You've made a lot of work for me let's start:
In a world where the only rules of preference that exist are made by those who are crating to product with the specific intention of appealing to, and being enjoyed by, as many people as possible, why do you feel that it is NOT a fair expectation...
I don't see a romantic relationship as something you should get just because you want it, this argument that player-sexual NPCs are a way of maximizing content for the maximum number of players is not valid to me,
In a world where the only rules of preference that exist are made by those who are crating to product with the specific intention of appealing to, and being enjoyed by, as many people as possible, why do you feel that it is NOT a fair expectation that anyone who wants to pursue romance with a fictional character they like the characterisation of, should not be ale to do so? I can't see any reason at all to justify that stance, so I'd welcome you explaining it to me.
I want to stay up all night drinking wine and having arcane discourse scattered with dry humour with a well-educated and well-spoken wizard, and then retire for an exchange of a more bodily pursuit afterwards... Why, exactly, do you feel that I should *Not* be free to expect that I can pursue that, simply because that's my want in this game? Give me a reason why I shouldn't.
I guess at the root of this is we view stories differently, I don't think the point of a good story is to appeal to the greatest number of people. Some of the most powerful stories are pretty unseemly, with characters and protagonists that aren't sympathetic.
What you're describing is a power fantasy/wish fulfillment narrative, people want to be the main character in this story, they never want to be told they can't, they never want to hear the word no. I can enjoy that story, but what it means for every companion character is they are just another accessory to your characters potency; making any companion
what you the player wants them to be, has to mean something to the story, otherwise they're just cutouts for you to game into their good-graces.
I want a game that doesn't patronize me. To use your example, I want to stay up all night drinking wine, having an arcane discourse with a well-spoken erudite wizard, and then have him say that he doesn't see me
that way, the reasons for the character why can be anything. If you want the reason why I want that, it's because the character's been written with his own character in mind instead of whatever will please the player.
No, this is a fallacy. A person's specific genital preference for intimate bed activity is not, and should never, EVER...
it gets at what I meant by diminishing the characterization of a player sexual NPC, they're written to be everything so they are kept from being more distinct individuals i.e. one who is gay or straight or bi-sexual or only interested romantically in medium-sized races etc.
No, this is a fallacy. A person's specific genital preference for intimate bed activity is not, and should never, EVER be the primary defining feature of their character and characterisation. The argument that it waters down their characters or undermines their characterisation is completely false, unjustified and without merit. Justify to me - explain to me - How a character is incapable of being a fully fleshed out, engaging interesting and consistent character, without explicit description of what they like to do with their genitals in the company of others. Justify that, because that is what you need to be claiming, to say that player-sexual characters are inherently weaker or lacking characters.
((To put it another way as I've seen quoted elsewhere: "Exactly what Astarion chooses to put his dick in is not, and should never be teated like it is, an important part of his character."))
This one seemed a little more heated than the others so let me be clear, genitalia wasn't on my mind (a rare occurrence) and nothing in what I said was meant to be taken as making it the single defining characteristic of a person's relationship with another person. But while I don't view it in such absolute terms I do think that for most people it does come into the equation, for some people it is a zero-sum, these are all valid ways of dealing with it in a story.
Where Astarion sticks his dick might not mean a lot to him(itself a way of characterizing him) but it does seem to mean something to ShadowHeart, it's also interesting where Astarion won't stick his dick, and how it can be just a matter of what dialogue you choose with him.
That has very little to do with what I was getting at though; which is that, for me having it exist is better than having it not exist, and by not exist I mean what happens for player sexual NPCs, it's not that they don't have preferences they have nothing, they can't have preferences and they can't
not have preferences because it's something that will never enter the equation. I guess this is where the confusion between bi-sexual and player-sexual characters comes from because bi-sexual characters can express such preference and still work within this frame-work. dunno
Now, this bit I can appreciate to a certain extent - if you personally do not like accepting an "Undefined" in...
I agree with you that player sexual NPCs are not just bisexual NPCs but I consider the 'multiverse of sexuality' head canon, the kind of mental gymnastics that is problematic for me. If the game is making me build a head canon around their indecisive writing, it lessens the experience for me. From my perspective, every thing in the world before I make my first decision is set in stone, these people existed and the narrative is now changing around the choices we make during the game.
Now, this bit I can appreciate to a certain extent - if you personally do not like accepting an "Undefined" in your world space, for even the smallest of things, then it's understandable that having an "Undefined" within each and every major companion might feel a bit wearing on you. That, I can understand and appreciate. I'd still comment that that's on you, though - in an individual play though, there are no undefineds. Each character *IS* and has *Always Been* the way they are, at least insofar as the game reckons this. In another person's game, the world as a whole is a little bit different in mostly insignificant ways. Certain NPCs died or didn't, certain events happened or didn't, and there is no defined canon for many, many things. In worlds where we can choose our background more solidly, then there are things before the start point that will vary game game to game and player to player as well. In some game universes, every female walks around with their tits out and has done so for all history - in others, the origin companions are helped by a renegade mindflayer, and not a material plane denizen at all. In less extreme iterations of the world, some games have a world where the player character has the option of getting Shadowheart out of her pod, while other instances of the world present a world where this is simply not possible for them (people playing on different patches)... those are all other instances of the world that other people play... and you have to accept that whether you're a fan of it or not. It doesn't affect your game though, and, more importantly, it doesn't make anything in your game more fuzzy or less defined in the ways that it is. The same is true for the fact that in some other instances of the game, Lae'zel only considers pursuing physical recreation with males, while in other instances of the game, she will pursue whomever she views as the most appealing for said recreation, regardless of their genital configuration. On the scope of things, that is an infinitesimally minor difference between one world space and the next, and like all the others, does nothing whatsoever to water down, muddy or fuzz the things in your own game or how well defined they are... So I don't understand how you can feel like the lesser one is a problem for your gaming experience, while the major ones do not.
First off, the first decision we all make is finalizing our character, so I consider the set in stone part of the world to be built around that.
The one thing I don't consider to be on the table with an RPG like this is an individual playthrough, even if it isn't going to be on the first playthrough, I will be seeing all or most of the dialogue in this game, half the draw to these games is the effect on the story we as the player can have through our choices and actions, I think most of us view the story in that context. So in a very narrow sense, if you play the game only one way you'll never have to deal with the dissonance that such malleably written characters can have but it's just a non-starter for me. If I play one game as a woman romance Wyll then play another as a man romance Wyll and the game does nothing to recognize this it forces me to question the verisimilitude of Wyll's character.
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Ragnarok's comment is an interesting example of what I feel many of us would like from the game, which is a more responsive, more differentiated interaction experience that acknowledges the more unusual situations and makes them feel justified - it would add more depth to the characters for them to do that, rather than just flipping pronouns around and calling it done, which is what I think many people are worried is all we'll get.
I have nothing to add here, considering we all seem to be in agreement.