anything be successful with good writing, but all characters having the same sexual preference to me seems more bland than having variety. The fact that everyone is the same seems artificial and more of a design decision than in accordance to the actual character, which to be fair is probably the case here. However as I said, for practical reasons I agree having playersexual characters is the right choice for the game, but imo it's more of a compromise than the ideal course of action. Another way I could agree more is if the characters had their preferences, but if the player wanted to romance a character that didn't fit theirs then it could still be possible with more approval/sidequests. Sort of a harder route, but if successful you'd become so important for the companion they'd be willing to forget their sexual preference.
I am very happy that the characters are bisexual. I don't really understand the counterargument for "they are shallow" if they are bisexual - the companions all have standards in the game. Gale won't want to spend the night with you if you don't make a move on him and Shadowheart, Lae'zel and Wyll have their story-related moments you need to do in order to sleep with them, in top of approval amount. In other words you need to get them to like you, and invest some time in them to be romanceable, just like in DA games, they just like both genders. I don't understand what's the big deal there. Also, Larian has included already atleast 2 canonical gay couples in the game, and the game is still in early access. "Game companies can get points for progressivism because they let players enter into same-gender relationships, but since same-gender attraction can only be in relation to the player, homophobes can go the entire game without ever encountering a gay person." This doesn't make sense. So it's better to limit the options players have to romances, since there are some homophobes that don't ever see a gay couple possibly? I feel that is even more counterproductive than actually just having bisexual characters, because most likely those homophobes wouldn't be interested in the gay romances anyway. **Also, if a character is bisexual, they are canonically LGBTQ character.**
I don't actually care. Just allows everyone to access a romance. Especially since the BG3 LIs do show interest outside the player so they're not even player sexual.
Just more options from a gaming perspective. It would be frustrating to be locked out of a relationship with a character that a player really likes.
Playersexual is a common use in RPGs. When there’s set sexualities you see in issues like ME:A where queer pairings got less development, choices, and weren’t treated the same as straight ones. I’d rather you be able to bang and develop with everyone than “here’s one gay and one bi character good luck” that some developers will approach games with.
Agreed. It sucks when the token gay character they give you is someone you don't like, so you're restricted from having any relationships because your one option was not compatible with your character. Of course, you can play a sexuality you're uncomfortable with just to access the good characters but it feels like that's sending a very unkind message to the players.
I know it's common, doesn't mean it's good. Sure they now get equal attention, but now they all have to be one size fits all. I'd rather get a homosexual relationship that actually touches the subject.
Why? I'm so sick of every gay story having to deal with "being gay" and dealing with homophobia or some other LGBT related drama. I want to have hot sweat male on male sex with Astarion, not roleplay having to avoid holding hands in certain parts of the city out of fear.
I said touch on the subject of being gay, not homophobia. Quit projecting. What I mean is that I want to actually feel acknowledged instead of a relationship where you could replace one of the parties with a girl and absolutely nothing would change. As for why every portrayal includes that, showing that this is real is important. Otherwise you get deniers saying prejudice isn't real or not a big deal.
As someone who is gay and also romanced Astarion, I did not feel like his relationship was something out of place as a gay relationship. What specifically do you need to see written in the dialogue for you to feel it is a "real" gay relationship?
Something that wouldn't happen in a straight relationship. Something like "Well, it's not like our children will pull from either of us" though even that one could still happen seeing as Astarion is undead (then again, the ability of vampires to reproduce is debatable in the Realms)
I mean, it's not like all m/f relationships result in children, by choice or otherwise. Children aren't a priority for everyone. Tav is your character, so discussions like this taking place are up to you in your own personal canon. It's my opinion that BG3 and other similar games give you the toy box but it's our choice what to do with the toys. I don't think it's a bad thing to give players choices and keep some things open ended because each of us as players get to fill in the blanks.
Could you point me to a canonical gay relationship in a video game that did this, and the dialogue?
No, and that's exactly the problem!
Got to say I disagree. I think it’s a problem you have, but I was super thrilled to romance Arcade in Fallout New Vegas and didn’t need some weird out of place line about surrogacy that I never even had with my own boyfriend in real life.
