Originally Posted by Nyloth
Astarion and Gale are not gays, so they don't need to be represented as that...

They can discuss about women, fall in love with goddesses, and dream of virgins for this very reason (cuz bi). And honestly, I don't care which gay person gets hurt by that fact.

Not a gay dude so this really isn't my battle, but to do my best to summarize my friend's complaint: Much like how straight men often fetishize lesbians, gay men sometimes get fetishized by straight women. This bleeds into how gay/lesbian characters are represented in media, as they are generally written by straight people and end up feeling more like a straight person's fantasy of a same-sex romance of the gender they're into rather than actual representation. Essentially, he feels like Gale/Astarion are endemic of this and that even playing a dude attempting to flirt with him, these romance options aren't for him (no, he doesn't need them to be gay, just in the romance with a man feel a bit more like how men flirt with men).

Again, not my argument to have and I doubt I'm doing it justice, just figured I'd share my understanding of it since it seems it wasn't clear from my initial note on that front.

Originally Posted by Hilarian
Originally Posted by Dexai
Originally Posted by Nyloth
Originally Posted by 7TeenWriters
Make the player make the first move
No. Never. Stop. In every game, we take the "first step", I don't like to take the first step and constantly "roll up" to the characters. I just want the characters to show interest in the MC, and not vice versa, as is always the case in games. I'm tired of it.

Heh, I generally think the "flirt" interactions in BG3 felt forced and artificial, but this made me think of when I recently replayed DA2 and romanced Anders: every time you have to make the move, and it basically always takes the form of him going "I have such trauma and terrible things have happened to me" and then you respond "hawt rawr xD ", like some kind of extremely improper, completely unsociable sex obsessed near-sociopath. Every time I chose the romance option it had me wincing and wondering what kind of fucking arsehole would respond in such arsehole manner -- and of course because the romances in the games are build around this the writing made poor Anders actually go for that rather than react with scorn over what a fucking respectless creep you are being.

Now, I don't think "player driven first move" automatically have to be that bad, of course, it's just an example I thought of. So sure, "NPC driven first move" doesn't have to be awkward and harrassive either. But if they can't make the interest seem natural and well written... Maybe it's best to have neither player nor NPC make the first move wink
NPC driven is not too bad if it fits with the characters. If you read the banter, Lae makes the first move on Wyll just for sex, Gale said he's a forward guy when you ask about his boldness and at the same time said it to Shadowheart. Astarion is obviously hitting on everything that moves. These characters seem like they are very forward with what they want, but I also want bro route though where I could let them know I'm interested. Having everyone hitting on you just seem artificial, so if you have people like Wyll or Shadowheart who you need to initiate while having forward characters make the first move, it would give life, but I don't mind if we make the first move with a romance specific line like Bioware games.

Yeah outside of my complaints about how quickly things can ramp up for people who don't want to see it, for a lot of the characters I agree that the more aggressive flirting makes sense. It definitely felt off to me with Wyll though. I could see him going for a one night stand but the convo as it is is a weird mash up between that and an attempt at a genuine romantic connection that I think his character would pursue with a little more tact.