Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Asexuality in romances?

As usual flexibility of the dialogues, that is more options and a more smooth progression, would be the best.

Also due to the fact that herosexuality litteraly makes able to players of any gender identity and sexuality to try to have sex, romance involves sex but its different from sex for its own sake, with any choosen character, I don't get why the asexual option (as much as asexuality could be a lesser fraction of sexuality), is not considered.

In other words Larian talks about "romance" while in reality is only sex, beware I'm not saying there's something bad in this kind of sex. Litteraly the dialogues that imply flirting are few and some difficult (if you are a bit naive about flirting, like I am, seriously if someone is not explicit with me I don't understand if thei are flirting ) to understand.

Maybe they could add the flag [flirt] just like they have those for race/class/profiency specific answers. I dare to say two different flags [romance] for those who prefer the romantic side, [flirt] for those who instead want the physical aspect too.

Obviously they should modify the attitude toward the main toon system in a way that it follows five different outcomes:

1) (low or no approval) and (no flirt or romance): the companions in this situation are cold borderline hostile with their answers, thay could too sush away the main character;

2) (low or no approval) and (flirt): the companion could decide they despise you but still hot enough to bed them;

3) (high approval) and (no flirt nor romance): the companion is friendly, they are open and share with your main toon, they show their trust, but they don offer to have sex with your main character;

4) (high approval) and (high flirting no or low romance): the companion appreciates your character but sees their relationship like one of "friend with benefits";

5) (high approval) and (high or low flirting and high romance): the dialogues let the player decide if go into a romantic relationship, a "friend with benefits" one, or a romantic and sexual one.

I put the approval as first value because making the exception, of the "well they're hot so what the hell in the end is just sex" option, a low approval means that the companion is not availabe.

I know that manage three different factors is more complex but that way would gave more flexibility and chances to have a personalized playgame with different outcomes that are not tied only to the fact that the companions get attracted by you not because off how you flirt or court them but because you make some story related choices that align with their own view of the world.

They could very well make it so sex is an additional or optional choice. Hell, what's more likely, is that they may make it so you can politely decline sex and still be in a romance with some characters.

What's tricky is that playersexual usually means that you can romance a character after flirting/gaining approval with them no matter what your character is. If your character is ace then by that logic, romanceable characters have to be written as compatible with being with them.

But as user Nyloth said, the two "evil" characters, Lae'zel and Astarion, are written as wanting sex, and downright explicitly written as promiscuous and interested in no strings attached sex - borderline "aromantic" for lack of a better word. This may be more of an issue with Lae'zel since I feel like Astarion is charismatic enough to be romantic without actually being romantic. In Lae'zel's case, her "romance" would be something more like an intense relationship with an ally who also is good in bed, and I am very interested in seeing it play out that way. Her romance is not typical, probably not only about sex, but the fact that she wants it is important to the romance.

I think there are many ways Larian can make it so you can skip sex scenes while it being implied. They may be able to write in that many of the characters are ok with being denied sex and never physically consummating, but I feel like Lae'zel and Astarion's romance would lose something if you denied them. And I would be disappointed if they had to rewrite that aspect.

More player choice is always good and not every romantic relationship needs to become sexual, not everyone playing a game is comfortable with those kinds of scenes for example and it would allow the experience to be more tailored to the player.

They changed that in the re-release, you can romance and even sleep with him, but he still third-wheels you unless you never do Sadha's story.

Also, sexual attraction to a sentient anthropomorphic lizard/dragon falls under teratophilia, not bestiality, I'd love a Dragonborn companion actually, but I'm not going to get into why it would be a bad idea for larian to make the only aspec companion also be the most inhuman looking one.

Having a distinct meter for flirting vs approval is a great idea. In my game it felt like there were a lot of moments my character wanted to express a bond with Wyll. I happened to be playing a male Drow and had decided on a backstory that hit A LOT of similar notes, so my character felt like he had found someone he could really relate to trauma-wise, and then to have the "I really care about you" line suddenly turn to romance without anything that I had interpreted at flirting felt pretty off. "I really care about you" should not always imply romance, friendships can be really intimate too.

Larian I'm sure will do their own calculations on the cost of making this change vs sales. I'm pretty sure no one, or not a significant number of people, will refuse to buy the game due to a lack of sexual romantic relationship, or will rush out to buy BG3 because the game has it.

And as has been pointed out, the vampire and the alien clearly have voracious sexual appetites, and making them accept the player character's desire for an exclusive asexual romantic relationship would be bending their character design to the breaking point.

It's up to Larian to decide if satisfying this small group of people will yield the sales that will justify the cost of re-conceptualising, re-writing, and implementing this. I don't think it will be worth it.