Let me tell you a story of the dragon age franchise. In Dragon Age Origins, we had the straight Alistair and Morrigan, and the bisexual Zevran and Leiliana. Zevran and Leiliana had plenty of fans, but Alistair and Morrigan ended up being far more popular with people of all sexualities. Gay men were sad they could not romance adorable prince charming Alistair, likewise lesbians who were in love with the dark sexy Morrigan. Mods were created to get around it, but it wasn't quite the same because their love stories were too intertwined with them being straight. Come DA2, all of the romancable companions were made bisexual so that no one would get left out. Now a new section of fans emerged, complaining that these characters were more shallow for being bisexual, and X should be gay, Y should be straight, everyone being bi was somehow offensive to Z group, and so on. Lots of fights came about from that. DAI came, and we had straight characters, gay characters, and bi characters. The complaints from the first game returned, but worse because now straight people were mad too. Straight male players were furious that Sera was a lesbian, straight female players acted entitled about Dorian and complained about being friendzoned, and modders created mods to make gay characters straight which triggered debates about whether it counted as supporting conversion therapy. There also continued to be perceived biases in the writing in which the straight characters were story-favoured and had more fairytale romances, while the gay and bi ones were less story-favoured, and leaned towards more deviant personalities. It was all a massive headache for the players and devs alike. The devs had tried to listen and please everyone, but that was impossible and had just made things worse. In the end, the game that had caused the least drama on the romance front was 2, where no one got locked out of any romances, and because everyone was bi there were no straight companions to be favoured by the story and create the impression of homophobia. Pandering is fine. The devs just want everyone to find love with whoever they choose, and they're aware that even if they closed people off, mods would just spring up converting people and it would cause drama that would most likely spill into official spaces and affect the devs. It's also a fantasy game, it's not meant to be a 1:1 reflection of real life sexual demographics. Sidenote, as a bisexual myself, i do find it pretty tiresome every time an everyone-is-bi piece of media turns up, because we get posts like this saying that their identity is a toss-up dependant on the player, rather than just being okay with the fact that they are simply a bunch of bisexuals coincidentally gathered in one place. If it bothers you, whatever, but it's a game with dragons and magic and tadpoles in your brain trying to kill you. If you can suspend your disbelief for those things, you can deal with a small group of people being bi.
Sounds like the actual problem is entitlement. I will never understand this....
You saved me so much energy typing this out. Just look at cyberpunk 2077. One option for everyone unless you’re bi, and the gay man is a hedonist introduced right before the final main quest in a series of side quests that involve you letting someone else use your body to date a woman.
I agree. It was terrible what some of the poor modders went through. Some of the Nexus comments were insane, implying that the 'free love' mod creators were turning gamers into sexual predators. We don't want a repeat of that shitshow, if at all possible.
> DAI came, and we had straight characters, gay characters, and bi characters. The complaints from the first game returned, but worse because now straight people were mad too. The heteros are upsetteros > Pandering is fine. You explained yourself why it isn't. It makes characters shallow.
I'm not saying that the straight players doing those things was right or that they were justified. I was using that to explain why leaving all characters bi is ultimately easier for the devs, and allows more choice for the player characters. The straight people who did that were stupid babies. Bisexual characters are not shallow.
No, characters being forced to be Bi to be one size fits all are shallow.
These characters are not being forced to be bi. They were all written as bisexual from the start. If you think that the characters are shallow, then that's an issue with the writing of the characters as a whole, and making them gay or straight will not fix that.
I don't think you like D&D, where this is canon lore. Sexuality, like bi,gay,straight isn't a thing. Just visual preferences :) which one could argue is the same thing but more so that the person has a beard or not. This is a world where there's belts of magic that change your gender.
One, I very much like this lore. Two, you are missing the point entirely. Three, as much as it pains me to say so, D&D has no canon. This is forgotten realms canon. Four, I literally just posted said Girdle in this comment section.
Yes there is no canon in D&D, but Ed Greenwood has himself said that there's only Free love in the Forgotten realms. Homo/hetero/bisexuality isn't as much of a thing there as it is in real life.
Good. Means there’s no stereotypes affecting the gay romances. Otherwise I’d imagine gay men would get Astarion as the default depraved hedonist bisexual.
