This reminds me of one of the more insightful comments from the old herosexual thread
Sozz SaidYou’re right, the narrative is typically controlled by the player but it doesn’t have to be — I didn’t think all the way through. When I play a game, my character is always reacting to my companions and my opinion is constantly changing of them and I think for true relationships to exist in games, the companion should be able to do something similar. It has to appear asynchronous to the player so it feels real.
I’d love a scene where my character is like: “hey, wanna grab a drink”
“Actually, honestly, you’ve been acting like an ass around town and it changes my perception of who you are”
And have that stay permanent because that gives real weight to the relationship. It would spur my character to be a better person, not because it changes a relationship status or gives me a scene but because I hurt someone with my actions and they reacted and protected themselves.
When I think of playersexual, I view it as the player and companions having a push-pull where I’m becoming more non-player character sexual and they more playersexual. By this I mean I have my preferences as well but it’s about my character’s relationship with his companions and if I feel like the characters make sense, I’ll follow the storyline. Sometimes it leads to romance (In DA:O: my character went from being challenged by morrigan to falling in love with her organically.) Sometimes it doesn’t work out and that’s okay.
OTOH, I will say that I also enjoyed DA:I having a multitude of sexual expressions and for the most part, I think they did it well. If games included sexuality in a way that was meaningful (and it doesn’t always have to be in relation to the MC) then I’m all for it
This point irked me because of how good it was, and how short games are in attaining it.
Niara you mentioned how you should be able to romance anyone you are interested in, but part my problem with that (and I have a few) is that it precludes any sort of platonic relationship with a character. Relationships are presumed to be a prelude to romance (for non-narrative reasons), and every character is made to be romantically available before you even know if you like them, when you get their approval high enough that's what the game assumes is going on. So yes I'm all for even this kind of compromise.
I don't like the pick a story to tell to choose your sexual preference because of how on the nose it is but I've seen it done before so why not.
