First part to GGM4Him, mainly because I hadn't seen your post before (I think it came up while I was composing my, judging from the timestamps).
My reaction was over-strong, so don't worry on that score – I'm not upset or offended, and I'm not taking it personally... but I am still wishing to make the point itself, which was that none of the behaviours, actions or mannerisms we might see are things that could ever be described as “heterosexual only” behaviours... there is, in the real world, no such thing (aside from the act of direct statements, of course...); discovering that someone is bisexual is, or should, only ever be a case of “Oh, I didn't know that” - the “Nah, that's not right, you're hetero, what about all those guys you've been with?” reaction is never nice to experience, and someone having that reaction is never something that should, in my opinion, ever be catered to. I didn't mean to shout at you directly... but I would like you to think on all the things that you feel make you think that Gale is heterosexual, and then step back and ask yourself why all of those things would not also apply to a bisexual person with the same tastes. Think about why that feels wrong to you, and whether that's actually justified. Again, not a personal attack, just a suggestion in good faith.
I'm actually an author as well ^.^ Though, I write far more creative roleplay and fan fiction than I have formally published works, hehe... ah well. Just as you write about characters, that is a paragraph I might very well have written myself, and to a certain extent you're right with the rest as well – making changes to adapt branching possibilities for how a character might be is a lot of extra work, and it does, in some ways, diffuse the character.
This is one of the biggest difficulties in writing characters for video games, compared to writing for a singular work of fiction – any time you introduce an element of player decision and change, so you have to introduce branches for how that related character might be – a character that experiences certain things as a result of players' choices will inevitably have a different outlook on future events than one who experienced a completely different set of player-chosen consequences. Writing characters for video games is a whole different game chess, even when player choice is minimal.
It's a lot more work, for one thing... and at times it's also harder to really know the character you created, because you have to remind yourself not only “when” they are, but also on which limb of the tree as well.
I wrote a whole lot more... two more pages in my office document... but we're trying not to make essays out of this, so I'll shortcut as best I can:
Yes – within the sphere of their romantic tastes and sexuality, by making them player-sexual you create a diffusion, but only from an overarching, external perspective. At an individual level, you still have a character who is entirely consistent and real.
This is a character in a video game involving player choice – from the overarching, above-table perspective they are
Going to be a diffused forest of branching possibilities with no real feature of their persona or characterisation absolutely set in stone because so much of who they are and who they might come to be will be highly variable based on what they experience from the player's choices. The are going to be, from the above-game, over-arching perspective, very diffuse.
Because the more you do that, the more generic every character becomes. They are no longer a person with true preferences and personality.
In a video game, this is untrue – or at least it's not more true than is already necessarily going to be the case for a character that is placed in a video game that can be influenced by player choice and action. What matters is the individual threads, within which these details – whatever they are influenced to be – will be definite and a concrete part of a consistent and believably real character... at least, if it is done well, which is what we have to hope for.
There are a hundred reasons why a character may not want to accept romance from your PC, and will say 'no' and turn them down. Of all of those reasons, the
legitimate ones, that we
should face, are ones that the PC had a choice in the matter of – not just the player, mind you, but the PC specifically as well. The PC has choices about how they behave, what they say and do, who they help or hinder, their general morals and ethics, how they treat other people, and why... all manner of things by which a potential love interest may judge them fair or foul.
One thing the PC does
Not have a choice about is their biological configuration... so, by that very simple video game metric, that should not be a factor by which they are judged acceptable or not for a prospective romance. Making everyone who is romance-available just
be bisexual is obviously not the correct way to do that, at all; that
Would water down the sexuality aspect of romance entirely, because it would be a universal and everyone would be the same, even within a single consistent branch.... that would be a problem... Making romance-available NPCs player-sexual is the only other option; that way, individuals can be open to the player that flags to pursue them, and have a version of sexuality that fits them but is also appropriate for the player... while other characters who are not flagged as having the players interest, can display other preferences if they would default otherwise, and preserve a sense of difference and variation within individual story branches.
It's more work than having preference-locked NPCs – yes, it definitely is. It's work that I think is worth the doing, however, and worth doing right (and a terrible thing to do poorly...).
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To Sozz, correct me if I'm wrong, but it comes off as though, for your personal perspective, there's something of a binary in your mind between “playing a defined character that the game gives you” and “playing an otherwise blank self-insert” … and it seems like there's no room in your view point for “Playing a defined character of your own creation”
If anything, I think that may be a decent part of why we're not seeing eye to eye, in the end. To answer what you asked – no, I don't think I do, truly, understand your viewpoint. I don't want that to sound abrasive or harsh - it's not ill-intended, it's just that, if that is corect, I'm not sure I can; it sounds like you see adaptive player-sexual NPCs as “forcing romance to exist where it wouldn't/shouldn't”, and I cannot see the rationality behind such a belief, unless you come at the question from the perspective of presuming that there is a default “right” way that things should be, which one must then deviate from. That's not how it is, not if it's done right.
If I'm a player at a game table, and I grow attached to an interesting NPC, and think, perhaps, my character might want to test the waters and see if there could be something there... that is me making a request to my DM; my DM, who is in charge of shaping and directing the story that we are building together, moulds the relevant part of the adventure to help fit with my request, unless it's so integral to the story as driven or so contradictory to it that is cannot be defined as I hope, or has been overtly defined otherwise already.
If I am a DM (which, I admit, I've only just started doing recent, because I'm mute, so, it's actually pretty intimidating to try...), and a player shows interest in one of my NPCs with an intent to pursue a relationship with them, I will assess the situation, and if it is at all possible that the NPC might be open to it without harming the game space, I let them be open to it, because
the more intimate bonds a player has stretching out into the NPC world, the more heartstrings you have to toy with later on when you endanger them that's what a flexible dungeon master does, to help create an enjoyable experience for their players.
This is a D&D game, and Larian are our dungeon master. I'd rather have one that's open to player requests about relationships, than one who shuts me down at every corner because they think halfings involved in romance is gross (looking at you, Kingmaker).