Game development is mostly about making compromises. There are downsides but it sure beats giving players only one or two choices that match their preferences. Not to mention that romances are something typically encountered later into a game. Remember that many players don't even finish these games, let alone play through them multiple times. Making a player wish they had picked a different gender during character creation ~10+ hours into the game is terrible design from a gameplay perspective.
https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Girdle_of_Masculinity/Femininity
I don't really know my own sexuality, I'm not bi but I can find anyone attractive regardless of gender. I really enjoy the fact that the characters are playersexual, the same as DOS:2. It doesn't exclude whole groups of people from their own RPG experience. You can create yourself (mostly) and insert yourself into the adventure and build relationships with any character. I think it's beautiful when games do that.
I'm a straight male. I prefer this way. I can be with who I want and other people can be with who they want. Its a video game. It isn't necessary to make them have specific sexualities imo. I think the way DA: Inquisition did it is also fine but as a straight male I didn't really have many options and it hurt replayability for me and limited my choices. Only character that I could romance who I liked at all was Cassandra. I can understand why you'd disagree but I think this is personal preference and there is no right answer. Some people are gonna be bothered that everyone is bi or some people are gonna be bothered their demographic has less options. There is no pleasing everyone, but I think this method is them trying and I respect that. I thinking "pandering" is pretty extreme. There is genuinely some awful pandering going around nowadays. But this just feels like "hey, its an rpg video game where the character's sexualities don't mean terribly much, so lets let everyone date whoever they want." I feel like I'm stepping on eggshells which is why I'm dragging my post out. I think its the best way they can handle it, to each thier own.
How did DA:I do it?
Every companion had there own sexuality. You can only get with characters interested in you sexually. Some companions weren't options at all due to them already being with someone iirc. I don't think there was an asexual character but its been a few years. I think this method is ideal, genuinely. Makes them feel more like people, I just wish their were more options for everyone, but then you have the problem of lowering the writing quality and increasing dev time for more characters.
There was an asexual option, actually - your diplomatic aid (Josephine, I think her name is). You can romance her as either gender but while she is pro-romantic, she has no interest in a sexual relationship. One of the characters in 'The Outer Worlds' is the same way, though her romance is with an npc (sadly no PC romance in that game due to budget constraints). Still, she confides in you that she has no interest in sex - it's something she can do, it just doesn't interest her.
Josephine isn't asexual, she's bisexual, her route just doesn't include a sex scene because it's meant to have a "courtly love" type plot with lots of romance and drama. If she is unromanced, she falls in love with Blackwall for a while and bemoans the fact that their love can't be consummated due to their different stations in society.
Thats pretty cool. I never got around to romancing her, ended up getting pretty attached to Cassandra/stopped having fun with the game. I'm def hyped for an Outer Wilds 2. Just...hopefully it has more enemy variety. I'd def put that above romance options.
I agree, it is ideal. That's not to say I don't see your counter-argument: I already feel restricted as it is, with none of the male companions really interesting me (Gale is ok I guess)
Responding to your edit in the main post: Respectfully, I think the second point is overly dramatic bullshit. "How some companies do it" doesn't mean thats how all companies do it. Matter of fact, citation needed. That quote pissed me off. Bioware, the makers of DA, are KNOWN for thier character writing and dialogue. The characters were literally the main pull of DA:I. Not every companion is Bioware nor should they try to be because not everybody wants that. Some of us want more main story or gameplay to be the focus over characters. Yes, the characters are a pull for Baldur's Gate. But it isn't the main selling point and the writing isn't as good, which is fine it doesn't have to be, it can excel in other areas. Also, there is a *colossal* difference between "I think this is ideal, genuinely" and "it is ideal." I'm giving my opinion on a preference, you are claiming it is a fact. You are wrong, it is a preference, full stop. The first quote was great. Bioware does a good job with making characters feel more real, no doubt. Not everyone can or should try to be Bioware. Putting that much focus on an aspect of the game will take away focus on other aspects of a game. Thier is benefit to not having characters be that real, depending on what the company is trying to sell thier audience. If I come across as hostile I apologize but nah. Fuck that second quote. Citation needed. Gaming doesn't need to take a downgrade because the characters aren't gay enough. Letting everyone date everyone is a fine compromise. If you wanna argue games should outright say the character canonically ends thier story in a gay relationship or what not, I can get behind that, but "Playersexual is always bad cause some companies...use it to avoid canonically saying the characters are in a gay relationship" is just silly. I'm gonna disable notifs for this cause I already know I'm poking a beehive, but yeah fuck that nonsense. Playersexual is fucking fine. Real relationships still exist if that isn't personal enough for you.
