veteran
Joined: Oct 2020
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Preamble
Before we go on I think I should mention something that can get lost in the scrum, I play a lot of rpgs, I've played a lot of visual novels, those choice of games, point and click adventures, and whatever else you can think of; I'm a fan of the medium 'interactive fiction' from railroad to sandbox I will try to enjoy a game for what it is, that includes herosexual characters.
Romantic side stories are still fairly new to the mainstream crpgs so their implementation is an interesting topic of discourse, I don't think herosexual characters are a good way of story-telling but that doesn't mean I'll refuse to participate, and hopefully enjoy, it becomes the difference between a well-written cipher and a well-written personality. Harlequin and Austen. Just keep that in mind.
*** Player Expectations In a world where the only rules of preference that exist are made by those who are crafting a 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 don't think that that is an unreasonable request or expectation. If a game is going to offer that to some people with some specific tastes, and it has the capacity to offer it to most people with most tastes, then it is a responsibility of a good game to attempt to do so. *This is where I ask you why you think that a romance is a reasonable expectation for a player to have, I think since Bioware started adding them into their games they've become industry standard, even in games that clearly wouldn't otherwise have them. For me they can add a great deal to a story, they have also in the past felt like they were forced in because they are great for sales. Just because you like a character doesn't entitle you to romance them, but of course because these games are about giving players what they want, every character is built for your affections, and built to return them with a modicum of interaction. Maybe I'm coming at this from the wrong direction. How often do you roleplay into a romance if you, knowing that romance is your entitlement, pursue a npc. Do you act like your character would act around them or do you act the way you think will continue the romance. It doesn't matter what your answer is, the well is tainted because people take it for granted they can romance a character, its all on them to do so. For this reason they're not as compelling to me *A game that offers a spread of fixed preference characters in such a way that can potentially leave a player playing the game and seeking romance, but finding that of the spread of more than a dozen romanceable characters presented, only one of them will look at their character sideways, and that one option is one their character wouldn't touch or finds distasteful.... A game like that is not “nuanced and realistic and deep in its character portrayal”... it's just poorly designed and inconsiderately delivered. Considering this is Dragon Age: Inquisition, I'd like to know what your opinion of it before fully responding, here's a pertinent post I made on it*** Broad Appeal I feel you misinterpreted one thing I said, in that the product needs to appeal to the largest spread of people it reasonably can... however, that does not mean that the story itself must do so. The goal, rather, is to present a product that can produce individual, tailored stories that are unique to each playthrough and each person playing, and in doing so be satisfying to a larger spread of people. There's an important difference here. You're talking about a game that has the most characters for players to choose to play as, this puts it into the realm of Tabula Rasa Tav vs Establish Origin character, it's like talking about the PC version of an NPC who is designed to fit every mold created. It might be an important distinction but I think they're closely related, a story that doesn't set parameters around what your character is, has to give you a lot of opportunities to create some, or create a world malleable enough to deal with a MC who can be everything, I think we know what BG:3 is doing, and it creates a similar problem for me as playersexual npcs, but this is totally off topic. *** A Deep Dark Chasm of Nothingness As I asked before: Explain to me how an individual's intimate preference being a variable that is fixed by the player necessarily reduces their capacity to be a well developed meaningful and important character outside of their intimate life – which makes up the extreme vast majority of their screen time. How does whether or not they are accessible as a romance (Which they Would Have Been Anyway If Your Character Was Configured Differently in a locked preference world) do anything at all to reduce, undermine, lessen or diminish them as a character in all other aspects? You're still maintaining that, and you're still not providing any explanation for this claim. There might be a bit of mismatch with the quotation and your problem, I'm not sure. I will confess I misunderstood your original post, I've been confining most of my comments to the topic at hand i.e. character romance and assumed that context in your post, I guess I was wrong to do so? If you thought I was trying to say that a character's fixed "intimate preference" has a dramatic effect on a characterization outside of this thread I guess I can understand your sentiment a little better, it does, but it's not dramatic. But you asked, so I'll try to come up with a few examples (and open myself to more of your candor) No surprise characters who are openly sexual are also more likely to have their sexual preferences weighted in their characterization, so characters like Isabella from DA:2, Viconia from BG:II, Annah and Falls-From-Grace from P:T, speaking of succubae Wyll's cambion(whose name escapes me) who isn't a succubus but seems to use her sexuality to influence those around her Wyll not the least, next we've got characters who come from societies with clear or implicit social norms involving this, Lae'zel comes from a highly militarized society the division of the sexes seems to have been affected by it as has their attitudes towards what others would find intimate, There's no real Caesar's Legion companion foe F:NV but had their been it would have been difficult to skirt the issue, Dorian from Inquisition, whose character story was about how his father couldn't abide is sexual preference, I remember the reasons being vague or generic homophobia, but considering the patriarchal and dynastic setting, you have to imagine there's a political dimension there that went underplayed, it's a story that wouldn't exist if Dorian was straight, Now consider Alistair, apparently more than a few DA:O players wished he had been an option for gay romance, if he had been it would have certainly added another dimension to his possible marriage to Anora, whether or not he's in a romance with you. back to BG:3 Minthara, whose time in a murderous theocratic matriarchy, has affected her ability to be intimate with others, Viconia would also qualify here, you might even say that playersexual Minthara and Viconia will be interesting to compare, but we haven't really gotten a lot of Minthara yet so who knows, being a Drow woman, dealing with men is already an interesting roleplaying opportunity add "intimate preference" to it you've added another dimension to it. I think changing the sexual preference of these characters, changes the stories they're involved with, maybe not a great deal but also not insignificantly, though you can argue over the extent for each. I'm afraid I've gone so far into this I've forgotten what I was doing it for. *** Being Told No Again, fallacy. Why does whether he says yes or no at this juncture make him less of an impactful or meaningful character? Why does it make the entire rest of his character and personality invalidated and relegated to the pit of “accessory to your power fantasy”? Why and how, when, in your ideal description of a locked preference game, giving the other answer would have happened any way if your own character were configured differently? Explain this; justify this claim. a brief respite. This one is easy: Because he can say no, playersexual characters have no say in who they can love, they love you, don't you feel loved? Of course if you can't say no, what does it mean to say yes. and for good measure... basically just read that whole thread*** I can't comment further on the multiversal head-canon, for me they're either singular or not, and because I know they're malleable...well they can't be fixed then, in any iteration. This all seems very Continental, I think when things get so metaphysical it can't be helpful for understanding a story, no? The rest is just more on this point, I'll return to it if necessary, in the mean time...enjoy a quote, guess where from: ...if your character is just a cipher to the NPC because they've been written to respond to you and the circumstances of the relationship without regards to any distinguishing attributes then it's very easy for me to see the seams in the writing, different input same output means the input becomes perfunctory, and the relationship is a little more meaningless because of it. If you want to write characters who are bi-sexual that's good but you have to at least address it for it to be at least a little bit believable, instead of what we usually get, people who avoid the topic because they've been written to cater to all of takers. 
Last edited by Sozz; 25/08/21 04:06 AM. Reason: sorry I ran out of steam towards the end there
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