Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Romance Options (toggle)

Will there be an option to turn off/on romantic dialogues and encounters, thus allowing the player to enjoy either a romance-heavy or a romance-free story? As a Christian, being able to simply turn off romance would be my first choice. The reason being that most CRPG romances I don't find to be very tasteful and the sex scenes inappropriate. This is personal opinion and not meant to be offensive to anyone who is of a different mind.

I am certain that I am in the minority, but I would like to see this option.

I hope it's more in depth than this. I do hope not only your character sexual orientation and theirs will be evaluated to decide if they want to flirt with you or not. I would rather have the companions being more moved towards you by the choices you make in the game. It's much more interesting in my opinion than just matching sexuality preferences, which should be secondary concerns.

I think they said in the most recent update (towards the very end) that the next community update would give more details on romances. Personally, I could do without them entirely.

I hear you, Nyanko

My fear is that when your character is genuinely but simply (without any romantic hopes or interest) being nice to a companion (showing an interest in their lives, etc.) that the coding will flag that and respond with flirtation. This has been my experience with Bioware titles.

So some kind of romance toggle or orientation designation would allow the developers the freedom to design the game to be sensitive to potential romantic interests but give the players an "opt out" clause so that their actions won't always be interpreted that way.

I could as well. But that's mostly because the CRPG romance that I have witnessed is largely in poor taste (personal opinion).

I agree. They usually feel shoehorned in and not very natural, especially in more modern games.

I very rarely care for romance in rpgs, especially if they involve cringe-worthy sex scenes. I did romance Fane in DOS2, because I thought it was hilarious.

I’ll probably mostly play BG3 with my girlfriend, so my protagonist’s partner is already a done thing. I’m still interested in seeing how Larian will handle it. I’ll go gay for Minsc. ❤️

The sex scenes are good in the witcher 3 though. And romance in DOS2 was fun, I agree.

My favorite romance was in Dragon Age Origins with Morrigan, cause it was so difficult to get her that it was a minigame in itself. But the devs made sure she was hot as hell to keep you interested lol. That's the kind of romance I would like in BG3, something interesting because the character you are flirting with is interesting and well written.

Sera in Inquisition was fun, and interestingly hard work when playing a mage character. I would hope romances are more like that than the rather threadbare efforts in e.g. Skyrim.

Morrigan difficult? She is the first one to initiate romance with, and she is so blunt with things she wants to hear, tis difficult to piss her off, unless you really try. And in doubt gift system will allow you to win over companions even if they should hate you.

For me it was really difficult. I had to look up for the right choices to take online at some point.

I thought the Dorien relationship in DA:I was very well done. He is gay, but even after you decline his advances (assuming you're male) you can still do his entire personal quest line and even be really nice to him and help him out with his problems, and he never hits on you again and in the endgame tells you that no one has ever been as nice to him as you and that you are like a brother to him. That's how a well-made relationship system should work.

Re. Morrigan, yeah she's relatively easy to romance, and also yeah she's one of the best cRPG romances of all time.

Like a lot of people around the web, I love the options available with the romances, but like them as well, I find it too flexible. It feels very unrealistic that all of the companions can be romanced regardless of player sex or race (every single one is pansexual?) It feels like bad character writing just to try to make things diverse. I'm excited by the variety but very disappointed by the forced writing just so I can romance everyone with anyone I make. :( Larian, please consider giving the companion characters realistic sexual preferences! And I love the idea that suggested in this forum that if you are playing a character not interested in romance, you can specify as much with your character and at least some of the characters (depending on that characters personality) will be respectful and not try to romance you. (And some still would?) Realistic! <3

I dont realy see how beeing a christian would make that uncomfortable, i consider myself a christian and i dont bother, its not like the games gonna force you to have sex with strangers.

but oh well

Same*. I suppose my perspective is that it's fiction, not reality, and it's supposed to be about roleplaying. Well, inasmuch as I just said elsewhere I'm not much good at playing evil characters; but that's just a product of me not enjoying it much rather than "I mustn't roleplay that because principles etc". But I don't enjoy it so I don't do it, which is a simple enough solution. Okay, usually: I mean you do get some really ham-fisted attempts at "this is more complex than good vs. evil" such as Fallout 3's Tenpenny Tower quest-line whose outcomes were realistic=evil and good=idiotically naïve. That's the sort of writing I can do without.

* well, variously. The "variously not" is caused by some specimens who really dislike anything LGBT which is very tiresome.

I do understand some people feel uncomfortable with evil stuff in video games. I guess it has to do with being able to dissociate your gameplay experience from real life or not. Some manage, some don't. And it is not to say one group is better than the other. It's just the way it is. As a writer myself, I know I can handle playing evil easily because it is just a story in a fictional world for me and it does not affect my values outside of it. And to be honest, it feels good sometimes to bitch around and play evil.

I remember back in the day, when neverwinter nights community servers were a thing, I used to play an evil drow mage and some other players were also playing drows and we had some sessions in which we were capturing people (other players) from the surface to torture them. Everybody was just playing a game and it had no other consequences than being edgy and fun.

It's bad idea. Okay, I can understand that sex scenes often look weird and maybe toggle for "dark screen" instead of cyber-humping would be nice but "romance-free story" seems absurd. It should be an adult world with all it's blessings and flaws. With sexual content, and not only companions cheesy romance. You can always turn somebody down.

I would have thought turning down a protagonist was in and of itself a toggle.

It seems to me a well written rpg, which Larian games are, would quickly determine a disinterested party from the players responses and then leave well enough alone.

Romances in RPGs tend to be quite optional. In the original BG you can easily play the whole game without triggering them, and you can always just say "hey...you know what? I'd rather not" to a flirty character. BG:EE is a bit more direct about it by design (especially BG2:EE, I never expected my evil cleric-wizzard egotistical gnome lady to get in a "love" triangle with a Blackguard half orc and a vampire, but the game almost insists on it), but even there you can always tell someone to buzz off.

Also, I wouldn't expect all companions to flirt with you without you flirting with them first. So if one of them is too flirty for your taste, just don't take them along? Evil companions tend to be more flirty, so assuming you will play a mostly "good" party, even if the game kinda sets the alignment system aside, avoiding that kind of company should be relatively simple. Especially since Larian games are not known to turn any and every relationship in a suggested romance.

I wouldn't oppose the toggle option, but I don't expect making your character incapable of love to be needed for any kind of playthrough.

Romancing in RPGs is one of those things that i feel every game would lose zero value over simply not including. Hell romance in most forms of entertainment, including movies and TVs, tend to detract from what would otherwise be a perfectly fine story and it becomes a rather senseless inclusion or dramatic angle. Especially in games like D:OS2 where one selecting one rather vague dialogue choice can result in romance, a toggle option wouldn't be a bad thing. Sure the Fane romance was amusing at least, but man it was too easy to stumble into it. Ultimately I'd prefer if the genre alltogether just stopped with this weird fascination with romancing pretend and often questionable characters, but a toggle would be a sufficient substitute.