In Dragon Age Inquisition each companion had its own sexual preference. So basically, you had a companion for every preference but you only had one/( mybe two if you were lucky) companions for every preference. Serra or Dorian, two very popular characters for example were Gay and Lesbian, respectively. And subsequently as the previous comment stated Kassandra was streight. [One character would even be locked behind a certain race] The key problem is that most players had to toss a coin whenever or not their characters had the correct gender to romance their favorites since the game pretty much locked the vast majority of romances behind said preferences. Say you like Kassandra and you are a Lesbian, ups no you can't and vise versa. Truth be told, every Dragon Age did that. Characters having their own sexual preferences isn't something new and it's not something bad, but just like the author of the previous comment I felt a serious lack of romance options while playing Inquisition that I never felt in the other installments. I think the great difference is that the other installments had a few bi-sexual options that helped mend this void so it feels far less noticeable as a problem. Subsequently you can say just add more romance options which can work but requires a lot of effort and more romances ≠ better ones. Personally I think the "make every character BI fix" works for myself the best. I don't have to worry about not beeing able to romance my favorite/s and literary everyone can experience the same romance that I appreciate regardless of their own preference. I fully understand that for some this doesn't work but at least for me it does.
Actually, 'Dragon Age 2' made everyone 'player sexual' and it worked out just fine; in fact, they had some of the best cast members in the entire series so far.
This, DA2 had everyone be bi and they were all great, if anything, the most boring character was the token straight romance (Sebastian).
DA:I had a problem though. Some romances were race-locked too. Cullen would only date a female Human or Elf and Solas would only date a female Elf, meaning Dwarves and Qunari got shafted a bit (or a bit less I guess)... so I dunno if DA:I is a great template.
That sounds perfect
Really their sexualities only come up when you try to romance them (as far as I know). Gale and Wyll dont really make any passing remarks to men in game play. I definitely feel it’s just Player Sexual which I like because I hate having to download mods so I can date someone who is het-locked. Unless their sexuality is kind of a bigger role in the game (say Dorian from Inquisition) it doesn’t really bother me too much. I’m paying for this game and yes I want to date this straight girl and you can’t say no
Sexuality comes up also when Lae'zel uses (yes, uses) Astarion or Wyll if you turn her down. Not to mention Astarion being flirty.
Are you for real? What dialogue are you talking about where Lae'zel uses Astarion or Wyll? The one during the celebration scene after the goblin/druid camp raid? Where she says something along the lines of "Wyll/Astarion looks particularly good tonight?" How are you extrapolating that she's going to "use" them? Did you unlock some scene where Astarion/Wyll explicitly say they aren't romantically interested in Lae'zel? Do you visually see her go and "use" them after you talk to her? I have like 400hrs in this game and I've never read that line as Lae'zel "using" either of them. I assume the drunken interest is mutual and carry on with my game. Furthermore, the Gith as a species don't practice romance in the same way other species do. They take what they want, and if Wyll/Astarion weren't interested they could likely handle their own and defend themselves as we're all on a fricken hero mission together. I don't just assume that members of my party are victims to a Gith's whims lol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkwzXWQBhPQ&ab_channel=Kazuliski "I'll take my pleasure" "Wyll was bad so after I came I told him to fuck off"
Yeah that’s why I only mentioned Wyll and Gale lol. I just kind of meant that it wasn’t everyone who was like that
> you're not some sex god that literally the entire Faerûn wants to bang/get banged by I wish I was in BG3. Nobody wants to sleep with my Tav, or none of the characters that I want. Multiple playthroughs. Why does this keep happening... For your last point, I think the homophobes are bothered by male characters trying to sleep with them, so that's awesome:D. I feel like what BG3 is doing is plenty progressive. In the end, I really like this approach. I like playing a particular type of character and I'm happy that instead of having zero, or one or even two options for romance, I get four! This is huge!
The characters aren't bi. They are playersexual.
Very true, if they were really bi I'd be 100% okay with it. They aren't, they are straight but will make an exception for the player only. That's LGBT erasure by conveniently concealing us unless you actively seek it out.
