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

I hate hate hate the whole set sexuality tbh. In almost EVERY single game with romance and set sexuality, it is always at the gay options expense. Bioware games, Fire Emblem, Viking, Pathfinder. The straight options don't tend to suffer since it's catered to them but the standard is 1 straight and 1 bi, so the straight people don't tend to suffer. It sounds a lot more constrived to fill a certain quota or more snowflakes as you would call it. Throw in some bi and say we have diversity, yay characterization. In the end, it doesn't matter. I have read people said Ifan doesn't sound like he should be gay, and that's usually the perception. Their personality shouldn't affect what their sexuality is but perception wise, especially for straight developers, that's the pitfall they tend to fall into. That character doesn't sound gay, so we tend to end up with depraved bisexuals or characters who romance anything that move as the gay option. The Beamdog guy specifically put in a character like that in Baldur's gate because of that trope. Set sexuality at the end of the day is not about representation, it's about filling quota. It does not enhance the experience that much, it's just that oh, that character can be romanced only this group, cool. It doesn't greatly enhance the gameplay but greatly reduce the enjoyment of other players. Cyberpunk has set sexuality, but it doesn't really change anything. The character's personality is what they are, and strangely enough, bi-erasure Kerry who's a bisexual leaning toward women and making him gay. These artificial gatings don't enhance the game, and it tends to be affected by writers' perception and gating what a gay character should even be. For a game like Baldur's Gate, each game is essentially like a D&D board game, and the player makes their rules. I would rather there be freedom to shape the world however than making these artificial gating that ended up getting removed anyway with mods. The cast is not big enough to do it in a meaningful way. If the attention is focused too much on it, especially trying to give equal representation each game, then the developers would be consumed by it and be obligated to include certain numbers of characters for them to be this sexuality or that sexuality, then it goes into transexual, asexual, how romance is stereotypical, how this group is shafted. The same pitfall Bioware puts themselves into. DoS2 game has everyone be available, and I greatly love the option I have. It's a single player game, I care about what enjoyment I get out of it. I don't care about identity politic or realism.

If anything, I do want a bro route where you could initate it or have it be friendship since the way the camp work make it sound romantic out of a sudden sometimes. That's the way it is with DoS on the boat scene, you could just have a normal conversation or initiate the romance.