Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Friendship, Romance, and Punching Astarion

Maybe video game nerds should stop trying to shoe in romance, it's always creepy and poorly done in video games

Agreed but you and I are the minority if you can’t tell by the comments.

Romance has kind of become an expectation in this school of RPGs, if we want away from it entirely it seems like we only have recourse to indie stuff. That said I have more faith in Larian than just about anyone else to listen to feedback and at least try to remove some of the ick factor.

The problem is that in this case, you will have to do two different flirt and two different scenes for characters of different genders, which is quite expensive when all the characters in your game are bisexual.
I saw something similar in Pathfinder. As far as I can remember, there were 2 bisexual characters, and I know for a fact that the male character (I don't remember his name) behaved differently with a male MC. Making additional options for one character is not so difficult, but for all? Problematic.

Let me say that your friend is very picky, considering how many options for a romance he has. Just imagine, if you are given only 2 bisexual characters, such as Wyll and Lae, I bet he will not like it very much and we both know why. No matter how well they work for mc men.

How men flirt with men:
Gale: Hey, bro
MC: Sup, bro
Gale: Wanna spoon, bro
MC: Totally, bro



In all seriousness, it would be nice for them to acknowledge gender, but it could be a bit too expensive. It was nice with Kaidan when he acknowledges male or female (it was just essentially a line or two), but I would rather take what we have than having 1 bisexual option while everyone is straight again. It would be once again at the expense of gay players like it always has been in the history of video games when set sexuality is in the game. In these kinds of games, there have always had some suspensions of disbelief even in some of the romances, like romancing Lae'zel as Shadowheart or vice versa. Shadowheart hates the Gith with a passion, she wouldn't join you if you have Lae'zel in the party, so these kinds of relationships are hard to change or even justify on a roleplaying level. It's not as bad as some Baldur's Gate games where companions would try to kill each other, but them being together would just be fire and ice. Romance being available to everyone would be the least of our problem with realism.

I personally love how they're handling romances up to this point in terms of sexuality.

Someone mentioned Anders from Dragon Age II, I remember romancing him as a man and he asked me if I found unconfortable he complimenting me.
Here in Baldur's Gate 3 there isn't a hint of that hesitation. A hint. Not that I could find at least.

Everyone's free to love whomever they want based solely on the attraction regardless of gender. In a world like ours where now we're aware of so many shades of one's sexuality and sexual identity I think it is way more effective to not address ANY of these shades. Especially 'cause more often than not they're written poorly or from an heterosexual point of view.

Rapresentation matters yes, but for once I'd be glad to experience a world where none of these things matter and whom you love doesn't necessarely affect your personality

I mentioned this in the context of activity. Anders compliments Hawk from the beginning, before Hawk starts flirting himself. Astarion also takes the first step himself, and I like it. I like active male characters. That's what I was talking about.

Yes, absolutely!
I didn't mean to take the example out of context, just to use it to say that I'm glad they're not imitating the way Bioware decided to handle same sex romances in the Dragon Age series.
I personally like very much the "no matter what's your gender" approach that's all

+1 Amen to this.

The game cares about characters' sexuality, though. I mean, even forsaking the cringey banters that revolve about companions being horny for some specific other companions, about 4/5th based on gender, we got Wyll and his female succubus who defines him and his backstory, Gale and his female goddess who define him and his backstory, and, of course, dream waifus and husbandos being an actual feature.

So yeah, i'd say the game does care about all of that, it just acts like it doesn't when those characters interact with the MC. The OP, i believe, is just asking for it to be a tad less aggressive.

I was going to write all the same that OP wrote. So, yes, totally agreed. That "playersexuality" needs to take more subtle route, so we would be able to make friends as well as lovers without micromanaging approval.
Also person's sexually is something the person developed and risked to announce to the point. We all know those stories about someone turning 180° on the matter and telling everyone that they were just afraid / not realizing before. I would say it should be the case with Wyll, Gale and Shadowheart with homosexual relationships. They can still stay "playersexual", but become the hard nut to crack for same gender. Just because at the start of the game they do not define themselves as homosexual.