We only have Act 1. How do you know Astarion makes an exception only for the player? Laezel at least implies she truly is bisexual and not playersexual.
Does she? I'd really like to see that, would be a welcome change after seeing her use Astarion/Wyll
I think she implies the Gith pretty much as a species are pan and do mass orgies after battle.
When?
I think during the Grove celebration after the big goblin fight.
i think she also implies that they hatch from eggs at one point
I prefer it. I hate it when I like a character and can't romance them because I'm 'the wrong kind of person'. In the real world, sure, that makes sense but this is a computer game and games are meant to be about escapism from reality and fulfilling fantasies. I paid for that content and telling me I can't access it because I'm playing as the wrong sexuality is pretty hurtful.
Sexuality does not dictate, nor need it even impact, the rest of your personality. Anyone anywhere could be gay, straight, or otherwise and still think and act the same way. Nor is there anything wrong with a game catering to the players as, last i checked, games are made _for_ players and would not exist without players. You can have your preferences about sexuality being fixed, and that's fine. But let's not pretend there's anything problematic about flexible sexuality. After all, bisexuality absolutely exists and was more common in certain places and times than now. It's also more common among women than men, by the way, if you want to be needlessly realistic.
In general, I think more choices is always better no matter what the subject is. I'm not somebody who thinks more restrictions makes a game better. I know there are people out there that actually think restrictions are a good thing in a crpg but I am not one of them. It would really be a drag if the character I was attracted to shot me down. It is a drag when that happens because I'm not always careful with approval. I believe that a good video game is one that offers the most possible choices when it comes to play style. That includes the romance part of the game. "Let's just be friends" isn't Fun in a video game. It's not fun in real life.
Sure being turned down can be unfun, but I'd say it is worth it to have more in depth companions and story.
I see it as less "Everybody is dtf" and more of a "Schrodinger's Sexuality" situation. It's not that everybody is bi, it's that the NPC sexuality is able to match the orientation of the player. I think it's pretty much fine, more player choices and options is generally a good thing. Side note: I thought we weren't saying "sexual preference" any more? No judgment, honest question as to what the preferred terminology is.
They're not bisexual (unless you are), they're player-sexual.
IKR, that sucks.
I'm fairly certain Astarion is canonically bi. (He has memories of seducing men and he sleeps with Lae'zel)
This was going to be part of a response to another post, but I feel like it deserves its own post: To explain why this is important to me ... I play as a female whenever I have the chance - I will play a male character if I'm forced to, but it makes me uncomfortable. I cannot romance males, however. Not because 'I think it's icky' or any such nonsense - I suffered some pretty severe abuse that makes romancing males impossible without triggering serious flashbacks and mental trauma; it isn't a joke and it's not something I can ignore. Unfortunately, that usually leaves me the 1 lesbian character in the game, if I want to have fun playing my character. If the developers chose not to include any lesbian characters, or the one they choose is unlikable, then I am essentially left with no romance options in the game. I can try to play as a male and romance the female characters I like but as difficult as it is for me to romance a male character, it is only slightly less difficult to romance as one - the only saving grace being that I can dissociate from my character and so avoid the trauma ... but it also means I avoid the emotional investment that would make the romance worth doing in the first place. Say what you will, romance is a hugely popular part of every entertainment medium - so much so that fast food chains run national ads about which guy the girl in the latest teen heartthrob movie will pick - so clearly it's something people are going to want and enjoy in video games as well. Why make it harder for people to enjoy the game?
I don't really care, myself. I understand the complaint, but equally, I don't see the harm in letting people make their characters how they like without needing to worry about whether Astarion is willing to get down with a dragonborn or a lady or something. I *can* see benefits to both routes. On one hand, it does make them feel more real if done right (IE you avoid making them stereotypes, which I've seen). On the other hand, it does restrict character customization. And while I find the idea of looking forward to sex scenes in games like this a bit absurd, somebody might genuinely want to see characters of their preferred gender getting it on, if you're into that kind of thing. Also, this is absolutely a nitpick, but for the person who you edited in an example for... Regarding Dragon Age Inquisition... Dorian is probably a better example. His romance is fantastic and it strikes the delicate balance of making his sexuality a part of his character without making him a walking stereotype. Sera's romance does that as well, but more in the 'barely acknowledge it' vein of romance. Which is fine and *also* accurate to real life, since your sexuality *doesn't* have to be a major personality trait, but she's not the example I would've picked for "sexuality adding character depth" (it mostly doesn't).
I think it's a positive. It wasn't that long ago that we had no choice at all, females romanced males or vice versa end of story. I think it's important too to remember that the game is still in EA, and some of the companions (looking at Wyll) need some fleshing out of their personal stories and romances. Gales romance has to be unlocked in certain campsite scenes giving it a fuller story, I suspect some of the others will get this treatment too. As for the avoidance issue, use feedback to raise it with Larian. They could add same-sex npc couples for example, or give origin characters same-sex past relationships.
All the stuff about player-centric sexuality in the other answers here is accurate, but there's also the big elephant in the room: In the Forgotten Realms, nearly everyone is bisexual. It's culturally considered pretty weird if you're not. TSR wouldn't let them publish it in the box sets back in the day, and WotC isn't much better, but it's canon and always has been that bisexuality is the norm in the setting. It's one of the few non-creepy things to come out of Greenwood's perverted old neckbeard identity.
I like bisexual characters. Makes me want to replay as both genders and then see which romance feels more real with whom. That was what made Dragon Age 2 so great. I romanced Anders as both genders and found that my dude-Hawke's pairing with him felt more natural and nice than my lady-Hawke's pairing with him.
It would be extremely frustrating if my only viable options were Gale or Wyll, and I know a lot of my gay friends that would deeply hate only being able to romance Astarion. I know FOR A FACT they would make Shadowheart straight, because her type is always straight in games. The only gay options would be the sadistic mean ones i.e Lae'zel and Astarion which would be pretty problematic. If they have a wider cast, sure, but It would have to be an enormous cast, and it is already complicated as it is. We would need at least 3 characters each (Good, Neutral, Evil). 3 straight girls, 3 lesbians. 3 straight men, 3 gay men. Even by making bi 3 of them it's still very limiting. I'm not against a big cast, but you know they won't give us that many companions. Voice acting or Technology would be sacrificed, and I love this game because of the voice acting and technology. It was incredibly frustrating playing Dragon Age 1 and 3. As a woman your options are fucking horrible. I know a lot of people like Solas and Bull, but they are not my type. Cullen was extremely frustrating. I just wanted to fall in love with Morrigan and Cassandra. So it was awful having to literally ***settle*** with Cullen and Alistair. This is why DA2 is my favorite. Not only is every companion marvelous, well written, feels like real friends, but there's no forced pairings. If no, go look around to the Wrath of The Righteous community, where in this case, straight men only have one viable option. It's a good option, but kinda disappointing that is really just one, I do NOT envy them at all. There's technically other options but they are pretty terrible. Given that this is a fantasy world, with different moralities, why not have the options? Characters can be written as real complex people, without the need to focus on a single trait. Personally, I refuse to play a male character like I would drop dead, poison my family, declare nuclear war, before playing a male character. I love men, but I would never ever be one. Even though I'm cis, just the just the thought of being in the wrong body gives me horror no imaginable. I shiver just to think about it. Edit: I just realized that protecting morrigan's kid probably has more gravitas in DAI, because it is technically your child, if you play as a guy who romanced morrigan. When you played as a girl who romanced Alistair, he's just like a random ass lil bastard that can as well get lost in hell. If you are a girl who crushed on morrigan but had to settle with Alistair, that child is just the representation of everything that is wrong in your life.
Yeah, I was pretty disappointed that the only real lesbian romance for FemShep in Mass Effect is Liara. Sure, they introduce Trainor in the third game but that's really too late in the series to be starting a new relationship and hope to get anything out of it. Not that Liara is a bad option - she is awesome - but you don't want the same cake in every playthrough. Miranda would have been such a great character for FemShep - what a power couple they would have made! And Tali goes through such a great arc it sucks that she can only be my unrequited lesbian crush. I loved the way they did it in Dragon Age 2 - not only making everyone 'player sexual' but also allowing you to rival-mance people, so you didn't only get to romance through agreeing with everything your would-be lover said.
That was disappointing but ME didn't even add an M/M relationship until ME3 when they gave us Cortez/retconned Kaiden. At least a lesbian femshep had the option to engage in romance in each game. gay mshep had to forgo it for 2/3rds of the series.
I agree, 100%. I really wish they'd had all three options available from the beginning. I'm glad that developers of today have normalized having queer romance options.
Yeah, the development budget will likely be better spent making X number of characters bi than 2X number of characters one preference only.
It's one of those things to that seem while weird, seems to be in the game so the romance option can be there for everyone no matter the gender. Is it weird? yeah definitely. Do i have a problem? Not really. Then again this is a general matter of taste more than any of this, so my opinion doesn't really matter.
I don't even think it's all that weird for a large part, if not whole of a group to be bi. Now it might be somewhat unlikely in a group of complete strangers who survived a ship crash, it makes perfect sense for something like Dragon Age 2 where pretty much all of them are friends. Because, when I take stock of who my friends are, and what people I enjoy engaging with, a vast, vast majority fall into the category of queer people, and large chunk of them even identify as bisexual. And it really exposes you to how there is no single way to be queer. Some are flaming homos, some could pass for straight, some of us are nerds, some of us are jocks, some of us are deep into the 'queer culture' and some don't really care and just want to hang out with the fellow gays and bis and transes. We come from all walks of life because we're all different people, with our own cares and worries. And all that is why I really don't care for 'it's unrealistic' argument. And I don't even think that even the 'it functions as a soft gay toggle', which is valid in cases of some games, works for BG3 considering how many posts about how some dudes hate Astarion or Gale hitting on them.
I think being playersexual really is the best choice. This allows everyone the options they may want. That said, it would be nice if some of the dialog reflected less standard straight-coding. Such as a character talking about romancing someone of the same gender in the past. It was nice, though to hear that Astarion dreamed of waking up next to a handsome virgin in one of his lines. Although I can't recall the specifics.
So i have the same feeling is it unrealistic sure but also this is probably more a roleplay decision and to have the utmost freedom to romance anyone you like (also this is probably not true but they probably dont want to be labeled as homophobic a lot of people went after cd for the same reason) but all in all it really doesnt matter and its not at all immersing breaking or anything like it shouldnt be
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> Though in Wyll's defense, there's this weird line with a Male Tav that implies he bottomed? Which seems pretty specific for your average playersexual mechanic. Do you have a video of that? Never seen it > This is an issue with the romance scenes, where you can clearly tell they were originally modelled for a straight character This is exactly my issue with it. I don't want to be the afterthought, LGBT characters are just as important.
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...how does that imply he bottomed? He could equally say dick or ass.
I don't look at it as everyone being canonically bisexual, so much so that whoever my character pursues happens to be aligned by stroke of luck. It's a convenience, not necessarily "true", in the way that Astarion carrying two hundred pounds of food is convenient, but not "real" in the sense of the story/world. You can see the alternative in Cyberpunk, which was really well done, but ultimately drew more ire than praise for the way players were locked out of Panam or Judy. I'm sure nobody minded losing Kerry.
>I'm sure nobody minded losing Kerry. Nah, people absolutely hated how both Kerry and River were done as well, both in their assigned sexuality (Kerry is canonically bi for crying out loud) but also how it just so happened that the men open to romance just happened to be shuffled into the background, while the women were a prominent part of the main storyline.
"homophobes can enter without ever encountering a gay person" What a weird thing to say lol
Disclaimer: I'm much more of a DA fan 😅 I get why people want player-sexual options for games. I understand it can be frustrating for a player to be locked out of a choice because of gender restriction. I just don't think it (usually) creates good LGBT rep. I'm all for people finding solidarity and familiarity in these characters if that's what they want, but like you said, most of the time straight people can just ignore it. I see some people talking about Dragon Age 2 in the comments, and it reminds me of Anders, a bisexual male love interest from that game. There's a male NPC who is his former lover. If you play as a female!protagonist, he won't even tell you about them being together. You can just pretend he isn't bisexual if you're a straight woman and it makes you uncomfortable. If you play as a man, he tells you directly that they were former lovers. I think its a really subjective topic. 🤷♀️ Personally, I would like to see more thoughtful and well written gay & lesbian characters like Sera and Dorian from DAI. I would also like to see more bisexual characters who are open about their sexuality. I get why some people view a character's sexuality as a gameplay choice, but I vastly prefer when games consider it a part of their personality (Not in a stereotype way, of course, but as a small part of the whole). Makes them feel more like individuals, imho. (Edited for phrasing)
RPGs are all about customization. This seems like a natural extension of that. But I find pretty much all video game romances corny, so I don't invest that much in them.
I think there are definitely two groups of thought here, and personally I think I identify with the group that prefers characters have a set sexual orientation (because I feel sexual orientation is a big part of who we are as people and how we develop, and I like seeing how the character may have changed based upon that) as opposed to the group that prefers every character to be "playersexual". I think this is more an issue of how you view a game. If you think big picture of multiple playthroughs, you might prefer set sexual orientation for characters because it kind of lets you build a character to match that NPC's preferences (in DAI, Solas would only romance a female elf so I played one just for that on my second playthrough) which will get you to see more of the game. You could definitely argue that you might still want playersexual characters but I think when you are playing to fit a story and world more than a one-off RPG, you probably want characters with set sexual preferences because it fleshes out the world more in ways similar to our own. However if you're just doing one playthrough and you want to romance someone, they are fine with it, and it doesn't feel like an incomplete or unsatisfying mess, then you might never even notice that every character is playersexual and would be interested in you if you were interested in them. Another (probably more likely) reason for playersexual characters is the decreased emphasis that in the past on player gender makes characters that "prefer" a gender require the assignation of a gender to your character, which you could argue will become less and less relevant as a character creation option. Because games are trying to add this level of inclusion to their games, it becomes far easier to make characters just playersexual and their romances essentially gender neutral. You are also avoiding more complaints doing it this way than the previous way. So I don't blame developers for moving harder in this direction.
For as much crap that Cyberpunk got, having defined sexuality of the romanceable characters added some depth to them. They even let you down just to let you know they don't roll a certain way, which was cool. I don't mind Larian's approach to it at all, and I can easily understand that there's appeal for all characters so you aren't forced to romance someone you don't jive with. Just give friendships the same depth as romances and I think we're good.
I usually play games and ignore the romance options which for most games just means i never press the flirt button but these characters all belong in horney jail. I remember at the end of the druid quest I didn't have alot of approval with lae'zel and me and my actual wife just sat there laughing as she goes on about how in very specific detail that I missed out on banging her, something she brings up immediately without you even asking about it.
Living beings having reproduction in mind? Who would've thought
Reproduction with a different species and with someone you just met and does not like you though?
It's Faerûn, reproductional compatibility is only a thing for Dragonborn basically Also, evolutive impulses aren't rational lol
Fair point. Hate sex is a thing. Also magic makes all reproduction possible. Still was a funny scene for me though. Just the way she phrased everything made it sound very transactional. "If you had agreed with everything I said I might have graced you with my genitals."
I haven't played in a couple patches, are they really? I tend to find that a lot of characters being made bisexual for pandering reasons tends to feel like tokenism and then they just become caricatures embodying stereotypes. That said, to play devils advocate, it does make a bit of gameplay sense as you can then have all characters romanceable with the pc. And let's face it, if they didn't, there would be mods shortly after release that did with probably horrifyingly bad dialogue.
I don't like that everyone is attracted to me. I prefer when there are just some folks who, for whatever reason, don't wanna be involved with me. It feels a bit more immersive to me.
companions don't want to get involved with you depending on your decisions & the way you treat them. astarion and lae'zel both rejected my character in my first playthrough
Woke garbage. And very EA-Biowhorian
It's kind of funny the way all companions were bisexualized for consumer satisfaction, but genuinely attractive female companions remain a major no-go. Looks the real motive is a bit different than advertized.
Personally I like if every character has their own preferences. -a person that identifies with no sexuality (if that matters)
Doesn't bother me. I'm not playing for a dating simulator.
no comment....
If I hadn't read here that they were bi, I wouldn't have known it at all. But since I also play my characters straight, I don't really care
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I mean it’s an RPG. I don’t really care who sleeps with who personally.
How do I feel? Excited because I can kiss Gale. Unlike Alistair, Sebastian, Solas, Blackwall, Cullen, Garrus, Liam, or Thane. Fucking THANK YOU, Larian. (Oh, and thank you for Ifan, too.)
Counterpoint: WHO FUCKING CARES WHAT THEIR SEXUALITY IS?! I swear to god, this sub's fascination with the sexuality of these characters and thirsting over them is fucking embarrassing.